The power of a picture

Wow what an amazing week we are having! On Tuesday Dec 4 There was an article printed in the Burlington Freepress by Myra Mathis-Flynn about our store and with that came an amazing outpouring of people to our store! In the article there was a picture of my HOPE candle and boy did that ever touch some people. We have sold out of the candle two days in a row and keep making more. This candle to me is a grieving candle and represents the beauty and light that has been shed back into my life after the loss of my brother and other people are finding that it is doing that for them too and that makes my heart warm. so Huge thank you to the Burlington Freepress for printing and writing such and amazing article and to those who have come to see us and even bigger hug to you for supporting us! check out the article at http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071204/NEWS02/712040323/1007

The "Fairy" business Plan.....

The Fairy business plan that got me the loan that should have been declined. The purpose for posting this is so that you know that there was no one or nothing that was going to get in my way of what my soul was telling me to do. Don't let anyone get in your way either. If you know that what you are doing is your souls desire and it is what your supposed to be doing don't let anyone tell you, you can't. Remember this. Every NO you hear is another door opening to a yes you just never know where the yes is going to come from.

Business Plan

Dragonfly Gifts of Vermont

And

www.dragonflygiftsvt.com

Owner Heather Paine

heather@dragonflygiftsvt.com

Table of Contents

I. Mission Statement

II. Who are we

III. How we got started

IV. Where we want to go

V. What we need to get there

I. Mission Statement

To provide our customers with a high quality product while giving them a sense of hope and peace.

II. Who are we?

Heather Paine……………………CEO, COO, creator,

And sole (soul) candle maker

Michael Benoit…………...Fiancée, Chef, Personal advisor

And Chief labeler

Dyllynn and Cjaye Burton…………Children, hope for a

Better future and comic relief

Teresa Paine………………..Mother, personal secretary and

Quality Control supervisor

Granville Paine……………………..Father, Sales and delivery

Michael Paine……………………Brother, son and the soul

2-18-68 to 8-13-03 reason this company was created

III. How we got started

On Aug 13, 2003 I lost my only brother to a suicide, after a life long addiction to drugs. Everyday of his life was a battle to fight the evils of drugs. Now we are all left behind to carry on with out him in our presence. This is not an easy task.

Rewind to a few weeks after the funeral. My family needed a way to say thank you to all the people who had helped us get through the past few weeks and my mom thought a candle would be a nice personal touch while offering the light they had given us back. We didn’t want to just buy them a candle and I had loved making candles as a hobby so we bought the supplies and I made them all. I found this to be very therapeutic for me and actually gave me some comfort. I would spend sleepless nights making candles because it made me feel better. Everyone really enjoyed these candles and someone suggested that I should try to sell them and gave me a number to a craft show that might be interested in my candles. They were interested in them and in a weekend I had sold over 300$ worth of candles. Roxy (the runner of the show) said she had never seen anything like it. She couldn’t believe how well they did. That got me to thinking……..

One Saturday while making candles I had an epiphany. I would not only sell my candles but I would call them the Candle of Hope and donate 15% of all my profits back to charity. I was

so excited about this idea that I got in my car and drove to my fiancées place of employment and waited for him to take a break just to ask him what he thought of the idea. He thought it was great. He reminded me that we needed to do a lot of figuring in order to make something like this happen but that he would help me. Over the next couple of months we sat for endless nights figuring our mathematics to make sure that we had everything just right.

After everyone knew the goal of my company it generated a lot of buzz. People were interested in having me come and do fundraisers for them; we also generate sales at craft shows and on the web. Over the past 2 and a half years we have donated almost 1000$ to local community projects for drug awareness and suicide prevention.

IV. Where we want to go

Now that we have a good working system in place we feel it is time for expansion. First we will focus on getting the web site in better working order. We will be meeting with Vt. Design works to talk about how they can optimize our web site for us to make it more “web” friendly. They will also create a fund raising book for us so that we will be able to send mailers out to schools and other organization to generate another method for organizations to raise money and awareness. After we see that this is working and generating sales we want to move the business to a bit of a larger location

With the expansion of space we would be aloud to expand our customer base even more. Our goal is to send out fund raising packets to schools to support there after school programs as well as all non profits that raise awareness about suicide, rehabilitation and recover centers. By reaching out to these people we not only help them monetarily but we raise awareness in the community about all the help that is our there. Our next task would be to increase our wholesale market. We are a hand crafted Vermont based company with a message. I know we will get a lot of participation from local area stores with this message.

We feel that with this plan our sales will increase in a natural progression.

V. What we need to get there

Right now we need monetary help to get to the next level. The money will to ward fixing the web site, getting all the printed material we need, some advertising and new equipment once we see the sales growing.

Meeting the banker of your dreams????

It must have been around February of 2006 when I said the faithful words to my fiancee. I don't know what to do, I know that I am supposed to be making these candles but If I don't have any money how am I ever going to be able to tell people what I do and why. He looked at me and ever so calmly said "don't worry, you are one person away from making your dream come true!" I don't know if I believed him or not in that moment but it was enough to keep me going!
One day while searching the internet under titles like angle investor, and small business investor, I came across a title called Key 4 Women. HMMMM what is this all about I though. I snooped around and found that there was a representative in my area. Her name was Jean Lynch and that sounded like a good name to me so I wrote her and email asking her if she could help me. She wrote back and told me that she would love to meet me.
Next came time to write the business plan I couldn't go sit in front of a bank with out a business plan. I had just finished writing a 30 page business plan for my fiancee and I for a restaurant we wanted to open and I wasn't in the mood to write another 30 pages nor did it feel like the "right" thing to do. So I did what any one would do....... write (as we like to call it today) a Fairy Business plan. It was about 10 pages and defiantly outlined how my business ran truly and soulfully, defiantly not how a bank would ever want to see a business run.
She put on her banker hat after we had connected on so many levels and told me that I was not ready to be in front of a bank referred me to two people that she though could help. I looked at her and told her that I already met with them and they did help me as much as they could. I then asked her to just put up the application for a loan she was my last HOPE. So very reluctantly she did.
I got a call the next day telling me that I had gotten the loan. I tried to contain myself I couldn't believe it. We both KNEW that there was no way I was to get this loan BUT there was divine intervention that day and I did for I knew what I was supposed to be doing but it was going to take one person to help me get there. That was the day that I really started to listen to what I was feeling on the inside about my business. If it feels right and like I am being "lead" to do something I act on it. If it feels wrong I trust that and move on to the next thing that feels right. It is what I like to call the Soulful way to run a business it is far from traditional.
I will post that "fairy" business plan that got me the unattainable loan from the woman who is now not only my banker but one of my best friends in life and in business.

Aug 13, 2003

It was on this day that my life would be forever changed. I got the phone call from my mother half way around the world that my only brother was dead. I asked her how that could be and she then told me that he committed suicide. I couldn't believe what I was hearing and I think I went into shock I remember screaming "NOOOOOO" and falling to the ground. i don't recall much after that other than it takes 1 week to get home in an emergency situation from Japan. I said my goodbyes to my friends that I had made over the past 4 years and boarded the plane with my two children in tow leaving behind my now ex-husband and we set off for Vermont. We would be reunited with my family after years of not seeing them and we would bring my brother home to be buried amongst his family. Eddie Vedder Say's it best in Yellow Ledbetter " Will it be in a box or a bag" My brother came home in a box. This is the beginning of my journey to living a Spirited life and starting my business.