Again, so much has happened since last we spoke (as usual)  I know that I need to write more often to keep my entries short, but man oh man there just aren’t enough hours in the day!  Here I am, in the parking lot of that same restaurant I go to just about every Monday because they have free wireless.  I’ll go inside and grab a bit to eat shortly, but for now, I kinda just want to sit here in the car.  The girls are at ballet and I feel like I’m coming down with a cold so I don’t want to talk on the phone and make sales calls, so hello dear friends, it’s just you and I in my little red mini-van.  I am so very thankful that I’m so busy, but I do miss those days when I could spend more time doing this.  I know that blogging is supposed to be the hottest thing in marketing, but that is extremely low on my ranking of why I feel the need to do this.  The biggest reasons are because I know there are you guys that count on the updates and I am one that can’t stand to disappoint and the other reason is because I really want to leave a journal for my girls.  I went them to “know” me.  Not just mommy “me”, the “other” me.  They won’t appreciate the “other” me for some time but someday, I really want them to know the “mompreneur” me.  Okay, enough about why I’m blogging and on with the update.  (I’ve got some cool news coming at the end of the blog so stick around!)

 

I was a vendor at the Charleston Food and Wine festival this past weekend.  I got tons of exposure, made some fantastic contacts and perfected my “pitch”.   I’m not 100% sure how all the contacts will pan out, so the biggest most immediate benefit I see is that I have completely perfected my “schpeel”.  I must have given my pitch at least 400 times this weekend.  It gave me to opportunity to see what the public responded to, what their misconceptions were about my product, what they thought was important and what didn’t need explanation.  By day 2 of the 3 days, I had it DOWN!  I dare anyone to ask me “What are Grill Charms™”   Boy oh boy can I nail that one! 

 

I really liked the way my booth turned out.  It wasn’t that expensive of a set up either.  The signage was provided by the festival, I had 2 HUGE beautiful blown up photos of the Grill Charms™ in use on easels at the corners of my booth, I had a pyramid of product displayed (kept in place with double sided sticky tape) I had a table top grill with a portable DVD playing on the grates running a continuous loop of a 6 minute product demo, part of the Donny show and then my appearance on low country live.  In the center I had press kits, brochures, business cards, and magnet give aways nicely fanned, then I had loose charms scattered around the table “randomly”.  I had 2 big fake plants behind my booth to give some ambiance and that was that.  Easy Peasy.  I met some cook book authors, chatted with another vendor in the grilling industry and got the names of some buyers that are of great interest to me.  I also had the opportunity to give a “show and tell” to hundreds if not thousands of people over 3 days.  There were times when people were 2 and 3 rows deep trying to catch a glimpse and hear what exactly this crazy little contraption did.   I’ve got my work cut out for me this week.

 

Now for the big stuff…. Friday at 5:15 while I was getting my booth ready for me to leave for the day I get a call from area code 201…  YEP… 201!!!  That’s CNBC baby!!!!  That area code is forever burned into my retinas.  They want to fly me back to NY Thursday to do another segment!!!  AHHHHH!!!!!!!  It’s going to be a “what’s happened since the last show” type of update.  I don’t want to give anything away, but after doing my homework, running my numbers, looking back at my new accounts and checking reports (thanks QuickBooks) TONS has happened.  In the 4 weeks since the show, I had my best 4 week period to date, I got 2 calls from executives of 2 very large successful companies as a direct result of them seeing me on the show, I’ve gotten local coverage… the list goes on and on.  It’s funny how you don’t really know how to quantify PR until you’re asked to do so.  Off the top of my head, when people say “What did the last show do for you?”  Before I started really thinking about it, I would have said ALOT about credibility, exposure, notoriety and getting my foot in the door of some accounts I didn’t have before.  But as far as actually dollar signs, I didn’t see it.  Now that I have done my homework (because I will be held accountable on Thursday for all that has happened since the show) I have shocked myself in listing all of the things that have happened and the numbers I have met as a result of the show.

 

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.  PR is like a snow ball.  At first glance you might not be able to see that a certain sale came right from a certain article or interview, but when you really examine the numbers like I have been asked to do over a certain period of time, you see just how powerful of a tool PR can be.  Okay, my battery is about to die, so it’s time to go in and grab a bite and plug this puppy in.  Hopefully I’ll get a chance to chat before the show.  It’s scheduled to air Thursday night at 10:00 on CNBC.

 

Leslie Haywood, Founder and President Charmed Life Products LLC, www.grillcharms.com

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