Latest / The Jeff Crilley Show / Raema Mauriello, Founder of GiftyGal.co | The Jeff Crilley Show
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- Coming up next on The Jeff Crilley Show, she is the international queen of gifting. She She is known as the Gifty Gal. We'll explain next. Many are predicting that the worst is yet to come, which is unfortunate, said one person here. Until now, they've enjoyed the reputation of being the nation's icebox. Watched a burglar in his home this morning by webcam. As a journalist of over twenty five years, stories are what make my world turn. Reporting live from The Dallas Newsroom tonight, Jeff Crilley, Fox four news. But in 2008, I took the jump from my familiar life and started a PR firm from my home. We're talking about anyone with a camcorder like the one I'm using becomes a television network. We started slowly growing the company, and we now have over a 100 clients, and we've branched into the world of live digital broadcasting. I now own eight different TV studios and have a huge team and the stories that I now get to share are sometimes the most important of my life. Life has a funny way of coming around full circle. This is the Jeff Crilley Show. Well, corporate gifting is so important in terms of retention, and many companies overlook this. Raema Mauriello in the studio. She is the queen of gifting. She goes by Gifty Gal. Yes. And I love that name. Thank So why don't we start with how did you come up with Gifty Gal? So when I started, I really had no idea what I wanted to call my business. At the time, we were doing smaller gift baskets and I thought something like really cute and catchy would be a fun idea and we put some words together. And that's how we came up with the name. Wow. So, something Well, and I love it and then your business has has grown by leaps and bounds. Yeah. We're gonna go ahead and and put up her website and as we scroll down the website, talk about what what does an ideal client look like for you? I would say my bread and butter is working with people in sales. Mhmm. A lot of my clients are in tech sales specifically, which Dallas is a phenomenal market to work with those individuals because of how many headquarters are moving here Sure. To Legacy West. And so, people in sales, I do a lot of prospecting gifts and really get relationships built started through gifting. She has storied past and we learned this because she was recently on Good Morning Texas, one of my favorite shows, and she did a five minute interview. Let's go ahead and roll that now. Just think how it felt the last time someone told you how much they appreciated you or even gave you a thoughtful gift just because. Our next guest not only wants to spread that feeling, she is making it her business to do so. Plano based Gifty Gal founder, US Navy veteran, author, and mom, Raema Mauriello, is here to share her journey. Good morning to you. It is an honor to be here. Thank you. I'm so glad to have you. You guys, she also dabbled in my hometown. She, was in Virginia. Yes. Station in Virginia. Oh my goodness. I just had to get that in there. Let's talk about it though because you do have such a diverse background from serving in the navy to being an author of a nonprofit. You're a mother of four. Yeah. I mean, do you fit everything into one day? How do you shape your life in this way when there's so many things going on? Yeah. I have had the honor of doing so many, like, really cool things. And on paper, it doesn't make sense because I was not qualified to do any of those things. Surge and rescue, an author, none of them. And I do think what has helped me is being a little bit delusional. Think we all need that in our lives. But I do think the military has definitely helped shape and mold me in the way I function in excellence. Mhmm. That is how we do things at my business. That is the standard that we set with how we interact with our clients and send gifts. And then I would say in ministry, I spent fifteen years full time ministry, also in nonprofit, just learning a lot about people. Mhmm. Walking with them in the really high high moments of their life, but also being with them in the really low ones and learning what people really want. And I do think that is they wanna be seen and known and valued. Yes. And that is what I have been able to create into a business. Yeah. So big. You are absolutely right. The thing we crave most as humans is to seen and to be heard and to be understood, like you said. And you're doing that. Is that what led you to create Gifty Gal? Tell me more about that. So we have to go way back. When I was pregnant with my first son, I was 20 years old. And my husband was deployed. It was the first deployment after nineeleven. And I was by myself. Everybody I knew was on that ship. And this very kind woman gave me all of the baby things her son had grown out of. And because of her generosity, that really planted a seed in me that someday I wanted to be able to pay it forward. And so my love of putting baby shower gifts together, that's