Monthly Archives: May 2016

Branding Your Small Business- from Packaging Supplies to Logo

Posted on by

If you’ve launched a small business than you know that it tends to be a lot more complicated than you might think.  It’s not as simple as just coming up with an idea.  You also have to come up with a “brand”.  “Branding” is kind of a big thing these days, and don’t worry, no animals are harmed in the process.  Instead, the word “branding” has been borrowed from that rather unfortunate practice of burning an identifier into the hide of an animal, and has become the process of making something look exclusively yours.  Nowadays, an average individual can make a pretty awesome-looking website.  I know someone who’s step-dad puts together websites, and he charges somewhere around five grand.  Five grand?  Someone pass me my smelling salts.  Thankfully there are plenty of online domains that allow you purchase a dot com and, make it super easy to put together, for like a hundred bucks a year.  Ahhh, much better…

Costa-Mesa-City-of-Orange-County-Packaging-Supplies

What about packaging supplies?  Don’t be fooled, packaging supplies are more than just a box and some tissue paper.  It’s important to find somewhere that you can get them at wholesale prices.  An online source is usually best for this.  What about business cards?  It’s a good idea to include business cards, or maybe a business magnet, in with an order that you’ve sent.  Flyers and catalogs can all be part of the packaging process.  Not to mention, you don’t have to settle for boring old, everyday packaging supplies.  Go the extra mile and get some drawstring muslin bags, or metal tins, or even ribbon.

One of the most crucial components of your “brand” is your logo.  It’s a good idea to really take some time on this.  Put your heads together with some friends.  See what they think of your idea.  Next, if you can’t design your own logo on your own, pay the money to have someone do it.  You don’t want to wind up with a pathetic looking sticker that you obviously put together using the outlines from Microsoft paint.

We’ve already talked about a lot of the most obvious parts of owning a small business, like packaging supplies and business cards.  Here are a couple other things to consider, that might not have seemed so obvious before you launched into this whole thing: custom garment labels if you are designing clothes, custom rubber stamps to “brand” your product, or custom leather/metal tags for your homemade handbags.

3 Fun Projects to Do with Cardboard Boxes

Posted on by

Cardboard boxes are such a huge part of our lives.  It may sound like I am giving them too much credit, but I don’t think that I am.  If you were to take a walk around your house, you would probably discover so many more cardboard boxes than you thought you had, in a lot stranger places than you thought they would be.  And there are probably some en route with the postman, heading to your door as we speak.

My mother used to break down every single box she came across, and kept them in a ginormous stockpile under her stairs.  She had so many cardboard boxes we basically packed our whole house from them, ranging anywhere from a ring box to a washing machine box.

cardboard-boxes-gold-coast

However, there are a lot of fun projects you can do with them, instead of wasting them or stockpiling them.  Below, I have listed three:

  • Despite all of the obvious things you can do with cardboard boxes, one of my favorite remains painting with marbles. I first saw this done at a group home for people with special needs, and it really is a project for everyone.  Take the lid off a carton, or cut off the sides of a box so that there is only a couple inches up from the bottom, and squeeze different colors of paint randomly across the bottom.  Throw in a couple marbles and have the artist tip the box from side to side.  The marble will roll through the paint and make a fun design.
  • Check this out: make a few notches at the top of a box, a few inches wide, and then set the box on the floor upside down, so that the notches become little doorways. Grab some golf balls and whatever you want to use as a golf club and you’ve got some putt-putt on your hands!
  • And then, of course, you have your homemade dollhouse, where you glue a bunch of different sized boxes together to make rooms of different sizes, and you can decorate the walls with wrapping paper to look like wallpaper, and cut out pictures from magazines to use as the accessories and/or backdrop. If you don’t want to do something as girly as a dollhouse, why not put together a firehouse, or even some imaginary world of your own design?  The possibilities are literally endless.

Why There is No Such Thing As Cheap Moving Boxes

Posted on by

Random Fact of the Day: Did you know that a flock of crows is called a murder?  It is speculated over why this is what they are called, and a lot of the speculation revolves around the superstition surrounding this particular species.  But an interesting observation pointed out that there was a time when groups of animals were given creative names, like a parliament of owls, a knot of frogs, and an ostentation of peacocks.

Cheap Moving Boxes

On a completely different note, when it is time to relocate, we all like to think that we want cheap moving boxes.  The problem with this is that we don’t actually take the time to stop and think about what it really means.  I mean, seriously, would you really choose cheap moving boxes to protect and transfer all of your worldly possessions?  All of your grandmother’s antique crystal serving bowls, or your entire collection of records by The Who, or even your books?  Imagine having the bottom fall out while holding any of the priceless items I just mentioned.  You would probably curse yourself for not going the extra mile.  Because what’s the point of even moving your stuff if you are just going to ruin it along the way, anyway?

A friend once asked for some help moving.  Imagine our absolute surprise and consternation when we arrived and discovered that she was only “mostly” packed.  Now, when most of us think of “packed” we think of items being placed in a container of some sort and being adequately secured.  Well, when this friend said “packed” she really meant that she had unplugged her lamps and set them by the door and was ready to give orders from there.  I kind of feel a little bad for her, actually, because I think she was hoping that it would wind up being some kind of party, and it was nothing of the sort.  She wound up having some pretty adequate help, but we were all people that wanted to get in and get the job done.  I think five of the six of us were prior military, and we were not impressed with either her strategy or her mindset.  I don’t care how cheap, I would have settled for some cheap moving boxes on that day.  It would have beat carrying grocery bags of cat supplies and armfuls of towels.

If there is a moral to the story of “cheap moving boxes” than it has to do with how it’s better to be packed than unpacked, and I think we can all agree on that.

Three Kinds of Shipping Boxes

Posted on by

Most people don’t know that there are three kinds of shipping boxes.  This is, in part, because it isn’t an official designation, but one based off of observation.  I still like to say that the theory stands, though.  So the three kinds of shipping boxes would be: casual, serious, and professional.  Below, I will explain in greater detail the characteristics that make each of these categories distinct from one another.

Casual: something that is done without much thought, effort, or concern.  Now, when it comes to shipping boxes this doesn’t mean that you don’t care if what you are sending gets lost, or gets ruined along the way.  If you cared that little you probably wouldn’t even be investing in sending something to begin with.  It just means that you aren’t trying to make any kind of impression with your packaging supplies.  You can take an old diaper box and wrap it in paper grocery bag and write on it with sharpie.  You can let your kids cover it in stickers and scribble on it with crayons.  More than likely this is something you would be sending to a close friend or family member.

shutterstock_63582343

Serious: involving or deserving a lot of thought, attention, or work.  If you were going to send off your manuscript to an editor or publishing company, odds are that you wouldn’t be sending it like the first group that we mentioned.  If a serious person doing a serious job were to come across a sparkly pink package they would probably assume that the sender had no place in that community.  If you want your manuscript to be taken seriously, than you should be sending it in a plain cardboard box or envelope mailer, with tape that didn’t clash and addresses written neatly.

Professional: exhibiting a conscientious and generally businesslike manner.  This is where an individual or organization takes extra care that their product is being correctly represented right from the get go.  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, that packaging is someone’s first impression (well, after the website or phone call or whatever that led them to sending away for something).  Usually you have some nice, clean, sturdy boxes.  Usually you have tape that has your company’s logo printed on it.  Usually you have shipping labels with printed addresses on it.  I don’t think it would be very impressive to buy something from a business and receive that had your name and address hand-written on it.