Our New Site!

Hey, we really love blogging about our adventures on www.hundreddollarbusiness.wordpress.com!

But we also want to include things on our site, like our our video, and… maybe some other fun things we come up with. So we’re switching to our new domain at www.hundreddollarbusiness.com.

Thanks to the amazing tech support of local Utah blogger Ryan Byrd, we got the site up in a couple of hours this afternoon. Ryan’s blog is one of the most seriously entertaining & informative blogs in my feedreader, and his Green Paper Clip experiment was a pre-inspiration to the Hundred Dollar Business. 🙂

We also appreciate Ryan offering to host our site a few weeks ago… when you’re on a hundred dollar budget, everything helps!

The site doesn’t look that different (maybe we should have a contest, to see who will notice the changes!), but it definitely has more options than the regular WordPress blog… and well worth spending $9.20 on the domain, and using up 9.2% of our budget. 😉

Poke around a bit, see what’s new. Let us know if you see any bugs, so we can keep the site looking awesome.

The Hundred Dollar Business Video

A big thanks to our friends Cammon & Lorri Randle at CopperRain! They did an excellent job interviewing & filming us, and have really provided a great way for us to share how The Hundred Dollar Business got started. 🙂

Cammon & Lorri found us through our friend Janet’s blog site, Newspapergrl, and offered to do a video for our project– which we really appreciate! And, that’s another evidence of how blogging & being connected to your network can bring wonderful opportunities.

We decided to put the video up on Revver, so it is available on the right sidebar on our new site, on every page, and also can be e-mailed with this link:

http://one.revver.com/watch/123564/flv/affiliate/49468

or shared via blog by going to that link and clicking “Grab code” under “Share this video with others”.

If you like the Hundred Dollar Business, and you want to let people know about our project through the video… well, we’re definitely not going to stop you! 🙂

December 18: Leave The Binder In The Car

The Update

Hey! So, things are going better… Rachelle was at the kiosk this afternoon, and I vegged a bit & took care of small fires that have been adding up into big blazes. And I even managed to get a short nap. 😉

The Biggest Problem… The One You’re Letting Slide

Isn’t it amazing how quickly things go from just being small inconveniences to major problems when not attended to!
I think what I can most take from this is to not minimize any challenge and think that it’s “not a big deal”, even when it obviously is a big deal! If the same problems crop up day after day and just get pushed to the back burner… they just compound.

Yes, that’s common sense, but on the other hand, it’s the most dangerous kind of challenge to have– the one that’s being ignored. Even though it was just “small things” that got done today, getting them done feels gooooood.

The Understaffing Update

I’m appreciative of the encouraging comments, and have been working on getting the understaffing challenge eased.

Some friends passed around a volunteer signup sheet, so we do have a couple people coming in this week to help. Next week is looking a little scary with Rachelle heading home for Christmas, but you can bet I’m going to be working on solving that this week instead of waiting until we’re right in the middle of it. 😉

Leave The Binder In The Car

I had a couple of social work jobs right after I graduated from college, and in that intense working environment, I learned that I had to keep things separate from being at work and going home.

We had a binder with the information we were planning for our clients, workshops, their needs, and how we could help them. Sometimes I had appointments with clients after our office was already closed, so I still had my binder with me when I went home.

It was kind of silly, but I always made sure I left the binder in my car, instead of bringing it inside with me– in social work, it is too easy to be concerned for your clients all the time…

So anyway, that’s something that I’ve been forgetting to do throughout this project– to have some time that is not being consumed by work. One of the guest lecturers in my entrepreneurship class at BYU said that a new business will take everything you can give it… and more. We are finding that to be completely accurate!

It looks like we’ve been bombing Principle 6–“Keep It Balanced”, but we’ve got about 12 days left, so I’m guessing that if we can start finding ways to apply that concept, things will finish off well. 🙂

December 17: Zero In On The Problem

Ok, so I wrote about how I’m struggling/the project is struggling because we’re working too hard & not resting enough.

So, I’m still not sure how to solve that, but I’ve at least come up with some ideas as to why it’s even a problem, which must be the first step to getting past it.

The Why

1. We seriously underestimated the hours that the kiosk is required to be open during this month, and what that would be like as a reality (the mall was open 93 hours this week… and will be 107 hours this coming week. I’m not sure why I thought that would be do-able, but… turns out, it’s not.).

