Turning at shows,the system,home run!

[Jjartwood]

Ok,despite the advice given to me on this forum (Thank You by the way)
I decided to take a shot at this and I think I got it to work,
TRY THIS, I stretched 5 pens out over several hours by taking very small cuts
to avoid the "that don't take long"guy in the crowd. whenever there was a child
in the group watching I would engage the child mostly by explaining friction
and then I would use a wire and burn in a line,when the crowd got to a good size my wife would call me into the tent to answer some type of question and
I would invite the crowd to look at what I made with my big boy lathe.
When I finished the slimline( not the best job I would not try to sell them)
I would give it to a child in the group who was of grammar school age.
Don't be afraid to shut the lathe off and talk to the crowd.
Don't show off on how quickly you can cut a pen.
Use friction polish to show quick results (I would explain that it is polish and not the finish that I use on my "good" pens).
Also as soon as I shut the lathe off my called me over if there was only 1 or 2 people (usually other wood guys) there.
Every pen that I gave to a kid, resulted with a sale to the parents except for one.
I think the trick to this is to keep in mind that at a show your a salesman
and the serious penmaker has to be left at the shop.

 

[jaeger]

Good idea on giving away a pen. It seemed to work for you anyway.
I brought my small lathe to one show that was intended more as a demonstration event, and I have to admit, it was a lot of fun and really engaged the customers.

I didn't sell a lot that night but as we speak, I am waiting for a customer to pick up pen # 5 and 6, and I am pretty sure that this is going to involve more sales also. This event was about a year ago and is still creating excitement.

My advice for anyone reading this, talk about your pens as much as possible, carry some decent pens whenever feasible, or have them within reach, and always carry some business cards with your contact info. Name, email and phone number. I just use the Avery Clean Cut style and just print off a few sheets at a time. I don't have a web site so I just send photos upon request. The reason I only print a few sheets at a time is that if I every get an etsy, facebook or web site, I can add it at that time.
Also, I can include or not include these sites for various reasons.

I hope this helps someone!

 

[Kretzky]

Very good marketing & your wife's assistance at the right time is very inventive too. Glad it worked for you. Congrats, hope it continues to work.
David

 

[thewishman]

Congrats, Mark! You found a way to make it work. Hope the show was a success.

 

[Jjartwood]

The show is one of the better shows in this area, one little extra was that I e-mailed
the promoter today to say how much fun I had and that I am looking forward to next years show. I received a positive response.
"Salesmanship begins when the customer says no"

 

[thewishman]

Congrats!