November’s A chat with Ashton Harrison, founder, president/CEO, Shades of Light

CS: What about the business appeals to you?
AH: The excitement of putting together a new book constantly and then finding out what worked and what didn’t. It’s like a painting. You put this whole creative thing together, and we have this wonderful team that does it, then you put it in the mail, hold your breath and wait for the sales to come in. Then you get the chance to analyze and say this new idea worked or that idea didn’t work. So you do more of the one and not of the other. Every time we mail, we try something new, whether it’s in layout, product, concept, pagination, we change something every time. What works we keep, and what doesn’t we change. We never print a catalog without a lot of changes.