How To Bake A Yummy Social Media Souffle

I talk a lot about the need for the right “mix” when you promote your product, business, book, whatever it is – engaging in social media is no different. To get a good result you have to find the recipe that’s 100% ALL YOURS. But just like the hard-to-bake souffle, there are some ingredients I’ve seen in of the work of ALL successful social media contributors.   Here are the components I believe you should always use for your  social media recipe…and some of experts who cook it up just right. Feel free to add your favorite folks – let’s get a good list going! (more…)

12 Essentials Tips For Getting Published In Top Magazines

This article was originally published on Masthead.org for writers looking to have their work published in a magazine. I thought it had some salient tips for those of us trying to get our products featured too.

Instead of editing it- I thought it would be best for you to take what you needed and get on with the pitching!

12 Essentials Tips For Getting Published In Top Magazines

{If you don’t follow this advice, the pitch you just spent 3 hours on
will take all of 3 seconds to end up in the editor’s trash.}

1. Know the magazine’s ins and outs. Before sending a query, read as many issues of the magazine as possible–not just a casual reading of one or two issues. Even women’s magazine prides themselves in the distinct tone or perspective that their magazine offers, so don’t just assume that you can write for a female audience and throw a generic pitch to one of the editors. Take note of regular columns and sections that span several issues, as well as recurring themes/topics. Make sure you’re not pitching an idea for a topic that’s recently been covered. This could be the first indication that you haven’t done your research, and no editor is going to trust you with researching an entire article for their publication if you can’t even flip through their previous issues.
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How To Contact Magazine Editors Without Expensive Mailing Lists

When you say you need to get some “Press”, most people give you the genius advice to look up the editors, writers, etc. at the front of magazines or the mastheads…

According to Wikipedia: Masthead is a list, usually found on the editorial page of a newspaper or magazine, of the members of the newspaper’s editorial board. If no editorial board exists, the masthead will often feature a list of top news staff members. Some mastheads also include information such as the publication’s founding date, slogan, logo and contact information.

So, you go to the store and buy a bunch of magazines at $4- $7 a pop. Then you think to yourself- Hey, Self, wouldn’t it be great if all this information was listed online somewhere? Well it is. (more…)

Fast, Free & Easy Way To Comply With FTC Blog Rules

As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, the FTC has released new regulations that directly apply to Bloggers & Social Media.

Basically, they (we) must disclose any type of benefit, payment, free samples, etc. that is received for publishing information about a product or service. We must also disclose if we have a relationship with the company or product we are endorsing.

There’s already been a lot written about this and a lot more to come, I’m sure.

What I want to pass on to you is a tip on a fast, free and easy way for you to comply with these guidelines. (more…)

Patience – an entrepreneur’s greatest asset

*originally posted on Wax Blog July 24, 2009

It’s summer and so for that reason I’ll break from my insistence on pragmatic advice and write on a topic you might consider fluff. Yet it’s the biggest mistake I see small business owners make, including me. We have no patience. I think that it’s a given that a requirement for being an entrepreneur is to have a low grade case of ADD, or in my case, ADHD with an emphasis on the H. And in marketing, that will kill you.

I can’t tell you how many times a client tries something and when there are no immediate results says “Well that doesn’t work.” It’s like lifting weights one day and expecting a tricep cut to develop overnight. I’m not suggesting that we all go out and spend a bajillion dollars on advertising during American Idol. But I do think that in order for your PR, social media and marketing tactics to work you have to learn to wait a bit. Here are a few tips to use to figure out if you’re too impatient.
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What Every Small Biz Should Know About Pricing Their Product

Where do you want to sell? Are you planning on selling Wholesale or Retail?

This is where small businesses get screwed up. Most Small Biz owners who sell on Etsy or their own domain think you take the cost of the product, double it and that’s what it sells for. They even may call that their “Retail” price.

They may even go to other retail sites of “competitors” and think they’re “over- priced.”

