I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter.  This year was so much fun.  The girls are now 3 and 5 and REALLY got into finding eggs.  Their little faces just lit up whenever they saw an egg in the bushes.  We all had so much fun despite the pollen.  My allergy medicine was working overtime yesterday, that’s for sure! 

Now that I have a moment, I’ll get into that UPC story I glossed over the other day.  Since I’m trying to run with the big dogs, it has come to my attention (thank you Janene at Trending Solutions my wonderful warehouse and distribution center) since quantities for single POs are probably going to be going up, I need to streamline and consolidate my tertiary or secondary packaging.  You see, whenever a warehouse or fulfillment company touches a “piece” there is a charge.  As it stands now, my cases hold 12 sets of Grill Charms.  So let’s say a company wants 1440 units, that’s 120 cases.  Each case would have to be handled and labeled etc…  That could seriously eat up a lot of the profit.  What’s the solution?  Master cartons!  So I put an email into my handy-dandy factory and told them I needed my cases to be cased so to speak.  So now when someone puts in an order for 1440, that’s only 10 master cartons. That’s all fine and good and done but then you have to realize… each quantity of box has to have its own UPC.  Now a year ago, that thought would TEERRIFY me, but now, it’s just a matter of plugging in some dimensions and voila!  Out spits your new UPC.  The program even asks you if your new unit is comprised of already UPC’d units and it keeps track off all that.  So each of my collections of individual boxes of Grill Charms have UPCs (that’s 3 so far), then my cases of 12 for each collection have UPCs (that’s 3 more), then my master carton of cases for each collection have UPCs, for a total of 9 different UPCs.  I did all that today, so I’m feeling pretty proud of myself right about now.   

Leslie Haywood, Founder and President of Charmed Life Products, Inventor of Grill Charms™  www.grillcharms.com

The deed is done, the
PO has been sent.  15,000 units…. I’m not really dwelling on it too much because my mind has been made up and the factory is 3 days away from setting up the machines for the production run.  My OEM is THRILLED and I’m happy to make his so happy.  (Overseas they really don’t like doing anything for under a few thousand units)  As it is, it was a miracle that I found an OEM with a minimum as low as 1000.  That’s almost unheard of in
Asia.  It’s so funny how often in life and in business; the “right” decisions are sometimes the most painful.  Although I do believe with all my heart (okay… maybe I have a LITTLE doubt… but shhhh, don’t tell anyone. After all, I’m SUPPOSED to know what I’m doing!)  But I really do believe I’m making the right decision, so why does it HURT?!  It reminds me of a few boyfriends past.  (Yep, tangent time!)  Some aspects of business are like relationships.  You know what the “right” thing to do is, but that doesn’t make it easy.  Sometimes the best, healthiest thing for you to do hurts the most.  If this were easy, EVERYONE would be doing it right?  

Okay, so your next question is… where am I coming up with the money right??  Fortunately my hubby and I got into the property/rental/real estate market in the early 2000’s so we have some equity built up in a few places.  The fed just cut rates by ¾ of a point which makes money cheap right now.  We are going to do the ol’ Refi-cash-out dance.  I’ve got to believe that I’m doing the right thing, otherwise how could I put all that we have worked for, for so long on the line right?  This is the kind of stuff that separates the men from the boys right? 

