Hi there. I see that you made it over to the new tips and talk portion of the podcast. These are bite-sized topics that I pull from community questions and things that I'm observing in the world of handmade small bits. Today, we're going to continue our conversation about craft shows and we're going to specifically address the challenges and then the solutions to these challenges of participating in a craft show.
I just got back yesterday from Denver, we got a chance to go out and see the kids after eight months from being apart. It was really interesting to me how different Colorado is in terms of being open and available to the way Chicago is no question about it. Craft shows are opening up all across the country and some of them I know never totally shut down, but many of them did. So that's why I decided to do this two part craft show convo on everything about craft shows.
Last week, we talked about how do you select the right shows for you? And then now, how do you judge at the end, if it's a show that really reinforced your initial thoughts of attending the show and whether you should repeat it again in the future. Now let's talk about some of the challenges and obstacles and what the solutions are to those for purposes of today, I'm going to break this down into some obstacles or challenges that present themselves before the show.
So when you're in that preparation stage, and then also challenges that will come up during the show when you're actually there alive, decided to do three in each category. So three in the prep category three in the, during the show category. And I think these are pretty much the biggest three that you will have. The first thing that I always hear from people when you've decided you're going to do a show is how in the world do you know how much product to make?
You don't want to make too much product and spend too much time and have a ton of inventory leftover at the same time. You don't want to run out of inventory, which then means you can't make a potential sale. So where is that sweet spot? How do you know before you enter the show so that you can get that all right? The truth is you have to test it.
Once you start doing shows, you're going to have a better gauge as to which products sell the best, which are the most popular, which shows sell the most product. Like you might have one product in your lineup that sells better at a farmer's market, let's say than another one that sells great at a craft show. And so it really has to be time in to really know for sure.
However, here are some guidelines as you're considering what products and how many of each you're planning to have in preparation for the show. The very first thing. And I talked about this in the very first tips and talk podcast that I did to, if you go back to the very first one, I think this is about six weeks ago. Now I talk about the biggest mistake people will make. And this does apply to shows too.
And that is make sure that you have your booth themed in some way, based on the product that you make. If you are a knitter, you'll have multiple products, but they're all under the theme of Niti or same thing. If you're a Potter, all different designs of pottery that you make, that you can sell. So if you were a knitter and a Potter and you painted, you know, water color, when you have all of that on your table, you think about it.
You've neutralized your specialty because there is no specialty, you do too many things. So the first thing is to make sure that you're thinking and staying within a certain product theme, then stay away from feeling like you have to produce every single product in every single size that you make. The better thing to do is go with the ones that are the most popular. Because many times people are just trying you out there identifying and finding you at a show, and they're trying out your product.
Let's say you have 20 cents of candles. Maybe you have five or seven of your best sellers. And so you're going deeper in your product line. You're making more of those versus having fewer of every single cent you have that way. You're also not going to sell out of a certain scent and look like you've come to the show, less prepared, okay? Cause you don't have everything. So fewer products deeper within the lines.
And then you can have a list on the side of all the different scents that are available, but the ones that this show are this, the other reason you do, this is too many options, confuse customers. They, and so they're sitting and thinking, do I want that pumpkin spice? Or do I want the cherries Jubilee scent? Or maybe I want this one? Or what about this one? Then all of a sudden they get distracted and pulled away and then they purchase nothing. So in answer to how many products do you need to
make? You've got to pick a number, right? And pick a strategy based on what I just talked about in terms of how many options having your product be themed, then go a little bit deeper in each of the lines. And then you're going to see how that does for that show. And then each show, as I talked about it in the beginning, you'll get smarter and smarter.
Based on your experience, you could ask other people who are in different markets who sell a similar product, how they've prepared, but it doesn't mean that that's the exact same experience. You'll have your market's different. Your product's different, the way you present is different. So you really need to go off of your experience and build upon that. The next big challenge when you're getting ready for a show is what should my booth look like?
And the one big thing that I see a lot of people doing, it's actually two sides of the spectrum here with their display. The first is it's just a blank table with their product on it. That looks a little minimal. There's nothing to draw you into the booth. And I'm going to say one of my most favorite booth attractions that I've ever seen was done by Julie and her husband, Julie Skaggs, and her husband of mad Soil test.
