We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Bill Allen. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Bill below.
Bill, appreciate you joining us today. Innovation comes in all shapes, sizes and across all industries, so we’d love to hear about something you’ve done that you feel was particularly innovative.
In 2020, we lost over 75% of our subscription based clients. Because we are a service based company, when we couldn’t go to our clients, and everyone was shutdown, our business suffered. A friend in the gourmet cookie industry struggled with the same issues. She came up with the idea of DIY Cookie Decorating Kits. She was able to leave them out for porch pickup and still get her cookies out the door. My wife asked, “Why can’t we do something like this?”. That helped us to come up with the Balloon Boredom Buster kit. We came up with six balloon related projects to include in the kit. The Balloon Ice Ball, Spinning Penny, Balloon Rocket, Balloon Tennis, Balloon Stress Relief Ball, and the Self Inflating Balloon were all included. We packaged these up within a couple of days and the orders began flying out the door.
Bill, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Our company, Balloon Man, LLC, is a professional balloon decorating company. Our service creates exciting, colorful, and vibrant memories for our clients.
In 2008, I was working to become a full time professional musician. When my wife and I were married, we were struggling to make ends meet on a musicians income. A bandmate, at the time, owned a balloon decorating business that decorated for auto dealerships in most major cities within Texas. When he asked me to work with him part-time it was an answer to our prayers. Now, I could play music 3-4 days a week while getting an income working with balloons the rest of the week.
After a couple of years doing this, my friend wanted to change directions with his life and wanted out of the balloon industry. It was then that he offered the business to me for purchase. We struck a deal and the rest is history. Today, half of our business is subscription based clients, where we go and decorate on a monthly basis for auto and RV dealerships across the state. The other half, which began in 2020, revolves around private parties, corporate events, and deliveries. In just over two years, we have doubled our business, acquired a new shop, hired 3 more employees, and continue to grow at a steady pace.
Our mission is to help create a festive and exciting environment to all that wish to celebrate while doing our absolute best to honor God in everything we do within our personal and professional lives.
That means that we strive to offer the best customer service we can, be fair in our pricing, and have a servant heart toward our cients, vendors, and our team.
We don’t sell balloons. We bring the fun! After all, without balloons, a party is just a meeting.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
The balloon industry is different than any world I have ever worked in; and I have worked in quite a few industries to make ends meet as I was striving to be a full-time musician. When I started out, I knew of a couple more “national” brands out there I was competing against. Unfortunately, it was a pretty cutthroat business to be in. Working in the auto industry it was always a “race to the bottom” where pricing was concerned. Everyone wants the best deal they can get, and to the untrained eye, as long as there are balloons in the room, it didn’t matter what the display looked like. Half the balloons could be deflated and nobody noticed after having been looking at them for half a month. Because of this, I kept all of my cards close to my chest. I never let anyone know what I was doing for fear of being copied or undercut.
This lesson came from an attempt to partner with one of the national competitors after several of their clients wanted to make a switch to our service due to lack of customer service on their part. In a attempt to be professional and offer to purchase their accounts, I was quickly turned on and threatened by the competitor. So much so, they took several of our clients away from us by offering the same service for free for an entire year. I was then driven by fear for the next five years.
Since then, in an attempt to grow our business, I have attended several balloon conferences where I have met some wonderful people in the industry. Even several within less than 100 miles from me. Because I service most of our state, I could consider them my competition. However, I have had the opportunity to help them on many occasions with the loan of equipment, passing leads off to them, or coaching them in sales and marketing.
The lesson here is, not everyone can be placed in a specific category because of one person. Does the other company still have poor customer service? Yes. Does everyone? No. We are not the best in customer service, but we strive to be. I now have many friends in the industry and I will continue to help them grow their own businesses as much as I can. As for the conferences I attend – in Nov. 2023 I will be an instructor for the Balloon Boss Summit in Orlando, Florida; a conference I attended for 2 years. I look forward to teaching a new batch of balloon decorators in an evergrowing and flourishing industry.
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
When I started in this industry I never knew it existed. I get those same questions from others now. “Is this all you do?”, “Are balloons really a sustainable business?”, “Do you make any money?”. I thank God every day that I get to provide happiness and joy to people through the artistic use of colorful bags of air.
I spent several years learning what not to do in business through working in our family costruction business. Upon starting this business, I sought out conferences and resources for business. It was then I ran across Dave Ramsey. First, he helped us get out of debt. Then, I found out about his Entreleadership course. That proved helpful in running a company and taking good care of your team. That was an invaluable resource and I have made some very good lifelong friendships through his organization.
However, I wish I had known to research balloon industry related conferences and resources. I had no idea what was available. It wasn’t until 2019 that I found Ballooncoach.com. That opened my eyes to so many more conferences and events. Had I known that was available sooner, I would have been a part of that a very long time ago. Not only are these types of organizations great for help running an industry specific business, but they are invaluable for helping you to hone your craft and become an expert in your abilities. I have learned so much in the last three years and continue to grow in my abilities. Now, I am able to offer my expertise in my niche market to many other artists across the country, thanks to the relationships I have made in our industry.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.BalloonmanLLC.com
- Instagram: @BalloonManLLC
- Facebook: @BalloonManLLC
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/balloonmanllc
- Twitter: @BalloonmanLLC
- Youtube: @BalloonManLLC