On to this new big account.  It’s funny how you go along thinking you have things pretty well organized, then you get a curve ball, (like a big account with systems and fancy terms etc…) and everything you thought you knew goes right out the window.  I applied for vendor status, (which I got) and then was invited to log onto their supplier network (not optional) but invited nonetheless.  It was so confusing and there were terms and jargon I totally didn’t understand and so yesterday I sat there staring at the screen in complete panic.  I kept thinking to myself “Leslie, you are so in way over your head!!” but knowing I couldn’t turn back, I contemplated my options.  I could “fake it” and answer the questions to the best of my ability and risk looking like a big ol’idiot if I got an answer wrong or even worse, loose out on a TON of money because I didn’t understand the question, or I could call my wonderful buyer and ask for her help.  For me the choice was easy.  I’m used to fessing up my newness to the game, so at the risk of her not wanting to do business with me because I was too green, I simply picked up the phone and called and asked for help.  Novel idea huh?  She was FANTASTIC!!!   This gal is so patient and so understanding and she completely walked me through the entire program!!  I’m not naive enough to think that all buyers will be this understanding, but I’m so glad this one is!!  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,  there is a time and a place to “fake it till you make it” and them there is a time and a place for you to be honest and just ask for help.   I’m finding more and more that if you are upfront and tell people “This is my first rodeo, help me” that people really do want to help others and if you are kind and genuine, they really do want you to succeed.  After we were done going through the new fancy program that I am now a part of, I felt such a sense of relieve.  There were questions about EDI and FOB pricing and pallet exchanges and all kinds of stuff that had me frozen at the keyboard and for half of the complicated questions, she said “Oh, don’t worry about that, that doesn’t apply to you”.  I was all freaked out over nothing.  So now that I’m officially in their system…. I wait.  I think the next step is getting the
PO.  Now that that temporary crisis moment has past my mind wants to go back to worrying about money… I’m trying REALLY REALLY hard not to let it.   

It’s going to be 80 degrees, the sun is shining, and it’s a GREAT DAY!!! 

I’m back….I wrote that around 8:00 this morning and just didn’t have a chance to post it.  I ran out of the house, schlepped the kids with me to the drug store, then the grocery store, went to the post office, dropped them off at school, my mind racing with all the things I have to do today, (follow up calls for new accounts, new UPC’s to do (that’s another story), revisions I need to send to my web guy for stuff I want for my website and everything else involved with single handedly running a company),  I race home, walk in the door ready to get to work and realize I have dishes to do, laundry that’s been sitting in the washer, another 2 loads on the floor waiting to be done and groceries to put away.  Sometimes you just feel so overwhelmed you have to laugh.  Well, that’s what I did.  I’m still laughing!! Seriously, it’s all fine just fine, I just wonder if Bill Gates or Donald Trump started this way. 

Leslie Haywood, Founder and President of Charmed Life Products, Inventor of Grill Charms™  www.grillcharms.com

Hello friends!  Its funny how you go along your merry little way in business and if it’s your first rodeo, like it is mine, you do more faking it then making it in the beginning.  Then you get some really exciting and really scary decisions that have to be made before you can really “make it”.  I’m going to spill my guts (as usual) and give probably TMI, but for anyone that’s reading this and thinking about following in my footsteps, you need to be ready.   Up until this point I have invested about $50,000.00 start up funds to get my little company to this point.  Sooner or later you will come to a cross roads.  Up until now, I have been selling cases to specialty stores across the
US (5 states now) and a catalog or two.  A BIG order would be 5 cases on 1
PO to a single store.  WHAT A THRILL!!!  Seriously, I just LOVE my wholesale accounts and my wholesale orders.  In inventory I have stock piled a few thousand units at my warehouse facility in
Ohio waiting for “the big one”.  Up until the past day or so, I didn’t really know what “the big one” meant.    I would be so excited for getting any multiple case orders that I couldn’t even fathom a single
PO for 10 cases, let alone anything more.  With one call from one Midwestern high end grocery store I realized that one account could completely wipe out my entire inventory!  With you are dealing with overseas manufacturing, the lead time from
PO to delivery is anywhere from 70-90 days and for a grilling item, that’s somewhat considered seasonal, that might pose a problem.  An average
PO for this one store (that I had not heard of until last week) would be about 240 cases.  That’s 2880 units just for starters!!!  Talk about a gut check moment!  So that got me thinking… what does that mean?  Well, if one store with one
PO could require that kind of volume, then what should my inventory be?  Probably at least 3-5 times that.  These larger companies expect to have product available within 7-10 days from
PO.  Knowing the basic formula for cost to manufacture to retail price, you can somewhat figure out how much my cost per unit is.  Then multiply that by my calculations that I would need about 3-5 times my current inventory just to cover potential new accounts and you will feel my pain.  This is SCARY!!!!  I’m about a few minutes away from hitting “send” on my Quickbooks PO to
Taiwan and all that entails.  I haven’t backed away from a challenge yet, and this is no different.  Of course I’m scared to death that this account won’t come through, of course I’m terrified about having 15000 units sitting in a warehouse that I can’t sell, of course I’m wondering where in the world that money will come from and at what interest rate I’ll have to pay it back, but what choice do I have?  Grilling season is heating up and if I want to play with big dogs, I better hike up my Spanx®, put my game face on, be a big girl and put my booty in the ring!  Wish me luck! 

