January 2011

Hello Artisans of the Emirates

We have quite a few things to go over today... some are little reminders, others are bigger stories. Put the kettle on, make a cup of tea, sit back, read and plan ahead....


HARD TIMES
We all know from our own experiences that with the credit crisis still alive and kicking, and with the festive season now over, we really need to work hard to get the customers to come to our markets.
Our visitors are having an awesome opportunity to buy straight from the creator, cutting out so many middle men taking their margin. Help us spread the word of ARTE's uniqueness. Print the 4 posters on one sheet (attached) and hand them out at your clinic, salon, club, compound, apartment block, school, office or get a load of bookmarks and use those instead. Email the bigger E-poster to your friends; ask them to join you on your own facebook, or the ARTE group and fanpage pages. If you are a tweeter, get tweeting. We are such a wonderful colourful community group, let others get to know us. Help us spread the word and add this to your New Year's resolution to play your part in keeping ARTE the biggest and best art & craft market in the UAE.


ARTE SOUKH in Times Square Center - FRIDAY 14th JANUARY 2011
You have already received the booking form in our previous email. If you need it again it can be found on our website: http://arte.ae/ARTEtablebookingformTS.doc . Copy and paste it into your browser if it does not click through. www.arte.ae
Deadline for bookings is this Wednesday 1pm.

Vendor wishing to sell food at ARTE
We have had the municipality screen our ARTE food court in December and we have drawn up a document to adhere to the local food hygiene law. Most of it is common sense, but just read it and work by it.
http://www.arte.ae/foodrules.doc


A new TWO DAY EVENT - The Greens & The Views on 28 & 29 Jan 2011 from 10am till 6pm - don't miss it!!!
ARTE have managed to negotiate a 2 day exclusive Arts and Crafts market at The Greens & The Views to support Emaar's community event.
ARTE has invested in 25,000 flyers being distributed to the whole Emaar community and with the effort put in by all partners and sponsors it is expected that this is going to be a hugely successful event with a great community aspect to it.

Facts - Two Day Emaar Event in The Greens & The Views:
Twenty (20) stalls only
Full weekend bookings only, no single days
Only Handmade in the UAE need apply
Rate Dhs 350 for two days
Set up is from 8am, but needs to be completed by 10am
Vendors must fully tend to their stall between 10am to 6pm. Late arrivals and early leaving will be frowned upon!!!
Craft table, ARTE table cloth and 2 chairs
Bookings by email only to info@arte.ae
For this event we need more notice to get the vendor quantity right. Therefore the deadline for your registration is Monday 24th January, 1pm. However once the 20 vendors have been reached, bookings will close. The email bookings will be accepted on a first come first served basis.
Some electricity is available but limited, if you need it please come with a long lead!
Outside venue on the lawn, near Caribou Cafe, Nando's and the Big Fountain in The Greens
Bring your own sun shade / umbrella / gazebo
locatation map available on request, email info@arte.ae
In case of cancellation due to weather, we will not be able to issue any refunds as ARTE is investing significantly into this event's flyer contribution on your behalf.


NEW DATE for your calendar - RAK / March 2011
Following a great experience in December we are going back to the Al Hamra mall in Ras al Khaimah on Friday 23rd March. Please enter this into your calendar. The Al Hamra mall is a wonderful location that is easy to find with good parking and easy access to where the market is set up. It has some fabulous stores in it, together with some worthy key shops. More details later.

Competition time
In February we would like to hold a competition at both DFC and TSC events. The best dressed stall will be getting a 50% reduction off their next registration. We are going to try to run this through our ARTE Facebook fanpage. The theme for February will be Valentines.
We encourage you to follow the theme of love, affection, dreams, pink, hearts, kisses, cuddles, presents, gifts, cards and help spread love and kindness across the globe. Let us see what your hearts are made of at your stall.

We will also be setting up an album for ARTE valentines gifts on our Fan Page – please add as many good photos as you like and tag them against your name…this will give our customers an idea of what will be available at the markets.


New Year resolutions!!!
We thought we would help you with a few new years’ resolutions to make this your best year yet!
1- Keep a Calendar
Get organised ahead of time, and keep a calendar to help you keep track of important dates, deadlines and commitments. Stop the all night working so you are fresh on ARTE days and avoid annoying the people around you. A clear head, an organised start is best for good business. This year, keep a simple calendar such as on Google or use a pretty little handmade agenda to mark down everything you need to make this year productive and hassle-free. Your customers, peers and other important people will thank you and you'll be grateful for how good it feels to not have to keep everything in your head or scattered in various places.

2- Build a Mailing List
This is something that many of the ARTE vendors either do not understand the value of, or do not understand how to start one. Either way, this is something you ought to change in order to stay on top of the networking starting with your existing clientele. A major way to drive new sales, traffic and interest to your stall at ARTE is by growing a mailing list following of customers, potential customers, peers and fans who want to hear about your work, promotions and any other special tips you may have to offer.

It's easy to get started and a site many peers and colleagues I know use is Mail Chimp, which offers a forever free account for up to one thousand (1000) subscribers!. Other ways to get people on your list (the right way -no spamming allowed) is to ask new customer passively via a thank you convo, put out a sign up sheet at the market.

3- Market More
Did you carve out enough time for marketing, especially via social media. When things get crazy (holiday sales, intense client workload and plans for the future) you end up spending more time working and less time marketing, which seems okay at the time but once you're workload dies down, you'll wish you had consistently marketed, even if it was only 10 minutes a day, in order to have garnered more steady work over time.

