Re: Any business advice for Henna Part-timers?

Posted by Catherine Cartwright Jones on October 22, 1999 at 17:49:53:

In Reply to: Any business advice for Henna Part-timers? posted by Carrie on October 22, 1999 at 06:12:17:

Start by ALWAYS having your hands wonderfully hennaed, and always
having henna with you. Be charming, talk to people, and offer a
little TINY henna FREE. (When you're sitting in the food court,
coffee house, bar, parties, dorm lounge, outside on a lovely
day....be sweet, be friendly, just go do it!) Let them fall in love
with it. Let then know where to find you when they want more! (When
they want more they can pay.)

Look on the bulletin boards for concerts, raves, events...call up the
phone numbers of the organizers and see what the vending fees and
arrangements. Set a goal of doing one event every week. Start with
small inexpensive events. Make your mistakes at the small places.
When you have more experience, then go to the larger events.
When you start to do events, and not just having people come to your
room for the occasional henna...you need to switch over to the
"business rant" rules. As long as you're very, very small
time....cash only, no place of business, no DBA...you can get by
without real business practices.

For an excellent model of part time business practices....think about
the way a part-time high school or college supplier of recreational
pharmaceuticals goes about establishing and maintaining a clientele.
Many of them have excellent business sense....small free samples,
cordiality, keeping a very low profile, relying on word of
mouth...this is very good for beginning and maintaining little part
time henna business. (There is a crucial legal and ethical issue in
the "happy candy" line of work though that many of them overlook, and
thus at some point, their business, life and everything else comes to
a screeching halt). (Henna artists need not fear being arrested in
their underwear.) Other than that, the "purveyor of small pleasures"
model of part time business is very instructive. With a little luck,
you will have, by word of mouth, a group of happy henna addicts who
MUST have their henna fix every weekend. Make sure you stay fairly
invisible to those in charge...or...better, bribe them with some nice
free hennaes from time to time.

A college situation is ideal for very small part time. When it gets
to the point that you need to buy supplies wholesale, be a vendor at
shows, have a business name, start to expand and grow and depend on
henna to pay your bills (and dump the day job) ....THEN you need to
think about henna as a business rather than a pleasant profitable
hobby, wherein the Business Rant applies.

Follow-ups:

• Re: Any business advice for Henna Part-timers? Kenzi 23:26:44 10/22/99 (2)
  • small time entrepreneurs Catherine Cartwright Jones 02:04:33 10/23/99 (1)
    • Re: small time entrepreneurs Vickie 15:51:30 10/23/99 (0)