There's a book I really like called Women Who Run with The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. It's got a poorly designed cover (see below) and an embarrassing title. But over the past few years, it's been my book. It's the book I go to when I'm inspired. It's the book I read in the morning with my coffee. It's the book I go to when I'm confused and feel weak.

As the holidays approach, we get this question a lot from the makers we work with:

“Things are crazy for me right now, and I’m not sure if retailers are even ordering. Should I even bother connecting with stores during this season?”

For store owners, this time of year is about trying to survive and high hopes for a great season. (Retailers often make 30% or more of their total yearly gross between November and December.) For makers, it’s a crazy combination of making, packing, and shipping goods for Christmas, doing holiday markets, and trying to lay the groundwork for sustained growth in the coming year.

When I was about eight, I went to camp for the first time.

As a fairly introverted person who loved hanging out with my family, summer camp ended up being hard. Thirty-two-year-old me would know exactly why it would be hard for me and in what ways; eight-year-old me was bewildered, as the camp seemed literally designed to have a good time around every corner and yet I felt kind of dazed from home sicknesses and nervousness about how to be around the other kids.

Here's the thing. You can't just send the same email to a bunch of stores and expect a positive response. Hear me when I say that efficiency does not equal spam. 

Have you ever had to call a store owner by phone and felt a little stumped about what to say? This post is for you!

For the most part, when you're reaching out to stores that you don't have a previous connection to, we recommend using email. The main reason is that most store owners really want to be with their customers when they’re in the shop -- so they prefer not to have an in-person or telephone interruption. Plus, email has the added benefit of allowing you the time to craft your story, think through your email template, and attach a few beautiful photos of your work to make a good first impression.

The question goes like this:

“I’m curious about pitching when you’re in the midst of putting together a new line sheet for the next season. I plan on having a new line sheet with lots of new cards around mid August (that’s the theory anyway) and I wasn’t sure if I should wait to pitch to new retailers until it’s ready? Or should I pitch them my current line sheet and just not worry about that?

Almost every maker we talk to says, “I really want to grow wholesale -- and that, in itself, seems like a huge challenge. But even more than that, I want store accounts that are real relationships, and that place orders regularly over the long term.” 

oday we wanted to talk about a topic that’s always kind of squishy and discomforting for makers: when should I go to the expense and effort of sending samples?

Now, this is a topic with a lot of different approaches and opinions. Every maker is different, every store has different requirements, and there are no hard and fast rules. But today we’re sharing two simple perspectives that might help take the pressure off -- while also helping your products to rest happily on new stores’ shelves.

We’ve worked with entrepreneurs around the world and with makers at every stage of their businesses. We’ve advised people with multi-million dollar businesses and those who are down to their last pennies. So we’ve seen a lot of folks make a lot of crucial decisions. And we certainly face a lot of them, as business owners.

In the last few weeks, we’ve shared a bit about how to reframe rejections and what that bewildering email from a store owner might actually mean.

And this week we want to share the big outreach mistake that most makers make. When it comes to outreach to stores, many people take “no’s” simultaneously TOO seriously and not seriously enough. On one hand, most people are way too emotionally reactive about getting no's. Each silence or negative reaction causes a tailspin of fear and desperation.

Over the next several weeks we will be writing several posts in response to what we have been hearing from the makers that we work with around putting yourself out there, rejection, what silence means, and the key mistake most makers make when sharing their work. 

Time after time we have heard stockists say that the biggest factor in determining if they are going to order from a new maker is if they feel that the product is right for them. The sooner you are able to help them see the beauty of what you have made, the better -- and since some of them won’t make it to your website, you need to help them out.