By Barry Gross
of Arizona Silhouette
This is the second in a series of ongoing articles to help you make the most of your pen turning business, or to help you get started making a little money with your hobby.
The holiday season is upon us and the craft shows are approaching at a fast and furious pace! This past weekend, I attended the Washington DC Craft show, and as I was setting up my booth and strategically placing my pens to visually stimulate my potential customers, I was asking myself, did I have enough “stocking stuffer items” for sale? These are the smaller items that will generate additional revenue, and can be the difference between a good show and a great show! Some smaller items that could be considered “stocking stuffers” would be bottle stoppers, stylus key chains, seam rippers, bracelet helpers and my personal favorite egg kaleidoscopes. Most of these items can use the leftover pieces of pen blanks and thus really do not cost that much to produce in terms of material cost.
When you do a show that's not during the holidays, this is known as “table money”, meaning that these little items can be enough to pay for your show expenses!
Where do you strategically place these items in your booth to obtain the biggest impact? I place these types of “after thought items” right where my customers come to pay for their pen purchases. (This is just like the retail stores that place their “impulse purchase” items by their cash registers.) As they are handing me their items for purchase, I ask them if they need any “stocking stuffers?” I can honestly tell you that I sold every one of the “stocking stuffer” variety pieces I had, simply by asking “do you need any stocking stuffers?” Do not be afraid to ask the question! If you do not ask them you can’t sell them anything - the worst they can say is “no” and you still have the pen sale.
So, with that said, do you have enough small holiday stocking stuffer items?
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