So, you know that “go to sleep by midnight” part of the experiment?
Yeah. Not happening. (As I write this, it’s 1:32 a.m. And I’m at the mall still).
But in breaking that requirement so often, I finally learned why it’s so essential. Sunday night, I was up until 6 a.m. I’m not advocating that, I’m just saying it happened.
I was working on our finances, setting up the accounting systems we are using, forms, etc., so that it’s more of a no-brainer at the end of the night. (Principle 7, “Franchise” the Business so essential processes are systematic.)
And so, of course, Monday was the morning that my phone decided to basically explode, so I didn’t hear the alarm nor the frantic phone calls from my worried kiosk people, Rachelle, Kelly, and Channing when I didn’t show up because I was asleep.
I woke up at 10 a.m. Ideally, I was supposed to meet one of our vendors at 8 a.m., bring the spare kiosk keys to another vendor who was bringing in supplies, open shop for Rachelle to start selling, and… go to our publisher-distributer to pick up the books. There’s nothing like waking up and realizing you’ve already got apologies to make to 4 people, plus reschedule appointments. Argh.
Anyway, so owners don’t sleep in. (Or maybe just, “owners don’t sleep”– anyone like that for a t-shirt?) They just can’t.
But, I did get the books, and met up with everyone, etc., just not exactly on schedule. I’ve always sort of wondered why entrepreneurs and startup business owners are a bit flaky. Must be the sleep deprivation. And the gazillion tasks on your mind 24/7!
So, it was a slow day at the mall. We heard that Mondays and Tuesdays are really slow, and we know now that they are! Most of the day we were under our average sales from Saturday and Sunday, and then at the end of the night, we had abig order which made everyone happy again.
We have set sales goals of $1,000/day. Understandably, that’s not currently realistic, especially not on slow days. But, at least it pushes us forward more than if we set goals of $100/day. And I’m intent to find a way to make that happen.
(That’s about average for a kiosk at this mall during December, anyway– probably later in the month, though).
Also on Monday, we heard news from Nutty Guys, that our order was ready and they were going to deliver it to the mall, saving me a 60 mile round trip. What nice people, seriously!
We are selling their bags of packaged yogurt pretzels, mixed nuts, pistachios, pecans, bananas, and also their gift trays of nuts & fruit, nuts & candy, or mixed nuts. If you’re in Utah County and want to order in advance and pick it up at the mall, we’d be glad to help you out. Give me a call– our number’s on the Contact Us page.
Also, we are learning a lot about visual merchandising. The better our display, the more interest our customers have in our products. It makes sense, but it’s not something I’ve ever done, and it can be discouraging to realize that we just don’t know enough fast enough yet to make our kiosk a Taj Mahal of merchandising. But, it’s night and day looking better than when we first slung our products up that first night. 
Alright, on to Tuesday!
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