2. I seriously overestimated my personal capacity to be here.

3. Because we’ve been pushing ourselves, all of us are either highly stressed or sick. (Not good!)

4. I noticed last Monday that being “understaffed” was a problem, and have let an entire week go by without doing something proactive about it.
5. Going along with #3, sometimes people can’t make it in, and then we have less staff to work with.

6. I simply haven’t put the word out that we are struggling and need staff/volunteers. There are a lot of reasons for that, including:

• It can be difficult to find volunteers, especially on short notice, during finals week in a college town, etc.
• The unknown legal factors of having staff who aren’t being paid (if we were a non-profit, fine, but technically we’re a business?).
• Not wanting to advertise that we’re “hiring”, because it is just an experiment (heck, we’re not even being paid!)
• My assumption that people wouldn’t want to volunteer at a mall kiosk. (It is fun, just not when it’s marathon-style for one or two people).
• It seems like since this is our project, we should just take care of it ourselves….?

7. I’m too independent for my own good, and I dislike asking others for help.

The Bottom Line

I think at the end of it all, the fact is, we haven’t solved the problem because… we haven’t tried to solve it directly. I can keep thinking it out, or, maybe I could just start coming up with some options for how to find some volunteers.

It is both amazing & frustrating that when we started the project, that we didn’t see any of the”impossible” factors as obstacles, and found ways to make things work… whereas now, because of the effects of fatigue, all that’s obvious is obstacles, in even the simplest challenges.

I read a great article about the health care community/professional nurses– highly applicable, because they typically are overworked, long shifts, etc. It was really interesting to see the connection between fatigue and error.

It will be even more interesting if we can apply principle #8 “Be Resourceful” and #9 “Get Around Obstacles”, and hopefully move past this problem so we can focus on finishing the project successfully.

Your suggestions are definitely welcome… 🙂

December 16: From The Shadows of the Everlasting Kiosk

Mall Marathon

I just have to throw it out there– today, I survived a 17 hour shift. On a Saturday, at the mall, 9 days before Christmas.

Yeah… and I never want to have that experience again. I got here at 7 a.m., and around 2 p.m., was already beginning to feel a loss of identity. At 4 p.m., a RockStar was looking pretty good, although, since I have a moral stance against energy drinks, I somehow made it through without one. When I closed, I’ve never felt more happy.

I know there’s something wrong with doing a “mall marathon”, which I’m not applying my problem-solving skills to yet, because I’m really tired–I simply can’t figure it out. I think that is the biggest challenge that I’m facing right now in the project… which I’ll discuss more in the next post.
Visitors Aplenty

I saw 13 people I know today! Many others have stopped by as well during the past two weeks, which I really appreciate.

Today it was wonderful, spontaneous, and pretty evenly distributed throughout the day. I think it was some good kiosk karma, helping to make the marathon less of a burden.

Showing the kiosk is kind of like giving someone a tour of your first on-your-own apartment. You’re proud of it, even though it’s minimalistic (translation: ghetto).

Actually, by now, our displays are looking pret-ty good, and we’re bustling along. First kiosk and all. But we do have that “hey, this is our business!” pride going on, so if you do visit, watch out for that. 😉

Awesome New Products!

Our kiosk is called “Treats & Treasures,” and we’d been thinking that we needed more Christmas-y treats to add, but weren’t sure what or how to go about it. We had brainstormed & wanted to find chocolate pretzels, hot cocoa tins, cookie dough or do-it-yourself cookie decorating kits, Christmas taffy, etc.

So on Friday when I was at Nutty Guys, Nathan showed me some chocolate-caramel covered pretzels and tubs of Christmas caramels… and I was definitely happy. I hadn’t told him we were looking for those types of things, and I didn’t know he had access to them, either.

What a blessing to find the exact things we were wanting, without even looking for them! I am really grateful for things like that which have happened throughout this experiment!

I’ll post pictures of the caramels & pretzels– when I get home, because…

The Mall’s Wireless Internet… An Art & Science

The internet here is seriously finicky! I’ve actually put scotch tape on the kiosk desk, plotting the exact coordinates where my laptop has to sit in order to catch the wireless network.

If more than two people walk by the kiosk, the network cuts off. That I know this, I’m sure, is a reflection on my pseudo-geek status.

