We were lucky to catch up with Michelle Hensley recently and have shared our conversation below.
Michelle, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Is your team able to work remotely? If so, how have you made it work? What, if any, have been the pitfalls? What have been the non-obvious benefits?
When I started Nifty Package Co, working remote was a main factor not only for me but for the team. Part of my why for starting my business goes back to the beginning. When I knew that I needed to create an income yet still had teenagers homeschooling and launching, there had to be a way where I could work when I wanted and could but not had to. I loved the Uber business model where you could work remotely and choose your own schedule so I thought, what could I do and if I wanted to do that would other women like me want to as well so a team of myself, my daughter in love, my sister and friends loved the idea and helped me create an environment of remote work way before it was popular.
Rolling over in bed after tossing and turning all night, I lay there thinking about how I was a stay-at-home pastor’s wife, now widow, and homeschooling mom who hadn’t been in the workforce for well over a decade. How was I supposed to support myself and create income? Tears were streaming down my face. I had no one to talk to since my husband had passed away the year prior. Here I was, age fifty-one, trying to figure it all out as anxiety gripped my heart like a rubber band.
During my marriage, I started and ran a nonprofit that fed the working poor. I was also a counselor, but I had worked pro bono, not for profit. However, as a widow, I didn’t know how I was going to ask for money or even work for money. I was used to giving it away.
During the first year without Eric, I experienced some personal medical issues because of the stress of the prior two years, from his diagnosis to his passing. He was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma, and it went from stage 3 to stage 4 in thirty days. I was at a run every day for two years, worrying about everything. Eric and I went to a holistic camp to try to heal him naturally, but his cancer was so aggressive that he decided to get chemo at his doctor’s suggestion.
It was a whirlwind of all the work it took to support him and take care of him, the children, the church activities, and all the other things, in addition to worrying about my future. What happens to a pastor’s wife when the pastor passes away? Now alone, I wanted to stay under the warm blankets, having a false sense of security and not knowing what to do. But life needed to go on.
In July 2015, I interviewed with a company where somebody had graciously offered me a potential position. I was sitting there during the interview, thinking, I am going to be working sixty hours a week for this five-star company, but I have teens grieving at home. I am still homeschooling two of my children, have grandchildren with more on the way. So there’s no way I’m going to be able to do that.
I knew that taking that job would be contrary to Eric’s and my vision and mission, which was to launch our children in life, whether a career, school, and possibly marriage.
When I was driving home from the interview, I was very discouraged. I prayed for wisdom and thought, Is there a way I can create a business where I can work when I wanted and when I could versus when I have to? And if I feel this way, would other women want the same thing? I loved the Uber business model and wondered if there was something I could do similarly. So, we started from day 1 to work remote and although it was difficult to start because there weren’t to many business models to emulate or glean information from, we just launched and learned along the way.
I just didn’t know what to do, so I talked it over with my children.
One of my sons said, “Mom, you had a gift basket company when you were younger. Why don’t you do that again?”
I had no idea what I was doing, but in the end, he helped me launch the Nifty Package Co brand. What a great name! Nifty means “very good; fine; excellent, capable, stylish and trendy.” It was exactly what I was looking for! Package encompasses all that we do. As a noun, it means “an object or group of objects wrapped in paper or plastic, or packed in a box.” As a verb, it means “present in a particular way.” This was a perfect name for the launch of my gift basket business which started 3 years prior to launching the mobile gift wrapping business.
My team works both remote, onsite for projects and nationwide with remote training. The pitfalls have been not everyone wants to learn the system but most have. The other pitfall and blessing is that we have remote workers all over the US and I can’t meet them in person.
Michelle, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
How I got into the industry of luxury gift baskets and mobile gift wrapping was by accident. Then as requests came in, I continued to hone my craft, such as better gift basket bases, unique and beautiful styles, superior gift wrapping paper and techniques, then learned other important skillsets needed like Canva, Google Workspace, CRM platforms and continued to improve all the time.
I started without any experience, was a pastors wife, homeschooling children, 51 years old and had been out of the workforce for 13 plus years. Everything I have learned came from messing up, a lack of knowledge and understanding but what I did do was launch imperfectly. Part of what I teach other women is whatever your age just start and figure it out along the way.
Right at the beginning, one of my daughters-in-love helped me get started. I am telling you, I was terrified to start meeting people outside my comfort zone and had no idea what to do. Keep in mind, I was part of the widows club (a club you never wanted to be a part of) where my husband handled everything so it was quite an ordeal to go out in the world and function normally. My goal was to have me and those working at Nifty working remotely from our houses, which wasn’t popular when I started in 2015. I just loved the Uber business model, so I wanted to model my business idea around that concept. I think that a gift and curse I deal with personally is that sometimes, I just launch. Once I make up my mind, whether I know about it or understand the risk or reward or not, I just launch!
I started out making gift baskets mainly for corporations because I knew that bulk purchasing would be better because of volume than sales to individuals, although I sold to anyone who would buy. I did not understand all the important facts of cost of goods, profits, margins, and marketing. I just started. I want you, the reader to understand that even if you are afraid and don’t know what you are doing, you can learn from my mistakes. What drove me in the beginning was a vision to work when I could, when I was able, and when I wanted to help other women be able to do the same. Plus, I love the creative side of business.
