Paleo Treats: FedEx Small Business Grant Winner

Back in December, we featured Paleo Treats as one of our User Success Stories. As it turns out, we weren’t the only ones that saw how well they were doing—they were one of 2015’s winners of the FedEx Small Business Grant Contest!

We wanted to pop back in and ask them about their experience and see how YOU can best take advantage of the FedEx Small Business Grant Contest. Read more about the contest on our blog by clicking here.

Answers by: Nik Hawks, Owner

Website: www.PaleoTreats.com/

Paleo Treats earned $5,000 from the FedEx Small Business Grant Contest; how did that change 2015 for you all?

The FedEx Small Business Grant of $5,000 allowed us to invest in developing 2 new Paleo Treats packages; a 12″ cubic shipping box and a display box for our resale accounts. The 12″ cube allowed us to brand every single package going out, and we’ve received a ton of compliments on it, and the display box made it much easier for customers to find us in brick & mortar stores, thereby increasing sales and showing our resellers that we were serious about helping them display Paleo Treats.

What was your relationship like with FedEx before and after the contest?

Before the contest we dealt solely with our rep and thought of FedEx mainly as a shipping provider. After the contest we realized that FedEx is investing heavily in helping small businesses achieve success, and we’ve been really excited to help them develop their strategy with that. It’s awesome to see such a big business reach out a helping hand to the thousands of small businesses across the world who need help with way more than just shipping.

Did you have a strategy to gain more and more votes after you entered?

Our strategy for the contest was the same strategy we apply to everything; do the absolute best you can, add beauty, quality and joy to the world, and have fun. We pushed hard on our social channels and on email and worked to explain just how much this would mean to us to our audience. We have a great relationship with our customers, and it was really cool to get to interact with them before, during, and after the contest to show them just how much they could help with.

The money is a big deal, no doubt about it, but what’s one unadvertised benefit of entering (and winning)?

The money is actually the smallest benefit of winning a grant. Once you realize that FedEx is putting their full might and power into helping small businesses, and that they are focusing those efforts on YOUR business in order to demonstrate their commitment, you start to get stoked at just how much a massive corporation like FedEx can help you out with. Whether it was putting us in contact with their packaging lab, connecting us with other really motivated winners, or just generally offering to help out in any way they could, it feels really good to have FedEx on your side.

What advice do you have for everyone entering this year?

Do your best, be creative, and work hard to showcase the parts of your business that are uniquely yours. The more you can demonstrate that you’re not only a great business but a useful addition to the FedEx Grant Winners team the more likely you are to get noticed by the FedEx crew.

To say Paleo Treats knows what they’re talking about is an understatement. See for yourself:

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You can enter to win $25,000, $15,000 or $7,500 through May 30th, and voting is about to begin! From May 17th until June 13th, you need to be sharing, emailing, tagging, flyering to get your entry to get as many votes as you can!