7 Lessons from LAFF for the Cure

It's been just over two weeks since we held our first charity golf tournament, LAFF for the Cure!  We were thrilled, excited, pumped up, and exhausted!  What a lot of work but what a lot of fun!  We couldn't have asked for a better tournament in our inaugural year!  Based on the feedback we've received from the players, sponsors, volunteers, and golf course staff, it was a great event and we've set the stage for an even greater event next year.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!!!  

Next year's tournament will be on October 8, 2012 and the theme is OKTOBERFEST!  Get your lederhosen and beer steins ready!  We'll be serving kielbasa, soft pretzels, wiener schnitzel, and lots of beer!  No need to go to Helen, Georgia in October next year, just come to Brookfield Country Club on October 8 and play in the LAFF for the Cause tournament!

Oh, did you notice the name change?  We've decided that we absolutely love raising money for charities!  So, in addition to the Pink Angel Street Walkers and Susan G. Komen for the Cure, we will be adding some more charities to our recipients list for next year.  Our goal is to donate more than 50% of everything we collect to various charities.

We learned a lot in our inaugural year and wanted to share it with you in case you are planning a charity golf tournament in the future (or are just curious about how this stuff works).


7 Lessons Learned from the Inaugural LAFF for the Cure Golf Tournament

1.  Sponsors are the key to making the biggest donation to the charities.  A little more than 75% of the player registration fee goes to the per person cost of the tournament (golf, food, drinks, prizes, etc).  So, the more players we have, the more revenue we raise, but we still wouldn't be able to do much better than a 25% contribution to the charities.  Our goal for 2012 is a 50% contribution to the charities, so we need more sponsors.

2.  Start planning and telling people about LAFF for the Cause as far in advance as possible.  This year, we came up with the idea for the tournament just 90 days before we held it!  We were SOOOO naive (but SOOOO optimistic)!  This year, we got 81 people to play and gave 25% of all the revenue back to the charity, so we think we didn't do too bad in our inaugural year! We're starting NOW to tell people about 2012!

3.  Men should play from the blue tees and women should play from the forward tees.  We heard from quite a few folks that a lot of the men were nearly driving the greens on Brookfield's shorter par 4 holes.  We set it up to play shorter than normal to make sure that the pace of play was acceptable (that is, under 5 hours).  Seemed like a good idea, but turned out to be a little unfair for a mixed tournament.  Apparently most charity tournaments have a bias towards all men or all women....there are very few that are as mixed (up) as our LAFF for the Cause!  We love that!  We want everyone -  husbands and wives, friends and neighbors, brothers and sisters, best friends and significant others -- to feel welcome and comfortable playing in our tournament.

4.  We need to be better prepared with our "speeches."  We almost missed an opportunity to recognize the cause we were supporting and to thank everyone who participated in the tournament, from the players and sponsors to the volunteers and the staff.  Next year, we'll be a little better organized and prepared when everyone comes in for lunch!

5.  Never underestimate the value of tangible items at a silent auction.  We were a little disappointed that we didn't raise more money from our silent auction, but we think it was because the items weren't visible.  We had sign up sheets, but we didn't have much information for you to read about what you were bidding on.  Next year....more and better silent auction items and better descriptions!

6.  Volunteers make all the difference in the world.  We had about 12 volunteers -- including folks from the Pink Angel Street Walkers and a couple of close personal friends of ours -- who volunteered to do "whatever it takes" to make the tournament run smoothly.  They started on Sunday afternoon setting up decorations on the golf course and worked all day Monday, monitoring holes for prizes and keeping things running smoothly in the clubhouse.  You may not have noticed them, but they were the key to the success of the tournament!  They worked hard, but had fun, and many of you commented on how  enthusiastic and friendly they were.  Next year?  More volunteers!

7.  No matter how much we donated, the key to success is the feeling people have at the end of the day.  We left the tournament exhausted, exhilarated, and enthusiastic about doing it again next year.  Many people said they would come back again next year, and we can't wait!  We wanted to be able to donate more than we did this year but, at the end of day, it was the feeling of doing something that matters and doing it for a great cause that really matters.

