The Hippo Pages

A new cunning plan from the small brain!

We've all seen this image:

But ... what if it looked like this:

 

And what if, it contained a listing for as many crafters as we can find?  It's quite a simple idea really, in the same way that people used to have a listing in the Yellow Pages crafters could have a listing in the Hippo Pages.  That way, crafters get some advertising and those looking for a crafter know where to look for them.  Not sure on the details as yet, because with all these things it starts as a small, easy to manage project and before you know it it's snowballed and become a whole entity in itself! However, the snowballing would be rather fantastic if it did happen :)

Because we ultimately want to become a self sustaining co-operative it may become a brilliant project element of the business in it's own right - time will tell.  But for the time being I will stick to chuntering with my facebook and twitter buddies and we will begin to shape the first Hippo Pages - will let you know how it all goes.  Hippo x

finding that USP

It's taken us a while to figure out who we are, who we sell to and more importantly why people buy from us.  In the early days of business you are so caught up with the shiny bits like 'wow, that's my branding on that bag' that you don't really get chance to sit back and analyse it.  Or more importantly, you don't really twig why you should analyse it.  There you are with a shop full of beautiful things that you adore, so why shouldn't shoppers adore them too?  But, that only works if your shoppers are exactly like you!

We twigged a few weeks ago that our USP or unique selling point is the stories behind the product.  In reality there are hundreds of fantastic photographers selling up and down the country so why buy ours?  The reason is  that we can tell you who took it, the giggle he had trying to set up a tripod in the snow and the daft sheep that were trying to escape while he balanced on the gate.  And, we can tell you his name, point out the track across the field he takes to get to us and the fact that it turns out he taught one of my friends at school.  Now you start to get our USP - and we can do that for all our products.

I was taught a long time ago by a fantastic PR guru the importance of connection, but didn't realise the importance of this till now.  People buy from people and love being able to chat and meet the makers.  We have a really unique service because we can say 'hang on, I'll call and see if they're in and able to pop down for a chat' when the customer asks 'is it possible to make that slightly bigger?'.  And while the customer goes across to the cafe for a coffee, the maker will trundle down to meet them.  Now, that's customer service by the Hippos!

The other thing that comes back to us loud and clear and on a regular basis is that our crafters love meeting up with each other, they like being part of the Hippo family as we have now become.  Our last craft fair on Sunday was full of hugs and 'how lovely to see you again' along with the err bribery of cake so that I would put people next to each other! We seem to be gaining a really fabulous bunch of happy makers that all share, get along really well and the amount of pitching in for gazebos by committee is fantastic. 

We see these building blocks as more important than the till receipts.  Get the foundations right, create a happy experience for everyone and people will come back for the next story - and they do! We have a real core of returning shoppers now eager to see what new stuff has been made.  They have a sit, and then tell us stories they know and the spider web of connections is becoming so interwoven that it's now a patchwork of people and stories with overlapping seams everywhere.  The day job has shifted - I am now a storyteller of journeys :)

How we stay in business

Our business idea isn't really that complex to follow, and for anyone that wants to replicate it - feel free to borrow our model.  And if you want help setting it up then please get in touch and we can help you become the next Little Hippo Presents :)

What possibly is slightly different from us compared to others is that no one person makes a living from someone else's work.  Our personal income, as with all the other sellers, comes from their own work sold.  All the percentages taken from sales pay for boring things like rent, telephone, bags, stickers and all the other things we need to operate as a retail outlet.

The Hippos are a community of makers, we all want to make our living from what we make but none of us want to take anything away from another maker.  We started from the position of adding up all our bills, working out how much shelf space we could fit in, how many craft fairs were sensible to do in a year then dividing it equally between folk - and that includes our glass.  As makers selling through the shop we also pay shelf space and also pay our sales percentages towards the bills just like other maker in the shop. 

What we now have to sort out is spreading the time and workload a little better, but that will come as we build the business because it is a business.  We do have to be accountable to our customers, our makers, the tax man just the same way as any other business has to.  The difference is we just choose to use any profits made to make the shop stronger, or put on other workshops, or invest in things that help many.

This is basically the model we work off, each element contributes to the whole which spreads the risk, helps the cashflow and stops us getting bored! 

The reason I felt the need to explain was that someone pointed out that it was fair to take a % as we had to make a living and they seemed really impressed that we don't make a living out of other sellers, we make a living by making things that are sold.  Hope that all makes sense, and see you all soon.  Hippo xx

Behold I give you the internet!

For those of you that follow me on Twitter or facebook you will be aware of my err slight rantings at the ineptness of BT over the last few weeks.  And that is probably the understatement of the century :) However, during all the various phone calls and emails to get us up and running I constantly felt as if I were in an episode of the IT Crowd.  For those of you not familiar with it, this is the episode I mean:

Behold, I give you the internet!

Bless em, not sure BT realised at the time but this is how they actually came across to me.  On a more serious note at all times they were reactive, unable to talk to each other or to me effectively.  Just out of morbid curiosity I looked up what communication actually means and this is what I got:

          "Communication (from Latin "communis", meaning to share) is the activity of conveying information through the exchange of thoughts, messages, or information, as by speech, visuals, signals, writing, or behavior."

Interesting! hmm a couple of key words there - share, convey, exchange and information.  So, a company with the word communication in it would quite rightly be expected to convey and share information to a paying customer? Yes? well actually no - this would appear quite difficult for them.  Even the chap who runs their twitter account was laughing at one point when he told me that the team wouldn't be able to see his notes as they had access to different record logs.  So, if they can't communicate with each other it's not really a surprise that they can't communicate with customers who foolishly hand over shiny pennies for a service that as Jen found out - we don't know what it is, we don't know how to find the elders and it is all shrouded in such mystery that we should just be in awe of the fact it happens at all.  To BT I present to you the elders of the miffed customers, you are unable to find us, you are unable to know what we think and you are unable to talk to us - mainly because you don't try very hard!

My teacher comments for this would read

"you have failed to understand the question.  What you have done is interesting and you tried very hard but next time please make sure you read and understand the question before answering it.  Also, you would have got higher marks had you structured your answer to guide the reader through your train of thought as it felt a little disjointed and muddled at times, almost as if you were panicking to reach the word count and at times I was unsure what you were trying to do.  Your links to other material and quotes from others did not support your arguments, and at times contradicted your original statements but good attempt overall" D+