Misfits and Marvels at the Markets

Many of us with small businesses that have a product to sell have begun our new lives at local markets.  If you've been a stall holder you may recognise some of the people I've come across.  If you're a market goer, you may recognise yourself!

Ms Upherself

Ms Upherself is fond of telling you from 3 metres away, on her approach, how she can only wear sterling silver, because anything else touching her delicate skin will turn it black - or the jewellery black - I never really figured out which.

If you point out glass beads with a sterling silver core in them, she will launch into her story again..and again...and again.  Ms Upherself has decided before she's even looked at any jewellery that none of it will be sterling silver enough for her.  Obviously she is a woman of extremely refined tastes, which is why she moves on to the second hand clothes stall - probably to let them know she can't wear anything except Dior.

Ms Repetetive

Ms Repetetive asks the question "how much?" of each and every bead and charm on the table.  By the 100th ask, you could cheerfully stuff a handful down her throat.  Here's my advice (just in case you are Ms Repetetive):
1/ listen to the answer the first time
2/ the big sign with the prices on it that's about to bite you on the nose may help
3/ if all else fails, see clue #1 or clue #2

There appears to be no way to move Ms Repetetive along to the next stall, unless every item has had a price check (although I admit to not having tried a fork lift).  Occasionally though, Ms Repetetive actually finds a price she likes (even though it's the same as the previous 50 she's asked about) and will buy something.  If not, you can have a little satisfaction in half and hour or so - when she moves to the next stall holder who's been snickering at your plight. (Who's snickering now eh?)

                                                   



Ms Tactile

Ms Tactile was clearly not told by her mother to "look with your eyes" when she was a child.  As a consequence, touching and rubbing a single bead will not suffice - all of them must go through the process.  Ms Touch and Rub never ever buys anything, however I have found she is useful if you put a polishing cloth in her hands.

Ms Feralmum

Ms Feralmum is the one with the totally feral child (and occasionally *shudder* more than one) who is obviously the case "for" when the debate about compulsory sterilisation comes up.  In her eyes, her child is an angel, and obviously we stall holders have the problem when we gently ask said angel to move their dripping ice cream or greasy sausage sauce away from our goods, where a pool of sticky goo is forming over them.  The resultant glare from Ms Feralmum is enough to wither the hardiest soul.

Ms Feralmum can be stopped with a simple "You'll be taking that then? That will be x dollars", whereby she will hastily usher the mini feral/s away - to the snickering stall holder next to you.

                                               

Ms Text

Ms Text is a mystery to me. She is the one walking through the market constantly texting on her phone - doesn't look right, doesn't look left, doesn't look up.  People move out of her way as she enters at one end and exits at the other.  I am a little in awe of her power to move people like that - it would have been handy when the kids were teenagers and I wanted them to clean their rooms.  All I can think is that her mum and dad made her come when she really wanted to stay home on the couch and text. Consequently, I have some sympathy for her - who wants to be dragged along to the market where you might be seen with The Parents.  All her other 30 year old friends might make fun of her.

Miss Cute

Miss Cute is adorable. Each bead receives its own little exclamation of "Ohh, so cute" as she moves along.  The ego boost of hearing this over all your jewellery is enough to make me want to hire her for low ego days.

Master Lookacrocodile

Hard to believe amongst all the bling on the stall that Master Lookacrocodile can zero in on one bead so quickly. I'll let you figure out which one.

                                                 



Ms Happy

Ms Happy is a complete joy to talk to, often buys my jewellery, loves to look without touching everything, and is having fun just being out at the market.  She also remembers me from the last market - and what we were talking about!





I'm considering having another side business - making badges - to be handed out at the market entrance after the completion of quick paperless, wordless survey (just put a table full of anything at the entrance, you'll know immediately which category the person falls into).  Another one of my brilliant business ideas, if I do say so myself.

Ms Upherself would obviously get a silver badge (.925 stamped sterling of course), Ms Repetetive could have one that said PTO (on both sides), Ms Tactile's would be etched, Ms Feralmum's would have a spray on grease coating that gets stickier as the day goes on, Ms Text's could be something like "wtf", the young and enthusiastic children get gold stars, and Ms Happy gets a smiley face.

The other stall holders would, I'm sure, welcome an innovative business like this, as it would only enhance their selling experiences at that market.  Think of the advantages of being able to say to the next stall holder 'be back in 5 minutes, can you watch my stall? got to go to the loo" and beat a hasty exit as Ms Repetetive approached.  You'd just have to be careful and watch the approach from both sides - you wouldn't want to be stuck watching someone else's stall for the same reason!

