Have a product-based company?
A “guide” to working with reps

Guest post by Romy Taormina
Nausea Relief Chief/Co-Founder, Psi Bands

What is a rep?

Broker rep. Sales rep. Showroom rep. They go by different names, but their job is the same. They represent your product and the goal is for them to help you get new accounts.

Why would you want/need one?

• Because they might be able to help you get in front of a buyer when you might not have been able to do so on your own.
• They should be familiar with the retailer that you are seeking so they can educate you on what to expect when working with this retailer (their margins, their promo allowances, sales projections, etc.).
• It gives you a sales person. It cuts down the amount of your travel, so it saves you time (and, hopefully, if they are local to the reatiler, it will save on travel expenses).
• It cuts down the amount of communications, because the rep will be handling a bulk of it on your behalf. The more accounts this rep handles on your behalf, the greater economies of scale reached – for you and your rep.

How do I find one?

• Word of mouth
• Through a tradeshow
• Call up and ask a fellow entrepreneur who is in the same category as yours and ask her for a recommendation
• Through your existing retailers
  

What if the rep won’t rep you

If you find a rep that won’t represent you, make sure you understand why. For example, perhaps they rep for Target but in a different category than the one that fits your product. Maybe they know someone who reps in your category at Target. It’s all about the best fit so everyone is maximizing their time.

Sometimes reps and retailers are resistant to working with companies that only have one product/product line. We have found this to be true in some cases, and in some of those cases we have overcome. So, keep plugging away.

Here are some questions that you could ask of the rep (choose those that are appropriate for your situation):

• What is your territory?
• Are you are considering representing me nationally? Can you give me some examples of other companies that you represent nationally?
• You have a wide range of retailers – drug, grocery, mass, catalog and online. Which categories/departments does your team specialize in?
• Where are most of your product lines?
• Do you have products in my category? If yes, which one(s)?
• Can you provide manufacturer references?
• Where are you located in relationship to the retailer headquarters?
• What are your payment terms (retainer, commission, travel expenses, etc.)

Before contacting a rep, make sure you are prepared

You may only have one shot with this rep (treat this as a special opportunity, just as you would the first time you meet with the retail buyer).

• Craft your sales pitch. How is your product unique? Who is your competition? How large is your market? You need to convince your sales rep-to-be that they should rep you.
• Can you fulfill large orders on time?
• How will you support retail sales – in and out of the store (i.e. what are your marketing plans)?

Popularity: 22% [?]

I wanted to include you in on a little secret….  A good friend of mine, Tara Marino put together an amazing guide for moms.  After reading “THE Sexy Mom Summer Survival Guide” I realized I had to get you a copy of it.

Consider this a FREE gift from me to you.  I am sure you will love it.  It is almost like a online magazine just for moms!  This 122 page EASY and FUN to read guide is packed with easy summer style tips, beauty tricks, ways to get slim, great things to do with the kid’s and much much more!

Click here to get this amazing guide for moms

If you are a busy mom who likes easy yet chic styles, and taking care of yourself this guide is for YOU.

I have already started to use many of these tips and ideas and I can’t believe how easy it is.

Here is your present.  You deserve it.

Have a beautiful summer,

xoxox
Sarah

Popularity: 22% [?]

July Fourth Picnic
Guest post by Author and Cookbook Writer Sally Sampson

It’s hard to imagine that after signing The Declaration of Independence, the fifty six lawyers, jurists, merchants, plantation owners, teachers, musicians and printers sat down together and polished off a homespun picnic.  No, instead they went back to their homes, their wives and their children and, in some cases, lost all that they owned, having risked their lives and fortunes to the cause of liberty.

But like most American holidays, time has turned this event into an eating extravaganza. For most Americans July Fourth is about fireworks, barbecues and sales.

At least they didn’t sign in February, when outdoor activities like watching parades, participating in bike, motorcycle and drag races, listening to music and eating fabulous, carefree food in backyards and beaches would not be so appealing. Independence Day comes at the time of year when local produce is abundant and cooking mostly means chopping and assembling.

All three of the following salads can be made the night before, leaving you more time to enjoy your guests!
All of these recipes come from Warehouse to Your House.

Curried Chicken Salad
Yield: about 4 ½ cups

¼ cup mayonnaise
3 tablespoons mango chutney
1-tablespoon curry powder
1-½ pounds poached or grilled chicken, torn into shreds or diced
2 celery ribs, diced or sliced
1 apple, peach or mango, diced
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro and/or basil leaves, plus additional for garnish

Place the mayonnaise, chutney and curry powder in a medium size bowl and mix well.
Add the remaining ingredients and mix to combine. Cover and refrigerate at least one hour and up to overnight.

