The beginning of the 2nd week of the Summer Tour has come upon us. Many things have happened in the past couple of days that made me question whether or not we are doing everything right. For those of you who have been following the page, reading along, and tracking our lives will have already read about the Vancouver, WA party. In a way, if it had to happen at some point, I was glad it happened the way it did. I think it gave us strength to keep pushing, and taught us that no matter how bad it can get, we can brush ourselves off, move on, and keep pushing towards what we set out to do. But I wasn't exactly prepared for what happened the next day.
We had a party scheduled in Forest Grove, OR. Our hostess is one of the sweetest, most hospitable people we have ever come across. Mike went over to her house at the scheduled time, set up, and waited. Unfortunately, not a single person came. However, even with the lack of people, Mike, the hostess, and her 2 daughters still managed to have a great time. I am sure he is still very happy to have met them, to have heard a bit of their story, and to have had the opportunity to share ours. From a personal point of view, the party was still awesome. From a business point of view, however, it's a little nerve-wracking, but then I remembered the bigger reason we are on the tour in the first place... to get everyone in America to fall in love with us. That's 3 more people, and I think that was worth it.
On top of all this, I ran contests on the fanpage. We felt that although we are on tour, we still can't neglect our loyal fans on Facebook. I'm not really used to running the contests and auctions, because Mike usually runs them. He is so awesome at keeping on top of things and doing 8 million things at once, so I was a little nervous. As per the usual, we ran a Free Shipping contest, which is almost always a 4 oz. bottle, and we ship it out for free. We also had an auction, and then posted a paid shipping contest, where the prize is usually for a big 8 oz. bottle. For those of you who participated, you may have noticed a fan who kept posting "wack" as her entry. I deleted it, and she reposted. I was getting frustrated, so I sent her a message that said "May I ask why you keep posting "Wack" on the Body Marinade Contest?". Her response was disheartening. This is what it said...
"hmmm. seems we all have questions. caus ei was wondering why they kept deleting my comment.
But it is wack cause its not free. If they want to promote thier product they should do it completly free because people like me that dont have the 5 bucks right now because of my wedding and moving and my mom's funeral, who never tried their product, will never know if its any good. They should promote it by doing free samples because if its that good then it would be well worth the investment with the purchases. I just dont buy something unless i know i like it"
Obviously, from her response, she didn't know I was an owner. It was disheartening. We decided to do the paid shipping contests because we love you guys and we wanted to run more contests and have more winners as our page grew. One contest a week seemed to be reasonable for a couple of hundred fans. However, those one or two contests a week stopped being reasonable for over 1000 fans. We wanted a way to be able to give away more of our product. It's not so much the cost of the product that kills us with the contests... it's the shipping. However, when we do the paid shipping contests, it's for a bigger product. It IS free. We don't charge for the product itself. Everyone gets their prize via priority mail. It's trackable, and it gets to the winner faster. It doesn't take a lot to look up the fees for the shipping and know... there really IS no charge for the product. When Mike and I first spoke about it, he posted on the wall to get input from our fans about the issue. The opinions, thoughts, and ideas from our fans are what helps create the structure we have as a company. I understand that some people may not have the $5.00 for shipping... but that is why we run just as many, if not more free contests on the page. It's so that everyone can participate, no matter what situation they may be in. I guess what frustrated me more was that the young lady who sent me that message didn't even enter the Free Shipping contest for that same evening. But that is the reason we put a disclaimer on the contests that the shipping must be paid for. It's not a hidden charge, or a trick. We tell everyone... this contest winner must pay $5.00 shipping. If you don't have the extra $5.00, which is perfectly understandable, there is still a chance that you could win something from our page. by entering the free contests.
I need to learn to keep my focus on the dedicated fans we have on our page. I'm thankful we have so many :) You guys are great.
Speak to you soon!
-Dejah
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