4- Overcommit Less
Understand the value of time. Know which activities are most profitable. Concentrate on those activities and do not chase work that is not going to benefit you. Therefore you can deliver a more consistent and valuable product to your customer that costs less due to less time wasting by simply changing your perspective.

5- Keep Accounts
Do you record your costs that you incur for your products... are your tools included, how about the petrol for your car, or the taxi ride, or your waiting time in traffic, the materials that you require. Be truthful to yourself, and list all costs that relate to the making of your product.

6- Retake Crappy Photos
ARTE needs good high resolution photographs of your work, and also some great words that describe your art or craft or design. Have these ready now for when the call comes that we need your input fast. Start your networking to get your imagery right. In March 2011 www.gulfphotoplus.com will be running another week's worth of amazing photography courses, go online after 18th January to find the schedule and see what helps you take better shots. Your networking force wants to see your work, and not only receive your linked tweets or fb messages. Work on a proper album and a fabulous product port folio filled with photos that sparkle and really present your brand. Ask another vendor to help, don't necessarily blame the camera, a white background light box might help, but work together with friends or family on this.

7- Add More Price Points
Try going into Etsy shops (www.etsy.com) and see the variety of price points carried by sellers. Recently I was browsing in an accessories shop and noticed that the price points went from wallets (lowest) to clutches (low) to runched handbags (medium) to messenger bags (high) to long strapped diaper bags (highest). When I looked at the seller's sold items, I was blown away by the fact she had close to 1000 sales in just over a year. Besides offering a hearty amount of variety in styles and colors, she successfully staggered price points in the same category of product (accessories, more specifically bags) which means she gets people going in for something small and coming back for much more in the near future.

To do price points successfully, don't go off and make something higher or lower priced to what you currently offer if it doesn't work with your current collection - instead sit down and brainstorm things that complement your current products and give you the chance to use similar materials.

8- Carve Out a Better Work Space
Resolute for 2011 to create a proper place to work that you can call your own, a hub if you will, for you to create things, write, market and more. Set up your own hub with whatever free space you can muster surely we creatives can come up with an immaculate workspace even if it's tiny and stop scattering your business all around your residence.

9- Take a Day Off
If you're one of the many burnt out vendors floating around, I bet this is already high up on your New Year's resolution list. You may have spent a majority of 2010 working days, evenings, early mornings, weekends and more to get your business off the ground. Whether you have a day job or are doing this full time, realize that getting too much done without ever taking a break can lead to a failed business.

Many sellers realize that if they don't spend part of their year taking time away to refresh their creativity and recharge their batteries, they won't do as well as they could. Make a point to take every weekend off or if you work a day job, keep a couple evenings a week to yourself for something non art or craft related.

10- Skip the disfunction
Did you do something this year that just didn't work out the way you thought it would? Are your choices of markets working it out, is your blog or tweeting making a difference to your client base. First of all reseach why it did not work out, then catagorise for 2011 that you should not repeat these actions or activiites. Mishaps are easily forgotten and romantisized in the future. Make a list! skip what did not work altogether in 2011.

11- Learn More, Do More
Make sure you set aside time each week (hey, even your work lunch break would make a great time) to learn something new and implement the idea into your business. With blogs like The Storque, Ittybiz, Meylah, The Launch Coach, Tara Gentile and Craft MBA, you have an endless source of places to find helpful ideas for improving your business, so get cracking already.

12- Organize Paperwork
Get your paperwork on track in a flash. Get files, some dividers and just do it! Chuck most is my personal advice! It may take some time, but it is worth it.

13- Keep Better Track of Inventory
You can do this easily with a simple spreadsheet or go all out with fancy software but make a point this year to keep materials and inventory better organized and accounted for. It will save you tons of money and while the time you need to do this does add up - it means you'll know exactly what you can make.

14- Set Regular Hours
Try to balance your busy day, but setting aside regular hours for this and that, so you don't feel you are on top of things on the left side, but you have crashed on the right side.

15- Beautify Your Copy
The press is craving copy for their magazines, websites, newspapers. Just because you don't have a way with words doesn't mean you should just throw up some random bits of information in your product listings and hope they sell. Sit down and quietly channel the feelings and story behind your product, then set out to write a sweet paragraph about yourself, you never know when it will come in handy, as ARTE is always being asked for press articles.

Trust me - it will make a world of difference and give potential customers great insight into who you are and what you do (which of course, will help you sell more, more, more). Just don't forget the important details too!

16- Make Necessary Investments
Think long and hard about what you need to buy this year for your business - besides materials of course - and go ahead and do it. You may have been putting these types of purchases off but if it means bettering your business (and sales too) then it's wise to make these investments as soon as you can afford to.

These important yet larger purchases could be anything from a new digital camera (something with amazing focus), a laptop (so you can finally work at Starbucks) or even more simple - a shipping scale or higher quality work tools.

17- Get Out of Your Comfort Zone
If you didn't take any big chances this year, 2011 is the time to do it. Go out there and get it, whatever it is that will make your success grow, now is the time to do it.

18- Aim for More Press
The easiest thing you can do in the New Year is subscribe to several sites helping people get more press. One of those sites comes highly recommended - it's called Create Hype, and all you need to do is sign up and I'll send you a weekly email with a website you can submit your work to for consideration of blog or magazine press!


Good Luck with your resolutions. Start thinking Valentines Day (14th February), Book your table for ARTE in Times Square Center and also The Greens.

We look forward to seeing you on Friday!

Kindest regards

Miriam Walsh & Paul Townsend & the ARTE team
www.arte.ae
info@arte.ae