Similarly, when someone hires you, they’re not buying a few hours of your time or your expertise, but a solution to THEIR problem — selling more patterns, increasing end-user/customer satisfaction, creating loyalty, etc. Maybe the thing to do is treat this first show as your fertile field for market research, and see if you can (a) gather the list of all the people you’ll want to contact once you’re ready, and (b) zero in on one or two people that you’ll try to get to hear you out and let you show them how terrific your services are. As Michael Goodman said, this upcoming consumer show is a great place to begin researching these pattern companies in preparation for “doing it right” at the wholesale show later this year. I teach classes at my local quilt store and one of my main goals at the upcoming consumer show is to get ideas and find patterns to use for teaching classes. If you can start a dialogue before the show, perhaps you can ask to get a preview of one of their new patterns, and show your magic to them ahead of time (so they can sell more at the show). If you can get a dozen of these folks to give you 30 minutes each during the show, you’ll have some GREAT input and ideas about how to approach them (and all the others), what to say, what their hot-buttons are, etc. read more

Tags: show, people, quilting patterns, , patterns, brochure