Full Transcript – Christa Pitts – Wild Business Growth Podcast #347

This is the full transcript for Episode #347 of the Wild Business Growth podcast featuring Christa Pitts – The Elf on the Shelf, The Lumistella Company. You can listen to the interview and learn more here. Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

00:00
Oh my gosh.

00:17
Jolly hello, welcome back to Wild Business Growth. This is your place to hear from a new entrepreneur every single Wednesday morning, turning wild ideas into wild growth. I’m your host Max Branstetter, can email me at . And this is episode 347. Today’s guest is Christa Pitts, who along with her twin sister, Chanda Bell, are the co-founders and co-CEOs

00:45
of The Lumistella Company, widely known for coming up with The Elf on the Shelf. In this magical episode, we talk the key magical moments that made The Elf on the Shelf a hit. Now they’re celebrating their 20 year anniversary at the time of this recording and everything from quote unquote sharing a brain with their twin sister to a baseball card business. It is the Christa.

01:17
Enjoy the elf on the shelf.

01:24
Already, we are here with Christa Pitts, co-founder and co-CEO of The Lumistella company, who you might know for the Elf on the Shelf. And we’re actually interviewing the Elf on the Shelf today too. That’s a very kind of you, Christa. But really, really cool. I’ll say magical, wonderful story. Krista, thank you so much for making time today. How are you doing today? I’m great. Thanks so much. Excited to be here. Yeah, of course. Of course, me too. Thanks for inviting me.

01:52
Before we get to all things, Luma Stella and Elf on the Shelf, which is a whole lot to unpack and spread holiday cheer there. I always like diving a little bit into something interesting about the guest entrepreneur’s background. And I couldn’t resist with QVC, because not every day you talk to somebody who’s been an on-air host for QVC. So you’re probably way more familiar with me with like the video and the hosting and the cameras, lights, cameras, action, all that sort of thing. So.

02:19
How in the world did you end up in that space where you’re actually live hosting for QVC in the first place? That’s a great question. It was certainly by happenstance, that’s for sure. This was a while ago and this was before reality television actually. So in school I studied communications and journalism and then I recognized that that paid very little and I ended up going into sales, professional sales. I worked for Airmark Uniform Services and then

02:48
Fast forward a few years, my mother-in-law at the time was truly one of those QVC shoppers, right? The one where every gift you get comes from them and every package always had the big QVC logo on it. And one Christmas morning, I was unwrapping things and, you know, joking with the family. And I basically said, man, that would be a cool job. And I picked up something and I started pretending

03:18
like I was selling it. And so she said, Oh my gosh, Krista, you would be perfect. And I rolled my eyes, of course. And she said, I think they have open call auditions and if they have one, have to promise me you’re going to go. And I laughed and said, okay, okay. If they have an open call audition, I’ll go. And sure enough, I did go.

03:45
And my mom and dad actually are the ones who bought my plane ticket. And they said, if you don’t go do this, you’ll never know what could have happened. And so I was one of, believe they said that year it was upwards of 10,000 applicants across all of the live applications that they had taken in. And to my great surprise, I did end up getting hired. Only two of us were hired from that big group and uh,

04:14
I became a QVC host. already at young age, you beat the odds. What is something that like after going through that experience, you’re like, if you’re doing anything live in front of camera, like you need to do this right in order to make an impact. One of the things they were so fantastic at is teaching you how to connect with the camera and then ultimately how to speak to your audience. So one of the big tricks is

04:41
And I think they were brilliant at recognizing this and then infusing it into a camera world at the time, which is to talk to people individually and not say all of you out there, right? Because if I am speaking to you right now on this podcast, Max, I’m talking to you, not to the world, whoever you may be. And so if you have a chance to be on camera speaking directly to the camera,

05:08
as if it is a person in their home and making it individual to them is a nice learning moment for anyone who is thinking about pursuing that line of work. I don’t know what you did there, if it was a magic trick or what, but I felt like you were speaking directly to me right there. So that’s very impressive. It’s the training. It’s the training. Yeah, exactly. No, it’s such a good lesson for TV, for podcasts, whether that’s the audio side, the video side, it’s…

05:35
I think just in general whatever you’re doing out there, the more personal, the more genuine and direct you are, that’s what actually comes across well. So good lessons from the TV world there.

