06.16.09
You win some - You lose some
posted by Naja Hayward | 4 comments
Last weekend, my team and I exhibited at an eco-music festival in Malibu, California - Malibu Fest. For several months prior we planned and organized and planned some more, hopeful that tea sales from this show would make a dent in our monthly cash needs. I, along with 80 or so other optimistic vendors, expected a promised 15,000 eco-conscious music lovers to come pouring into Paramount Ranch, ready for peace, love, happiness…and shopping.
What poured in was a bit of rain, lots of dust, and a disappointingly low number of friends and family of the performing bands. I was disenchanted by the turnout, but more frustrated that I had been sold participation in a show that I didn’t analyze for its potential for success.
For Naja Tea, exhibiting at special events, local festivals, farmer’s markets, and trade shows has a two-fold goal. First, it allows us to market our growing brand to a relevant audience and reach a concentrated group of people for future relationship building. Second, it provides instant cash flow as we develop and grow the wholesale and tea service side of our business.
When I make an emotional decision about an event (ohhhh FUN! Music and people!), there’s a 50/50 chance it will be a success. There are times when the goal is to simply have fun and meet new people (World Tea Expo) and times when I’m counting on an event to pay the lease (Malibu Fest).
In the latter case, the analytical process is crucial. Has this show been done before? Who has attended in the past? What is the cost of the show vs. the potential return? What is my pre-show marketing plan and how will I execute it to get the word out? Am I prepared for the potential upside in new sales (Whole Foods)? Am I prepared for the potential downside (Malibu Fest)? Are there other tea companies exhibiting and selling their wares and competing for consumer dollars?
These are just some of the questions to ask yourself and those involved in the decision-making process when considering whether a show is worthwhile or not.
Participating in special events is an excellent and often times necessary way to spread the word about your growing business. By creating a strategy for how you choose your events, you may just save yourself a bit of heartache.
But in the end, the reality of it all is that you win some and you lose some.
June 16th, 2009 at 10:58 am
What a drag that the event was a bust. I know how frustrating that can be when attendance is well below what was promised. Ultimately though, you do win some and lose some. Looks like you’re up for a win next time!
June 16th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Hi Naja. Y’know…yeah. We just paid $25 to have a booth/table 10×10 at a Women’s Club thing for charity Saturday. We actually made a little money but, even if not, the $25 would have been worth it to expose our product (in a limited way) to another part of town, the tourist section, and be next to the busy Farmer’s Market, which draws people from out of town as well. However, if the cost had been alot higher, I doubt we would have done it. And the one question I would definitely ask next time that I didn’t because of the low cost is “how do you plan to promote it?” Low cost, no cost, and almost no prep time..it’s still a requisite question..my bad. I sure wish there was some set formula for business but alot of it is just trial and error. I’m still wondering about the value of Twitter and other social media compared to the effort, especially when the main focus is a local retail store. I know Naked Pizza uses Twitter effectively for their retail location. What I do think would be helpful is if small entrepreneurial companies could somehow find a way to expedite things for all of us rather than remaining islands unto ourselves, not a trade show, but more a specialty tea ‘incubator’..or something. Well, back to work.
June 16th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Thanks for your response, Diane! I agree that spending $25 is a good way to get the word out about your company without a large loss in the end even if there aren’t any immediate sales.
Trial and error is definitely a part of the process for small businesses, but I also believe in surrounding yourself by others who have paved the road before you so that you can learn from other’s hard lessons. There is a yahoo group for tea entrepreneurs and the World Tea News has a group on LinkedIn that is a community of tea professionals who share their knowledge both of which are great opportunities to ask questions of people in our industry.
As far as social media marketing… I LOVE Twitter and I’ve had some new customers on my website who found me through my twittering. I try to Twit consistently but not too much where it takes me away from the “real” work because it can be a time bandit if you let it!
I think you do a great job of twittering about your shop and specials you have.
I love the idea of the tea-incubator and have considered forming some sort of community for local professionals to commune and support each other. The tea world is small and yet such a wonderfully supportive group!
Best with your future shows and I’ll tweet you later:)
Naja
June 24th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Hi Naja,
Welcome to the bumpy ride of the trade show express. When I launched The Chai Company back in 2001, a year after it’s inception we hit as many local trade shows as we could. The results for us were fantastic. So good that our ego’s got the better of us because when a sales person from one of the large national gift shows approached us to exhibit at a seasonal mega-show, we jumped at the chance. It wasn’t until three shows later and well over $12,000 invested that we realized we were completely barking up the wrong tree. Our sales for the three shows totaled about $800. Ouch!
We pulled back and took a really hard look at who exactly our customers were. Low and behold it was not the Country gift store in the boonies that displayed 6 bottles of our chai next to beanie babies and wire bird cages.
A complete about face on our trade show strategy was needed.
So with that, we entered the world of specialty coffee, and I guess you could say at this point - the rest is history.
So the moral of the story is? Yes, will will do some dud trade shows, but as long as you are 100% sure that the people coming to the event/show are exactly who you feel your product is geared towards, then regardless of how much you sell there will always be some net benefit for being there.
This has been the case for The Chai Company.