But between MinzBeadz and my fledgling business of knitting websites, I really don't have the time. And besides, Ms Tactile might not get past the my stall at the gate and, well, I don't really want to clean my own beads.

Don't You Love Our New Yak?

Step 3 of my master plan was word of mouth marketing.

Talking about yourself, being passionate about your new business, raving in glowing terms about your jewellery - easy as pie. Having everyone you come across jump on the bandwagon and then watch the sales 'ka-ching ka-ching' through the cash register - logically that follows.

However, tooting your own horn can be difficult - what if the audience likes the cello?

At my "day job" (that I was still working 5 days a week at while MinzBeadz was in the initial stages) it was easy to talk it up.  Our customer service record was terrific, the value to someone's business was indisputable, and we cared about what we were doing and did it well. Consequently, we had a lot of "word of mouth" referrals.

Talking about yourself, promoting yourself, is a whole other ball game. (Okay, I'll stop with the cliches now).

There's nothing "wrong" in having a jewellery business. It doesn't hurt people, it's not offensive - in fact most of the time it's quite a lot of fun.  MinzBeadz all started as an affordable alternative to those who wanted a bead and charm bracelet (me) but couldn't afford a big name one like Pandora - so it's not even expensive fun.

So what was wrong with me that I couldn't talk about my business in a glowing light?  Whilst it has become easier with time, but there are still moments when I feel like "shut your mouth already, nobody is interested". Which is quite ridiculous, as anyone with any common sense can tell when someone isn't actually interested in a conversation.

(NB: For those who have no common sense, this would be when a person's eyeballs roll back into their head and you think they may be possessed by the devil. It's more likely to be boredom with the conversation. They haven't left because you're standing on their foot, which happened when you stood 3cm away in your enthusiasm to spit in their face whilst you talked.)

People who have embarked on a new adventure, be it a business or buying a new yak, are engaging  people - they have new yak passion and talk about their yak excitedly.  And one thing about enthusiastic people, whether their new yak is your idea of adventure or not, their enthusiasm is contagious.  You walk away feeling better for having spoken to such happy yak people and your whole day is brighter for it.

Mind you, when you've had to kiss the new yak and goo and ga at it like a baby, well ...I'm working on getting my timing right to walk away first.  (I've been busy watching in case I got hit by a rolling eyeball).

Cootchie cootchie coo

So why is it so difficult to translate that to me being the one who is enthusiastic, and someone else feeling better for having spoken to me?  Well, here's the short answer - I have no idea.  Which of course has set off an entire train of thought along the lines of, am I really so insecure?  (Refer to my last blog where I need the affirmation of faceless people on Facebook to like me!).  Conclusion:  apparently I am.

What I have worked out though, is that I don't actually need to talk about my business - it's fairly apparent what that is anyway, except if you're already doing an eyeball rolling devil impersonation. If you're at that stage before I even say hi, then really, why did you leave the house today?

I just have to be my naturally charming self (it's true, I am. I'm also modest, which is a very becoming quality...) and simply talk to people.  It's the pleasure of the conversation that is remembered afterwards, not whether or not is was a description of my business in 9725 words or less.

So has word of mouth marketing worked? Who knows. But I have met some particularly nice yaks in the process.

Where's a Teenager When You Need One?

You might recall from my previous post that my brilliant marketing plan was now in progress, with stage 2 about to take place.

Step 2 - Facebook.  There are so many words I could use to describe my descent into insanity (commonly called creating a Facebook account), however this is a clean blog and words that aren't really rude completely escape me at the moment.

It may surprise you to learn that prior to starting a business I had never had a Facebook account, and  I thought I might just end up being the last person on the planet not to have one.  I've mentioned that so you can appreciated what a monumental moment this actually was! At the least, it deserves either a drum roll or a fanfare of trumpets.

In a technical, how-the-hell-does-this-work sense, Facebook has been by far the biggest challenge. The help file is like most help files - of no use whatsoever if you are clueless (frightening that someone who can knit a website can be completely clueless when it comes to sharing, tagging, poking, shouting, and any other "ing" you can think of).

And what's with the extremely annoying survey question at the end of each paragraph in the help file "Was this helpful" and "Why not?" - hey, too confusing Facebook people, way too confusing.  Really, how many times do I need to answer you before you get the message!