Annette’s Corn Salad
Yield: about 5- 6 cups

For the salad:
2 cups fresh corn kernels
1 15.5 oz can red kidney or black beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup chopped seeded plum tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped red onion
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil leaves

For the dressing:
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh lemon or lime juice
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves
2 large garlic cloves, crushed or minced
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
½- 1 teaspoon kosher salt

To make the salad: Place all the ingredients in a medium size bowl.

To make the dressing: Place all the ingredients in a small bowl and whisk well.  Add to corn mixture, cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours and up to overnight. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Mustard Potato Salad
Serves 6- 8

3 pounds new potatoes, cut in quarters or halves, depending on size and desire
¼ cup plain low or full fat yogurt
¼ cup mayonnaise
¼ cup Dijon mustard
¼ cup sour cream
3- 4 celery stalks, julienned
3- 4 carrots, julienned
4 scallions, including greens, chopped
1 cup finely chopped Italian flat leaf parsley leaves
Kosher salt and pepper to taste

Place the potatoes in a large stockpot and cover with cold water.  Bring to a boil and cook until the potatoes are tender, about 15- 20 minutes.  Drain and transfer to a large bowl to cool to room temperature.

While the potatoes are cooking, place the yogurt, mayonnaise, mustard and sour cream in a small bowl and mix well. When the potatoes have cooled, add the yogurt mixture and the remaining ingredients and gently mix. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately or cover and refrigerate up to overnight.

Popularity: 17% [?]

I have been thinking a lot this week how hard it can be to decide to move forward with a new plan of action. The ladies in my current 26-week Tele-seminar are all moving forward with new ideas and it got me thinking about myself and what I am doing to move forward these days since I am not actually designing anything new right now. What I came to realize is that I wanted new solutions - fresh ideas and a new plan.

I too can get stuck and not know what to do next, or how to improve sales, attract new customers, or just feel stale about how I am doing things. I LOVE new ideas and try to always be coming up with something or some new way to do things – but no one is perfect right?

When I first started my handbag line I didn’t have plan of action. I just had an idea and thought it’d be fun to try to make it. As I progressed and my line started to take off, I realized how important a plan is, as well as a support team to help you execute it. Since I didn’t know the first thing about anything to do with manufacturing, selling, promoting or how to build a website I relied on people I met along the way to give me some advice and tried it all myself. I am a big believer in trying it all yourself first so you understand what needs to be done so you can know how to instruct the person helping you do the task.
I realized last week, that with everything I have going on in my life with work, my 17 month old twins, classes I am taking and teaching, that I had sort of let the delegating fall by the wayside – actually off the cliff the truth be told.

I recently met a very interesting man through a mastermind group I go to once a month at Ketchup in West Hollywood. I love this group. I find sitting with other entrepreneurs is so invigorating and gets your creative juices flowing. Anyway – this guy has a company that does market intelligence research to help you determine the best approach for your brand. He states “Information is the key to the market knowledge and success”. I was so taken by his presentation (and the fact that he thought he could really help me get a competitive edge going with my handbag hanger) that I hired him to consult for my Simply Sarah Company. I am so excited by the prospect of all the new information and the ideas he is going to bring me I don’t know how I am going to wait the 4 weeks for the full report! By just taking this ONE step, I feel totally reinvigorated and have a brand new excitement towards my own products.

I feel like I have a new plan of action and am looking forward to implementing it.

* What is your plan of action?
* What can you change about they way you are doing things this week?
* How can you take the first step towards realizing your ideas?
* Can you get something down on paper this week?

Here are a few simple steps to get your new ideas in motion:

Once you are armed with this information you may feel inspired to get an action plan and turn that “big idea” into a real product!

1. Write a description of your idea
2. How did you come up with this idea?
3. What does it look like?
4. How does it work?
5. Does it solve a problem for people?
6. What are the benefits?
7. Do you have a name for it?
8. What makes it unique
9. Who will buy it?
10. Where will you market it?

I want to hear from you – are you inspired?

Popularity: 29% [?]

Regina Brett’s 45 life lessons and 5 to grow on

by Regina Brett

To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me.

It is the most-requested column I’ve ever written. My odometer rolls over to 50 this week, so here’s an update:

1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.

