Parking Lot Display

[Scary Leatherworks]

If you don't have a website you can always make a Facebook "page" it's not the same as a regular facebook account. It can be linked to your FB acct but it allows you to have a business name and place pictures. You can also put some info on there as well. It's not a website where people can order from but it is a place they can see your products and at least contact you. besides if you have a pay-pal account they can e-mail you money.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Scary-Leatherworks/108548299232217?sk=info here's mine

[Lui]

Nice theory, but it doesn't always work. We did an Arts Festival this year: last year we did it & did reasonably well (my son didn't want to do it this year, but I convinced him to do it again, because it was close to home & you could leave your stuff- good security). This year, I set up to do demos & worked on a targe almost the entire 2 days- guess what- it didn't draw any more additional traffic in the entire 2 days...- and we (& everyone else there, btw,) made less $ than the year before. Honestly, this is just a very bad year in my area. We'll still be doing the Celtic Classic is Bethlehem & our regular Celtic Wine & Music Festival in Sunbury, but I really don't expect to make a lot of $, like we did in the past. People are scared, they're out of work, we've just been downgraded on our world-wide credit rating (& let's not get into politics on this one, ok?- I'm already pissed about the Washington Dysfunctional Babies ) ... it's just a damn bad time to try to sell handmade items... Just my current $0.02 worth.

russ

I know what you mean. Its hard all over. But we have to keep at it. If I give out 100 cards and get one customer Im happy. For event demos I prefer to just carve, I have a stamping stick I made from aluminum pipe that makes a lot of noise and I can chum them right in. Heres another idea I have been doing now with good outcome, make leather feathers. You need very little tools, you can make one in a few minutes that way you dont bore them, wrap a piece of wire around them and hit them with sheen spray. Then sell it to them for 5 or ten bucks. And at the same time you become a monster making them.

We just have to keep doing what we can. I hate cliches but with lemons we make lemonade or maybe coctails for the adults.

[Mijo]

I'm in a slightly different postion with the leather products (dog harness / leashes) that I make, in that these products are only a small portion of the total product line offered by my wife's company. That being said, we take every free opportunity that comes our way in terms participating as vendors in various events. This will include rescue events, routine small dog meet ups, locally made fairs, etc., in addition to the pet events that we pay to participate in.

Even when we don't make any sales at these free events it still pays off in the long run. We'll run into customers at other events that will recognize us from the free events, this happens a lot. IMO doing free events or setting up in a parking lot is just another way to get your name out there.

murse - you mentioned facebook but I don't know if you have tried twitter yet. my wife recently started using twitter more and it seems to be working better than facebook. She mentioned that she's been able to add more followers to twitter than friends to facebooks. Just throwing that out there...

[Scary Leatherworks]

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murse - you mentioned facebook but I don't know if you have tried twitter yet. my wife recently started using twitter more and it seems to be working better than facebook. She mentioned that she's been able to add more followers to twitter than friends to facebooks. Just throwing that out there...

I do have a twitter acct but not sure how it would work for this. does she just upload one pic at a time as a "tweet" since I don't see any album areas.

[Mijo]

I do have a twitter acct but not sure how it would work for this. does she just upload one pic at a time as a "tweet" since I don't see any album areas.

My wife uses twitter to let people know about events that we're participating in, new products added to the line and when she's posted additional pictures to the company's FB page. Intially the idea was that twitter would be used to help increase the traffic to the FB page, which in turn would increase traffic to the website but for whatever reason we seem to be adding followers at a faster rate than friends. That's not say much though b/c we still have less than 200 friends and just slightly more than 100 followers. All in all the use of FB, twitter and our website hasn't generated a lot of online sales (most of our sales are through events or wholesale to pet boutiques) but these avenues are a cheap form of advertising.

[Pounder]

Just wanted to come back and say THANKS to all who have commented and provided some great suggestions and insights. After retiring from the rat race I am following my dream of operating my own leather business, which so far has been better for the waist line than calorie counting. There is truth in the starving artist. Anyway again thanks to all, I really appreciate your thoughts and suggestions and hope to see many more.