From our Manifesto:   Treat our colleagues, customers, vendor partners, and community members well…

From our Core Values:  We value our clients, colleagues, and suppliers. Success means that everybody wins. It’s about ethical standards and respect. And in our opinion – it’s the ONLY way to do business.

The mandate is to treat ALL of our stakeholders well.

Employees:

1.  Our initial efforts to staff up were unsuccessful.  Later in the year, we put this on hold pending a move to a new facility in Salem.

2.  KPI’s were simplified to keep us on track while maximizing productivity with our small staff.

Clients:

1.  As our current clients grow, we’ve had to be careful taking on new clients.  Defining what constitutes a good client for 1525 has helped with that process.  When we were not able to take on new work, we did our best to refer to other vendors.

2.  We’re working with larger clients to better define our process and understand their process to make transactions smoother.  This creates more time for the creative stuff.

Vendor Partners: 

1.  Similar to our client process flow, we’ve worked with key vendors to streamline processes.

2.  With our larger promo vendors, we select those with a strong social responsibility mandate whenever possible.

Community:

1.   This was the big change for 2022.  We are an official sponsor for the Salem Capitals, as well as key volunteers for the organization.

The three core values of the organization are:

   1.  #communityculture
   2.  Affordable Family Fun
   3.  Player Opportunity

Once we are moved, we’ll be able to co-brand and assist with the community piece for the Capitals.  For example, we anticipate greater exposure for our plogging dates because we can make it a Capitals/1525 event. 

People Goals for 2023

1.  Move finalized by Q4.  Evaluate exactly what seats in the bus need filling by Q4.

2.  Continue to research Social Responsibility mandates when selecting vendors to work with.

3.  Formalize community event participation in conjunction with the Capitals.

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.  In that order.

In 2022, we continued to implement changes made in 2019 such as

1.  Eliminate disposable kitchen items.  

2.  Water filtration system in our sink eliminated the need for bottled water.  Employees provided their own water bottles.

3.  Color coded towels (by employee) in the bathroom and frequent laundering.

4.  We continued to recycle anything that can be.  Paper, glass, packaging, etc.

5.  We are extremely mindful of the Marketing Merchandise solutions that we offer our clients, steering them towards more sustainable options.  In addition to this, we were creative in our packaging for individual shipments and reused materials as much as possible.  This included recycling packaging such as boxes & foam from neighbors in our complex instead of purchasing new material.

6.  Our Preferred Vendors have formal Social Responsibility programs in place.

Planet Goals for 2022 – How did we do?

Since Covid, our increase in work and decrease in staff has caused execution of new goals to fall by the wayside.

The good news?  We stayed true to our values.  Our actions remain consistent with our manifesto.

Planet Goals for 2023

Make sure everything already implemented stays implemented.  

From our manifesto:  Most important is the belief that we can do good work, be environmentally responsible, treat our colleagues, customers, vendor partners, and community members well, AND – still make a fair profit.

1525 experienced 15% growth in 2022.  Shorthanded most of the year – we were very happy with this increase.  And of course, gross profit margins were maintained.

Profit Goals for 2022 – how did we do?

1.  We were looking for a 10% increase in sales, and ended up with 15%.

Profit Goals for 2023

1.  Maintain sales level of 2022.  2023 will contiunue to be a transition time with a bit of a holding pattern.  We hope to be moved by Q4 2023.