WHAT I KNOW: Everybody Needs a Little Pixie Dust

Posted on July 7, 2022

Hi everybody, this is Jeanne Bliss. And what I know is that everybody needs a little pixie dust.

When you do things that are unexpected for your customers, they remember you and it bonds you to them. So I want to share some of my favorite pixie dust moments back from my days at Lands’ End.

Pixie Dust Moments

This one, for example, is a cedar block that we put in sweaters. I had the logo put on it, sometimes it looked great, and sometimes it didn’t, but who cared? Because the back was the most fun part. What this says is:

This cedar block emits a resin which naturally repels small will loving creatures that might like to munch on your shirt. You can periodically reactivate the resin by rubbing with isopropyl alcohol, or by sanding lightly. Thank you for your purchase.

Another thing that we did was we connected the product with life—human lives. This is how to take the sweats that you bought for your child and turn them into Halloween costumes.

When women bought a silk shirt from us, we sent them a hanger made out of Oxford cloth.

Showcase Humanity

When we started the children’s business, one of the important things that we wanted to do was to connect with moms and reading. And so, in one of the pairs of overalls, we inserted this cute little note; it says:

Thanks for buying our overalls. We couldn’t resist sticking this book in the pocket. It’s always been a favorite of ours.

And what we have here is a miniature version of “Peter Rabbit.”

It’s always been a favorite of ours, especially the part where Peter gets caught into gooseberry net. Hope you and your child enjoy reading it together.

One of my other favorite, favorite things that we did was, at Lands’ End, we used to write articles that were sometimes part buying clothes, and sometimes just part we would hire great authors, and it would go into the catalog. But then we had all this great content sitting there. So silly me came up with this idea: Remember when—does anybody even have a bird cage anymore? But when we used to have bird cages—I think less people have birds.

But when you’d have the bird, a bird or bird cage, you’d you put newspaper in the bottom of the bird cage, and then you’d start reading that paper.

So my idea was let’s take the articles that we had published in the catalog and put them in as the insert of your box when we packed your box. So now you’re taking your Lands’ End products out of the box, and un-crumpling the paper and reading the story connecting you back to the humanity.

Pixie dust, it makes the difference. What I know is then when you think beyond just your product, but the experience and the memory that you create, people will bond to you. They’ll think of you differently and they’ll love you not only for what you do, but for how you do it.

Find your version of pixie dust. I’m Jeanne Bliss. Go to CustomerBliss.com/WhatIKnow to get more. Take care, everybody.

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