Leslie Haywood, Founder and President of Charmed Life Products, Inventor of Grill Charms™  www.grillcharms.com

Hello Hello!!! Okay… March 6:  It’s 9:33PM  now, I’ve still got my TV face on (I got Patty again, and she just ROCKS!!) By the way, when you see the show tonight…just to let you know, I really don’t look like that. She makes me feel pretty!   So right now, I am enjoying a wonderful glass of a Merlot-Cab blend, the kiddies are in bed, I’m with friends and life is good. My husband picked me up from the airport at 7:30 and the girls said “Mommy, did you have funny with Donny Deutsch?!” I was so proud!! For my promo I wore my fantastic shirt from Dianne!!! Yeah, that’s right… I LOVE DONNY baby!! What was crazy was that the girls I was on with also had a shirt that said “I love the Big Idea”. I can’t talk long. I really really think my brain has turned to guacamole. Thanks to all the wonderful advice, I did knock that cold out of the park. I got to the hotel last night, I took a hot hot shower, nettie potted, zycamed, doubled up on my vitamins, NyQuiled got 9 hours sleep, woke up, Dayquiled, did my vitamins again and I was right as rain. Oh goodness, it’s 10 min to show time!! I really don’t know what I said. I did have some big news that I announced. Here’s the sneak preview… This is still a big ol maybe, but in the airport on the way to the show I got a call from a great guy at a major grocery store and he was pitching Grill Charms to test in their local stores. This store has over 600 locations in 17 states!!! Keep your fingers crossed.  We’ll chat tomorrow.  

March 7^th.Well… it’s back… my head is in a total fog and I wish I could say it was from all the excitement.  Between my stuffed nose and all the cold medicine I have in me, I can’t really think straight.  My cold decided it would stick around a little while longer.  This morning I got a lead on a grocery store in the
Midwest, called the buyer, actually talked with her directly (that never happens) and she is very interested.  I really hope I have covered all my bases.  I’m not kidding; I’m really having a hard time today.  Unfortunately, feeling like you want to curl up in the fetal position and go to sleep isn’t an option, so I’m just going to have to fake my way through this day and hope tomorrow this cold thing breaks up.     

Leslie Haywood, Founder and President of Charmed Life Products, Inventor of Grill Charms™  www.grillcharms.com

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

I just love coming to “work”.  I love turning on the computer and waiting to see what the day brings.  I never know what’s going to happen from one “refresh” button to the next.  With regards to the whole PR, sales, marketing, making money thing, you need to have 20 different irons in the fire, and eventually a few will come to fruition.  As you know, I try to make at least 5 calls a day, then I also have my PR girls submitting information to publications, then I also have some projects and proposals I have done for people who are friends of friends, or who have seen me on CNBC.  All of these things are like my fishing poles in the water.  Every time I hit “refresh” it’s like checking the line to see if I have any bits.  With so many lines in the water, there is bound to be an exciting catch at least once a day.  Today was a good online order day, I also landed another wholesale account and my PR girls have told me that we got some interest from 2 publications for a product review.  That makes for a GREAT day!  I am always trying to do things that create interest in my company and product.  This weekend is the big Food and Wine Festival downtown.  I’m a vendor and this will be my first real “Booth”.  Again, I’m just trying to have as many lines in the water as I possibly can.  I’ll land the big one someday and I’ll get to tell you all about my big fish story. 

Leslie Haywood, Founder and President of Charmed Life Products, Inventor of Grill Charms™  www.grillcharms.com

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! 

