The Gift Basket Association delivers trends, tips and tools to help uplift the industry

The Gift Basket Association, founded in April 2009, will formally announce on August 1, 2009 of their intent to bring a new magazine and new online learning portal to the gift basket industry. And as in typical GBA fashion, they’re all affordable, fresh and new. End Quote

Trends and Tips is about helping our readers grow their businesses in practical ways that are affordable and well rounded.

(1888PressRelease) July 30, 2009 - “Trends and Tips” will emerge in August 2009 as the official magazine of The Gift Basket Association. GBA founder Debbie Quintana, a nineteen year seasoned professional in the industry promises to bring a magazine that is informative, useful and proper – despite the fact she has zero publishing experience. “We’re taking the approach of making this a community magazine that allows the industry to contribute in a collaborative manner. Trends and Tips is about helping our readers grow their businesses in practical ways that are affordable and well rounded. The best part is the content is from our community, not just my opinions. The scary part is I know nothing about creating and publishing magazines but we all start somewhere and I’m thrilled to have some great coaches that are showing us the way!”

The first edition of Trends and Tip was originally designed as a report out on the trend studying the GBA team has been doing over the last several months. From panel interviews to a variety of surveys, discussions with industry professionals and those that support the gift basket industry, the participation was overwhelming. Quintana found herself having to hire a consultant to analyze the data and break it all down in a format that will be valuable to the gift basket community. “I figured everyone would be interested in contributing but it was the commentary that took me by surprise. I received phone calls and long emails from people really reaching out to express their opinions,” said Quintana. "We had so much fun that we decided to continue."

And she’s serious about the content – UPS made themselves available to comment on their support of the gift basket industry and what they’ve done to help small businesses during this tough economic time. Author Kevin Stirtz, dubbed the “amazing service guy” contributed providing readers on how to create customer loyalty and produce expert, Pete Peterson comments on the use of organic fruit in gift baskets. Industry professionals Tom & Pam Newell, Mary Ann Jacobs, Flora Morris Brown, Ph. D and many others stepped up to provide content for this first edition along with many others. “I don’t want to get everyone’s hopes up like this is the greatest thing since sliced bread but I do feel very good about the content, our approach and most important – the fact that it’s built by our community.”

A second announcement is the formalization of GBA’s online learning portal called “Gateway”. “There are so many amazing mentors, coaches, consultants and teachers out there that we depend on to help take our businesses to the next level that we decided to bring as many as we could into one centralized portal. Gateway truly will be a way for us to take online classes that are affordable, specific and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.” Gateway will take time to ramp up, cautions Quintana. The training videos will need to meet a minimum quality standard as well as include fresh, up to date information that our viewers will be excited to download. It’s another opportunity GBA is taking to increase the collaboration amongst the community.

Quintana plans on making both announcements on her BlogTalkRadio Show, Friday, July 31, 2009 at 7am PST. You can hear her live or recorded here:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/DebbieQuintana/2009/07/31/Debbie-Quintana-announces-the-next-big-things-at-GBA

http://www.giftbasketassociation.com

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