Third Try and a Business Plan the Charm

Mary Paramore
HBL Associate Editor
12/11/09

Patty Desiderio is a poster child for persistence when it comes to launching a business. She tried not once, not twice, but three times to get Patty’s Gifts & Baskets LLC up and running. Now that business, as well as a new venture – Patty’s Promotions – have gone international and are growing.

“The first time I tried with $500 and no homework. The second time I had $1,000 and no clue,” she said. “When I wanted to try again, my husband said he wouldn’t lend me any more money unless he saw a business plan.”

Desiderio attended business classes at a community college while the couple tried living the south Florida lifestyle. After they returned to Maryland, she provided him a business plan and this time requested $3,500.

“It was still a shoestring, but Basil said, ‘Now, you’re serious’.” Although Patty’s Baskets & Gifts LLC and Patty’s Promotions take up only about 900 sq. ft. in the couple’s basement, since 2002 she has built the two entities into online gifting and marketing powerhouses with loyal customer bases.

“We have three large companies as clients through WBE, then I’d say our customer base is 80 percent small businesses and 20 percent medium-sized businesses,” she said, “We are a business to business company serving clients up and down the East Coast. I don’t make anything myself. I have vendors.”

WBE is a certification offered by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council. Many government offices and corporations seek out the certification when granting service contracts.

Since day one, Desiderio has relied on networking to build her client base. That’s one reason why she’s committed, in the past or currently, to service with the Harford County Chamber of Commerce, United Way of Central Maryland, the Chesapeake Professional Women’s Network, Family and Children’s Services.

Since 9/11, she noted, “Cold-calling doesn’t exist anymore. You can’t get into buildings without an inside contact. That’s why it’s important to be in groups. And now there’s phone jail. There are no live bodies when you call. You just get in a loop you can’t get out of.”

Desiderio hopes one day to transition from networking to word of mouth as her primary source for new business.

“Networking can be tough. You put yourself out there, but you can only be in so many places at once. Happy clients talk. We’re getting new clients from our base,” she said, noting customer service is what separates her business from the literally thousands of online companies for gifting and promotions.

To Desiriderio, relationships are everything.

“We thank customers for their orders, we contact them when their order has been placed. We email them when the order is acknowledged. We walk them through the proof. We let them know when it’s shipped. We call on the date of delivery. We follow-up. Sometimes, I think clients think we are annoying, but my business relies on top customer service,” she said.

She takes her commitment to her vendors almost as seriously. “I think there are 3,500 suppliers in this business. You have to be careful, see who will give you the best service. For Patty’s Gifts & Baskets, I use only eight vendors. I have a kosher supplier in New York and an international supplier.”

Thanks to a vendor’s expansion, Desiderio recently expanded her international service, which she has had in place in 2005.

Shipping from the United States to foreign countries isn’t as simple as it seems and can quickly get cost prohibitive. That’s why Patty’s Gifts & Baskets developed overseas contacts to ship U.S. orders from overseas to overseas. She said, “There are only a handful of people who do what we do.”

When asked who needs international gifting, she pointed to a client who has parents living in Greece and clients with overseas offices and clients. She ships to more than 60 countries, and recently added China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Brazil and Argentina to that list.

Desiderio has embraced technology to grow her business. She gives credit to her first-ever employee, Emmalynn Landbeck, who began during the summer of 2009 while on break from studies at Brigham Young University.

“She brought me into the technology age. I even have a blog now,” she said, noting she has been authoring e-zine articles since 2006 to enhance her online network.

Landbeck is still on board, working from Utah as a virtual assistant. Other new hires include a full-charge bookkeeper and two salespersons. Desiderio is now interviewing for regional salespersons and hopes to offer franchises ten years from now.

A vendor now manages the company’s Web sites to keep them current and to streamline online sales. Patty’s Promotions site features more than 800,000 items. She said, “We can get anything with your company’s name on it.”

A past recipient of the Bush Declaration Award for Entrepreneurial Spirit, Desiderio is called on to advice up-and-coming women business owners.

“I tell other women that if they have no support at home and they don’t love what they do, they won’t make it. It sounds harsh, but it is true,” she said.

In 2004, Desiderio received the Bush Declaration Award from the Harford County Chamber of Commerce, the Small Business Development Center at Harford Community College and the Harford Business Ledger. She was interviewed for a book to be published by the Maryland Centers for Diversity about women who start businesses late in life.