And why do they call it "social" media?  We all sit by ourselves on a computer, or with a mobile phone in our hands typing or texting to a machine - I may be wrong (hard to believe, but it has happened once before) but doesn't that make it anti-social media?

And why do all these different 'things' insist on having their own private terminology? What's wrong with the language we already have (in my case that's English)? To be honest, every time I think I have a handle on something to do with Facebook, it seems to be the very thing that they change the next day. I've spent hours trying to find something again, only to discover quite by accident that they've moved or changed the damn thing.

So many questions, and so very few answers (check the box that says too confusing again).

So, you may recall the plan was to convert my thousands of, as yet unknown, Facebook fans into online buyers.  Here's the bit I didn't plan - it's actually sort of difficult to know how to get people to like you when no one knows who you are.  Also difficult for them to tell their friends how fantastic MinzBeadz might be too - as no fans equals no friends of fans.  I realise now how ridiculous that sounds, but colour me social media ignorant (which is an attractive shade of blush), it truly didn't occur to me.

I'll give you an example of how daft Facebook has sent me - I actually wished for one of my children to be 14 years old again! OMG - see??? But if they were, they would wake up just knowing how it all worked and I could get them to explain it in easy to understand "talk to the silly mum" language and, abracadabra, I would know it too.

For those who don't yet have a teenager, "talk to the silly mum" means in words of one syllable or less - less being a sort of grunting noise which can be deciphered depending on the facial expression accompanying the grunt i.e eyebrows raised, the grunt is a question, usually something like "Can I have a lift or money?". If the eyebrows frown into a point above the nose, then the grunt means either "Don't talk to me in public, my friends think I was grown in a test tube" or "What do you mean you won't get me those thousand dollar plastic shoes that everyone else is wearing and will think I'm a complete no-hoper for not having, and looking just like them. You're stifling my individuality!".

And while we're on the subject, how do teenagers just know all this stuff as it comes along?  None of them seem to actually learn it and pass the knowledge along to others, it's more like they breathe technology air (see, I thought it was stale socks and held my breath) and it's just there - part of their DNA.

The aroma of technology...or is it socks?

However, despite many sniffs (just in case some technology air lingered in our home long after my teenagers have departed) I've had to learn it the old fashioned way - yup, had to read things.  And no, I don't have thousands of fans - at the time of writing this, I have less than 100, but they are (nearly) all people who wish to engage with MinzBeadz in some manner, so my less than 100 terrific followers trump those pages with 2000 "likes" that were bought through some dodgy "get liked quick" scheme.

Part of the learning has been to figure out what makes a page engaging. To that end, I have skimmed through thousands of pages belonging to others to see what makes a page enjoyable (somewhere along the way, I did figure out that it's the percentage of people 'talking about' you that determines engagement, not the number of likes).  I am steadily trying to apply these same principals of engagement and enjoyment for MinzBeadz. Hopefully I succeed on some occasions, and people will be patient until the enjoyment factor outweighs the boredom factor on my page.

The good thing about all the skimming and reading was that I found lots to linger over and enjoy - none of which I would ever have known about without Facebook (and that's the only "thumbs up" they will get from me!).

Something I found very difficult to start with, was to randomly like a page and wonder if someone would like me back!  Who would have thought an unknown entity would have so much power over whether I feel accepted or rejected?  Luckily those feelings have passed. Now it's lovely if someone likes MinzBeadz back, but because I'm genuine about who I've liked in the first place, I'm already enjoying their posts and not particularly caring about whether they return the love or not.

That's just a blatant lie - underneath it all, I still care - please...like me.

So, has Facebook been successful as a marketing venture?  Yes, a number of people who came across MinzBeadz on Facebook have gone on to become customers, and hopefully as I become more engaging with my content that number will grow.

Step 2 - complete but ongoing (if that makes sense).  Now to word of mouth conversions...but that's a story for next time.

To Market to Market

So now MinzBeadz was ready to be seen by the whole world and my marketing plan went into action.  On paper, the initial stages went:

• take a stall at various markets, sell my beads and charms, promote my website, convert market customers to online customers
• get a Facebook account, promote my beads and charms, convert Facebook fans to online customers
• word of mouth, talk about my beads and charms, convert people I talk with to online customers

Are you seeing a common theme here? Yes, not much point having a spanking new website that many hours (and dollars) have been spent on if you have no online customers. Besides which, whilst I love meeting and talking to people at markets, I don't particularly wish to get out of bed at 5am for the rest of my life.

