TWEAKING!

It seems the learning process never ends, and I would have to say that is a very good thing when it comes to producing, business and selling.  You learn from what people say, how they react, and the exposure you present, and the feedback you get.  I have learned that we are doing so many things right and that we are on the correct course of action.  Also what I have learned to is to observe!  From observations I am then able to TWEAK!  Today I have decided to do some tweaking within Socks Made On 88.  What am I tweaking?

I am tweaking the wording of my table sign, only one line I have decided to change.  Why did I decide to change it?  I decided to change it as it was too simple, I needed to clarify the statement with more direct information.  So that is now done.  MrB also gave his input and we scanned it to make a master copy.  That was a great idea because it was partly computer constructed and partly pieced together by scrapbooking techniques and now it is one complete scanned page and I have a master to tweak now too at a later date if I need to adjust it in any way in the future.  The wording I changed was about custom orders.  It may have previously given the impression that any custom order could be arranged, and we want to have control of this not them of what they are dictating especially in certain colours.  We want our custom orders mainly to to centre around custom sizing not colouring.  But we will certainly work with the customer to best suit their needs with colours we have on hand.

We have also tweaked our Hold Policy as to present to customers who request this.  They will now have to pay a small fee to hold socks, as we are holding them and they are not coming through and picking them up when they said they would.  Our thinking now is that if they pay a small fee to hold them that perhaps they we carry through with picking the sock pairs up.  We can only try and improve upon that practise.  

Today I have some sock pairs I need to put back into circulation for sale for our next appearance.  They have been lonely not being with friends, waiting to be picked up by a potential owner who did not show up!  Hahahaha

I want to add also by having cards at our table where ever we go, has proven to be very benefical, and also having small notice papers of where  our next appearances will be has also proven very benefical to both us and especially to our returing customers wanting more socks.  Yes, I said returning customers....yahoo....they bought one or two pairs and are wanting more!  Big smile on both MrB's and MsB's face.  What else puts a great big smile on our faces and our hearts is that we are getting more and more emails also contacting us and wanting to purchase more socks.  This tells us that the business cards they are picking up they are actually using and not throwing them in the trash.  

My message today is that tweak, tweak, tweaking is a constant!  I get excited when I tweak!  Tweaking tells me that I learning to read our customers better and they are expressing themselves by the actions they take to correspond with us. Tweaking is important!  

I did all the tweaking had in my mind to do, and I will how this minor little changes pan out with our next appearance.  We don't have a show or a market this coming weekend, we have the Saturday to just us!  We will be a show on December 15th but it is not a craft show.  We will be reappearing at the Old School Bazaar!  We were there previously in July and had a good showing so we are hoping for the same this time round, and very much looking forward to doing it again. You may remember from a past post, this was the event where an 80 year old plus lady was so thrilled to share the room with us.  I hope that she will be there again so that we may talk to her and spend time with her again as she was a very special lady indeed.  With all the tweaking I have done since July, I wonder if it will be noticed?

I have some kitchenering to do sometime today and perhaps I  will even do some tweaking on that process also.  I do a pretty good job but sometimes weird and wonderful things happen and MrB and I work through the situations and figure them out and tackle them to fix them appropriately.  

Enjoy the balance of your weekend everyone!  I have other things to do today also, as I may dig out some Christmas decorations and put some out.  It is December now isn't it?

A little birdie told me, Tweak, Tweak, Tweak!

MsB from Socks Made On 88 

 

  

Matreshka Dolls :-) Craft show :(

Strike 3 we are out!  Over the past year we have now done 3 totally different craft shows.  One in May, one in September, and one in December!  Crafts shows are just not a great fit for us nor our product in this area.  Our niche market is apparently at the Market we started going to in September!  Back to the craft show.....it was very cold today and perhaps that influenced the traffic we saw or did not see today.  The best thing about the show today was that I got to buy some Matreshka Dolls!  I have always wanted a set and never bought any so today was the day!  I am the very proud owner of 5 of the dolls and they are very unique as they are not all painted the same but differently.  I will post a picture of them for you to see too!  And then I want to go research the history of them.  These were imported from Russian and the Russian Maritime Society was selling them today. 

