Saturday, October 18, 2008

Chocolate Sale

From this......55 lbs of chocolate



To this. Larry and Jake pricing chocolate









I decided to take part in a Farmer's Market today in St, John's.

As most spaces at the market are pre booked, remaining spaces are available on a week to week basis only. This leaves a bit shorter notice than I'd like. I make my items fresh and the short notice means a lot of work in a short period of time. But....I made it!

Events like this are not really Tyler's cup of tea. He opted to stay at home. Brittney wanted to come --- not only to help but also to look around at the other vendors' booths as well (read: to shop). Larry likes to be 'out in front' too whereas I prefer making the chocolate items (hmmm wonder who Tyler takes after?).

That leaves Jake. For those of you who know him, you know which position in our family business *he* prefers. Yep, you guessed it.....salesman. As soon as he found out I was going in the sale and that he could come, he was over.the.top with excitement. This is putting it mildly too...the last few days have been a challenge for me keeping my cool while I helped him keep himself calm. He loves people and when I asked him what he thought of selling, he replied, "Are you kidding me??? I love it.....it's exciting.....it's unique.....it's awesome!!!"

This excitement soon earned him the title of Chief Salesman...and I must say, he lived up to that title. He was up at 6:00 a.m., dressed, had breakfast and ready to go, long before the rest of us. When we arrived there, he helped set up and wrote out name tags for each of us to wear. His of course, had his first and last name as well as both middle names.

When the sale started, he promoted, explained and sold a lot of chocolate. I mostly stood back and watched. He calculated total purchases in his head and did pretty well with the change. Larry was there to oversee, and while Jake needed some help calculating change, he did very well figuring out total amounts of each purchase.

Brittney did well too, explaining about the chocolate....the different types, the fillings etc. She enjoys working with/meeting/talking to people too and also does well with this skill. There were a couple of tense moments though when she accepted some money from a customer......Jake saw this as his job and his job alone. He didn't like her intruding on *his* territory, he was not impressed and let her know too. I'm pretty sure others could tell as well.....Oh my...

It was a good day though. We enjoyed some time working together. I feel they learn so much from these events and I count them highly in our homeschooling experience. Math, handling money, social skills, working as part of a team, operating a business, communication/language skills ........the list goes on.

At the end of the day, I was going to pay them ....in chocolate (what else). They both said no, they didn't expect anything because they wanted to come along and really enjoyed the day. Jake went on to say I needed to make a profit and it wouldn't help if I gave chocolate away for free. So....back and forth we went trying to figure something out. I wanted them to have something for free, he wanted to pay and I didn't want to do that. Eventually, we were able to work out a deal that he thought was acceptable....he chose something he liked....I gave him a discount and he paid the rest. At first I suggested he could have it half price....he thought 25% would be best.

He drives a tough bargain, eh? ;0)

5 comments:

Becky said...

One Word....YUM! I would take pay in chocolate anyday.

Shannon said...

Wow! That looks like a lot of work! I'm glad you had so many willing helpers. I agree...I would take pay in chocolate without hesitation!!

Harrison Family said...

Ummmm yummy! I don't know how you and your family can work around it and not eat it. I looked back at some of your older blogs about chocolate and they all look so perfect. Do you have a web site that people can order from and get shipped to?

At Home on the Rock... said...

Thanks, Ladies!

armywife_gnr -- I do have a website but only for my teas. I should put the chocolate on there as well but haven't gotten around to it. Part of the problem --- I prefer to make my orders custom designed --- meaning all things are available in dark, milk or white chocolate with whichever filling/nuts/straight chocolate are preferred. Most of my customers say what they like and then I make it. For example my Dad doesn't like almonds but prefers walnuts. So for him, I make Dark Chocolate Walnut Bark. The next person may prefer cashews or peacans in white chocolate so I'll make white chocolate pecan bark or milk chocolate pecan bark....all depending on their preferances.

Same goes for price. So usually my customers will say make me or send to me $20.00 in milk chocolate almond bark.

I also do a lot of themed items...like tool boxes with small tools, larger chocolate tools, golf balls, boxes made out of chocolate, etc.

I do ship chocolate -- usually things like almond bark (or other nut barks), and chocolate suckers. I'm always afraid to ship things like truffles or filled things....not sure how they would make it after being put through the workout Canada Post would give it. The straight chocolate items travel well though.

yofed said...

mmmm....you know you are mean? Showing us so much goodness ithout being able to taste it? lol Just kidding! It really looks yummy... too bad you were not selling in Halifax!