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Be Empowered To Sell Wholesale

So hold still could be a really great way to diversify revenue streams eight he can reach a wider audience of customers, but it does require different strategies and schedules and it is a lot of work, so I want you to be honest with yourself as you're looking through the questionnaire in the bonus materials in answering these things is this something I want to be doing? Is it I'm sure all of you are capable of giving your pricing where it needs to be in creating these sales tools, but also consider the the emotional side of it, you know, is this something I want to be doing? Because it is really like running two different businesses when you sell retelling when you sell wholesale? So think about that I want you to focus on your product first, that needs to be the main thing you work on before you start wholesaling, you want to create an extensive line that you know is cohesive that mirrors your brand, they're really fits your aesthetic and then you two you want to get on that regular r...

elease schedule like we talked about, um so you also need to know here numbers, right? Eso knowing those numbers will enable you to make smarter business decisions and set your pricing appropriately, and it will make sure that you're not spending your wheels on something that's costing you money that you're actually moving forward in a profitable way for your business on dh then you also need to set terms and conditions like we've just talked about in streamline this process is so these air these air, your areas of focus and I really want oh again, push you to the bonus materials because there's twelve questions in there that we've covered in pretty great detail over the last few hours, but I want you to think of them from your point of view from your product that you're selling from your place in your business. Everyone here is coming from a different place in your business. You're in a different phase of your business, some of you're just starting out. Some are further along. Eso really take a look at this question and make time to answer them thoughtfully and carefully to determine if wholesale it's right for you. Are there any questions from the online audience? Yes, we have question is anybody here have questions first? Yeah, so when you were just talking about your wrap up, that kind of another question popped up on my head in terms of so knowing your costs and doing the bottom up and top down and I was just curious to know so when you're thinking about your labor costs so it's a little bit easier for me to keep track of my time in terms of what I'm actually on the letter press and I'm printing and how long it takes me to trim but I guess where I sort of what gets hard to figure out is the design time because that varies all the time and I know sometimes that I'm not terribly efficient like I'm getting up and down and I'm distracted by doing other things so and I know it's going to vary for everybody but is there a way to be able to estimate that better that's a good question I struggle with this is well it because like you talked about it start something I get interrupted I go back so it's also hard just for my own you know time standing there's a couple of tools out there that will help you clock your time on your computer I don't have the name sandy right now but I can look about provide them to you later but it's just something on your on your computer where you can hit it when you start working and then you push stop when you stop and I would run that for a while and when you as you're developing a certain number you know neighbor over the span of a certain amount time or as you develop a certain number of products and then that way you can kind of find an average of how long it takes you and then equate that to more of your hourly rate but I do think designed time is an area that people overlook quite a bit when they're factoring in their pricing I think we underestimate how much time we spend not only in the designing but the packaging and the if you're doing your printing or you know, creating your products by hand you know we undervalue our own time but yet we'll also pay other people for their time so I mean the the other side of it shoes you could look at the going rate of ah in your case a graphic designer and how many hours would it take them to d'oh x number of product? You know you kind of break it down that way too, but ultimately you're not going to change this for every product for every like within a product category like you're not going to change it for rescue, you'll change for product categories cause certain products will take you longer to make than others but you know for one our print to another you you're going to kind of have a set idea of what your um what your timing is does that help it isthe thank you stories anybody else yeah, this might be a really silly question, but I just want to make sure you know what we talk about like doing a release or doing a really so what's like good checklist for doing the release like doing like posting on social media having it like a price list so from a marketing perspective hotel away just like I'm doing a release these are the things I need to do to question check those off let's bring strung out together okay, so you're going to want to design the product? Yes, you're going to want to figure out the pricing for the product especially if it's not within your current product categories, right? Ah you're going to want to take photos of that product so that you can use them in a catalog or your marketing um your website um from the product from photos you're then going to want to update that catalog to make sure they're included there you want to do social media like you're talking about what are there aspects go into our lunches? Yeah, uh given the packaging yeah, I