We had the good fortune of connecting with Parker Slavin and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Parker, what role has risk played in your life or career?
I believe that taking risks is very important in order to achieve success, but I do think the risks themselves need to be very well thought out and calculated. If the risks are not well thought out and calculated, it’s essentially gambling, and I don’t believe that is the right or safest path.

When my uncle passed away and I had to decide whether I was going to quit my job immediately and try my hand at taking over his business/company, StationeryXpress.com, I had to weigh the pros and cons. Of course, on one hand, I would instantly lose my job and guaranteed salary, putting my livelihood at risk. On the other hand, I would possibly have a company of my own that could continue to grow in revenue/profits. I knew that if I stayed with my current job, my uncle’s business would just slowly die as it didn’t have anyone running it, so even if I failed and wasn’t able to keep it running, the result would have ultimately been the same. I went into this experience and calculated risk with the mindset of “I will do my best and see what happens, and worst case scenario, I’ll learn something and might have to look for a new job”. It did take a few years of very hard work to grow the company into what it is today, but I was able to more than 5x my salary of the job I originally quit. My wife was able to quit her job and now we both run the company together and it has completely changed our lives for the better. It was 100% worth the risk!

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
The name of my business is called StationeryXpress, or StationeryXpress.com. StationeryXpress Offers High-Quality Personalized Stationery, Custom Napkins & Embossed Stationery. We specialize in Custom Logo Stationery, Gifts & More for hundreds of companies who rely on StationeryXpress for their stationery needs. Established in 1993 by my Uncle David Slavin, we’ve been a top stationery producer in the United States for over 30 years!

What truly sets us apart, we believe, is that we are extremely honest and upfront with our customers and have incredibly high-quality products as our default. There is no ‘low quality’ option. I believe there are too many companies today that will simply say or do anything just to get the sale, but that only goes so far and leads to customer dissatisfaction or disloyalty. We try our best to make the experience as easy as possible for our customers while providing excellent products and excellent customer service. We truly treat each one of our amazing customers like family whenever they reach out for assistance or have any questions.

Every customer service representative here at StationeryXpress is like family, or literally is family, and we treat our customers the same. If a customer asks if we can have 1000 napkins delivered in 2 days, we will be honest and say that we don’t think that’s possible, as we might need more time for production, or it might take FedEx/UPS longer than that to make the delivery. We won’t simply say what the customer wants to hear, and hope for best since we’ve “convinced them to order”. We constantly hear things like “Thank you for your honesty”, or “Thank you for being so upfront”, as we believe that is what sets us apart and is the right thing to do. We’ve also taken many steps to ensure the quality of everything we offer is extremely high, that way our customers don’t have to worry about “choosing the right thing”, which is a big deal when there are 20 types of paper stock to choose from and you don’t know the difference between them. For example, instead of offering 20 types of paper stock to choose from, ranging from low quality to the best there is, we have only 1 type of paper stock for all of our items, and it’s the best quality possible. This takes the decision overload away from our customers, makes it easier to order, and ensures our customers are happy as they are always receiving an excellent, high-quality product.

Getting to where we are today definitely was not easy, but it takes time, patience, and a ‘never-give-up’ attitude. You have to just ‘keep on pushing on’ as they say, and constantly keep striving to improve, and over time, you build up an amazing loyal customer base and we have earned thousands of incredible reviews that help other shoppers know we are a stationery and gift resource they can trust and depend on here at StationeryXpress.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I am of course biased since I have lived in San Diego my entire life, but I absolutely love this city and think it’s one of the best places to visit or live in the world! Here are a few of my favorite places and things to do in San Diego:

– Del Mar Beach (15th street grass area, great for just sitting/picnics/walking around) – Head to Board & Brew either before or after for some incredible sandwiches that you can eat there or bring down to the beach. Walking distance!

– Torrey Pines State Beach hike – an amazing, easy/beginner hike with incredible views that lead you to a gorgeous beach.

– La Jolla cove – Watch the seals, go for a stroll in the park, get some amazing gelato at Babboi, and some amazing Mexican food at The Taco Stand.

– La Jolla Shores Beach – Great beach walk along the coast with amazing scenery and great restaurants nearby

– Mission Beach – Sunset cliffs – amazing scenic views, incredible sunsets. Excellent burgers at Hodad’s Ocean Beach and great tacos and view on the upper deck of South Beach Bar & Grille

– San Diego Zoo and Safari Park

– Seaworld

– Balboa Park – Just walking around and hanging out, or visiting the many amazing museums.

– USS Midway Museum downtown, incredible!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Other than my Uncle David Slavin, who originally started StationeryXpress 1993 and did a fantastic job running it and deserves the credit for this vision, my wife, Shyla Slavin, deserves so much credit and thanks for the effort, support and love that she has put into this business, right by my side every step of the way.

Shyla studied business marketing at San Diego State University and was working at a reputable marketing company here in San Diego when the time came to hire an employee since I was drowning in work. (Great problem!) We were engaged at the time, and we both agreed that it just made more sense for her to quit her job and come on board full-time as the 2nd employee of StationeryXpress.com.

Shyla and I worked on redoing the website and optimized every step of the customer experience and journey to make ordering Personalized Stationery & Gifts online as easy as possible at StationeryXpress.com. Shyla built a custom-made preview app that is now on our website that allows our customers to instantly view previews as they type in their name, choose a font, color, etc to make the personalization process easier than ever. She has made countless improvements to StationeryXpress and has poured her heart and soul into this business for our amazing customers.

Shyla also started an incredible company of her own now called V-Luxe (MyVluxe.com) that helps women struggling with BV, yeast Infections, and UTIs. V-Luxe uses high-quality and specially formulated probiotics and supplements to provide remedies for women dealing with recurring BV (Bacterial Vaginosis), Yeast Infections, & UTIs (Urinary Tract Infections). She truly wants to help as many people as possible and I absolutely want to dedicate my shoutout to her.

Website: https://www.stationeryxpress.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stationeryxpress/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stationeryxpress

Twitter: https://twitter.com/stationeryxpres

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StationeryXpresscom-291214937613667/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@stationeryxpress

Other: https://www.pinterest.com/Stationeryxpress/ My wife’s incredible company, V-Luxe: https://myvluxe.com/

Image Credits
StationeryXpress

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