Love the warm weather finally coming to Philly here- means many weddings are being planned for- the baseball wedding theme must be gaining in popularity, or maybe it's just themed weddings in general that are getting more popular? I love a theme- I think it adds more interest/fun for the guests- but maybe I'm biased as the artistic type :)

So I am one of those people who is endlessly reading branding books b/c i am always eager to learn the latest thinking on how to best brand your business. The latest one I am reading is by Daymond John, from Shark Tank. He talks about going from a brand to a lifestyle. So I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about what my brand is and who it speaks to best. What makes my product unique is that it appeals to both men shopping for themselves, and women shopping for men. This makes it tricky to figure out who I am speaking to specifically- I guess maybe what unites them is just being a baseball fan!

I think the hardest part of my job, and most artists turned small businesses would feel the same, is stopping myself from sitting around talking to people and creating new designs for them all day.  It is very easy for me to get happily lost in the parts of my business that I like the most without staying focused on the big picture. My greatest discipline is trying to keep the number of designs I offer down so inventory does not get out of control.  All of my designs need to be in stock, so the more I offer at once the larger my stock needs to be!

So to be completely honest I really started as a football fan instead of a baseball fan. I went to the Giants and Jets games with my dad on Sundays and really didn't follow baseball.  This of course being completely not my fault b/c I'm from NJ and we have no team! Anyway, I painted this baseball years ago and gave it to my dad. :)

Well it's coming up to that time of a year- every time Valentine's Day gets close I think of 12 new valentine's day designs I want to create and offer- have to stop myself from making too many- but just seems like such a fun ball to make. Maybe its the girl in me- paint baseballs for a living but still can't stop dreaming of painting hearts on things! :)

So my new concept is to create smaller runs of some specialty baseballs.  I have created the Captain ball, and now a SF Giants 3 world series win ball. Both I painted and posted as I created them on Facebook and Instagram.. It really helps to get fans of the particular teams looking at the baseball and giving suggestions of what's important. This pictured SF ball I posted as you see here- and I had several people ask why there was the blue on the ball (it actually is the KC Royals crowd b/c that is where the last win took place) but the SF fans wanted their ball to be more orange and black, so I was able to modify...

Here is my Captain ball- printed so nicely! I love getting to see the ball for the first time once it is totally printed and sewn together!  I was thinking about what to paint next- maybe some other stadiums would be fun.  Once the Christmas rush is done- I'm excited to paint some more designs.  Funny I like painting, then I paint too much and am happy to do business work-then I miss painting again... :)

So I am waiting on all my preorder baseballs- and calling Fedex about 4 times a day.  My baseballs have been ready to ship for the last week, but I have had such a hard time getting info on where the shipment is, why it is taking so long to get picked up and brought to my ship warehouse- etc.  Why is it that you can't speak to the same Fedex person twice?  Each time you start from scratch with a new person! Next year maybe we have preorders not coming in quite so close to holiday time...

So every year I struggle with what to offer for Black Friday/ cyber Monday- b/c here's my dilemma- this time of year I sell a lot of baseballs to customers for holiday gifts, etc for the baseball fan.  But I have a hard time  offering a big sale for people to get a discount on a certain day when other people have just paid full price the day before.  I somehow think that the people who just bought their baseballs will feel badly that they bought at full price, but I can't afford to have a sale all the time- so there is my dilemma.  Anyway, I will offer something for cyber Monday- maybe it will be an add on...

So here was my first big break- Hammacher Schlemmer put my baseballs on the cover of their catalog in 1995.  I think my mom ordered like 10 catalogs!  It was my first real lesson in the ways of the world- not 3 months before this happened I had contacted HS myself to see if they were interested in my baseballs... I got responses from their sales team that they were not interested and going to pass- then I joined with another company that had a salesman who knew people at HS and BAM I'm on the cover!  (don't believe anyone who says contacts don't help :)