05:47
So let’s go from TV to elves, as one naturally does. Yeah, it’s perfect segue. Yeah, exactly. Can you share a little bit of like your family history with this elf that you had growing up that actually inspired, you know, what’s now seemingly omnipresent? I’m happy to. So when my mom had us, my brother and my sister, an elf from her childhood came with her.

06:16
And so my grandmother had an elf in her home and she used to look at my uncle and my mom and say, you guys better watch your P’s and Q’s because that elf at the time that was sitting in the Christmas tree works for Santa and it is going to let him know what you guys are really up to. And so when mom had us, that elf followed her to our family and she knew, I mean, we were, we were not the most calm children. We were pretty rambunctious.

06:45
to save the least. And so what people now know as the elf on the shelf, much of that was the experience of my family in our home when we were growing up. And then once we all grew up, my mom and my sister sat down and wrote, essence, our family tradition with permission from Santa Claus, of course, down on paper. Nobody wanted it. We ended up self publishing what would become the elf on the shelf ourselves.

07:15
And that’s how we started. Yeah, that’s all doing research that really stuck out to me is like, I would imagine many people come across your brand, they know like the actual physical elf, but probably not that many people would know that it kind of started with like a book and a story there. What was the moment that got you your sister or your mom to actually like, put that pen to paper or to book? When we grew up, we always thought everyone had an elf. We

07:42
Couldn’t imagine how Santa knows what’s going on in your home if you didn’t have one. And it was our direct line of communication to the big man himself. And so it wasn’t until we got much older that we realized not everyone had an elf, which was mind blowing. And when we talked to friends of ours and would be like, well, the elf’s coming on Thanksgiving, they looked at us like we were insane. What are you talking about? When my sister had her first child,

08:09
And it was the first of the niece’s, nephew’s, grandchildren mixture. She wanted to do the same thing in her home and have those same magical moments and memories. And so she suggested to my mom one day, she was like, mom, why don’t we write a book about the elf? And mom was in one of those transition periods. think any active parent probably goes through it. That time when your kids have grown up and all of the things you were so greatly involved in, now you’re looking for your next chapter.

08:39
And so she did, she ended up sitting down that night and writing what would become the Elf on the Shelf with Shanda. But the best part of it, and probably the magic sprinkle, was that mom had experienced it from a parent’s perspective, and we had experienced it from the childlike wonder perspective. And we knew no adult was going to be on board with this doll that works for Santa. So you had to have the magic.

09:07
of a child’s imagination and wonder and that perspective imbued into the story from a parent’s perspective to really make it something special, which I believe they did. Yeah, that’s a fantastic insight. The dual perspective there is so key because I feel like I always think of, I mean, products or toys, if you call them that in general, it’s always kind of funny because like the brands, the marketers behind it.

09:35
need to get the kids excited about it, like on the money side, they need to appeal to obviously the parents and whoever is buying that. So it’s such like an interesting dynamic all the time there. And in your case, you had that going in, not just speaking on like the financial side, but just the perspective of both those generations, I think is so key. And lucky for you, you have a twin sister. So you guys had double the amount of creativity and energy right from the beginning, right?

10:02
Yeah, you we laugh. say that where it takes the two of us to make one brain. So there might be something to that. All right. So you have the book, you’re shopping around and everyone’s like, now we can’t really take this seriously. Once you started to actually get it published, how did you start to get some headlines around this?

10:24
So backing up to your point, which is that absolutely no one wanted it. We had put together a proposal and we send it to literary agents. And to our enormous surprise, there was one agent in New York City who instantly got it. This is going to be a classic. It’s incredible. We love it. It’s awesome. Let me take it. Let me take it. And she did. She went and shopped it around to everyone. Big publishing houses, small publishing houses, niche groups.