Leslie Haywood, Founder and President of Charmed Life Products, Inventor of Grill Charms™  www.grillcharms.com

As you guys know by now, I don’t claim to know much about what I’m doing.  I’m not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, I’m just winging it the best I can.  Having said that, I want to share with you my experience in getting into retail stores.  This is not a how to manual; this is just what I have done and continue to do.  I don’t so much have infinite knowledge on the subject, but I do have experience and sometimes having experience in how to do something is worth ten times having knowledge of how to do something, so for what it’s worth, here is my “experience”.   

Right now I am focusing primarily on independently owned stores.  It is a good way to build your brand and from what I have found, these people you talk to (usually the owners of the stores) are receptive to at least talk with you because they too have been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug (hence them owning their own piece of the American Dream).  I get store information from people that write in from my website and say “I know this great store here in
XYZ, USA, it’s called Wonderful Store, and here is the phone number”.  I also get information about stores from friends all over the
US.  (I ask people all the time if they know of a great Gourmet Gift store in their town)  Once I have a store location I try to “Google” as much as I can about that store to see if I think it truly would be a good fit before I pick up the phone.  I don’t want to waste the store’s owner or buyers time,  (or mine) on a store that is truly not my target market.  There are plenty of stores out there that fit the bill 100%.  (Know your target market)   

I then pick up the phone, introduce myself and ask who to speak with regarding a potential vendor inquiry.  Sometimes it’s the person who answered the phone!  I LOVE that!!!  As I said, these are people for the most part that feel your passion because they are living their own passion.  I then tell them BRIEFLY about my product and ask if I may email them some information about my product.  (I like doing things electronically.  Maybe I’ll save a tree or two)  Again, they are usually pretty receptive to just seeing what I have to offer.  I then VERY PROMPTLY email them a letter thanking them for their time, explaining my product, embedding a few small photos in the email (not so much “attaching big files, a lot of people won’t open files for fear of viruses) and saying “If Grill Charms is a product that you would consider for your store, please call or email and I will happily send you a wholesale information sheet. 

If they come back and say they are interested, I then email them my wholesale information sheet (or sell sheet) which outlines wholesale pricing, minimum orders, credit terms, information on how it’s packaged, (IE 1 case contains 12 units) and MSRP.  I also send them a wholesale account form which asks for all of their information including license number so I may set them up as a customer.  

After I have sent them the initial letter, I put all of their information on my “sales and marketing to do list”.  This is where I keep track of all my sales and marketing activities arranged in alphabetically order by potential customer name.  It is here that I keep notes of all of my efforts.  It looks something like this…. 

“ABC company www.abc.com  866-462-XXX 2/4 talked to Roger and he said to send an email to Ronny XXX at   XXX@XXX.com 2/4    ABC address XXXX   Ronny replied 2/6 and asked more questions about product, I told him, follow up on 2/8.  2/8  Not interested

BCD Company : Address, Phone, website email: 
Sandy is go to person at sandy@XXX.com  emailed info 2/9, call to follow up 2/13 

CDE Company Address, phone website:  call Betsy M-F she is the buyer for gift shop email buyer@hotmail.com  Emailed her wholesale info 2/11 follow up 2/15” 

Now if you notice, 2 are in bold and 1 is not.  The ones in bold are “unfinished business” so to speak.  Every day when I sit down, I scan my document and look for bolded “unfinished business” and make the follow-up calls on the days I have specified.  This probably isn’t the best, most efficient way as I am sure there is wonderfully fancy software that can do all this for you… (Again, this is not “how to” but “what I do”) but this is how I keep my sales and marketing efforts straight.  Once a retailer becomes a customer, they go off this list and into QuickBooks.  Once they tell me “thanks but no thanks” they are “unbolded” and I move on.   

I always follow up an initial wholesale order with a personally handwritten heartfelt Grill Charms thank you card.  I am never pushy, I always LISTEN to every word they say and try to be the best vendor or potential vendor I can be.  Even though I am the best sales person this company has… (Okay… ONLY sales person… but shhhhhh) I don’t ever want to be “THAT” sales person that does all the talking and no listening, takes assertive to the level of pushy, or just doesn’t know when to say when.   

