ASR Blog

Punkster and Goliath

My business partner's mom sent us a picture from a magazine or catalog or something. . .with a shirt of a littl girl wearing a really graphic black tee that said, 'I crawl the line' from hot topic!!!

WHAT????!?!?!? that is a punkster original phrase. that came out of my brain, that was my answer to the fact that i couldnt use johnny cash (the name) on a shirt because of trademarks and such. . .so i wanted to give a little ode to johnny and thought and thought and then , lightbulb! I crawl the line came in my head.

i had no idea it would be punkster's runaway hit! its our new hit, getting us tons of love, press, orders. and this was my idea. and now, over a year later, since we started showing this shirt to the public at tradeshows - hot topic a huge corporation stole our idea and is consequently stealing our orders. . .they are a big dog to deal with too.

i mean, hello! hot topic, GET YOUR OWN IDEAS! you have a big staff over there, get your own creativity going on.

so whats a small company to do? send them a letter from our lawyer telling them to stop selling it? sue them for the money they made off my brain?

can we even do that? do we have the money for the lawyer fees? do we have any rights to our own ideas as soon as we show it to the world? its just not really fair. its not right, these big companies steal the little guys ideas all the time, all the time. and what rights do we have against them?

originally my lawyer said we have some rights if we prove that we were using the idea to make profit, but its also a hard fight in court.

im emailing a lawyer i read an article from in entrepreneur magazine, and ill get back to you to see what he says. this is a big problem, this is david and goliath style. but you know what, im really not that afraid, and i feel like its our duty to not let the giants mess with us.

course. . ..i am not sure i have the right battle gear. . .but all i really need is a slingshot right? anyone have a sling shot?

-leanne ford

snowballs and phone calls

Hi Leanne,

I'm a big fan of your Punkster blog on the Small Business Resource Center's site. I just started a small e-commerce business, www.facetsfinds.com, and I'm wondering if you have any advice on getting the word out about my site.

I'm aware of Daily Candy, Stylebakery, and other email newsletter groups, but can you recommend other marketing resources? I'd greatly appreciate any information you could offer.

Best regards and keep up the good work!

Eva

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Hi Eva,
Thanks for the letter, I didn't actually know people read the blog! Im
stoked! Yea, ill answer this, but do you mind if I post the letter on my
blog and answer it on there? that way I can give a better and more in
depth answer and get a blog up at the same time?

Congrats on your business, I am going to go check it out! And thanks for
reading it and saying hi!
Leanne

-------

And she said go for it! So, online marketing eh? well you just did it eva, your website is on the blog! That is one suggestion I might have for you which is blogging. blogging does a couple things, it gets your site more hits, which in turn gets you higher on the google search engine. did you know that?

when i started punkster, at www.niceshirtbaby.com it was really low on the google search list, under some swedish band with the same name, and myspace pages, etc... .bummer. but as we kept growing and getting more hits the site just kept climbing up. and now, i mean, as of last time i checked, when punkster is googled we are number one on the list.

ok im back, i checked, and yea, we are good! other ideas are emails to friends families and strangers to pass around. flyers left at every restaurant, taxi and airport you go to. (i love guerilla marketing!)

in fact, i recommend getting that book! 'guerilla marketing' it is my favorite! to me, marketing is almost like a game you get points for, or in our case, cash! that book is brilliant, and really fun and inspiring.

punkster has done some serious 'marketing' to get our name out.

-i give my business card to everyone. and when im really feeling friendly that day i give it to random stroller pushers around the city, or make my friend do it!

-we sell at markets in LA and NYC and anywhere in between, flea markets, craft markets, sell there and keep our flyers on the table. we have made great cash and connections that way

-we send samples to celebrities

-we email people we know for help and to pass the word on.

-blog!

i do not recommend hiring a PR house as they are really expensive and not a ton of bang for your buck when you just start out. maybe later, but right now, either do it yourself or hire one person to help. press helps sales a TON.

start low, local publications, papers, your college alum magazine, get press there and then go bigger, once you have some word, the snowball effect goes to town for you.

don't under estimate the snowball effect. it works in your favor and the more word you get out there the more it will get itself going.

ok, so i asked my online marketing consultant guru and friend jessica morris for some 'professional' feedback in reference to online marketing, and let me tell you, the girl knows what shes talking about. 

