Unexpected Surprises!

Our first week with our website has flown by! The marketing! The organizing! The adding! The redoing! The dings when someone access the site! The ding dings when someone buys! The apps for optimizing! The apps for analyzing! The apps for I don't even know what that is! Just when you think you are done, something else is required to excel performance and provide more accurate feedback. The relief of not being tied to a computer trying to figure out what this and that is can not get here soon enough!

Before I get to the most surprising and exciting part of our week, let's talk about a new business and being in quarantine. Like everyone else, we are trying to find the best way to grow our business with the restrictions that have been thrown upon us. Our little booth in the local antique store has been closed like all the others in town. Even though, the owners tried their best to drum up business through online posting and shopping, it just wasn't happening. Thanks to friends, word of mouth, and colleagues, we were able to get our product out there for people to enjoy and make a little money along the way. Now our booth has reopened with limited hours and following social distancing protocols so with some marketing and promoting, our products will hopefully start selling again soon. As quarantine restrictions start lifting, markets will start being available for us to sell at again and we will be able to get our brand out there for others to enjoy.

Enough about quarantine! Let's discuss the most exciting part of our week! Other than getting our L3C (more discussion on that at a later date), we received a wholesale order! Yes! Wholesale order! Life has a way of bringing people back into your life that you haven't seen or talked to in years. That's what happened to me. I grew up in a small town in KY where everyone knew everyone and everyone dreamed of the day they left the area. With me, I moved to Louisiana and with my friend, he moved to another part of KY. We have been friends on Facebook and have liked each others life events through the years, but we haven't had any contact other than that. The other day I got a messenger notification on my phone and was surprised to see this particular high school friend had sent me a message. Of course, I could go into all the details, but to simplify it, we met in a Zoom meeting and decided to work together. He took a chance on us. He has never seen or tried our products, but decided to give us a go anyway. We discussed fragrances, labeling, and costs. He has a barber shop and wants products that are exclusive to his shop. We can do this! In the end, he purchased 20 candles that were designed specifically for his shop with fragrances that were reminiscence of KY. Although, candles, soaps, and lotions are not a problem, he also wanted pomade. Hmmmm...I haven't used anything like that in my hair for years. I told him I'd see what I could do. I researched and watched videos. This stuff was trickier than I thought. After 2 days, several hours of trial and error, multiple products in the garbage, and lots of product in the hair, I found a pomade that mixed well, was consistent, held good, and washed out of hair without any problems. My husband, God love his big heart, was my official tester. I have one particular recipe that I like better than the others and it just so happens that was the same one my husband liked too. The big test will be when my barber friend uses it. Will he like it? Will the fragrance need to be stronger? Will it have the right consistency? Will it hold like it should? Will it be easy to work with? Will it be a product worth marketing? Will this be something we may want to include in our line? Will this expand us into lip balms and beard balms (similar recipes)? At this time in our business, the possibilities are endless, but we have to remember, it is just the two of us and our time has limits even if the sky doesn't.