Celebrating the Super Bowl!!!!

Just a little fun on Super bowl Sunday!  And I think this served as a therapy session for my husband!!! He's a 49er's fan....

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?

Beer Mug Shaped Birthday Cake!!

What better way to celebrate a 40-year old home-brewer, than with a beer mug shaped birthday cake???  It may not be the prettiest, but it was a lot of fun to make.

Ingredients used for a "I need a quick beer mug cake NOW!!!":
3 boxes of cake mix
4 tubs of vanilla frosting
yellow food coloring
whipped cream
candles
Card stock (for handle)
toothpicks

Baking:  Divide the batter into round cake pans.  I only had two cake pans, so I made one box at a time.  Three boxes with get you 6 round cakes.  After they have cooled, stack them!!

Frosting:  Dump the pre-made frosting into a large bowl and add yellow food coloring as needed.  I recommend buying 5 tubs if you want to frost in between each layer.  I didn't because of the following variables : cranky-kids + family arriving in 45 minutes = it's good enough!  Then, smear the frosting on the side until you are happy with it.  Add the whipped cream before you serve it!

Candles:  Get the tall candles.  I got the regular candles that you find in any store and they were to short.  So, we didn't have candles, but we sure had a laugh!!

Handle:  I eye-balled the handle (it's a little out of proportion!)  I cut the letter C and taped toothpicks to the ends. You can kinda see it in the first picture. I stuck it into the cake after I add the whipped cream.

Result:  One happy 40 year old home-brewer!!

Freshly Cut Grass Beer Soap

Imagine this:  It's a hot day (which it has been in Oakland, surprisingly!)  You've just mowed the lawn, and all that quenches your thirst in a nice cold beer... along the lines of a PBR!

Inspired by this vision, I have created the Cut Grass Bar!  Made with a PBR (not my hubbies home brew this time!), and fragranced with Freshly Cut Grass.

Though winter is approaching.. this bar will remind you of the summer.  So why not have a little summertime in your winter?

November 5th Giveaway: And the winner is...

We are very tech-savy when it comes to giveaways.  Everytime our Facebook or Pinterest page is shared or liked, your name is written on a piece of paper and thrown into a bowl.  The more you share and like, the more your name appears in the bowl and the more chances you have of winning. Congratulations to Kat Barber for winning the 3 Pack Sampler!  And thank you all for supporting and promoting Handbrewed Soaps!!!!

Jack of All Trades Oakland Market Nov. 9th

I am so excited to participate in this wonderful event!  Please stop by my booth and say HI!  You can sample some soap too!!

Giveaway: 3 Pack Sampler of Beer Soap!

October is the month to celebrate harvest and BEER!  What better way to celebrate October than a BEER SOAP giveaway?!  To win, simply promote Handbrewed Soaps by doing one (or more) of the following things: 

1)  Pin/Share Handbrewed Soaps Giveaway and leave a comment that you did!

2) Follow HandbrewedSoaps on Facebook – Make a comment you did.

3) Follow Handbrewed Soaps on Pinterest, and pin this contest to your Pinterest board!

4) Follow Handbrewed Soaps on Blogger.  Make a comment you did.

The more you share, the more you increase your chances of winning!!... SO, share away and Good Luck!

  

Just remember to spread the word about Handbrewedsoaps.com and via Facebook (which is the easiest, invite your friends to win) or if you are on Pinterest Share HandbrewedSoaps Pins with the website on it. (I get an email when you repin which will enter you in the contest!)  The giveaway will end on 11/5/13 at 7 pm PST.   Open to US residents 18+ older.

Thanks to www.thefarmerette.com for such a great idea!