trade-show My 2nd show, and I really need to get a tent

Sam & Oliver

Sam & Oliver

My Setup.jpg

 
I can't afford the tent just yet, so I hit my 2nd larger show (I don't count the casual car shows, only the big ones) - I sat out from 12 - 7 and got crazy sunburn.  It was a great day, nice and cool, with a breeze because I was on the shoreline of CT with the water 100 feet from me.  But damn, I look like a lobster now...
 
Anyway, This is my current setup.  I keep my cashbox hidden with a built-in compartment on the chair, and had a lot of foot traffic this time.  Put out 10 sauces (9 unproduced and Cinder) - grouped into BBQ/Marinade, Hot Sauce, and other.
 
Kickin' Blackstrap Marinade
Kickin' Blackstrap Rib Sauce
Kickin' Rib Sauce (original recipe, used brown sugar, no molasses)
Carolina Mustard & Vinegar BBQ
 
Cinder Habanero
Krèmbanero White Chocolate-Key Lime
Mind Flay Strawberry-Brainstrain
 
Cinder Ranch hot sandwich spread
Chaffinch Island Dressing
PeanutBuster hot peanut sauce
 
I made about $170 in sales in about 7 hours.  I know, not great, but not bad either, because what I took away from this was which are my next 3 flavors to produce.  I know sometimes in business you need to make what people want to buy, not always what you think is best.  The demographic in this CT Shoreline town is very affluent, lots of money but tight with the wallet.  People drive up in Porsches, BMW Suv's, Cadillac and old cars that are worth $200k+, but when it comes to selling sauces, many of them 'had' to have a deal.  $6 each and you could see they were hesitant.  But drop that to 3 for $15, and they would nod and take it.  Same went for the amazing seafood they were serving.  Raw oysters, Hot lobster rolls, fish tacos, all fresh caught... people were actually trying to haggle a bit.  I know they have money but I guess being stingy is how they keep it ;)
 
Anyway, I have plans to get a 2nd table (probably another 6' and put it on my left, and turn the entire setup on a 45 degree wedge.  I'll add another box for additional products when I Get the run done, and a rack to put those nice 8oz widemouth jars on.  Those were a huge hit.
 
I need to get a fitted bottom sheet for the table, as the wind kept blowing it around, so I used my 4' level and clipped the tablecloth to it to help keep it down.
 
I also need to get a woman to help me at the table.  When my girlfriend showed up half way through the day and helped talk to people, I noticed both sales and people who actually stopped to chat picked up, by almost triple!
 
Was a fun day.  I need to get one of those nice $900 truss tents with my logo on it it with the zip-off back, etc.
 
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I don't know much about kickstarter, I just know of it. My thinking is, it's to help people get their biz of the ground, I doubt there is a sales quota. I think you just have to be sincere enough for people to believe in you.
 
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Kickstarter is all over the place, new, existing, or other types of companies. 
 
It doesn't hurt to already have a following because like anything it's a numbers game.  But most folks on KS are new brands that are in your position exactly. 
 
You just need to leverage your network and be prepared to hustle your ass off in either case. It's a ton of work and incredibly stressful, but can also be very rewarding if it helps you reach your goal. 
 
Suggest researching successful campaigns for a while and figuring out what made them successful. And equally, researching failed campaigns and determining why they may have failed. With a few there's no rhyme nor reason to it. But mostly it's pretty evident why a campaign succeeded or failed.
 