They may well be, but, let’s look at the larger picture of Retail Reality. If you want to grow your Biz beyond Etsy and your own Domain.com, then  you’ll have to think about that from the start.

Let’s say your product cost you $2.36, plus your general overhead of 15% (.354) =$2.72 cost. So, you sell it on your site for around $5.50.
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WWGKD: What Would Guy Kawasaki Do?

I’ve brought marketing meetings to a screeching halt by actually saying that I thought all Mission Statements sounded lofty, generic and well, stupid. Eyes bulged and rolled. Grown men and women, who practically wear their MBA credentials in neon on their magnetized name badges, sputtered and choked. Then, ultimately, my comments were dismissed. I was a designer after all, what did I know.

Even Guy Kawasaki thinks Mission Statements are a bunch of gobbledly-goook. Since he is held in much higher esteem and is a lot more successful than any of the marketing people I knew, I figure myself pretty close to being a genius.

Who’s Guy Kawasaki? I’ll let him tell you himself in his brilliant keynote speech to TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) in 2006.
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A SKU By Any Other Name…is still a SKU.

The dreaded SKU or Stock Keeping Unit. It can make or break you, whether you have too many or too few.

Have you even thought about SKUs? Do you know what they are? Simply, it’s all your stuff added up.

If you have 8 products that come in 8 scents, you have 64 SKUs. Ack! What!? You say? I have 64 products? But I only have 8 products that come in 8 scents. Same thing? NO. When you break out your product offering into actual SKUs is when the realization of how large your line is and how many $$, sweat and frustration it takes to manage them.

There is not a right or wrong way to manage your SKUs. This is just another thing you now have in common with the multi-billion dollar corporations. I can’t tell you how many SKU management meetings I’ve sat through…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. It may put you to sleep or overwhelm you, in which case you tune out, then fall asleep.

But SKUs are like birthdays, no matter how you figure them, the number is what it is.

SKUs can be your friends, or at least powerful tools. Being a person who thinks of themselves as right-brained person with left-brain leanings (creative with a grounded business sense), I have long contracted arguments with myself, sometimes out loud, about SKUs.

I spent countless hours developing and merchandising the message content and products in my line. All my fragrances are my “babies” handpicked by me and a circle of friends. Let’s face it, some babies turn  out to be not-so-cute. Some babies don’t venture forth out into the world and bring mommy money. Do I throw these babies out with the scented bath water? Yes and no.

What I do is look at each SKU’s value. They’re not always a dollar value. Here are a few scenarios:

1. My fabulous Coconut Coffee Bubble Bath brings customers into my booth, but they end up buying the Coconut Coffee Lotion and Hand Wash.
2. My fabulous Coconut Coffee Bubble Bath brings customers into my booth, but they end up buying Freesia Rose and Tutti-Frutti scents.
3. My fabulous Coconut Coffee Bubble Bath brings customers into my booth, they buy tons of it, as well as my other Bubble Bath Scents. However, I make 20% instead of my usual 50% Profit Margin for other products.
4. My fabulous Coconut Coffee Bubble Bath brings customers into my booth, they buy it.  Not as much as the Freesia Rose or Tutti-Frutti, but more than Lush Blueberry.
5. My fabulous Coconut Coffee Bubble Bath brings customers into my booth, but they end up buying it only for 4th quarter sales.

Yes, that seemed repetitive, your actual comparison will vary in each scenario, a combination of these scenarios or  your own micro-niche scenarios. I was trying to make it as simple as possible so that you could see the forest and the trees. So lets’ go through the possible solutions.

1. My fabulous Coconut Coffee Bubble Bath brings customers into my booth, but they end up buying the Coconut Coffee Lotion and the Body Wash.

Why do you carry the bubble bath? In order to be a well rounded bath and body line? Sounds legitimate. Do you carry the bubble bath in all your scents? Does it sell in your other scents?

• If you never sell the bubble bath – Drop it.
• If you sell it in just certain scents. Just carry those.
• If it’s random what scents the bubble bath sells in, consider making your body wash a 2 or 3-in-1. Body wash, shampoo and bubble bath. Drop the stand alone bubble bath SKUs.