10:53
No one wanted it. And we got all sorts of rejection. Things like kids don’t like rhyming books or you’re not famous. And so they don’t sell. One of our favorites is that it was destined for the damaged goods bin. And, you know, we had all the rejection along the way. And so my sister, who’s incredibly tenacious, when you meet Shanda, you will see she is just never going to take no for an answer. She’s going to find a way to get it done. And

11:23
So that agent said, listen, there’s nothing else I can do with it. No one seems to want it. They don’t get it. They’re going to miss out. And it’s either a good idea and that’s all it will ever be. Or you’re going to sit down and you’re going to push forward and you’re going to figure it out. And so that’s what Shanda did. She started researching Pantone colors and paperweights. And we found a local illustrator who could get the magic and understood the vision.

11:50
And we self-published the very first Off on the Shelf. We still do to this day, I suppose. It’s just a much bigger operation. But it was just myself and my mom and my sister. And we started doing research and diving in. How do you deal with that rejection? What advice do you have for other entrepreneurs out there that you weren’t so passionate about an idea and shocked to find that not everybody shares that passion with you? No one is ever going to believe in your idea.

12:19
like you do ever. And you really have to have that vision in place in order to believe it into existence. Right now, people would call it manifesting. Now that doesn’t mean that you should chase everything down a rabbit hole or even that other people’s ideas are good ideas. I think one of the key things for us was just focusing, right? We knew what we wanted to share. We knew the story we wanted to tell. We knew what we wanted to build.

12:50
We didn’t necessarily understand how we were going to do it, but there are a lot of people, especially early on, who wanted to come in and tell you what you needed to do and why isn’t the elf newfangled and why doesn’t it have batteries and why doesn’t it do this or that? And we really wanted to go back to that pure experience of the magic the elf on the shelf brought into our home. And it’s easy.

13:15
know, fast forward 20 years where our social media exists and people are trying to keep up with the Joneses with all of their ideas about what the elf might do overnight. But that was not the case. It was very, very simple. You don’t have to be the smartest or the most athletic or the most successful family to enjoy this tradition. It’s simple. And I think that’s what we wanted to share with people. wanted to share that same magic and joy.

13:44
of the holiday season every morning leading up to Christmas. So I think you have to focus, you have to actually define what it is you’re trying to do and who your audience is. And then you have to go after it with everything in your heart and soul, if you’re going to see it through to the end. Well, speaking of magical, let’s talk the uh double underline underscore the elf, no underscore, elf on the shelf. So the actual, you know, physical elf.

14:12
And I’m curious, in addition to Santa’s creative notes and direction, of course, what went into the actual like design or I guess customizing outfit, everything for like the elf on the shelf that you can see on shelves today? Yeah, well, it’s actually based on a stationary set. So again, you have to remember 20 years ago, this did not exist. No one had any idea. is before manifesting and before reality TV.

14:41
Yes. Well, QVC was before reality TV. This part did exist at that point. But the internet was fairly infant, even at that point. But we based it on a stationary set. So we always wanted the book and the elf to come together. Because that’s how you understand this is not just some decoration that’s living in your home, right? It is different. This is a tradition in a box.

15:10
And this is how you’re going to celebrate it. So the book sat on one side and the elf sat on the other side and it had a closure with a bow on it, like a ribbon in the very first prototypes. so once we were able to determine a way to package it, then we were able to move forward with getting our first 5,000 scout elves out there to be adopted. really, that had to be quite some,

15:36
a pep rally that Santa led for all those elves to go out there and know, delight so many families. Yes, especially with no money. Exactly. That’s the most magical part. Yeah, you know, I don’t know how Santa did it where he was able to go to the workshop and start cranking out toys, but bankers traditionally don’t appreciate elves and books as collateral for anything. Where’s the live fun? I guess what was one of the like,

16:07
touch points along the way that you realize, you know what, we be onto something commercially and like at scale here. Not to belabor it, but I do think Shanda and I having experienced it as children knew the way children would react to this. Unfortunately, people get older and you start getting jaded and you look at things through an adult lens. But we had the advantage of seeing it as children saw it, which was just utterly magical.