Depending on your budgetary and ROI constraints, there are a myriad of
online marketing opps that small ecom sites can take advantage of. See below
for a brief overview:
1.) Make your website search engine friendly with keywords related to your
product, title tags, text/html not images, meta copy, link qualty, etc.
2.) Paid search is an option depending on budget and brands carried (the
relationship with vendors)
3.) Comparison shopping- Nextag, Shop.com, Shopzilla
4.) Social Shopping- This Next, Kaboodle
5.) Grow and retain an email list
6.) Google Analytics is a great web analytics provider that is free and will
give you insight into your site demographic and referral traffic which will
help you better determine what type of marketing to do. ie: do most of your
customers come from blogs, natural search, direct load (users typing in your
web address directly into their address bar)
7.) Loyalty and affilliate sites- usually when you grow bigger
8.) Listing on local organization websites related to your product business-
this helps in natural search as well.
9.) Blog submissions'

-you can email her,  jessica morris is a online marketing consultant who charges hourly to help get your website up and marketing on its own, even while you sleep! thats right, marketing in your sleep.

jessica, that should be the name of your book! 'marketing in your sleep'

Eva- does this help at all?

anyone else have suggestions for us?

-leanne ford

webderful! smarvelous!

our new website is actually happening! yep, actually happening someday soon. it may or may not look a little something like this. . . .

thanks to the finest, best kept secret in modern baby design in america, and i will only tell you about her after we have used her up, spit her out and exhausted her of all things creative.  just kidding 'hillbilly!' thats her code name for operation save punksters website! but i wont tell you about her until after the site is up, i dont want all you people stealing my creative genius' genius just yet! but doesnt it look great? im so excited about it. and i will say this, the girl is GOOD.

and the copy is just gibberish so dont worry about following it. that wordy stuff is to come later.
copy that? roger!

happy thanksgiving, ya turkeys!

-leanne ford the real punkster

show(room) me the money!

the girls and i have been talking a lot recently about how to push our new brand, punkster acoustic - not yet out for the world to see!

and by the girls i mean, my partner and designer and myself. we realized sales reps are a huge asset to a small business like ours. sales reps have showrooms and showrooms have customers and loyalty and space you don't have to keep breaking down!

so we have a great showroom in LA that we are going to meet with next week to spruce up our area and make it all punkster'd out. we are also going to talk to her about ways to increase business. we show punkster at THE M SPACE and have a great sales rep, marian, that has helped and advised us from the beginning. from helping us decide to increase size runs, tshirt styles, color palettes, to helping us on damage control with our clients and stores. she has been a great help for punkster and our growth.

we also, have been wooing another sales rep, ali, from the atlanta showroom and it finally worked! she is taking us into her arms and her showroom and we can't wait to work with her and get some southern into punkster, and some punkster into the south, where it belongs.

and now we want to go to Marian in LA and talk to her about department stores. we realize while creating our acoustic line that we need some department stores. there is an allure about boutiques and they are more 'romanticized' in a way, but department stores order in bulk and get your name out to the masses, the shopping high end masses, of course.

but these clothing lines need to hit production minimums, an production minimums, especially overseas the minimums can be rather high. so its hard to hit minimums with a 'minimum' amount of store orders. so we realized there are a couple things and ways to get more orders in to help hit production minimums.

1. sales reps and showrooms
2. distribution in other countries
3. department store orders
4. press hits that drive traffic to the website

can anyone think of more? we are ready to push this baby clothing business.

one showroom, one distributor, one big order, one press hit at a time!

ill get more into 2 through 4 in the days to come. promise. but today, showroom me the money!

-leanne ford the original punkster

bad business day

on a good note

so i think a lot of time i have with this blog i tell chaos, i tell horror stories, and i pretty much give a business owners beware take on the life of small business based on my business, punkster.

but im feeling pretty good in life right now, and though yesterday was an insanely stressful day for punkster and me, and the web situation, i think punkster is doing pretty darn good, all things considered.

yes, we have had web fiascos, yes we have had production fiascos, business side fiascos, partner fiascos, sales fiascos, but HEY! we are still here aren’t we???

well, YES is the answer to that, and that in itself is quite an accomplishment so, if thats you too, then feel good about it!

if you have the problem of too many orders and not enough product, feel good about it!

if you have the problem of people upset because they sold out and need a reorder, feel good about it!

if you have the problem of never having time to do anything else because you have a business to take care of, feel good about it!

you have your own business???? and people are actually hearing about it????? using it???? stressing you out???? feel good about it!!! that is wilder and farther than most businesses, dreams, or ideas ever go.

feel good about it today! you managed to create a product. or a service, or a website that people want to be involved with, people want to purchase, support, connect to.

and thats a good thing. no matter what stress it creates, headaches it causes, debt it incurrs.  well. . .ok not no matter what. . . .but you know in your gut if its a good thing and your just having a bad business day.

its like hair! sometimes you have a bad hair day, but at least you have hair!

so just enjoy it.

it might be a bad business day, but at least you have a business.

-leanne ford the original punkster