Week Notes: Vol. 2 – № 10

Hanging a shingle

A business without marketing is just a garage full of stuff no one knows about

My wife put on her first garage sale this year.

I’m a big fan of garage sales. I would help my mom do a sale every year growing up. As kids, my brother and I rode around town with my mom as she hunted for bargains in the summer.

But this one, my wife did it all on her own.

She sorted our old crap precious belongings. She put up signs around the neighborhood. She priced everything and arranged everything in the driveway. Before she could even settle into her chair to wait for patrons, a grandma rolled up and spent $25.

Five minutes later, my wife turned to me and said, “So far, not so good.”

I was a bit stunned.

Without much public notice (only posting about it on local Facebook groups) we had just made $25 in the first 10 minutes at 3 p.m. on a Friday in September.

Like many business owners, I’m sure she imagined gobs of people clamoring to buy our stuff as soon as she set things out.

The reality is people won’t come just because you hang a shingle. People will come if you’re peddling something they want.

I decided to take some photos and post the sale on Craigslist. My hook: Don't spend a dime on new baby stuff until you check out our garage sale!

I don't know how much my contribution helped. But over the course of a day-and-a-half we had 5 people stop by (pretty mid) and made $80 (pretty solid).

Not a huge turnout but everyone who stopped also made a purchase – a 100 percent conversion rate.