California

For vacation my extended family and I rented a beach house along Mission Beach (San Diego, CA). The place was very recently redone and you could tell that an interior decorator had coordinated the inside of the place. The walls were solid color - modern, and the kitchen was up-to date. The wall-decor was tasteful and reflective of the locale - flip flops, surf boards, sea shells, sand dollars. In fact - one print that caught my eye was a sand-dollar print - a sepia tone photo. Looking through my P. Graham Dunn spring supplement (keep one with you at all times) I saw that it was the same print as the SFL68!

Now go back 3 months: I was with an un-named Midwestern customer and she felt that this print, this image, was weak and not going to sell. Was she right or wrong?

Well, I would say that for her region and customer demographic she was probably right. However, someone (interior decorator from mission beach...) in California would disagree. What I'm getting at is that geographic region effects the culture, tastes and interests of a person. As PGD product line evolves I would like to see more art, along with other products, created specifically for these different regions and maybe even offered in regional packages!

Pd

Peter’s Angels

If you grew up in the 70’s like me, you will remember a TV show called Charlie’s Angels. Charlie was a private investigator. He hired three women to care out missions for him. They did the work that made their boss look good.

At P Graham Dunn, we have Peter’s Angels -- Four long-term women employees who paved the way for the company’s success today – Carol Curie, Linda Hershberger, Loretta Amstutz, and Diane Miller. Their work ethic, dedication, brilliance, and attention to detail have made their boss look good countless times!

Hiring these four angels has been one of Peter’s strokes of genius.

Patrick Helmuth
Controller

Walnut Creek Gallery

On March 15, 2007 we opened our newest Gallery. We are located in Walnut Creek, Ohio in the heart of Amish Country. We had a soft opening initially, then celebrated our Grand Opening from May 25-June 2. Although we are the closet Gallery to our factory and original Gallery, in many ways our 's has a different feel to it. The building we are in was originally a farm house built in the 1800's. Although it is newly renovated it still has the look and feel of a home, giving it a very warm feeling. One of the highlights of our store is our staircase with the Fruit of the Spirit carved on the front panels (see picture). We also have a sitting room where you can sit and watch a video showing the history and current operation of our company. There is also a second story porch where you can relax on rocking chairs and watch the Amish buggies go by.
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So far we have had a great response from both the local people and tourists. It makes all the work worth while seeing people be awed by not only the product, but more importantly the message on it.

Our hours are Mon-Sat from 9 A.M. To 8 P.M. We are located right across from the Der Dutchman restaurant. We look forward to seeing you here.

Arizonisbeautiful

Bobbi Sue has left a new comment on your post "Arizonisbeautiful":

Can't wait until you have a store here in Dallas ! I shop on your website all the time. Would like to see more products in person to get a better feel for your spectacular art work. I'm always telling my Christian friends to go PGrahamDunn.com for gifts !

Love ya,

Bobbi Sue

Hi, Bobbie Sue:

Customers like you make our day! We appreciate your loyalty, your spreading the word, and your on-going support of P. Graham Dunn! We trust our products “Lift Him Up” – our mission statement in three words!

Peter

Peter Dunn

P. Graham Dunn

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Practice hospitality. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Live at peace with everyone.” Rom. 12:9…..

Arizonisbeautiful

Southerngirl222 has left a new comment on your post "PETER IN GATLINBURG JULY 3 - 5":

Peter,

I just recently realized it was your company that I've been buying all this wonderful artwork from at a Berean Bookstore. Then I did a search on your company and found out you have some company stores ! A store filled with P Graham Dunn, that would be an amazing sight !When will you have a store in Arizonia ?

God Bless,

Arizonisbeautiful

Arizonisbeautiful:

I’ve copied the owner of Berean on your blog. He’ll love it. At this point we have no plans for a company store in Arizona. However, one of the Berean stores is installing a P. Graham Dunn personalization Boutique in one of their Phoenix stores. It should be operational by this August.

