One of the biggest challenges I face with my business is
knowing where to concentrate my efforts and how to grow BAD Sportz. As I
watched the latest Shark Tank episode this guy was selling paint for animals
but was only selling in stores and had no web presence. The fact that he hadn’t
even thought to sell online pretty much cost him any sort of deal. Basically the
Sharks told him he might not be the guy to be running his company because of
his lack of good judgment… It really got me thinking; do I know what I am
doing? Is there something I am missing? I feel like every day I am super busy
and could do several things to grow one way or another. How do I even know the
right way to grow?? Am I missing something obvious like this guy?
Part of the problem lies in the fact that I have no business
plan. I mean I have an idea of what I would like to accomplish but no real path
to follow. As described by my sister the plan is as follows - I throw spaghetti
at a wall and see what sticks. I think
this provides for ultimate flexibility in being able to pursue whatever might
come my way and have always been spontaneous so this fits pretty well, however
sometimes it is nice to have some sort of consistency or plan. So what exactly
should the plan be though? That is pretty much the question I ask myself daily
but just sort of bounce between ideas…
There seems like a huge opportunity with road races, and the
Totally RAD 80s Run definitely has the potential to be a huge event in several
cities with the right marketing in place. Omaha was great for a first year
event, but then I basically ran out of time in Des Moines to do any sort of
marketing because of other volleyball events and it wasn’t that awesome. If the
races can draw 3,000 runners there is potential to make over $50,000 per
race. But drawing up and executing a
marketing plan to make this happen is much harder than it looks! It is doable
as seen by other races, however challenging nonetheless. Anyone with ideas who
wants to join forces to make this happen should definitely contact me!!
BAD Sportz apparel sells great at tournaments or camps and that itself keeps me busy. I basically live out
of my car though with almost 90,000 miles in two years. Not sure all that
driving is what I want to do forever or if my car time is the best way I could
be spending my time. I get calls from parents needing birthday gifts or
Christmas presents often. Although several of them come shop out of my basement
would a retail space make sense? We do have the website up and running but it
really hasn’t been promoted and we haven’t spent any money on advertising.
Should I put more effort into promoting the website and selling online with
sites like Amazon? I set up an Etsy account last week.. .
Should I be selling more there? I get several requests for uniforms and
personalized apparel and have built a solid network of teams. Would it be worth it to
get my own screen printing equipment and grow that direction? It would be
possible to wholesale to stores if we could bring our prices down but then that
would be a whole other channel to manage and grow?? Maybe I should just buy everything from China?
Seriously, how does a business decide where to focus? Do you really need a plan? Am I missing something completely obvious? For
now I might just keep throwing spaghetti J.
I say the TR80R will take off, just gotta give it time, focus on launching it and then getting down to the nitty gritty of promote promote promote! By reaching out to local groups will of course help a lot!
ReplyDeleteBS (Bad Sports) I think by all means does need more online presence! Perhaps a fbook page?! Easy to manage, can post "get this item on a special" and other fun things to get people interested. Maybe look into finding a couple of companies to partner up with and see if they'd do swaps to get you going?