Should I Do a Kiosk for My Start Up Business?

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Start Up Princess Abby Miller of Before Kids emailed me today and said I could share my reply with you as well…

Hi Kelly -
We have an opportunity to have a cart/kiosk at an area mall the 10 days before Mothers Day. It is a regional mall so it would be only $680. We are trying to figure out if it is worth the money and effort. Could you let us know what you thought… true life experiences. I loved reading about it on your blog but we need to know more of the business factors before we do this…

1) How many unique customers did you have? Unique customers at the mall? Tons!! Aren’t we all unique? Online shoppers are different…The question is how many repeat visitors? We had a few repeat customers. I have an email list of some of them, you should definitely ask for their emails!

2) How much inventory did you bring? Over the course of 1 month I purchased nearly $9k in product, and sold most of it, you will likely need this much to fill the cart, you don’t want it to look empty. Talk to a visual merchandiser from the mall staff to help you figure this out with your inventory mix.

3) Were people friendly - did they stop or did you have to hard-sell? If your product is fun, it will sell itself. I didn’t hard sell anything, basically just tell them about our specials, etc.

4) I know it was Xmas, but how was the traffic flow? VERY BUSY could one person cover it? YES Were there particular times during the day or was it sporatic? Evenings/Saturdays were the most busy

Honestly, it is a HUGE time commitment, but with you and your partner, Kitty, I think you can do it. You need to each split it up and then hire 1-2 people at part time, so maybe you both share a part-time shift and then the part-timers fill in from that. Not sure what your mall policies are and all that, but find out what other kiosks are doing as far as sales goes, etc. That is a killer deal, unless the mall is dead. See if you can find out where the location of hte kiosk will be and if you will be around stores/kiosks that have child-related products or products for moms. The mall I want to be in charges $3k for off-season, $9k for Holiday!! We paid only $1000, but I only had 1/4 of the kiosk…so it was very small space (I shared the kiosk with other vendors).

Thank you so much. Any information would be great! We are having a hard time committing.
Abby Miller, Before Kids…Gifts for Moms

Feel free to ask me anything else.
Best of luck,
Kelly

Any of you want to comment and make suggestions for Abby?

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Be a Top Momma and Get FREE Press for Your Blog

Today’s Magic Wand: I love sites like Top Momma that help others get free press! Fairy Godmother Wendy Piersall is a Top Momma today (look for her face, click on it), the longer she stays up the better. (Also, by the way, check out her brand spanking newly redesigned blog thanks to the talents of Fairy Godmother Sarah Lewis of Blogging Expertise who will also be designing our blog shortly.) You can also submit YOUR photo and YOUR blog, get really creative, put a photo of your product, your baby, whatever.

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Email Newsletters are a Cost-Effective Marketing Solution for Entrepreneurs

Keeping in touch with your clients is key and there are many ways you can do it on a boot-strapping budget, but one of the very best, is to provide your clients with valuable information and tips via an email newsletter. I’ve received these and appreciated the good ones, junked the dull ones. I am in the process of figuring out the best way to start one, and this is what I’ve learned so far in my research:

1. You Must Have Compelling Info and Content to Share. Think, “Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.” What do they want to hear from you? What do they want to know? Why do they buy from you? What solutions can you offer to their problems?

2. Keep it Simple and Easy to Scan. Effective newsletters have bolded headings, bullets, key points, photos, and white space!

3. Consider Design. While this isn’t required, it certainly boosts my interest level. Most newsletters have a template and then they drop in their info into that format. One Heart Bulgaria has a nice format and so does Shannon Cherry’s Be Heard Solutions.

4. Stay on Schedule. If you are going to send out weekly, monthly, quarterly…stick with it. You never know how much people read it until you miss an issue. I read Ali Brown’s (Ezine Queen) site recently and she said that there was a reader who said even though she knew Ali wasn’t writing personally to her, it felt like it, she loved those newsletters because they were upbeat and positive, and they helped her during her battle with cancer receive some nice news.

5. Links are key. If you want the newsletter to bring you sales, then be sure to include various links in the website that point readers back to YOUR site, articles, info, video, products, services, opportunities, calendars, etc.