Ask anyone who knows me - I'm not a morning person. I will even argue that 5 o'clock is still the middle of the night and not technically morning at all, particularly in winter when it's dark (and cold). Dark and cold = night in my book.  The first market organisers that absolutely forbid any stall holders to enter & set up a stall prior to 8am will have a fan in me for life!

My very first market stall as MinzBeadz

Step 1 - to market to market.  My very first market adventure with MinzBeadz was in Yarram, in the Gippsland region of Victoria. And it went really well.  Oh, damn modesty!  It went freaking brilliantly!  From 8:30 in the morning until 1 in the afternoon I sold beads, charms and bracelets and talked myself hoarse to the lovely people of Yarram. Yarram appeared to love MinzBeadz (either that or they were faking it quite well!), and the feeling was mutual. 

Country people are lovely.  They enjoy a good chat and they're down to earth .  Going to the market once a month is an occasion to look forward to, and everyone seemed excited to have a new stall at their market and wanted to know if I would be there every month (really, what a boost for the self esteem!).

Luckily for me, despite the fact I am no longer a newbie, the locals still roll up on the first Sunday of each month - sometimes to buy and chat, and sometimes just to chat. And it's still excellent fun, despite the 5am start! Yarram is a big area for tourists from early November until Easter, so the local markets can be quite busy places.  Funnily enough, I've met people who live around the corner from me, who I would never have met without Yarram market.

Obviously, since this first big step into the real world, MinzBeadz has made appearances at other markets around the state (with varying degrees of success), but I still have a soft spot for Yarram.

I'm an avid people watcher, and observing others promoting themselves and their goods at markets has been interesting, to say the least.  One whole section of business owners seem to struggle with the truth.  Their motto must be "tell anyone anything as long as they buy the stuff".  And some of what they tell them - wow!  Pinocchio's nose is growing at a rapid pace, and there are a lot of pants on fire.

On one occasion, the stall next to me (not one of "us" regulars - a blow in, in fact) was selling a very similar style of jewellery to MinzBeadz.  The potential customer asked me if a particular item was sterling silver (no). Disappointed, she moved along, asked the same question at the next stall and was told yes (it most definitely wasn't).  She bought something for $25 on an outright lie, and I got a smirk from the stall holder.

Well, I'm nothing if not a quick study - the next person who asked me that (same day), got told no with an explanation of what others (without naming any names) might try to tell you, and what the actual truth is.  Funnily enough they didn't spend the outrageous amount at the next stall. 

And I know what you're thinking - I'm a bigger person than that.  I did not smirk.  Well...not until I got home.  I might be a bigger person in public, but I'm only a small minded human in the privacy of my own home, so it seems.  Having my own business has shown me personality traits I didn't realise I had - private smirking being one of them.

Having a stall at various markets had advantages other than bringing in some much needed income.  It also enabled me to learn who my demographic was, and learn what my potential customers were looking for.

Here's what I discovered about my demographic - females (and lots of males) between the ages of 2 and 90 like beads and charms.  The least interested are teenagers around the ages of 15 and 16.  My potential customers seemed to either:

•  like what I have 
• want sterling silver or solid gold beads and charms
• not even look (in which case you can't find out what they're after).

 Here's how I handled the above:

• expanded the range to include some funky necklaces that teenagers might like (and lots of adults and children).  Degree of success - excellent!
• tell potential buyers of sterling silver and gold charms that I would be happy to get in anything particular for them, but of course the price would be much steeper.  Seems that this breed of buyer are happy for me to put my money on the line to buy things they might like, but not happy to commit to any type of purchase.  They particularly don't want to pay a reasonable price for said items either. They want "the real deal" for the same price as the affordable version!  Degree of success - nil. 
• to drag in the non-lookers and make them look I purchased a large butterfly net and snagged them as they tried to bypass my stall.  They then had to beg for release, which I wouldn't grant until they had oohed and aahed over at least 10 items and purchased one.  Degree of success - 100%

Come back you Non-Looker! You will look & you will buy!

However, when all was said and done, the original plan of converting market buyers into online purchasers has not succeeded. Yep, zero, nada, no one.  The conclusion I've finally reached, is that people who buy from markets and people who buy online are two different groups of people.  And so these days, whilst info about the online store, business cards and so on are available at markets, I save myself a lot of aggravation by not worrying about whether John Q Public even looks.

Given the lack of conversion going on with market customers, I'd better get cracking on Facebook.  But that's a story for next time...