They use soy candles And at local craft shows now they don't do it at all of the shows that they're in, but when they can, they bring in dry ice, you know how the dry ice smokes all over and the thing that's so cool about it is it totally aligns with their brand. Julia and her husband are science teachers. And so mad scientist, like it all goes into brand, right? Clearly when you're walking down an aisle at a craft show, you have to do a second take, like, what is this about?
And then you go into their booth and you learn more about what they do and et cetera, et cetera. So what can you do? That's a little different that can attract people in. And then the second thing that I'll see in terms of, I'm going to say a mistake at the booth is having your method of displaying, grab more attention and outshine the product. You want your product to be the star. It's nice to have displays that enhance and show off your product, but don't let them take over the show.
I'm thinking jewelry. I really like when jewelry is displayed on maybe some natural twigs, you know? So, so necklaces are dropping down from little angles of all the different branches. That's a really cool look. I've seen people display things on crates. Now, if you're using something heavier, like a crate, your product should be bigger too. So you're again, not to let the display overwhelm your product.
You wouldn't put necklaces on a crate, but maybe pottery because it's balanced out by the weight would be well displayed on a crate or, you know, like the Mason jars that are filled with your toffee would look good on crates. So the thing is you don't have to spend a ton of money on your display, but make it interesting unique, have it draw them in another idea would be fabrics. This would work well for Jewelry too.
Having fabrics Laid across, you know, not just flat, but maybe, you know, bunched up a little bit and laid across your table. So be creative, be used. Doesn't have to cost a lot of money Place to go for ideas. Pinterest, just jump in there, search under some keywords. And I bet there'll be a plethora of ideas For you there. Moving on, we're still Talking about displays. The other thing to consider here is you absolutely. And center, want your company name and logo.
And the important thing here is make sure that it matches your website or social media platforms. All of that, because if someone leaves the show, you want to make sure that if they go to look for you online, afterwards, that they know they're in the exact right place, because what they saw from your booth is represented in the exact same way. Online consistency is so important and so key. And you know, think about it. You see your logo in your company name all the time.
So over and over again, you kind of feel like, well, everyone's already seen it. Lots of people are only meeting you for the first time. So what comes to feel standard and regular and repetitive For you is not for your customers. Another group, Great thing that you could put in your booth is some type of a poster. You know, like a nice laminated poster or professionally Made poster, which is a picture of you, But also the story of how you started your business.
Everybody wants to know about the maker, the designer behind the product, and this would be a great thing that can capture people's attention. If they're waiting to be able to talk to you, they just want to know a little bit more about you, but it gives them other things that they can interact with at the booth. The other thing that has become very popular, a died off for a while, and now it's back are QR codes. I was mentioning earlier that I just got back from Denver to see the kids.
And I'm seeing this at the restaurants, they're all over the places. There's a QR code in the middle of the table and you take a picture of it with your phone and it pops up the menu of The restaurant.
You can use the same idea In your booth where a QR code could lead to a YouTube video that you have your website, a price list, perhaps lots of different options again, so that people who are just looking around the booth want to see more things are kind of thinking and just taking some time in your booth, lots of different interactive things that they can do. So these are, again, things that you can prepare as you're getting ready for your booth.
The other thing I'm going through, as you're thinking about what your table's going to look like, take your kitchen table or your dining room table. If you know how big your area is going to be, let's say it's an eight foot table and actually lay out the products and see how it's going to look. The one thing you don't want to do is overwhelm your table, like put too much On the table.
So that then When people are going and touching and working with your products and looking at them and all of that, that it doesn't continue to be messy because people don't want to approach a messy booth. It just looks like a pile of things all on top of each other. So depending on your product, obviously that's more of an issue. If you sell knitted items or something that's so or prints that are staffed, you know, things like that versus maybe jars of toffee by depending on your product.
So make sure that your table doesn't look too messy or would have the tendency to get too messy. And then also on the flip side, make sure it doesn't look too sparse. You know, you don't want a table with a little bit of product and then a whole bunch of just open table space. So you want to balance all of that out too. You want to make sure that your table allows for interaction.
The more that you have a customer interact with your product, the more likely they are to buy, you can hand somebody, your crocheted mittens for them to try on versus just looking at them from afar. Like if you're all product was all behind the, Or just looking at them on yeah. When people are able to interact and touch and feel and try on, and even just jars of, let's say you make jam looking at them and touching them.
