Its been a whirlwind weekend for us! On Friday we met with a
new Business Adviser at SEDA in hopes of getting the ball rolling for our
Kiddie Food business. The new adviser asked some great questions and we were
able to chat quite a few things through with her. Our conversation lead to the
decision to register for a stall at the Outeniqua Show here in George from
16-18 August and use that as a launch-pad. They said that one of the ways they
could assist us was with getting basic marketing and branding done so that we
could put up a stall and begin to sell some of our products. (Unfortunately,
SEDA’s slowness in printing the labels hampers our production happening!)
They sent us to see 2 of their service providers who
specialise in marketing/branding/printing. Our first visit was incredibly
exciting! They lady who helped us was inspiring in her creativity and some of
the ideas she shared with us. She challenged us to consider a name change that
would help to give our product a more superior edge and compliment the up
market labeling she was suggesting. To ensure we’re ready for the show the
design and printing needs to be finalised and commissioned by the end of this
week. With that in mind, Dieter and I spent a good portion of the weekend
typing up a comprehensive list of ingredients for the labels and researching
alternative business name options. This is all looking very exciting, and
daunting at the same time. Our plan was to spend the rest of this week working
very hard to fill the freezer and stock up for the show.
This morning we met with a 2nd service provider,
a less enthusiastic and much less experienced guy. He didn’t offer any ideas or
insights and was finished in half the time that we spent with the first lady.
But he did confirm that SEDA’s offer to do a ‘basic marketing/branding’
exercise would not suffice because to brand our product and do it properly from
the start will cost a lot more money than what they’re talking about. Neither
of the 2 advisers were in the office today and so we were unable to make
contact with the 3rd service supplier to finalise the quotes.
Suddenly we were looking at the possibility of printing what we need on our own
so that we can at least be ready for the show. After thinking about the
decision for a few hours, we contacted the packaging supplier to get the
packaging delivered only to discover that they have no packaging in stock for
us. That finalised the decision for us – we are not cooking this week!
Next week we are traveling to the Eastern Cape for 2 weeks
and when we return we’ll have 10 days to prepare for the show. Am not sure how
much stock we’ll be able to put together for the show, but we’ll definitely use
the show as an opportunity to introduce ourselves to the region and market the
products.
Its been an incredibly disappointing day for us and the
outcome of this situation is still uncertain right now. I was reminded tonight,
when I looked at the basketful of avos Dieter picked off a neighbour’s tree
last week, that life is often filled with opportunities to wait for the ‘fruit
to ripen’. Those avos were picked off the tree and will take weeks to ripen if
we don’t hurry the process and stow them away in the dark! A baby is conceived
and the parents wait for 9 months before he is born. Living life requires great
faith! I do believe that those avos will ripen (and will be delicious!), and I
do believe God is in control and things will all fall into place exactly as He
planned them to for us. We’re in Great Hands!
PS: Schools opened across the country again today after a
bitterly cold weekend and unusually heavy snow storms across the mountains from
West to East. We had the privilege of waking up on Friday morning to
snow-capped mountains and it was beautiful! Schools are open and that signals
the end of our ‘soccer holiday’, Ryan and Ethan were very enthusiastically on
the ball – yeah!
No comments:
Post a Comment