Update from Kraskin Baton
Posted by Jacinda Miller on
Hello world and twirling family! It's been a while since we shared on social media, our blog or even via email so it's good to be back... The last couple of years have been crazy - as you know... Here's a little update from our world...
When we first took over the business, we had to learn the manufacturing knowledge that takes decades to learn and we tried learning all of these processes in a matter of months. We made some mistakes, we learned from them, we taught our team how to do better and slowly but surely we learned the systems and processes that led to some great success.
Then March 2020 hit and whoa! First, April 2020 was our largest sales month ever because what is a great activity to do when you are in lockdown? Twirl your baton! I heard from so many former twirlers that had not touched a baton in years about how they were going to pick up a baton again. Grandparents were going to teach their grandchildren how to twirl during virtual learning. Minnesota was locked down a long time and eventually that initial bump in sales trickled down and we had to furlough most of our team.
We're well into the pandemic and we're running on a skeleton crew and things are ok... We're holding on and doing the best we can. Then in May of 2021, the world re-opens or at least in Minnesota it did and things ramped up faster than we ever anticipated. To be honest, I wasn't sure Minnesota would ever function "normally" again. If you're a friend of ours, you know that we have two other businesses too - one that is a Minnesota based twirling program and Baton Twirling Unlimited which offers both products and services to the baton twirling world. Both of those businesses acclerated faster than we could ever expected too so now we're in summer of 2021 and business is getting close to normal but our staffing is still at 3 people. You know where this is headed - if you've watched the news... We have orders, we have students wanting online and in person lessons and we still have 3 people to support all of this. It became "survival mode" around here. We're doing what we can to keep product on the shelves, students learning and all of the administrative work, marketing work just didn't get touched. Add to that, getting materials on time from our suppliers is almost impossible right now...
So, for everyone that received an order late, thank you for your grace and understanding. We tried and didn't always do well and understand that we need to improve on delivery times so that is our #1 goal in 2022.
If you would have told me that the challenges from 2020 would be different but still just as challenging in 2021, I wouldn't have believed you. But here we are, still fighting, still trying to improve and hopeful that 2022 brings great things for our twirlers, your twirling programs and all of the businesses that support and love baton twirling as much as we do...
We appreciate all of you and look forward to moving forward!