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Tuesday, June 8, 2010

expo-sing ourselves

so the very first wan-derful women's expo was this weekend. i'd done my typical wan thing and procrastinated like mad, and didn't do as much in the way of marketing as i'd planned to. oops.

but between me and the rest of the vendors who'd signed up to exhibit, we covered a lot of ground in online marketing. there were lots of tweets and facebook status updates snd e-mails, and even an inclusion in a weekly e-newsletter the week of the event. one of the vendors went out on friday afternoon and passed flyers out in monrovia, where our venue was located.

i even got my friend lilcee to create an awesome hand-painted banner for me, like the one she'd done for her baby girl's birthday party a couple of weeks ago. she was even going to deliver it to me! she's such a rock star.

after taking the bean to gymnastics, heading home and packing everything up into the hub's tahoe, the teen and i arrived just after 11.



a good handful of the vendors had already arrived, and as i headed into the patio area - the first thing walk-in customers see when they enter the restaurant - i noticed that there was a serious shortage in tables set out for us. i went in to ask the manager to set us up with a few more tables, and let's just say that she was, uh, less than accommodating. "we have other parties going on today," she said. when i asked if there was one right after us, she waffled. "well, not until 7. but i didn't know this was going on," she said. WTF. and then, she wanted to know where they were supposed to serve lunch. because, as she so politely (not) put it, they're a restaurant, and the tables are used for food. ugh. i wanted to kick her in the side of the head.

meanwhile, the teen got a head start on some set-up for me. since i'd upgraded my computer, my photoshop wasn't working - like, it wouldn't even open. blech. i'd planned on creating a large-format copy of our flyer so that we could prop it up on an easel at the entrance, but i had to nix that idea and settle for just printing the logo and using some balloons to pretty it up.



the rest of our vendors (18 total!) were busy worker bees, getting ready and setting up their stations.



we had custom diaper bags and burp cloths, courtesy of danielle elizabeth.



custom cupcake stands by pedestals.



my old high school buddy, momreen, was my tupperware rep.



my partner in crime, kelley, repped beachbody fitness products and had roped in a co-worker to bring avon.



my buddy tater had forwarded the WWE info to an old friend of hers who does cute custom onesies. i meant to scoop up a couple of them during the event, but got so busy that i forgot. whoops. good thing she has an etsy store.



my esthetician friend, who planted the seed of WWE in my head to begin with, forwarded the info to her mom. she came to sell her handmade wine and gift tags.



so you know i'm always on the nest's message boards. well, that all stemmed from my addiction to the knot, back in the day while we were wedding planning. anyway, there were a handful of girls on my local board who i'd gotten friendly with but had never met. i knew one of them, deezgirl, had an etsy shop where she sold her handmade little girls' hair accessories. so i hit her up, and she not only brought her wares but a friend who makes aprons and tote bags, too. it was nice to meet her at last.



pampered chef came in and was gracious about squeezing her stuff onto half of a table.



my buddy MommyBelle came to sell some of her custom notecards and brought her ex-boss to showcase their "eye catchers" - they're necklaces with a little hoop for holding your glasses.



and of course, my own stella & dot stuff. didn't lilcee do a fabulous job on the banner? i love it.



i'd thrown a stampin' up party at our old house years ago. the rep was a neighbor who had built an addition to her home for the purpose of parties and rubber stamping workshops, and i thought she'd make a great addition to our little gathering. she brought a bunch of really cool stuff, including a machine for die-cutting all sorts of things from paper to fabric, that i had to hold myself back from scooping up.



this vendor was another cousin of deezgirl's - she handcrafts and redesigns vintage purses. i knew the teen would love this, and hoped that others would too. i ended up buying that little black number in the bottom left corner for her, sort of a thank-you for all of her help that day.



lastly, a friend of kelley's came to sell her super cute women's apparel. i thought i'd gotten a shot of the goods, but i guess i didn't. i was so distracted that afternoon, geez. anyway, she seemed to do fairly well. she ended up taking the table i'd reserved for our passion party/scentsy candle gal, who was a no-show for the day.



the teen took advantage of our close proximity to some OG video games at some point in the day.



and right at 4, after we'd paid the bill for our lunches, everyone packed up and got the eff outta there. it was slightly less successful than i'd hoped for, and whew - it was HOT in there. a few ceiling fans on what turned out to be the hottest day of the week didn't do much to cool us off. i was a super sweaty monkey that day, yuck. the aftermath:



and since we'd forgotten to get a shot of us at the expo, the teen and i settled for one on the way home.



although we hadn't sold as much stuff as we'd hoped to, we're still planning to forge ahead with WWE2. we may end up in pasadena this time, unless we come across some other fantastic venue ideas. i figure it's probably good to switch it up as often as possible, giving us exposure in different local communities. and hopefully we can find a place with more foot traffic, too.

stay tuned for updates. you know you're dying to hear all about it.

3 comments:

  1. It was a good time! Thank god all you got was my fat arm poking out from behind the mannequin (sp?) I was sooooo sweaty.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am sad to have missed this! Looks like a terrific variety of goods.

    ReplyDelete

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