Rena & Gary

I think sometimes we craftspeople do not take into consideration how much time we take for shows when we look at our bottom line. Obviously we want to at least break even on how much we spend out of pocket, but I think we are sometimes kidding ourselves when we don’t take into account our time.

I was talking with another jeweler at a recent show. Understand, I am one of those people who is not afraid to ask questions about how someone’s business is doing. She and her friend, who is her business partner, were very happy with the results of the show. They had covered the cost of their booth and other out of pocket expenses. They had also made $1200 dollars. She then went on to tell me how she and her partner had spent four full days preparing for the show and then spent three days at the show. Her jaw dropped when I advised her as to how much she and her partner had made an hour for the show.

Show hours… 20 hours X2 …………………………… 40
Show preparation 32 hours X2 ………………….…… 64

$1200 divided by 104 hours ……………………………$11.54 per hour.

But wait, I have not even calculated the time to produce each sold piece of jewelry! They estimated about 38 hours labor to create the items they sold. The additional time brought their hourly pay down to $8.45. Then there is the cost of the materials needed, which we did not go into as they had had enough of a reality-check for one day.

Oh one last thing before we leave the two ladies, they proudly told me how they had decided they needed to pay themselves $50 per hour to go into this business venture.

Reality-checks are so important for business people. Reality-checks help to keep us very humble and centered.

How often do you perform and good reality-check?

Being a vendor we are basically the promoters customers. Treat your customers well and you keep them for many years. Any good businessperson knows that simple fact. Show me your only concern is how much money you can make and my loyalty as a customer is lost.

Where am I going with all of this you might ask? We did a show with a new promotional company called MalicJewels at the Reno/Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority. The Monday before the show I was getting a little nervous about the promotion of the show, so I called MalicJewels office and asked about the advertising for the up coming show. The person I talked with was one of the owners and she happily gave me the complete list of each place they were placing advertising for the show. Being the skeptic I am, I called all of the radio stations and the local newspaper to see if what I had been told was true. Not only did I find it to be true, but, each place I called commented on how easy MalicJewels were to work with and they paid promptly. Ok, good indicator!

When we arrived at the show for setup, we were warmly greeted and quickly taken to our designated booth. To our surprise we were given a larger booth than we had sign up for at no extra costs. The one quoted fee included the booth, tables, coverings and skirts, light stands and electricity. In other words, there were no surprises.

One of the owners, Debbie, was on the floor at all times, and anything we needed she was there to help. MalicJewels bent over backwards to treat us well and make us feel welcome and important. The experience with Debbie and all of her staff was such a positive one that we will be doing other shows with them in the future.

MalicJewels does about 80 shows a year around the country. You might want to check them out at MalicJewels.com and see if they have a show near you that you might consider displaying your wares. You will enjoy your experience with them.