Upcoming Carnival…

And finally, get ready for our blog carnival announcement, later this evening or tomorrow… That’s all I’m going to say about that. 😉 From the shadows of the everlasting kiosk… goodnight!

December 15: Halfway There!

Is It The 15th Already?

So… we’re at the halfway mark. Only 15 more days of The Hundred Dollar Business, and each day is just as valuable as when we started, maybe even more so. I think really, that the limited time is more difficult than the limited budget. There are so many more things I would do, if I had more time!

(And, I realize I’m already spending a grossly workaholic-ish amount of time on the project, anyway. I’m looking forward to Christmas Day… and of course, my vacation in January!)

Today was a great day. I’m not sure why. Maybe that sounds odd, but it has been particularly beastly the last few days, and that today was even keel, is refreshing.

Nutty Guys & Warehouses

At any rate, I was able to stop by Granite Publishing & Distribution to pick up more Christmas picture books, and I also went up to the Nutty Guys warehouse in West Valley City, UT. That was fun! I wish I’d taken a camera up with me– they have this fabulous warehouse with so many things going on!

It’s an operations-guru’s dream, to see all of the processes & systems that are organized in a setting like that. I asked them if I could have a tour sometime. I’m sure they get that a lot. 😉

(For the record, I also want a tour of a U.S. Post Office sometime. That has to be one of the most processed & efficient operations ever.)

Out of curiousity, anyone ever had several hundred pounds of nuts and nut trays in your car? I’ve delivered magazines for Schooled Magazine before, back when I was doing freelance writing, and afterwards, my car smelled like a print shop. After getting the Nutty Guys stuff yesterday, my car could double as a PB & J sandwich factory. 😉

Stocking Up

So, after the mall closed down for the night, Kelly & I restocked our products for Saturday. Last week, we did really well on the weekend, and we are hoping & planning for amazing sales over this weekend, as well.
When I was getting the boxes from my car, I felt like a stock girl/night crew/truck driver type. I pulled my car up to the loading dock, grabbed a wheely cart, and piled it up with the boxes of books & nuts. (By the way, it was snowing…)

Then I pushed the cart through the mall’s secret maintenance hallways– it’s fun to read “Authorized Personnel Only!” and realize… I am authorized! At one point, there were some double doors, which opened to the inside of the doorway, and it was really interesting getting the cart through there.

Of course, as I was pushing this huge load of inventory through the mall, I was getting some bemused looks from other mall employees & lagging customers. I guess I just don’t have the warehouse look down yet. I’m going to have to work on that. 😉

Our Awesome Vendors!

It was great to visit with our vendors today. Seriously, we totally lucked out with the products we were able to get, as well as how diligent our vendors are.

Interestingly, we just assumed that our products would sell, which seems like one of those assumptions that entrepreneurs make and don’t factor in when calculating risk & projections. When I weighed the lease with the need to sell products, I never considered “what if these products don’t sell?”

Which is probably a good thing, because then our approach has been “what do we need to do so that these products will be extremely marketable” rather than “my products aren’t selling & there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Well– stick around! More adventures to come. 😉

December 14: Becoming Stingy, Failing My Class, & Return of The Treo!!

I just realized I haven’t been writing as many anecdotes lately, which is definitely one of the highlights of being in the experiment– the random nature of it all. So here goes.

Becoming Stingy

Rachelle and I decided to beef up our display with a winter-ish theme. It all sounded great until after closing the kiosk at 11:30 p.m., we realized that nothing was open except Wal-Mart. (I know… “quality items for a display” and “the Springville, Utah Wal-Mart” aren’t exactly synonymous.)

Anyway, the funny thing is that we do have about $60 left in “the budget”, and we couldn’t really decide how much to use on the display. The value of a dollar has become just ridiculously expensive to me– to spend $20 for a display seemed like a fat waste of cash. Because really, when you scale it down like that, anything you spend is crucial.

As we walked through the store looking at things, we were like… “$2.77? You do realize that is 2.77% of our total budget?” With the mindset like that, we  just couldn’t bring ourselves to buying anything. We were looking for blue & silver winter-looking snowman-ish things, and though we found quite a few… it seemed like selling out to actually spend money.