6. Be Friendly. I get Grok Dot Com’s Newletter each month and while it’s designed and intended for Marketing Professionals, it still has titles that are fun and interesting…I get the sense that they enjoy what they do there. I like to see the faces of the people who write the articles, even if you are the only one who writes them…put your photo there! Put photos of your clients in there…or even WITH you, it shows you’ve got friends, you didn’t just pull their photo off istock photo or something.

7. Find an email program that can help you send your newsletter out professionally. I need to do this for Start Up Princess. Currently my Entourage program only allows me to send emails in groups of 50, so I send emails out in bunches, in separate groups. One solution I’m considering is 1 Shopping Cart for this service.

8. Always edit and spell-check. I received one this week with over 5 spelling errors. If this isn’t your strong suit, make sure you pass it on to someone else before sending it out.

Enjoy Building Your Business in a Cost-effective way!

Today’s Magic Wand: What can YOU share in an e-newsletter that should be shared? What do YOUR readers and clients want to hear from YOU? You’re on your way to a great newsletter!

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If You Only Do One Thing This Year…

Fairy Godmother Laura Posey of Dancing Elephants Achievement Group writes:

I’ve been intent this year on changing some old habits that have been holding me back.

Maybe intent isn’t the right word; it’s more like obsessed.

You see, I’m about to hit the big 4-0 this summer and I realized that one of my goals in life was to become a millionaire by 40. And I’m not there yet. I’m not even close to where I want to be which is really a multi-millionaire!

Where did the time go? How did I get this far without hitting goals I’d set 10 years ago? How did I let myself drift so far afield?

I did some deep thinking and decided that what I thought was a goal all those years ago was actually just a wish. A hope. A vague idea that I wasn’t actually committed to. It wasn’t something I was focused on and working toward, but rather something I hoped would fall in my lap.

Yeah, right, how often does that happen?

I realized that I needed a real goal. A firm destination. A commitment to reaching a certain end point at a certain date.

So I set a goal to become a millionaire in two years.

Let me define millionaire so we’re all clear on what I mean. I will have a million dollar net worth, money I could get my hands on quickly. I’ve earned well over a million in my working years. But I haven’t held on to it so it doesn’t do me much good now, does it? It has always been the saving part that bites me in the butt.

You see, I like to have fun. I love to travel and I haven’t been disciplined about saving for trips. I just up and go whenever I feel like it, regardless of my financial position at the time.

it was time to change that for good and finally make, and keep, the first million.

To get started, the first thing I did was to write my goal down on an index card. I now carry that card with me everywhere, mostly in my pocket at work and then in my wallet the rest of the time.

What a powerful thing that has been!

Each day I read the goal and I am reminded that my purpose for getting out of my warm bed and going to work is to great enormous value for my clients so they will pay me money in return.

Each time I reach into my wallet to spend some of that hard earned cash I see that goal card and am reminded that what I want most is not that bauble I’m about to buy on a whim, but that long term goal of financial independence and security.

The other day while sitting at my computer, I felt the card in my pocket and thought of my goal. I immediately reached over, picked up the phone, called my stockbroker and set it up to have a big chuck on money transferred from my bank account to my investment account each month. If it is in my investment account, I won’t spend it on silly things.

While I was on a saving roll, I also called my payroll company and asked them to take even more money out for my retirement plan.

I am now focused not only on earning money (as I always was) but also on keeping what I’ve earned. As a result of that little index card in my pocket I have made more progress on my net worth goal in two months than I did in almost all of last year.

Today’s Magic Wand: If you do only one thing this year, write down your most important goal(s) and carry them around with you. You’ll find yourself changing your behavior in subtle, but intensely meaningful ways.

My goal card has four very specific goals on it and I have made consistent progress on each and every one this year.

Do it right now. Grab a card, even if it is your business card, and write down what you most want for your business and yourself. Put it in your pocket and read it each day in the morning.

And watch the results!

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Keep it all in Perspective

Mary Wilson-Burkett, a personal/business/life coach and Fairy Godmother for Start Up Princess has been coaching me for the past month and she shared some great magic wand tips and ideas for us mom entrepreneurs.