My best advice for doing a KS:
  • Leverage the successes and lessons from failure to make yours effective.
  • Provide fair and compelling rewards. 
  • Be concise and clear with your campaign goals/objectives
  • Avoid multiple goals or convoluted explanations for why you're doing the KS
  • Provide realistic reward fulfillment timeline and meet it
  • make a good video
  • Tell your story in a compelling manner so that people want to help you succeed. You're selling yourself, not your product. 
  • Determine a realistic campaign goal, and make sure it's going to be 1. realistic (e.g. don't ask for $100,000 if you only need $5K) and 2. attainable (e.g. if you're trying to raise $60,000, don't try to do it in 30 days as you'll need $2K a day average, which is quite difficult. 
  • Timing is important - don't do it during XMas or tax season, or right after NYE, etc. 
  • Don't aim low - determine what goal is REALLY going to help your business, or you're spending a hell of a lot of energy on short-term benefits. 
One man's opinion, but I'm not sure why you'd do a KS for a canopy and table cloths - you can get the best quality canopy on the market for about $200 shipped. Why would you need a $900 canopy with company logo and wrap around sides? Come on dude - you're a small company - budget like one. I've been doing multiple markets a week for 2.5 years with a plain white canopy and no sides/back and no logo'd tablecloths - and what do you know, they work just fine.  
 
You'll go broke in a hurry trying to keep up with the Jones's - let your product speak for itself. 
 
As for hiring a girl to work for you, paying someone by the hour to stand there with you is a good way to go broke fast. Better just to polish your pitch and sling sauce yourself. If you only sold $170 in 7 hours that'd be my first concern if I were you. With those extremely low sales figures, either that event was dead, or people didn't like your products, or your delivery needs work. Any 1 of those things should get immediate attention before you start spending $ all willy nilly on tents and fitted table cloths. Fitted table cloths and logo'd tent tops don't sell sauce. 
 
Question: What's in those wide-mouth jars? Were those commercially packed/inspected with compliant labeling? I'm a bit puzzled by those since you've talked about using a copacker this whole time. Just curious. 
 
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Kalitarios said:
I have never used Kickstarter, but I would think I would need more sales to prove that I'm worth investing in, no?
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I did it w/out any sales and was successful.  It's definitely easier if you have a dedicated following, at least for the 5-10K range. But Scott's right, if you want to bring another sauce to market then go for it.  If you just need a tent then you don't need one.  I just bought the new E-Zup Vantage for $193.  More than good enough for farmer's markets and festivals.
 
Kalitarios said:
I also need to get a woman to help me at the table.  When my girlfriend showed up half way through the day and helped talk to people, I noticed both sales and people who actually stopped to chat picked up, by almost triple!
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I kinda  agree.  I just finished my first festival this weekend and had a couple buddies help out.  Until someone arrived, I could only do so much. Things flowed much better once someone showed up to call people in while I did the presentation and then to take the money, log the transaction and bag the product while I started on the next presentation. I think I have lost people before when someone is really acting like they want to buy all three and then a large group comes up and I have to start another presentation while they think about it.  They need attention all the way until the sale is made and that second person can provide that.  People were generally receptive to waiting for a taste until I finished collecting cash/PayPal, bagging (I wrap each in a small 1/2 sheet paper towel and put them into a plastic grocery bag) and logging the transaction.  Of couse, my friends worked for free but got plenty of BBQ and beer :cheers:
 
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PepperDaddy said:
I kinda  agree.  I just finished my first festival this weekend and had a couple buddies help out.  Until someone arrived, I could only do so much. Things flowed much better once someone showed up to call people in while I did the presentation and then to take the money, log the transaction and bag the product while I started on the next presentation. I think I have lost people before when someone is really acting like they want to buy all three and then a large group comes up and I have to start another presentation while they think about it.  They need attention all the way until the sale is made and that second person can provide that.  People were generally receptive to waiting for a taste until I finished collecting cash/PayPal, bagging (I wrap each in a small 1/2 sheet paper towel and put them into a plastic grocery bag) and logging the transaction.  Of couse, my friends worked for free but got plenty of BBQ and beer :cheers:
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I make people wait. And if they're too impatient, ah well - they don't have to buy my hot sauce. At festivals I hire a friend every time - it does go more smoothly - but that's where I sell 50-60 CS in 2 days. For such low sales volume ($170 in 7 hours) there should be plenty of time to work with each customer flying solo. 
 
I worked my Saturday market and there happened to be a car show, so instead of 10-2, it went 9-5. I worked it by myself and moved 20+ CS of sauce. A couple of people were too impatient to wait, but most of the time a simple "I'm just about done with this tasting & I'll be right with you" sufficed.  