Early one morning in 2018, I was up at four a.m. to pray and read my Bible, which I have been doing daily for well over twenty-five years. I noticed that my van was sitting on the curb outside the house. I thought, My van is not being used all the time. What could I do to use it more? I make gifts. Could I drive around and wrap gifts? I make corporate gifts and gourmet gift baskets. Why not wrap them too? Would someone want a service like that?
So I put up a gift wrapping service web page, Nifty Package Co Mobile Gift Wrapping Service. And voilà, within about a week, I was wrapping gifts for one of my favorite corporate clients. He said, “Michelle, I hate wrapping gifts, and I have about twenty-five for my grandchildren. Can you wrap them for me?”
I put every piece of wrapping paper, tape, and all the other supplies and went over and promptly wrapped every gift. The problem was that I forgot to label them, so I had to undo everything and rewrap them. Needless to say, I was exhausted, but a new part of my business was born.
About three months later, in March 2019, Too Faced Cosmetics contacted me. They had seen the Nifty Instagram account and asked me to design their gift wrap for an upcoming event. It was one of the coolest jobs! It was my first big gift design and wrap job. Their Instagram page got over a million likes on our design.
And from that time on, we launched nationwide because we received requests all over the US. I started training women to work pt wrapping gifts and used the Google suite such as Google Meet, Google Chat and mastered the art of Google Workspace.
I had been asked by several if I had a franchise so then I put up a page wrongly but did it anyway and over the period of about a year, had 14 requests to discuss franchising. I now license and teach via coaching and an online course which you can find here www.michellemhensley.com The gift-wrapping side just grew like wildfire.
When working with other women over the age of 50 and 60, boomers who have had to rebuild their lives is that although we might be part of a silver tsunami, let’s ride that wave and not be buried under it which is my mantra. Age is just a number!
One of the biggest challenges that I had to face was that I had been out of the workforce for fourteen years, so I really had no idea how business or marketing functioned. I had been giving away money and food versus asking for money, which you have to do in sales. I’d never correlated sales with asking for money and creating a profit. I didn’t understand any of that. Nifty did well my first couple of years, but I absolutely didn’t understand profit, let alone how to start and run a business so that alone impacted me. I would say my number 1 issue was a lack of knowledge and understanding anything in regards to business. Team building, inspiring and serving others, LOVE IT and these are my super powers!
Nifty started doubling our sales right away but as we grew so did the expenses. Because I started Nifty as a remote business, while others made a little fun of working remotely, we started to master it and I trained myself on all things remote so did the team. When Covid hit, we were already prepared so companies were reaching out asking us to curate conference gifts and we went right to work after the first month and all of us were ok to work!
We continued to grow establishing sites all around the US because we serve several states with professional gift wrappers such as Seattle, NY, TX, Florida and many other states where companies and individuals were asking for me and the team to wrap for activations, onsite and in their homes. I also started working on franchising Nifty because I was getting approached by other to teach and train them as well as Universities asking how I was building this. At the end of 2022 I hit a wall. I lost about $35,000 in profit not realizing that my cost of goods and shipping both went up and my prices remained the same. I felt like an utter failure! Discouraged and dismayed, wanting to quit which I hated the thought of, yet I continued to read a lot, every single day my bible and any business related books. One book I have read multiple times is the E-Myth, Chief Financial Officer by Michael Gerber, said, if you don’t know why you made money or why you lost it, you are being impertinent. Well, that set me straight so in Jan of 2023, I focused on understanding every single part of the business, KPI’s, and should I pivot everything. I began to really dive into every piece. That year we grew 180%. I needed to set aside the creative and focus on the business of the business. My team was totally on board and everyone began to really focus on a profit mindset, systemizing everything better than we already had. At times I feel when we are alone as entrepreneurs, we can beat ourselves up; at least I do. I focus on what I have done wrong when I should also focus on what is right as well. I have to work at mindset over and over every single day. I do that through reading other stories of those who have had to over come difficulties.
Something else I have struggled with is I have what is called dyslexia dysgraphia so numbers, pie charts, different layouts and frameworks really can be a challenge so I have to work at it. My team understands this and really helps frame what we are doing especially when we have multiple jobs in different states with different team members. Julie, an incredible teammate, helps organize a lot of this for me so it is easy for me to understand. I truly have an amazing team!
I started Nifty, the gift basket side in 2015. We grew 100% year over year in this part of the business. When I started the mobile gift wrapping business, it grew quite significantly year over year and is now about 70% of the business. We started doubling our revenue right away but in 2022, lost a significant part of that revenue based on the cost of goods increase of 35% as well as shipping costs which really impacted us as well as the entire US. We increased significantly in 2020 and 2021. Took a hit in 2022 but in 2023, we grew 180%. Demand for our services started right away in 2019 when I started posting gift-wrapping images on Instagram and Too Faced Cosmetics was our first large gift-wrap design and wrap. That led me to other client referrals and in August of 2019, celebrities and sports teams were reaching out to us. We were referred to other celebrities and PR firms were hiring us to do onsite work as well as stores like Versace, Coach, and Meta. It really grew quite quickly during those times. In 2022, we ran into staff issues like everyone else. People would be scheduled to work and just not show up which hurt our reputation. In 2023, we worked on how to make sure that didn’t happen again. We are fortunate to work with top companies, celebrities, PR firms, and several individuals. We are just now starting to advertise on FB and IG.
