We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brittany Gilford a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Brittany , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about your team building process? How did you recruit and train your team and knowing what you know now would you have done anything differently?

When I started my business, I did not hire employees, I had no experience and did everything myself. I shopped for my ingredients, prepared the product, delivered the product, built my own website, designed my logo, made business cards, managed the bookkeeping, registered as an LLC, applied for all my state required permits, filed 2 trademarks, designed flyers, took product photos with my iPhone and managed all my social media marketing. I was and am pretty much still a one man band and let me tell you it’s exhausting! My mom helped me for several months as I worked to get my business off the ground. After a couple of years business started to really pick up, that’s when I decided to hire my first official employees. I went straight to my phone and reached out to everyone I knew with young adult kids, as this age range seemed appropriate for this type of job. I typed up a job description and started my search. I did some interviews, which was so strange because I was used to being on the other side of the interview. Finally after looking for a couple weeks through job boards and family friends, I was able to hire part time help from a couple of students. I was excited and nervous at the same time. It’s stressful to leave something you built from the ground up in someone else’s hands. It’s your baby and no one will care for it the way you do. So I did my best to write out every step needed to duplicate what I’d created. I typed up a short training manual and trained them for 2 -3 weeks. Everything was working out great, it was super helpful and it really took a load off my shoulders. For the first time I felt comfortable and was able to think about my other responsibilities of being a mom and a wife. Unfortunately, that comfort was short lived. When you hire students at any school level you have to be prepared for a high turnover, unless they are studying specifically for your type of business. I am all for education so I was happy they would be starting their journey in life but at the same time sad to see them go. From that I learned that my next hire should definitely be a culinary student or someone who has an interest in working in the food industry. So I was back to being a one man band again. I managed to keep a steady flow just working by myself. But a steady flow wasnt good enough for me. I needed to grow my business, not keep it steady! Its so hard running a business, you know you need help but don’t exactly know what you need help with or where to start. One day I had a stern talk with myself and said “hey if you want to grow your business to the next level you have to stop messing around (not in those words of course) and start taking the steps to do so”. That day I wrote out a list of all the things that I do to keep my business up and running and I went down the list and randomly picked one of the things, it was social media. I started my search for a social media manager. I came across a company (@Rhe_incorporated check her out on IG) that a fellow business owner had been using. She spoke very highly of the company, so I reached out and have been using their services since then. Giving up that portion of the business one of the best decisions I’ve made since starting my business. We all know social media and marketing are a huge part of a successful business. Im not going to say I have it all figured out because that list is still pretty long haha. But I am taking the steps one day at time to follow through with my plan to grow my business. My advice to someone starting out is to find an already established successful business (within and outside your industry)and study everything about that business/business owner. Write down everything it takes or will take to run your business, find 2-3 reliable people who you trust to work with you and start executing. It wont happen overnight but as long as you don’t quit and you are doing something every day to work towards your business goals you will succeed!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Pudding N Pillows is a boutique dessert company that creates a well-known tasty Southern treat. It’s Banana Pudding with a flair, made with creamy layers of airy vanilla pudding, fresh sliced bananas topped with a wafer style cookie, better known as the “Nilla wafer”. We pride ourselves in serving fresh ingredients, each cup is handmade and fruit is freshly sliced daily. We absolutely love giving our customers something they can enjoy!

My name is Brittany, I am the founder/owner of Pudding N Pillows. An LA native and stay-at-home mom who relocated in 2014 with my family to Utah for my husband’s job. One day after returning home from a trip to New York I told my mom about all the yummy desserts I had tried while visiting there. One of the desserts I could not stop thinking about was the Banana Pudding! It reminded me of being a little girl in the kitchen with my grandma, who always made Banana Pudding. Although, this wasn’t a popular dessert in Utah, I knew I needed to share this special treat with others. I had many hobbies and loved to try new things; at the time I was making pillows and selling them on Etsy. I told my mom I wanted to turn Grandma’s Banana Pudding recipe into a dessert that brought comfort into homes across the world. My mom strongly agreed and started offering names for this new venture. “You make pillows and now you make pudding, call it Pudding N Pillows, she said!” That day Pudding N Pillows was born! I took my grandmas recipe added a twist and here we are today with over 100k cups sold, a trip to NYC took grandmas recipe and made it gold!

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

I bootstrapped my business, meaning I used my own money to start it. Which was one of the reasons I chose to do food/desserts.. Over 70% of Americans have a sweet tooth and the cost of goods was really low. So my thought process was to find something that was inexpensive to make and sell it. I didn’t get any loans or funding. I did, however attempt in the very beginning to get and use my business credit to get some funding but kept getting denied. At the time I was heavy into watching podcasts that focused on starting a business, building business credit and being an entrepreneur. I learned a lot and used the information where I could. I was able to fund my business myself because the startup up costs were relatively low. Not to mention it was super helpful that I had a delicious product that sold itself.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

The reputation of my product was and is built on freshness, taste and consistency. You have to stand out and give your customers an experience. Once I mastered those things, my main focus was getting it into as many people’s hands as I possibly could. That meant I had to do a lot of freebies and giveaways for a while before I would start to see a profit. Please don’t expect to have a successful business overnight, you have to grind and do nonpaying gigs until enough people know of you and have tried your product/brand. Your referrals are going to be your biggest marketing tool and getting your name out there. You already have free platforms to advertise, add the referrals and it’s a recipe for success.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://757d08-2.myshopify.com/
• Instagram: @puddingnpillows
• Twitter: @puddingnpillows
• Yelp: Pudding N Pillows
• Other: TikTok
  @puddingnpillows