My market

One of the pressing things on my mind all the time is who is my target market. I set out ill advised and cast my net too big. Squashed Olives tried to appeal to everyone. I made products that I figured would capture the widest audience. The major problem with that is that those markets are cornered by people who only make 1 or 2 different products for specific people/lifestyles. A pretty label only goes so far, if you are a nobody - your just a nobody with a pretty label. Not to mention most of the people I was/am selling too are people who have nothing in common with me. The frustration built and then climaxed with falling flat on the street fair. I switched to wholesale and built a bunch of displays for all sorts of places. Hoping maybe just market presence would carry my product. (still working on that one). But recently I've started working on developing specific labels and products for small groups. First one up was the dancers foot cream.

Flopped - so far. Only $100 bucks down the drain and a bunch of time. To my knowledge no one else makes anything like it, but all of the wholesale shops I mailed out samples to haven't even taken the time to call me. I have a few more options for marketing those and will work on them in the coming months.

Next I decided to spin off a brand and do something based on "survivalism". Survivalsoap.com is the new brand/site. I forgot how much work it is to create a new brand. We are yet to go live with it, but soon it should be done. What my target market is for this brand is specifically "preppers" and outdoorsie people who do a lot of back packing or camping. The soap is your most basic Castile olive oil soap that leaves no harmful chemicals on you or in nature. I also sell a soap making kit that gives you 21oz of lye to add your lard/oil/tallow to. I just have to finish pictures and do a Youtube video of me making soap using the kit.

Failure

So that was fun. Time well wasted? maybe. I tend not to write a lot because I have other more important things to do with my day, so I tell myself. I build. I change. I create. Over the last 4ish months off and on I have been building displays for my business. Massive displays. I was going to over take the street fair world and prove to the world that I could stop just 1% of the people attending, and make thousands! 

Didn't so much work out. My craft fair displays looked amazing, and received tons of compliments and a lot of curiosity. You can check out all the pictures I posted on my instagram of the craft displays. But that didn't translate to sales. I could go on with a massive list of reasons - most of which I have no effect over. Some good came I hope from it all, I think I picked up a wholesale location. It gave me a lot more clarity, on where my business is, where I want it to go, and how I'm going to get it there. 

 

Wholesale

From this point on I am dedicating my time and effort into getting into more wholesale locations. I likely will be chopping up those displays and placing every section into different retailers. I already have a great little shop in Vacaville who carries my natural soaps, lotions, baby lotions, belly butters, nipple creams and some of my lip balms. The owners are absolutely wonderful people and their shop is great. It is 'The Baby Shop' in Vacaville. They already have a display of mine - so please if your in the area, pregnant or know someone who is - stop in and say hi. 

Visit the website also when you get a chance - I updated with all the new products. I have organic liquid soaps, natural body washes, and the California extra virgin olive oils are up. 

Free Association

By no means have I not been busy. Blogging like a lot of aspects of business, really bother me. Not because I find them too time consuming, or difficult. Even though I think I'm largely illiterate and writing in a formal setting gives me slight anxiety. Here this is "published" for the world to read, and you never want to come off as dumb. "Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt." something I've lived by for the better part of my adult life. Like everything in business, what you initial believe turns out to be a damn lie. Business makes you uncomfortable. It pushes you to points that you don't like. There is no self help book, business plan, formal education, and mentor that can teach you what is necessary to succeed. That is where I live, in this uncomfortable stage of the next task that needs to be done, that I have little or no skill at... no time to master, and I must get it done in order to grow. It is a hell of a lot of fun. I've recently listened to a few podcast from Joe Rogan - who I would have had no interest in hearing speak initially.... what I've learned is that my very first online order from etsy and my own website and the incredible high of being able to convert someone I don't know into trying my product, is where life is. It is the struggle of hundreds of hours, money, failures and ideas that finally come together and BOOOOOMMM $7.00 plus shipping & handling. The world cannot hold me down in the very instance. The next day passes and I am back at it again, no sales, more rejection, and a thousand ideas.I slave away at displays, and making different products.

A year and a half has gone by since (little did you know I had to look up the right since/sense, that whole illiterate thing again.) I started this business. This will be my 10th "blog" post. Originally I was doing this blog because Google told me I needed to. Google told me I needed to create "backlinks" in order to get higher on page rank. Google is right. I think that is why I don't blog as much as I should. Because creating backlinks makes me want to vomit. That leaves me with one topic and only one topic, my products. Please don't get me wrong, I love my products. I think I make a very good product. But creating my own lotion or soap isn't difficult, matter of fact it has a very specific formula and has been done a billion times before my bar of soap came to be. Lacking any formal education in chemistry or other sciences, I'm not laying new ground work in the world of lotion and soap. There for talking about it only serves self aggrandizement. 

So this is what you get instead, a rambling about what is on my business brain. Hopefully someone reads this and like me listening to Joe Rogan (I'm far less eloquent) and is able to relate. Maybe after I make it to the top these cheap words will carry more weight to the little entrepreneur. Or it's longing for putting my thumb in the eye of google for making me ramble on about lotion, lip balms, soap, sugar scrubs, olive oil, natural baby lotion, shave soaps, and face moisturizers. Or maybe next post I'll bore you all with a tutorial of exfoliating, while passing myself off as an expert on the subject, because we all know if you read it on the internet.... it must be true.