The clueless startup manufacturer

WE'VE MOVED!

2008-10-03T16:05:00.001-07:00

I apologize for being away for such a long time. As with any new business, a lot's been happening and the blog has been sadly neglected. Some of the changes/happenings include a new website at www.paceasy.com, along with a new shopping cart reached either through PacEasy or through www.makelifeneat.com, and a new blog site! Still working on the color scheme and organization, but it's a necessary change. So, please visit at www.cluelessentrepreneurs.com

WHAT IS YOUR "NATURAL GIVE"?

2008-07-23T10:24:00.000-07:00

This will be a quickie on a topic that is becoming more relevant as we become more well known—charitable giving.

Face it. When you are small and cash flow is a frequent struggle and bills are mounting, it is difficult to shell out cold, hard cash every time a charity rings, and it often does not feel right, which is what this blog is really about.

As a business, we are solicited to provide products and cash for charities, gift bags, raffles, auctions, and the like, or provide time to various causes and charitable events.

Some of these requests hit like a lead balloon, and some actually feel pretty good to me. I took a look at the types of things that felt good to us and those that did not, and this idea of a Natural Give hit me. Asked about startup businesses and charitable giving the other day, I turned to this idea of Natural Give.

I define Natural Give as that type of giving that feels effortless and sustainable to you and your company, that feels right whether it results in sales or PR or not. We have discovered that our natural gives are 1) small product donations to local community events for raffles and auctions; and 2) providing entrepreneurial mentoring time to local youth; and 3) providing information to and sharing experiences with other business people who read this blog. Having defined our Natural Give, we stick with it. We do not sponsor teams, or donate cash or multitudes of gift bag freebies to local organizations (one organization wanted a gift bag donation of 300 pieces, a little much for us right now).

Peter Shankman’s help-a-reporter site is a great example of a very successful Natural Give that I am sure involved some money, but mostly Peter’s time and his natural talent for connecting people. In an effort to help reporters and sources get together, Peter created a thrice-daily email that in a very short time has reached over 16,000 people, connecting them all and helping everyone. We have certainly benefited from help-a-reporter, and the reporters we have contacted have certainly benefited from talking to us.

So, instead of feeling guilty every time you are solicited to give, find your Natural Give and stick to it. Remember that there are others out there whose Natural Give is different from yours, so many types of giving are occurring all over the place, even though you are not participating in all of them.

SCAMS

2008-07-08T12:59:00.000-07:00

The other morning I received an intriguing email from someone wanting price lists, if I shipped overseas, and if I took credit cards. We startup manufacturers love to get emails like these, but this one just did not seem right. Here is the text:

Hello Sales,

I am interested in purchasing some of your products, I will like to know if you can ship directly to Australia, I also want you to know my mode of payment for this order is via Credit Card. Get back to me if you can ship to that destination and also if you accept the payment type I indicated. Kindly return this email with your price list of your products..

I await your quick response.

Kind Regards.

Mario Hernandez

Addresss

3M SUPPLY AU

184 Darley Street

Mona Vale,NSW 2103

Australia

Phone: +61 243 607 865

FAX: +61 243 636 6785

I put the email address in Google, and not much popped up, but on Mr. Pinball's site, this address was listed on the scammers page. Thank you Mr. Pinball! I emailed Mr. Pinball, thanking him for taking the time to keep up the scammers page, and he sent back some very helpful information:

Hi Gretchen.

I'm glad you found out about this thief. We are contacted daily by people like yourself who discovered our list of scammers and are grateful they found us.

If you run across any more of these types of scammers, please forward their emails to us and we'll post their information for all to see.

These scams are primarily from outside the USA and as such, little can be done about them. If they have a confederate inside the US (such as someone sending a counterfeit check) then that US-based person can be prosecuted.

I recommend any of the following courses of action.

1. Ignore any further contact from the scammer. They will just go away because they will realize that they are getting nowhere with you.

2. Lead them on and let them believe you are interested. If they want to pay you with a credit card, then let them send you the credit card information.
Report the credit card information to the credit card company as stolen.
Then tell them the credit card number is bad. They will often volunteer another card. Repeat until they run out of numbers or lose interest.

3. If they want you to pay them for something, then just ignore them. Do NOT educate them as to how you found out they are a scammer. Educating them just makes them better at fooling the next person.

4. Report them to their email provider at the designated abuse address, which should be something like abuse@yahoo.com and get them to terminate the account. Be sure to include full headers so they can verify that the account is being used for fraud. Terminating an account will stop all the scams in progress with that account and so will probably be the most helpful. The main problem with doing this is that it may take several days for the provider to get around to verifying and terminating the account. Although I can't recommend this, sending lots of email to the account can fill up their mailbox and prevent them from getting mail. Doing this sort of action may violate your email provider's Terms of Service and may get you in trouble--that's why I don't recommend this--but be aware that it is probably the *most* effective action that can be taken once you report them to the appropriate abuse account.

Whatever you do, DO NOT cash the check they may send or send them money.
Attempting to cash a known counterfeit check is a felony. Sending them money means you will NEVER get the money back. These countries where they want you to wire the money do not require a government ID to pick up money, so any money you send will be lost with no recourse.

Regards,

Daina

I will know what to look for when something does not quite feel right from now on. I am sure as we grow, we will be the target of more types of scams having to do with manufacturing. I will post them as they happen.

For now, please do be careful and if you have been caught in a scam, please post a comment.

INDEPENDENT REPS PART 3 - HIRING ONE

2008-07-01T19:49:00.000-07:00

First off, look for reps who work with products you sell. If you sell a toy product, don’t sign on with a rep who sells housewares. Second, look for reps who sell to those outlets and regions in which you are interested, i.e. brick-mortar retailers, catalogs, online retailers, large chain stores, independent specialty stores, nationwide, regionwide, etc. When putting out information about what you are searching for, be sure to include your parameters. Personally, I would steer clear of any rep who claims he/she can do it all and cover everything. It just does not work that way.

Based on our aforementioned education, when a rep is interested in our products, we have a sheet prepared that we hand to them. If they still feel like working with us after reading the information, then we move forward.

Here is what our sheet contains:

1. A company introduction. One short paragraph about what our company manufactures and where our products are currently sold (not names, just regionally or nationally).

2. A sentence or two defining what kind of rep you are looking for (e.g., “if you have proven experience with placing _________, __________, or _______, we would be interested in talking to you.”). Also, list your preferred outlets in this paragraph.

3. For our screening process, we ask for a resume that includes or is accompanied by 1) list of current retailers they work with, 2) three business references, 3) the names of three buyers the rep works with directly and their contact information, and 4) a list of product lines the rep represents.

We then include our full contact information and where to send the resume and supporting information.

In some cases, we will work with the rep without having all of the information. If the rep does not flinch at the information we request and run the other way, they probably are quite interested in selling our product and confident they can do it.

Once a rep is interested, we negotiate an agreement. We have devised our own agreement, and that is the one we use. It covers everything, including territories, payment terms, and the number of samples that will be provided.

Now, with all of this in place, we are comfortable working with reps and confident that we will not incur financial disasters in doing so. Good luck! Feel free to contact us with any questions.

INDEPENDENT REPS PART 2 - WHERE DO YOU FIND THEM?

2008-06-13T17:41:00.000-07:00

What seems ages ago, we went searching on the Internet for reps. We emailed a couple, never heard back, or when we did, they did not want to rep our products. Why not? We will never know. We have been told that it’s because no matter how good your product is, reps just don’t like to touch new products because it’s too much work. I can’t back that up with any solid evidence. Our banker recommended us to a couple of local reps, clients of hers, but neither of them called us.

We went to a public trade show and a rep stopped by. He was interested in our products, made all sorts of pie-in-the-sky promises, then promptly disappeared from planet earth after the show and we never heard from him again. Lucky for us, he did not take any product or money with him. As green as we were, we probably would have given him whatever he wanted.

Others I know have been contacted by reps who saw their products in a store already, or online. Reps like this, I think, because they know the product is sellable.

Lately, a number of chat rooms and forums for specific industries have been popping up, where manufacturers, reps, retail business owners, and industry buyers chat, trade info, and scout prospects and products. One woman I know recently picked up a rep this way. These forums can be as specific as baby carriers and as general as toys. I have not yet discovered one for our industry, but it is probably only a matter of time.

Ultimately, we did not find any reps, they found us at the buyer shows we attended. We currently utilize three agencies. So far, the arrangement is working well, and we like the individuals with whom we deal.

I am sure there are other avenues for getting in front of reps (winning awards, Oprah contests, maybe a plug on Donny Deutsch). One way is to piggyback on an existing product. If you have a friend or family member making a similar item or in the same product category, you can probably contact the reps they work with to see if they might be interested in repping your product as well.

Another possibility is introductions by your booth neighbors at trade shows. We have actually seen this one work. For the most part, your booth neighbors are just as passionate about what they do as you are about what you do, and they love to share information and introduce you to their reps, especially if they know you are just starting out.

At our Chicago show, we spent three days next to Lightning Nuggets. A plug here for Lightning Nuggets: they manufacture fire starters from waste wood products and recycled paraffin. They are an excellent company, and we keep in touch with them. You can buy their products at Lowe’s, Fred Meyer, and maybe Home Depot. They were very nice, heard about our rep woes, and then proceeded to spend the next two days teaching us all about the world of reps. We came away from the show with priceless knowledge and the confidence that we could indeed “do” the independent rep thing.

I will cover what we learned about hiring reps in my next entry.

INDEPENDENT REPS PART 1 – THE HORROR OF IT ALL

2008-06-13T17:36:00.000-07:00

Most startup manufacturers are led to believe that gathering a harem of reps around you is the holy grail, and that if a rep shows any interest at all, jump on board! Please, please do not leap just yet.

