There is a follow up? Part 2 Of Why Reusable Straws
Four weeks down… and 4 weeks down in the new year also (if you are wondering what the first four weeks is about then if not the new year, its about me posting a blog four weeks in a row… you proud? (again wrote this in the last week of Jan so all you haters better not be blowing up my DM’s telling me I cant count, cause meh it counts). Afterall as my ol’mate (another Aussie daily) Robin Sharma says “Consistency truly is one of the surest highways to legendary”. This Is not meant to stroke my ego nor is it vain in fact it leads quite nicely into why I Pivoted and started to target the hospitality and wholesale industry….
You’d think in other things it was for profit, and don’t get me wrong I am in businesses to turn a profit yes. I don’t exploit the environment for natural minerals to make my profit I am not a complete asshole. But yes when all is said and done I sell products that help the environment and I make a profit in doing so of course I am a business.
But I turned efforts in April 2019 yes, you are correct a month after I started selling my straws at the markets, yes, my website at this stage was only about two weeks old but my mum always said I was an overachiever or try to be over achiever. I asked myself, my audience, my family and friends where the biggest place is to make an impact. One person making a million changes is a shit load harder than a million people making one change. If My online store reaches 100 people a day, 365 days of the year then that’s 36,500 changes I could make – cool but not big enough… not big enough to help me scale up, leave my full time job and focus my efforts purely on SUCKITUP.
Without bringing the woo wooey into, I read something on insta (see mum it does have educational purposes) I read about the first city in Australia banning Single Use Plastics under the guidance of a young MP and her ideal way forward for Hobart, Tasmania. Now whilst it didn’t have the population for me to go down, set up a market stand and make my millions of dollars and changes it had something better.
If you were going to ban plastic straws under the new city law then what were restaurants, cafes heck the entire hospitality industry going to use? Shit with that how many plastic straws were being used once and discarded by the hispitaluty industry ? Yes!! (This is exactly how my thought process went):
- That’s where a majority of those 10 million straws a day were coming from!
- Say only 5 million of those straws were from the hospitality industry
- And only 20% of those businesses adopt a reusable straw and rack policy
- That’s 1 million
- 1 million times the 500 single use straws removed from circulation theory that’s
- 500 million single use straws I’m helping the hospitality industry take out of circulation.
FFFFFFFFAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!
Well, isn’t that better than relying on 1 million changes from old mate. Hence my second reason of choosing straws literally months before I even knew there was going to be a ban and in all seriousness the ban was in a small town in a small state surrounded by ocean. I didn’t know as glad as I am that a SUP ban was going to sweep the country the way it did.
There it is in all honesty my first reason was to make a profit, to serve as my travel fund the second reason was to make an impact that mitigated my love for travel, my meat eating and my obsession for air force ones (the shoe not the plane). I want to have a little Segway on this… because it’s the root of why I do what I do and I stand up for what I believe in which in this case actually isn’t the future of our environment (that is a grateful bi product) here I am standing up for starting something because you want to, changing up the game because it feels right. As a sports person I played to no drill (also something I sucked at in the military) if I could see something that could change the game id take it. If a gap opened in front of me id hit with all conviction instead of sticking to the play that had been called. You either loved or hated me for it, in that way I guess I was un-coachable. This is that. If you see something that could change the game, but your degree is in tax, you’re an accountant and hate the waste so try to incorporate a paperless system and you are told to “stay in your lane” SUCKITUP bro and do you boo…. Find ways around it, challenge it. We are after all humans, humans hate change. The human brain is wired to protect you it will kick into reasons why we should stick in our lane (less danger), don’t challenge the norm (an accountant being a sustainable officer) and to stick to the drill (do what your paid to do).
Of course, coming into this industry even into the hospitality industry as not an expert in either field, not a master chef nor do I fly my cult flag every time I go to a march. I am just a person looking into an industry that could by a change implemented over night make an impact, a 500 million kind of impact. I had threat of change ask those questions of me, heck I asked them of myself. What do I know? How could I suggest these as alternatives? all from my experience as a waitress in university? There it was again myself questioning why I was going to challenge the norms? Stick in your lane Pardoe…. Nah G. I flipped up the game, I asked them did they know the impact they could have and be apart of? If that didn’t get them, I showed them how much $$ they could save by reusing something and that sure as hell got them thinking…. When you look at it, it’s the two reasons I chose to get into reusable straws:
- Make some extra $$
- Make an impact, be apart of the change with minimal disruption to my lifestyle (in their case business).
We run from fear or towards pleasure. Fear for me was being jack (expecting old mate to do the million changes) Fear for me was changing up my lifestyle. Pleasure was money, travel and feeling ok about my love for travel, eating meat and my obsession for shoes.
So I asked that of the restaurants and cafes I approached “what are you running towards or what are you running from?
- By implementing our SUCKITUPstraws Dishwasher Rack (again created because of the hospitality industries fear of consumers worry about the cleanliness and the extra work required to clean the straws by there staff). You can run towards being the food and beverage / bar / café Manager that shows initiative to your employer.
- You could be the café, restaurant, that leads the change your town, city or state. A visionary.
- Run towards saving over $4000 a year on paper, compostable, biodegradable, wheat and or sugar cane alternatives (still money being thrown away).
- Run from fear of rejection, people will call you a hypocrite
- Run from having to change your processes (you won’t)
- Run from having to change your menu (you won’t).
- Run from your customers not liking your change ( you may, but there is a thousand ways to mitigate this, email me sales@suckitupstraws.com.au if you need a hand to explain to Marg why this is the best change for everything and everyone and solutions to suit her picky complaining ass.
If you are still lost on this and or you are a business ask yourself in regards to changing to reusable alternatives (it could be more than just straws)