I bootstrapped Nifty so I have put a lot of effort and finance into growing it. But since I have broken ground, I can help others not have to have the expense of a start up and figuring it all out. This can be a very lucrative business if you learn fast and do the work!
I think branding is very important because I am in the “look at our work business!” Initially, I marketed on Instagram only by showing images and also on Pinterest. Most of our new business comes from referrals; and those two platforms. We continued to grow our website to reflect what Nifty does and some of our work. Images work well! A challenge I have faced is a lot of clients don’t want others to know we do the wrapping and fulfillment for them. I consider us the gift fairies! It is kind of a joke on our inside because we know that can hinder us but we just keep pressing in. I have also signed a lot of NDA’s so some images can’t be shown especially when we are in their homes.
I am finding now that Facebook is a hub, kind of like LAX where you can use their advertising platform to reach who your ideal client would be. I would suggest for someone new, learn how to advertise whether or not you spend on advertising because you can learn the ins and outs of your market and understand your ideal client avatar better. I have learned all kinds of great things. YouTube is now becoming big for me because I can start teaching and inspiring others to start their own businesses after age 50 and show what I do or what the team does.
Also, you should start out (I learned these things the hard way) keeping a good client and lead list. A good CRM, we use Monday, for keeping track and connecting with your clients and leads throughout the year. Gift wrapping and fulfillment happen all year long for different clients so staying on top of that is huge. Track your time and practice wrapping. I see a lot of gift wrappers who have similar business wrap not wrapping as best as they can. If you are going to charge $150 to $180 per hour, the gift wrapping better look good!
Cater to all your clients! We have clients from all walks of life who use our services and right now, convenience is important and this is a very convenient way to serve clients. Take as many pictures as possible. I did some of this but not thinking about how I might need images later, I could have done way more. Learn skills of photography. Don’t be afraid to mix up colors. I am not very flashy in my wrapping but trendy, beautiful, sustainable, and unique would describe the wrapping the Nifty team and I do.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Building my audience on social media has been quite the learning experience. I personally did not understand the value of social media, however, I did value taking videos and pictures of all the work along the way so that is what has helped a lot. In the beginning several years, I just hired whoever looked or seemed like they did a good job. This was not ideal. Most of my jobs came from Instagram and Pinterest but still I did not understand how to make use of that. Finally, someone asked me how do people find you and I said, “Word of mouth, Pinterest, and Instagram. Finally it dawned on me to start getting better at this and I have some amazing young women helping me. I have started uploading videos and documenting my story versus creating. My new YouTube account is taking off and it is exciting because my desire is to help other women who don’t really know what they are doing to either single moms, women who are widowed like myself and moms whose children are older and they need the money but are not sure if someone will hire them and have a desire to be an entrepreneur. Growing Facebook has been a new adventure as well, I have learned the value of social media.
Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?
I had to work full time and several odd jobs to keep income coming in while building Nifty. Side story, I work with widows as well to help them with practical financial skills once their husband passes away. So, end of summer 2019, I received a call from someone saying they were, Kim and Kanye Kardashian’s estate manager. I thought is this a joke? Then I listened to what she said, very sweet and kind, “Hey Michelle, we have been following you on IG (I have a baby IG but post pics) and would love to know if you would come out to their house and present some styles.?” Ok, I was a pastor’s wife, homeschooling mom, in the financial services space, playing it safe and who are the Kardashians. I called my boys and they said, “Mom, are you kidding? They are influencers right under Trump, world-famous!l So I piled all my wrapping paper, ribbon and team and drove to their location and was so excited for this opportunity so was my team who knew all about them.
I brought out all my paper out, after discussing Kim’s likes and wants and started presenting all the different gift wrap paper and styles. Keep in mind, that this is in front of everyone, my team and hers, talk about pressure! They are watching and hearing everything! She did not like anything I presented to her. After about 6 looks, she continued to say nope not it. I walked outside and prayed, Lord you brought me here and I am not going home without a sale! That was my transition from pastor’s wife, widow, mom, and grandmother to CEO/salesperson. I walked back in and said, “Does anyone have any fabric?” One of her staff said, “Yes,” and proceeded to bring me a silk scarf. I did a Furoshiki wrap and she loved it! That was the beginning of celebrity wrapping. We have done several jobs for her and her family as well at the Biebers and several others.
Contact Info:
- Website: michellemhensley.com and http://niftypackage.co
- Instagram: niftypackageco
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/niftypackingco
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-hensley/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@mobilegiftwrapbusinesscoach
- Other: https://rss.com/podcasts/unwrapping-your-business-podcast
Image Credits
These are all our images and if you would like anymore, I have more. :)