2. My fabulous Coconut Coffee Bubble Bath brings customers into my booth, but they end up buying Freesia Rose and Tutti-Frutti scents.

• Just have the sample for display. Kidding.
• Drop it and just carry what sells.

3. My fabulous Coconut Coffee Bubble Bath brings customers into my booth, they buy tons of it, as well as my other Bubble Bath Scents. However, I make 20% instead of my usual 50% Profit Margin for other products.

I assume you are only making 20% because you have priced the wholesale cost at what the market will bear or have backed out the price from what an acceptable retail price would be.

Have you? Can the market bear a little bit more? Does your packaging or special ingredient or other  niche aspect warrant a larger mark up? Think about it. 25, 35, 50 cents per item makes a difference to your bottom line. Just do the math.

Reassess your line. Are all items bought, or is this your biggest seller? If this is your biggest seller, it can be considered your loss leader, meaning you take less margin in order to gain sales on other items that you make a larger profit on. It also means that even though you take a smaller margin, it’s still acceptable because you are able to buy the supplies in larger quantities with larger discounts.

The trick is to get the sale on the other items. If your orders are mainly made up of bubble bath, then it is not a loss leader…it’s just a loss. If you can get higher margin on other items and average out your orders to carry all the products, then you can also cost-average and look at your margins that way. But this makes for tricky bookeeping.

You may want to:

• Rethink your wholesale cost.
• Buy your base ingredients or product in larger quantities in order to get a lower cost, this translates to a larger profit margin for you.
• Increase the minimum buy on this or all of your products so that you can purchase your base ingredients in larger quantities.
• Reassess your line and costing, find opportunities to mark up product in order to cost-average.

4. My fabulous Coconut Coffee Bubble Bath brings customers into my booth, they buy it.  Not as much as the Freesia Rose or Tutti-Frutti, but more than Lush Blueberry.

Well, Coconut Coffee still qualifies as a good seller in this scenario. However, why do your customers end up buying more of the Freesia Rose  or Tutti-Frutti? Is the Coffee Coconut a close third place or a distant third?  If it is a close third, keep it, especially if your margin is good on it. If your margin is not good, then would anyone care if you dropped it? Would the other top 2 items bring customers into your booth? Think about it. And what’s up with the Lush Blueberry? Do you need it?

5. My fabulous Coconut Coffee Bubble Bath brings customers into my booth, but they end up buying it only for 4th quarter sales.

Then only offer it 4th quarter. Make a big build up marketing it with a limited time frame and quantity. Publicize it on your website, market signage and postcards, etc. You can decide as you go along what “limited” quantity is. The great thing about this is that you  don’t have to worry about freshness of stock or keeping items in inventory year round.

As you can tell, there will be a lot of circular arguments in this process. However, your brain knows this and will kick-out a circular argument, the more it twirls in your head the more the truth will rise to the top. It’s up to you whether you pay attention.

Thinking that it doesn’t really matter to have a few extra scents or products hanging around is just lying to yourself. It’s costing you shelf space, time, effort and thought. It’s costing you money to special order because you didn’t realize you were out and got an order for 6 bottles.

You want to order new labels and have to count the 12 extra SKUs of the 4 products in the 3 scents you don’t really sell; with a minimum run of 100 labels each, that’s 1200 unnecessary labels. Think of the new items you could be adding- but can’t afford to.

Having too many scents or products may also be diluting your Brand Image or message. You may want to re-evaluate your selection of scents and products according to collections, end uses and target market. By doing this, you may trim some of the fat and find that you’re actually missing something. Guess what? Sometimes the problem is not having too many SKUs, it’s not having the right one!

Is it starting to add up?

* The barcode tattoo picture is the cover of one of my favorite books The Jennifer Government.

In This Corner….THE RETAILER!

