Okay so I have a few more pointers after Sunday's Dash and Dawdle:
— Credit Cards are your Good Friends
Half of my sales were charged onto credit cards. No, I couldn't process them on site, but I took the customers address, phone number and ID info and hoped for the best. Every one of them went through fine. I love Authorize.net, you sign up with them and you can very easily enter the CC info when you get home. I would say to get a 'knuckle buster" (why is it called that???) so you can use the whole carbon receipts — makes you look more legit I think. I couldn't find one on Craigslist and the only new ones I found were $30 and up so I just write the CC number down on my copy of the receipt and promised to shred it later which seemed fine to the 10 or so people who used credit cards with us.
If I wouldn't have accepted CCs this weekend I woulnd't have even made back my booth fee. You would be reading a post from a very sad Amanda today if that had happened.
— Mailing lists are your Best Friends.
Lots of people asked me if they could sign up for our mailing list. The answer sadly was 'no' because I didn't think to bring a sign up sheet for one. Now, why do you need addresses for interested parties? Because you can send them postcards, coupons, show dates, and thank you notes for coming to your booth. I did get a few addresses for people who ordered tags or used CCs so i sent them thank you notes with a coupon inside the card. They liked our stuff then, they have to like our stuff even more with a discount right??!!?? Email addresses are great and yes I should have had a sign up sheet for those too, but physical addresses that are willingly given are worth their weight in gold. Here I have a stack of postcards for a Dec. show at a coffee house that I need to send to Albuquerque residents. If I had just had a sign up sheet this weekend I could have those addressed right now ready to mail next month!
I stole this cool photo of the start line for the 5K run from my friend Christina. While I stood in my booth drinking coffee with half and half, eating scones and decorated cookies (basically getting fatter by the minute!) Christina and her dog Max ran the 5K in great time. There was even a huge hill to run! I would have never of made it. Yes, I do run everyday but keep in mind that my average is 2.22 miles in 35 minutes which is a good try, but laughable!
This leads me to my thrid and finaly tip for the day:
— Stuffing your face because you are nervous is bad.
You will be mad at yourself the next day and it won't help your sales. I know that leaves very few other stress realving options since scotch, finger nail biting, smoking, and hair pulling are not really good options either, but try deep breathing. I really can't totally blame myself for this one since Flying Star had their booth right next to ours and they were giving out free food which was great for the runners, not so great for yours truely 😉 Point is, find a way to manage your nerves and you will have so much more fun.