So when I was driving home, I kept thinking, “Man! I’ve got to know someone who has that kind of stuff that we could borrow, some excess Christmas looking deco in their house.” Then I walked into my apartment, which frankly, I haven’t seen much of for the last few weeks, and realized that all my decorations– jars, flowers, candlesticks, etc. are blue & silver.

Yep. So it’s The Hundred Dollar Business budget, all the way!

Failing My Entrepreneurship Class

So, my Entrepreneurship Lecture class at BYU this semester? I think I’m actually going to fail it. I went to all the classes & lectures, and the extra required events, but with working at the other startup plus everything else, and now this project, things like “deadlines for a one page paper” haven’t made it to the top of my task-list.

The sad thing is, I’ve blogged about all of the events and lectures I went to. I wish I could just turn in a blog post for credit.  Maybe I’ll try enacting the “Negotiate Win-Win Situations” principle– I spaced the 5 p.m. “late” deadline tonight.

Somehow, it all seems fitting, though. “I failed my entrepreneurship class because I was starting a business.” 😉

Return of The Treo

…Do you own anything worth more than ten bucks? Just get insurance on it. It is the best investment of $5/month you can make!

After the Treo was stolen, I called Verizon to have the line suspended, so the hooligan(s) that nabbed it wouldn’t be able to run up the bill. I’m sad that the customer service rep didn’t tell me that if I had insurance, it would be replaced the next day– as I’ve spent the last 6 days miserable in a communication-less void.

But even after someone told me to check if I had insurance, I held off. I can’t figure it out–I think my reasoning was “I’m too busy to take care of a dumb thing like my phone being stolen.” And yet, it created big problems for me in trying to make all kinds of arrangements for the kiosk, my employee situation, vendors, etc.

Though, the best news ever is that I did finally call in the theft, and they are sending me a new one! It’s already being shipped, and is coming in later tomorrow afternoon! How cool is that!
Ye Basic Summary

Honestly– I’ve been getting burned out of being at the kiosk. For a gag, we made “I Heart My Kiosk” shirts on Cafepress.com… and the last few days, nothing could be further from the truth. Oh! And someone told Rachelle that they would invite her to some activity, but she’s in a relationship… with a kiosk. (Which made us laugh!)

I guess the challenge is that the mall is open 7 days/week, we’re grossly understaffed (which, I still haven’t figured out how to solve), and with the holiday hours being extended (from 7 or 8 a.m. to 10 or 11 p.m.)… it’s just looooong.

As well, I’m trying to juggle the following ideas:

1. Don’t work in your business, work on your business.

2. Don’t hire (or spend money) until you really need to.

3. My personal belief that I *can’t* hire anyone (or ask them to help out a lot) unless I feel confident that I can either pay them (best case scenario) or provide value for their time, and I’m not sure how to provide that yet.

4. Don’t “buy yourself a job”. (Erika Wilde, from StopDirt.com, shared this one with my class a few weeks ago. She was considering buying a franchise, but realized that the ROI for the time managing the business would be marginal).

Anyway, for me to not have time to step away to plan & act on attracting local customers or revamping our product & display, presents an opportunity cost I don’t like to have. I know that the kiosk’s capacity for revenue is really limited, and I want to maximize the time we have. Only 17 days left. Sigh.

So, there are some anecdotes and random thoughts. It really is an adventure. Right now it’s the middle of the marathon, so we need to keep trucking, and move past the setup/operations phase, and into the revenue/growth stage.

If it goes well, that should be the most exciting stage! 😉

Internet Options Part 2: Thoughts And Reservations

My Thoughts & Reservations About Viral Marketing Tools

I think most of these reservations result from a lack of experience using these tools, combined with my sense of wanting the experiment to be taken as a serious effort, not a hype campaign. So here they are:

1. How Will Monetizing The Site Affect Readers?

In applying anything to our blog which monetizes the content/site (AdSense, Yepic, Commission Junction, Lulu.com, YouRep), what message does this send to the readers– and if we use these tools on our site, will we lose some visitors who are put off by an emphasis on revenue?

2. Do YouTube Videos Convert To Sales?

What will be the effect of releasing our video on GoogleVideo, YouTube, YouRep, and our site? Will there be an increase in the amount of visitors we get, and if so, will they also become interested in what we’re doing over the longterm, or just the day that they watched the video?