Horror stories abound about reps. One horror story I especially liked was the rep who demanded lots of samples and then ended up selling them at flea markets. Luckily, the client found out and stopped sending him samples before too much financial damage was done. I was chatting with one of my B Team buddies this morning, who relayed the story of the rep agency that took 80 samples off of her hands, after which she never heard from them again.

Most horror stories I have heard regard scads of samples provided, or scads of money paid, after which the rep is never heard from again. It is enough to make anyone recoil in horror at the thought of even acknowledging the existence of independent reps. This is unfortunate, as there are some excellent reps out there. Sorry reps, but if you are reading this blog, I can’t undo the damage that those who have gone before you have done.

We now work comfortably and confidently with three rep firms. In the next entry or two I will tell our tale, which I hope most of you will find useful.

TRADE SHOWS PART 14 - MOVING IN AND OUT THE FREEMAN WAY

2008-05-22T12:31:00.001-07:00

The buyer shows add another layer of complexity to the trade show experience. It is called Freeman. Freeman is a company that contracts with the company actually organizing the show. Freeman corners the market for handling the freight, booth building, electrical, video and other services for trade show exhibitors at shows across the country. They utilize union labor for all of their activities, which works well for Stanley Tools, not so well for startup entrepreneurs. I have no problem with unions and one of our products, the Bin Buddie, is and will always be made with American labor.

Chicago

We had to ship our booth to Chicago. As mentioned in an earlier posting, it was quite easy! We packed our boxes, called Freeman, the Roadway truck came and loaded the boxes, and the next time we saw them was at our booth space in Chicago. Our boxes were taken away and stored for us during the show, then returned to for repacking. We repacked them, left them at the booth, and about a week later, they were delivered back to our doorstep in Seattle. It cost us $1000 for this. We have researched a cheaper way to do this, and it’s not the shipper that’s the problem—they were about $200-$400 of the bill. The other $$400-$800 was what Freeman charged to unload the boxes at the loading dock, take them to our booth, store our boxes, and then get them back on the truck after we had repacked them. In reality, we paid $400-$800 for what amounted to maybe an hour’s worth of work for a couple of guys, since our stuff was in six very manageable boxes weighing a total of 300lbs. Not a lot of stuff. At this rate, someone is making a ridiculous amount of money.

Las Vegas

Freeman bled us dry in Chicago, so we had no more money to feed them in Las Vegas. The man on the other end of the phone was nice, but he had trouble understanding the concept of PacEasy being a startup and not being able to pay $400-$800 for loading and unloading 300 pounds twice in the span of six weeks.

Freeman indicates that you can indeed haul your own stuff in and out at these shows, and herein lies the tale. You show up at the loading dock, but you can’t haul your own stuff in from there. Because the loading areas are controlled by union labor, you can only watch helplessly as they unload your stuff, put it on a cart and take it to your booth for you as you walk beside the cart. We had one cart load of stuff and the bill for the 15-minute load and walk job would have been approximately $300.

Alternatively, we were able to move in through the front doors. So, were able to park and move in just fine with our handtruck (which handtruck we had been told we could use) no problem. It was a longer walk, but that $300 we saved was the price of our hotel, so for us it was a no-brainer. We got our stuff in, got set up and had a very successful show.

Our decision not to utilize Freeman's services was confirmed when, on my trips to the booth, I kept passing a Teamster member and Freeman contractor napping on a roll of carpet. This might have been fine, except that this guy was on the clock, and the people standing in the nearest booth did not seem too happy that he was napping on their dime. Apparently and through no fault of their own (a Freeman problem, they explained), their boxes had not arrived at the booth. Mr. Teamster, apparently having nothing else to do, decided to nap until the goods arrived on the scene. His nap lasted 45 minutes. There was a great deal of activity occurring all over the place, so I find it hard to believe that there was nothing else for this man to do other than to take a nap on this exhibitor’s dime.

Moving out, was pretty much the same. We had our handtruck, a smaller cart, and as Thomas broke things down and packed boxes, I wheeled them out. For an hour we did this. On my last trip into the building, a young man began shouting across the lobby, then whistling. No one could figure out what was going on. Apparently, my handtruck was not “allowed” in the building. I found it rather odd that, after using it to move in and move most of my goods out, it would suddenly be a problem. In addition, many other exhibitors were doing the same thing. I checked with one of them and he indicated that he does this for most of his shows and this was the first time there had been a problem.

Apparently, we were all supposed to utilize the cart service. You know, the one that previously quoted me $300 for 15 minutes of labor. Additionally, the people running the cart service were to decide when we would be able to utilize the service, which could have been the next day if they felt like it. Remembering the napping Teamster, I informed the young man that I did not have $300, unleashed a verbal torrent of logical argument at him, and then turned and walked away, leaving him stunned and speechless. Gee, was it the logical part?

Freeman does have a rather vague definition of handtruck it uses to attempt to force you to pay $300 or more for 15 minutes of cart service, but since we had been approved on the way in, and we had loaded in and almost completely loaded out, I could not see what this person’s problem was. If he was concerned about a safety issue, one guy was using an electric cart with a plywood platform tied to the back of it with what looked to be a shoelace. The man would put the cart into high gear, and the platform would swing wildly from side to side, smacking aside anything in its path. No Teamster in sight showed the slightest interest in this man.

Overall, our best advice to startup entrepreneurs would be to keep your dealings with Freeman to a bare minimum and watch every fee they want to throw at you. Do as much as you can do yourself, and if you do have to utilize Freeman/, have someone at the booth at all times supervising to make sure you are not paying for nap time.

TRADE SHOWS PART 13 - MOVING IN AND OUT ("PUBLIC" SHOWS)

2008-05-22T11:13:00.001-07:00

Moving in and out of shows is like taking a temp job and being faced with an unfamiliar copy machine. It’s supposed to be familiar and pretty easy to operate, but you know it’s the little things that will make it seem like a mountain instead of a molehill.

This blog is about the little things in a startup entrepreneur’s life, and when I polled a few, they all agreed that the move-in and move-out tasks were a great deal more stressful than they realized.

For shows open to the public, they have been pretty easy. You go, you park, you unload. On the last day, you go, you park, and at the end of the day, you load. However, here are some suggestions for making things easier on you, especially if it is your first time:

Moving In

1. Before you even go, find out exactly where you are supposed to go to “load in”, or move into your booth. It can be outside, inside, on a loading dock, at a certain door, etc. Once I get my show information, I review a diagram of the facility where the show is to be held and the directions given me. I look for the traffic patterns, where the doors are, where the loading dock is, and where my booth is in relation to all of this. If the directions in the materials are not clear, I call or email and ask for clarification. I need to do much less asking now, but at first it was a common occurrence.

3. Plan to arrive and move in as early as possible. It gets nuts as the day goes on. Often, if I can get there right when move-in opens, I can be in and out before things get out of hand.

3. If you have kids, make arrangements for care ahead of time. This is no place for kids , and most shows prohibit anyone under 16 during move-in and move-out times. Sharp objects, exposed electrical equipment with lots of voltage, forklifts and other heavy equipment, and stacks of heavy, teetering boxes are everywhere.

2. Give yourself lots of time. Don’t plan any other activities for the move-in day. Just plan to move in and nothing else. I speak from experience (the Fed Ex guy is nice, but can’t hold the truck because I got held up trying to move in).

2. Find out how much it will cost you to park to move in, and what the details are. Do you need to pay for parking before you can get onto the loading dock or into the parking lot closest to the door you need to use? In most cases, parking is free for moving in. Some places have a time limit—only the first hour or two is free, and then you pay. Knowing ahead of time will help you strategize. Qwest Field in Seattle has a bizarre rule. If you move in the morning of the show, you have to first pay to park in the garage, then leave the garage and go to the loading dock to unload. However, you cannot buy a one-day pass and go do this; you have to buy a three-day pass. These people are obviously too used to dealing with pro football players if they don’t think people can see through this scam.

3. What are the parking arrangements? You can buy a pass for the duration of the show or pay by the day. The pass allows in-out privileges, the daily tickets don’t. Assess your needs, alternate travel and parking arrangements, and buy accordingly. Often, you cannot buy a multi-day pass once the show has started, so if you need a pass, get it when you move in. If you are staying in an RV, public shows often have special RV parking rates for overnighters.

4. Before unloading, find the show desk, check in, get any questions answered and problems solved, locate your booth space and the best route to take to get your stuff to it, and only then unload your stuff and move it to your booth. It will save you all kinds of stress and make loading in faster and easier. Your goods are safe in your vehicle until you are ready to deal with them no one has to stand around with a load of stuff while you check in and find your booth space.

5. A note about cart services. In some places carts are provided free of charge. In other facilities, you pay ($35 or so for half an hour) for cart rental. In many cases, the half hour cart rental includes getting back to your booth with your cart and then getting it back to the rental place. If you are a ten-minute walk away, you can see the problem. We suggest investing in a good handtruck/dolly/cart thing that can fit into your vehicle, and/or a folding, heavy-duty “luggage” cart. This goes back to a previous blog entry regarding booth design and portability.

4. Be courteous. People are tired and running on caffeine and adrenaline, and there is a great deal of activity occurring. I try to be conscious of others as I wheel my way through the maze. Introduce yourself to your booth neighbors when you get the chance. Offer to assist during setup if you see someone in need. Good vibes go a long way.

