Media attention

http://www.nowtoronto.com/lifestyle/story.cfm?content=175734">


I went into my bank and the teller told me she saw me in the local community paper, the Annex Gleaner (at least they know me at my bank now). I've been trying for weeks to get a plug from Eye Weekly or X-tra for Pride (even a mention on Chum FM) with not much luck.

However, thank-you Andrew Sardone. He plugged the Mother's Day mookies at Pusateri's and now has a mention again in NOW magazine for Jinja Ninja at Pride. Love that man. Wish others would pick up Jinja Ninja.

Pride 2010 & other stuff

I was kinda getting a bit down today because the product at the retail stores don't seem to be moving very quickly. Pusateri's still has their Father's Day mookies, Fresh & Wild still have a lot of heart flowers, The Mercantile still has only sold 3 King Dads. I think that my market is the custom market. Or getting creative on how I package some stuff together.

Thank god for Pride. It's keeping Lindsay, Hailey and I busy. And I think my line-up for Pride is cute, witty and naughty. I've uploaded some images onto the Facebook page (except for the naughty ones, there are children present!!).

Had to attend an advanced Food Handler's Course tonight for Pride. Makes one not want to eat at an outdoor vendor stand ever again.

Oh and I found Claire. She's my bookkeeper and she keeps me calm. Everyone should have a Claire.

Showtime!!

One of the most difficult things to do is to predict what will sell during a show. For instance, I had to prepare various cookies for the Design Farm at the DX during Doors Open. From past experience, not a lot of people are prepared to buy mookies from me larger than a small cookie. The most popular cookie was the heart flower and some ninjas sold. Other than that, it's mostly marketing.

It's hard being a frog..(uhh, salesperson)

I know that one of the reasons I left the architectural profession is because I didn't really like the cold call sales process. And there was a lot of it.

I went around on Friday flogging Jinja Ninja and just got tired, hot and depressed by the end of it. Everyone saying my product is too expensive, (thank god for Pusateri's. People saying that they make their own cookies (not like Jinja Ninja's!!) but wanting me to leave a sample. Hopefully I won't see a bunch a mee toos shortly.

It's tough making a living on wholesale sales. Maybe there's a Jinja Ninja storefront in the future?

Pride 2010

Jinja Ninja is now an official Pride 2010 Food Vendor. It was fun to brainstorm with friends on what would sell, different design ideas etc. I'm very excited to participate this year. Should be loads of fun and hard work. One of my friends wants to dress in drag to help sell at the booth. The pride staff predicted that I will need two booths next year...

Big Break

Jinja Ninja mookies are now available through Pusateri's. Yayyy! For those of you who don't know what that is, it's one of the high end grocery stores in Toronto. They have Mother's Day and Graduation mookies. After the re-neg from McKewan, it was a breath of fresh air to deal with Pusateri's. Hopefully this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

website pain

It's been a while and I'm still frustrated over this whole website thing. Spoke with a company that will (for a monthly fee) host and offer all kinds of functionality for one's website. Sounds good, however, the monthly fee can get costly. I really need a CMS (content management system) that would allow me to upload new images to the website, as well as an order form that would allow customers to order simply and easily.

Cannot seem to get a straight answer from anyone about the best route to go. I guess it will be a while until my site gets updated.