8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.

12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don’t compare your life to others’. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don’t worry; God never blinks.

16. Life is too short for long pity parties. Get busy living, or get busy dying.

17. You can get through anything if you stay put in today.

18. A writer writes. If you want to be a writer, write.

19. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Overprepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: “In five years, will this matter?”

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.

35. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.

36. Growing old beats the alternative - dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood. Make it memorable.

38. Read the Psalms. They cover every human emotion.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.

41. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

42. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.

43. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

44. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

45. The best is yet to come.

46. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

47. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

48. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

49. Yield.

50. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.

To reach this Plain Dealer columnist:

rbrett@plaind.com or  216-999-6328

Popularity: 14% [?]

10 Ways to Use Your Simply Sarah Cosmetic Bags

1. Purse Blunders?- Make sure to keep all your make-up and toiletries in our bags that are coated with plastic on the inside.  When on the go they keep messes to a minimum and style to a maximum!
2. Simple Garden Secret- Keep all your gardening supplies in a large square bag so you always know where your favorite tools are!
3. Arts and Crafts - Make sure your arts and crafts area is neat and tidy! Our assorted sizes of bags will cover all your crafting needs! The large sqaure bags are perfect for watercolors and paint brushes since they are coated on the inside.
4. Spills in the Luggage got you down? No more spills in the luggage for our jet-setting fashionistas with our coated travel bags.
5. Night Stand Styling- Keep a small sasha on your night stand filled with all your bedside essentials
6. Baby Diaper Overload? Make any bag a diaper bag! Fill a large square bag with diapers and toss it in your bag and fill a small sasha with baby powder, creams and everything else.
7. Guests Coming into town? Show some hospitality by giving your guest a sasha bag filled with toiletries on the night stand.
8. Kids toys scattered in your car? Have your kids each fill a large square bag with their favorite toys for car rides.
9. Jewelry All Over? Place a few clutches around the house in the spots you find yourself taking your jewelry off.
10. Summer Fun- Sasha Sets are the perfect graduation gift for the grad heading off to college.  Also the fun bright colors make our cosmetic bags great for children going off to summer camp to keep all their essentials in.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Interview with Carley Knobloch - Creator of Mother Craft Coaching

Q: What is your name? Carley Knobloch

Q: Company name and website? Mothercraft: Coaching the Modern Mom
mothercraftcoaching.com

Q: We launched in: Feb 2007

Q: What is your business or what do you sell?
I help moms manage their crazy schedules, create unique career choices that work for them, parent purposefully, and live extraordinary lives.

Q: Who or what was the inspiration behind your company?
When I became a mom, I felt like I had a lot of resources to teach me how to be a good parent (ie. Mommy & Me, toddler classes, books, etc.) but no one to help me reconcile all the not-so-pretty emotions I was having trying to process my new life as a stay-at-home mom.  Who was I now, without my job? Was I the only one who didn’t love every moment of being a mom? How could I further my own personal development and feed my soul and ambitions without feeling guilty or selfish? I certainly didn’t have any friends who were talking about this! The idea for Mothercraft was born: I wanted to provide a different kind of support system for moms, not centered around parenting, but around a mom’s growth and development as a person.

Q: How did you get started?
Not long after my daughter was born, I read a magazine article about life coaching. I had already been mentoring a few moms I knew on these issues, but didn’t call myself a life coach. When I read that article, I knew that coaching was format I’d been looking for to help me work with moms in the way I had imagined.  I became a certified life and career coach through the Life Purpose Institute, and set out to create the Mothercraft system— my own tools and materials to enable moms to bust through their obstacles and excel at managing their lives.  Created by a mom, for moms.

Q: How long before your business was profitable, or when is it projected to become profitable? I work from home, and do most of my coaching over the phone, so my overhead is very low.  So it was profitable from the time I started!

Q: What significant obstacles (if any) have you faced & how did you overcome them?
So far, my biggest obstacles have been marketing and messaging.  I’m constantly refining how to explain what it is that I do, showing them how a coach can impact— and in some cases revolutionize— their lives.  Even though all my clients have individual situations and needs, we share so many goals and obstacles, so showing people how I can solve their most common problems, and helping them understand how finding solutions can help them earn more money/get more done/give them more time/create more equanimity… that’s the challenge! I’ve learnt a lot and continue to tweak my messaging.