Moving Out

Moving out is much the same as moving in, only it happens much quicker. Some shows only give you eight to 10 hours to move out; others you can also do things the following day. On the final day of the show, I park strategically in the morning (arrive earlier and park as close as possible and in a place that allows the truck to be easily loaded. When the show ends, I can break down my booth and, using my nifty cart/handtruck, I can simply haul my stuff to the truck in the parking area. I may have to haul my stuff farther, but I get some exercise and get out of there a lot sooner and with a great deal less hassle than if I had attempted to utilize the load-out area provided.

If the show is local and I can come back the next day, I do so. I break down the booth and pack up everything, leave it at my space and leave the mayhem behind, go to the Bamboo Bar and Grill for some relaxation and recap with friends and family, then come back the next morning when there is no traffic or mayhem. I can often drive right to my booth space (even in a convention center or stadium), pack up the truck on the spot, and head out. With gas prices the way they are, though, I may have to rethink this strategy.

TRADE SHOWS PART 12 - VEGAS RECAP

2008-05-22T10:01:00.000-07:00

The National Hardware Show in Vegas turned out to be a great show for us, even better than the International Home and Housewares Show in Chicago. We thought the opposite would be true.

In Chicago, one-third of the booth traffic was buyers and the other two-thirds was a mix of reps, industry professionals, and social groups and individuals just out of the house for the day. In Vegas, two-thirds of the booth traffic was buyers, and the other one-third was reps, industry professionals, and only a sprinkling of individuals just browsing. Now that we know, we are less inclined to go to Chicago next year and put more effort into our Vegas booth.

Additionally, the conversations we had in Vegas were quite relevant and convinced us make some major changes in our product manufacturing and marketing strategies, which will help our growth tremendously in the long run. We did not get the same kind of feedback in Chicago.

It may have helped that we changed our booth design for the Vegas show, but it seemed to be more than that. It seemed to be the focus of the event organizers on buying versus browsing. It cost attendees $100 to get into the show, no one under 18 was admitted (no moms and babies out for the day), there were some serious efforts to promote networking among show participants, and overall, it was just a more professional and productive experience.

We will definitely be going back to Vegas, we don’t know yet about Chicago.

TRADE SHOWS PART 11 - ADVERTISING

2008-05-22T09:48:00.001-07:00

When you sign up for a trade show, you will be inundated with faxes and emails wanting you to spend money on various forms of advertising before, during and after the show. These include sponsored emails, video clips, ads in trade show publications, spots on various websites, electronic panel displays, new product showcase, etc. All in all, a dizzying array of possibilities for the show organizers to make more money off of you.

Enough already! Hang onto your hard-earned, limited dollars. Thomas, Mr. Sales and Marketing, has spent a great deal of time reviewing this information and testing out a couple of these ploys with our products, and he has concluded that the only one on which he would spend money again is an ad in the show’s publication that is handed out during the show. It’s a big, glossy magazine that mostly contains ads and articles about new products. Everyone picks one up and at least passively leafs through it, so this publication has the potential top present your product to a pretty wide audience.

I must add a caveat here. We did buy space in a “new product showcase” at our target show, the International Home and Housewares Show, and it may indeed be the one thing that gets us into Real Simple Magazine. It was where they discovered our products, rather than seeing our booth. As with most things in life, rules are better thought of as guidelines.

My personal experience tells me to avoid anything video. These shows resemble an ant farm, and my observation is that no one stands still long enough to actually pay attention to anything video.

I would also stay away from anything to do with broadcast emails to show attendees. Organizers put out so many emails prior to the show that I am sure no one has the time to read them. I end up deleting most of them without opening them.

I have a similar opinion of website advertising. Once I download the manual and get the information I need, I only rarely visit the show’s website again because I simply don’t need to. The site may get lots of hits, but your ad won’t necessarily get noticed.

I received a call the other day from a woman wanting us to spend another $300 putting our fliers in a display rack for buyers to take and to drive traffic to our booth. Since our limited experience points to the fact that buyers do not really utilize this information, we opted out.

We have learned that most buyers spend one day at the show, they know what they are looking for, and they don’t spend a lot of time perusing pieces of information first. They hit the show floor running, booth after booth, dismissing in a millisecond all that is not in their product category, and move on. What’s probably going to catch their attention the most is good, catchy, booth design that allows them to quickly scan and understand your wares and make a decision about your company’s products and ability to deliver the quantities they need.

TRADE SHOWS PART 10 - CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP!

2008-05-05T20:36:00.000-07:00

We are on our way to Vegas for the National Hardware Show. We have no money despite how well we are doing, so we are going on the cheap. I can’t say that our cheap fixes will work for you, but perhaps we can give you some ideas that you can modify to suit your needs:

1. You can’t always find a show in a town where you have friends or relatives to stay with, but if you can, crash their pads. These people want you to be successful, and they feel invested in the process of getting you there when they can help out by providing a place to stay for the show or stop overnight on your way there.

1a. If you belong to a timeshare, stay there if you can! Also, many of these companies offer discounted airline tickets or other perks that can be used to ease the financial burden of travel.

2. Our friends and family, those who fly often and who have amassed airline miles they cannot use, have been very generous with them when we have needed them. We have had to buy four airline tickets since January, and all of them have been obtained with donated miles. Also, if you have a companion fare or a voucher, now is a good time to use them.

3. Spend some time calculating whether it would be cheaper to fly, drive, or get there by some other means. With airline tickets obtained using donated miles, it was definitely cheaper to fly from Seattle to Chicago and pay the $1000 it cost to ship our booth there and back rather than drive our truck across country for several days, paying for food, gas, and lodging along the way.

4. Some businesses have minimized their booth design such that they can get everything to a show via checked baggage and mailing a few extra boxes to the place they are staying. Most hotels and motels will accept your packages if you are a paying guest and they know ahead of time the boxes are coming.

5. Although we could not financially justify buying a ready-made booth backdrop, they can potentially save you a lot of money if 1) exhibit at shows frequently, and 2) the rest of your display can be boxed and shipped. New, they cost about $2500 apiece. However, they fold into their own shipping container and can be carried as checked luggage or shipped via UPS or Fed Ex. This gives you more flexibility in your shipping options which can lead to substantial savings, making the backdrop pay for itself over time.

6. The reservation services the show provides don’t usually have the best travel and lodging deals. You can get better deals searching on your own online for travel deals and budget hotels near the show location. For our Vegas show the cheapest room through the booking service was about $120 per night. I found us the Villa Roma Inn, which received uniformly great reviews on TripAdvisor. We have wi-fi, a pool and patio area, we are off the Strip, and we are easy walking distance to both the Strip and the convention center. We are sharing a room with two double beds, and our five-night stay is less than $300 for the two of us.

7. If you can, bring food, water, drinks, etc. on show days. Convention centers have uniformly mediocre food at best that is way overpriced. You and your pocketbook will be much happier with your own food and drinks.

That’s all I have for now. As always, sharing is good—keep the comments coming.

TRADE SHOWS PART NINE - OUR RETAIL BOOTH

2008-04-28T20:21:00.000-07:00

I handle all of our retail activities, and our retail booth gets used frequently. I participate in the Fremont Sunday Market (a weekly flea/entrepreneurial market in Seattle), a few street fairs, and occasional specialty events such as pet fundraisers. I got married a couple of years ago, and my loving husband got me a good, used Toyota pickup in lieu of a ring! I am the kind of woman who appreciates this kind of thing. He followed it up with a canopy for my birthday. I can haul everything I need, including stock, in my truck now.

As you can see, the the booth can be set up either indoors or out. I discussed signs in the previous posting. The table and chairs are mom's cardtable hand-me-downs. The shelving is plastic, two four-tier units, one for each side of the booth, and I put two-tiered sections end to end. Each four-tier unit cost $20 at Lowe's. This shelving goes together and comes apart easily. The signs for our "strip" products are hanging on gridwall, two pieces of 2x6' gridwall each side of the booth. I got the gridwall for about $8 per piece off of craigslist. It is also available at any fixture supply store. We also have hooks and shelves for the gridwall, which were surprisingly inexpensive. Be sure to check out craigslist for used supplies.

I like to think really cheap for this type of booth, and I love seeing what solutions others come up with. Think old folding tables, kiddie tables, stacks of cardboard boxes, and plastic bins covered in tablecloths or fabric remnants for display surfaces. Old suitcases or trunk look great as display pieces, and you can transport your stuff in them.

I mentioned briefly fire retardant materials. Be aware that for indoor shows, you will need fire reisistant display items in your booth. You can use fire retardant fabrics, or treat flammable display items with fire retardant spray (anything wood, bamboo, or straw, especially) The spray is about $20 per quart spray bottle or about $45 per gallon. You can get the spray at a costume and display store or a theatrical supply store. The paperwork you receive makes the fire thing sound ominous and fraught with danger, but we have yet to encounter a problem. Regardless, it is good to be aware of the regulations and follow them as closely as possible.

You will need a 10x10 canopy if you do outdoor events, If you spend money anywhere, spend it on the canopy and sidewalls, essential where rain showers or blazing sun are an issue. My favorite canopy company is KD Kanopy. John provides gold-plated customer service, and their products are quality through and through. They are also rather pricey. You can use a backyard canopy, even, if you have one. Once again, be sure to check out craigslist for used canopies. I own a pedestrian Quikshade and sidewalls. My canopy cost me about $140 new at a local sporting goods store and the sidewalls I bought online, $130 total for three.

You will need weights for your canopy (20 lbs per leg), which can be made of just about anything--buckets of sand, cylinders of sand or cement, barbell weights, anything else you can find that is cheap or free, and sufficient bungee cords to tie them to the legs or frame. You can also buy weights that are made for the canopy.

I don't think I have anything more to add at this point. Again, keep the comments coming!

