Well, the reason why Valentine’s Day is, and was so important to me is that it helped change my life and the direction I needed to go through to become what I am!!!, Why you might ask? Because my company, White Knight Adventures, made it’s first million dollars selling a company called FTD, Florist Transworld Delivery. It was a company that had over 50,000 florists here in America and many more in Europe, that were part of their supply team. The reason they even existed was that they supplied all their florists with the materials needed to conduct the flower business, such as containers, baskets, materials needed to my fresh flower arrangements.
What did I do to accomplish making that much money? Well, I designed and created things that helped sell all their flowers! Why, because they sold so easily what I designed and then produced for them! The florist stuck my item into the foam and put flowers around it and it was called, “Heart Throbs”, and the reason it was called that was I designed it by using 15 pieces of 12”springy wires that came out of a handle with a point on the bottom for sticking it into florists foam, that was then the florist used to hold everything together. Each wire contained four bright translucent red hearts of 3different shapes and sizes, so that when the flowers were put around them, the hearts wiggled and shook! So I sold each “Heart Trob” for three dollars each or $36 a dozen, the minimum allowed to purchase.
My first order was for $70,000. Wow! wow! and this all came from an idea that I remembered where little children and even adults were playing with it!! They held it in their hands, and that thing had 8-10”wires with two bells on each, coming straight out of a handle, so that when the child shook their hand, the bells would ring making the Dingaling Dingaling sounds, nice sounds.
So every Valentine’s Day for the next eight years it was what I sold to FTD. Because of this success, FTG asked me to design for them items for their other holidays! The next holiday I came up with, was what is the most important holiday in the world, Christmas! Now, what can I come up with for Christmas, that has already been done ten times? There were many many things that were offered at that time, so mine had to be Different. I had to come up with something that could be used in or for an arrangement of flowers at Christmas time. Something that would make the flower arrangement, very Christmasy! So I designed a fruit bunch of blue plums and proceeded to put many little shiny clear crystals all over it, so that it represented sugar. So I came up with a very Christmasy name “Sugar Plums”, and that too also became very popular as the “Sugar Plum” bunch and was actually used throughout each flower arrangement!! So again I have a winner and that too became part of my $1 million sales!
The buyer for FTD now knew that I could design and sell things to him that would be very popular and good for his company, so he asked me to consider to keep selling to him new and different items. He was suggesting and I would find them in five different countries in Asia. But most of the items for FTD, were now coming from the Philippines. When I first went there, I found they were a very, very poor country. They still were living in grass huts, and most of the villages there had no real construction, oh development.
So I set up an office in Manila, and hired three young, intelligent, people who could speak English clearly, and since they naturally for Filipino. I knew the English language they needed is to translate into the English the language spoken to me in Philippino, and then translate to me as I spoke to the village leader, and for the leader to talk back to me. What you first had to do was to convince that leader that I could help his village by teaching the people no not the people, but the women because the men were lazy, smoking Devil May Care men, but the woman took care of the children, took care of the hut, and basically being mothers, so when I would come to a village, I would ask to have all the women of the village sit around me on the grounds with their children. Oh, I told my employee what I wanted! Explaining clearly that whatever they made for me, they would have money of their own, money to use for their family. The best part was walking through the clusters of women, hundreds of them and as I did so I would see some young girls, ones that were bubbly, and not afraid of the “round eye”. The ones that did, you knew had something special in them and after a while I realize so I could help those little girls, and each time I went there after that, I would find a little girl and say to the parents explaining to them that if they had family in America or new of people in America, I could send their daughter to America and guarantee that she would become an American, so that when she did, she could slowly bring her family there as well. as her family would be allowed to come to America, because she was now a citizen.
In order for me to have more things,I had to find materials that already existed in the Philippines, but what mostly existed in the Philippines, were jungles, forest, plants, fish, seashells, but that’s about it, so I began to design things using those materials! The first thing I came up was a basket, a wicker basket, that flowers could now put into to make the flower arrangements, and make them even more beautiful, having a beautiful basket surrounding it. So I asked them to go into the jungles and bring back reeds, and whatever leaves that could be dried. And then used them to make Baskets. The next time I came, was about a month, and I had baskets that I had personally made, and showed them to the villages and said to them if you could make these baskets, I will give you an order for you to make 10,000 baskets! You should’ve heard the people giggling, the women Giggled and Giggled, so they took the baskets and I said the next time I come I want to see baskets like this one, but ones made that you used your own idea, and maybe even better than mine! I would leave that village and travel onto the next village, and in the next village. It was near the ocean, and they had seashells galore, and I now have with me a hanging basket, and that basket was made out of shells, little shells spun on wires that I had gotten myself from the ocean on Fire Island. I had taken each shell drilled a hole and then proceeded to put a clear plastic wire, so that I would make the basket and then have three strings going up to point and at the point I had a little silver ring. Again, I said to them, you can make me like this. Use your own imagination think of what you could use the shells for, so that I can buy them from you when I come to next time but you must have the many different samples. the sames you make for me must have different looks. So that when I bring those samples to my customer they will say, wow, and give me an order for 10,000 pieces. If you now ask about the village I went to, two months ago, you will find that that village now has money, because they made things for me and I paid money to them. After a year of doing this, I became known by all the people, and as they called me “The One and Only” in Philippino!!!
I’m now crying just remembering all this and that I had such good life, who did a lot more than most people having adventures galore!! Who am I???Why I’m Sal “The One and Only”
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