Leezer Corporation

Christian fundraising just became a heck of a lot easier this past Monday when we launched a fully redesigned website. The new site features rich content, a dynamic shopping cart, and the ability for group leaders to immediately download our fundraiser kit in an electronic version or request to have printed materials mailed to them. Additionally, the improved online ordering experience will allow the group leaders to input their t-shirt orders and pay for them immediately. By eliminating the manual processing of orders by Ministry Fundraiser representatives, we expect to decrease the number of errors per order and decrease the fulfillment and shipping timeline for each order.

The next planned improvements to the site will be made to reduce the overall work imposed on each group leader. Currently, each fundraising group is given a username and password with which all of their shirts can be ordered. We are working to allow the group leaders to invite their group members to sign on with unique usernames that are associated to their group. Once logged on, the group members will be able to input the orders they have received. A quick check by the group leader to ensure that all data is accurate will be all that is needed in the future.

Nothing screams fun for an entrepreneur like accounting! Ok, maybe cleaning the toilets in the bathroom beats accounting, but not much else.

Accounting for an entrepreneur is generally not a natural ability. Unfortunately, to succeed in any business, some understanding of accounting, finance, and bookkeeping is required. Knowing and understanding this, we have created EntrepreneurAccounting.com, the definitive resource guide for entrepreneurs trying to master the exact knowledge needed in the field of accounting. Whether you need a quick terminology refresher, a whole book dedicated to helping you through your numbers, or accounting software, this is the place to start.

We hope you find the information presented at EntrepreneurAccounting.com useful as you wage war against your General Ledger, Chart of Accounts, Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss (Income) Statement, or Statement of Cash Flows.

As I frequent several entrepreneur and business owner websites, I've come to find that the business world to a great degree feels that it is separate from the principles established by God. In a small effort to bring biblically sound decision making back to the business community, we have created ChristianStartups.com - Where Business Becomes Biblical. This Christian business forum provides an opportunity to share real-world success stories of how God is at the center of business. Whether you are a leader in a small business, home based business, mammoth sized corporation, or anything in between, we hope that you can find helpful information to further use your organization to fulfill the will of our Lord.

In Christ,
Jon Leezer

While we're still working to complete ChristianApparelOutlet.com, we have been developing and documenting the processes at MinistryFundraisers.com for order fulfillment. We are formally conducting an audit of our processes to provide us with a better foundation to further improve the way we do business. Fortunately, we have a very solid foundation of values and virtues in place through our Savior, Jesus Christ. However, we recognize that without well developed processes to lead each individual through their responsibilities, we cannot continue to grow into a leading provider of Christian apparel. At the same time, though, our processes will be designed in a way which allows each employee the ability to make on-the-spot decisions that are necessary to accomplish our goal spreading our Lord's Word, whether it is through individual and personal contact with customers, the ability to stop production if our quality standards are not met on even one garment, or simple extending assistance to our employees, customers, suppliers, fellow Christians, and non-believers in time of need.

Ok. That is all I'm offering as a welcome into the new year. I'm sure that you've been overwhelmed with welcomes into the new year, and besides, I'm already 18 days late with it. So that's all I've got for you on that subject.

However, on to other topics I must go...

Over at Christian Apparel Outlet, we've finally managed to get a nice process in place for publishing the various shirts that we have available. The site is coming together nicely. Drupal has turned out to be an excellent CMS for that purpose. Once we have the site fully up and running, we believe it will relatively painless to transfer the content over to our other sites, MinistryFundraisers.com and WholesaleChristianShirts.com. However, each of those sites will require some customization before going live. Specifically, we will be requiring that all users create accounts with those sites. We've chosen not to go that route at CAO. At CAO, although we expect some customers will be repeat customers, many will not. Personally, I do not like having to sign up for another account just to purchase something. The expectation for repeat customers at our wholesale and fundraiser sites, though, is substantially higher. We believe that by requiring accounts, we will be able to better provide services and value to those customers.

We're intending on making life as simple as possible for each of our customers. If that requires an account, then we'll require an account. Otherwise, why make people remember yet another username and password.

As many of our customers in our Apparel division have found out, Leezer Corporation purchased all of the apparel-related assets that comprise MinistryFundraisers.com and WholesaleChristianShirts.com, including the manufacturing operation that supports those sites. This acquisition occurred this past July. Since that time, we've been working diligently to identify the areas that will provide the most benefit to our customers and then taking action on those decisions.

The first area we are addressing is that of the blurred purpose of the various operations. Both the fundraising and wholesale operations have retail customers which produce a substantial stream of revenue. Unfortunately, these retail customers are not the primary focus of either group, but instead are ancillary. Our new subsidiary, which is still under development, Christian Apparel Outlet Inc. is tasked with serving the retail market. By allowing each of the three companies to focus on their very distinct markets, we believe our quality of service will rise.

With the creation of the new entity, we are undertaking the development of a new website to provide it support. ChristianApparelOutlet.com is being developed using the Drupal Content Management System (CMS). The hosting service we utilize for MinistryFundraisers.com and WholesaleChristianShirts.com do not offer an attractive option to use Drupal. So, out we were, shopping for a new provider. Through the fine people at the Drupal forums, we located MediaTemple.net. Their reviews sounded excellent, so we signed a deal with them and began development. Within the first few days, our site was completely inaccessible! The amazing thing, though, was that their concern for fixing the situation (as it was not just our site, but a slew of sites hosted with them) was outstanding. They clearly communicated what issues were involved, what the causes were, and what their engineers were doing to solve the situation. Within 48 hours, the site was completely functional again. While this was a substantial amount of downtime to incur, their efforts to fix the problem impressed us. Previous providers have left us with few options but to undertake the hassle of transferring the sites to another provider. MediaTemple.com, though, will most likely be our primary provider for many years to come.

On that note, I'd also like to briefly mention that once development is finished (is it ever really finished?) we will be shifting our focus to the wholesale website. Both the wholesale and fundraising sites need a complete makeover, but we have some big plans for the fundraising site. That being said, we'd like to first tackle the obstacles at WholesaleChristianShirts.com (home of the newly named company, WC Apparel Company). Once complete, we will be on to the fundraising site. Our expected timelines for completion are end of November for the wholesale site and end of January for the fundraiser site.

If you have any questions about anything I've mentioned here, please contact me directly. This is a venue for me to convey our intentions and direction, but also serves to invoke thought from our customers, employees, competitors, and others.

Have an excellent day!

In Christ,
Jon Leezer

President & CEO
Leezer Corporation