Tag Archives: Homemade

I’ve had some health issues that kept me away from my delightful experiments for over a month now, but I’m tickled to talk a bit about an upcoming event. This year I will again donate 150 or so small pink ribbon soaps for the Overbrook Breast Cancer Awareness Walk in late September. Last year I did a variety of scents and had a heck of a time making enough soaps in a two week period to put in all of the goodie bags. Despite my best attempts I was unable to make enough to get one in each bag and broke several molds from so much use in just a few days. The Walk gives out swag bags of items supporting the cause for registered walkers and the turn out last year was incredible enough to bring a tear to nearly every eye. This year is expected to have an even better turn out, and this time I have a lot more notice, so I’m starting to make the donation soaps and shouldn’t have a problem making enough this time.

I love being able to do something for a cause that is so close to my heart – my grandmother died from it and an aunt is a survivor twice over. The billing clerk gave me awhile to glow over being able to have a good impact again and then reminded me that I needed to come up with some ways to improve sales when I have a booth at the event (for shopping before the walk). Last year saw pretty meager sales at it and some awkward moments. It was the first real event and I lost control over how I wanted the table set up. Thankfully this year I am way more organized and have had some incredible sales to give me some confidence. I am brutally honest about my shortcomings and talking about myself or my creations is one of the hardest things for me to do in person. I’m better at waxing poetic in writing or an energetic email about the benefits of certain ingredients. This time I’ll focus on why certain items are best sellers and see if I can translate that to this event too, and why my unique items are worth their attention instead of buying something from Bath & Body the next time they’re at the mall. It’s a tough goal for me, but if I’m healthy enough to be at the event, then I am definitely up to the challenge.

I realized that if I combined a best seller with honoring the cause, then it’d be a lot easier to bring people in for a sale, too. I’m going to make a goat’s milk lotion with the traditional emulsifying wax in the customary breast cancer ribbon pink and name it along the lines of “I’m a survivor” or “We will find a cure”. I haven’t decided if I’ll make a new scent blend or if I’ll use an established top seller and use it with the alternate name, much like I do with a few items that I keep year round but have holiday names also (like Snowman Kisses). I know that lotion sells better than soaps there, so I’ll have a few of the large ribbon soaps on hand, but will try to have a healthy amount of the pink lotions front and center. Last year I tended to use a bubblegum scent the most for the event’s items, intending to be uplifting and happy. I’m thinking that I might do two main scents this time – a yummy dessert or fruit scent and then a floral, that way the main preferences are covered. I have a lot of time to decide and am enjoying my favorite part (yep, making lists of tons of ideas pinging around like pinballs *grin*).

This time I’m also going to do my own marketing as well. I appreciate all that the event coordinators do, but people generally weren’t aware that I would be there selling my products. My mom had mentioned it to some people, but I’m going to make some fliers to hang in their stores a week before and see if I can even get a little note in their paper. This time I’ll have fliers to hand to prospective customers too, I think, instead of just my business card. Maybe people still aren’t aware that there will be vendors selling and won’t have cash with them, and a business card is easy to forget in your pocket when you toss your jeans in the wash. A piece of paper with a short blurb about pampering with natural benefits and my top sellers, with contact info, will be a lot harder to overlook, especially on top of the business card stapled to the donation soap. *grin* I’m crossing my fingers that some of this works.

I’m sure I’ll have plenty of other thoughts that I’ll throw at you, my note apps, and my lists, along with plenty of requests for feedback, but for now I’m going to let my mind rest for awhile. Happy Friday!! 🙂

Okay, I’m not really a computer guru, but I really felt like one today. I updated my website and then did some awesome stuff on my gaming community (I know, not business, but it supports how awesome I feel about my new mad skills lol). I am still a bit giddy and a little loopy on medicine, so I’m hitting the blog to share the happy spirit.

Anyway, I added a few pages to my website. I got the gift certificate information entered, then decided it’d probably be more cohesive if payments had their own page, so a new page was built and data moved/redone. I bet you guessed – the nerd in me was in 7th heaven playing in picky details land. *cheeky grin* I am debating removing the collection agency and bounced check info from my home page and sticking to just the payments page.

I finally checked off a multi-step item from my website to-do list too!! I made an ingredients page and entered all of the ingredient information for my product ingredients. I’m sure I missed a few items and put a caveat that it’s not all inclusive, but I’m pretty proud of tackling so much data. According to a document I got I don’t have to label ingredients on the products themselves because this is a hobby instead of a true business. I’ve always intended to have this page for reference for customers though, just because it’s the right thing. I’m so proud that I got so much done today!

I also had a lightbulb moment and created/printed little slips for addresses and names for credit card customers that don’t want their receipt emailed or texted when purchasing in person. I was thinking about the citywide and had the image of an elderly person being a little unhappy with my app because they don’t do techie stuff. I even found my old Avon briefcase bag and put all of the papers for the citywide, including the new wonderful gift certificates and above mentioned slips. I was pretty stoked that I had the stroke of genius and used the expensive Avon rep bag. Lol.

To top it all off I started experimenting with some tools I haven’t messed with before and created a guest book for the site. I called the page “Customer Feedback” and hope that customers feel comfortable posting some testimonials and site feedback on it. If there are complaints or questions I will reply directly on there and try not to shrink away from things. Thankfully I’ve never had much of a problem with that, but I’m preparing myself in case it happens. I know that I utilize the customer reviews on my wholesaler’s site constantly and want to provide that ability for my own customers. Maybe some comments over which version of lotion people like, their experience with scents, etc., will make it a little easier for others to decide. There are so many options that it’s hard to know what to try and I want to provide a little help for those that are interested, but don’t really want to contact me about it. (I don’t care for sales routines either, and although I try to be as helpful as possible, and not pushy, I know that people aren’t always in the mood for one-on-one service.)

Anyway, I’m seriously happy that I got so much done and only made a small mistake. I forgot to look at the site on my nook or iPhone to check that text boxes weren’t overlapping. I need to adjust a couple of boxes on two pages that I updated, but otherwise I’m one satisfied nerd. *cheesy grin* I hope you have a great week and that I have some additional “booyah” posts this week to share!