As a coach Mary works a great deal with mom entrepreneurs who want to “have it all” and she advises that, “Yes! You can have it all! However, she says that “you just can’t have it all…right now.” She suggests that you try and keep things in perspective, that the things that you’re focusing on now makes a difference, so if you have children at home–they are the most important and anything you can do on a limited basis to grow your business idea, “that’s gravy.” She echoed what I’m learning from my Board of Advisors last week that “businesses are not a race”, it’s ok to grow slow and at your own pace. She said, you young moms are going to live rich, healthy lives…well into your 80’s so there’s really no rush to grow your business overnight.

Mary will be doing a FREE national conference call on March 20th at 11am Pacific, noon MST, 1pm Central or 2pm Eastern for Start Up Princess and a Utah presentation on March 21st. More details to come. You can join the FREE call or attend the event for just $15. Comment below or email me to join the call Kelly AT Start Up Princess DOT com.

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Balancing “The Wheel of Life”

Last Friday I had the privilege of attending a coaching seminar presented by Mission Ignition with my husband, Matt. Our neighbor, and good friend Kip Kint is the founder of Mission Ignition so it was great to finally see what Kip teaches his coaching clients and get a sense of it. The emphasis was creating results while keeping life in balance. Part of the program was to diagram “The Wheel of Life.” Kip asked, “If your ride down the Road of Life seems a little bumpy, is it the road or is it your wheel?”

“The Wheel of Life” is broken into a pie with 8 slices:
Business/Career
Finances
Health
Family and Friends
Romance
Personal Growth
Fun and Recreation
Physical Environment

We were asked to plot on a graph and rank each section 1-10 (1 being poor, 10 being “it can’t get any better”). Then we were to see how balanced or imbalanced it was. My lowest area was “fun and recreation” actually, partly because for the past 7 months I’ve counted blogging as my “fun”…but really it’s not “fun and recreation” since I’m trying to build a business here, so it belongs in “business/career.” I’m also seriously lacking in exercise, unless you count laundry folding, snow shoveling or baby carrying as an exercise! My best categories were Friends/Family, Personal Growth, and Business/Career…the rest could use some attention!!

Today’s Magic Wand: I challenge you to create a pie chart with the 8 slices and name them as we did, so each slice gets a different title. Then plot and number each slice with 1-10 and put a dot where you’re at, then as you complete the chart, you can color in each slice and see where you are at. It is very eye-opening and it’s a good time to recognize that if you put all of your energy in certain areas, your life will not be balanced or satisfying. We all know that a few work all-nighters or late-nights kill our health, likely hurts our relationships because we’re too tired to be patient and cheerful, and our physical environment suffers as well, because we likely haven’t paid attention to our dishes in awhile. Then we try and make up for the “late night” and spend the entire next day neglecting some other areas to recover. It’s a bad cycle that I’m trying to break. Perhaps I’m not alone in my quest.

As part of the seminar we were to make a goal in each section and set a date for when we would accomplish the task. As part of my “fun and recreation” I’m finally going to get my 100+ year old piano tuned so I can start playing it. And as part of my health goal, I’m finally going to get to a yoga class…I know that balance really is key and achievable, if you focus on each area daily or weekly as required. Best of luck with your goals too!

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Sign Babies Founder Hosts Radio Show for Moms

Fairy Godmother Nancy Cadjan writes:

I am hosting a new Internet Radio Show called Babies and Moms: Birth and Beyond. We will discuss baby signing in each show!

Check the schedule on www.grapevineradio.com. We will be doing this show every week and it will be broadcast at different times each day. Also, it will be saved off and will be able to subscribe to the podcast. We are not there yet.

Enjoy and let me know what you think of the show! And PLEASE let your friends know about the show!
Nancy Cadjan
Sign Babies President
http://www.signbabies.com/

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Tips for Working Well with Your Graphic Designer/Web Designer

This post was written by Fairy Godmother Cathy Gonsalves, CGONSA Web Design

1.) Select a Compatible Designer- Carefully pick  a  professional designer with skills and a portfolio that matches your needs, and style both in design and process. Don’t match yourself up with the wrong designer for you, who’s portfolio does not remotely depict any design style you love, or expect the terms and process to change to accommodate your personal needs. Know the designers terms and the process and expect to stick to them. Don’t sign terms or agree to a process you can’t follow. If there is something you need changed, discuss with the designer upfront for a change.

2.) Know the Plan/Process/Timetable - Know the plan, process, and timetable and expect to stick to it. The designer has a timetable for your project and must stick to it to allow for meeting other contractual agreements right behind your project. Often times with big projects such as web design, your project is the designer only project for your time slot to maintain the highest quality. The designer must keep moving.

