Lessons

Lesson Info

Plan for the Next Craft Show

So you want to think about that planning for that next season so you're reviewing your records you're planning next season's applications your make sure you're on that shows mailing lists you know that you did like not every show puts their vendors onto their mailing list I do but and marking your calendar and then adjusting those goals so thinking about you know how how your goals were how they've worked out and maybe you need to react that maybe you're not you know you had wholesale in there you're not you realize you're not ready to wholesale you got really flustered when somebody was asking you about lying cheats and wholesale pricing and you know, asking what your minimums where you don't even know what minimums were you don't know what a line sheet waas so take that off your list and then you're going to replenish your stock and when you replenish that stock you are going to be thinking about you and me looking at those records and you're going to be thinking about what sold what...

do I need to make in what season one is my next show and using that feedback to to adjust what you're making you know if everybody picks up your picks up your thing that's your bracelet that's right and nobody's ever picking up the blue one don't don't make anybody don't make anymore who wass oh my gosh guys so I love this quote by little rogers she's, um uh, a rep for illustrators, and she wrote this book about kind of the business side of of art says you cannot make magic when you're rushed. If you're stressed, you're not allowing for that beautiful flow to happen. That is like everything we've been doing here, right? We've been trying not trying, we have been, you know, we've been learning to get to that place where we're prepared and we're organized, and we're not stressed out so that we can get that beautiful flo so that we can make that stuff that's totally rad that we're trying to sell you guys all you know, we know all of this how important craft shows are in building and sustaining your business, and we've got those clearly to find goals, and we have that action plan, so we're not overwhelmed by our goals anymore. They're attainable there one, two, three we've got them all down, and then we've got that confidence right to share our to share our work, because even if our products aren't quite where they should be right now, we know how to get them there, so we know how to get them to the point where we can go to the world and say, I made this thing it's totally awesome. You are my right customer. Come on in. We're not saying it like that, but we're seeing with our awesome booth were saying it with our helo were saying it with our storytelling sales, and you also want to have the you also have those tools and resource is too grow that sale to grow those sales and expand your business. So you guys got this, uh, I would love to open this up if anybody has any questions right now or if not, I would like to hear what your guy's biggest takeaways are, yeah, still always working on show's on pricing, so when I say pricing, I really mean, like, sometimes my prices are just too high for the show, like you were talking about any wrong show, wrong show, and I still I know you say research the show and things like that, but, um, I just I guess I'll reach out to my community, I just don't know how to do that. Maybe I'm blanking on it or so no, you don't know how to reach out to your community had a show so, yeah, reaching out your community, going to the shows where there's a whole craft show list in the in the bonus material that has I don't even know how many hundreds of shows on there, but it's it's pages so looking at those starting out by looking at their website, kind of weeding out that way looking, you want to be looking for shows with similar issues, products, but different, you know, I really look att who is going through these shows? That's, my personally that's my main judgment when I go to a show, when I'm looking at the pictures online, I'm looking, do I see my customer there? Would this person be in to be into my stuff? This person that's there? Um, and then when you go to the show, look at the prices go, there is a shopper, if you can't make it to the show and they have a vendor list online, go to those websites and see how much that stuff iss so try to look you make you make successor accessories on dh a little been some jewelry, too, but they're kind of like julius accessories, I would say so I would look at other jewelry accessory sellers at that show and look at their price range and see, you know, hopefully hopefully shows like, I don't know, I remember there was this one offender that applied to patrick several times, and I never let her in it didn't have anything to do with her stuff, it was her prices, and I just said, like you're you're not goingto, you know finally she was like, I need to know what's going on and I'm like honestly, your stuff is really beautiful it's it's not my particular case, but we do have some customers that you know our dumb would like your stuff and I'm like but the price range is just is just out of their range she was like, well, can I lower my I'll just lower my prices that and I was like, no, you need to go find you need to go find another show like let's talk together about where about where you're right show us you know where your customer is yeah, so I didn't do like that many shows, but I think what I learned is that some of my products are not doing well in some shows because I know like the people won't buy like more than one hundred li dollars necklaces or something. So I just leave those products at home and I just bring with me like the thing that I know will sell well so this's away also, so you'll have you feel that I mean it's it's a success yeah, and I used tio what I first started doing my shirts I had, you know, their screen putting an application that I had this like stuff around the callers and this part around the collar took the longest and so I just started doing like I still did that for wholesale but for at the shows I didn't do that part around the collar anymore so I was able to lower the price and have like a differentiation between the stuff people could buy goodbye in the stores you know and when people said like we used to have that stuff around the collar and I might get I totally do they're still online like you can shop for them there this is this stuff and this is you know, this is my craft show stuff so yeah great idea yeah bring a question from sonia online is it okay to contact a show producer to find out what the price point for similar products than ours to see if the show is right yeah I think that's totally fine I would try to do research on my own first so I would do you know what what I talked about with lisa which is you know, if they have a vendor list looking for similar I am looking it up if they don't like we don't have a vendor lists for our show so if somebody e mailed me and asked that that would be a question that I would definitely answer you know it would take me a bit of time but I don't mind taking the time for that because that's not information that they could find out so yeah does anybody want to share a passion? I would love to know like I don't know what I like your top thing that you learned my top