16:36
and it imbued the spirit of the holiday season into our activities. I think that was a differentiator for us in terms of taking it to the next level. And we knew if we can get it in the hands of other families, that their children would see it the same way that we did. our strategy in the beginning was to be very small and focused. We like to say grow where you’re planted.

17:03
So don’t try to go be everything to everyone. You don’t need to get into Walmart with your very first pieces. Spend some time thinking about it. Learn your elevator pitch. Understand what’s resonating with people. So we started very small, Georgia and North Carolina. So we’re based in Georgia. And then we slowly grew up the East coast, then towards the Midwest, then California. And then in 2007,

17:31
we ended up having two things happen nearly simultaneously. The first was that Jennifer Garner was photographed carrying the elf on the shelf down the street by the paparazzi. And of course that hit all of the major radars for paparazzi at the time. And then the second thing that happened was a local affiliate out of Texas had heard the buzz around this quote elf on the shelf thing in quote.

18:00
and they did a package on it that got picked up by the Today Show and they ran it on the weekend during the holiday season. And between those two things happening pretty much around the same week, it really elevated us to a different exposure, just a completely different moment of national exposure than we had been prepared to handle before. I’m trying to think back to that.

18:25
Jennifer Garner era that way. I mean, she was in so many things, but I was wondering if those Capital One commercials started then, because those are still on all the time now. They were not out yet. No, she was more known at that point for her acting in her commercials. Yeah, of course. But that’s amazing. So you have her just kind of by just liking your product publicity that helped you out. You had the Today Show, which fortunate to have many entrepreneurs on this show who’s been on like Shark Tank or

18:55
gotten on the Today Show Good Morning America and just talk about the type of spike that that can cause for you. So that’s amazing. What’s going through your mind? What’s going through Shanda’s mind, your mom’s mind when you’re like, wait a second, we’re getting a lot more requests for product all of a sudden. Well, it actually ended up crashing our systems because again, we had no infrastructure at that point. was my mom, my sister, myself.

19:21
some friends that we nicknamed ERT, the ELF Emergency Response Team, and we called them and we were like, could you please come in? I was of course always working at that point in time and it was Christmas season, so even more so. And I was on my way into the office because you do everything when you start. You are picking and packing and shipping. You’re doing the shipping labels. You’re doing gift wrap. You’re answering customer service. It’s all the things.

19:50
I got a phone call from my mom who was on book tour and she started screaming in the phone, we’re on the today show. We’re on the today show. I was like, what do you mean? Like in the background? No, no, we’re like, we’re on the show. It’s a whole piece. And so by the time I got to the office, which was only 15 minutes later, we had 150 voicemails. had every phone was ringing. And of course,

20:20
As it goes through the different time zones, you’re getting whole new moments of reaction. So it was hours worth of reaction as it aired across the country. It brought down our website. We had started selling on very early Amazon at that point in time. Their systems were also very antiquated. So PayPal thought we had some sort of stealing issue happening. so they shut us down.

20:49
friends were in the background packing things up. It was just one of those moments where again, you just, you’re just going to keep going. You’re going to figure it out. had someone at Amazon’s early team working with me on the side to figure out because at that point even they didn’t have algorithms. And so this volume hitting them at the same time, they were inputting the order at the same time that the credit card was processing.

21:18
And so every time you tried to run a report, if someone’s credit card had beaten it to another person’s card, it changed the entire lineup. So we couldn’t get a clean look at how many orders we had to ship out. was quite the ordeal. I appreciate you taking us to that, like call it successful chaos. Like, whoa, we got a lot more demand there. Like once you got past that initial, like, ah, let’s, you know, fulfill all these, let’s get caught up. How did you.

21:49
I guess make your organization more sustainable so you’re you’re equipped to handle a larger volume like that. Well, again, over time you sophisticated, you scale, you put systems and process into place, which at that point we didn’t really have much of anything. We had QuickBooks and we had FedEx back then. At this point, you know, we’re 20 years later. So we’ve been able to scale departments and divisions and add structure and process experts in various areas.