3. Does Anyone Buy CafePress Shirts?

Will anyone actually buy one of the shirts/stickers we made on CafePress? And will those products do anything to help spread the concept of The Hundred Dollar Business, or will they end up as a discount item at The Salvation Army? 😉

(Seriously, I’m not a graphic designer… and I used WordPaint for the graphic. I know there are better options out there, but I was strapped for time. And P.S., if someone does buy one of those shirts, we will definitely post your picture on the site wearing it. If you want.)

4. Can Social Networking Sites Promote Business Effectively?

Are MySpace and FaceBook really applicable to spreading business concepts? If I was a band groupie, it could be effective to use those tools, but for this market, what can MySpace & FaceBook really offer us?

5. Aren’t Friends & Family Already Tired Of Hearing About It?

By e-mailing and blogging about The Hundred Dollar Business, what is the benefit/cost on my relationships with my friends, family, and network? (I’m sure a few of you may be little sick of hearing about the kiosk. 😉 )

By the way, I sent an e-mail to some friends the other day, letting them know that my phone was stolen & I needed their contact info, and within a few hours, I had 22 e-mails back. So obviously, e-mail can spread word quickly, but is there an annoyance factor that results from combining business interests/relationships?

6. Free Content Versus Paid Content

Are e-books and paid articles presumptuous things to do when there is so much free content available (like our main blog, for example!), or is that really a tool which can provide compensation for the time an author/business invests in creating information for others? And, is there really a demand for paid articles yet?

7. Is Our Business Compelling Enough To The Media?

Will anyone pick up our story from the press releases, and if so, what kind of media attention will we be able to get, and ultimately, will that increase customers at our kiosk, online purchasing of our products, or our blog readership?

8. What Will Be The ROI of Affiliate Marketing?

In publicizing our vendors’ sites or using Commission Junction, will any of them see an increase in traffic & purchasing of their products online, and if so, how great of an increase? And, what will that translate into for our business, in terms of revenue– and will that offset the man hours of setting up those applications?

The Sum-Up

I think there are a lot of great tools we have available, and I’m interested to see what results will come, if any. What we would like to have happen is:

1. An increased local awareness of the kiosk to drive business & improve sales.
2. Recognition for our vendors and their products, as part of our thanks for working with us and also because we really like their products!
3. To spread the concept of The Hundred Dollar Business.
4. And frankly, to have a backup way to generate revenue in case the experiment bombs and we end up owing on part of the kiosk lease.

My prediction is that either:

A. We will have minimal attention from these efforts, but we’ll be more familiar with how these tools work, and our readers will have to cut through more features to read the content they’re interested in.

B. The marketing will spread quickly & we’ll see huge daily spikes that trail off with probably a long-term double or triple increase in blog readership, and we’ll have some revenue, although not much (less than $500 total on all accounts).

I don’t think that our mall kiosk will see an increase in sales, unless a local news station picks up the story & all our friends come down to take advantage of the friends & fam discounts for last minute gifts. 😉

By the way, currently, we are at about 850 visitors/week average, 100+ day, so double would be 1700/week, average of 200+/day, and triple would be 2550/week, 300+ day– if those numbers are off… I’ve had a long week.

And so, let the viral marketing roll!

Internet Options Part 1: Think Virally

Internet Options

Even though we went *off-line* to start the kiosk, there are a lot of really valuable ways to use technology and the Internet to build opportunities for our business. The ones we are currently working with include:

1. Commission Junction
2. CafePress
3. Lulu.com
4. Yourep.com/Flickr
5. Google Video/YouTube
6. Facebook/MySpace
7. Our vendors’ sites.
8. Copper Rain
9. AdSense
10. Word of Mouth (E-mail/Blogs)
11. Yepic.com
12. Press releases sent via the Internet

Think Virally

One of the principles we are testing, is “Think Virally”– using cheap, effective marketing tactics– word of mouth, viral marketing, and natural traffic.

Before we decided on the kiosk at the mall and signed our lease, we learned that we would have access to about 50,000 shoppers per holiday weekend, and we’d be here for 5 weekends. That’s a great location for us to have a storefront in this area– there is no way we could generate that amount of walk-in customers any other way, given our time and budget constraints.

(Maybe in five years… but a month… not likely).

