Ok, so if you've followed me on my blog for the last year-ish, then you know I have been talking for months about starting my own clothing business right? Well, we have finally launched!
Ahhhh!!!
It's really been kind of a crazy year, trying to get this thing going, on top of school, kids, and everything in between. But we finally did it! And I really have to thank my parents for this, because without them, who knows if I would have ever accomplished this? I had been talking forever about this, I had ordered shirts and bags in MONTHS ago that were just sitting in a box in my room. Waiting for me to do something with them. Then one day, my Mom said "Hey, I got us a booth at a boutique, in 3 days..."
What?!?
That's what really got me to get off my butt and do this thing! My Mom had given me what I needed all along: A deadline. So those 3 days were spent gathering items to create our booth, printing the shirts and bags, thanks to my dad for all of that by the way! Creating tags, and ordering more product in.
So our first show was the Battlecreek Boutique in Pleasant Grove!
I was pretty surprised at how well we did, at out first show, considering the short time frame we had. The first day, I went down to straighten it up and restock a few things, and realized we had completely sold out of a few things! The first day!!!
The night that I had to take everything down, I was running late and asked my brother and his friend if they could go down and start packing it up for me. I made it down by the time they had everything in boxes, so I didn't notice that we had also sold out completely of 5 other designs until the next day when I unpacked everything and started cataloging our inventory! As I was cleaning up, I was talking to a gentleman next to me who said he had noticed a lot of people at my booth and said he was very impressed. He said he does shows all of the time, and this was the slowest and least profitable of all the ones he had done this year, yet I had appeared to do really well!
He advised that I try to get into a holiday show, since those do really well, so we did just that! My Mom had found a show that will be held this weekend called the Raspberry Robin Market, in Manilla at the Stone Gate Events Center. We are also going to be in one on Black Friday and Saturday later this month in Spanish Fork!
We inquired about the Christmas Show that is held at the convention center in Sandy every year, and they said they had no openings. Then the next day, my Mom got a call from the coordinator, and she said she moved us from the bottom of the waiting list to the top because she really liked our stuff, and they had a spot open up. Unfortunately, we decided to decline this time. We are just barely starting out and I wasn't feeling quite ready to play with the big dogs just yet. But next year, I am planning on applying again!
I've also been working hard on getting a website up, since I had a ton of people message me, asking where they can order from, which I found really encouraging!
I'm really grateful to my Mom, if this business was a band, she'd be the band manager. She's helped me with finding the boutiques and shows, and she used to do this all the time when I was a kid, so she's well experienced. I'm grateful to my dad for helping me navigate the ordering process, and for helping me with my designs and for helping me print everything! And I'm really grateful to Bryant, for when I went to him and said "Hey honey, I have this crazy idea. I want to start a business, but I need your hard earned money to start it" and he just said "Alright! Let's do this!". He's been supporting me every single step of the way. He's been encouraging me through all of it. When I start doubting myself, he is there to make me feel confident!
I'm really excited about this new adventure! Wish me luck!
