You may be wondering what does a Winnebago country music and confetti have in common well we're about to find out on the latest episode of fulfilled today we'll be sitting down with the founder of emergency confetti Gracie moer what would it look like to know that this is right for us you know and just like really being like if you're if you're ahead of us if you're going before us in this if this is something that you're calling me to then I'll be very excited about it but if not please show me I'm Kenny Morgan creative director at fulfillment.com and this is one episode you won't want to miss Gracie I just wanted to thank you so much for being on the fulfilled podcast with us today oh my goodness thank you for the kind words that was so so sweet and I'm so honored to be here it's been seven years ago which flying by but my wife and I Met You in Dallas Texas you and Steve were on uh one of the hometowns and campgrounds tours I think at that point you're still in the 68 Winne Bago oh goodness but you guys were doing this this is a tour where you would like literally go to people's backyards it was a very intimate setting I think I read that you were doing like 40 shows in 50 days you guys were just genuinely kind I remember not only with me but my wife and and just seeing you guys interact with other people you guys just made time for people and so where does that come from I have to say the Lord I mean I think it's just it's totally a gift from him and it's the Lord and then it's also gratitude so whenever we started this tour we were Newly Weds and we were so poor and I had started a company we were um hiring women who were coming off the street and teaching them how to make jewelry so they could have a job and so I started that like literally two weeks after we got married so and then Steve you know had a couple things that were like in the works for him that all fell through so I mean we like we got married I quit my full-time job to do this jewelry company and then we're like what did we do like how are we going to live and so um the lord gave Steve this vision of this tour he's like what if you you know he he pitched it to me like what if we you know bought a camper and like traveled across the country and you know maybe people would hire us to do a private show and I'm like okay let's try it you know like I'm an indr S so I'm like Adventure spontaneity um which Steve is actually not super that way but this tour I think really like brought that out of him so I was like 100% I'm in let's do it yeah so you know I think for us it was really gratitude for like I can't believe people would have us to their homes we're so thankful for this provision and for a chance to connect and then once we started doing it I think Steve just realized how much passion he found in it and just the way that he could connect with his audience and the way we could make genuine relationships was so special we kind of felt like we had stumbled upon this honey hole of like how is no one why is no one doing this like this is so cool so that's really I think where it comes from is you know obviously there's days where you're you're feeling a little bit off on the road and you're like I don't necessarily feel like you know being on or you know going into a scenario where you're like you know having to be very social and that's where the Lord really carries you through but most days like 95% of the time it's like it truly is just so fun so wonderful and just we're so grateful for the chance to do it typically when people start having kids it's kind of like okay one parent's gonna have to kind of hang back the other person's gonna have to go do the other thing but you guys just at least from outside looking in seem to have done a really good job of saying hey we're a family um and we're gonna we're gonna do things together talk about that a little bit yeah I mean I think we just from the EO been like you know we started off ever since we've been married like we both had dreams you know so we've both been pursuing them our whole marriage so I think it's just been that has helped it become a little more natural it's not like it's been the Steve show for you know five years and then I decided to try to do something but even more than that I mean he is truly the most supportive person I've ever met in my entire life and it's been cool because we've both had Seasons where our work's been busier than the other or you know like where it's like okay you need more support in this role or I need more support you know so it's gone back and forth and I just feel like we both are so excited for each other and each other's biggest cheerleader and it's just been that way from day one like we've never done it another way so we don't really know anything different I honestly like it'll be interesting to not have tour together you know because that's been our like combined joint effort so I'm curious to see what it's like you know now that I'm doing something and he'll be you know traveling but we won't be together so but even like two nights ago he's up with me till 10:30 at night packing boxes and taking them to UPS for me so I'm like We'll always you know be working together in behind the scenes roles so tell me what's the what's the brief breakdown on on your story okay my story wrapped up yeah so said from Memphis moved around a lot um landed in Nashville when I was 13 and so I've been in Nashville for oh gosh over 20 years which is wild so um yeah I I studied fashion merchandising and marketing so I I never thought itd actually work in those fields but I actually have I had a like I spoke on earlier the jewelry company I started um and I ran that for two years and then I sold it to a company in in um Nashville called AEL or they were called Li fashionable now they're called AEL so they've taken that and just like run with it and they've hired so many more women which is amazing so did that and then after that launched a clothing company where we were hand making t-shirts um our biggest customer was Eric Church so he wore them on the cover of billboard and rolling stone it was crazy we're like what is happening um so that was super fun and um I guess I never really knew I was an entrepreneur until I just was I guess and so I remember when Steve and I met we were like up late one night talking on the couch and he's