Not a bad way to end a month, aside from the lack of sales today.

What am I doing sitting here at 9 on a Saturday evening when I could be spending time with my honey? Well … it’s TMI but we spent our time together earlier … & all I can say about that, is wow.

So afterwards, we decided to go out to eat & walk the mall after that. Funny how things come together sometimes. A short time ago, our little mall got an actual “out in the mall” customer service “booth”. Up until tonite, we had not seen anyone manning it tho. Tonite we saw Jodi there. She is the wonderful lady who always came to check on all us artists while we did the mall thing. So we chatted a bit. I think she likes me, as a small business person/artist. She knows what my financial picture looks like. She is not the type of person to try to push me into something I can’t afford. Earlier this year, the mall was sold, & the new owners have the means to sink some money into this mall to make it again, what it could be. One of the smaller things they have done so far is get all new kiosks. Admittedly, they do look much nicer than the old ones. They have added Wi-Fi to the mall. They’ve made an effort to make things inside look nicer with small changes. But anyways…

Jodi was asking what they could do to get me into one of the new kiosks. We talked about how I just can’t do the all day, everyday, thing right now. She has been tossing an idea in her head & told us about it. She would like to see a possibly year round “Artist Avenue” type “store” happen. They have several vacant stores right now. A couple of them would work. So I added my views to her ideas. I told her if there was a way to be able to be closed when we needed to be, that would be great. You know, have the different sections be covered &/or roped off when the artist cant be there. It would be better for allot of us who work alone & just can’t be there open to close 7 days a week. We went into several details & we both like the ideas that came out of it. So, she’ll be putting the bug into corporate’s ear ….

Then … she also offered another venue to help get me some advertising. The vacant store fronts have been curtained off & made to look nice. They have also used the protected side areas on either side of the “doors” as places for advertising. Well, soon, one of those places could have a display of my stuff with contact info & all that cool stuff. She is confident the pricing would be very affordable for me. So, we’ll see what happens there.

And then …. She is also looking for part time help manning the customer service booth. Again, she said she’d love to see me there. We talked about that a bit & she printed me out the job description. She is such a good & honest person. Nice, real, person. Someone who would be great to be a team player with. So, it’s a lot of stuff to think about. It would be great connections for me, no matter how much or little I get involved. I’m certainly glad we stopped to chat with her. I now have a stack of her cards to hand out to artists whom I think would be interested in being in the mall at an affordable level, & perhaps even with flexible hours.

I walked away from that with a good feeling. It’s certainly a better ending to a day than the beginning.

Today was a market day. We still don’t have much produce, due to the weather. We finally got Lek, the lady who sells flowers today. Still, we are mostly craft people. Several people did well today. But in the same respect, several people didn’t do squat. Me included. I sold one bookmark for $3. My stall fee was $8. So it cost me $5 to be there today. At least I wasn’t the only one who had crap sales. That helped me feel better. I think we all know that once the produce comes in, sales should rise a bit all over. That’s what we tell each other anyways.

I had a lady stop & chat with me today. She is the mom to one of the newest craft people. She loved my work & gave me a few new ideas of who to approach that may be interested in the type of stuff I have. So, that’s cool too.

Ok, I’m done rambling for now. I think. My beer was really good. Not sure what I’ll get into next. Honey is watching some weird serial killer stuff on TV. Not a bad way to end a month, aside from the lack of sales today.