22:17
that could really bring that into our organization and help us scale and grow and learn. We’ve also been able to introduce the Santa verse, which instead of just being the elf on the shelf, which is how we started, of course, and that’s our hero brand. We now have an entire world that we are able to work with. And so whether that is the elf babies, which are known as frost pips and they hatch out of flowers or Nora,

22:46
who happens to be the mother of all of our magical Arctic foxes. And she is incredible. She can spin up snow with her tail, which allows Santa to land on rooftops. We’ve got Barry, the great St. Bernard of Christmas, and we have reindeer and yetis. And we’ve just been able to build out this world of characters that are part of that magic, but they also answer the questions that kids have about the North Pole.

23:15
which, every kid has them from how does Santa get in my house if I don’t have a chimney to how is he going to land on my roof? It’s hot here. Will the elves be able to find me if I move? Like there’s a whole world of questions that we field. And it also has to do with things like, what does the elf like to eat? Do they have pets? What do they eat? Where do they live? What happens at the North pole when the elf is not with me?

23:41
And so we’ve now been able through the Santa verse to collect all those questions and start being the authority on how to answer those questions in the right way. And that includes the backstory of Santa Claus. And we’ve just put out our first chapter book, the rise of Nicholas the noble that helps tie into all of that, which includes how did the elf come to know Santa and how did they all become magical at the same time? So

24:07
That’s how we’ve been able to scale and grow from just one SKU, one computer, three family members to where we are today. Speaking of the North Pole, so in prep for this, I was listening to some of your episodes for your podcast, Madam Founder. So really awesome stuff. And the episode that I just like couldn’t get enough of was actually, I think it was called Top 10 Lessons from the North Pole. It was like a solo episode you did and kind of a, what’s the word?

24:37
punny, pithy, tongue-in-cheek way of describing your business lessons that you learned from the North Pole. And it’s like 10 fantastic lessons. So I definitely recommend everybody check that out. Thank you. Yeah, of course. Well, thank you. But Lumistella as a whole, the Lumistella company, exactly right. Like if you go and check out your website, it’s absolutely mind-blowing in terms of the Santa verse and how many different arms and legs of the business there are and of the world of kind of like the North Pole you keep building out.

25:07
I know that you and team have like an incredible focus on culture and like culture is like such a key part of the brand. What advice do you have for anybody out there that’s leading a growing company in terms of making sure that your culture stays like exactly to the vision you have and also that there’s, you know, adoption all the way around of like this awesome culture? It’s really smart to ask that question because a lot of entrepreneurs that I speak to ask me something similar.

25:37
Culture is critical. You can hire for all of the right things on a resume, and there are a lot of people who are going to check that box. But it’s the cultural piece that really gets to the meat of how this person is going to integrate with the other people that are in your world. And by that, I mean your corporate world, right? And so we have four pillars. We say it’s fire and fire represents a different required characteristic.

26:06
around our culture. So it’s family focus, integrity, respect, and excellence. And everyone in the company knows it, they can quote it. It’s not something we put on our floorboards or on our walls, and then it goes away as a lot of companies do. It’s actually ingrained into what we do. If there’s a family need, we’re going to rush in and do what we can to support someone or help someone in that space. We celebrate as a family, right? And some people have crap family.

26:34
We don’t want to be that family. We want to be the type of family that you’ve always wanted or hoped for. And so that’s how we represent that integrity. Do we treat everyone internally and externally with respect? And so that’s just the start. And then we wrap in our purpose, right? Which is to create joyful family moments. Every single thing we do, everything we touch, every activation, whether it’s entertainment based or experiential or product based,

27:02
It’s all about creating a joyful family moment. But most people don’t spend the time to really sit down and think about it because they’re so busy, especially as entrepreneurs, you’re wearing all the hats, you’re doing all the jobs and that gives you your guide rails. It gives you the guideposts for what you chase and what you don’t. So that’s why it’s so critical to sit down and be very thoughtful about what you want to be, the culture you want to build.

27:32
the products you want to put out and whether that’s a hard good or it’s some sort of digital product, whatever that looks like, all of it has to feed back to your values, your mission, your purpose. Those are the keys that are gonna drive you along with your vision, of course. The inner pun lover in me loves this juxtaposition of fire as a key principles, but your whole company is like North Pole and ice and snow base.