3.) Have a Clear Vision - have a solid, clear vision of what you want, and know your goals. Spell it out and be detail oriented. Do not make the designer guess. Provide your designer examples of what you like and don’t like. We must know exactly where we are going before we start.

Don’t expect your project to be a copy or even a close “look and feel” of someone else’s work. Professional designers must abide by copyright law, standards, and ethics in the industry.

Most designers cannot afford to create the vision “as we go along”; this is too inefficient, and costly. After you have provided your detailed vision, do not expect the designer to start over on a different road if you don’t like what you decided. The designer expects to do minor revisions as outlined in their terms and process but not start over. Adding to the project as you go along is generally not something that can be accommodated.

Once you paint a very clear picture of where the designer is to go with your project, allow the designer room to do their thing or you will kill enthusiasm and creativity.

4.) Be Organized. Send your information all together, once if you can, not in a 100 different communications.

5.) Be Available- be available to fully answer questions daily if not more. The more available you are the more input you will have. Your designer has to keep moving but wants you to be involved in decisions that may come up, if you are available, and readily able to answer.

6.) Provide feedback/Input - be prepared to provide positive and negative feedback as you go along. Most designers move through the process in stages and once a stage is complete, they generally don’t work backwards. Designers expect some revisions and certain things may have a limited number of mock-ups. Positive feedback goes a long, long, way!

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Great Board Members Make all the Difference!

Today I’ve interacted with both the informal Start Up Princess board/Fairy Godmothers about the direction of this site and I also had a great conf call with my Board of Advisors for my other start up, sweet & charming. In both instances great ideas were shared and great people demonstrated genuine concern for the success and potential of both companies.

I want to emphasize to those of you who don’t currently have a board, that you might consider surrounding yourself with at least a mentor or two that you can discuss your questions, strategy, plans, etc. Typically a board meets quarterly, but I email and call my boards on occasion as I need and we have open relationships that way.

A quick example of how a board can help out:
Here at Start Up Princess we are having a discussion about how to develop this site and grow and support this community for women entrepreneurs. We’re tossing around ideas and debating about what the ultimate goal is for this business. We want to empower women entrepreneurs, help them succeed…so our business model must reflect that. But how? We’re generating ideas and have made some excellent progress today emailing each other (We’d love to hear yours too!) Today I appreciated discussing these issues with Fairy Godmothers Holly Buchanan, Rachael Herrscher, Laura Posey, Janet Meiners and Wizard, Jason Alba.

I am convinced that if you are going to start a business, that you owe it to your business to recruit a great board of advisors. People you trust to be honest with you, to give you advice, and help you create a successful business. I am fortunate that my board cares about me–not just about the business, they want the best for me. I appreciate this very much! You deserve this too.

Today’s Magic Wand: Joe Francesci, COO of Naartjie, member of my Board said to me today, “Remember, it’s not a race!! Find the right people and time…it’s not worth the effort to create a business unless you’re ready physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially.”

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Write A Thank You Speech

Fairy Godmothers Carrie and Danielle share magical wisdom:

“Everybody is a star. One big circle going round and round.”
-Sly and the Family Stone

The Oscars. The Grammies. The Pulitzer. The Nobel. Maybe you’ve already practiced your speech. With a hairbrush-microphone, looking straight into the camera-mirror, you’ve thanked all the people who fostered you to glory. No doubt about it, your gown or tux would be front and center, but it’s your thank you speech that would ripple out for all to feel.

Whether you’re standing at a podium, or in the middle of your very normal life, it’s likely taken a village of comrades, sages, and cheerleaders to get you to this moment.

Today’s Magic Wand: Imagine that you’re receiving the esteemed Gold Medal of Getting This Far. Who are you going to thank? The English teacher who told you she was moved by your essay? The boss who did you a big favor by firing you? The lover who helped you to see yourself in a whole new light?; or how about the people who are in your daily orbit, supporting you to shine with encouragement, or by managing the details, or getting dinner on the table.

Make this somewhat ceremonious. If you have to track down someone from your past, if you need to toil over a letter or a phone call – do it. Expressing gratitude can be quite an intimate experience. Humility is like that. And humble stars go down in history.

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