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Long time no talk!? So sorry!!!!? I feel very accomplished right this second.? About 1 minute ago I fired off a “proposal” to a large high end Ranch out west.? I feel very accomplished because it was my very first real “proposal”.? I’m not even sure what one really is or what it should include, but I did it anyway!? I must admit, I think it looked really professional but then again, what do I know.? I was approached by the COO of this company after he saw me on The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch.? I was very upfront and honest with him about my “newness” to doing custom orders, but if I can bring an idea to market, how hard could this be?? I am learning quickly that if you don’t know how to do something, that’s all the more reason to try it.? Again, I did tell him openly that he was my guinea pig so to speak. I’m not sure if that was the right approach or not but it was something I just wanted to do.? At times I do subscribe to the “fake it till you make it” theory, but not in this instance.? I’m actually giving him one heck of a deal because I really want this project.? I want it more for the experience then I do for the money.? Hopefully he’ll see the value in my proposal and give me the green light (and 50% down) and I can run with it!? ?

Another avenue that has opened up recently (thanks to me outsourcing my fulfillment) is being able to drop ship for customers.? I am now in talks with a large company who asks that vendors Drop Ship.? Drop shipping by definition is when an online or mail order merchant takes orders for a product then has the manufacturer ship the product directly from factory or distributor.? The merchant never handles the product and in exchange the merchant pays either a drop ship fee to the manufacturer or pays a slightly higher then regular wholesale price. I did not want to get involved in this prior to this point because I didn’t want to get bogged down with fulfilling orders.? Now that fulfillment is done by Janene, it really doesn’t effect me, so why not!? I like keeping Janene busy!? This is not a done deal by any means but it’s just another iron in the fire.? Next week I have the Food and Wine Festival where I have a vendor booth.? My booth is coming together.? I went to Kinko’s yesterday to get two big full color photos of beautiful meat blown up and mounted so they can be used as a back drop for my booth.? I really think they are going to look sharp.? On my table I will have a table top grill and IN the grill will be a portable DVD player with looping footage of Grill Charms in use.? It’s the footage that we took at my neighbor’s house for the Donny show.? (I love getting extra mileage out of something I already paid for!)? That’s about all I’ve got going on for now… I’m off to make my sales and marketing calls for the day!?

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Leslie Haywood, Founder and President of Charmed Life Products, Inventor of Grill Charmsâ„¢? www.grillcharms.com