My first business complaint

"Deck Your Halls" Christmas decorating was supposed to make me rich

This business was going to make me rich, I just knew it. It was the best idea anyone’s had since some genius had the idea to dip Keebler Grasshopper Fudge Mint cookies into hot chocolate.

They—the experts—say to do what you’re passionate about, and I’m nothing if but passionate about Christmas. As mentioned last week, I may try my hand at Hallmark screenplay writing, and not just because of last year’s Thanksgiving scene. I love Christmas.

It follows, then, that my post-college business idea was a Christmas decorating service for people traveling to swanky Big Sky, Montana, for the Christmas holiday. My company would set up a charming tree in their home for the holidays and either decorate the tree, or leave decorations for your decorating pleasure. We wanted our customers to have options for their cozy Christmas away from home.

Everyone knows a name matters. Except when it doesn’t; businesses have been wildly successful with lame names, websites, and no or terrible branding. But before I knew this, I spent hours brainstorming the winning idea: Deck Your Halls. Internally, I referred to it as Deck Yo’ Halls. Then I pulled together some terrible branding. In my defense, this was before Canva democratized graphic design, and before I developed some design aesthetic and many tech skills.*

Because the decorations would only be thrown away once the guest left their vacation home, it only made sense to purchase inexpensive ones from a local store called Le Walmarte. To prevent any disappointment with customers, I tried to be clear about the quality of ornaments in the supplemental marketing materials property management companies forwarded to holiday guests.

Trees came from our local Owenhouse Ace Hardware. No one’s asking, but I love a good small town hardware store. This particular Main Street Ace is like something out of a Hallmark movie. They have all the things you’d expect from a hardware store, as well as an impressive selection of sleds, housewares and decor, local-made products, and SO MUCH MORE. Buying trees from this local lot felt like we were sharing small town charm with our out-of-state customer-friends.

My older brother, Abe, was loosely a partner in the business. What this meant is I did the marketing, the pricing, bought the supplies, then he went with me for moral support and muscles, and we split the profits. I hope we didn’t split 50/50 because that would not be smart business. But maybe we did, since he managed the post-vacation take-down and disposal of trees and his support gave me courage to actually do the business.

Our shingle was hung, and we started to get bookings. Not as many as I had hoped, and my visions of wealth downgraded by the day. It was okay, though; by my calculations, we were still profitable. Now I doubt that, since I very much forgot to factor in our time, including two hours of driving between Bozeman and Big Sky on slick winter roads in Dad’s ‘67 Chevy pick-up truck with balding tires.

At one point, Dad’s truck was a festive combination of earthy colors, honestly reminiscent of a brown Christmas tree trunk and green needles. This was before Mom put her foot down and told Dad, “If you want me to ride in that thing, please restore it.” It’s now a gorgeously restored vintage truck with no power steering, beloved by the whole family.

We had our bookings and we delivered, literally and figuratively, slipping and sliding our way to Big Sky and reveling in being entrepreneurs. Things seemed good for these two starry-eyed young adult dreamers.

Then one morning I woke up to a voicemail on my 2004 Nokia cell phone. It was one of our five clients calling to—what’s the phrase? Oh yes, “ream us out”—for the lamest “Charlie Brown” Christmas tree she could imagine. I can’t remember what she had to say about the decorations but it’s not hard to guess.

Here we were, simple Montana kids who never knew what a full Christmas tree was like until I splurged somewhere in my 30s for a blue spruce or whichever kind is lush and full.

My first “full” Christmas tree, circa 2014.

At the time of this story, I always thought there was one variety of Christmas tree and that was the kind where you have to turn off the household lights and blur your vision to make the lighted tree and decorations all come together as a Christmasy blob. This woman apparently had very different experiences and expectations and didn’t find our small town Christmas pine tree charm so charming.

It was one of my first (and to be frank, few) tastes of failure in the form of disappointing a customer, and I didn’t care for it. No, not at all. Somehow we made it right, I think with a partial refund, and somehow we carried on. This unpleasant experience taught me in a way no amount of book learnin'g ever could some critical business lessons. Things like:

1. You can’t please everyone.

2. Business isn’t for the faint of heart.

3. You can handle and recover from criticism.

4. Don’t let the squeaky wheel overshadow all the ones who love what you do.

5. There is no way around the first time of anything.

Speaking of that last one, it’s likely that, had we repeated the business the following year, we would’ve ironed out the kinks and may have been able to delight even our persnickety customers. But I had moved by then, to Las Vegas, had a full life plate, and this Christmas business endeavor remained a mostly fun memory. While some people have seasonal businesses, we had a season business. Singular, not repeating. But if the Hallmark screenplay writing doesn’t work out, maybe I’ll see if I can talk Abe into another round of Deck Yo’ Halls. Because even with the sting of disappointing a customer, that season was actually a fun one, and definitely memorable. And it’s the things we try enough to remember that make life the adventure it is.

Isn’t life cool, and aren’t people interesting—even if sometimes persnickety? See you in the next one…

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*For my paid readers: I wrote a guide compiling what I’ve learned about especially business tech & branding from my many business experiences so you don’t have to repeat my same mistakes. I’d love to share it with you—just reply to this email to request it.

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