Cartier Women's Initiative Awards

A big thanks to Obse at the Alliance Francaise for turning me on to the Cartier Women's Initiative Awards, a $20K award to women entrepreneurs in 6 regions.  She emailed me about on the 11th and the application was due by end of day on the 14th, but I decided to go for it.  Talk about frustrating!  The on-line application had a bug that prevented it from "saving" unless there was something in every single field.  I had to completely rewrite the application once - the second time I got smart and copy-pasted it into a word document.  Thank goodness, because I had to completely redo a second time!  Unfortunately I was in the middle of the executive summary and hadn't copied it into my document yet, so I ended up writing it 3 times!  An email came out around 3:00 in the afternoon letting us know there was this little problem.  A bit late.  Still, I do believe that my second effort was better than my first.  Not sure about the third summary...

I could use the $20K but I think the odds are slim that I will be a finalist much less an award recipient, but I don't care so much about that.  What was great about the process was that I really had to think through where I was, after 2 years, with my business and where I wanted to go with it.  And I determined the following:

• etsy.com was a good way to start selling right away, and I made some money.  However, it is a long way from the original vision and I think, all things considered, that I need to get back to it.  I'll still continue to sell a few things on etsy but that's going to take a back-of-the-bus back seat to my wholesale efforts, which have flagged.
• I'm going to focus on 3 products:  sleeves (laptop/iPad/ereader), reusable sandwich bags, and wine bottle gift bags.  I think these have the best wholesale potential.
• I've got to simplify.  No more straps - too time-consuming and therefore costly.  No attempts to be "artistic."  That wasn't part of the original vision, which was geared more toward colorful and cheap.  And I'm sorry, but let's face it, I am not artistic.  I do, however, have a good eye for color so I should capitalize on that and leave artistry to the crafty people on etsy.  I've always thought of myself as a more of a manufacturer than a crafter.  Maybe do a project once in awhile for fun, but mostly need to figure out how we can churn out products that are one-of-a-kind, colorful, and functional, but simple and inexpensive.
• Really need to nail down the standardization of sizes and design and get patterns made.
• Absolutely have to step up my sales efforts.  I realized that I need 30-70 wholesale orders at the minimum level to break even this year.  That's a lot of orders! 

Still Looking for My Market....

Looking back at 2010 - my first full year in business - to help prepare and plan 2011, I'm still a bit stymied as to what and where my real market is.  When Dom and I put the original business plan together we were convinced that college students would swarm all over these bags.  Of course, that's when we thought we could keep the cost to $20, which isn't possible.  Also, we forgot that we had to go through the purchasing staff first.  And unfortunately, my first 3 major wholesale orders were made before I'd switched from the big bubble wrap to the tougher stuff, so the quality wasn't where it should have been.  Hence the return, below, and the disappointing sales at Macon State.  On the other hand, Abraham Baldwin made a repeat order last year.

My other retail stores didn't work out.  Re-inspiration gave my bags back after only 2 months, saying that they were "too nice," i.e., didn't look as though they were made from recycled materials.  Uh, that was kind of my goal.  And The Gift Emporium, well, not sure how well it's doing overall - I know that at last look they'd only sold one of my items, a card case.  And the web site is a mess.  My apologies if you see this, but it's true.

Then there was the farmers market.  Hmmm.  Sharing a booth with mumuboutique made the registration fee $137.50, and I sold over $600 worth of stuff.  Good return on the financial investment, but what about my time?  4 hours of market, plus 45 minutes commute each way, every week for 8 months.  Not even going to figure out the hourly rate, that would be way too depressing.  Still, it was $600 that I wouldn't have otherwise made and got the word out that much more.

And finally, of course, there's etsy.  I had a pretty decent year on etsy, not brilliant, but the numbers are definitely going in the right direction.  And I made the contact with Matt Dilling of Lite Brite Neon which led to the Tiffany project which could lead...who knows?  I don't spend that much time on etsy and I'd have to take the photographs anyway for my catalog, so there's an acceptable return there.  Zibbet has been a total bust so far, and Zecosi wants nearly 10% commission!

So what does all this mean for 2011?  Well, I'm not giving up on the colleges, but I do need a more organized approach to them and better follow up.  To that end, I've scheduled 4 MailChimp campaigns to send out my catalog at strategic moments - 2 months before Earth Day, early summer for back-to-school, September for Christmas, and early December for 2nd semester.

Etsy will definitely continue.  As I post more items and become better known, I expect this venue to grow.  Especially if I can keep ahead of the holiday calendar.  That's been a big challenge for me, to plan 2-3 months in advance of a major  holiday and make sure I've got some relevant items to showcase.  Plus I'm going to do 4 retail MailChimp campaigns with features, sales, coupons, etc., and see what happens.

Haven't given up on the retail stores, either, but maybe it makes sense to focus on nicer stores and not just "green" ones.  I've started making card and passport cases from the store of silks and linens that I have, and I think some higher-end gift stores might be interested.  I'm going to contact one later today, and I've been in touch with Whole Foods for my sandwich bags and will see one of the buyers next week.  Overall, though, I need to be more aggressive in researching good venues.

And I need to decide soon if I want to do another farmers market, especially if I want to be at a good one like Norcross or Peachtree Rd.  I think Muriel would like to do it again, although commuting might be a challenge for her.  The personal contact with customers was nice.  We'll have to solve the tent problem (namely, we don't have one).

I don't see myself doing craft fairs - I hate craft fairs.  Ironic, isn't it?

Any suggestions?