MsB from Socks Made On 88

Holiday Craft Market/show tomorrow

We are participating in a Holiday Craft Market Show tomorrow at a school in Halifax!  We do not know what to expect, but as always we are both looking forward to the experience.  It is not too early of a morning so that is good, and goes longer into the afternoon than we are used to.  I am sure that we will be pooped at the end of the day.  Hoping it is a successful sales day and that we have fun too!

MsB from Socks Made On 88

Another OOAK :-)

Another One of a Kind :-) These are a women's size 7! They won't fit me, but how about you?

We have another pair very similiar to these shown above also.  They are a Women's size 9. I did not take a picture of them but they will be added to the inventory of pictures of available sock pairs on our website.

Msb from Socks Made On 88

No Socks but Sweets instead!

Today I am not doing much socks stuff!
But what I am doing is making these, and some sugar cookies too.
You are probably wondering, wow, she (MsB) never posts much 
things other than sock updates.  Well it is quickly approaching the festive time of year and I am not only MsB of Socks Made On 88, but I am also someone who does other things as well.  Today I am baking!  These are traditional treats of MrB's family at Christmastime.
They are called Mocha Cakes, and I am not such why....they should be called Almond Balls in my opinion but who am I to ague with family history.  I am also making sugar cookies that is from my family tradition.  I already made 6 dozen but need more.  The others are for family members in their Christmas packages.  

Now speaking of cookies and putting them in Christmas Gift packages, I bet you can guess what else is in those parcels too?  I dont have to give you many clues, do I?  This act of giving will continue also as a tradition I am sure, as the years go on....  This act was very much a staple in MrB's family gift giving from his mother,  and that act of having wool socks and getting them Christmas will now do a full circle!  What better gifts to get in my opinion are the homemade ones, socks and cookies, where can you go wrong?

So I am sitting here thinking, and I can recollect that I never as a child got wool socks for Christmas, ever!  I wonder why that was because I certainly did live in a climate, in Western Canada where I could have used them.  You don't want to know how many times I froze my toes out in -30 degrees celius weather outdoors skating on the ice covered dug outs, then come indoors and unflaw my feet over the heat register.  Perhaps having wool socks would have helped, perhaps they would not have, regardless I still would have gone and we will never know for sure now.  This MsB will not be skating any time again soon!

So I have taken a break from baking,and now I have to get back at it doing a batch of sugar cookies, and I promise that I will do some work on Socks Made On 88 too, as I mentioned before I do have to tag the socks that posted pictures of earlier. MrB did some cranking earlier so you know what that means? 

MsB from Socks Made On 88

OH OH OOAK!!!

These are our most recent One Of A Kinds!
I know you might get tired of me saying I love them!
But I do LOVE them so much!  OOAK's have to be my MOST favourites!  MrB says MsB you say you like all the socks!!! 
And I say, Yes that is true, but I can honestly say there are a few that I do not like.  So to MrB I did disclose the ones I do not like.  But guess what?  I will not be telling you Hahaha!  But I promise if he makes a pair in the future I do not like, I will tell you :-)  Now of these two pair shown above can I tell you which one is my favourite and that is the pair, sitting to the right, and that is only because I am not a pale pink fan.  There is something about the cuff on the other ones that dont do it for me, but then again if someone gave them to me I would wear them but the other pair would definitely be higher on my list if I had the choice to choose one over the other! OOAK's are ultimately MsB's favourite in general!  They are not for everyone but they are certainly proving to be great sellers for a lot of our customers, and that is why we continue to make them.  They are a little bit more work for MrB to do, but we feel good having them being semi eco-friendly also!  And how can you not feel good putting on a bright bouncy pair of socks like the ones showen here!  I would be Tigger wearing them, and some days it doesn't take much for me!  Our Socks are Hugs for your feet, so if they make you Smile and Bounce too, that is superb!

MsB from Socks Made On 88

Socks for Show and Sell!

MrB has been cranking away....we needed some more socks for the Show we are doing this upcoming Saturday and also for another show in December and a market just before Christmas.  We need to add to our Women's size 9 collection.  So here are two recently completed that will be tagged today ready for Saturday... Show and Sell..that will be the name of the game!  I like those words instead of Show and Tell, it will be Show and Sell for us! 



MsB from Socks Made On 88