TRADE SHOWS PART 8 – OUR BOOTH DESIGN

2008-04-19T15:11:00.001-07:00

I want to remind you of the four elements from a previous blog:

1. The clutter factor.

2. The color factor.

3. The labor factor.

4. The cost factor.

I want to start by discussing what you get when you plunk your money down for a booth. We are participating in three buyer shows (nonpublic) this year, and all of them have different booth configurations. It’s maddening. If you sign up for a buyer’s show, pay close attention to the exhibitor manual to determine what the booth configuration requirements are.

By configuration, I mean kind of booth space is provided for you. For our three buyer shows this year, we are encountering three different configurations (a different one for each show!):

1. A spot on the floor. Nothing else. You provide everything else, including a solid back wall (no pipe/drape allowed). (Our Chicago show)

2. A booth with eight-foot pipe/drape walls on three sides. You don’t get to pick the color. (Our Seattle show)

3. A booth with an eight-foot pipe/drape back and three-foot pipe/drape sidewalls on each side. Again, you don’t get to pick the color. You will often have height restrictions for your display with this type of booth as well. (Our Vegas show)

Our booth is tiny—either a 10x10 space or a 10x15 space. Between our retail show booth and our buyer show booth, we have built in an enormous amount of flexibility that allows us to handle just about any configuration easily without spending more money. All told, I think we have spent about $500 on our retail booth (including the canopy and side panels for outdoor events) over the past couple of years and closer to $1000 for our buyer show booth.

Below is a picture of our buyer show booth setup in a space 10 feet wide by 15 feet deep. In this entry, I will discuss this booth setup in detail, including the supplies used and where we purchased them.

When we arrived at our first ever buyer show, the booth was 8-foot high muslin drape on all three sides. Great if you have a black sign and your merchandise pops against muslin. Our signs are white. They disappeared into the muslin. Luckily, this show was in Seattle and I happened to have 45 yards of 210D urethane-coated nylon at home, and it was the right color to make the signs pop. This stuff is quite cheap wholesale from Top Value Fabrics (about $2 per yard). We set up our booth, took measurements, then went home and for the next five hours, sewed up 9’8” by 8’ high royal blue panels to cover the muslin. We put grommets in the top to be able to hang them from the pipe, and they hung great!

Our next show, the International Home and Housewares Show in Chicago, provided nothing but a spot on the floor. We ordered a metal frame from the Flourish Company (the frame for mesh panels) that cost $369 including shipping. This frame sets up with two people, breaks down completely, can be shipped or hauled in the truck easily, and allows us a great deal of flexibility because we can drape it with whatever we want. The bottom bar is adjustable, so it pulls the fabric taut. Because we needed a channel in the fabric to put it on the frame, we folded over the top of the aforementioned blue panels, then put a channel in the bottom, and voila! We could cover the frame with the same blue panels. If necessary, we can take out this stitching to again use it to cover muslin sides. The fabric panels fold and ship easily.

This panel idea is considered pipe and drape, and we received a violation notice for such (they do not allow pipe and drape of any kind). We did not understand the whole pipe and drape thing yet. By the end of show, however, we were informed that we could use the same configuration next year. Go figure.

This blue fabric is not flame retardant, which could be an issue at some shows.

Now to the pedestals. We priced pedestals, and ouch! Not in our budget. So, we made them. We ordered 12”x12”x40” cardboard boxes for $2.09 apiece from ULine. We bought fire-retardant fabric for $3.45 per yard from the local costume/display supply store (Display & Costume Supply) and made covers for the boxes. The different heights are achieved by cutting off the boxes at different lengths. We then fold the fabric up inside the box and tape it. They look great, and people always want to buy the covers from us. To create a smooth top, we put 12”x12” polystyrene plastic squares on the tops of the boxes under the fabric. These are not necessary, but they square things up nicely. You can get the plastic from a local plastic supplier like Tap Plastics and have them cut it for you. All told, the pedestals cost us $8.15 apiece. We placed empty packaging boxes on top of them. Our pedestals allow easy access to the booth and allow one to quickly scan our goods while keeping clutter to a minimum.

We design our own signs. We then email the files to U Printing in California. They are super cheap and very quick. We usually receive the finished banners back in about a week. I know everyone can’t do this. In that case, I would spend a little more and get some expert advice and service from a local sign shop. The signs were between $75 and $125 apiece, probably our most expensive item.

The fabric banners and tablecloth are from the local fabric store. One yard gives us three banners, so the banners and tablecloth fabric on sale cost us about $20.

We splurged on a new, smaller folding, shippable table, which cost us $22 at Costco. The chairs, small and lightweight, cost $17 apiece at our local variety store.

The flooring is 2”x2”, 3/8” thick foam squares that puzzle together. We paid $104 for 125 square feet through GetRung. You can buy thicker ones, but the thinner ones ship great, and with the carrying case, they can go as checked baggage on a plane. So, we like the thinner ones better. You can also buy carpet squares or rent carpet for your booth.

The other goodies are plastic sign holders and easels that we get at Best Fixtures International, our local fixture supply store. They probably cost us about $20 for what you see there.

Other than a few office supplies and informational fliers, that’s about it for us. I am sure I am forgetting something, but I hope this helps you. Happy planning!

TRADE SHOWS PART 7 – FROM THE BEGINNING

2008-04-18T21:00:00.000-07:00

I noticed that I have been getting rather haphazard about the trade show information. My intent was to take you step by step through the process, not to bounce around here and there with our experiences. Once again, be aware that this information is all based on our experiences, and others may be different, more efficient, cheaper, etc. Additionally, keep those comments coming! Every comment goes a long way toward the collective education of clueless entrepreneurs everywhere. At least those who tune in to this blog.

I previously covered why we do trade shows of various kinds (doesn’t mean you should), how to find out about them and whether to sign up and lay down your dollars.

You’ve decided to go ahead and sign up for one, either a public or buyer show (not open to public). Now what?

1. Download the manual or any other available materials and read them! We have learned to do this before we do anything else. It may take some time after you sign up for the show for the manual to be available online or mailed to you, but make sure you read it the as soon as possible after it becomes available. It tells you how and by what date to order exhorbitantly expensive electricity, video, scantily-clad women to show off your wares for you, carpet, booth setups, and just about anything else you may need (we don’t rent anything). It provides shipping information, driving instructions, decorating instructions and requirements, booth configurations, and many other things. We immediately calendar any relevant dates. We also decide, based on the move-in and move-out schedules, what our travel arrangements will be.

For a local street fair or other public show, there will be no manual, but you will receive instructional materials. You just mainly need to know what times and days you can move in and move out and by what means.

After reviewing the manual, we call or email and get any questions we still have answered. We also calendar the booth assignment date. We call if we have not received notice by that date. It sometimes happens that the event company will take your money and forget to put you in the system.

2. Think about how you will get your booth equipment to the show. Will you drive and unload yourself, fly and ship, fly and bring your stuff as luggage, or some other combination? This ties into the design of your booth as well. If you plan to have an armoire in your booth, you most likely will have to ship it unless you live in the same city as the show.

You will be inundated with faxes and emails from shipping companies that want to give you a quote for shipping your goods to the show, even in you live in the same city as the show. If you plan to ship, go ahead and get a few quotes. The shipping setups are extremely easy—the truck comes to your house and picks up your boxes, moves them to the show site, and delivers them to your booth. All you do is get to the show, unpack, and set up. Empty boxes are then stored and returned to you after the show. You simply repack the boxes at your booth, leave them there and take off!

We are based in Seattle. We shipped our booth to a show in Chicago and the bill for 300 pounds (there and back) was $1,006. In a lengthy conversation with the truck driver, we discovered that it’s not the trucking company making the money; it’s the company putting on the show. The trucking company would have charged us about $200 for the whole thing. The rest was handling charges the event company charged once the goods got to the show site. It was hard spending the money, but it was actually cheaper for us to do it this way than driving to Chicago. Could we have hired our own trucking company? Ya, but the price would have been about the same because the financial hosing took place at the show site, not in the truck along the way and the trucking companies have no control over the handling charges.

Our next show is in Las Vegas in May, and we will be driving down and doing our own freight handling because it’s cheaper than flying and shipping our goods.

So, those are the first two steps we take. Concurrent with this is the booth design, which I will cover at length in the next few entries.

TRADE SHOWS PART 6—THINKING ABOUT YOUR BOOTH

2008-02-27T11:42:00.000-08:00

Our booth for buyer shows is entirely different than what I normally look like at my weekly street market outings. I will post pics of both booths later on, when I actually have a picture of the “corporate” booth (we did not take one yet), and I will provide costs for all materials as well as sources for those materials, as well as why we chose what we did. Suffice it to say that for now, you want to consider some of the following when thinking about booth design:

1. The clutter factor. Make sure that people are not overwhelmed by the stuff in your booth and that they can move freely and quickly around it. Buyers know what they are looking for and it does not take them long to cruise the wares. Make sure that they can cruise yours quickly and efficiently—it leaves a good impression.

2. The color factor. Our mentor told us to add color color color! You don’t have to go overboard, but tasteful use of much color catches the eye of passersby quite well. If you are in the middle of an aisle, as we are the more eye catching you can do, the better. We made up royal blue sidewalls for our booth, which makes our signage and products pop!

3. The labor factor. Can you and at most one other person set up and break down your booth? The labor fees the show coordinators charge for booth setup and breakdown are outrageous! I would think of a booth design that can be transported in a canopied pickup or a rented van and that can be set up with you and at most one other cheap helper. We accomplish structure very cheaply and efficiently, and I will be putting this info in the blog with the booth pics. We also use lots of fabric and “soft” items that roll and fold and fit compactly into boxes.

