Wednesday 29 August 2012

Kiddie Gourmet re-group


Almost 10 days after the George Show, life has been much quieter for us on the home front. Production has stopped altogether and we’ve quickly regrouped and worked on the next phase of strategy to advertise and get our product ‘out there’. I went to bed very early for the first few nights after the show, barely managing to stay awake much longer than the little ones! I was exhausted! And, in many ways, it was a huge anti-climax to be finished with the show.

We’ve used the time to get ourselves back into our ‘usual routine’ after our break away to the Eastern Cape and the 2 weeks of preparation for the show. It was also wonderful to see my homeschooling friends: a few of them had sent messages while we were away, and it felt strangely odd but very wonderful to be missed after being here for such a short time! We also went to see our designer and printer to get our A3 posters printed and have since spent a few hours every day visiting all the crèches, clinics, pediatricians, hospitals, stores and community notice boards we can find to put up posters and hand out flyers. The response has been wonderfully encouraging and almost everyone we approached was willing to put a poster and get the flyers out.

In the meantime we’ve also designed our contravision (a one-way material that is printed on and stuck onto the back window of our car) and gift vouchers, bringing us to the end of our R25 000 contract sponsored by SEDA. The financial assistance they have given us has helped us greatly to produce marketing materials that look professional and give our product great support! The next step is to develop our new website (www.kiddiegourmet.com) into an online-store/e-shop!

Having a consumable product means that ‘best before’ dates are a huge deadline, which if not met result in ‘dead stock’. We’re encouraged by our first order yesterday, and the second one we received today! People are hearing about us and starting to call – and for the first time in a looooong time, I’m loving the sound of a ringing phone!

The learning curves have been huge, and we’re still learning! But I can’t deny how exciting this journey has been!

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