We had fun, we worked hard, and we learned a lot.  Now, we can't wait until October 8, 2012 so we can do it again!  We really hope you'll join us!

Debra Partridge & Karen Guest
Managing Partners
Life's a Flip Flop
www.lifesaflipflop.com

When should you send the Gift of LAFFter?

We all know someone who is going through a tough time.  Perhaps they lost their job.  Their house foreclosed.  Their home flooded.  They lost their pet.  They were injured or became terminally ill.  Or perhaps they lost a family member or friend.  It is our human nature to want to offer comfort to people who are grieving, but when is the right time to reach out to them and let them know you are thinking of them?

The answer, of course, is “it depends.”  It depends on your relationship, the cause of their grief, and perhaps even their sense of humor.  But knowing a little about the grieving process may help you decide when the time is right.

In 1969, Elizabeth Kübler introduced a model of the grieving process that applies to almost every situation when someone is going through a rough time.  It is called the DABDA model and includes five stages:

Denial: The first reaction when you hear bad news.  “No, that can’t be right.” “This can’t be happening.”  “I don’t believe it.”

Anger:  Anger is a reaction to the pain you feel and is an important part of the healing process.  “It’s not fair!”  “Go away! Leave me alone!”  “I hate you!”

Bargaining:  When the anger starts to subside, it is interspersed with bargaining.  “If only I had done something differently."  “I promise I’ll never do that again if only this changes.” “I’ll devote the rest of my life to this cause so it never happens again.”

Depression:  Sometimes the lengthiest and most difficult emotional stage is when you realize that no amount of bargaining will change the outcome.  “What’s the use of trying?”  “It won’t make any difference.”  “I might as well just give up.”

Acceptance:  When you can finally agree to live with the loss or change or whatever else happened, you start the acceptance process.  “Everything is going to be okay.”  “It’s alright, I can live with this.”  “I guess I might as well go out with my friends again.”

No one goes through the five stages of grief in the same sequence or in the same amount of time.  Psychiatrists just know that we all go through the five stages of grief in one form or another – regardless of the severity of the loss or tragedy.  Grieving is simply a natural and healthy part of life itself.

So, when do you send the Gift of LAFFter to someone in the various stages of grieving?  Again, it depends, but here are some guidelines:

      

• First, you have to be very sensitive to the severity of the loss or tragedy and where the person is in the grieving process.  Obviously, immediately after the loss of a loved one is not an appropriate time as the recipient will likely still be dealing with their denial and anger.

• What often happens after a tragedy is that the person is surrounded by friends and family who provide them with support and comfort.  However, one or maybe two months afterwards, when everyone has returned home to go on with their busy lives, the person is left alone and is probably in some degree of depression or acceptance.  This can be a good time to send the Gift of LAFFter. 

• Make sure you tell them you chose the gift because of what it meant to you.  Personalize the message that you send with it to say, “I’m sending you this gift because I understand what you’re going through, because I went through something similar and I want you to know that you will soon be able to LAFF again   It took me some time to realize that it’s okay to LAFF. You are still going to have good and bad days – and flips and flops -- but give yourself permission to LAFF.”

 LAFFter is what got me through a tragic loss.  Please, share the Gift of LAFFter -- at the appropriate time.

Karen Guest

Get a FREE Life's a FLip Flop LAFF Hugger and Magnet!

We want to meet people in every state who love Life's a Flip Flop and love to LAFF, so we're giving away FREE Life's a Flip Flop LAFF Huggers and LAFF Magnets to the first three people in every state to register!

It's easy!  You just have to complete two steps:

1.  LIKE our Facebook page.
2.  Create an account on our website and enter your name and address (so we know where to send your FREE Life's a Flip Flop LAFF Hugger and Magnet!)

That's all there is to it!  If you are one of the first three people from your state to register, we'll send you a FREE Life's a Flip Flop LAFF Hugger and LAFF Magnet within a few weeks!

