While Keeping Your Day Job and Bank Account Intact
So, you have a product you think you want to sell. Maybe you make these great soaps, dog beds, necklaces, flavored olive oils, seasoned salts, aprons… how do you get your ideas/products out there?
The first thing you do is figure out whether or not there is a market for your product, and if so, how much will you spend producing it, what can you realistically sell it for, and how many will you have to sell to break-even on your costs. It is easy to get excited and go out and spend a ton of money on supplies because it is fun, but you may not make a dime back for a while and will run out of money quickly. Be wise. Make sure that your market goes beyond your friends and relatives who insist that you have the winning golden ticket of products and will support your decision, but not invest.
An easy way to test the waters with non- food items on an inexpensive site like www.etsy.com. This site originally started as a crafts site, and has expanded to include all kinds of products. The cost? Basically free to list your products, and for each one you sell, they take a whopping $.20 cents commission. A super, non-committal way to start. The best part of trying out a site like this is that you don’t need thousands of products; maybe you have ten or twenty. When you are out, you can either make more or stop. This is just one way.
An important part of getting new products and ideas out there is to get yourself up on the web. Nowadays this is pretty much a cinch thanks to all of the new advances in technology. If you are serious about your product and see it possibly as a part of a line down the road, put some thought into naming the company that will soon sell your product. Today it is easy to make yourself appear like a corporation when your manufacturing plant is just your desk and your closet! Get creative with the name, think of a design, and create a logo that signifies who you are. You can find a graphic design student who may do this for you for as little as $100. Have them email you the artwork so you can use it for different applications. Go to a relatively inexpensive website like www.yola.com or www.godaddy.com, purchase your domain name for as little as $34.95, spend a bit more to have a server, and design the website yourself with their free templates. Get your logo up on your website and post your site all over the internet.
Create a facebook page with the same name and logo, and use it to start informing your friends, family, co-workers, everyone in your facebook family what you are embarking on. And list your website address in the information section, and at the bottom of every email you send out.
More free publicity? How about bringing your product as a gift to your local radio stations? Maybe they will give you a quick plug if it is something they like. Think about giving samples to friends that work for companies with lots of employees. Mail some to the editors of magazines that have related products. If it is a funky new type of recycled purse, or anything new, maybe you can catch someone’s attention and get some editorial out of it. Always think about ways to get your product in front of new people. And don’t be afraid to try; you never know what might happen. Think of crazy successful products such as the windshield wiper, TV remote or the more recent head scratcher that is merely a whisk with the top cut off! It was designed by a hairdresser and used on her celeb clients that went nuts. Now it is sold everywhere.
A relatively quick way to get out there and sell is to become a vendor at a local farmers market. You might pay $35 for the day, but can sell your product at your decided retail price and there is no middleman. Once again, this is a non-committal way to sell and get a grip on interest. Use the market as your focus group and get person to person feedback. Maybe you will find out that people would buy your product if you offered a different scent, different color; talk to people. If you want to go the wholesale route and sell to a distributor to get your products retail, you will make a lot less, but might make up for it in volume. What kind of profit do you need to make on each one to still make something? Would you be okay with making only $1 a unit, but selling thousands if you get to the point where you can find someone to manufacture it? All food for thought.
How to keep your production costs down? Make sure you buy your ingredients/supplies wholesale or better yet get them for free. Making aprons? Go to a wholesale fabric place and buy remnants. Or ask a local fabric store if they have scraps they want to just get rid of. Making soap? Who says you need nice new glycerin. Maybe there is a soap manufacturer that you can buy scraps from and re-melt. Cost should be on your mind all the time; the less you spend, the more you make. Be creative. Do you need to buy nice boxes to put your product in? How about going to Smart and Final and buying large Chinese food containers and hand-painting them or stamping them. Cut up some sponges (do not buy stamps) and make your own. Dollar stores have great acrylic paints. More money saved.
And what about getting a tax i.d. number, sellers permit or a business license? Before you go to the expense of registering with the state, make sure you have a market/customers that want what you have. Farmers markets typically just require a sellers permit which is free. Go to your state government website.
Have a food product? Surprise. You can’t just go out and sell it. You need to have a health permit, which means your product has to be made in a certified kitchen. Know anyone with a restaurant or catering business that you can ride on their permit and rent out space from them? You will also need a label which states the ingredients, most prominent one first, down the line, and nutritional analysis. You can hire a company to do the nutritional analysis, or you can just go online in the beginning and find a website that offers free nutritional analysis programs such as, believe it or not, SELF Magazine. Go to: nutritiondata.self.com
They have a template for the same label you will see on products in the stores. All you have to do is type in the ingredients and their quantities. If you are worried about someone hacking this information from you, you can buy your own program, for about $400. In the beginning, go for “free.”
Have fun being creative, keep your day job, and see where it goes. How do you think big boys like El Pollo Loco and Ben & Jerry’s started? You guessed it; right in their garage. And let’s not forget Steve Jobs. Our country was built on self-starters. And why shouldn’t you join them? Good luck!
For more marketing questions, feel free to email them to: lizthompsonmarketing@gmail.com.
