WFM order!

Someone from WFM actually called me to inquire about reusable sandwich bags.  Oddly, it was not one of the people that my Mail Chimp campaign went to!  Apparently the manager, I mean team leader, saw my bags at another store and, since his customers had been asking for them, called me to find out more.  Says he's going to order 3 cases!  Of course, it hasn't happened yet - I know how busy these people get so I'm resigned to having to follow up.  But it's exciting to know that I haven't entirely missed the back-to-school season.

Mail Chimp campaign for sandwich bags

Launched a Mail Chimp campaign today targeted at the southern region WFM vendors, hoping to get at least a couple of orders for back-to-school and not miss the season entirely.  Although how I'll actually fill the orders is another matter, with Natapoc coming up and very busy B&B schedule in August.  Maybe I'll finally get to hire that employee; wouldn't that be great. 

Next step is to contact my laptop sleeve customers and see about new orders.  And I need to get more samples to my sales rep.  First thing Monday, I promise!

More Whole Foods Woes

Why oh why is Whole Foods so hard to work with???

Just when I thought I'd licked the systems issue, it now turns out that I'm not "set up electronically" so buyers still can't order through IRMA even though all my information is there.  Once again, I have contacted Julie to resolve the issue and I hope she can do it soon.

I'm frustrated and discouraged, but persistent.  I've invested way too much time and energy to give up now.  Plus I'm getting very positive responses from the stores!

My first WFM order - thank you, Chapel  Hill!

I think I should have sent my UPC labels and I forgot to do that (no wonder, since it's been over a year-and-a-half since I got the information about that).  I'll need to call Rebekka on Monday to see what to do about that.

Whole Foods

Followed up today with ALL the WFMs in the southeast region.  As usual, had a pretty hard time getting hold of people, especially in Atlanta.  Many of the ones I did get a hold of hadn't received (read:  seen/read) my email of last week.  But most were receptive to the idea so I resent a bunch of emails and catalogs.  Two of them said they wanted to place an order although I've received nothing so far.

Almost done embroidering the 30 custom patches; tomorrow I should be able to cut, trim, and ship them, right on schedule.

Didn't do anything on the work room organization today.

Persistence pays!

One and a half years after getting the green light from Whole Foods' southern region, I'm finally fully in their systems and made my first sale yesterday!  Thank you, Rebekka from  Chapel Hill!

Got the contact list from Vince so was able to contact everyone by email; I think that's their preferred means of communication, they're all so busy and even buyers and team leaders are on the floor with customers.  I didn't expect any sales at this point; I was going for meetings with the Atlanta stores and samples to the rest.  What a great surprise it was to receive a sales order the very same day!

Needless to say, these are going to be the best sandwich bags I've ever made.

Just goes to show, persistence really does pay off.  So many times I just wanted to let it go; I couldn't stand the thought of contacting the systems people one more time; attempting to contact the stores one more time only to be told, again, that I wasn't in the system...This is validation and motivation to keep pushing.

Repeat Wine Bag Order

It's always gratifying to get a second (or more) order from a customer.  Had one yesterday from my friend Curt at Matter of Factors in Savannah.  I contacted him about our holiday designs; he wasn't interested in those but he did order another dozen of the custom bags we created together last May.

Teddy Bear patch cont.

Got the embroidery files today and a pdf of what it should look like.  Looks great to me - not sure if the writing is what the client wants, though.

Couldn't find the brown and ivory embroidery thread locally so am ordering this morning from Atlanta Thread & Supply.  Hopefully it will arrive tomorrow and I can get started on these!

Teddy Bear patch

Got the order over the weekend for 150 teddy bear patches somehow connected to the Girl Scouts.  Shown is the picture that was sent to me for digitizing; it'll be interesting to see how it compares to the final patch (colors, text font will be different).  It's the first time I've sent them hand-drawn artwork.

I decided to use QDigitizing.com again even though I was very unhappy with their timeliness on the American University project.  Fact is, they do great work at the best price I've been able to find.  This is a pretty simple design and timeliness is slightly less of an issue so I'm going with the devil I know.

Love these custom projects!

Two Down, One to Go

Got my two orders done and out the door.  Thanks again, Evergreen State College and Snoozy's Bookstore - hope you like them!  Now starting to work on a replacement order for Western Washington University.  Since I won't actually get paid for these I'm feeling slightly less motivated, but I've decided to make them now and list them on etsy to see if I can get more money for them and also introduce my new design - whatever sells I'll replace, whatever doesn't sell by early September, I'll send on to WWU.

I'm liking my new design very much and am quite pleased with my first two orders.  I need more preparation of my materials, especially lining and padding, but otherwise the process seems to be pretty fast.  The padding is posing some problems - sometimes the tablet/netbook sleeves are a bit snug, and I have issues ensuring that all the layers are sewn together.  Nevertheless, I think this process is going to work well and be profitable.