Don't forget to tell your friends how they can get a FREE Life's a Flip Flop LAFF Hugger and LAFF Magnet!

(Fine print:  Available to U.S. residents only.  Please allow 2 - 3 weeks to receive your shipment.)

The Dreaded Yard/Garage/Moving/Estate Sale

One of the hardest jobs with typically the lowest return for your effort.  Or at least that’s what we thought. 

First, you have to determine your marketing strategy.  Is it a Yard Sale, Garage Sale, Moving Sale or an Estate Sale?  Each has different connotations and attracts different types of buyers.   Yard equals stuff you are tired of and are willing to spend hours cleaning out drawers, cabinets, closets and pricing stuff for 25 cents.  You make $32.15 for 2 weeks of work and a 10-hour day that starts with folks arriving before dawn to haggle you down to 10 cents.  Then you load up all the stuff left, which is the majority and haul it to Goodwill.

A Garage sale is the next step up.  You actually have some things that others may want such as tools and garden items.  Maybe some Holiday items and bric bracs like geese wearing bonnets and roosters plates that have lost their appeal to you.   Still hours of work, a10-hour day, and you haul stuff that didn’t sell to Goodwill. But you make $121.50.

Next is the Moving Sale.  You have good stuff but maybe you are combining households or it just is too much trouble to move.  If you find a good one of these you’ve stuck gold!!  

Finally, the Estate Sale also known as Great Aunt Ethel passed on but left behind old musty, dusty “antiques” that no one wants.   This is where some snooty estate appraiser is going to take a percentage of the sale so the prices are ridiculous and the stuff just gives you the creeps.

Well, we decided that our sale was in the Moving Sale category but couldn’t find preprinted signs so we called it a Garage Estate Sale.  Logic being we’d just attract anyone we could.  And we did!!

We had some of the nicest people you could meet come to the Sale.  During the Sale, we told the story of LAFF and were amazed at people’s reactions and the support.  It started with Mark who just happened to be passing time while waiting to pick up a friend from Shepard Spinal Center.  Before he left, we both got a little teary eyed about losing someone you love.  Then came Renee, Rob, Carol, Laura, Gladys, Max, Heather, Sheri and the list goes on.  We had Vietnam Vets, Antique Dealers, Country Music Fans, Single Moms, Newly Weds, Retirees, and just lots of folks who work hard and are trying to stretch their dollars.  Many are now our friends on facebook!  We gave away lots of LAFF magnets and LAFF huggers and can’t wait until the first time we spot someone driving around Atlanta with a LAFF magnet on their car.  

So to all who were a part of our Garage Estate Sale, thank you for stopping by, sharing a story and a LAFF, and for your heartfelt support for Life’s a Flip Flop.   We’ve never LAFFed so much at a Yard/Garage/Moving/Estate Sale!

Karen and Debra

New Lower Prices on Lifesaflipflop.com

The lifesaflipflop.com website has been available for shopping for a couple of weeks now.  We are absolutely thrilled at the feedback we've been receiving about the website, our philosophy, our products and gifts, and our ideas for expansion.  Our facebook page is gaining fans daily and soon we will start actively tweeting and twitting about the things that make us LAFF.

In the meantime, we've decided to lower prices on some of our most popular products and gifts.  As of today, we've lowered the price on flip flops, LAFF kits, and custom frames.  And, we'll soon be adding some new, lower-priced gifts that you can send as a Gift of LAFFter for under $20!

Why are we doing this?  Well, first of all, we didn't start down this path to get filthy rich!  Lifesaflipflop.com is dedicated to Jimbo, Karen's brother who was killed by a drunk driver several years ago.  It was his philosophy of "LAFFing in spite of everything" that helped Karen get through her painful loss.  So, we started lifesaflipflop.com to honor Jimbo and share his philosophy with as many people as we can.  After our initial launch with the original prices, we feel that lowering the prices to make the gifts more affordable to more people is the right thing to do.  The more we can share the Gift of LAFFter, the more we can honor Jimbo, spread his philosophy, and contribute to our favorite charities.