One of my Showroom owners sends out newsletters to her vendors and reps. I find this so refreshing and enlightening. By sharing her views and links to blogs she follows and articles of interest, I am exposed to an entirely different viewpoint.

Most of the time, I read the content, take note and get on with my day. Then about a month ago, she sent a link to a blog that I cannot get out of my mind…what I really should say is that it got under my skin.

The reason for the link was  innocent and well-intended. It was sent simply to let us all know that buyers were employing new strategies when purchasing during the July Markets. Okay- good to know.

I clicked on the  link. Very interesting….However, another part of the post offended me as a Small Business owner. When I went on to read more of the blog I got more annoyed.

I know- you wanna read it for yourselves.  Don’t worry-  I’ll give you the link, but please indulge me first.

I kept wondering why I was so defensive to this person’s blog. I’m always interested in the opposite viewpoint. As a designer, I have plenty of experience with criticism. As a Small Biz owner, I’m used to taking compliments and critiques ranging from fabulous to nose-crinkling. So what’s the deal with this chick and this blog? I think it’s the tone. Condescending.

I can’t deny that she has tons of experience and is apparently a well-regarded industry expert on Trade Shows. Just don’t mistake this for an objective expert.

The blogger herself states many times throughout her blog that she is decidedly, full-forcedly (word?) and unapologetically on the “SIDE” of the retailer. And oh- she’s on the board of several Trade Show Organizations.

“Side?” “Side?!” My first reaction was to comment on her blog from a Small Biz perspective. Then I thought about a rant-post on this blog about being on the “Side” of the Wholesaler or Small Biz. Then I thought, geez, why are there any “sides?” , and how can I really take her opinions seriously when she is so obviously biased to promote the Trade Show business and their interests.

Okay, I won’t torture you any more. Here is the note my Showroom owner sent:

“A retail consultant and a woman who has been involved in the gift industry for many years, Cinda Baxter, is blogging about the various summer markets.  I don’t always agree with her comments, however I think her remarks on buyer strategies is worth reading at Always Upward: The Blog. “

I must give kudos to Baxter for fully disclosing that she does sit on the board for several interested parties in the area she covers. No crime in that.

So, let me disclose this: I’m a Small Biz owner. I promote small business. There, I said it. And, yes, hopefully, I will profit from it. Here’s the difference, I am not slamming the other side of the aisle. I know I need the Buyers/Retailers. I know I have to do the best job I can to attract their business and even more to keep it.

So- I think I would rather learn what the Retail Buyers need and try to nurture that relationship. But, I’m not a doormat and I’m trying to run a business too.

I’ve made a chart to compare the 2 “sides.” I don’t pretend to know what actually comprises a busy Retailer’s day. I just took some wild guesses, of which I’m sure a few are correct.

Even with the variances, I think we seem more alike than not. The obvious- in business to make money- is a given.The even more obvious, they sell to the general public and we don’t, doesn’t really make much difference. At one time or another we are each buying or selling.

Of course, I’m making this overly simplistic. There’s a lot more to the game/role-playing dynamic.

Depending on the size of the Wholesaler or Buyer, the scenario and attitude of either party can change. But, I’m talking to you, the Small Business owner. We don’t have so much power to wield. We’re usually dealing with small chains or boutiques that may carry up to a couple hundred lines – in the big-picture scheme of things, they’re considered “small” too.

Back to the Always Upward Blog. Let me shock you all and tell you that I think you should follow Cinda’s blog. I think she has a lot of information. Not all of it good. And certainly not unbiased. But still she has the backing or funds to travel to a multitude of  Trade Shows to give you her “insight”, information and opinions that the general Small Biz public may not otherwise be exposed to.

I decided to learn from her blog and utilize it as another resource.

Let me leave you with this.  Buyers need new product. Small Businesses are usually the pioneers of new product. Small Businesses need buyers. Of course there are other elements in this circle of retail life, like saleability and profitability. So, let’s just say we need each other and build from there.

Or, as they say in The Godfather, keep your friends close and your  “enemies” closer. Kidding.