Kindest regards,

Peter

ServingHim777

ServingHim7777 wrote:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Persistence":

I thought the P store for Perfect. Love your artwork,

ServingHim7777:

Love your handle! Thanks for your gracious words. We’re not Perfect yet – but we always strive for perfection! Our product developers will appreciate your comments.

Peter

Another one

Here is another letter that we received in the office:

Dear Peter,

We enjoy coming to your gallery and seeing all the new and pretty things, so very much. You make us feel so special and it's such a blessing seeing how God is using you and your establishment for Him.

It makes us feel so unappreciative when we think of how much we enjoy all the wonderful things you do for us dealers, and yet -we forget- or just don't take the time to say "Thank You."

We are two of those people, so let us say a bleated thank you for your hospitality -your employees are always so helpful and pleasant- your programs, at the church, are always so enjoyable and you always mange to have the most tasteful food.

We hope everything at your new building is progressing on time and all the work is being done as you expected.

Again, Thank You for all you do for us. We feel so blessed to say- we know "Peter Dunn." May God Bless You.

(name withheld)



Elisa S.
P. Graham Dunn

Customer Service

We have some really great people that we deal with on a regular basis and I thought it would be nice to highlight one such company. A local business that tends to call in their order enables us speak with the owner regularly. He is not only patient, but calls out the order alphabetically. Since our order forms run from A-Z it is extremely helpful to us when taking the order. We are always willing to go the extra mile for him since he goes the extra mile for us.

Another interesting story regards a company that had fallen past due. Our accounts receivable department sends out a fax notification to the company to inform them about the situation when this occurs. This company had not received that notice and so when they were ready to place a new order we were unable to process it. They immediately paid off their account and we immediately sent out their request. The order was taken on Friday morning. The store needed it to be there the following day which happened to be Father's day. The item was in stock, the order went to shipping and we next day aired the item, our cost. This store was very pleased with the service we could offer them.

Elisa S.

P. Graham Dunn

Persistence

Persistence

At P Graham Dunn, we are a persistent bunch. It is part of our company culture. We aren’t the type the demands quick fixes of little value. We realize that it takes hard work and plenty of stick-to-it ness to reach a goal.

Recently we set out on two major tasks that we believe will be a great benefit to our customers in the long run. The first is an upgrade to our website. Over time you will see some noticeable changes in the format and the customer service that both our retail and wholesale customers will appreciate. The second project is a software upgrade for our administrative offices. This upgrade will provide us with the tools to better manage our business which will result in better products for you.

But these tasks take time. They are like planting seeds. Our founder’s daughter-in-law, Sommer, has become an expert gardener. We have watched her daily persistent work in the garden this spring. She has carefully nurtured her plants. In time, her persistence will produce a wonderful harvest. Similarly, these projects need careful attention and persistence to be successful. Many projects of this type have been abandoned by those without patience to see them through.

When you think of P Graham Dunn, remember that the P stands for Persistence !

Patrick Helmuth

Controller

Construction Update

Our new building is progressing rapidly.
The main steel is nearly finished, and they are anticipating putting the roof up later today or next Monday.

SOUTHERNGIRL222

On June 21, 2007, I received the following from Southerngirl222:

Peter,

Thanks for bringing back the White Knight. I just luuuvvvvv it ! We have already bought 3 of these for friends here in the Southwest. You must have a brillant eye for developing products.Thanks again honey,

Southerngirl222

Hi, Southerngirl222:

So you bought three of those White Knights!! Pretty impressive. I figured someone had to be purchasing those in multiples given the giant sucking sound in each of those stores the way they were selling through.

It wasn't me that had the "brilliant eye" - that was my 27 year old son who went to school at U of A in Flagstaff, married a lovely girl from Prescott, and understands the southwest market far better than I do. Believe it or not, I actually attempted to dissuade Paul from putting this product in our line initially.

Yup - we're bringing 'em back, and in style. The word has gotten out on this print. A number of stores are "piling on" getting involved in the 2007 distribution.