Regarding marketing, it’s really true what they say: It doesn’t matter if you’re the best at what you do if no one knows about you!  It took a while for me to create relationships and systems to help me promote my offerings.  I continue to measure different marketing efforts to see what works for my target market.  Ultimately, my biggest successes have come from speaking engagements and events where people can see me face to face.  In a service-based business like mine, people really respond when they can meet me and interact with me.  They feel more comfortable investing in this process if they get a sense that they’ll like working with me first.

Q: Do you ever feel like giving up at times? If so, what keeps you going?
Totally! When things slow down, and I’m not getting the influx of clients that keep me motivated and focused, the negative talk creeps in: “What are you doing? No one wants to pay for this service… you’d better quit!”  What keeps me going is the response I get back from my clients after our work together.  Just knowing that I can be a resource in what can be such an isolating and confusing time is so rewarding.  When I’m working with my clients, I know I’m doing the work I was meant to, and there’s no better feeling!

Q: What qualities (i.e., family support, discipline, time management) do you think are necessary for a women entrepreneur? Yes, yes, and yes! Women entrepreneurs are some of the coolest, smartest people I know, and they have mastered countless skills that men never have to even learn! Support, not just from family, but from teachers, neighbors, workmates… it’s all so important.  Our culture has adopted this idea that every woman’s family is “their responsibility”, but we all need to be supporting each other to raise truly great children.  Time management is a big one that I’m supporting a lot of clients with and developing products around right now.  All the life hacks and productivity skills we had before we became moms are relatively useless, and once we become sleep-deprived, mommy-brain-endowed women we have to relearn how to manage our time.  Creating boundaries is a very powerful skill that can be a big guilt-buster women entrepreneurs, especially moms.  Focus on the task at hand, wherever you are.   Create boundaries around your time so that you can work while at work and be truly present with your family when you’re at home.  Even work-at-home moms can accomplish this by creating a schedule and sticking to it.

Q: What is the one thing (book, website, coach, mentor, tool, blog, service, etc) that you value and can say has contributed to your success? The book, “The Growth and Development of Mothers” by Angela Baron McBride was hugely influential and the framework for Mothercraft.  I highly recommend it to anyone who struggles with ambivalence or integrating all parts of themselves into our culture’s very narrow definition of “good mother”.

Yoga and breath work have been lifelines for me.  I became a certified yoga instructor in 2008, and the tools I learned help me be more aware of my body, trust my intuitions and decisions as a mom, and an entrepreneur.  I oxygenate my body, calm my thoughts, and reduce my anxiety level just by breathing intentionally throughout the day.

I love technology and use lots of it to get me through the day. (My iPhone has changed my life and business!)  My most critical tool, however, is still my notebooks. The more I can get out of my head and into a list (quickly!) the less anxiety I feel throughout my day.  So I have little notebooks planted everywhere— in my purse, in my car, on the kitchen counter.  Once every day or so, I go through the notes I’ve made and process them into central lists (I love Gmail tasks or Ta-da List, both free!) that I can reference on my iPhone throughout the day. This way, no matter how much I have going on, I never have “a lot on my mind”.  Mastering this skill transformed the way I get things done.
http://gmail.google.com
http://www.tadalist.com

Q: What was the worst advice someone gave you?
Can’t think of any especially bad bits of advice that I’ve received, but I have some advice about advice! Remember that advice comes from outside you, so extract what you need, and disregard what you don’t.  Surround yourself with smart people, learn from them, but don’t forget to listen to your gut!

Q: What are your business or personal goals for the next year?
I will be launching year-long support groups, online coaching options, my first ebook and a teleclass. Lots of different ways for moms to work with me, support one another, learn and grow!

Q: What advice would you give to someone just starting out in business or thinking about taking the leap into entrepreneurship? Don’t get overwhelmed. There is so much to learn and know, and it takes time to grasp it all. Honor wherever it is that you are right now, and take small, incremental steps forward. It’s so worth it to jump in, so don’t let your fears stop you!

Q: is there anything else you wish I had asked?
Both motherhood and entrepreneurship are tough jobs, and very isolating. It’s so vital that you have a positive community around you to succeed on both fronts.  Surround yourself with like-minded people, who cheer you on and don’t drag you down, people who provide a safe environment in which to test ideas, get feedback and take action.  I have experienced the biggest moments of growth in my business and my thinking when I’ve surrounded myself with smart, supportive women. If you don’t have that community, go out and find it… or start your own group! It’s so worth it!

Popularity: 33% [?]