While we always try to stay true to our humble roots, there’s the odd occasion where we like to make a bit of a splash about what we’ve been up to – and this is definitely one of those times. So we’re all chuffed to bits to tell you that 3 Donkeys was selected as a Small Business Sunday Winner by TV Dragon and business and retail magnate, Theo Paphitis.
What’s Small Business Sunday?
For any of you who don’t already know, Small Business Sunday was created by Theo as a weekly initiative on Twitter back in 2010. Still going strong, its aim is to champion the thousands of small business around the UK in any sector or industry, give them a social media boost, and help them take advantage of the new opportunities that come along.
Every Sunday between 5.00 pm and 7.30 pm, you get the chance to tweet @TheoPaphitis with a brief description of your business using the #SBS hashtag. Among the thousands that do this, Theo himself picks just six of his favourites and retweets them the next day.
So how did we do it? Well, there’s no great secret, and as we said, there’s a lot of perseverance and luck involved. We’ve been sending #SBS tweets for quite a while now (that’s the ‘perseverance’ bit), so to finally be chosen as one of those six winners – out of thousands – is quite an achievement.
So, along with the other lucky six, 3 Donkeys was named an #SBS winner on Sunday, March 7th. But, as the actual announcements and retweets were made the next day, it meant we were selected on March 8th – International Women’s Day. That made the win even more special.
What it means for us
As 3 Donkeys is still fairly new (we’ve only been around since 2018), trying to grow the business is always challenging – even more so during the last year. So having that support from Theo tells us all our hard work over the last 3 years has been recognised and he’s helped us with an immediate social media boost, helping us spread the word about what we do.
Considering Theo has around 500,000 followers, a simple retweet has got our name in front of plenty of eyes. So while it gets our brand out there (together with our own profile on www.theopaphitissbs.com and an invite to the annual #SBS networking event) the positive publicity and recognition we’ve had has given us new followers, new enquiries and orders, and plenty of opportunities.
What next for 3 Donkeys?
Now our retweet and our brand has been well and truly seen, it’s made all the hard work along the way more than worth it. We may have picked a whole host of lovely new followers, but more importantly, we’ve seen a boost in sales for both our women’s 2-into-1 coveralls which is fabulous, and we’re keeping ourselves busy sending those out.
But we also have other product plans in the pipeline too. We’re working on these right now and hope to give you the juicy details as soon as possible, so make sure you subscribe to our newsletter (that gives you 10% off any orders too) and keep an eye on our Twitter and Instagram social channels too, so you’re the first to know.
In the meantime, if you’re running your own small business, why not get involved with #SBS Sunday? One tweet is the start, but who knows where it might take you.
