Fortunately we were blessed with beautiful weather, there were no fears of having to be towed out of a muddy car park here.
I had my stall set out:
The balms and body butters were set out on the old wooden stand we used to use for displaying chutneys, the soaps laid out in the baskets I bought off ebay which are more commonly used in bakery windows. There were testers out with descriptions in front of them.
The problem was, that too often the marquee looked like this:
There were just not enough people coming inside. Maybe the weather was too good, we had reports on the Saturday that people were just lying on the grass eating ice creams and watching the cross country that they had paid £30 to see. Maybe there was too much for them to spend their money on, as the site was full of tents and marquees of all sizes selling all sorts of country clothing and equipment. Maybe the recession means that people are keeping a tighter watch on what they spent. The depressing upshot of this was that I barely made the rent.
There were positives to be taken from it, the people I did sell to, were very enthusiastic and it was very heartening to talk people into trying it, who had sensitive skin only for them to come back to buy, several hours later. I sold to one woman on the Saturday who took it home for her daughter who has contact dermatitis and then she came back for a second jar on the Sunday after daughter amazedly reported that it did not sting. Rather oddly, I sold a jar of Insect Away, the insect repelling skin balm, to a woman who wanted to use it on her horse. Each to their own of course, although if that is any good it might be a whole new market for me.
The other positives that I took from the show were from the other stallholders, who were a great bunch of mainly middle aged women, who all supported each other. In particular Carolyn Collis from www.crystalis3D.com was very kind and when her husband joined her on the Saturday offered to take over my stall for half and hour so I could have a break and a look round outside. But all the other women I met, Caroline, Lucy, Kathryn, Ruth, Cousin Alison, Claire and others who I never got their names, were friendly and supportive and if they could not quite turn the dead hours when the show jumping was on, into a pleasure they certainly helped enliven them.
They also left me with some ideas for the future. One was to join Women in Rural Enterprises (WiRE) www.wireuk.org which is pretty much what it says, an organisation to help and support women in rural enterprises. Fired up with enthusiasm, I went to a meeting last Monday in Stillingfleet hoping to find the same atmosphere of help and support I had enjoyed over the weekend at Bramham. Unfortunately I felt that they spent most of the evening discussing the problem of finding and keeping good staff in the same way as women talked about the servant problem in the 1920's. However if I do join WiRE, then I have the option of doing the Great Yorkshire Show with them. Clearly something to think about pretty fast, as it is in July (9-11), and costs in the region of £500. I don't want to be spending this much on a show unless I can guarantee its return, and it would be three long hard days work. On the other hand I have a lot of stock left over from Bramham and it would be a chance to promote the website to a lot of people.
The second idea to come out of Bramham was that I get myself on the list of speakers for Women's Institute meetings. I used to do presentations at work so an used to talking to groups of people and would be happy to talk about bee-keeping or how to make the products or setting up a small business. The WI pay a small fee and allow you to offer your products for sale with the WI keeping 10% of any sales. At this stage in the business it seems a no lose arrangement, I promote the business, possible make some sales and get paid for doing it.
My absolute priority now though, is to get the website up and running properly. I bought a ready made website which I have to convert to my needs so currently it is a mish mash of my business and a farmer's market which was the template I bought. It has mainly my words with beautiful pictures of apples and potatoes. Severely confusing for anyone who visits.
This will have to be fitted in amongst family things this week, as first born is down for a visit. She wants to find decorative things for her new flat so we went to a car boot sale yesterday and will be going to an auction tomorrow.
I had my stall set out:
The balms and body butters were set out on the old wooden stand we used to use for displaying chutneys, the soaps laid out in the baskets I bought off ebay which are more commonly used in bakery windows. There were testers out with descriptions in front of them.
The problem was, that too often the marquee looked like this:
There were positives to be taken from it, the people I did sell to, were very enthusiastic and it was very heartening to talk people into trying it, who had sensitive skin only for them to come back to buy, several hours later. I sold to one woman on the Saturday who took it home for her daughter who has contact dermatitis and then she came back for a second jar on the Sunday after daughter amazedly reported that it did not sting. Rather oddly, I sold a jar of Insect Away, the insect repelling skin balm, to a woman who wanted to use it on her horse. Each to their own of course, although if that is any good it might be a whole new market for me.
The other positives that I took from the show were from the other stallholders, who were a great bunch of mainly middle aged women, who all supported each other. In particular Carolyn Collis from www.crystalis3D.com was very kind and when her husband joined her on the Saturday offered to take over my stall for half and hour so I could have a break and a look round outside. But all the other women I met, Caroline, Lucy, Kathryn, Ruth, Cousin Alison, Claire and others who I never got their names, were friendly and supportive and if they could not quite turn the dead hours when the show jumping was on, into a pleasure they certainly helped enliven them.
They also left me with some ideas for the future. One was to join Women in Rural Enterprises (WiRE) www.wireuk.org which is pretty much what it says, an organisation to help and support women in rural enterprises. Fired up with enthusiasm, I went to a meeting last Monday in Stillingfleet hoping to find the same atmosphere of help and support I had enjoyed over the weekend at Bramham. Unfortunately I felt that they spent most of the evening discussing the problem of finding and keeping good staff in the same way as women talked about the servant problem in the 1920's. However if I do join WiRE, then I have the option of doing the Great Yorkshire Show with them. Clearly something to think about pretty fast, as it is in July (9-11), and costs in the region of £500. I don't want to be spending this much on a show unless I can guarantee its return, and it would be three long hard days work. On the other hand I have a lot of stock left over from Bramham and it would be a chance to promote the website to a lot of people.
The second idea to come out of Bramham was that I get myself on the list of speakers for Women's Institute meetings. I used to do presentations at work so an used to talking to groups of people and would be happy to talk about bee-keeping or how to make the products or setting up a small business. The WI pay a small fee and allow you to offer your products for sale with the WI keeping 10% of any sales. At this stage in the business it seems a no lose arrangement, I promote the business, possible make some sales and get paid for doing it.
My absolute priority now though, is to get the website up and running properly. I bought a ready made website which I have to convert to my needs so currently it is a mish mash of my business and a farmer's market which was the template I bought. It has mainly my words with beautiful pictures of apples and potatoes. Severely confusing for anyone who visits.
This will have to be fitted in amongst family things this week, as first born is down for a visit. She wants to find decorative things for her new flat so we went to a car boot sale yesterday and will be going to an auction tomorrow.
