Jennie DESTROYED the display booth for our BIGGEST EVENT all year!!!

I screwed up this morning. Welcome back, friends. This week, we fulfilled more board orders for the holidays. Jenny dressed up like a girl. I do that sometimes. And Jenny had her huge marketing event this week. She ruined her display banner. It's kind of funny. It's almost a catastrophe, but you pulled it off. Great job. We'll talk about it. Here we go. We're Jenny and Davis. We fly through hurricanes for research and build furniture for fun. A while ago, we came up with a business plan to sell quality furniture, which brings people together. Follow along as we build our business empire. Empire? Yes, Jenny. Big goals. Okay, we're starting an empire. Maybe one day it'll span beyond the garage. Another day, another sweatshirt. It's actually chilly enough to wear a jacket today, which is exciting. Yesterday, we got an order for a cutting board and a refinishing kit and just a refinishing kit. Sometimes we sell the refinishing kits for just a dollar to people that are getting a board for free from a realtor. That way we can take their email and address and stuff and hit them up later for big furniture projects in their house. There's also a sales tip there. If somebody spends $1 with you, they're way more likely to spend thousands with you in the future. So if you can get them to crack their wallet open and pay $1, you've already pre-qualified your customer as someone who's willing to buy from you, trusts you and likes your stuff. Jenny's already got a hot lead for someone who wants some furniture. Speaking of hot leads, I've arrived. I'm just kidding. Okay, so here's our finished board. I think it turned out really nice. I love the boards that have sapwood on the edge. I think that's just a really nice like natural touch to give it like texture and depth. And then I like it when people do the family names in the wreath. I think that's cute because we make the last name bigger than like the and family. It just kind of makes it pop. I don't know. This is like overall probably one of my favorite boards. I also really like the walnut charcuterie boards. would you rather fight a horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses? Probably duck-sized horses. You're distracting me. I almost forgot the crinkle paper that's going on the bottom of the box. The people want to know. I said duck-sized horses because then you can just kick them. You don't want to slay the big giant duck. You'd rather do the tiny little horses. That sounds like more fun. Let us know your answer in the comments. Would you rather fight a horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses? Well, we got these two orders boxed up and ready to go out in the mail. So I think that's all the orders we have this morning so we can continue on with our regularly scheduled shenanigans. All right. So what you just saw was right at the end of the week. But earlier in the week, Davis was still gone in Mississippi doing some flying and training and I was getting prepped for my big business marketing event. I am a professional Instagram stalker. That's how we make all of our sales. That's how I find leads. That's how I find leads of leads of leads. And that's how I find events. How I found this event was looking at some random person's Instagram story where they had tagged the person who was running this event and then I somehow made it to her page and then she posted more information about what the event was going to be, what days, and that they were taking vendor applications to have vendor tables. Because I caught this so early, I was one of the first businesses to apply for a vendor table and I got it. So I've been spending just a couple hours a week for the last month or so prepping for this event. This was a formal event and I knew I probably wasn't going to sell very much while I was there. I mean, who wants to carry around a seven pound cutting board and a long dress and heels all night long? I was there to meet people and get known. How do I get them to breeze past all the other sales people in the room and want to come talk to me? Remember, it's a very formal event. Everybody's dressed up. Why not offer a really good opportunity to take a photo? I can offer to hold their phone and take a really nice picture and then maybe there's an option there for some conversation. Then they'll ask what I do. I can explain all of our boards and you get what happens next. They get to know me. So how am I going to do that? First off, I'm going to make a really beautiful backdrop for my table that makes people actually want to stop and take a picture in front of it. And since a lot of these people were already Instagram famous and are used to taking pictures of beautiful backdrops all the time, I had to make sure mine was good enough. I needed something that gave a shout out to the event organizers, had the name of the event, something that really tied the whole experience together and communicated that to the people looking at the picture on social media. So I designed and had printed this really huge banner that I was going to attach to my backdrop with all of those things included on the front of it. So I was going to have this pretty banner and a beautiful backdrop and flashing lights and poofy tulle all over the place. I was even going to bring our ring lights so that I could have people take really nice pictures with great lighting in front of my backdrop. And then this happened. I screwed up this morning. I got this custom paper banner to attach to my big like backdrop that I'm going to have at this event in the back of my table. Oh you guys! I designed it and I ordered it and I spilled coffee on it. I literally was carrying it in the door and I spilled coffee on it. So here it is. You probably can't tell which is good. I might be able to salvage it. But I spilled drops of coffee all down this side. I just brought it home. I just bought it. We're just gonna have to go with it. This right here was actually the culprit. I was kicking him out of the way to come into the door and that's what caused my coffee to spill. So