4. The cost factor. You can put together a very successful booth for less than $1,000. We routinely get offers to rent booth setups for $2000 and up per show. We can’t even consider that kind of money right now, nor would we ever. Our booth is designed specifically to show off our products. No rental booth can do that for us.

TRADE SHOWS PART 5

2008-02-27T11:40:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned earlier, we are participating in several buyer shows this year, all of them in different markets—gift, home & housewares, hardware/housewares, and pets.

Our first ever buyer show, the Seattle Gift Show, ended on February 5. All in all, it was a good experience for us, although not in instant sales. Be forewarned: our industry mentors have informed us that the buyer shows are not for orders, but for contacts. So, go into them with the mindset of making as many contacts of various kinds as you can, rather than racking up as many orders as you can.

But, you say, these shows cost lots of money! If I don’t get a monetary return, what good is doing the show? That is a question everyone will have to answer for themselves. For us, the Seattle Gift Show was rather quiet. Too quiet for my taste, actually, but Mr. Sales and Marketing was satisfied. We gained the following: 1) possibly a new manufacturer who will bring our necessary up-front costs way down and allow us a great deal more flexibility in our overseas manufacturing, 2) exposure exposure exposure; and 3) face time with press people who stopped by and were only too willing to hand over their cards. This will all pay off in the long run, as other earlier efforts seem to be paying off for us this winter.

All of our show expenditures get charged to our advertising expenses, because in reality that’s what they are—a face-to-face advertising/networking opportunity (notice that two out of three mentioned in the previous paragraph are all about advertising). We have found word of mouth and face to face to be our most effective and certainly cheapest forms of advertising in the long run, and this is just one more networking avenue. What is nice about these shows is that you can choose your target audience, so you might think of the cost as the price to pay for accessing your most desirable demographic if your model is about business to business sales.

I will blog more about the specifics of our booth, moving in, moving out, and what we do to bring down the costs of transportation, food and lodging for these shows at the end of March when I have pics to post as visual aids. We can’t do these shows without the help of family and friends, so if you are hesitant to ask for help, now is the time to get over it.

Our next show is the International Home and Housewares Show in Chicago March 16-18. This is the global home and housewares event of the year, and so we expect the show to be huge and hectic. Wish us luck! I will bring back all the details, as well as start talking about show specifics.

CREDIT CARD PROCESSING PART 3 - THE OTHER STUFF

2008-01-02T16:25:00.000-08:00

Here is a list of questions we have learned to ask when shopping for credit card processing:

1. Who are the gateway and processing companies?

2. What are the setup fees?

3. What is the monthly fee?

4. What is the statement fee and does it increase with low volume?

5. What is the discount rate?

6. What is the fee per transaction?

7. What is the monthly minimum?

8. What are the contract term and the early termination fee?

7. How long does it take the for the funds to appear in my bank account after approval? (Usually 48 hours. However, some processors only deposit funds every 14 days!)

8. Whom do I contact when I have questions or problems?

The PayPal Model

PayPal, ProPay, and 2checkout are third-party processing services. These companies accept online credit card orders on behalf of you or your company. Like processors, they charge small setup fee, a per-transaction fee, and a discount rate per transaction. Unlike processors, you do not have to open a merchant account and you pay no gateway fees, monthly fees, or statement fees. If you are just starting out and you only do credit card sales online, you might check out these services to see if they meet your needs until online sales take off.

We have a relatively low volume of credit card transactions overall. However, because we accept credit cards from direct retail sales and from our wholesale customers as well as online through our shopping cart, we cannot use PayPal. These services are intended for online shopping cart sales only.

CREDIT CARD PROCESSING PART 2 - THE MONEY

2008-01-02T16:23:00.000-08:00

The Reseller

Resellers make their money from software you probably don’t need, monthly software “maintenance” fees, card processing supplies, card processing machines, and probably commissions from the gateway and processing companies they represent.

Most resellers charge a “setup” fee. I don’t know if this is a reseller charge, a gateway charge or a processor charge. I think it all depends on the underlying agreements between the reseller, gateway and processor.

Some resellers can also help you install a shopping cart. We build and maintain our own websites. We had no shopping cart experience, and one of the benefits of going with our first reseller, Merchant Express, was that they provided a shopping cart and installed it for us for a nominal fee. When we switched processors, we were able to do the necessary recoding of the shopping cart ourselves in a few minutes.

The Gateway

That “monthly fee” that is quoted when shopping for credit card services is the gateway company’s fee. They do not make their money any other way. As I mentioned previously, it may be possible to negotiate directly with gateway for a lower rate. This fee is usually $15 to $20 per month.

If you work directly with AuthorizeNet, they charge a setup fee. Because we had an existing account (we had to close that one due once again to Pipeline Data Processing’s terms), we could open a new one at a steep discount.

The Processor

The processor sets your per-transaction fee. This fee is usually a set amount per transaction (e.g., 10 cents per transaction) plus a “discount rate”. The discount rate includes the fee the credit card companies charge and a bit on top of that for the processor. The discount rate varies according to the number of transactions processed per month. From what I can gather, it appears that the transaction fees vary not because of the amount the credit card companies charge, but because of the amount the processor charges on top of that.

Many processors have a monthly minimum. So, if you have a very low volume of transactions, you will most likely pay the monthly minimum instead of an amount per transaction. You need to do some math to determine whether you will get hosed by the monthly minimum requirement versus having enough transactions to get the regular per-transaction free and discount rate. If you only take credit cards online, not in person, the way out of the minimum monthly trap is to use a service such as PayPal that does not require you to open a merchant account with a processor. I will talk more about the PayPal model in part 3.

Credit card companies and processors also charge different fees for different types of credit cards. I have never delved into this matter and I don’t intend to any time soon. Apparently, for a very high-risk, unsecured card, the fee per transaction can be around $10. I have asked around, and I have found no vendors who had incurred such a fee, so it’s probably pretty rare.

Another fee the processor charges is the “statement fee.” I don’t know why you are charged to receive your statement every month. We no longer pay a statement fee with our new processor, Nova. Our old statement fee through Pipeline Data Processing worked out to $19.99 per month, which is astronomically high. I don’t recommend Pipeline Data Processing for a number of reasons, mostly having to do with money. Statement fees tend to run from $8 to $12 per month.

Still another fee the processor charges is the dreaded early termination fee, same as your cell phone provider. Before you sign up for services, it is important to know what the contract term is and what the early termination fee is. We were recently hosed by Pipeline Data Processing (3 years and $300), but most are not this drastic. Our current agreement is 2 years and a $95 early termination fee.

CREDIT CARD PROCESSING PART 1 – THE PLAYERS

2008-01-02T16:18:00.000-08:00

In the world of wholesale and retail, there is an alternate universe. This is where credit card processing resides. Right alongside cell phone service. We just recently switched our processing services. It was ugly. I resolved to finally demystify credit card processing for ourselves, and vowed to share the information with everyone I could as a public service.

I am sure some of you had this system down pat within 10 minutes, understand it intuitively and wonder what all the fuss is about and why I am devoting blog space to credit card processing. Some others of you will worship the ground I walk on after this little series. I will update credit card processing on the blog as I learn more, but I think I now have the basics down.

I have posted the separate blog entries at the same time so that you don’t have to wait for the information. This first part will introduce you to all of the players involved in processing a credit card transaction. The second part will cover fees, and the third part will cover the questions we have learned to ask when shopping for credit card processing, The PayPal system, and anything else that might be helpful.

Processing a credit card transaction involves five to six different entities:

1. The reseller

2. The gateway

3. The processor, and possibly a separate billing company

4. The credit card companies

5. Your bank

I will now attempt to explain each of these entities, in order of their importance, not as listed above.

The Processor

This is where it’s at. This is the company that receives your credit card transaction request from the gateway and then passes the transaction along to the Credit Card Interchange (a network of financial entities that communicate to manage the processing, clearing, and settlement of credit card transactions) for approval and payment, receives the approval, and then transmits approval information back through the gateway to your terminal or computer. The part up through receiving all approvals takes about three to six seconds. Getting it into your bank account takes from 48 hours to 14 days, depending on the processor. Go figure.

The Gateway

Just as you sign up with AOL or Comcast or some other company to access the Internet, so you sign up with a gateway company such as AuthorizeNet or LinkPoint to access the credit card processing “Internet”. These companies take your transaction information and forward it to the nether regions for processing. They do not process anything or take a fee per transaction; they just receive your transaction information and pass it along to your processing company.

The gateway company also sends confirmation emails to the customer (you can customize them) and emails confirming the transaction to the merchant. Your shopping cart is hooked up to the gateway so that when a customer enters financial information on your website, it is automatically sent to the gateway and on to the processor, the merchant receives an email notice of the transaction from the gateway, and the customer receives a customized email confirmation.

There are several gateway companies and some processing companies have their own gateways. It seems that most resellers utilize AuthorizeNet. If you know of any others, please add a comment to share your information with others.

Because of our low volume, when selling retail we use a manual credit card imprinter and then enter the transactions on the computer later. To enter the transaction, we go directly to the gateway (AuthorizeNet), sign in and then enter the information directly to AuthorizeNet’s system via Virtual Terminal on their website. The transaction then goes into the system and to our processor, Nova, for the actual processing. More information regarding software and entering transactions is below in the Reseller section.

The Reseller

This is the company that packages credit card processing and gateway services and sells you those along with all of the other retail kitsch that comes with processing credit cards.