28:02
Good kind of all the elements there. I know we need some air and you know that we need the wind and water elements in next room. Exactly, earth, wind and fire. What else would you say besides culture, besides you know, smart marketing distribution, some fortunate PR hits over time? What else would you say is a way that Lumi Stella has grown over the years? Authenticity. I had someone ask me actually strangely earlier today,

28:31
about how would I define success for us since we’ve been at this for 20 years. And I think my answer surprised them, even though I didn’t think anything about it, which was to see the elf on the shelf and the characters from our world be as intertwined with Christmas as Santa Claus himself. You know, to me, for our company with our vision and mission, that’s success.

28:57
The family legacy is built, it’s strong, it’s going to go on into other families and to other worlds and to other homes in perpetuity. That to me looks like success. Now, obviously you want to be successful in business. You want to have the financials that match that. But for us, that does not define our success. What defines our success is that authenticity. is something simple, something that represents a wholesome family moment.

29:26
And everything that we do comes from that place. And, you know, we get tons of hate. There’s always the haters out there, but you know, you have to have a tough skin and you have to recognize that sometimes people aren’t going to see things the way that you do. But it’s that authentic touch that we have with our consumers. We try to always put them first in everything we do. That sets us apart in my opinion. I’m going to have to go out of lemon.

29:54
and agree with you. It’s very controversial, exactly right. Well, speaking of family, I want to switch it up a little bit because I just find the dynamic with you and your sister leading the company and coming up with this in the first place is so awesome. a huge fan of family business, grew up in a family business, and it’s really special. You joked earlier, kind of joked, maybe serious, that you and your sister combined to make one brain.

30:22
Can you dive into that a little bit more? Like how do you kind of divide and conquer and like how did you figure out in the first place? I’m better at this, I’m better at this. That was a process just like it is with anyone. I will say, I think in our case, it’s a bit of a superpower because as a twin, you never know a moment on the planet in the womb or otherwise in which you are not having to work things out with this other human, right?

30:48
If you’re going to survive, you’re going to have to get along with this person and you have to find a way for the two of you to coexist or you won’t be here. And so I do think it’s a bit of a superpower because in business, you can’t just be openly honest and raw with someone as you would your sibling. So I can look at Shanda and say, that’s the worst idea I have ever heard. And it’s never going to work.

31:16
If I were in business, I could never say that to someone on my team. They would be devastated. Now that of course is going to engender a conversation in which we agree or disagree or agree to disagree or figure it out. We come to something in the middle and she does the same for me. And so I do think it’s for us always coming from a place of love and trust.

31:41
which is a big differentiator. A lot of people who have family businesses struggle to understand what the dynamics might be, the power plays, the politics, all of those things. But for the two of us, we really do know we have each other’s backs and we want to make sure we’re building something that is very much in honor of our family legacy, but also is allowing for families to enjoy.

32:07
the characters from our North Pole the way we did. And we hire for that. We hire for people who are family focused. We hire for really, really good people. And then we do everything that we can to retain them. So it’s a bit of a secret weapon combined with co-founder, co-CEO responsibilities. The perfect concoction there. What’s the way that you would say in the workplace, you and Shanda are like pretty different?

32:36
We usually get to the same conclusion, but we come at it from different directions. So Shanda is a highly creative thinker. The entire North Pole lives in her brain. So I always call it a beautiful mind. She’s like a walking snow globe. She is a walking snow globe. Yes. Instead of it being numbers, it’s magic and dust and all of the things at the North Pole. And so she does a lot of 30,000 foot big ideation.