thanks for that. So looking back at the footage now, it doesn't look that bad. But after everything dried, it looked awful. There was like drops everywhere and the ink was smeared and there was just there was no way I was gonna be able to fix it and make it work. And I had no time to go get another one because I had literally picked that banner up the day before the event. I don't know if you've ever been inside a UPS store in the middle of December, but there's no way I was gonna get another one right before the holidays. I didn't know what I was gonna do. This was like the main, this was the crux of my marketing strategy for this event. And I had just ruined it. People weren't gonna come take a picture at my booth. They had no reason to. There was nothing cool enough. And I was here all by myself. Davis was still gone in Mississippi and there was nobody that could help me and it was just, it was just a really bad night. So despite the title of our podcast, I am not a quitter. I could not just back out of the event and quit. So I needed to find some other solution. So I'm thinking, what else can I put on this backdrop to look really cool? Like I don't have a banner. I don't have another sign. And then I thought to myself, I have this black and white Samara table runner. What if I threw that over the backdrop? And so I flung it over with the lights and the tool and everything. And it looked really good. All right, so let's get down to brass tacks. This backdrop is pretty and all. It's got sparkly lights, whatever. It's cute. But what am I actually doing to get people's attention at this event? So there's a couple of things. One, one, I am gonna be giving away a free board. And I'm gonna be doing a drawing. So I'm gonna have a sign put up that says free board. No details, just free board. And then when people come up to my table, I'm gonna have them follow us on Instagram. And that's gonna be like their enter into the drawing. I don't have to just send out one free board. If I have like three of them would be like super amazing clients to have. Oh, guess what? All three of you won and got my free board and all of my marketing and advertising. I'm also gonna be bringing this ring light right here. Because let's be honest, this event, everybody wants to post pretty pictures on social media. They want to advertise. They want to network. They want to tag each other. And if I have a ring light, I have something to offer. If I see two people trying to take a picture together, I can offer my ring light. And all of a sudden, that's a conversation starter. As stupid as that sounds to some people, this ring light could be the reason I sell boards. Because I've got something of value to people at this event. Other than just a pretty little backdrop. But those are some of the plans I have for this event. Some of the things that I want to do to make me stand out. And then I realized there are going to be a bunch of rich people at this event. So what is something that's universally accepted by rich people? What are two words that can stop a rich person dead in their tracks? Real estate. So I've been playing around with this tagline in my head for a while now. Technically, that's what we do. We sell real estate in people's kitchens with these cutting boards. When the business owner's name is on the back and they're the ones that gifted it to the clients, they own a little piece of that client's kitchen. That little center of the kitchen island, that's theirs. Because anytime anybody asks about that cutting board, the answer will be my realtor, my mortgage broker, my boss. My insert rich person here gave this to me. So that's how I was going to lure people to my booth. Everybody else at the other booth is talking about little soaps and jewelry and last-minute Christmas gifts. And I'm over here talking to them about real estate, speaking their language. And don't you know, the very first person that came and talked to me, before I even had my booth set up, looked at my sign and goes, wow, I like your sign. What does that mean? And once I explained it to her, she goes, I like that. I'm actually a realtor. Here's my phone number. Put it in your phone. I wasn't even set up yet. That sign was literally just leaning up against a chair. All right, guys, we are here at the venue. It's absolutely beautiful. The furniture, the decorations, everything. And I just got the table all set up. Got some of our boards sitting out, our sign, packaging, and opportunity for people to win a free board and a giveaway. Got the lights going back here. And now I have to go change into my dress. And I'll meet you back right here. All right, guys, the event starts in probably like 30 minutes. We're all set up here. I got changed and got our boards all sitting out. Ready to talk to people. All right, guys, so I'm back in the car. The event is over. I'm all packed up. I broke everything down. I am tired, but tonight was a good night. It was, I mean, there were just all sorts of people that I wanted to talk to. I'd say about 60% of the people who came to my table were realtors, were mortgage brokers, were lawyers, stuff like that. And I got to meet one of my leads that I just mailed a board to. I got to meet her tonight. So that's the benefit of going to these things, is sometimes you can meet people in person. Now, when I go to talk to these leads that I wrote down in my phone, who I met tonight, I can say, hey, you met me. You put a face to my name. I got to talk to you, which is something that I don't necessarily get over the phone. So it was nice. I'm tired, but it was a lot of good practice for me talking and getting out of my comfort zone and kind of inserting myself in conversations. And, uh, yeah, it was, it was fun. I met so many people at this event and I know I'm going to sell some of them boards. But even if I hadn't come away with leads that I could sell things to, what I learned from this event was well worth the cost of entry. And it's going to pay for itself down the road at future events. Be intentional with your marketing. Get out there and try. And we'll catch you on the next one.