It is amazing to me that it was 20 years ago when I ventured out on my own to start LOGO Expressions out of my house in Vista. I had been in the promotional products industry for 10 years working with a very nice small company called LOGO Communications and had a really nice account base built up by that time. But at that point I was ready to try doing things my own way.
One thing entrepreneurs don’t have is a crystal ball for the future. My favorite saying is “ I don’t know what I don’t know”, and that perfectly explained my jump into starting my own business. I had no idea how to run a business, other than to get a business license and buy the domain name : Logoexpressions.com for a website that did not exist at the moment. That was in 1999 and companies were just getting started with building their own websites. I knew I would need one eventually – just had no idea how to even get started.
The extra money I thought I would be making by earning 100% of the profit instead of the normal 50% independent contractors made, was quickly eaten up by hiring neighborhood ladies to file, answer the phone, and help with the accounting.
A friend of mine helped set up a very basic website to get me started, and somehow my little business grew so that within a year or two I had outgrown my house and moved into a small office down the street. The internet was still dial up so we had to share a single line amongst 4 different people and their computers in order to go online. Only one of us could be online at a time and I couldn’t afford to have a second line. So funny to think back to that time and how primitive our processes were!
Marcy Rivera (now Sinatra ) happened upon my little office one day looking for a job and I hired her on the spot to be my office assistant. She is still here and is our top sales person now. Anne Kuhnert ( now Bourne) had worked with me at the other company, Logo Communications, and she was ready for a change so she brought her customer base over to my company and we immediately doubled our sales. She is still here all these years later and doing as awesome as ever.
Joel Lisenby came on board in 2004 as a graphic artist and I.T. support and was a teenager at that time. He had a real gift for learning technology and took over the website to make it into the powerhouse that it is today. Joel is still with us as an independent contractor and is now a grown adult with several different technology ventures rotating around him and he is never bored.
We grew from our first 1300 sqft office space and over the years inhabited many larger buildings before settling on our current space in Carlsbad which seems to be the perfect size for us.
We have had many talented and incredible people pass through our company over the years on their way to develop excellent skills and work habits, and it is gratifying to see the many success stories of people who once worked for LOGO Expressions. Even my husband Greg worked here for a few years and really helped us develop an excellent sales and marketing team, before he retired.
Sheryl O’Hara Jones has been a salesperson for 10 years now and Tawny Dovico, also in sales, has been here 9 years, as she also manages her growing young family. Johnny Putnum , graphic artist, and Rachel Mayers, sales, have been here for 3 years, and our phenomenal bookkeeper Debbie Johnson, has been here for about 15 years. This is our best team ever and we were happy to have Patty Conklin join our group in September as a salesperson, and she is a delight to work with.
I don’t have a crystal ball for the future but the past has been wonderful – even with the economy’s ups and downs over the years. We are very blessed to have such loyal and faithful customers who we love working with. Life is good!