like you know what do you dream about and I'm like I don't have dreams and he has all these dreams you know he's chasing them and I I truly feel like meeting him was such an amazing part of God bringing that out of me like I think I had them but I just didn't really know how to process them or how to like make them reality and so anyway it's just fun to look back and be like Steve's like oh you said you had no dreams here you are like fourth company you know like um just always like always dreaming I have to almost pump The Brak sometimes um so anyway so I did the jewelry company I did thread Co and then I still have a marketing company where we do marketing for small businesses we actually were just watching Home Videos at Thanksgiving but I always was like writing songs funny enough or like writing plays or making my brother you know act something out with me so I think I always had it in me um and my dad has run his own businesses as long as I can remember you know so it was definitely there and then I think there was a Ser like a a period where I just felt like I think I kind of was just trying to like not rock the boat and I just felt a little bit like not shy but just I don't know I wasn't really like tapping into that so but I remember as a child yeah feeling very like I loved being creative I loved dancing and Performing and all those things and so even now I feel like I'm like going back for that little girl and being like okay I'm coming for you like we're like getting back to that you know how have you managed to like have that run the business but also be a present mother which is very clear that you you are um so loving towards your family oh thank you I mean truly it's it's like I we were talking about earlier Steve and I just having that co-parenting supportive approach we have a pretty good system of like tag in tag out tag in you know I start working at 8 um Steve doesn't have to write till 10: so he takes the kids to school so we just have a system and then I try to be done by the time they're you know I pick them up so then we can play or you know run errands or whatever so it truly is just a little bit of it's a little bit of planning and a lot of just having conversations and figuring out how we can sport each other you know but it's a balance I mean I don't feel like we always do it well but we we always try y I'm sure you know how that feels it's an adventure it's an adventure yeah okay this is a fun question um because I'm Cur I'm always curious because I I I have a lot but how many domains do you think you own oh that is a fun question I think I own like 10 okay how many do you own I maybe less now I probably have like 40 you 40 that's awesome that's a great question yeah yeah my wife just rolls her eyes when I tell her I bought another domain are they for ideas you have that are kind of like cooking or is it what are they for it's funny they you say cook CU like one one is uh it's just it's probably more of a bad dad joke but I came up with this idea for a pizza company I'm I'm not a cook and then so I'll never do this but it was a pizza brand that was called in godwe crust love that um so I got I have that domain never use it oh my gosh yeah yeah Steve and I we like this is like six years ago we're like we started we got on a kick of making avocado toast again are we chefs absolutely not and we're like we could call it tosto and it' be all these like Gourmet so we got the Instagram handle you know that has never been used and it's just like why did we think we would ever have an avocado crust or toast truck or whatever we thought but we were very much on a kick for like two months but I didn't buy that domain maybe I should just in case it ever comes back around if we could just like package the idea up and sell that maybe we'd be on to something CU do you start thinking about like The Branding behind it what it could look like and then it's like you're Off to the Races I mean yeah it's it's it's a it's a a problem yeah is being a creative and I know you're a creative too like I'll think of the name and I'll automatically go ahead and lock in like all the social media accounts and I'll just I'll never use them I'll start sketching some stuff out and but you know what be awesome Steve and I are like it'd be awesome to find a place to sell those ideas you know what I mean it's like we package up okay here's the domain here's the Instagram I'm sure there is something like that but yeah just to be like hey here's like a fully developed idea who wants to run it you know because like obviously you can't run every idea that pops in your mind but yeah some people just want to run stuff and they probably have the cash flow so where could we sell our ideas that's our next project I guess that's our next project like a think tank brand launch.com something that yeah buy a brand.com let's get it that's right yeah we'll get you packaged up and you make it happen Okay okay I'm gonna look for that we get off The Zo that's right we're already coming up with another concept I love it classic speaking of concept emergency confetti so tell people what it is and then talk about where this idea came from okay so emergency confetti is a line of gift items that are all centered around helping celebrate good news and the idea came from a wine night I was having at a girlfriend's house and she told me this story she heard of this little boy in his mom's car and he's like hey Mom should I throw this confetti in my pocket and his mom's like no don't throw that but why do you have it and he was like it's my emergency confetti I case I carry it everywhere in case there's good news and I just was like oh my goodness that is the coolest idea like emergency confetti it just feels so easy to be prepared for bad but what if we were prepared for good you know and just believing that good news is on the horizon and for me you know of course like we're saying I'm kind of envisioning in my head okay it could look like this and you know all the ways that you could like use it and I think I didn't even really realize at the time but I think that also the reason the concept resonated so deeply with me was I had just come out of a a a probably fivey year stent where I was really struggling with a lot of anxiety and just like which again anxiety is agreeing with what if this went bad what if this