As many of you know, I’m currently in a 14-week intensive Business Planning class through the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center, as an active participant in their year long Incubator Program (more on this here). Tonight we had to do a 3-4 minute sales presentation to our class. Of course, being the busy bee that I am, I hadn’t put anything together yet. Woops! :p But, the good news is I know my business well, so I was able to clickety clack it out in the first hour of class. Thought I’d post it up here for those who may be curious and I’d love to hear your feedback & thoughts, too!

First, a little set up: We were to tell the rest of the class who they were supposed to be (i.e. an investor, a property manager and/or lease agent, customer of their product or service, or wholesale customer). I chose wholesale customer. So I informed the class they were to be owners or buyers of shops/boutiques where I’m looking to get my WilloToons Baby/Toddler line on the shelves. It also should be noted that, in reality, I’ll never give a sales pitch this long & detailed to a retail owner or buyer, because they’re just SO busy! :p But regardless it was great practice & I think I’ll probably include some of this verbage in a letter or cover sheet, should I email or snail mail a catalog to a boutique.

Also, it should be noted – for those of you who are familiar with my line & know that I have adult tees & jewelry, etc – that my business plan is currently going to be primarily focused on wholesaling my baby & toddler line to shops & boutiques around the country. The big message in this class is to scale back & be sure you’re growing sustainably, so although I will always have adult tees & maintain my *hobby* of handmaking jewelry for my retail site, those won’t be in my focus initially for my wholesale line. Also, these products I reference (the bright colors & 100% organic cotton) are on order right now, so they’re not available in the shop yet. If you’d like to be notified of when they are available, and/or you are a store interested in carrying my line, please sign up on the mailing list or contact me directly.

Lastly, some of this formatting was for my ease of reading/referencing it easily in front of the class – and of course it was written someone conversationally in order to be read aloud. Alright, here we go:

Hi my name is Willo O’Brien, and I have a fun, eco-conscious gift line of clothing for babies & toddlers, called WilloToons – where the style is geek meets rock ‘n roll!

The history behind my ‘geek meets rock ‘n roll’ line is that I’m an illustrator, web designer, & avid music lover & show goer. So essentially the way I describe the passion behind my line is that I’m:

• geeked on illustration, design & the web
• geeked on music, and
• geeked on the environment!

Being an eco-conscious clothing line is very important to me. So while in the first 18 months of my business I have been entirely locally produced & American made, I’m proud to report that we’ve now moved into utilizing 100% organic cotton, too! For the silkscreened products I use all pvc-free & water-based inks, and WilloToons packaging is all recycled and eco-friendly.

• The organic cotton I’m using is really soft & all the designs contain very fun bright colors.
• I provide hangtags that have my logo & a cute photo of a baby or kiddo in the product – which helps the customer visualize the product on the child & increases sales.
• I also offer gift sets, which are very popular for customers who come in looking for a fabulous baby shower gift. The gift sets contain a onesie, pants and a matching cap or bib.
• My toddler line of clever tees fit kiddos from 2-6 years old.

I have both embroidered & silkscreened items… so to give you an idea of what you’ll see in my WilloToons line, I have things like a cute embroidered whale, called “splash“, and another design that says “nerdling” with a little pair of glasses on it (great for the children of all the internet geeks out there). Then I have fun designs for the little rockers, like “eat. sleep. rock. repeat.” and “rock squirrel.” Those last two more rock-focused designs are printed with fun, bright inks on black organic cotton – which I’m doing in response to popular request. Which makes sense, because babies are messy. :)

As you know, today it’s very important to be an green company, and what I think is really fun about my line is that it targets buyers who appreciate unique, quality products AND it’s eco-conscious, without having that be the focus of the actual design. The WilloToons style is focused on FUN, with designs that feature whimsical cartoon illustration that celebrates every child’s individuality & character.

For my wholesale accounts I have made it easy for you to order, in two different ways – whichever is easiest in terms of the order workflow for your store. You can either order online, on my wholesale website, or I can send you a phone/fax order form. I have a low minimum wholesale order, and have created a couple pre-set packs to get you started carrying WilloToons in your store!

How would you prefer to get started? Would you like me to send you a catalog, or can I set you up with a password on our wholesale order site?

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Then I was prepared for FAQ:

Turn around time?
Depending on the size of your order, it’s anywhere from 2-4 weeks. Do you have an idea of the size of order you’d like to place initially?

Prices? Organic = expensive?
We have taken into consideration the average wholesale cost, so I think you’ll find they’re competitive to a lot of your current products… I’ll send you price list, or if you prefer, get you set up on the wholesale site & you can see the prices there.

The only other question I got was if I could handle a very large volume order. And I said yes. :) All of the other feedback I received was very helpful & positive. What do you guys think?

Again, for those of you just visiting, these new products I’m speaking of (the bright colors & organic cotton) are on order right now, so they’re not available in my online store yet. Nor is the wholesale website done yet, I’m working on it now! But if you’d like to be notified of when they are available, and/or you are a store interested in carrying my line, please sign up on the mailing list or contact me directly, and I’ll let you know! Also, in the meantime, you can support me by shopping my big SALE! Help me clear out this old inventory & make room for the new! :)

If you’re interested in the business side of craft, you may want to check out my Get Crafty site, where I’m publishing resources & information from our “Snappy Strategies for Selling Arts & Crafts Online” talk we did at SXSW. The audio/video of that presentation WILL be posted soon, so be sure to subscribe or contact me if you want to know when I (finally) put it up! Also, I’ll be speaking on a panel at the Summit of Awesome – in Washington DC in May – which is all about the business side of craft!

Thanks for reading, and as always for all of your support. I would love to hear any further comments & feedback, positive or constructive!