The Savvy Entrepreneur

Our booth at the HHI World Hip Hop Dance Championship

Hello blog Family!

It's been a long time and a lot of lessons later. Life has been busy and time flies when handling business! I've missed you and am excited to share my Vegas experience.

I love learning and growing, no matter how stressful, painful and embarrassing it can be. The tips and tools that I type about here, I am always working on, too. I am evolving everyday as an entrepreneur and I still have my moments of immaturity, and ignorance. It's apart of the game and apart of life. We learn from our mistakes and celebrates our accomplishments!

Vegas was an experience! We worked more than 12 hour days, slept very little and ate Vegas casino food for five days. But we made it through and live to tell the story! haha.

By some of the Dead Kings Collective Artists.

We made most of our money from the custom hip hop hats we made. Our artists were busting their butts pumping them out. We met so many amazing people from all over the world. We were able to connect with a world audience at one event. So no matter if we made all our money back or not, the marketing itself was priceless.

We also had a couple of our friends roll through to really get the party crackin'! Twomilli, a member of the Dead Kings Collective, and female emcee and Cio Casteneda, the Hip Hop Priest, threw down on some freestyle rhymes at the booth and DJ C-Los held it down at one of the night's after parties. It's always great to have the support and love of your friends!

You can find the Dead Kings Collective fan page on Facebook!

Our t-shirts', hats', stickers' and fliers have gone around the world! And now we understand our market much better and have made friends from places like Japan, New Zealand, Mexico, Canada, Italy and locally!

We stayed at the Red Rock Casino, Resort and Spa and had a beautiful room, with a deep bathtub, shower, double sink and the most comfortable bed looking at a big flat screen tv. It was a great room for the team to share.

Below is my list of learnings for big events, when apart of a small operations (in no particular order).

1. Self Care. Especially when you're going to be out of your element for more than a couple of days. I noticed that because I didn't keep at least some of my daily rituals, I become more disconnected from myself. We didn't leave the Red Rock the whole time we were there. I didn't even venture outside. We didn't have the time or energy.

2. Bring Your Favorite Foods. Bring food that you like, and is healthy. Being in the biosphere for so long, our food choices were few. Healthy food choices almost non-existent. The food choices affected my mood and ability to stay fully active.

3. Smile, Smile, Smile. Nothing attracts people to your booth as much as a hearty smile. A positive attitude and being real with potential clients is a must. Creating real connects with folks is the new way to generate sales and create repeat customers. Plus it feels great to connect with others!

4. Be Creative! The hats came about almost by accident. We weren't allowed to paint (spray or brush) or air brush in the resort, but it didn't stop us from brining paint and pens. After doing some custom art on some folks' boom box, shoes, hat and watch, the customization extravaganza began! We did everything from hats to event t-shirts. Everyone was a satisfied customer.

5.Enjoy Yourself! Selling your crafts is a blessing. Make sure you give thanks, but also enjoy the fact that you are able to do such a thing. Enjoy yourself, enjoy your clients and enjoy the event!

Some of the new fams we met in Vegas.

Till next week, create something for yourself and live well.

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If you're an Etsy seller in the San Francisco Bay Area, contact Jen from Mama's Magic Studio about joining SFEtsy!