Instead of having to look for a separate gateway and processor on your own, the reseller does that for you. Most resellers represent a certain gateway/processor combo. The reseller takes your information, opens accounts with the gateway and processing companies on your behalf, sells you software you most likely don’t need, sells or leases you machines of various kinds, supplies those little Visa/Mastercard signs and stickers, supplies credit slips and other supplies, and handles your questions, problems and complaints. As far as I can tell, the reseller usually only represents one gateway/processor company combination.

It is important to note that the reseller usually does not set the fees for credit card processing, nor does it actually collect them. Resellers typically have deals with the processors and they can offer special fees or deals to you, the merchant, based on these underlying relationships. The reseller makes its money on things like processing machine sales and leasing, software for entering the transactions, monthly fees for software maintenance and upgrades, shopping cart services, and miscellaneous other fees and services.

A word about software. If you enter your transactions manually online, I am going to discourage buying software to enter your transactions from your reseller. Why? Because it’s expensive and unnecessary in most cases. The software a reseller sells does exactly the same thing that AuthorizeNet’s Virtual Terminal does--sends the information into the gateway--and Virtual Terminal is a free, web-based application (see previous information). Resellers have quoted us $149 to $230 for the software and most want a monthly “maintenance” fee of $8 to $20. Once your account is set up through AuthorizeNet (you can create an account directly with them or through a reseller), you should be able to access Virtual Terminal and use it. I don’t know if other gateways have similar systems available.

Merchant Express and Costco are the two resellers with which we have experience. Resellers are all over the web. This is a commission-driven business, so beware of the person on the other end of the phone. You will most likely end up with someone who resembles the stereotype of the used car salesman. Many banks are now contracting with resellers and their associated gateway/processor. That way, they can still offer credit card processing to their business customers without having to maintain their own complex, expensive processing/gatway apparatus.

Purchasing Services Separately

We just discovered that you can put together your own package of gateway and processor, if you dare. I was recently able to go directly to AuthorizeNet, set up a new account and then because of our low volume, get a monthly fee quote directly from AuthorizeNet that was $5 per month lower than what the reseller was quoting. I then had to get a couple of codes and numbers from the processor and enter them into my account information on the AuthorizeNet website to allow the processor and AuthorizeNet to talk to each other, and it was relatively easy to do. I probably won’t be purchasing services separately anytime soon, but I mention it for those of you who might want to try to do it.

Now that I have succeeded in giving you a mother of a headache, I will end with a quick summary of what actually happens when you swipe a card or enter a transaction on your computer:

1. Card is swiped and information is transferred to the gateway company. Alternatively, information is entered directly into the gateway.

2. Transaction information is sent to the processor.

3. The processor sends the information on to the Credit Card Interchange.

4. The approval/rejection information goes back to the processor.

5. The information then goes from the processor back to the gateway.

6. Acceptance/rejection information is transmitted from the gateway to the merchant.

The above all happens in about 3 seconds.

7. After about 48 hours to 14 days, money is deposited into the merchant’s bank account.

For a graphic representation, here is a website that you might find helpful:

www.authorize.net/resources/howitworksdiagram

TRADE SHOWS - PART 4

2007-12-27T10:11:00.000-08:00

Ah, Christmas/holiday shows! They sound great. Lots of sales opportunity. Lots of public exposure. We took a look at the finances and how much we could afford to lose, and we signed up for a couple of local ones. These were large (650 and 450 vendors) regional shows, somewhat expensive ($850 and $675, respectively, and the $850 gave us better ratios than the $675 show), and lots of time on one’s feet. We don’t know if we will ever do another one.

The event coordinators of these larger shows cruise the summer fairs looking for suitable vendors, which is how we got into these shows in the first place. We now think, though, that if a large show coordinator is still trying to fill slots for a late October or November Christmas show in July or August, beware. It harkens back to the point about vendor turnover. Large turnover or lack of interest from previous vendors means these companies have to be out diligently cruising for a new crop of suckers like ourselves. This is when getting information about vendor turnover, public turnout, and advertising avenues is more important than ever before committing financial resources. You might even get last year’s exhibitor list and call a few of them to learn about their previous show experiences. Experiences can vary widely between vendors depending on what they sell, but you can still get a very good idea of the overall trends by talking to a few of them.

We got lucky and broke even only because one show’s gains covered the other show’s losses. Once again, we did not follow our own advice about researching the shows (we had not yet devised our own advice at that time). However, given what other veteran vendors were saying at these shows, I don’t think our research would have done us much good. 2007 has not been a good year for most vendors, regardless of their successes in 2006, and most of them indicated they did quite well in 2006.

Our big learning experience was that attendee entry fees are an effective barrier to public purchasing. One show’s entry fee jumped from $7 in 2006 to $12 in 2007. The second, smaller show charged $14 per person. We heard from many attendees that this dampened their buying enthusiasm. So, the combination of economic downturn, a dour public and ridiculous entry fees did not bode well for our 2007 experiences.

Our second lesson was that our previous market research was reflected in these shows. When researching future shows, we will take a look at the typical attendee and see whether it fits our target demographic. Restated in English, we will take a look at whether the types of people attending the show are those who would normally be interested in our product. Despite the fact that these shows draw a lot of people, the show’s location, where and how the show is advertised, and other factors influence the type of attendee. What’s good for one vendor may not be good for another.

With that, best wishes this holiday season and I hope you all go charging into a new year of great successes!

TRADE SHOWS - PART 3

2007-12-27T10:08:00.000-08:00

Our resolve to do no more public shows lasted until July, when I participated in the West Seattle Summerfest, part of our local community festival. It sounded fun, it would be downright economical for the exposure we got, and I wanted to get out and do something other than what I was dealing with in the office. What fun! Long, sunny days, chatting with friends and acquaintances who happened by, being part of the local community, all in all, a very good time. The show cost $345 and about 15,000 people attended, so the ratio of attendees to cost was great. We made a little money and the show had no associated travel costs, so no financial losses to worry about. Even though we love what we do, the day-to-day grind can take its toll. I found this show to be a great antidote to the grind and a good way to recharge my batteries. I am looking forward to participating again this summer.

Even though we did not make a lot of money, this show had repercussions later on in November and December, when people would stop by the booth at other shows and remember us. We love hearing this. It is said that it takes seeing or hearing about a product seven times before a person thinks about buying it. For now, I am thrilled with two times!

For larger shows, the applications can be found online and submitted usually 11 months in advance (for some very popular shows, you need to apply this early), and fees are due for many at least six months in advance. For a startup, it is difficult to gauge what will happen a week from now, let alone 11 months from now. Most street fair applications are not available until January (I will start collecting and processing online applications the first week of January this year). All monies are due usually only a month or two before the show. Besides the fun in the sun, the fees are lower, the time frame is more startup-friendly, and there are numerous street fairs to choose from in the summer months. In addition to your booth display, most of these shows require you to supply your own canopy.

So, if you are thinking about a relatively low-risk way to economically introduce your product to the buying public, do lots of convenient market research, and practice your sales techniques, you might take a look at summer fairs in your area.

TRADE SHOWS - PART 2

2007-12-08T20:23:00.000-08:00

Our products have pretty broad appeal. When we first started thinking about trade shows, we were quite excited about the prospect of selling our wares to the public at such a venue. The public would love our products! We would sell out of stock! It would be great! What’s not to like?

So, we manufactured lots of stock, rented a truck to hold it all, reserved three hotel rooms for ourselves, and spent five days selling, uh, enough to make back about one-third of what it cost us to attend the show. Needless to say, we were not sold on public trade shows after this experience.

Using the analysis points mentioned in the previous posting, the analysis went something like this:

1. The “price per hour” was $23. That was sales approximately one unit per hour or so to try to cover costs, which sounds doable. The show hours were good—morning and evening hours, weekday and weekend dates.

2. The “attendance per dollar” was good. We had been told that approximately 30,000 people usually attended the show and the booth fee was $1,200.

3. We did not ask for vendor return information from the show management.

4. Advertising for this show was via several main channels. Additionally, this show was a popular one that had been going for many years.

5. The show location was great—easy to drive to and park, but also reachable by light rail and bus.

So, we should have done better than we did, right? Our Bin Buddie product was very popular with campers. This was a Sportsmen’s show. The analysis was pretty good. So where did we go wrong? The following:

1. We had a good grasp of our target audience, but we learned it was more narrowly defined than we thought. This show was in Portland, Oregon, and drew from southwest Washington, Portland and northwest Oregon. We have learned that this audience’s income and education level was not our ideal demographic, regardless of the fact that they all participate in outdoor activities. Our other efforts to date have borne this out.

2. Wrong gender. Our product is an “organizational” product. Most, but not all, men run from it at the first sniff. This was a show where men were the major purchasers. Women were present, but women shopping with men usually means that men will make the decisions, and it won’t be to look at Bin Buddies. We encounter this dynamic with all public venues at which we sell our products.

3. People come to these shows to look and score freebies, not necessarily to buy. If they do buy, intuitive, impulse-buy products do best.

We limped home from this show, licked our wounds, and reviewed our lessons learned. We resolved to do no more public shows—we could not afford any more major financial losses like this. There were, however, several positives that came out of this show:

1. As time passed, the information gleaned from this experience was most valuable when refining our sales and marketing efforts.

2. Approximately 30,000 people were exposed to our products. We got some into the hands of the general public, which is always good.

3. We made some price adjustments based on feedback we received. The adjustments have proven to be a good move.

4. We got a lot smarter about attending public shows, smarts we would not have developed had we not attended this show.

I will discuss our next effort in the next installment of my Trade Show series.