found it sometimes. What is my my biggest holdup? Yeah, because it's not my area of expertise so I have a product and then it takes me a long time to figure out the right packaging particularly for new categories yeah for new categories and then the other thing that can england was shipping and yeah you know do you have the right size boxes and kind of like how is your system set up to be able to get it out the door that's great quickly what other ideas to people have um I guess this also ties in because you mentioned that for doing a release you want to make sure that thie your wholesale customers know about a first but sometimes especially for new product category I kind of wanted put it for retail first to test it out engage your reaction any kind of trouble she like actually the shipping is a little hype people aren't buying it because shipping is hi how can I streamline this or you know cut costs how yeah what is that? Okay what's a good way to do that especially for a new product category I think more and more people are leaning did you have a quick oh, you wanted timing on that? Go ahead. Grab the mike hi s o I think also with the new product especially if it's a new category and you're an existing designer and you have a really good relationship with the retail store to partner with the retail store and do a trunk show or like, you know, just blast this product with that store if it's one of your favorite stores that you work with that really supports your line you know and buys you deep um you know, it could be a really good opportunity not just for you, but also of course the store because you're giving them first dibs also, yeah, that's a great idea that's a great weight, it didn't steal question urges you want to add to the brainstem one more brain storm and I like that about partner partnering. I have a traveling, printing press, so I go to one of my favorite retailers and then their customers can see everything in action to so then the retailers putting it out on their website and it's kind of testing products also, but that's cool and I just had one other thing, tiffany, you kind of men essentially crowd sourcing, and I would be careful as your brand grows about that because that is, as katie mentioned, where things get a little troublesome if you have a lot of established wholesale accounts, then they start asking about why it's not available on dh you know, if you're not going to offer that product category that's an easy answer, but it's something that you're testing the market for, then I think it creates some confusion so it's great when you're starting out and you don't have a big wholesale following, but as you go on, I would I would probably try to avoid that in my experience it's it gets a little tricky there I agree, but I love kelli's idea of collaborating and doing it more is like a trunk show partnership just to kind of see that way another idea for the rainstorm is that ties into the general marketing but drills down a little bit more is, you know, an email blast to show your retailers the new the new products so that when you're going back to giving them first dibs but you're leveraging those photos you've taken and um you know, you want to build that in there too? What else? What else do we need to do for any release? Yeah press of a good option to absolutely but I do think you know that the press stuff press stuff is such a less a wholenother course too and is in and of itself but you know, presley time is pretty far unless you're working with bloggers, so if you're working with traditional media it's not as much of a risk of alienating those retailers who are seeing in the pages of a magazine before they get access to it in a catalog, so but yeah, I think how you go about it with the press is a whole different ball game to think about yeah, yeah, we have a few questions mom great, so this one a few people were interested in tea and becky asked, do I have to offer net thirty in terms of building, I'm looking at wholesale personalized items so they cannot be resold right? I know you don't have to offer offer that payment terms that's completely up to you however, once you do grow when your business does get to a point where you are working with sales reps or you do have established accounts that your way working with over and over again that are reordering those are the types of accounts that you will then offer those net thirty payment payment options to but again that's based on relationships that's based on working with them for a while and knowing that they pay on time and with the store and or a relationship with the rep where the rep has been working with the store for a long time. So I would not blindly tell anyone to accept that thirty payment the other the other caveat to this is sometimes the larger big box stores you know will request that but again that's where the applications and getting the banking information and getting some referrals or references rather that you can call and check up on of people that are working with them on payment terms. But you set the rules for your business it's your business and so you know all these things we've talked about today, their guidelines there things you need to think about in there, things that you need to come sydor and they're things that you need to kind of bold to your own business and make them apply to you in a way that works well for you. But still kind of, you know, meets the industry standards, and second question is sumner z and people were also anderson in this one, can you talk about licensing your images to wholesalers versus selling them the product itself? I'm a designer and would liketo license my images so they can put it on products of their choice. And how does one go about doing this? Uh, licensing is also another very large area that could we could spend three or four hours discussing there's a lot of