Just to let you know - we have also brought the print out in a smaller size.

Thanks for the encouragement. Please stay in touch.

Kindest regards,

Peter

PETER IN GATLINBURG JULY 3 - 5

Just a note to let you know that I will be in Gatlinburg July 3 - 5 splitting my time between the two stores on the strip, and possibly getting out to our store in Dollywood as well. I usually start working on the strip around 9:30 and stay out until the customers go home - around 12:00 midnight.

I love to sing karaoke to all of the southern gospel we have playing on our P.A. system. Last Memorial Day Ben Speer stopped in. Melissa and I grabbed him and we form a trio right on the spot!! The customers loved it!

There may be snow on the roof but there is still fire in the belly.

I always have a couple of Sharpie's with me - and whoever requests it, I sign and date, on either the front or back.

I attend a lot of shows, participate in shows, produce shows - but nothing winds my crank like a holiday weekend in our stores in Gatlinburg!!

See you there!!

SUZIE, NORTH CAROLINA

On June 21, 2007 2:17 PM Suzie from North Carolina wrote me the following:

Just love your stores. Got to be the nicests on the strip. With one store on the north and one store on the south, my husband and I say Gatlinburg begins and ends with P Graham Dunn. Every time we visit Gatlinburg we can't wait to see what new products you will have. When will you have a catalog that we can have so that we don't have to wait until our next visit ?Love ya,

Suzie:

Many thanks for your kind words. I also love our two stores in Gatlinburg!! Our people do a great job for us in that town.

Thought you would be interested in knowing that I will personally be in Gatlinburg on July 2 - 4 signing product and meeting with our enthusiastic customers. If you and your husband happen to be in town I would love to meet you in person.

I will arrange to have a catalogue sent to you if you e-mail me a peter@pgrahamdunn.com. I'll take care of it personally.

Some day we will be in the mail order business - but not in 2007! We've got our hands full with the new building project.

Kindest regards,

Peter

APOSTLE-ETTE MARKETING

One of our managers, Melissa Rogers, whose enthusiasm for our products and for selling our products is difficult to match, always signs her e-mails to me with the words "P. Graham Dunn Apostle-ette". I believe she attended one of our seminars where the words "apostle marketing" were tossed around in a somewhat flippant manner.

An "apostle" employee is one lives to positively impact the lives of the people she works with and with the customers that she encounters simply through the intangibles of personal commitment and enthusiasm to the company that she works for and the products that she sells.

Trust me - in Melissa's case - to refer to her as an "apostle-ette" is far from a misnomer. She literally lights up the store with her presence. Her enthusiasm with the customers is contagious. She is driven by positive sales - where the customer leaves beaming because their needs were met due to the combination of top notch employees and top drawer product.

Glenn Miller, one of our district managers, put himself in the dog house with me the other day, until he groveled his way out, by suggesting that our products are so strong that they sell themselves. The products may be strong, but without "apostle and apostle-ette" marketing, our manufacturing facilities could not sustain themselves.

More lasers being installed

6/7/07
I was in Toronto, Ontario yesterday to setup and train for a laser machine. They gave me a pretty hard time at the border. For various reasons, it took me over an our to get across including a call to my destination from the border patrol. I think next time I'll go over a barrel at Niagara Falls. It would be quicker.

6/14/07
I just got back from setup and training for a new personalization center in Ronks, PA at King's Homestead in Lancaster County. It was energizing to see others so excited about the program. By the time I left they were already lasering their names on the back of their cell phones. One particularly bright employee was thinking of cutting to wood to make his own model airplanes.

Mike Miller
P. Graham Dunn
800-828-5260 x.2007

Edited 06/22/07 -- FG

CROCKER PARK, WESTLAKE, CLEVELAND, OHIO

LeAnna, my partner for thirty five years, suggested that if we are going to be installing an 18,000 square foot retail complex in our new building, that perhaps we should go out and do some homework by evaluating some of the more upgrade stores in the area.