TRADE SHOWS--PART 1

2007-12-06T13:04:00.000-08:00

I have read about other people’s trade show experiences, and I have now had enough of my own to have actually have some information to pass on. The first installment is general information about shows—how to find them, when to think about them, costs, questions to ask, and any other general information that comes to mind. I will save my personal experiences for the second installment and beyond.

First off, just what is a trade show? I define them rather broadly to be a temporary marketplace (other than a weekly market) at which products are displayed and sold. The audience can be either the general public or a subset of the general public (street fairs, holiday shows, hobbyists, crafters, ski bums, etc.) or non-public shows open only to industry buyers (every industry has at least one show per year).

PUBLIC SHOWS

Why participate in a show open to the public? Here are just a few:

1. Participating in trade shows is a viable business model, and many businesses at public shows do just shows all year long. These are the vendors you see regularly at state and county fairs, and they travel the country selling at public shows of various kinds.

2. To gain exposure for your product(s) and to introduce the public to your company.

3. To do market research, practice sales skills, etc.

Shows open to the public require stock on hand to sell, and require that you have it with you in the booth or can easily be restocked. We only do local shows that allow us to restock easily if needed. That way, we do not need to rent a truck to store stock on the show premises. We learned this hard way, which will be more fully covered in the second installment.

We participate in public shows in the local area in order to 1) make a little extra money; 2) to gain exposure and introduce the public to our products; 3) to conduct market research; and 4) so that I can develop my sales/people skills. Nowadays, our goal is always to break even, and we don’t always make our goal.

We have participated in four public shows so far, three of which we have been invited to after an event manager saw our booth and products at another show. Beware that it is the job of these people to fill the booths at their show, not to make sure you have a good or profitable experience. There is a great deal to consider prior to putting down money for a show to which you have been invited. Put aside the pride and go into it with your eyes open. I list some questions to ask below.

NON-PUBLIC (BUYER) SHOWS

We have decided to participate in non-public shows open only to buyers in order to 1) introduce retailers to our products and 2) to generate orders from these retailers. No product is sold during the show; only orders are taken. There are some non-public “cash and carry” shows throughout the year, but these are less common.

Buyer shows require a completely different booth design and configuration for us, but they do not require stock on hand at the show. Our booth design for these shows is portable enough to fly around the country, and for 2008 we have several of these shows lined up in different parts of the country.

RESEARCHING SHOWS

When researching shows, I head to the two websites listed on the right, www.tsnn.com and www.tradeshowweek.com. I have found these two to be pretty comprehensive listings, and I always check both of them because their categories are a bit different and they don’t contain exactly the same information. To use the tradeshowweek site, click on Directories and then Tradeshow Directory.

When researching local shows not listed on the two aforementioned websites, I rely heavily on the web, especially listings in the local newspaper or a site that lists community events throughout the year. For fun, I like to participate in school bazaars, and I have to contact individual PTAs to find out about these opportunities. Other local shows in which I participate or plan to participate are local summer street fairs in different neighborhoods, a weekly Sunday market, the annual women’s show (bigger show than most local ones) and local “specialty” shows such as hobby shows, recreational shows, etc.

BOOTH DESIGN AND COSTS

Keep your booth design simple and inexpensive. You can do a lot with what you have around the house to begin with. Tablecloths from discount stores are a great bargain and hide just about everything. You want your design to be easily portable and easy to set up and take down. We design our own booths for both public and non-public shows. Fixtures for our public show booth have cost about $75 so far, and we have contributed some items from home (card table, chairs, tv trays). I can fit the entire booth and stock in the back of my Toyota pickup.

We do outdoor events regularly (weekly markets) and those tents you see run about $100-$200. Side panels for the tents, essential for inclement or very sunny weather, run around $40 per panel. In addition to side panels, you will need weights to hold the tent down in case the wind picks up. You can make weights (Seattle can get windy, so I use 20 lbs per leg) out of just about anything or buy them specifically for the tent. My weights are bricks held together with and wrapped completely in duct tape because they are cheap to make, compact and easy to transport.

I recommend a sign for your booth for public shows. Our 8x2 vinyl signs have cost us approximately $125 and $175 each. We use them for both indoor and outdoor shows. If your sign is handmade or smaller, it will be probably a good deal cheaper.

We are now designing and constructing our booth for the buyer shows we will participate in this year. We have budgeted $500 for this booth. We will be using a lot of materials from the local kite shop, which will save us tons of money. When in need of supplies and fixtures for something, we brainstorm to consider how to get what we need most economically. We get ideas from the most unusual places!

So, you have looked up some trade shows. Now what?

Booths cost money. Sometimes lots of money. My lowest so far has been $250 for a weekend I will be spending with hobbyists. Our highest fee is $2100 for a non-public show. Buyer shows are more expensive than public shows. Our average for public shows so far is $900 and for buyer shows about $1900. A buyer show in New York City will run you at least $3,000. These fees must be paid well in advance, so you need to plan for them.

You need to sign up to exhibit at a show well in advance, usually at least six months in advance, which means you have to be on the ball and perhaps start researching and planning shows during the development phase. We did not research buyer shows or sign up for any for our first year of operation. We probably could have exhibited at some buyer shows this year instead of waiting. However, this first year has allowed us to work out early operational bugs, work out manufacturing, and to gather information and knowledge we will need to play with the big boys in 2008.

One piece of advice I see is to attend the show in which you want to participate sometime in the future. This is not always possible or, in our case, not always economically feasible. If you can do this, by all means do it. If you can’t attend a show in advance and talk to the vendors, or even if you do, I recommend posing the following questions to the event managers when signing up for a show:

1. What has been the attendance the last 3-5 years? (or whatever attendance figures you can get) The show managers like to fudge these numbers.

2. What percentage of the vendors return from year to year?

3. What are the hours the show is open?

4. What is your advertising plan/strategy for the show? You are paying these people to drive traffic to the show, so you want a strong advertising strategy on their part.

Once we have the answers, we consider the following:

1. For public shows, booth fee divided by total number of hours the show is open. Kind of a “price per hour” measure. So far, our “price per hour” has ranged between $11.50 and $28. This give us an idea of how much stock we have to sell to break even. Typically, the more local the show, the more bang for your buck (street fairs are cheaper than regional shows). Additionally, we look at whether the show is open a variety of hours, midmorning to past dinner time to allow the greatest flexibility.

2. Total past attendance versus booth fee. We compare between shows. One show wanted $800 for an audience of approximately 600 attendees. Another show wanted $675 for what turned out to be 8,000 attendees. You need to know when you are getting took. I utilize a little formula that gives me a ratio for quick, easy analysis.

3. Vendor return percentage. This tells us how satisfied the vendors are with the show management and attendance. Other vendors are also a valuable source for this kind of information, and we get friendly with those around us when at the public shows.

4. Advertising—Are multiple mass channels being utilized (local newspaper, radio advertising, billboards, television)? This is extremely important for driving traffic to the show.

5. Show location. Is the show in a venue that is easy for people to reach by car and public transportation? Is parking convenient, free or reasonably priced? We have discovered that downtown Seattle is no place for a public show. The location (convention center) is inconvenient to drive to and parking is expensive.

6. Entry fees. Fees charged to the general public have been getting quite steep. Too steep and the public will not come, or will come and not buy because they have spent all of their money on entry fees.

That’s it for the first installment. I will be recounting some of our experiences, mistakes we made, and lessons we learned in the second and further installments.

MORE SOURCING-INFO YOU DON'T WANT TO MISS

2007-09-27T17:29:00.000-07:00

Now, started this blog, but I know little about blogging, and I truly thought that I was the only one who knew about it or read it. I noticed a comment the other day, however, and when I read it, it appeared to be from the goddess of apparel design and manufacturing, Kathleen Fasanella.

Kathleen wrote a book that is considered the bible of apparel manufacturing. I did not get the book or read it because we do not manufacture apparel. My email buddy, Audra, did not either, until very recently, after she had already gotten her product, a nifty new baby sling, to market. She informed me that we had been missing a great deal of very useful information, even for us, by not having read the book.

Kathleen also maintains a blog and a forum (need to buy the book to get into the forum), and for anyone thinking about manufacturing any sewn product, I highly recommend utilizing all of Kathleen's resources. Her main site is Designer-Entrepreneurs.com, but it's the Fashion Incubator site that is the nuts and bolts.

Kathleen's is the most popular book, blog and forum out there for manufacturing sewn products. Give her a look!

Sourcing Your Materials

2007-09-24T16:00:00.000-07:00

This blog devotes itself to a topic that can be utterly depressing, ecstatically exhilarating, and everything else in between. Raising children? Formulating a successful vaccine? No, sourcing your materials! Remember earlier when I talked about the time interval between actually hatching the idea of your product and then coming up with something resembling a workable prototype? Keep that interval in mind when determining what materials you need and where to find them, and learn to let go and find inner peace.

In the beginning, you know approximately what kinds of materials you want to use. You think that it should be pretty easy—after all, you’ve seen the same materials time and time again at Target or True Value or somesuch. Ya, we thought the same thing and soon learned one of our early lessons—you can grow old and die trying to source the materials you want, especially when you need them in very small quantities, and especially if you are trying to find these products in the good old USA.

We utilize recreational fabrics, webbing, etc. in our products—pretty much anything that you can use to make a backpack. and I knew that Seattle Fabrics was the place to get them. So, for the 18 months or so I was playing with prototypes, I was a regular visitor to Seattle Fabrics. I did not think about the future much, when I would need quantities of these materials at a much lower cost for initial domestic production. After all, Seattle Fabrics managed to get them, so it must not be that difficult. Boy, was I ever wrong!

