3. ONE OF THE GREATEST CHALLENGES FOR NEW CARD COMPANIES IS WHETHER OR NOT TO INVEST HARD EARNED CASH IN TRADE SHOW ATTENDANCE - WHAT ARE YOUR VIEWS ON THIS.
4. HAVE YOU HAD ANY UK DELEGATES ON YOUR BOOTCAMP YET?
I have lots of thoughts on this. Investing in trade shows is a time intensive and costly endeavor. Our TSBC alumni spend on average $7-10k to do wholesale trade shows, which is no small change. I encourage product makers to do as much as possible to prepare before jumping into shows: • Ensure you have a strong product line that has a unique point of view in the market • Ensure you have enough product • Ensure that your pricing works for wholesale and industry standards • Ensure you have the right sales tools catalog, terms & conditions, order forms • Start building a list of stores you’d like to be in and start reaching out to them. • Start reaching out to local stores to see if they are interested in purchasing wholesale (not consignment) It’s totally ok (and recommended) to launch to wholesale outside of shows. Once you have some momentum and you’ve ironed out your processes, systems and you know you can fulfill orders efficiently, that’s when you should start thinking about wholesale shows.
Yes, we’ve had people attend Paper Camp from all over the world - UK, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada and Sweden to name a few. Our largest contingency of students reside in the United States, as we primarily discuss American based trade shows.
lll
lll
5. FOR THOSE WHO CAN’T TRAVEL, CAN WE TAKE A DISTANCE LEARNING COURSE INSTEAD?
Yes, we offer our Paper Camp E-Course twice a year. The online program is a four week, live course that incorporates a mix of DIY videos, weekly Q&A video calls and a group forum for class discussions. lll
6. SHARE SOME OF YOUR PLANS FOR 2018 AND BEYOND - AND WILL THAT INCLUDE ANY VISITS TO EUROPEAN TRADE SHOWS?
In 2018, we’ll continue to host our podcast Proof to Product as well as our Paper Camp conferences and e-courses. We’re working on some new advanced programs for our alumni. Paper Camp will be held in Los Angeles for the foreseeable future. We have a great venue that feels like we’re sitting together in a living room rather than a stuffy conference room. We have indoor and outdoor space for different activities. And, we’re conveniently located about 10 minutes from LAX airport so it’s fairly easy for people to get there. Maybe we’ll go abroad when my kids are a bit older J lll
KATIE HUNT
Website: http://tradeshowcamp.com Podcast: http://prooftoproduct.com Email: katie@tradeshowcamp.com Podcast Instagram: http://instagram.com/prooftoproduct Katie´s Instagram: http://instagram.com/tradeshowcamp
6