Inside Small Business | Small Business & Home Business Marketing

Product Development

Sampling gorgeous eye shadow colors, what could be more fun for a makeup addict? Looking back, I have to laugh. I remember telling friends that my red eyes were caused by allergies.

But pulling together a coherent line of private label cosmetics and accessories proved to be a monumentally detailed and challenging task, one that took many hours of sampling, testing, budgeting, rebudgeting, and keeping an eye on the big picture. Foundation, eye colors, concealers. Brushes and bronzers and blush, oh my!

For months I sampled cleansers, toners and moisturizers and the jars and bottles to hold them. At one point, I settled on a lovely bottle with gold trim for my toner, only to realize that the minimum order was 5,000 units—a tad beyond even my Scenario C budget. There were many learning experiences in this process, and like, perhaps, many small business owners and their product offerings, I had not done anything quite like it before.

At some point I realized I needed to set some boundaries around exactly what it was I was going to sell. Taking the entire skin care component out of the picture and saving it for some future rollout was a decision that eased the budget and the psyche.

Another learning experience but much greater setback was yet to come. Once I had settled on all the colors of mineral makeup for my line, I ordered quarter pounds of a half dozen of them to start experimenting with filling sample jars and trying out sifters and types of labeling. When the wrong formula arrived, my wholesaler was surly and uncooperative, and I did not want to run into that situation again. I learned from that that I needed to put my faith in more than just one main supplier, and I had to start the process of testing and sampling all over again.

Today, my line of mineral makeup consists of 53 shades in all. I order the colors from three separate suppliers, the accessories from two, the jars and lids and sifters from several, and the labels and the custom brushes from two others. Ultimately it all fell into place, but not without blood, sweat, and allergy eyes.

Related Topics: Alice Cosmetics    No Comments    

How Can I Get the Media Involved?

Since Day Dreamin’ Exotics is a start-up company with limited resources for advertising, we have tried to use creative techniques to generate interest from local media personalities. This can be very difficult, as some of the television and radio personalities view themselves as celebrities rather than media personnel.

We have used our cars to create interest in our product. We were able to take the Aston Martin and Viper to the Utah Jazz Playoff game this week. The Jazz charge several thousand dollars to park a car on the plaza and show them off. Because we do a small amount of advertising with KFAN, the local radio station that broadcasts the games, we were able to put our cars in their space with a KFAN sticker displayed. It made KFAN look great and we got our cars on the plaza for free.

We turned to guerilla marketing and a free Tour give away to increase the hype. Every news team in town was on the plaza broadcasting live. We were the perfect backdrop for several hits. I spoke with a number of the anchors during the evening. One in particular is a car guy and has a huge interest in Day Dreamin’. Not only does he want to do the tour himself, but also his producer called me the next day to arrange a short segment for the news.

Not every new business can boast $600,000 worth of exotic cars, but try to find a way to generate interest for the media. Try to find something newsworthy. If you can get one or two people in the media excited and involved, it can produce thousands of dollars in free publicity.

Related Topics: Day Dreamin Exotics    No Comments    

The Tyranny of the Urgent

Wow! I just got a reminder today about what should be important about running a small business. Making our clients happy!

Instead - I got a lesson in marketplace competition (where I was on the losing end).

Here’s the situation: I had a client that had an open job posting for a project manager. I had the PERFECT candidate. I forwarded the resume in via the regular channels, and then I tried to set up a meeting with my client to discuss the opportunity, my perfect candidate, and the value proposition my client would receive from having a resource with skills from my company (vs. anyone else’s company).

Then - my client postponed due to a conflicting meeting. Then I couldn’t meet, we traded a few emails trying to arrange schedules, but I never got to give any of those valuable marketing messages to my client.

We finally managed to set up a meeting for next week, and I was all ready to give my wonderful marketing messages.

Then - I got an email from the client’s Human Resources director (who manages the hiring). They sent out a generic email stating that the company had just filled the position - and thanked us for sending in resumes. I got shut out.

So - I think it’s a great lesson in letting the day-to-day urgent tasks get in the way of the important tasks - like building relationships, and performing long term planning.

Make sure you’re not caught up in the day to day so much that you don’t do the things you need to grow.

Related Topics: ProCore Resources    No Comments    

Great idea…no money!

Teague Bengtzen, President

www.CardCafe.com

Once we had the idea of online greeting cards we could not sleep! Every morning we would meet with new ideas, “What about the printing the sender’s return address?” or “What about being able to schedule cards to be sent in the future?” or “What about offering gift cards and chocolate and gift baskets?” or “What about letting the customer upload any amount of photos they want?”. The idea was the easy part. Now what do we do?

It was determined that Card Café should be a global business – chipping in a few thousand dollars here and there would not cut it. We needed big money. We started going through everyone we knew. We were sold on the idea, now we had to sell them. We found it was not hard to raise money because we already had the experience and equipment (we owned a printing company) AND the idea was something everyone could understand and see the need for. $200,000 seemed like a lot of money so we set that as our goal. We burned through it in a few months. Raising money was one of the most time consuming projects for the first 2 years and it is NO fun!

We found having samples of the product to show our friends and family made a world of difference. People have a hard time visualizing what “could be”. We also found that asking for small amounts like $20,000 increments made it much more appealing to people. Also, many of the people we spoke with wanted to know what our exit strategy was - people want to know they can expect a return in 5 years or less.

A word to the wise - whatever amount of money you think you need – double or triple it!

Related Topics: Card Cafe    No Comments