So, after we had been running for a few days, and blogging, there was an online traffic spike of nearly 2000 visitors within a day, which was exciting! And unlike the mall traffic, where people mosey around, and only sometimes notice our kiosk, the online traffic was a pretty focused group who were coming to our site for the most because they wanted to read about what we are doing.

(Although some of our visitors have come from search words like “realistic sleeping kitten that breathes”– I’m happy to say, we are listed on the fourth page of Google search results for those keywords!)

At any rate, that traffic presented an additional opportunity to further use the Internet and the viral marketing principle to boost our kiosk. Though, I do have reservations about many of those tools, which is in part why we haven’t released them yet.

Why A Kiosk Instead of Staying Online?

Frankly, when people ask why we started a kiosk instead of doing an online business, or just picking any one of these web applications, such as Cafepress, it’s a great question. And at times when I am really starting to get sick of being at the mall all day (yes… it does happen!!), I wonder, too. 😉

If we wanted to just make money, there’s no question it could be done for $0 and extremely quickly on the Internet. Especially if we cut corners, disregarded basic ethics/social rules of the Internet, and just blitzed a hype product or fad.

But mainly, with this experiment, I really wanted a hands-on business, and to apply those 10 principles to everything that makes up a traditional endeavor: employees, cash flow, projections, budget, accounting, budget, market analysis, products, vendors, commissions, sales, marketing, operations, opening the store, pricing… all of it.

These are things that entrepreneurs often disregard when they are thinking about an idea. Many of these things have changed from being concepts into “reality” for me during this experiment. For example, getting the kiosk as an idea sounded like fun, but manning it and making sure everything is taken care of, is not as glamorous. 😉

That said, we do want to apply viral marketing principles to promote our kiosk & The Hundred Dollar Business concept.

We will in the next day or so begin using many of those applications listed earlier in this post, but for the record, I’m also posting my thoughts, reservations, and predictions in Part 2 on what I think could happen from applying these tools to our business.

If It’s Not Selling, Do Something.

We just realized that some of our products aren’t selling well. And frankly, some aren’t selling at all.

On one hand, I could let it ride out for the month, and just blame it on those products, or the market, or the time of year, or whatever.

But the reality is, that if the products aren’t selling, then I am “paying” for them to sit there, at least from the opportunity cost of the profit I could have earned from selling them. And since being a storage unit is not the purpose of a mall kiosk, something needs to change. 😉

So, we went through and looked at the kiosk as a whole last night. There are a lot of great things happening with the display, but definitely some gaps, as well. We evaluated everything based on:

1. Why is/isn’t this product selling?
2. What makes this display successful or not?
3. What is the overall message that is communicated to the shoppers by this arrangement of items?
4. Would people understand what this section is selling?
5. Would I personally buy these items?
6. If we improve the display, could these items do better?
7. Is this the right kind of product to have on a kiosk as anyway?
8. Does this product fit with the overall theme of our kiosk, “Treats & Treasures”?

We took everything off that was a sure “no-seller”– which had been on display for the last ten days but hadn’t generated any interest or sales. It was frustrating on one hand, to realize that the kiosk has been carrying a lot of dead weight, but it was also wonderful to do something about it, and start making plans to get products & displays matched up so we will do better overall.

There are still 18 shopping days left in December, 12 of which are before Christmas. If we move quickly, we can get our new displays working well before the weekend, which is when about 1/2 of our sales happen. With 2 pre-Christmas weekends left, plus the frenzied week before Christmas, and an additional weekend after Christmas, the time to get things improved is now.

It would be interesting to set up two kiosks, both with the same products, but one with a fabulous display/well- strategized visual merchandising plan, and the other with the items poorly represented, and then compare their sales trends. I know the difference would be amazing, but I’m wondering how amazing– would sales be doubled, tripled at the well-presented one?

Even with the improvements we’ve made since the first day, things drastically changed for some of our products. So, I’m hopeful that with some additional changes, the other products will see similar improvement.

Another challenge coming up is that the week after Christmas, holiday items won’t be as marketable, so I’m already thinking of what we’ll need to do to either push the inventory that we do have, or have a “winter holiday” enough theme that we’ll be okay for those last 6 days.

Anyone have some visual merchandising tips… for the holidays, and for kiosks? We’re looking into all of this (I love Google…), but really, your thoughts are helpful as well. 😉