Thanks to a recommendation from Joe Grimm we ended up in Crocker Park, an outdoor shopping complex that is more professionally developed and thought through than any other retailing complex I am aware of.

The stores that particularly impressed us were:

1. Z Gallerie
2. Arhaus
3. Norwalk Furniture
4. Smith and Hawken

We didn't make it to the Bombay company.

I was humbled by the degree of excellence in design, decor, merchandising, presentation, layout, and overall ambiance these successful retailers portray.

From the style of flooring, ceiling, lighting, point of purchase display - it made me realize as a retailer how far we have yet to go.

It will be a challenge for us to put our new Gallery together in a manner than remotely compares to these stores. Some of the more daunting decisions that we will be faced with are decisions that we will not have the option to go back and make over.

Crocker Park gives us a standard to which we can aspire - and with assiduous input from the next generation of management within P. Graham Dunn perhaps we can come close to the excellence exemplified by these retailers.

GATLINBURG REAL ESTATE

I had an interesting conversation with Don and Carolyn Pressler on the phone a couple of days back. Don and Carolyn were the former owners of the store that we now own on the "strip" in Gatlinburg. It had been a Christian Book and Gift shop for 17 years prior to our purchasing it.

I happened to ask Carolyn, previous to our purchasing their store, how long it had been since there had been a sale of real estate on the "strip"? I had surmised perhaps 5 years. She and Don were rather adamant that there had been no real estate transactions since they purchase their store 17 years ago. There have been no sales of real estate since we purchased a little over two years ago, and I think it is safe to say that there will probably be no sales in the next 10 years. This is a Warren Buffet real estate market - buy and hold.

Property on the strip is soaring in value. Landlords are investing significantly in lease-hold improvements, including complete tear downs and rebuilds. A pancake house, with a footprint just a little larger than our store was recently torn down and rebuilt into a Bubba Gump Seafood Restuarant. Their monthly lease just happens to be $30,000 a month!

Carolyn also indicated that she had heard recently that the traditional two week vacation that Americans had taken in the past is now being replaced by three or four day weekend jaunts. Judging by the traffic patterns in Gatlinburg, our stores experience would tend to corroberate this.

Our second store, located at the south end of the Parkway, just across from the Convention Center, is located in a new shopping complex. We were just informed that above our store Hollywood is investing $32,000,000 in lease-hold improvements (they are tenants - not landlords) to install a was museum.

With our two stores anchoring both ends of the Parkway we feel blessed to have the exposure we currently enjoy. I love going down on busy weekends! I have the opportunity to meet with consumers and dealers alike. It is amazing how many of our dealers go through the stores looking for merchandising ideas and new product introductions.

P. GRAHAM DUNN LEADERSHIP MODEL

While thumbing through a business publication the other evening, I came across the following quote by the CEO of Davey Tree, a $400,000,000 comopany. I have used the following quote by Mr. Cowan without his permission:

"If you evaluated the executive talent on a scale of one to ten, at Davey, we don't have anybody better than a six or maybe a seven, individually. But collectively, we operate like an eight or a nine.

I can show you companies where the executive talent has eights or nines and maybe a couple of tens, and collectively they operate like a five. It isn't how skill the individual is - it's how the group functions collectively."

Mr. Cowan could not have parapharased "Good to Great" by Jim Collins any better than he has. Generally the nines and tens are all about ego, personal goals, and outshining ones peer. In growing and sustaining the "culture" of P. Graham Dunn we would aspire to Mr. Cowan's description of a successful management team!

Peter Dunn

Construction Update

The steel is coming along nicely.

Here's a rendering of the finished site.

Gatlinburg, TN over Memorial Day Weekend!

Harry Wilkins, Glenn and Diane Miller, and I spent Memorial Day weekend in Gatlinburg helping our staff keep up with the crush of traffic we were experiencing in our two stores on the Parkway, and in the Dollywood Theme Park in Pigeon Forge.