One of my favorites

Had an interesting convo from American University about 200-300 passport covers.  They're looking for "green" covers that are, indeed, green, embroidered with a globe or their own logo.  I have the feeling that they sent the same message out to several etsians - which would be intelligent - so who knows if I've got a shot at this or not.  Honestly, it would be a kind of boring project but nicely lucrative and what a great school to have as a customer.

Globe proposal

The Downside of Selling

You have to produce what you sell!  I now have two orders - thank you Evergreen State College and Snoozys Bookstore!! - totaling 54 sleeves that I have to make.  Mrs. Shannon, where are you when I need you?

Calling is on hold until next week when I'm in Oberlin.  I gotta get sewing!

Moving on...to sandwich bags and laptopwraps

Not that I'm giving up entirely the wine store chase, but I'm quickly approaching back-to-school buying time and I don't want to miss it.  Although I'm pleased with the results of my wine bag campaign, it's clear that the big season for them is around the holidays, i.e., October.  So I'm going to wrap up the calls I've already started, then put wine stores on the back burner for awhile.

Have already started marketing the sandwich bags today, with several calls/emails to local health food stores including Sevananda and the Savannah Food Co-op.  And in breaking news, WFM finally responded to my sixth email - not that I have any news but at least JP's boss and boss's boss are requesting an update from him.  Be nice to see some movement there so I can re-contact the Atlanta stores and branch out to the rest of the region.

etsy Wholesale Customer

Sometimes third time is the charm.  For the third time since opening my etsy store, I've been contacted by someone opening their own on-line store who wanted to stock my products.  This time, however, she's actually ordered a number of items and I just created the listing.  We'll see if she follows through and purchases them.

Be nice if etsy turned into something more than an occasional surprise.

First order?

If it works out I'll post her link.

 

Time to Focus on LapTopWraps

New design LapTopWrap

I don't want to lose the wine bag momentum but the time for back-to-school ordering is coming up fast.  My experience is that bookstores finish up the semester in May, do inventory in June, and are ready to gear up for the fall semester by early July.  My catalog is pretty much done, so now to prepare a MailChimp campaign with my video (yet to be finished).  However, I think I'll continue primarily with my current strategy of cold calling, it seems to be the most effective and I'm dreading it less all the time.  I feel that with my new processes, resulting in lower pricing, selling to bookstores this year will be easier than ever.  And I'm not going to focus on Georgia, although I won't ignore it, either, but rather target schools that are into sustainability.  Too many times I've heard from GA bookstore managers, "Our students don't really care about environmental products..."  Again, though, with the price point I've been able to achieve, even people who aren't into eco should be interested in the sleeves.

Uncommon Goods

Finished up South Carolina cold calls today, still have some follow-up to do.  Only found 29 stores on google with several of those being Total and Winestyles, so actual number called is only 21.  Of those, only 4 have asked for photos so far but 6 are still outstanding so too soon to tell how interested SC is in general.

In researching more stores, I ran across a site called Uncommon Goods.  It's an online store that specializes in artistic/unusual products with some emphasis on handmade and eco.  Sounded right up my alley so I made an application for the wine bags.  However, I think I should do the same for my other products, which either have no competitors or just a few on the site.  Of course, I never heard of this site before today so I have no idea how much traffic it actually gets.  Still, doesn't hurt to submit them.  It's noon, so not a good time to call wine stores.

Three in-store calls this afternoon, assuming everyone cooperates (David, this means you.)

Marketing Plan

I think I'm finally understanding how to use the marketing plan I got from the Get Clients Now workshop I attended several months ago.  Although there are peripheral marketing activities that I can and should engage in - networking, for example - the number one thing I need to do is make phone calls.  It's paying off beautifully for my wine bottle bags and there's no reason to think it won't work as well for the other products.

So now my first 3 marketing activities are all around calling - first, follow up all outstanding calls; second, make 10 new cold calls; and third, research new stores to call the following day.  Since they're on a list, it's pretty certain I'll do them.

Of course, I really need to up my cold calls.  I started with 5/day, then 6, now 10.  But I just did 10 calls and it only took 13 minutes, not really enough time.  It's getting toward noon now which tends to be busy for wine stores, but I need to make a bunch of afternoon follow up calls so I'll tack on another 10 cold calls at that time.

Right now, however, I need to fill my order from Mac's Beer & Wine, received yesterday.  I think that makes 7 stores now!

Two Wholesale Orders in One Day!

I hope there's a time when I look back on this post and laugh.  Two orders?  How about 200?  But for now, I'm pretty jazzed about it and it is absolutely a first.  Thanks very much to my friends Hunter and Curt, in Cumming and Savannah, respectively.

