I make soap for my family at home and for gifts for relatives, i have also given soap out to friends one of these my lovely friend Tamar, persuaded me that i really should try selling my soap at a craft fair. So today i gathered up all the soap i have ever made and a couple of new batches i made specially and headed out to a craft fair with Tamar and her mum where they also sell crafts they create or find together.
The weather on the day wasn't great, and had many heavy down pours and then spells of sunshine but even with the changeable weather people still came out for a look round the fair. All my soap was perched up on a three tier cake stand nestled in between Tamar's lovely wares. The first 45 mins no one stopped to look apart from fleeting browsing and they all moved on, there was another heavy down pour and people scuttled undercover. On the next bout of sunshine i vowed that i would engage anyone who even looked at my soap before my stock was washed away in the next down pour and remembering my old sales days that people buy form people, tackled my first group of 3 lady's 2 who claimed they didn't wash with soap and scuttled off, but one stayed and listened with to what i had to say about my different soaps, if they were for showering or bathing, how i put them together, what foraged fruits and flowers and good quality ingredients were in them and the lady opened her purse and bought a bar. Gosh that was a good feeling to make my first sale, so i adopted the approach for anyone who came to the stall, soon i had sold 5 bars with in 20 mins.
After this i pitched to a lady who wasn't biting and so i asked her directly if she wanted to buy and she said that she was a soap maker and soap teacher. That's why i wasn't getting anywhere. She didn't need the soap as she could make her own. So we ended up chatting and she was from America and told me about all her stories of soap and i showed he my soaps and when she sniffed my nettle soap she said she really loved the scent and that i foraged for the nettles and wanted to buy it. Wow i had sold some some to a soap maker.
After this there was a young couple called who came and the lady went through all my soap and bought 3 my ex foliating citrous zest bar, a nettle and green tea and one of my favourites a Rosehip and ginger bar and i gave her a scrummy vanilla bean bar. She then asked if i could make some smaller bars for her wedding favours, and i couldn't believe my ears and she told me what she liked and I'm now in the process of working on 4 bespoke recipes just for her and her hubby to be for the wedding favours, wow wouldn't that just be brilliant to provide favours for someone very special day. Well it takes 8 weeks to complete one batch of soap so i hope that she will like what i am going to make for her when its finally ready. Later she came back with her father in law who kindly bought 4 bars and i felt over the moon that other people other than my Ali liked my soap. Thanks to Tamar for the poke and intell on where to go to get me out to try and sell some and to the lovely couple and their father who bought my soap if they hadn't i would of only made £10 for the day. I defiantly got a huge boost in confidence and am going to get cracking making some more soap.
No comments:
Post a Comment