My First Jewelry Booth

A few weeks ago a friend of mine offered me a FREE booth at a Men's Health Fair. I was most excited to have the opportunity to "practice" hosting my first booth. I have never hosted a booth before so I asked Stormy Designs for some tips since she shared in the Etsyblogger forum that she was hosting a booth as well. She sent me to a blog that had some great tips and a neat checklist. I tweaked it and used it to help guide me regarding my supply and set up needs. Set up was required the Friday before the Fair so with my checklist and supplies in hand I went to the venue location. To my pleasant surprise, each table had beautiful white table cloths and my table even had a chair! On top of that, I found out that both a buffet breakfast, lunch AND and a ticket for a drawing to win one of about 20 prizes were included with my booth! WOOT! WOOT! I did not win any prizes (would have LOVED to win tht giant George Foreman Grill) but those full course buffet meals were DELICIOUS! I finished my preliminary set up and felt I was set to arrive at 7:30 am the following morning!
Saturday (to my shame) I arrived about 15 minutes late! That is what I get for going to see "He's just not that into you" with my girlfriends so I didn't get home until 1:00 am! Great chick flick by the way! Anyway, I had to scramble to get my jewelry items and a few other things out on the table. When I arrive the place was already overflowing with men! I got a little nervous because most of the men were older and I really wasn't confident they would be interested in buying their wives gifts for Valentine's Day!

A few things I did were

• have a jewelry give away
• Put blank note cards out with a sign that said write your loved one a note letting her know how much she means to you for just .25 cents. Mostly did this to draw people to my table and only wanted to try to recoupe my cost for the cards!
• 

I laughed because most of the men said "If I write my wife a love note or buy her a gift, she would wonder what was wrong and what I was guilty of"!

The short of it is although I had a goal of making $237 (the cost of all my supplies and jewelry items created for this venue), I only sold $21 worth of jewelry and cards!

BUT....the great thing is that I did some great networking and as a result

• I booked another booth for 6/27/09
• I got a custom order from an organization that wants bracelets and earrings and another organization took my card in hopes of doing the same!

Lastly, to insure that my time there was fruitful (sales or not), I brought some of my jewelry supplies and made several jewelry items!


What are some of the experiences you have had with hosting jewelry booths?

Associated Press Interviewed Me

So here I am sitting in the unemployment office using the computer and here comes a lady asking if she could take my picture while I surfed so they could do a feature regarding the high rate of unemployment. So I said "SURE"! I figure any media exposure I could get with my name and title might drive some recruiter to me right? Well that didn't happen though I did get a one year contract position through DP Professionals at Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS)! I am so excited. Here I am though...bad hair day(that is why I am wearing the hat) and NO MAKE UP!

If you want to read about my BRIEF moment in the spotlight, then just click on the picture!