where it started. And it grew and grew. And one day when I was on staff at our church, we had four girls that were pregnant, and I had these big baby shower baskets in my office. And my husband walked in, he's like, you should do that as a business. Yes. It had never occurred to me that there would be a market for that. And so I kind of said, let's just see where it goes, thinking I'd have an Etsy shop, and we'll do a little post on LinkedIn. And somebody saw the post, and she works in sales. She reached out to me, she's like, do you wanna help me with my prospecting gifts? I'm like, yeah, girl. I had no idea what prospecting meant. I had no background in sales, and so we just collaborated and figured it out. And the heart behind the prospecting is we wanted her recipients to feel like, wow. This person thought about me. Yep. And it worked for her. Like, the ROI on those gifts was amazing. It's grown so much. I mean, like you said, you started in your Plano home. Now you're in a warehouse. You're working with large corporations. I mean, my goodness. Did you ever think it'd get this big? No. Absolutely not. Oh, gosh. I had I had like I said, I have no business being in a corporate space because I've never worked in a corporate space. That's the like How? Way doors have opened for me. I'm truly so grateful. So tell me then, how does it work now? Is it something people apply for? Is it something you're nominated for? How do you go about it? Yeah. So I have a website. You can contact me through my website, through social media, and we will collaborate and work really closely together. Is it a prospecting campaign? Is it marketing? Is it holiday gifts? And we work together to create a gift that you're proud to send to your clients. My branding is not on anything because at the end of the day, I'm putting gifts together on behalf of my clients. And so we wanna make sure when the recipient opens it, they feel seen and known, but also there's a wow factor to it as well. Yes. My goodness. Okay. I wanna ask you because if there's someone out there thinking, I kinda wanna start a business too. I wanna roll into this. Mhmm. Tell me any piece of advice you would give them. I would say the delusional part, you have to be your number one fan. Because at the end of the day, not everybody's always gonna cheer for you, and you have to cheer the loudest for yourself. You have to believe in yourself. Surround yourself with people that are good at the things you're not. Amen. That's And for and don't get hung up on the research phase. I know a lot of people get stuck there. They wanna research research, but, yeah, taking the steps to actually dive in and do it. Yeah. That's the hardest part. Yeah. Just doing it, getting started. You so much, Oh Raema, my for being thank here this Tell us one more time where we can find you. Okay, you can find me on giftygal.co or you can find me on Instagram gifty. Gal. So, so good. Thank you so. Well, thank you so much for your service. Oh, you're good. You know, they talked about it in the Good Morning Texas What did the military teach you in terms of discipline, punctuality? So I learned very quickly in order for you not to get screamed at, you need to follow instructions really well. And that also leads into attention to detail, just functioning and operating in excellence. And you would be surprised at how rare that is. Yes. I learned not everybody picks up on that and you actually have a lot more opportunities presented to you when you function and operate that way. And so that's really even become a part of the DNA of how my business Mhmm. Works. The gifts I put together, if it's not excellent, it doesn't leave my warehouse. And punctuality, I hate being late. I feel like it's so disrespectful. She showed up forty five minutes So, yeah, those are just a couple things. Yeah. And she's so well spoken and that's part of that is your journalism career with the military. Yep. You had a special role. I did. So I actually had two different jobs which is kind of unique. I was a journalist, but I also did search and rescue. Mhmm. So when I was stationed on the ship, we had a ship wide newspaper. So that's actually where I learned how to write. And I've self published three books. Wow. But that's where I learned how to write but we also had like a weekly kind of TV show thing that we would do Cool. Yeah, on camera as well. But you do have that anchor look about it. Okay. Alright. Tell us some of your favorite success stories. So one of my favorite parts of what I do is watching my clients like flourish and thrive and getting to play any part in their story. And one of the girls in fact, the girl who got me my first open door in corporate, she has gone on to a couple different companies since we first started working together, and she has a really big heart for veterans. And she wanted to host a veteran type event, and she asked me to put together these invitations that she could hand out to people to invite them to the event. Those invitations were $25 apiece. And she invited