Thank you to everyone who has supported lifesaflipflop.com.  We look forward to providing you with great products and great service for many years to come!

LAFF, in spite of everything!
Karen and Debra

Why we love our vegetables

Debra is an avid golfer.  I am an avid vegetable gardener.  So much so that I designed custom-made raised beds.  I love to start from seeds, nurture them and then plant them in the spring.  Then I just watch them grow!   I have a tendency to overplant and as a result my garden becomes a jungle.  To be honest, I have difficulty finding all the vegetables hidden under the tangled growth of leaves and vines.  Last year as I was slashing through the garden with a machete I discovered a massive cucumber.  I mean HUGE.  Guinness Book of Records HUGE.

That weekend I attended a cookout that my friend, MB, was having to celebrate her Mom’s visit from Illinois.  Her Mom’s a wonderful lady, has been married forever, and is a bit naïve.  Well, as the party progressed and the wine flowed, I proceeded to tell my friends about the massive cucumber and without thinking blurted out that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to eat it or date it.  MB’s mom howled with LAFFter.

This year, I again had a marvel of a cucumber, however it was shaped incredibly strange.  Something like a giant dumbbell.   I had to let MB’s mom know about it. Fortunately, the timing was great.  MB had gone back to Illinois for a big family gathering:  aunts, uncles, siblings, nieces, nephews, the whole gang.  I picked that cucumber, went straight to Fed Ex, carefully wrapped it, and shipped it overnight from Atlanta to Illinois.  It was a huge hit at the gathering.  And MB’s Mom has the produce boy wondering why every time she passes the cucumbers she starts LAFFing.

LAFF, in spite of everything!
Karen

Our First Business Meeting

Mixing Business and Pleasure while LAFFing

Hi all!  Debra (the formerly silent partner) here.  You may already know this, but I'm an avid golfer.  I LOVE to play golf and I love to play in tournaments.  This week, I got to play in the Georgia State Women's Match Play Championship at Sunset Hills Country Club in Carrollton, Georgia.  This tournament draws some of the best golfers in the state.  We play an 18-hole stroke play qualifying round, then they form the bracket for the match play based on how well you play in the qualifier.  The player with the lowest score in the bracket plays the player with the highest score.  The player with the second lowest score plays the player with the second highest score, etc. etc.  I had the third highest score in the championship bracket.

So!  My first match was against Laura Coble, who had the third lowest score.  For those of you who follow women's amateur golf in Georgia, you'll recognize the name.  Laura has won the state match play championship at least eight times, she has been the Georgia Women's Amateur player of the year about a hundred times, and she has qualified for so many USGA tournaments, I've lost track.  Suffice it to say, she's a really, really, really good golfer!  

Debra and Laura Coble, sporting her Pink LAFF Hat!

What you may not know is that Laura is also the top sales representative for Bottom Line Products (www.bottomlineproducts.com) and her company is providing us with all of our products for www.lifesaflipflop.com!  So, I'm playing golf with the best golfer in the state who also happens to be our business partner!

Okay, let's talk about the real bottom line.  Did I mention Laura is a REALLY good golfer?  She birdied the first hole of our match and never looked back.  I actually played pretty good (if you think 39 on the front is pretty good), but I couldn't match her three birdies, no bogeys, six pars and score of 32 on the front.  I was seven down when we made the turn.

It only took two more holes for the match to end with Laura the overwhelming winner, at 9&7.  It was tough loss for me, but, you know what?  I was LAFFing in spite of losing to Laura.  Laura is a gracious competitor and the integrity she shows on the golf course is exactly the same integrity she shows as a business partner.  We feel so lucky to have Laura Coble and the team at Bottom Line Products as our business partner because we know we are getting quality products that are delivered on time, every time.  And it makes us confident that we can deliver the same high quality products to our customers.  Thanks to them we can bring great products to you!

Update!  Laura won her next three matches and is playing in the Match Play Finals today....good luck, Laura!

