Bus 210 Wk 9: Finding Great People

My $100 Challenge is finally getting off the ground! I have a few lessons under my belt and, I'm sure, more to come. 

I ordered my salsa containers from Sam's Club online. I was hoping they would arrive for my first pick-up day (Monday!) but, alas, they won't be delivered until Thursday. Luckily my wonderful customers are all ok with waiting a few extra days. 

My original goal was to sell 25 units each week for 4 weeks. My first week is a little under that goal at 21 units, with 11 orders. With the change in delivery, I have to hold one order over until the third week, so I am down to 20 units. I feel pretty successful with that. 

I believe the challenge is in getting enough orders for 4 weeks in a row. All of these customers are friends who are willing to support me in this project. I think they will love the product, of course, but will they love it enough to reorder... that is the question. Even better, though, would be that they love it enough to tell their friends so that my customer base grows each week. I need to decide on the best way to gather their comments and feedback in order to promote the positive ones. 

I was not planning on repeating the "free bag of chips" with every order of two or more units. I believe with prices going up for food, and the extremely low price I have set for my salsa, there is not room to continue this deal. 

I think I came up with a good push for my marketing. I used Google Forms to create an order form. Instead of just using a number of units for each order, I gave them some fun names. 





Some of the negatives:

I don't have a lot of time to cook.

I don't have a label and I don't want to spend any more money to order a sticker.

I have to have a whole day left open at home to allow my customers a variety of pick-up times.

(that last one isn't truly a negative, just a lesson learned. I am usually home.)

Now for a little from our week's study: I enjoyed learning about David Neeleman and Jet Blue Airways. My husband's career has been at Boeing and I hear about plane orders and airlines all the time. I am impressed with his level of confidence and foresight. It's a bummer that they went with Airbus.

Guy Kawasaki discussed the importance of the founding team and hiring people better than yourself. I think that would be a simple task for me since I don't have any business experience.

I also finished my interview with a franchisee this past week. I will be writing about that soon. Ryan Medford now owns 8 Original Pancake House restaurants. He has a good head on his shoulders and I appreciate his insight. 

I have been struggling to finish reading E-Myth for the book report. I hope I can get the last few chapters completed soon so I can get that assignment done. It is an interesting book but the print is too small and I can't just enlarge it because it is spread out all over the screen. A difficult read for sure. 




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