"grand Opening" For Home-Based Business
Business By ncsmorris Updated 27 Aug 2010 , 3:15pm by DefyGravity
I invited all my family, friends, neighbors and customers to my grand opening. I made unusual flavoured cakes that I wanted to showcase. Served coffee and ice tea. We kept it open for about 3 hours. It worked out well, not too short and not too long. We had lots of fun and I have a bunch of new loyal customers!
ooh ...the bakery near my house set up a little raffle table and gave away cupcakes and cookies. They also had a nice quest book that if you signed and gave your email address you got a free cupcake. Very nicely done and gave others a chance to taste the goodies...
I didn't do anything either, for the same reason as Leah. I don't want to bother the neighbors right off the bat.
You might want to put an offer on your website that you run for a month with a special for the birth of your business or something like that. Maybe a percentage off all birthday cake orders over a certain amount?
Good idea costumeczar. I agree with you and Leah about not having a bunch of peole come over; I wasn't thinking about that really (esp. because I live in a small apartment and we don't even have a dining room table). I was just thinking of a way to attract customers or "announce" the business. I like the idea of having a discount if you book by a certian time.
NCS, you're running a cake business from an apartment? You've checked with your landlord and its OK? Since you've already gone to whatever measures you needed to get inspected, licensed (if required) and insured to open your business, you did make sure it's OK with the landlord.
As a landlord myself I'd have to think twice about the extra wear and tear a business would put on my rental property. Not saying I'd say no, but I sure as heck would want to know about it.
You could think about setting up a nice table at a Farmer's Market. It is very popular where I live.
Some cute flyers and/or business cards and small items to sample and sell.
Do you have a Facebook/Twitter account? Maybe you could make an announcement on there for everyone to make referrals, and once you get to X number of fans, you'll raffle off a gift certificate, or have a coupon code or something like that.
A small clothing store in my hometown started doing that when they had under 100 fans, and now they're up to 7,600.
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