Stephen Taylor - Profile
It was in August 1993 that Stephen Taylor noticed a bowl of mints, offered to customers as a ‘thank you’ in a restaurant. His immediate thought was how unhygienic this was but then an idea dawned on him, what if the sweets were wrapped?
Stephen had a great idea and was full of ambition and desire but had no money and no track record but wanted to get his sweets produced. He called many sweet factories and finally his persuasion paid off when one of them took a leap of faith and agreed to produce the new “Thank you” mints and also agreed to give him 30 days credit. A short while later he was supplied with £2,500 worth of wrapped sweets which he called the ‘Thank You’ mint and sold them to local restaurants. He walked door to door selling them to London restaurants during the day and hotels at night. He knew he had promised that he would pay them in full within 30 days. He had to keep his word and worked fifteen hour days persuading anyone that would listen to buy his "Thank You " mints. This initial venture was slow, but Stephen persisted, not stopping until all the mints were sold and he had enough money to repay the factory that had shown such good faith in him.
Stephen’s determination paid off as he began receiving requests from companies asking for personalised sweets and chocolates. His first break came in 1994 from the airline British Airways who placed an order for Halloween themed chocolates to give away on board. Then other orders followed. The business grew quite rapidly and this led to the creation of Sweet Concepts that is now the UK's leading suppliers of promotional sweets, chocolates, fortune cookies and many more creative promotional confectionery products. www.sweetconcepts.com.
On many occasions customers began to ask for more diverse non edible products such as T shirts and pens as well as more unusual bespoke products. Having initially turned these requested away Stephen using his entrepreneurial skills began to think that there was another opportunity, this time to supply his existing customers with a more complete and diverse range of products to satisfy all their promotional requirements and so in 1998 Propaganda was born.
Propaganda continues to provide its customers with the widest and most innovative range of promotional products and creative services. Specialising in promotional and marketing merchandise, Propaganda’s reputation has been built on providing excellent customer care, proven by the Investors in People accreditation and ISO 9001 and 14001 certifications. Propaganda is also a leader in ethical and safe buying and has published a highly recommended free safe buying guide to ensure all its customers are fully aware of all legal requirements when buying promotional merchandise. See our Free Safety Buying Guide for more information.