I also keep a few reading items out - laminated placards with product description, a copy of Edible East Bay with the LDHS interview/write-up - people get bored easily, so by providing reading material you can retain the more ADHD types. If you don't have a magazine with a write-up of your own company I'd suggest printing/laminating a general article about health benefits of capsaicin, or about hot sauce or trends in the food world - anything to give people something to do besides stare and wait. Very simple, and costs less than $5 to print & laminate something. 
 
One man's opinion. 
 
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i found people loved the pages i laminated under each type of sample sauces.
 
the assistant is my gf so it's somewhat free. i just have to buy her dinner!
 
i'm thibking the poor sales were a combination of a few things:
 
demographic was 50-80 mostly affluent
there was a beer tent literally next to me with an up and coming company with 20 flavors. it held 90% of the crowds attention. most of the people that even came near me were looking at the beer servers ( young girls)
 
i think i screwed myself by making 1 flavor thats hot. 
 
here's what i heard many times. "ooh thats different. oh wow thats hot. wow. thats really hot. oh wow. yeah wow thats hot. what else do you have thats not hot". followed by me saying "nothing i can sell you today, this is a showcase of upcoming flavors" and the person walks
 
so i giess i need to either take a loan and make a few more flavors or reformulate. it aeems to be a love or "sorry this hab sace burns my tongue" answer9
 
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at the moment, I only have one "hot" product. I knew from the start that heat would have a place in my product line but it wouldn't be the underlying theme across all products. Lots of wanna be heat seekers out there that run for milk after heating a jalapeño.

After 3 years my wal mart tent blew up on me. A bunch of regulars at the market spoke highly of King Canopy. I picked up their heavy duty 10x10 model that comes with 3 walls I can put up. I think it was about 350 before shipping. They do custom tops for a price. The nice thing about king is they have a huge list of replacement parts on their web site. I used it once already and the construction of it seems real solid.
 
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I had my first festival last weekend and only saw two clearly drunk customers.  Both bought.  One wants to go in on me w/ his BBQ sauce, which he says is the exact same ingredients as my Rio Grande Mud.  He wants to create a new sauce that is basically dumping his sauce into a jar w/ mine and reselling it. He didn't even want to taste the Rio Grande Mud. Just looked at the label and said "I'll buy it.  Lets go into business together.  I'll contact you and we mix the two together." Hilarious.
 
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Kalitarios said:
Or show up at your house.  :rofl:
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It happens. My address is on my bottles. One night I was having a beer and watching the baseball game when my dog started going apeshit at the fence.

I went out and there's one of my customers from the farmers market - it was 9:00 PM.

I was like, "can I help you?!?"

He says, "oh, sorry - I needed some sauce...is this a bad time?"

I was like, "uh, well this is my house, not a farmers market"

I sold him 5 bottles, but it was awkward to say the least. :doh:
 
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Lucky Dog Hot Sauce said:
It happens. My address is on my bottles. One night I was having a beer and watching the baseball game when my dog started going apeshit at the fence.

I went out and there's one of my customers from the farmers market - it was 9:00 PM.

I was like, "can I help you?!?"

He says, "oh, sorry - I needed some sauce...is this a bad time?"

I was like, "uh, well this is my house, not a farmers market"

I sold him 5 bottles, but it was awkward to say the least. :doh:
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ABS...  Always be selling.  :)
 
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Lucky Dog Hot Sauce said:
It happens. My address is on my bottles. One night I was having a beer and watching the baseball game when my dog started going apeshit at the fence.

I went out and there's one of my customers from the farmers market - it was 9:00 PM.

I was like, "can I help you?!?"

He says, "oh, sorry - I needed some sauce...is this a bad time?"

I was like, "uh, well this is my house, not a farmers market"

I sold him 5 bottles, but it was awkward to say the least. :doh:
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At least it shows how good your product is. Does he still come around?
FeistyParrot said:
Hahhaa..can't imagine what someone would think if they tried that here, 3 macaws in meltdown...best security system ever!
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My neighbor has a couple of those. We always know when the traveling preachers come to the neighborhood.
 
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