what if this thing happens you know and so a huge part of my healing Journey with the Lord was like him saying but what if it went well like in envisioning those good things and like retraining my brain to be like I'm going to think what's the best thing that could happen right now what's the absolute best thing that could happen you know and that has transformed my life and so I think that's why also the emergency confetti resonated with me on like a soul level more than just like oh that'd be cool and fun you know and it's both like it's both things for me um so that's a little bit of where it came from and then you know it was one of those ideas that we Steve and I were like that'd be cool you know and we just kind of tucked it in our brand arsenal of things that we're not going to do but that'd be cool and then it just kind of kept coming back up it was that idea that just kept chasing me it just kept showing back up and showing back up so finally one day Steve and I were sitting on our porch and I'm like okay emergency confetti like that's actually a legit idea like let me look and see if the domain's available you know let me see if the Instagram's available so I start my hunt of like realizing can we do this you know yeah and it actually was kind of crazy because the domain was not available and the Instagram was not available and so I start like but they weren't taken like it was like the website was like parked but you know like the the thing popped up it's like this website's parked but it was not being used and so I'm like I'm very stubborn I guess in that way where I'm like well if it's not being used there's got to be a way to find it you know yeah and so as we were kind of brainstorming do we actually want to do this you know because we had two kids under two it's like and I have a job and Steve has a job so we were just trying to be really intentional with like are we supposed to do this like very prayerfully is this for us right now because if it's not we don't want to do it you know I don't want to just take something else on because my life is already very full you know and so kind of just started praying through okay just little things like not that you couldn't have emergency-c confetti.com but it's way better to have emergency confetti.com you know you're such like my soul sister I'm the same way yeah because if you tellone then they're gonna write emergency Dash confetti I'm like no no it's just h i it's just too confusing I'm like I wanted the straight up domain name you know and the Instagram so anyway just kind of started to pray through like okay Lord like what would it look like to know that this is right for us you know and just like really being like if you're if you're ahead of us if you're going before us in this if this is something that you're calling me to then I'll be very excited about it but if not please show me you know because I just I just don't want to take on something like this you know and how are we gonna pay for it and all those things so long story short ended up getting the domain it was like found a broker who found the person who owned it who sold it to me and then on Instagram I again I got emergency Dash confetti or or was that what it was I think that's what it was and I'm like oh this is so lame but so I was like on them I was kept searching for the Emergency confetti Instagram and it was private so I'm like I can't even see who she follows I'm like I'm like I'm searching Facebook like code words to see anybody who's posted about it I'm trying to figure out who owns this thing you know and Instagram ends up suggesting to me the girl's mom like it was the most random thing so anyway I end up figuring out the girl who owns this Instagram account and she had had a Blog in 2018 called emergency confetti so was not using it she had actually let the website go and I guess somebody picks it up you know and um so I end up finding her and messaging her and she messaged me back in like 10 minutes and just gives it to me just like hey I'll just transfer it over to you you can just have it and I was like I can you know so um so just little confirmations of like you know um we ended up yeah just figuring out all the ways to make it happen and then what was cool is you know Steve like obviously I want him to feel excited about it too because we're we took a home equity line to like fund this you know and it's it's we're we're all on this so Steve and I are really big on making sure like it's it's Works in wholeness for our whole family you know and so as we're praying about it we're like we kept say kept Steve said he kept saying okay Lord I'm laying it down I'm laying it down and he said one day he was ining his quiet time and God's like well pick it up pick it up and so that's been really helpful because in the hard times it's not like I just chose this and then it's like okay well I dragged our whole family into this big undertaking I you know Steve's like I was with I'm I'm with you you know and I felt confirmation too and so that's just been a really a really cool thing and there's so so much good in that it's so you I feel like it um everything you're saying is like things that I've gone through too especially like the uh the domain hunting and and then private messaging people on Instagram I have not been super successful with that okay I I I do the same thing but just to hear like those those glimpses of where God shows up and just says hey this is this is exactly where I want you to go um so I just love hear that that's and I think you have to really I know for me like I love Jesus and I I'm constantly coming up with ideas but I think what really stood out to me there was like Hey we're gonna really like pray and make sure that if this is what God wants us to do that he's very clear about it um and that you guys were doing it together as a couple that was huge well like we talked about earlier it's like life is so full it is such a balancing act of kids and being present as a wife as a mom as all these things as a friend so I'm like I just I'm I feel like we're at the point where it's like you have to just be kind of selective about what you're bringing on especially in that big of a capacity so for us we're like we just have to know this is like okay Lord is this what you're calling me to because if you are then great and if