Big Mascots & Big Costumes

small business

Mascotland on TV

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Lauren Casey as a fish

We’re colorful, buoyant and a bit show-y off-y

…and when a stylish, lively interviewer with a TV camera comes into the studio it brings it all up to a new level. It’s MascotLand on TV!

Lauren Casey, from WRTV6 came by the other day. She is a one woman band.

She took out a tripod, put an ipad on the tripod, attached a camera lens, and away we went. Lauren does it all. She is fearless. She even tried on Simon the Soybean’s gloves, and later doffed the Loudmouth Fish.

Here ya go!

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©Jennifer Smith 2016

 

Small Business makes Big Mascots – UPS blog

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We ship big mascots and we use UPS a lot. We use UPS so much, as a matter of fact AvantGarb made it into the UPS blog – Small Business makes Big Mascots. With big, custom mascots, good, reliable shipping is crucial. The mascot has to be at the game or at the product promotion or at the play-offs or cheering the runners at a marathon. We play a very tight game with logistics.

I have faith in our shipping sources. So, when UPS called, I answered. I am, after all, a wee bit of a shipping nerd or possibly a shipping obsessive.

Being featured in the UPS blog is an example of the power of accidental marketing. This is how it happened.

I tweeted @UPS to complain about a minor billing issue – the UPS people took the complaint seriously & they made my billing smoother – 1 bill a month rather than many. I tweeted something nice about shipping & UPS’s PR people gave us a call.

UPS is a classy company. Not only do they get mascots where they need to be when they need to be there, they respond calmly and efficiently to a complaint.

Turns out we’re mascot mavens &  shipping savants here at AvantGarb.

 

JJ Jumper

 

 

Biz, Blessings & a Martini

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JQBossLadyAvantGarb has been a growing, productive business for a really long time.
I started AvantGarb in my Berkeley, California garage when my youngest daughter was about 3 months old.
From the start, AvantGarb has been profitable and the dollars have increased through the years. AvantGarb is a real, ongoing operation.
Even though we have been making money, and AvantGarb has been paying mortgages & rent for me and my employees for years. We have been buying shoes, clothing children, sending them to college getting our hair done and toes painted, I still sometimes think, it could be over tomorrow.
This is crazy thinking.
When I am sitting with a curved needle, stitching fleece onto fur on the latest mascot head, I’ve taken to counting my blessings.
Here are some of them:
  • I have a really grand family. They keep me involved and interested in their lives. My husband is funny, handsome and sexy. My daughters are gorgeous and glorious.
  • I  love my biz – making fuzzy critters that add a great dollop of fun to the landscape.
  • I’ve traveled everywhere–okay, not everywhere, but a lot of places – Kenya, India, China, Mexico, Mexico, Mexico, Taiwan, Egypt, and oh yeah, Europe. I feel fluent in the world. I like to be places where I can’t speak the language.
  • … however, I can speak Spanish, stutter through French and be polite in Swahili
  • I love going to church on Sundays, singing hymns w/ the congregation, listening to the sermon and being blessed for the coming week with the benediction.
  • I love reading the New York Times and napping on couch on Sunday afternoons.
  • I have gotten bit of fame for doing what I do.
  • …and right now I’m listening to the general chatter in the studio as Joseph drafts patterns for a very buff mascot, Mike finishes the electronics for a ventilation fan in a Giant’s head and Anne finishes 3 pairs of really big mascot shoes for 3 very different mascots – a Griffin, a Tomato & a Parrot!
  • Every Monday I look forward to the week ahead.
  • Every Friday I come home to a really good martini with my husband
I have imagined my life, and it became real.
I suspect the story of other small biz people is similar.
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