It was a Thursday at 12:15 when this email landed in my inbox.
FROM: [email protected]
RE: New Message for TealHaus Strategies
I wanted to reach out because my fiancé and I own the domain tealhaus.com, which I believe is connected to your brand and would like to transfer it to you at no cost.
The name has a special meaning for us; we combined our last names—Veal and Tillery—into “Teal,” envisioning it as one house, hence “TealHaus.”
We are graphic and animation designers with over a decade of experience, and we recently rebranded to Veal Creative Studio, LLC. We’re passionate about collaborating with innovative brands like yours, and we think there might be some great opportunities for us to explore together.
I’d be happy to discuss transferring the domain to you, and we can also touch on potential ways we could work together in the future.
If this piques your interest, let’s find a time to connect. I’m looking forward to the possibility of collaborating!
I stared at this for a good three minutes. Too good to be true.
[Forward to [email protected] and [email protected].]
Do y’all think this is legit?
FROM: [email protected]
Re: New Message from TealHaus Strategies
I actually really do!!
FROM: [email protected]
Re: New Message from TealHaus Strategies
Hmm….I am skeptical. I tried to Google the company (Veal Creative Studio, LLC). I am not really finding anything. This is very interesting though. Do you think it is real, Lindsay?
I wrote Julia back.
Thank you for reaching out. I’ll be honest … I read this and immediately thought, “Is this real?” But you’ve got my curiosity, so I’d love to learn more. Would you like to schedule a Google Meet?
And she responded.
Thank you so much for your message – I totally get that! I promise I’m a real person and actually used to live in Augusta, GA not far from Greenville. I’d love to chat more and answer any questions you have.
So we scheduled a Google Meet, and as it turns out, they’re a real design firm. We didn’t find them through Google because they’re brand new and don’t have a website. But wonderful Julia and her husband did, in fact, want to hand us the domain for free. This was a VERY happy surprise, as we had attempted to purchase the domain years ago through a GoDaddy broker who had informed us the cost would be at least $10,000. And here was this wonderful couple who had not only found us on their own but also had offered the domain to us for free.
Kate and I kept asking ourselves, “Why are they being so nice?”
Fast-forward a week, and we were informed that TealHaus would be awarded the Better Business Bureau’s Torch Award for Ethics, which, honestly, initially struck us as funny. “We get an award for doing the right thing? We didn’t realize there was a choice!”
In reality, though, every day, we are faced with the choice to be selfish or generous, proud or humble, annoyed or empathetic, dishonest or ethical. The wonderful couple at Veal Creative Studio chose to be generous, and we are forever indebted for their kindness. And at TealHaus, we instinctively choose to do right by our clients. It’s the only way we know how to do business. In a world where sometimes there feels to be so much wrong, it’s good to know there are a few nice people still out there.