thing is easy it's sign it I got so inspired you had so many slides about other booth and idea of a chalkboard paint and leather stamping and hanging I'm drilling all my tables or like I said before you're all gonna have some sort of thing contraption off um I can't wait I mean brooke, we need to have a hash a hashtag for this class hashtag craft show secrets okay, so it's hashtag craft show secret so you guys please everybody, everybody at home, this watching everybody that ends up watching you watching this course later at any point I will always be checking that hashtag craft shows secrets hashtag and I would love to see pictures of your booth how they have changed anything, it'll be like our yearbook yeah, you had a slide of a booth where someone had made this really beautiful cover and it was pink and it had scallops, you know they made that are no, they bought that. Yeah, I would love to know it's a cynthia morehouse, so I think you couldn't google her because it's more house jewelry, yeah, find out and if you can't find it, just email, okay, yeah anybody did anybody else learn anything brandon because I have so many products and I've been thinking about branding who am I really which products are more cohesive of my line and just stick with the ones that are coming and just go from there with the branding of who I am instead of everything yeah yeah so I and going to do a mood board I have never done that before but I really want teo I wantto aboard party way might have to do it over skype or something or google hangout getting a pinterest porter's oh yeah yeah yeah please please share your move cure your mood boards and you you ladies have my emails you gonna see mom your pictures of your food for it but I would love to see them hashtag too so we can also see I'm definitely thinking about how to make everything I love pig board because it's so modular and I could just like, change it and do all this kind of stuff to it but just still how to make it cleaner and a lot of the ideas about just the displays and the colors I think I can tie it in more so I think that's one of the and that's what I'm gonna use my mood board for to get my colors woods to match that kind of stuff so are you still doing like a booth booth and the truck so yes, allow the event, especially for this summer, they don't have space for fashion truck, so I'll be doing this set up, and unless someone of the questions I'll be asking producers is if they have more than one fashion truck, because what I've noticed is that if there's only one, people are kind of like, is it a food truck? Isn't what's going on in there? They don't really get it, but in the events where I've participated there's other fashion trucks in a row, we're kind of like, oh, I'm going to go in there and then I want to go in there and check it out, so that would be one of the questions, but I'm doing both, depending on what the event I know, I noticed that, so I noticed that that it's it's almost like isil isolated in a way, yeah, so so I mean, that's, one of the things that I was I was going to buy the boutique no matter where I was going to do it, so I didn't do that much. I mean, I've researched the actual vehicle, but like I'm gonna do it, I don't care, but I didn't think about that, so if anybody else out there is taking about it, just a yeah that's a yeah, that's a really important point, so if anybody is considering that you should be in an area that has a market to for fashion trucks because the guy who sold it to me was like nobody here even knows what a fashion truck is that's why I'm getting rid of a good point carol from online shares that she thinks the top thing that she learned was that if I could break down the task and all I can do it, I could do it better, less frightening, less overwhelming makes me so happy, you know it's so easy right to get overwhelmed by our businesses it's like when you have a goal like I want to be successful, or I want to make such and such amount of money, but when you break it down so much easier and I feel so good to check more things off, to my opinion, going home, having organized the pbs and everything and because there's a lot of things I miss and did not put down in my expenses and things like that so that I'm really grateful for how could anybody else? Well, everybody, I wanted to leave us with this bit of inspiration, I've talked about this a lot that no matter where you are, no matter where you're starting from never done a craft show, donna bunch of craft shows, whatever it is I love, I love the we're starting now and you guys have a ball, you have everything you need you I mean, you have a decade in sixteen hours of all of all of this information a decade of experience on both sides, so it's been great being with everybody and I am super excited for you guys to get out there and make it happen thank you, nicole and some closing thoughts for you on this workshop, carol says yes, it has been a ton of great information on anyone even thinking about participating in the show could use this thank you for making it available to all of us, anna says. This has been so inspiring I think it'll be right I think I will be ready for my first show in the fall so that little girl's pearl says I've been doing craft craft fairs for over sixteen years and I still found a class full of great information that I didn't know she did such an amazing job and it's well worth the money they dug teo and I guess the last thing is our what are some final thoughts that you want our online audience and to the audience that way that just makes me so happy, so happy to hear that? Um yeah, I don't know, I really I said this earlier, but we spend most of our waking hours working and we should be doing something that we love and I was just talking with angie last night about doing that thing that only you khun dio you know, like I feel like that's that's why we're here to do that thing that only that only weaken dio and you guys everybody that's started started your own business you're thinking of starting it you're thinking of doing a craft show you've done one you're already on the way on the way to that you're using that unique part of you to create this business awesome thank you, nicole really amazing job on this course and ending on nothing but positive note I have a last question from angela who says what types of organizing tools does nicole use for things that just scheduling financing, losing out newsletters? What her? What are you saying? Yes and I'm actually gonna come go ahead oh yeah quickbooks so for finances, I use quickbooks for personal finances I use mint for awhile, which is an app? Yeah people like I think it's free my phone was in here, I could look at all my things, but I love hours keeper, which is great for tracking your hours if you're if you're a freelancer and even if you're working for yourself and you, my assistant taught me about ours keeper, but even if you're interested in keeping track of your own hours you work for newsletters. I love male champ. They have a really great system, especially for a visual people, and they have a really, really great support that you, you know, hear back from right away. Thank you so much for tuning in crap. Show secrets. How to get in, make sales and grow your business will see you next time you're on creative life.