Being Schooled in Selling Wholesale Part 3: Trade Shows

Again, I am no expert! Please take this video with a grain of salt.   I do think that I could have a career as an anchor woman!  Nah, I think I'll stay soapin'!

I Struggle, but I am Driven - Juggling a life of soap and family

I struggle with managing being a mom, working a full time job, and launching my dream job.  I struggle with blogging and promoting my business.  I struggle …  I get frustrated when I have spilt half of my olive oil on the floor.  My anxiety increases when my two year old has a tantrum right when I pour my sodium-hydroxide solution into my oils and my husband isn’t helping the situation because he can’t be peeled away from the football game.  I get nervous using new technology (i.e. Paypal or the Square) at shows, there is always some sort of update that I seemed to have missed…

But I remain driven.  I remain driven because I get to meet new people and talk to them about two of my favorite things: beer and soap.  I get to create.  I get to be my own boss.  I get to be a role model for my two girls, teaching them that women can start their own business and carve a path in a male dominate field (in this case brewing). I know one day, my dream job will be my full time job!!

In the meantime, I have great days and so-so days.

We all struggle. What keeps you driven?

Being Schooled in Selling Wholesale Part 2: Making a Soap Catalog

I need a soap catalog?  I learned it the hard way (or the quick way depending on how you look at it.)  I finally got the email that I had been hoping and waiting for…  “I would love to carry your soap in my shop, can you please send me your catalog?”  My response: “Well, of course I can!”  But inside my head I thought, “Oh crap…. I needed to make one, quick!” At that moment, I had to thank god there’s the Internet because I googled ‘soap product catalogs’ and I was led to many soapers with great catalogs and order forms  (see for yourself: Freckles Soap)  but this is what I learned:

Cover page:  You need to have your logo, contact info… and your story…  Again, I’m learning so much that not only is your business about your soap, it's about you:

Product Listing:  Like on your website, pictures of your products, descriptions, and suggested retail price in contrast to wholesale price. And finally… the most important: 

Order Page and Form: Try to have it easy for them to fill out.  Honestly, my first catalog didn’t ever have an order form, and I was wondering why I wasn’t getting a response back.  I only got a response after I emailed the business…  'Can I help you place an order?' I got a response within hours…  I need a clear order form… Duh!!! 

So here are examples of mine…  They’re not perfect, but I figure that whatever I create in my life is like fine wine; it always gets better with time! 

Being Schooled in Selling Wholesale! Part 1: Reaching Out

The Dream: To walk into a store and see a Handbrewed Soaps display!! 

This dream is also my growth area… Because honestly, I’m terrified of making a cold call, it completely stresses me out!!!  I’m always wondering: How do I make a pitch to a brick and mortar store to sell my product?  What do I say? What if they say no? Do I have to make a cold call?  Should I go into the store and just introduce myself? I’ve looked at every blog I could find for help. They mostly say the same thing, ‘Make a cold call’ and ‘get an appointment with the owner or manager’.  That seems terrifying to me.  After I milled these approaches around for a couple of weeks, I decided that’s not me right now, I need to start at my comfort level, I need to be myself!

For me, I want my soap to speak for itself, that’s why I have a hand washing station in my vendor booth at festivals.  It’s a great way to introduce the soap.  “Hey, would you like to try washing your hands with beer soap?”  So I need a similar approach to working for wholesale sales.  In a sense, I give away soap to try at my booth, so I probably need to do the same thing in this situation. I need to give samples away to a targeted audience (homebrew supply stores). What better way to find this target audience than at a beer festival I was a vendor at!

My booth was “homebrew alley,” a great location for my product. After booths were set up, and people were settled in for the day, I went from booth to booth that met my target audience, giving a bar of soap and my card to those representing the store!  With my heart in my throat I said,  “ Hi, I’m Alyson.  I make soap out of homebrewed beer! I wanted to give you a sample of our soap. Please come our booth and met the brewer later today!”  What I noticed from that intro was that because we had a common interest (beer), a great conversation quickly developed and cards were exchanged!

I got interest, now what???? Well, I sent a follow-up email a week later.  Something like:  Hi, We met at the beer festival, and I gave you a bar of beer soap.  I would love to hear your feedback on it.   Please feel free to contact me if you would like to buy some!  If you are interested it caring it at your store, I can send you our wholesale prices.  (Ok, obviously it was an amateur ask … but at least I did it!) So…

Days went by, weeks went by, and then all of a sudden… a response…. 

 “We like your soap, can you please send me your Product Catalog.” SCORE!!!!!!  Now I have a new amazing problem, a Product Catalog (I will blog just on Product Catalogs), but lets just say that I 'gotter' done in a day, and sent it off.   Then, there was another wait.  Fear arose for me as I obsessed on: Will an order be placed?  Did I do something I wasn’t suppose to?  Finally, I realized that businesses are busy.  The order is probably on the bottom of their to-do list.  I should be wondering, how I can help them better, maybe my catalog was not as clear as I thought.  So, I sent another email:  “Can I help you with placing your order?”  And sure enough…  I got a reply within a few hours… and the order was out the door!

Lessons learned:  Be yourself… and approach how you feel comfortable…  For me, I was able to make connections at the beer festival.  I know that I’ll become more confident as time goes on.  I will be able to make the cold call, or walk into the store in the future.  Lesson two:  Follow up.  Businesses are very busy and may not get back to you as soon as you hope. Don’t take in personally, just reach out.  Lesson three:  Have a clear order process… and revise policies immediately to make the ordering process easier.  

I hope to have an additional blog titled:  Launching Wholesale:  The Cold Call soon…  (Keeping my fingers crossed!) until then…  how do you approach wholesale?