not let's just hand this idea off to somebody else you know let it pass through for someone I don't know so I uh know that you had some background in and like fashion and tex style things like that and then you have a marketing background too but that's those two components don't necessarily translate to okay I have this idea for emergency confetti but then I have to figure out how to manufacture it so what is what was that oh my gosh well like you were saying earlier or I don't know who were saying we loved Google I call myself a Google preneur because I'm like you can Google anything you can figure anything out on Google I I will go down on that Hill like any so I'm literally like Googling like what types of confetti are out there and then I found one that was small I'm like okay great that would fit in your pocket it needs to be like you know something you can transport and then you know um trying to figure out manufacturers there's a site called Alibaba which like helps you kind of link to like International suppliers and um so it really was just like Googling a ton of stuff and just like trial and error but it really was um I I love product development so I think just with the past of coat and Miriam I I know like what I want it to be like so I've done a little bit of manufacturing but that was all handmade which was also another reason why after I ended thread Co I was like I don't want to do another product based business I love it but I was handmaking everything so it's like when a big order comes in you like cheer and then you cry because you have to make it all you know so with this product I was like okay I want this to be something I can scale I just want to do it different this time you know I I enjoyed those for what they were and it just didn't feel sustainable for me for where I'm at like we said being a mom and just with my schedule so I just was like okay this has to be something that like I can scale I can manufacture you know that I'm not doing so I just Googled everything and it kind of ended up coming together I love your uh usage of Google um incredible Google anything so one one other thing before we move on to uh just some more things um your your brand aesthetic is so on point it's so good um and I'm a I'm a critical eye but it's so good I know you have not only background in in marketing but you do have a creative eye and creative abilities too so did you like do your own brand did you partner up with somebody I have some thoughts I have a secret weapon her name is Becca wz she is wonderful I don't know if you've heard of Matt wartz he's a singer he's like a singer songwriter it's his sister and she did my Miriam logo thread Co and emergency confetti and we just sink really well like I feel like we have a very seamless workflow and she's absolutely brilliant so whenever I came to her for this like the stuff she sent back I was just like geeking out I'm like after she sent the brand pack I'm like well now it has to happen like it's just like her branding is just too good we have to make this product exist so she is my secret weapon love that it's so cool too I think one thing I want to encourage like people in the e-commerce space or business ownership space I know me I my wife and I owned a creative agency we like that's what we did but there were times when it came to like our own stuff that I actually hired that out because I was like I'll if I work on it I'll never finish it and I'll never be happy and just to bring in other ideas and other mindset like you might have one thing in your head but someone else having another idea might actually like give you breakthrough you didn't know you need it or like give you a different outlook on it so I yeah I'm with you on that and then we're going to have a lot of business owners e-commerce um you know people tell me what you would say has been the biggest challenge with emergency confetti and then the biggest reward I mean I think for me I just I'm not as much a numbers person and so just figuring out cash flow and figuring out how to scale at a sustainable but also slightly aggressive pace so my goal for emergency confetti the whole time like wholesale is the name of the game for me I think it's our obviously our website is a great tool but I think with confetti it's something you find in a store it's a little bit more of a spontaneous purchase where you're like oh I do have a friend who has a birthday I should buy them this birthday celebration kit you know it's um so wholesale is definitely my game plan for emergency confetti and the whole time I've been wanting to sign with a Sales Group which is basically where you have a it's called like a rep group and so you have a team of salespeople that are all you know in this agency and then they'll take it out to stores for you so I've been hitting up stores by myself since we launched in January you know some success a lot of no responses you know and as I've talked to these sales groups the biggest feedback I was getting is we love your product we love your branding you need more products you need you need to have a fuller line like right now you're a product you need a brand and I'm like challenge accepted okay I will have more products you know so all year I feel like I've had my foot on the gas of like I need a full line sheet I need to have you know this full offering so that stores you know will have more options and then a sales group might consider me and so it actually was crazy because I got an offer from a sales group we launched in January I think I got the offer in March or April and I was like so excited I'm like oh my gosh this is crazy um and but there was this one sales group that I was like obsessed with and I just felt like if I could sign with them that would be like my absolute dream and um so I was about to sign with this other Sales Group and I did not feel peace about it like I just I was like crying and I'm like why am I crying like you just got an offer this is what you want and I just did not feel peace about it I felt the Holy Spirit nudge me that it was this other group and I'm like but they're not not answering me why how could it be this group like I have not heard back from them I've emailed them they're like non-responsive and so I turned down the deal just like okay if I don't feel peace it's not right and so for another six