different ways. You can slice and dice licensing deals. It could be a royalty based thing. It could be a flat rate thing, you know, if they buy out the design it's one price if they use it for a certain amount of time, or apply to certain number products. That's a different set of pricing, so licensing is an another great revenue stream to consider for your business if you are an artist, but the nuances of that are longer than what we have time for here, but if that is something you're interested in a way, we have done some courses through trade show boot camp for that, sophie tradeshow camp dot com there's a beginner's licensing course that kind of talks about this different options in our downloadable section so but yeah, you can license your work and it's been great, but do you have experience that that would you want to time in here with mike? Yes, I think licensing is very different yeah it's just a whole different way of thinking about where your products are, where your artwork is going to go and thinking about how they might use it and how long they have to use the artwork um, you know, I think that what's that there's a three different things like terms of how long they can use it where they're going to use it and where they're going to sell it so it's a very different way to think about where your artwork on being versus store taking your product that you've made and right selling it um but I did have a different question it was about customization or do wholesalers because I've seen it and, um policies in terms of some catalogues where they allow their wholesalers to request customization and how you feel about that. So maybe you haven't artwork that they love, but oh, you know, can you just make your more red and then sell me thirty of them right what's your thought on that? I am not a fan of that for you the paper business in particular just because they feel like then you're going to you're going to do a whole new run at margins that aren't what you're you're not going for me, I wouldn't run a thousand of ah, you know, my typical run is a thousand I wouldn't run a thousand for that job so therefore my my cost to be a lot harder, but I could see it working well for somebody in a different industry perhaps jewelry do you ever get those requests, laura? Like I could see that working more easily for somebody in a different industry where you know they're not producing in volume scale are outsourcing manufacturing you have some thoughts on that? Just I mean for jewelry store from but there's there's always different metal options like everything I do is casting so I can easily reproduced something in a different medal for someone and start not a big deal. I think you know to your point it's easy to change the color on your design but where it becomes difficult is in the actual production of it because you're not going to get the same margins that you would if it was just your normal run that's just my feeling on it though yeah gets very one off yeah, yeah I also think you kind of get yourself into once you start making those kind of accommodations I think it's a slippery slope, because then where do you stop? And you know, I think if it was a larger order, like there have been, you know, big box stores that wanted, ah, higher volume, and it warranted its own run of something, its own creation that made more. That would make more sense. But I think if it was a smaller boutique that was asking for a small volume, I don't think it's, at least not for your business, is the right thing to do something you wanted to agree it's going to say when it comes to custom ization with some of the lines that we wrap, we find that you have to very strict parameters around it for it to be successful. So these are the only things we offer. This is how we offer it and you know, beyond that it would be great to maybe collaborate with a store that you've worked well with and a soldier brand kind of what, like, what kelly was talking about earlier, I think that could work, but but then you really would need to be looking at your numbers to think about what makes sense and whether what your objective is, you know, is this about brand awareness? Is this rewarding the store that's not a lot of business with you in a project that special, so thinking about what you want to get out of some of these things, because otherwise you're really not getting your going rate for some of these custom things, so I would have concerns about just it wasting your time. Ultimately, at the end of the day, I agree it's a time wasting part of it and the financial considerations that I would place the highest questions around. Awesome. Well, we have had a really vibrant class today. First I want to thank you, katie, even a class and all you here for being here in the studio and everyone at home for joining us. Also, if you want to keep in touch with katie after this class, you can check her website out trade show boot camp, so can't trade show okay reading so if you could tell us about that, katie, sure, yeah, yeah. So through trade, your boot camp, I run conferences, I do online classes and then myself and several of the camp speakers offer one on one coaching, and all of us have different areas of expertise to, depending on what your needs are weak, get you paired up with the right person. We mainly work with the stationary and gift industry, which there's a lot of people in the audience from that industry. So a lot of the examples we've been sharing to their paper related. But we do have experienced another gift categories as well. And we just opened registration for a paper camp conference in september. So if anyone in the station and gift industry is looking for an even deeper dive into what it takes to hold sale and exhibited trade shows and build a product line, you could check that out at trade show camp. Dot com forward slash paper camp.