If you're looking for me, you'll find me on the practice range, LAFFing in spite of everything!

Debra

Confessions of an Entrepreneur

OMG! It's been 3 whole days since we went live with www.lifesaflipflop.com.

Will you love our products?  

Are we unique?  

Are we priced right?  

Is our only customer going to be my Mother?

Is the message clear? 

Will Ellen Degeneres have us on her show?  

What will I wear?

Do you think our product descriptions are witty? 

Do I have enough Vodka?

LAFFing with the Logic of the DMV

Ok, friends, please help me understand this one.  I had a birthday in April and, in Georgia, there are certain things that you just have to do in your birthday month.  One is take your car for an emissions inspection to make sure your car is not polluting our already overcrowded roads.  It’s the law that your car passes the emissions inspection before you can renew your license tag.  Renewing my tag has become an important lesson to me, given that I have inadvertently received an expired tag ticket in the past that was more expensive than the car.  Okay, the truth is I wasn’t paying attention and I missed the deadline.  So, I’m trying to do better this year.

Anyway, I go to the emissions testing center and my car fails the test.   I take this quite personally in that my car is a very nice car with low mileage and I do my best to keep it well maintained.  The reason they cite for the failure…the computer settings indicate I haven’t driven enough to reset logic.  Huh?  What?  I haven’t driven enough?  Okay, fine.  So, I drive my nice car 502 miles on a business trip.  That should do it!  I bring the car back in and get it retested. IT FAILS AGAIN!!!!

Now what do I do?  The “You Failed Your Test” report indicates that I still haven’t driven enough under the right conditions to reset the computer.  I need to stop, start, go fast, go slow.

 

The bottom line?  I have to drive MORE and emit MORE pollutants in the air and pay for MORE gasoline to pass an emissions test!!! 

 Warning …if you see a crazed women with a LAFF bumper sticker driving fast, slow, stopping, and starting, it is only in an effort to be legal.

LAFF, in spite of everything!

Karen

Our Favorite Work of Art!

We're not sure what this is...

Is it a giant alien fallen from the sky?

Or a giant kia pet gone wrong?

It's colorful...

It looks harmless...

Ha!  It's a a giant monkey made of  flips flops!

 Apparently, it was made by a group of students in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 2010 for an art show!

  View some photos of how they made it on Flickr.

The Perfect Gift

I recently had a birthday and Debra was at a loss as to what to get me.  Not that I have high expectations and required anything special, but it was a milestone birthday and I had repeatedly hinted that my gift had better be good!

So poor Debra worried and debated and shopped for the perfect gift.  Granted the worrying and debating only lasted 30 minutes and the shopping was an online search….key words “perfect gift.” The only “perfect gift” that came back were flowers.  She didn’t want to spend eighty bucks to give me flowers that would die within a week.

And then it came to her.  “I’ll make her something”.  An idea was born!

Unbeknownst to me she scoured the county in search of weathered wood.  Actually, she found an old falling down barn just down the street but she would have scoured if need be. 

Then she began designing “The Perfect Gift.”.  Part of the perfect gift required a photo that captured a LAFF moment.    Needless to say, we have plenty of those but the perfect photo for this occasion was one taken from the DOG BITE INCIDENT.  I know you are thinking what is the dog bit incident.  Stay tuned, that is a whole 'nother story and I promise it will be in the next blog. 

So the Big Day came and it was time to present The Gift.  With trembling hands I gingerly opened the package…ok I tore through the bag and then there it was…and it was perfect.  Debra had made a one of a kind totally unique picture frame that had our logo.  And on it was the very special picture of us with our bandaged hands smiling ear to ear.

That gift meant to everything to me.  It showed thoughtfulness, caring, a desire to share something special, and most of all, I was the only one on the entire planet that had one like it.

From this gesture came the idea that we should share this gift.  We wanted to create an opportunity for others to create their own perfect gift.  The idea of custom frames became part of our LAFF gift line.   I hope your friends and family will enjoy the Perfect Gift as much as I do.  

LAFF, in spite of everything!
Karen