The following are some of the highlights:

1. Our new store which is 1,2000 square feet compared to 1,500 in the original store, having been open for around three months, is very close to matching the sales per square foot of the original store. The original store was opened 21 months ago.
2. We just discovered that a new tenant is moving in on the second floor above our newest location. It just happens to to Ripley's Wax Museum - and we have been told they are spending $32,000,000 just to open their store! Across the street from us are two other Ripley's - the original Ripley's, and the Old Car Ripley Museum. This will give us an amazing location in town.
3. Notice the pictures of some of our staff that operate our stores for us. They are very positive, hardworking people. We are honored and fortunate to have them on board.
4. The original stores sales for the Memorial Day Weekend were up 40% over the same weekend last year, and the second store's sales were right behind it - and the difference was not Harry, Glenn, Diane, or I because we were there last year! One would have thought that the second store would have cannibalized our first store - but such was not the case.

Lions Club of Wooster

Yesterday I was invited to address the Lions Club of Wooster and was warmly received as I gave an informal talk on the origins of the company. It turned out to be a nostalgic trip through memory lane as I traced our humble beginnings from our mission assignment in New York City in 1973. P. Graham Dunn, as a business, actually has its roots in crafts projects that we started with homeless teenage girls. We produced gift items during the week, and sold at craft fairs in Manhattan on the weekend. The girls were paid on a piece work basis. Before long we were generating a positive cash flow which would finance weekend trips in the van to places like Washington, D.C.

Some people appear to have their life plans all figured out in advance. I simply sit back and marvel. The rest of us just show up each morning, and follow the path day by day. LeAnna and I had no idea 35 years ago that our missions assignment with the Eastern Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities (headquartered in Salunga, PA) would result in a family business!

Peter Dunn

White Knight

The White Knight (BOC13) is back! This 4 foot by 3 foot lithograph of a charging white stallion by renowned artist Albena Histrova (that looks all the world like Robert E. Lee's Traveler, except for the color) was introduced by us last year. We had one of our largest chain store customers tell us that in twenty years they have never seen the public respond to a painting the way they responded to this one.


Unfortunately, the print went out of circulation, but we were not deterred. We received commitments for 1200 White Knights from two customers, went back to the publisher, and have now received an international exclusive.

With Paul's admonition to Timothy - "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." imprinted onto the painting, the combination of Paul's challenge and the power of the print will continue to make this one of the best selling P. Graham Dunn products of all time.

To find out more about this print - go to "Seach" on our web site, and simply punch in BOC13.

Dealers - kindly be aware that this is an oversize print and requires common carrier delivery. UPS cannot handle this, and the cost of delivering one print is over $80. Their are a number of ways to absorb this.

1. Order sufficiently from our regular stock and send out the entire order common carrier (which is generally cheaper than UPS anyway).

2. Pick up your order the next time you plan a trip to Ohio.

3. If your order meets the parameters for a delivery - we'll bring it to you in our Freightliner!

Kindest regards,

Peter Dunn

New Steel Going Up

Franklin just informed me that steel is being erected as we speak. Driving by this building project is an invigorating experience - especially if one is driving west to east! Ivan Weaver Construction is doing a great job for us. The latest I've heard is that the building will be available for occupancy sometime in September. My son-in-law Joe Knutson has his eyes firmly planted on the 18,000 square foot mezanine Gallery that he hopes to open for the fourth quarter. The production people are all looking forward to an air-conditioned shop.

It is an exhilirating time for P. Graham Dunn.

Peter Dunn

PGD Construction

Welcome to the P. Graham Dunn blog!

We are currently in the process of constructing a new building along Rt 30.
When it is complete (Sept/Oct of 2007) we will be moving our entire operation there.

Here's a few pictures of the progress...

March 27, breaking ground





1/2 of the retention pond


Digging the foundation


Working on the block wall


Pouring the floor. This took five days straight!


Red roof panels have arrived


The elevator shaft is complete


So is the pond...


Ready to start setting steel this morning