33:06
type thinking. And that’s how she builds her stories. It’s all ethereal. And then she starts grabbing it out of the air to come up with ultimately an addition to the North Pole. She does it with products. She does it with stories. It’s your process. For me, I’m far more detail oriented. I come from a journalistic background. So I’d like to gather all of my facts. And then from that point on, I will keep digging until I get to something that

33:33
starts to make sense and then I turn that around. And so if you come from the top and then you come from the detail, we usually end up meeting in the middle. So that’s how we are extremely different in our approaches, but we usually get to roughly the same point. And what about outside of work? So that’s, that’s tricky for anybody in just

33:58
in the work world in general is figuring out that separation of like, all right, how do we have some sort of work life balance? I got to imagine when you’re working so closely with your twin, it’s got to be that much harder. How do you provide any sort of, know, separation or unplugging? Like how’s that dynamic work between you two? This is going to sound silly, but it is true. We often define moments in our life by hats, right? So friend hat. And I know a lot of people who do this, right? Like friend hat.

34:27
This is off the record. I’m calling you to vent uh sister hat. Oh, well, I’m giving you a buzz because as your sister, we’re planning mom’s birthday party and I need to arrange this and this and this and this. And can you help me business hat is, you want my input at this moment and I’m going to help you problem solve something and same, you know, vice versa. So we typically disclaim the hat and

34:54
I know what that means. Sometimes you just want me to listen as your sister and just sit there and nod. And I don’t need to problem solve it. I don’t need to tell you what to do. I just need to be your sister. And then other times you’re looking for a business partner to be weighing in and providing value. So we actually just say it. Sometimes I think people try to figure out some magic formula might just be better to come out with it. I love that. That’s like the, um, I was looking it up.

35:22
I couldn’t remember the name of the methodology. There’s a book in methodology about six thinking hats. if you’re in the world of entrepreneurship and coming up with business ideas of like, oh, why don’t we take a more analytical approach? Or why don’t we take a more just wild, like crazy, this idea won’t work approach. And I clearly don’t remember what the actual hats are. But from your standpoint, I like that you’re able to, it’s almost like a

35:47
a healthy way of compartmentalizing, like, all right, let’s focus on this now. Let’s focus on this now. This is our part of our dynamic together now. It might be different in an hour, but let’s knock this out. And so the teamwork speaks volumes. And I would argue the sisterhood speaks volumes too. Yeah. Yeah. I like the idea of that book, though. I’m have to look up Six Thinking Hats. Yeah. Yeah. And there’s a whole, yeah, it’s something remember learning about in business school.

36:14
As if I haven’t put you through the gauntlet enough, I want to wrap up real quick with some rapid fire Q &A. You ready for it? Let’s do it. I’m up for it. All right. Let’s get wild. I have one more twin question because I can’t resist. You hear about some kind of cool, unique, I don’t even know what to call it, idiosyncrasies or magic that twins can unleash where they know what the other one is thinking or knows where the other one is at a time. Do have any stories like that of just kind of like cool, unique twin things?

36:44
Obviously my experience as a twin, but I don’t think it’s that much different from your super best friend like the person that knows you better than anyone on the planet and they typically know what you’re thinking before you say it they typically You know you guys end up dressing the same and going out at the same night because you just have that wavelength I feel that’s the way it is with my twin sister. I don’t think it’s some

37:09
strange I wake up in the middle of the night and have this ability to read her mind. But I do think that when you have someone very close to you that you just know, you know what makes them tick, you know what annoys them, you know all the things. You ultimately end up with a bond with that person that allows you to have a little more insight into what they’re thinking you’re doing than other people would have. Exactly. If you’re both wearing the same thinking hat at that time, then it’s even better. So that’s perfect. All right. What?

37:38
Can you share a little bit of the background? I know you guys had a passion, maybe more for baseball cards when you were younger. Oh my gosh. We’ve been entrepreneurial our whole lives. There’s no doubt about it. We started probably 50 businesses along the way, but one of them was a baseball card trading company. And we would collect all of our baseball cards and we put them in the sleeves and then we would outline all the prices and then we would

38:08
go and trade them among our kiddie community as we were growing up. And we were kind of ruthless. mean, we were, I look back and we were moguls, man. We were taking the neighborhood down and the baseball card drain of business, but we loved it. It was fun. You know, it was something for us to do together. We didn’t have a lot of money. so baseball cards to get a pack of tops was not that expensive. And so

38:37
That was one of the businesses we started. At that time, what was the most desirable baseball card? I remember Jose Canseco was a big one during that time, and having his rookie card was a huge deal. Wade Boggs at one time was a very big, important one to have. Yeah, there were actually a lot of them, but I do remember uh Jose Canseco’s rookie card was a really, really big deal. And I have to ask, are you guys Braves fans? uh Yes. OK.