If you are simply sincere, nice, genuine, friendly and truly enthusiastic (and you can‘t fake the funk… people can tell!) then you will just LOVE making wholesale calls.  I really do love calling on new accounts.  My daily goal is to do at least 5 sales and marketing calls a day, whether it is follow ups or new customer calls.  5 might now sound like a lot, but in-between going to the children’s museum, talking with my sourcing agent, assessing inventory, working with the graphic designer on new designs for the next collection and keeping a tiny bit of sanity,.… 5 is REALLY GOOD!! 

Leslie Haywood, Founder and President of Charmed Life Products, Inventor of Grill Charms™  www.grillcharms.com

YES IT PLAYED!!!  Last night The Big Idea put Grill Charms (and 3 other One Minute to Millions products) to the test in Peoria IL.  Here is a little background on Peoria and why it is so important according to Wikipedia:  

“The saying, “Will it play in Peoria?” is traditionally used to ask whether a given product, person, promotional theme or event will appeal to mainstream (also called “Main Street“) America, or across a broad range of demographic/psychographic groups. The phrase originated during the vaudeville era and was popularized in movies by Groucho Marx. The belief was that if a new show was successful in Peoria, a main midwestern stop for vaudville acts, it would be successful anywhere. The phrase subsequently was adopted by politicians, pollsters and promoters to question the potential mainstream acceptance of anything new.In the United States, Peoria, Illinois, has legendary status as a test market.
Peoria has long been seen as a representation of the average American city, because of its demographics and its perceived mainstream Midwestern culture. Years later in the 1960s and 1970s,
Peoria was deemed an ideal test market by various consumer-focused companies, entertainment enterprises (films and concert tours), even politicians, to gauge opinion, interest and receptivity to new products, services and campaigns.” 

Last night 80% of those surveyed said they would buy Grill Charms!!!  YIPEEEE!! 

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_it_play_in_Peoria%3F 

Leslie Haywood, Founder and President of Charmed Life Products, Inventor of Grill Charms™  www.grillcharms.com

Last night fellow Mompreneur Dianne (www.saltychix.com) was on The Big Idea (yep, something is in the water on www.mompreneursonline.com  cause we are all hot hot hot right now!)  She was on the American Dream Team so of course we were watching.  I was in the other room when my husband comes running in there saying “Grill Charms is on, Grill Charms is on!!”  We were DVRing it, so he rewound it and sure enough, they showed a spot of Grill Charms and said something to the effect “see former One minute to millions products from our show in
Peoria IL Thursday”.  At this point, I know NOTHING about it.  So today while my older daughter is at school, my best friend and I take the little ones to the Children’s Museum for some play time.  We then went to lunch and in the middle of my smoked salmon salad my phone rings.  I look at the number and it’s a 201 area code!!  201 is the area code for NJ, where CNBC is located!!!  So I swallow the bite I have in my mouth and try very hard to tune out everything around me including my little one who’s struggling to eat her tomato soup while wearing a white shirt.  (What was I thinking when I ordered that for her!?)  It was the wonderful producer I worked with last week!  She says that they are taking 4 of the best past “One minute to millions” products on the road to
Peoria IL to do a segment where basically the entire town votes and critiques the products.  The “experts” had their say, now everyday American’s get to have theirs.  OMG!!!  “
America” is voting on Grill Charms!!!  Okay… I could blow off the harsh comments of 1 or 2 people, but “
America”??!!!  WOW, THE PRESSURE!!!  Basically, that’s about all I know, so I’ll be watching the show Thursday night at 10:00 just like everyone else wondering what in the world “
America” thinks about my “baby”.  I’m not sure my nerves can take it!  Well, I’ve got to run.  I have a mandatory vendor orientation for the food and wine festival today and have to leave in about an hour.  I’ll chat more tomorrow!!! 

Leslie Haywood, Founder and President of Charmed Life Products, Inventor of Grill Charms™  www.grillcharms.com