From Reluctant Entrepreneur
The Business Concept Over the past forty years, Jim Glay has worked weekend and evening gigs as a professional drummer. As he traveled around on his performance outings, he would visit drum shops and often ended up buying their more unusual and exotic drums, many originally manufactured in the sixties
and early seventies, considered to be the "golden age" of U.S. drum production. Over the years, he has been regularly asked by ardent drum collectors to sell certain drums...but each drum has been his "baby" and he wouldn't part with any of them. They say that "necessity is the mother of invention" - in Jim's case prolonged and seemingly unending unemployment has been the "mother of financial imagination" for him. He has recluctantly come to the conclusion that now is time to start sharing his exceptional collection of drums with the world of drum collectors by setting up a way to systematically market and sell parts of his collection. Jeff Williams knew immediately upon hearing the details of Jim's hobby/passion that we needed to create an online store through which to display and offer for sale select drums from his collection, a few at a time. Our Business
Planning Process Getting organized Our first step was to work with Jim to create an identity for his company. This consisted of completing three key organizational steps: 1. Select and register a legal name - Jim chose Crash Boom Bam as his new company's legal name and set it up as a Limited Liability Company (LLC) using our online registration partners at mycorporation.com. 2. Select and register a web address (domain name) - Jim chose wwww.vintagedrumsandmore.com in order to help assure that his website comes up high in the google search listings for drum collectors. We showed him how to register it at godaddy.com. 3. Choose a color scheme and design elements for both his company's logo and the webstore design - You'll see the logo our design staff created for Jim and his desired color scheme when you look at his webstore below. Creating the webstore Next, our web design experts created an eye-catching web store for Jim's new company, Crash Boom Bam. Take a look at the Crash Boom Bam Webstore Jim used a friend who is a talented amateur photographer to shoot pictures of each snare drum and drum kit in his collection. All the digital photos were sent to our website designer who placed them on the appropriate pages, according to Jim's directions. We knew from working with the websites of hundreds of start-up clients that Jim needed a form on each selling page to permit site visitors to quickly send him an e-mail message and so we added this feature at the bottom of each selling page. The Crash Boom Bam website is intensely personal in its layout and writing and so it not only features drums for sale but also a gallery of drums that are for exhibit only (for now anyway) and a dedication to Jim's drum teacher. Over the next few months, we will add accessories and memorabilia for sale and will start to accept sale drums on consignment - there's a solid plan for growth in place. The marketing & selling plan One of the key's to success in one's own business is to really know the nuts and bolts of your chosen business, as well as the landscape of your intended marketplace. From his long experience as a professional drummer and enthusiastic drum collector, Jim knows many other collectors. He has interesting historical information on each drum (one style was used by Ringo Starr) and he is a very engaging writer. These are all important marketing skills. Collectors of any kind are looking for the most unusual items they can find or to fill in an item or two in an existing collection. They want to connect with another enthusiast like themselves to "talk shop" before they decide to buy. Jim Glay "talks the talk and walks the walk" with drum collectors. We helped Jim open an account at Constant Contact, the leading e-mail marketing company out there, and showed him how to add the names and e-mail addresses of potential customers and how to use the design templates to compose and send out compelling promotional e-mails. Our strategy is for Jim to send out a promotional e-mail each week for the next four months, each one featuring one special item from Jim's collection and requesting the recipient to contact Jim to discuss the item. We are also, obviously, pursuing publicity opportunities for Jim. Since July, his story as a "reluctant entrepreneur" has been featured in the Chicago Tribune, and of course, the AARP Bulletin. We are now moving to land publicity in drum industry magazines and websites. Why Virtual Incubator Coaching Fits Your Life Right Now Our current economic downturn has been particularly hard on individuals over age 50 - more than 3.5 million have lost their jobs in the past eighteen months and many can't land even a single job interview. But, we know from our friends, neighbors and relatives that very few individuals in the 55-65 year old age bracket are anywhere close to being ready to completely stop working. They want to continue to contribute, to "be in the action" and quite honestly most need the money. With many burned out on the demands of the corporate world or with a growing number asked to involuntarily leave the corporate world, more and more of we Boomers need a way to "turn our passion into profit". As a certified Virtual Incubator business start-up coach, this is what I specialize in. Want to explore how to "turn your passion into profit"? - drop me an e-mail and let's set up a time to talk by phone.
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By the time Virtual Incubator coach Jeff Williams met Jim, he had accumulated one of the most extensive collections of vintage drums and drum kits in the U.S. if not the world.
We combined the use of our
Ultimate Boomer Business Start-Up Guide
and one-on-one coaching to lead Jim to complete twenty-five key business planning decisions.
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