So this past weekend I went with my mom to sell stuff at a craft fair in a little town by Price, UT. My mom and her friend have gone every year for the last three. I figured, since I had made like 200 greetings cards over the last 2 years, that I'd take some and try selling them, since my mom had a booth anyway and she said I could join her. Nothing like sitting in a booth while people look over your creations and reject them out of hand over and over and over again to get you started thinking about life.
Friday we didn't sell a thing. By the time 1 o'clock came around on Saturday (the fair opened around 9) and I had sold $3 worth of stuff, I was about ready to cry. To make matters worse, this town was in the middle of a canyon and I couldn't get cell phone coverage. I so wanted to talk to Chris (my husband) and just get a little sympathy and support. So I asked around, found out the one place in the whole canyon you can get coverage, and drove over there (it was about 5 miles away.) I had my phone on and was on the road. The instructions were that you can only get coverage at the dam (there's a reservoir by the town). So I slow down, and don't get coverage. So I keep driving, checking every once in a while. After going another 2 or 3 miles, I turn around (since I was in my mom's car, I didn't want to drive too far on her gas). On the way back I pulled into every turn off to see if I could get coverage maybe off the road. Yeah, turns out the instructions should have been "You only get coverage if you pull into the turn off right after the dam." I couldn't get coverage on the road, but 2 feet into the turn off I had it. So weird. Made me realize how dependant I've become on my cell phone in the last year.
I talked to Chris, he pretty much told me that people are just weird and cheap and even though they'd pay more in the store for a card, they just weren't thinking of that and wanted a good deal. So when I went back, I told everyone who paused at the booth that the cards were buy 1 get 1 free. That seemed to get a lot more attention and I ended up selling $26 worth of stuff. Much less than I would have liked, but it covered all my food and most of the stuff I bought to display the cards. If I do it again (which I don't know if I will), I think I'll mark the prices a little higher and just start with a buy 1 get 1 free special. I'll also make some groupings of cards. The most looked at cards were the sets I had, but I had only made sets of the moving cards I had and people seemed disappointed in that.
So, why'd I title my post like that? I figured I'd talk about the lessons I learned this weekend. One of them was that if you are friendly, life goes smoother. After I talked to Chris, I made sure that I greeted everyone that stopped at the booth. Made sure I asked if there was anything they were specifically looking for. This seemed to work well, since we sold 2/3 of the items we sold in that last 4 hours, as opposed to the 8 or so hours before that (which includes Friday, when we didn't sale a thing).
In addition, if you take the time to be nice to people and get to know them, it's always worth it. We had fun talking to the people at the booth next to us. We were just basically finding out about each other's lives, passing time, etc. I was admiring her hair clips she had made and she gave me one of them in trade for one of my cards. If we hadn't taken the time to just talk, that would have never happened and I would have spent more money instead of bartering for it. When we were packing up, she gave my mom a birdhouse that had cracked, since she couldn't sell it. It was just a tiny crack and it was still beautiful. She also presented me with a cute little bird bath for my new house. Both of these things were great. But monetary things weren't the only thing we got out of being nice to these people. Time passed so much more quickly both days because we had someone to talk to, find out about, etc. They've been doing shows for a while now and they provided moral support for us when we were feeling down about not selling anything. That was worth more than the items they gave us.
I also had to take a long, hard look at how I react to other people. My mom's friend is a very toxic person. She is very negative, always assuming the worst, never willing to help others, always expecting everyone to do her work for her, but if it's not up to her standards, she'll complain about that too. I helped her set up her booth on Friday and helped her out on and off through Saturday. She just complained and complained the whole time, about how she should just pack up and go, she wasn't making money, etc. I finally told her that it wasn't costing her anymore money to just stay and finish the day and maybe she'd make some later in the day.
Listening to and watching this woman really made me think. Lately I've been having a really hard time. I've been getting angry at my family more often, feeling depressed a lot, and just really struggling. I don't want to become like this woman and I could see, over the last few weeks, areas where I was beginning to approach what she's like. It made me take a hard look at what I want from life and the type of person I really want to be. I don't want to be like this woman, where friends only talk to me because they feel obligated to. Where my family avoids me as much as possible. I don't want that in my life. So I'm going to start working on recognizing when I'm going down those mental pathways and start redirecting my thoughts away from them.
One last thing, since it's late and I'm tired. I realized that I need to just let remarks and actions of others roll off my back. Who cares that the lady at the fair said that I'm way over priced. That's her opinion. I think the thing that was hurting us the most was the clutter in our booth and that I had too much stuff displayed. People were overwhelmed and didn't want to take the time to look at stuff. I don't think it was price. But even if I hadn't sold a thing, it doesn't reflect on my worth as a person, and I need to start realizing that. Just because they are rejecting what I made, doesn't mean it's not good. It just means it doesn't fit their needs or isn't what they are looking for right now. I loved the stuff at the booth next to us, but nothing other than the hair clips were really our style for our house right now, so I didn't buy anything else. Does that mean I don't think her crafts are worthwhile? Nope, not at all. I think she's an amazing artist and does beautiful work. And she's a great woman on top of it. It just means that her crafts don't fit my life right now. Same thing goes for my cards. It's not a reflection on me as a person.
Anyway, ramblings are done for now. Thanks for reading!
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