39:07
Yes, absolutely. My dad’s a huge Braves fan and actually my middle name is Aaron, which I don’t know if it’s officially or he just said it, but his favorite player of all time is Hank Aaron. So there’s a little Hank Aaron in my name. Oh, that is a really cool fact. No, I’m a huge Braves fan. I have been my whole life. I remember when you could buy a dollar ticket and sit anywhere because no one was even there at the games. But my grandparents were because again, they struck up the deal with TBS, TNT.

39:35
back in the day with Turner to start broadcasting them. so everywhere you would go, there were Braves fans and uh Dale Murphy was a favorite growing up, of course, he was legendary. And even now I love to sit down and watch my Braves play. All right, well, speaking of love, last one here. What is your most fond, fondest? I guess that works either way. Christmas memory that doesn’t involve an elf. This is something other than an elf in addition to.

40:05
So again, we didn’t have a lot of money growing up, but we did have this house that had a huge, very, very high ceiling. I don’t know how high it really was because I was young and to me it seemed like it just went on forever, but it was almost one of like the A-frame types where it just seemed really tall. And I remember my dad taking all of us out, think Clark Griswold, that was my dad.

40:33
Like my dad was Clark Griswold. It was like, we’re going to march out here and cut down pine trees, which we did. Now it’s a major shopping center area, but back then it was only pine trees. And he bought, he didn’t buy anything. He just goes and cuts down three pine trees in the wilderness. He straps them to the car. We take them back. We all lug them in. He ties them all up. mean, very, very Christmas vacation, Clark Griswold.

41:01
He ties them all together. And then there’s this moment where we clip the rope or the wire or whatever he had used. And of course it everywhere, just like in the movie. And I thought we had the greatest Christmas tree on the planet. We put tensile on it and the lights went on for days and it was just an awesome, awesome Christmas tree. And I thought everyone else was just poor because they didn’t have one made out of tied together pine trees.

41:31
I loved that thing and I wish I could have one like it again. It was amazing. Oh my God. Yeah, literally sounds like a Chevy Jays movie. oh yes. Krista, thank you so much. This has been awesome. Really appreciate sharing what’s led to oh all your magic, but also all the magic that you’ve created for so many families out there. So thanks again for coming on. And I know if anybody wants to learn more about your company or Elf on the Shelf, they can do so at lumistella.com.

42:00
L-U-M-I, Stella, as well as I know they can connect with you on LinkedIn as well. Is there any anywhere else that you want to shout out? People can learn more. Yeah, sure. You can go to KristaPitts.com if you want to learn more about where I’ll be or something I might be up to. Shanda Bell is my sister.

42:19
And that’s C-H-A-N-D-A, so chandelikechandelierbell.com. And then you said it lumastella.com, elfontheshoff.com, we’re all over social, hashtag elfontheshoff. So we’re not hard to find if you want some more information. Perfect. Last thing, final thoughts that could just be short and sweet, quote, align words to live by, whatever you want, send us home here. Be yourself, be authentic, have faith.

42:48
and live by the golden rule.

42:52
Krista and the elf told me to say this. Christa, was golden. Thank you so much, Christa, for sharing the Elf on the Self. It would help if I got the name right. The Elf on the Shelf story, The Lumistella Company story, all your amazing wild magical moments. And thank you, our listeners, for tuning into another episode. If you want to hear more wild stories like this one, make sure to subscribe to or follow Wild Business Growth on your favorite podcast app.

43:20
as well as on YouTube for the video version, subscribe on YouTube @MaxBranstetter. You can find anything else at MaxPodcasting.com. That’s about the podcast, the Podcasting to the Max newsletter, as well as yours truly. And until next time, Let your business and your elf Run Wild…Bring on the Bongos!!