If only I could now turn these orders over to my "people" who would then make the bags, tag them, pack them, and ship them.  The problem with the wine bags is that they're easy but tedious.  At least Curt's is a custom order, so it's a little bit unusual.

I'm proud of myself for following up immediately on 2 leads that Hunter gave me in nearby towns.  My instinct was simply to drive home and call, sometime, from there.  The ecologist in me, however, was somewhat stunned by driving 1-1/2 hours (roundtrip) for a 10 minute meeting, so I called the leads on the off-chance that I could schedule meetings with them while I was in the area.

The one in Cumming was interested but not until closer to holiday time - I get a lot of that.  But the one in Dawsonville agreed to see me.  He didn't seem entirely thrilled so I'm not feeling very confident of a sale, but at least I made the contact.  And who knows?  I've certainly been wrong about who my potential customers are before.

Don't Prejudge Your Customer!

Just had an order for 2 dozen wine bottle bags from someone I thought I didn't have a prayer of selling any to.  Why?  No reason, other than the sound of her voice the first time I called put me off.  Probably she had 5 customers around her and 3 salespeople clamoring for her attention, but on my end of the line all I heard was a brusque, almost harsh voice with a strong southern accent.  After 4 years in Atlanta you'd think I'd be well past that Yankee knee-jerk (or better, leave off "knee") reaction that equates s'uthe'n with stupid.  Subsequent conversations showed that she was perfectly nice and then she gave me an order.  Who's the stupid one?  Anyway, please forgive me, Roc, and thank you!

Sales Efforts Paying Off

Hmm, I guess I got busy...I'll blame it on the trip to Cuba, which was fabulous.

Things are moving more or less according to plan.  There's been progress on the Whole Foods front - my vendor application was approved!  Now I just need to be put into their system.  It's been 2 weeks and it seems I'm not in yet; 2 follow-up emails have had no visible effect.  Very frustrating.

From Our Cave to Yours

In the meantime, I'm concentrating on my wine bottle bags.  Have sold to 3 wine stores now, plus Hafner, with interest from others.  I'm steeling myself to make 5 cold calls a day; not overly ambitious, I admit, but pretty good for me.  Getting a lot of requests for info/photos that I hope will turn into orders.  Learned, however, that this is the slow season for wine sellers.  I guess that makes sense.  Will have more interest closer toward the holidays.

Had a good chat with Michael at Western Washington University, let him know what I was up to with respect to the new laptop sleeve design.  He was encouraging, said there was a lot of interest in the bags but the price seemed to discourage them (he's sold about half of what he bought).  They should like the new price point a lot better.

Status Update

With a lot of my focus on Oberlin and the house recently, I haven't kept up with the blog.  So, current status:

1.  Sandwich bags - "Dropped by" the Sandy Springs Whole Foods today to see what was going on with my vendor app.  Was able to talk face-to-face with Tatjana, who said that the regional grocery coordinator now had the application in hand; her part is finished.  It's confusing because Mary in the Duluth store said that they had the authority to add certain items themselves, and that's the impression I had from Susan as well, who declined to take these on at the regional level.  Anyway, I will soon have a contact name and email and can follow up with him directly.

2.  Wine bags - Had a nice order from Hafner based on the listing I sent him showcasing his wine.  Also had a retail order today from one of my networking colleagues.  Nevertheless, I think I need to review the construction process to see if I can't get the time down a bit; I had a lot of pushback on the price point.  Then I need to continue to expand the sales effort.  Cook's Warehouse/Sherlock's (I think that was the name) was suggested this morning.

3.  Sleeves - I like the streamlined design and think the price can't be beat.  Just need to have a few more samples and rework my catalog.

These are all projects for next week as I'm leaving for Cuba tomorrow, returning next Wednesday evening.  And they all take a back seat to cleaning up my workroom which is an absolute disaster.  (Not to mention the guest bedroom next door - thank you, Sunny.)

Giving Away the Store

Delivered my first 2 wine bag wholesale orders yesterday and already there are issues.  Had a call from one store that the buyer hadn't realized that the plain and embroidered bags were NOT the same price, so she was returning 5 of the 12 bags she ordered.

I decided not to tell her that ordering less than the minimum put her at the retail price for all the bags, although that was the case.  And I decided not to let my pride accept the return.  Instead, I let her have all 12 bags at the same price.

Why?  For one thing, a quick calculation indicated that 5x4.50 was almost certainly more than 0x7.50.  But that's not really the reason.  Mainly it's because I want to get my bags into stores; and I believed she made a mistake,i.e., wasn't just trying to get something for nothing.

Again, it comes down to what kind of business I want to have.  Not one where I give away the store; but there has to be some give and take, especially now when I'm still refining the construction process and experimenting with pricing.  And it's also fun to be able to make a customer-pleasing decision that will hopefully prove to be a win-win.

Now the question is, do I give my other customer the same deal?