That is a tactic because the more people interact with them, the more likely they are to buy. The final thing I want to talk about in the preparing category under the display is have some way to collect email addresses for the future. Whether it's some type of a sweepstakes that they enter into for free product. Now I know that costs you money to offer a free product, but it's generating leads for your, for you to be able to market to them later.
So some type of a free product sweepstakes where they're giving you their email, or it could be give me your email and I will send you my favorite recipe using my spices, or even care instructions for your product. You can get creative, but something that your potential customer would really want in exchange For an email, you get bonus Points. If you give them something that they would really want, even if they don't buy from you. Because again, they're a prospect they may buy in the future.
The thing not to do is to give away something that has no correlation to your product at all. You know how often you'll see sweepstakes for like iPhones, iPads, All of that for you. That's not helpful. Everyone wants a new iPhone or an iPad, right? But will they still want your candles or your jewelry or your knitted shawls. You only want to be attracting the people who genuinely would have an interest in your product. Okay. Also under the display category are samples.
Another thing you can do at face-to-face shows that you can't do online. So if you have a product, okay, physical product versus consumable trial sizes of anything that you make, if you can fit this into your production is fabulous. Someone might not want to buy a full size candle, but they would buy little teeny tea lights. So if there's a way to make something that's more of a sample size of your product, that's just like a tester. That would be an interesting concept.
And I've seen this done really, really well at craft shows. If you make more upscale, knitted, hats, scarves, mittens, et cetera, is there something light and easy that you could make that could be used during the summer? You know, knitted coasters, maybe something that goes on your phone, something that people would buy at the show and is a spinoff of what you normally make. Okay? So those are samples for their consumables.
So you make cookies or cakes used to be typical in, I'm going to say the olden days now that you could offer samples to taste pretty much. I think everybody is hands down not doing that right now. It's still a risk. I don't think it's even legal in most of the shows to have a plate of cookie samples or something along those lines. However, if you have a consumable product, let's go back to cookies back at the shop.
You could have made small little bite-size cookies and sell them in little already sealed bags for 25 50 cents. If you could make little drop cookies, like I don't know, 50 of them, a hundred of them to a tray production wise, I think the numbers could work out. So something to think about also, again, anything where I was talking earlier, where your customers interacting and could purchase many times at craft shows. People want to just buy a snack.
As they're walking down the Isles, be the one that sells it to them, you know, and then have the larger options also available the family size or the individual, but real take home size also available. Now we're going to talk about the checkout process. This is the third part you want to think through when you're getting started, what your path is for a customer to go through with checkout. What do you do if they give you cash? What that, but people still do.
So make sure you have a cash box with enough change dollar bills so that you're ready. If you don't have the exact change that goes back, what happens? You're fumbling. You're trying to find change. Someone else who's working the booth with you is looking in their personal wallet to find change. And it slows the whole process down. And that's what you're trying to prevent. Then also with credit cards, what are you going to do with credit cards? You probably have already thought about that.
I use PayPal when I'm out at face-to-face shows, there are a lot of different options. You might be using square, whatever you're using, but this is really important sometimes because these are wifi and data connected. Sometimes in some locations with craft shows, they might Not work. So what's Your fallback option. You have someone there they're ready to take a credit card. It's not going through what are you going to do? Figure all out in advance.
So you're not surprised you are prepared and you're ready for whatever is going to come your way. The other part of this is how are you going to package up the product for people to take away? You know, what are you wrapped? Do you need to wrap it? What are you including in the bag? You have all of that figured out and tested and working smoothly again. So someone can be done as efficiently as possible.
It is a heartbreaker when you have a line of three people wanting to buy, and that third person is like, this is taking way too long, puts the product bathroom walks away. You do not want that happening. These were the three things to think about as you're getting prepared for the show, how much product to make how's the display setup going to look. And then what's the checkout process have all of that thought through.
And then once you do, none of these are going to be obstacles because you've pretty much thought of everything. And even if there's something that comes up that you weren't prepared for, it's only one thing. It's not challenge after challenge after challenge. Now I've promised you to keep these tips and talk sessions pretty short. And we're already looking at almost 20 minutes here.
So instead of continuing on and talking about the challenges and solutions to those challenges for the portion during the show, I'm going to cut this into two episodes and we will pick up again and talk about during the show challenges next week, that's a wrap. I might get to the point kind of girl. And this is what you can expect from these quick midweek sessions. Now it's your turn go out and fulfill that dream of yours, share your handmade products with us.
We want them and they bring us both so much happiness.