We did eventually find everything we needed initially and in doable quantities. Every time we think up a new product, however, it brings with it some difficulty with sourcing materials. Initially, I found these sources to be the most helpful:

1. Knowledgeable sales people and those who sell handmade products. They often will have the information you want, or have information that will get your closer to your goal. Street fairs and craft fairs are often a good resource for this information..

2. The information our prototype person provided to us. He had been in the sewn product industry for a long time and provided us with our first source of fabrics and contact information that led us to our webbing/buckle distributor. Our second prototype person (RHF Apparel) was also extremely helpful, having previously owned her own commercial shop for many years. I still utilize her as a resource.

3. The Internet. We found this to be of limited value at first, but if you don’t have actual people who can help you, it comes in handy. Plan to spend some time with your computer. You might check out McRae’s Blue Book and ThomasNet for starters. Make sure when you call or email that you encourage the respondent to refer you somewhere else if they can't provide the information you need. These people are on the inside track and a small tidbit from them can rock your world!

4. Friends and family and friends of family and friends of friends. One of them helped us tweak our final design, helps us iron our our current design flaws, helps us source materials, and we can’t say enough good about her. People want to help you, so don’t’ be afraid to broadcast your needs.

5. If there is a specific industry into which you fit, check out industry associations. You might even call them to get some general information about sourcing materials. I find that most people at industry associations are pretty helpful.

6. The Mom Inventors forum. Full of people just like me when I was even more clueless than I am now.

Now that we are up and running, we rely heavily on the following:

1. Our fabric company’s sales rep, our notions company sales rep, our sewing contractor, and our sourcing agent.

2. Forums forums forums! They are loaded with good people wanting to share information. I love this resource. Not only the one or two that I spend time with (check out the Mom Inventors website and join to access the forum), but also the information I retrieve from individual postings when I do google searches (rather like following a trail of breadcrumbs). They are one of the great networking tools of our time. One of my searches recently led me into kite-making forums and then ultimately to what we really needed—a wholesale source for fiberglass rods, something with which the people in number 1 above could not assist us.

The most important thing to remember is that sourcing takes patience and resourcefulness. Think of it as a treasure hunt. I would also advise you to take some time to sit and do nothing, or go for a run, or take a nap, or put a jigsaw puzzle together, or just daydream. You will be amazed at how much information comes your way.

Good luck and have fun!

Product Research

2007-09-05T21:27:00.000-07:00

My previous blog concentrated on how I got started. One of the things I did during that time was some initial market research, not to determine who would buy my product, but to determine, before I took giant leap into this process, whether the same product was already on the market. I had never seen it if it was, so I figured initially that I would be okay taking the process further.

So, how do you take the process further? Lots of different methods can be used, and I recommend taking a multi-pronged approach to be as thorough as possible. In a perfect world, I would have been able to fly around the country, visiting every kind of store I could think of to search their aisle. Also in a perfect world, I would have been able to determine with utter certainty that I was indeed alone in the manufacturing universe with my product. Neither of these happened, of course. I was not then independently wealthy I'm still not), nor would it be possible to reach 100% certainty. I have been asked if it was wise to move ahead without that 100% certainty, but, hey, life is mostly uncertain and I am not very risk averse. I think everyone needs to assess their own risk tolerance before moving ahead. I look upon this entire process as a grand adventure, and I am a person who loves a good adventure.

There are a great number of books and online resources that discuss using the public library. The library has so much information and many of its resources are so large (one database resource can have millions of entries) that one can easily be overwhelmed without the help of a good reference librarian and a dose of practicality about collecting and using the information. Reference librarians are great for letting you know what kind of resources are available for business research and guiding you to those that might be most helpful (I think librarians are the universe’s gift to humanity). Overall, I think the public library is great for general knowledge and information, perhaps learning about resources that you might want to utilize initially or down the road.

If the library is good for general knowledge and information, the Internet is great for narrowing the search to specific products that might be similar to or the same as yours. If you are not comfortable using a computer as a search tool or don’t know how, get comfortable and visit your local librarian! They can help you learn how to search for information using a computer and how to tailor your search accordingly. Like everything else, the Internet has some drawbacks. First, if you don’t know the name of a similar product that might be out there, you can easily miss it in your search. Recently, a couple of people have brought companies to our attention that produce similar products to some of ours that I had not found in my computer searches. Second, if you don’t have some kind of defined search plan (patent office first, large product listings next, etc.), you can quickly get overwhelmed and lost in it all. Third, it can be rather time-consuming and a lot of guesswork is involved when formulating search terms. Choosing search terms can be exercise in letting go—you will never know whether the terms you choose are the “best” ones. My business partner is a genius at choosing search terms. I am not. The Internet is the resource we use the most.

Get out there and window shop! Walk the aisles of every relevant retail outlet within 25 miles of your house, Twenty-five miles is completely arbitrary—do whatever you can manage. You will be amazed at what’s out there, and it will either make you feel really good about your idea or really bad. It’s also fun to walk aisles from a research angle instead of a consumer angle. We spend a lot of time in local stores looking at complementary products, color combinations, endcap displays, shelf displays, and any manner of various other things.

I am sure there are other search tools out there, but these are the three we use the most. They are convenient, free, offer lots of good information, and we have learned how to utilize them to best meet our needs. Good luck!

How Did You Get Started?

2007-08-20T18:01:00.001-07:00

I started this blog thinking that I would not have a great deal to write. Being a female, I tend to be rather collaborative, networky and cooperative by nature, and I now find myself wanting to share every moment with fellow entrepreneurs and anyone else who is interested. Sigh. Where to start? I will try to start from the very beginning.

First, a little background: Our company, PacEasy Inc., (www.paceasy.com) “designs and manufactures innovative storage and organization solutions to make life neat.” Pretty catchy, huh? I can't take the credit. Our flagship product is a really my awesome nylon fabric insert for plastic storage bins that has pockets in it. This keeps small items from getting lost in the big items, and Bin Buddies are great for any number of uses.

The idea for some kind of bin organizer came to me in a moment of utter despair on a camping trip. The first day, my husband and I drove 10 hours to our first night’s campsite. When we reached the campground, it was dusk and raining, the tent’s rainfly had not been packed, and I was hungry, tired, and wanted some dinner regardless. I opened my kitchen box and salt and pepper were everywhere. I remember something about raising my voice at the hapless husband and wanting to head back home. Luckily, we did not go home, and the rest of the trip went very smoothly.

How did you get started? Where did you get the idea? These are questions I am often asked, and I tell the camping story. What I don’t convey and what is more important to the journey is the time it took between the camping trip and the final prototype. I set out designing Bin Buddies with no real thought as to timeframes. After all, I had a very definite idea in my head, so what could be so hard about turning it into something more concrete in a couple of weeks? My first prototype took me three weeks to complete, and it looked nothing like the products that we sell today. About 18 months later, it all finally came together, even though I knew what I wanted when I started. During the process, I ended up going a number of different directions, some very far out there, before I circled back to my happy ending.

I busied myself with this project most evenings. Some days, I just could not bring myself to sew another stitch. Midway through, I started a new job and only worked sporadically on the prototypes. A lot of time was spent searching the market for products similar to mine (there weren’t any, thank goodness), thinking about the materials I needed and then attempting to source them (a very time-consuming task—I will cover this extensively in later blogs), and simply figuring out how to sew things together (my mother taught me to sew, but I am no professional), as I had no patterns to follow except my own. Along the way, I sought advice and assistance from many people, and I found that all of them were happy to help me. Get over the fear of asking those close to you for help, guidance, and expert advice.

I think the thing that kept me going for those 18 months was the fact that I so enjoyed what I was doing. My brain loved the stimulation and challenge of creation. I loved the feeling of accomplishment when I successfully completed a task, be it finding the right materials, designing the next prototype or finishing sewing it up.

It’s this time spent on numerous trials and errors and triumphs that you never hear about in most books touting the clueless entrepreneur's or inventor's life. You open the book’s cover and begin reading, and it seems that the product idea was hatched one night, prototyped the next, produced in a week or so overseas, and then successfully marketed to big box stores the following week. If this is what you are getting out of the book, its pages are best used to start campfires on your next camping trip. They are much better for toasting marshmallows than for providing any kind of usable advice. For some, a great idea takes little time to develop and bring to market, but for most, I think you will find it will indeed take some time, and it will be time well spent. You can check out books that I found useful for myself on the book list on this site.

Why This Blog?

2007-08-06T14:17:00.000-07:00

I read my "little corner of the world" blog pretty regularly (www.westseattleblog.com), read a few others occasionally, but I had never considered writing my own blog. I am a small business owner. Why would I complicate my life and eat up even more of my precious little free time with a blog? Because I found myself part of a growing informal email network of fellow startup manufacturers, many of us "mompreneurs" and women entrepreneurs, all of us seeking the same bits of information about the small stuff but finding nothing that could really help us beyond a certain point or fill in the fine details. There were a few excellent starter books, tidbits on the web, a couple of bulletin boards, and "small business" help sites whose creators wrote as if Microsoft were a small business, but not much for the likes of me and the people with whom I was corresponding. So, here we are.
I am hoping to have the time to post something every couple of weeks regarding my romp through my experiences with entrepreneurism and building my manufacturing business. I hope that those who read the posts will find something interesting or that they can use. My business partner, Thomas, and I, are somewhat unusual in that we love to share information and spread the word so that others can climb their own ladders to success with fewer rough spots along the way.
Our first break from the usual model is our partners page on our company website: http://www.paceasy.com/partners_pe.html. We can't grow in a vaccuum, and we are eternally grateful to these companies and individuals for their support and willingness to work with us, clueless as we are. I encourage all of you clueless entrepreneurs to take the time to recognize those of your partners who are helping to make your company a success.
Stay tuned!