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

Damon, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s jump right into how you came up with the idea?

When I was in my 20s I had this wild idea to be a professional Santa Claus when I was older. Fast-forward to when I was 40 that wild idea became a reality. My wife and I discussed this at length before jumping into this, we researched the right places to get a suit and where to get my hair bleached and dyed, you see I am a younger Santa, therefore, I need the help of modern chemistry and phenomenal stylist to become the white-headed Santa Claus. In my first year, my wife and I set a goal, simply to cover the costs we would incur for the hair and suit, roughly $2000. My wife posted on Facebook and we booked a few home visits. Then on November 1, my wife posted on a Facebook yardsale group and my schedule was booked in two weeks. The rest is as they say is history, now I am booking sometimes two years in advance with some clients and am working on some long-term contracts with others.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My wife and I built a company from my personal Santa brand called Mrs. Claus and Company it is here where we do most of our business. We provide Santa and Mrs. Claus for a number of different experiences. We supply a custom in-home Santa experience, think of this as the mall comes to you for a more intimate 1-on-1 with Santa and the family. We also help out a number of local and sometimes national charities with Santas for their events and fundraising initiatives. We do private and corporate parties, civic events, and community events such as churches and HOAs. This is just the tip of the iceberg for us, we do many more events, and if it’s not listed our customers just have to ask.

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

I can tell you exactly what helped build my professional reputation as well as that of Mrs. Claus and Company. We treat everyone with respect from our youngest child during a photo session to the oldest grandmother who is still lively enough to sit in Santa’s lap for a picture. We strive to have fun and do our best to accommodate every request we receive. We have passed on business to other Santas in the Metro Atlanta area, and we have also provided Santas without a booking fee. Something else that has helped is that I am a father and still young enough to be able to relate to the parents of the children I am Santa for and also still playful enough to engage with their toddlers on their level.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

COVID year 2020 lockdowns.

Our business is built on physical interaction with the clients, both young and old. We had to find a way to pivot our business for the lockdowns and unknown for the 2020 holiday season. We got our idea from local photographers who partnered with a service industry charity and did front porch mini sessions for family spring pictures. We took this idea and flipped it a bit for Santa. We purchased white folding chairs, with a cushion, booked a few photographers who were up for the challenge, then started calling HOAs those we had served in the past and new ones. The idea was Santa front porch minis. I bought a couple of green and red masks, hand sanitizer that smelled like peppermint, and a gross of cotton white gloves. I would wear a mask, social distance, or let children sit in my lap, I let my customers decide their own comfort level. I would switch gloves between visits, and spray my hands, gloves, sleeves, and chest down with peppermint sanitizer spray. I got through the 2020 season without getting sick AND we received a number of messages on how much our customers appreciated the 10 minutes of normalcy we were able to provide.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mrsclausco.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrsclausatl/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/santaduncanga
• Other: https://www.instagram.com/santa.duncan/