months did not have a sales group but have been working very very hard to get the product line ready and long story short made I mean 25 new products I feel like over this year made a catalog I can see what the other brands do that I respect and then I'm like okay I need that okay I need that so I was like they all have legit cataloges I'm going to look very legit if I can make a catalog so again pouring more money into it trying to be like is this the right thing I feel like it is um so I made a catalog I sent it to my dream Sales Group and two hours later they're like let's set up a zoom like and so I signed with them um and I signed with another Sales Group as a and so January 1 we'll have 37 States covered for sales territories so it's very exciting but it's also been like the biggest stressor this year of not of like growing at a pace that feels slightly unnatural but in the hopes that next year it really will set me up to have a big you know sales base will that like set you up for like boutiques and even like big box brands too like a Target exactly yes so like basic when you have these teams I'll have 32 sales reps so they'll be taking it to all their stores all their connections so it's just a lot easier to get into a store when they meet with them you know once a month and it's you know so um so I think that will be really great we just got our first big box order two weeks ago so we're like we're getting there you know but it will set us up to yeah like have those potentials and then we'll have showrooms in Atlanta and Dallas year round at those markets and then we'll pop up in Vegas so I think it'll just give us a lot of exposure and a lot of new connections and I'm excited to have a sales team I I I can do sales but it's not my favorite part so I'm excited people who like that's their thing you know and like just activate them to go do what they're great at and then I can kind of focus on the things I enjoy a little more yeah I remember in doing some research that one of your first jobs like post College was in sales yeah yeah it was was all right but it was not fine yeah like I can do it but it's not like I'm not like you know coming home on cloud n because of sales you know um I'm grateful to learn to do it and I feel like you have to hear yes and you have to hear no to really like grow and get some grit but now I will be happy to let somebody do that so so yeah that was the biggest challenge and then I mean I think the biggest reward was like having a goal and a dream and really going all in and then when it happened it was like euphoric I'm like I cannot believe this is like I mean not that anything ever goes to plan necessarily but just like this was kind of the this was I guess it was the plan and I'm like it's actually feels like it's kind of happening and that was like I mean that was very satisfying after all the risk it was like okay I feel like this is paying off well once again just hear heing you talk about uh kind of following like the voice of the Lord I think we I had kind of shared about closing our agency we had right before we closed we actually had an offer for someone to like buy into us and it was a great offer for the first couple hours you're like this is amazing and then that night when I went to like go to sleep I same same kind of situation that you had it was just like God was like no wow this is not it and so I just love you know it's it's hard I mean it's it's hard you should do it you know yeah but I I just you know I think we've both probably lived enough life to know that when we kind of go beyond that and still do the thing that we're maybe called not to do it it doesn't end very well and and so I just love talking about hey you know God you just trust what God's doing he's really gonna open up some amazing doors yeah yes and just believing that it's going to be better you know something on paper seems better but that's I'm like okay your ways are higher your thoughts are higher you know and so just submitting to that and being like okay I'm not gonna take the you know someone who wants to invest or I'm not gonna sign this deal and I believe that's my best case scenario scary but like yeah just trying to trust uh this is something that we really like to focus on as we kind of wrap up um start time with our guest but really just want to hear from you um what does it look like to be fulfilled what's look like to be fulfilled you know for me I think just getting to partner with the Lord on building a a business is so fulfilling like just getting to be his friend in that like I that I just it feels so like it makes me just feel so in line with my purpose and like why I'm here and um so I just I really enjoy that and getting to I mean getting to build a brand and chase a dream is like such a blessing and I'm so grateful for it and I just feel like in running a company I feel so much dependence on the Lord and because of that like he shows up and meets those needs and like just honestly blows my mind on a daily basis and that like that is so fulfilling to me like to have needs and then watch the Lord meet them like it's just kind of the coolest thing to me I feel so grateful for that and um yeah getting to run a business that like in so in line with a lot of my passions and um it's I don't know that feels very very fulfilling for me okay so for those um that have just fallen in love love with you which is not a surprise and just want to kind of stay up with emergency confetti what's the best way for them to do that so yeah you can follow emergency confetti as we've talked about it's at emergency confetti no dash that's right uh thank you Lord and uh and my Instagram is at Gracie mler so that's where we post most of the updates and then the web website is again the brand is just so good so yeah I'm just I'm a big fan and I just uh I know uh being business own owner uh mother and just life it's so busy but the fact that you would make time to be on this um podcast today just means a whole lot to me so I just want to say thank you of course thanks for having me this was so fun thank you so much for being a part of the fulfilled family we hope you enjoy all of the clips and episodes coming your way and until then join us on this e-commerce Journey towards a life that is truly fulfilled

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