I'm back from the tradeshow - not quite sure why I'm awake and functioning already given what time my flight got in last night. But I'm home and glad for it. Vegas, I find, is fun for about the first 24 hours and after that I grow weary of being inside all day where the temperature is a constant 68degrees and there are no clocks on the walls (which is actually my biggest pet peeve about Vegas). I did however find the pool (hooray!) and made it to my favorite 'off the strip' Thai restaurant which was even better then I remembered.
The show went OK. Not great - not horrible - just OK. The big event that is currently happening is also going OK. Not great and not near what I had hoped at this point. But it's OK. Not sure if it'll be good enough to get invited back for another event though.
So this is what I find myself pondering this morning. The business is going OK and in this economy I should be happy with that. But the truth is that I'm just so darn tired right now and I need to figure out what my next step is going to be. The truth is that as much lip service as people give to wanting "handmade" or "Made in America" products, at the tradeshows at least, what sells is cheap crap from China. I just can't compete with that nor do I want to. Which makes me wonder if there really is a strong market for my products or whether that market withered and died with the economy. Do I keep searching for that market or do I just shut down all together?
Right now I'm leaning towards keeping the business going but moving it into much more of a part-time or, dare I say it, even hobby catagory. I'm probably halfway there already this year given how little I spent on advertising and tradeshows this year. Or do I just decide to try and sell the thing and get whatever money I can out of it? But who would honestly want to buy a business that's just ok? And, if I'm perfectly honest with myself, selling this business feels like it would be selling off on of my appendages so maybe I'm not ready for that yet.
We'll see, I need a little more time and space from Vegas before I make a decision one way or another.
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1 comment:
Just a couple of thoughts I had while reading this post that I thought I'd share:
While I think in some categories, "handmade" or "made in America" carries a lot of weight (arts & crafts on Etsy, for example), there are others where "local" means a lot more. I think it's the case for food / food-ish categories that the market is for "local" goods; at least for me, when shopping for food, "local" has a lot more resonance than "made in the USA." (Living here in the home of the 100 mile diet, I think that's the key for other people, too.) I see things on sites like HauteLook, or other internet sites, where they're selling food that's handmade, but if it's handmade in North Carolina and I'm in Sacramento, it doesn't feel handmade. Something gets lost in the shipping: For me the whole experience is about buying at the farmers' market, talking to the farmers, knowing the baker or chef. That said, I order chocolates from NH for people even though I live on the other side of the country. But again it's a local thing -- I used to live down the street from their store / cafe, so I know them.
Of course, in categories where "local" has more cachet, it seriously limits your market and makes it hard to grow. One approach is the one Starbucks is taking now -- was just discussing this at work the other day with a friend who's a Starbucks alum. They're far from their neighborhood roots these days, and coffee snobs like me avoid them like the plague if I can find a decent local cafe (i.e., in Seattle I never ever go to Starbucks). So apparently they're trying out a concept up on Capitol Hill -- 15th Ave Coffee & Tea, "inspired by" Starbucks -- as an attempt to capture coffee snobs like me who care more about good coffee and the cafe's ambience. But of course, the only way you can scale something like that is to have the resources of a Starbucks.
As for selling -- "OK" isn't such a bad thing in this climate. I'd think that would be a pretty strong selling point.
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