this man to come to the event. And at the event, it was really work event so they were kinda gonna do their pitch at the event. And from him attending the event, he had a meeting with her and ended up signing a $9,000,000 deal Incredible. With her. So from $25 that got him through the door and she could do what she's the best at, which is sales Wow. Landed her $9,000,000. That has to make you feel so good. Oh my gosh. I was so happy for her. I was so excited. Yeah. Yeah. When people think about the ROI, it's their, you know, 10 tenfold Oh. A hundredfold. And you also have to think about how much time does it take the average person Mhmm. To even conceptualize the gift, go and find the pieces to the gift, stand in line at UPS, you know, that could take them up to five hours maybe more. And in sales, that's potentially a couple $100 an hour that you are investing where me, when this is something I'm gifted in uniquely, this takes me maybe an hour. Wow. To get all of this done. So it really saves them time they also see the results from something being done by a professional in this space. Yes. Yeah. You have another success story. Yes. So this same girl I just talked about, she introduced me to another sales rep that lives here in Dallas who had just started in sales. And anybody who's been in sales, the hardest part is getting your foot in the door and getting a phone call. Just getting a callback is so hard. And so I partnered with her and we did about 10 gifts per month. Each gift was about a $100. And we would drop them off at the businesses that these gifts went to. And she told me she would get eight phone calls back. Wow. Even just to say thank you but from those eight she would get two meetings and out of those at least one of those would always close a deal. Wow. And on average those deals were about $300,000. Incredible. And so because she was so successful in like getting her foot in the door and again doing what she's really good at which is sales, she's been promoted three times within the company Mhmm. Since then. She is the queen of contents because you create all these wonderful videos. I found one that I really like. Let's go ahead and roll that. I wanna show you guys a strategic gift, and then I wanna tell you why this gift works. First and foremost, we are looking for something that is going to stand out from the crowd, and I think this does just that. Okay. We have a seventy two hour survival kit made by Unchartered Supply Company. They're amazing, by the way. And we added their abbreviated logo to this gift. All of this fits inside of that backpack. This is definitely going to be a memorable gift for the recipients, And it also has a nod to the services that this client provides. Not only do they receive that backpack, but it is packaged beautifully in these massive gift boxes. This is strategic because it is going to get my client noticed, and their recipients are definitely going to remember these gifts. Mhmm. So beautiful. I I asked you before the show, tell me what a win is, and just watching your clients grow and get celebrated because of something that you played a role with. I love that I'm getting to use a gift that seems so outside of the box to partner with people in corporate Yes. And then getting to watch something I'm good at elevate them to the next level in their career, that makes me so excited. And then just starting relationships and building relationships with my clients, going from dating a guy to being engaged to being married and now they have a baby like I love getting to celebrate and then I get to send a baby shower gift to that client you know I'm like I just makes my heart so happy. We have about two minutes left, I want you to look to into the camera and on the talk to the person who's not even doing corporate gifts right now and why they might wanna start. So I think you are missing out on a massive opportunity to build relationships with your clients and even internally. That is a missing piece to a lot of people in sales where they know relationship is the foundation of sales. How do you build those relationships? Gifts can be a part of that plan. You can be strategic with it, make them personal because the more personal the gift is, the more thoughtful the gift is, the better the response is gonna be that you get from those prospects. So I would suggest anybody implement this into your sales funnel. If you wanna do it yourself, I think it's a great investment of your time or you can partner with somebody like myself who does this professionally where we can do it from the beginning to the end to take it off your plate because we have proven results with using this platform and using this method to get our clients through the door, build relationships and really get an ROI on a gift. Oh, wow. Thank you so much for sharing Thank you for having me. Your journey with us. We're gonna end with her website, which is giftygal.co, the great Raema Mauriello. Thanks for coming on the show. Thank you so much. That's it for now. We'll see you next time.