Ideas Are Us in 2011

Every once in a while I tend to overlook details. Most of the time, I am a perfectionist so when this slip-up happened I was first petrified! Then I said, wait a minute, that’s nothing to be worried about…people make mistakes, I am human too, sometimes I tend to slip up. Thankfully this is my business and I dont have a boss breathing down my neck making me feel terrible about it.

So what’s the slip-up? Well I sent out a special invitationto my entire customer email base for a home show celebrating our  second anniversary in business. The glitch is I forgot to put an address on there!! So I basically invited a whole buch of folks to an event but did not tell them where to come to. Hopefully, some folks will check with me through email or my website before they head out to any random location they assume I am at!

If you are seeing the invitation here, then please feel free to join us. Deets as follows:

We would love to see you at our invitation only home show featuring :
An American in Paris, Ideas Are Us and MooMoo Designs.
Shop for unique gifts and home products from France, India, Colombia and South Africa.
Visit us Friday for a cocktail preview – 5pm to 9pm.
You can also join us for summer refreshments Saturday – 10am to 6pm.
Do come for a fun shopping bonanza!  

1381 Brenton Drive
Atlanta, GA 30319 US

I hope I will see you there!

I cannot participate in this one but if you are interested they are still accepting applications!!

http://suwaneefestivalofbooks.com/

Also, am planning to get some artwork from Kristen Marie for my apartment, check out her etsy page here:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/kristenmarieartworks?ref=top_trail

In the course of networking for the business, I have met many wonderful men and women who give me the inspiration and enthusiasm to get my business to the next level. Just because I dont mention somebody dont mean they aint interesting! But these two ladies are quite the role models for me. One I know fairly well, the other I met in passing just once.

Wendy Watkins is a joy strategist and the owner of the joy factor – a business aimed at just that – increasing your joy. I’ve been to a few sessions that she has held and have always found them renewing and resorceful in a way that’s got to be experienced. She no woo doo lady but she just exudes so much positivity and joy its hard to not like her…everybody should be that way! Read up more at www.thejoyfactor.com

Judi Knight I know more from her online profile than in person. I read up about her and it looks like she has in her own way mastered the art of passive income…something that I have been planning on and am yet to venture into leave alone accomplish. She owns a nice loft in the city and then a beach front home as well and is a successful entrepreneur…at age 50, she looks like she’s got it all going for her! Read more at www.blogbyknight.com

Cheers!

Come August, it will be 2 years since Ideas Are Us has been in business. For me, its an achievement – no I am not raking in the big bucks…yet…but I am holding on and progressing slowly and steadily. Each day there is something new that is moving my business forward and for that I am thankful. I also work with some fabulous people who help me out time and again. As part of the two year anniversary, I am getting a new postcard design done. I dont really use too much marketing collateral. Being an eco-friendly business, I keep my paper usage minimal. The only marketing tools I have are my business card and my postcard which I use as a handout for customers. The new postcard design is slowly taking shape, and my friend Anthony is doing a great job of it. He’s my go to person for my postcards at least, and he does a good job. You should check out his work at www.trimly.us – he’s pretty creative! He’s done some product photography for me as well. He does movie stuff, he’s in a band and he’s got a full-time job For now though, I cant wait to get my postcard design done and off to print! Keep checking out the blog for the final unveil…I also finally got done on my wholesale catalog for the year. Its been a long time in the works but I sat down one day and completed it in a few hours. It was not all that difficult as I pictured it to be in my head. Its one job out of the way because I have had people ask me for my whoelsale catalog before and not had one to send across. Anyways, now that I have it, I seem to be getting a few queries so maybe my business plan of moving to a wholesale arrangement will take shape soon!

Garden and Gun Magazine is honoring goods made in the south. You’ve got until August 1 to enter your stuff! Check the link here for info on application and the judging process. Sounds like a good deal http://www.gardenandgunclub.com/madeinthesouth/

If you know other magazine resources to send information to for publicity, please share…

The Gift and Home show is back at Americas Mart in Atlanta! Downtown is choc-a-bloc with people running around carrying their roll-on suitcases doin business. Its a great place for wholesale deals on everything imaginable and the days they have cash and carry shows is even better. The best part is this place is open only to business owners so you have a crowd but not all of Atlanta so its still a doable show. Fabulous for ideas, not just products but even diplay and marketing. A great scouting ground for new talent and even for sales reps. Check it out, there’s tons of info on their website http://www.americasmart.com/

I’ve mentioned LRBN as a networking group before in my posts but this month they tried something different and it was a success! Instead of members always talking about what they do, they gave us a chance to show – so we had an informal market place set-up at the meet this time, with vendors displaying their wares for sale. It was held at the Stove Works on Krog Street, a pretty nice location – my first time there. I met a bunch of new entrepreneurs and got to see first hand what their businesses were all about. It was fun! Had some fair sales as well amd since it was just the late evening, it was not very exhausting either. I hope they do these more often – I’d participate in a heartbeat!

Ideas Are Us will be at the Midsummer Music Festival in Candler Park on June 19. It’s free and features performances by several local groups. The music gets underway at noon and it lasts until 10:45 p.m. There’ll be a Kids Zone, an Artist Market, a Go Green Zone, and a 5K Road Race. Come say hi – the park is at 1400 McLendon Ave NE, Candler Park. The folks who organize the event have done other shows before that I’ve participated in and had a good time so lets hope for the best with this one. Watch out for my show review after.

So after two months of waiting, somebody finally chanced upon my Etsy page and bought one of the wall hangings we offer. Big yay!! I was twiddling my thumbs waiting for some action from that site. Hey, the more ways to make some moolah, the better right?! And this person is all the way in Puerto Rico…imagine! I am excited, hope this is a sign of more online business in the future. In case you did not know, we do ship to all parts of the USA and shipping charges are fixed and clearly stated for all our products on all our online channels. I’m gonna get working on adding more products to the page right now. You always need some motivation to keep you going, and this sale is as good reason as any for me to get some action happening if I want things to start panning out. Check out our Etsy page for some of our products – it might necessarily be what you see on our website so if you find something that catches your eye, make sure you buy it right away. Most items on the Etsy page are the only pieces I have in stock so getting another piece like that might be a month away for ya!

Yay! Finally! A good show! A real good one! After a real real long time! This was the first time I was doing Artlantis ans its only their second year but I figured with a  pretty well-priced booth fee including tent, it was worth a shot. It was outdoors, on the lawns of the Druid Hills Baptist Church at the intersection of Highland and Ponce. It was a whole day from 10am-7pm and it was really sunny and hot and muggy but it was all well worth the effort. The number of visitors were great, there was never a dull moment really. In fact, I had taken a book with me to read in case it got slow but I never really had a minute to spare. I had customers at my booth the whole time and made back my booth fee and twice more so that definitely counts as a good show. There were people who signed on to learn more about my products and many picked up my business card to visit at the store I am part of. I pretty much sold out of all the Ele Poo products I had with me there. I was a little wary that having a show so close to the huge crowd-puller that the Va-Hi Summerfest is might not be genius but it actually worked out in a positive way for us! There was music and BBQ food as well and a fairly reasonable parking area at the church as well as adjacent at the Plaza theater and surrounding lots so we had a lot of walk-in traffic as well. At the end of the day, I definitely went home happy to have done the show and earned the money I did for my business. Yay again!