The Ultimate Outdoor Vending Checklist

I love vending outdoors!

Since 2004, I have been setting up shop at my local farmer's market, selling soap to the masses. Well, back then, there weren't as many masses. Nowadays, it's hard to navigate the street because the market is so packed with people (UPDATE: We were able to still have the market in 2020! Far fewer masses, but the market still happened, as it was an “essential business. We are so lucky!). I am lucky to live in a place that has such a great market so close to home; I am doubly lucky to be a part of that market as a vendor for so long. 

Because I have been around so long on this scene, I often get asked questions about vending, from those new to outdoor vending. The questions range from:

"Do you know the local tax rate? I forgot."

to

"You don't happen to have some duct tape I can borrow, do you?"

The answer to both is, of course, "Yes."  And the tax rate. You get it. 

Aaaanyway, listen, there are lots of things craft business owners need to know when vending outdoors. I could probably do an entire blog or video series on this exact topic, because there are a lot of things to think about for the very specific skill of vending outdoors. There's tent choice and weights, display choices, labeling choices for products, how to TALK TO HUMANS, how to manage the money, how to deal with market managers, etc. Maybe I should do a blog or video series. Maybe I just made my list and I'm copying it and pasting it to a doc right now! (Not maybe, I just did it.)   Let me know in the comments what aspect of outdoor vending you would like to read about. 

As a start, today I am offering you the Ultimate Outdoor Vending Checklist!

When I started vending, I didn't have much. Just a tent, one cheap-ass camping table (You know, those aluminum ones with the cardboard-type top? Ugh.), and a piece of denim to cover the table. The tent was super cheap, from a big box store, and I threw it away at the end of my first season, because it was broken in 4 places and I had to tape it with duct tape in those four places every time I had a show.

Oh, those were the days. Not very well thought-out on my part. 

I got smarter as the years went on, and as I packed my car each time, I mentally checked off everything on the checklist as I packed my car:

"Tent
Weights
Bungee cords
Sign
Tables
Chair..."


and so on. As time went on, I kept forgetting things here and there while vending, and the list got pretty long, so I had to write it down. 

I suppose that's another tip for outdoor vending: write everything down! My memory is just too full for details anymore. 

Since this blog is meant to be helpful to you,  I'm offering you the checklist that I use when getting ready for an outdoor show. I've spiffed it up so it looks nice. Enter your email address below to get yours, and please let me know what you think should be added to it, so I can update it.

​Enjoy your vending! I hope you sell out!

What It's Like to be a Professional Crafter

The Life of a Professional Crafter: A Case Study, is available for free!

I am wrapping up my 17th year as a professional crafter.

Reading that makes me blink. It's hard for me to believe, because I remember nearly every decision, every packaging attempt, every stupid label that jammed my computer. I remember my first day at the farmers market. 

The first day! 

I had a cheap tent, a camp table (you know those? They have aluminum edges and a thick type of cardboard for the top), and a big piece of denim for a tablecloth. I had five piles of soap across this one table, with a label tucked into a wire stand I made for each. 

Five piles of soap. They didn't have a swirl in them. A couple of them had no color in them at all. They were on top of paper bags, presumably to protect the tablecloth. INSERT EYEROLL HERE.

Before I left for this first farmers market, my husband was not very optimistic. He wished me luck, however, and supported me "trying it out." I will always remember how triumphant I was when I came home. 

"Guess how much money I made!" I said. 

"$50," he guessed. 

"$187! Ha!" 

He was impressed. After that, he encouraged me to do the farmers markets, and about 9 years in, I hired him to be my full-time soap maker. I taught him everything I know how to make and now he makes the soap. I make other products, and do most of the vending and the back end of the business, and he makes soap and does grunt work and runs errands. 

We make it work. 

I'm amazed, though, that we are starting our 17th year of this business. Having a handmade business is hard work, particularly when you have a full-time job on top of it. Most people are amazed when I tell them, and I have to chime in that I have help, but they are still impressed that I have a business at all. 

I usually don't tell them that I really have two. 

Writing has been my life for nearly my whole life; I wrote my first book when I was six years old. The Book About Some, Teeth had several riveting chapters about cow and horse teeth (I grew up in Iowa, leave it), and going to the dentist. Every picture of a mouth had about a million and three teeth in it. Best-seller, that one. 

After making soap for a bit, I decided I should write a soap making book. And then I wrote another, and another. I just published my fourth how-to book about making balms and butters. Moving forward, I'm going to be writing more online courses, teaching folks like you how to make your own handmade business work for you.  That link will take you to my first online course, Your Legit Biz.

Being an entrepreneur can be a crazy, disjointed ride. I started out making soap, and now the whole thing is morphing into teaching others how to have a company, and selling what you make. I'm feeling nostalgic about it, as I write this, and then I laugh, because there is NOTHING nostalgic about tearing down a tent in the middle of a pelting hailstorm, freezing my ass off.

Perspective.

If you would like to learn what a year in the life of a lunatic like me is like, then I'm happy to share it with you. I feel like, if people read about what one year is like, then they will know. You will really know what it takes, what kind of planning happens, what sort of decisions need to be made, what kind of pressure there is with time and finances and family. Learning about what it's like before you jump into it is actually pretty smart, I think. I didn't have that opportunity--I just jumped in. 

Ready to jump? Fill out the form below and you can read all about it in my ebook, The Life of a Professional Crafter: A Case Study. 

5 Days to an Organized Business

Hey there! I’m Amy Kalinchuk, and I do a lot of things.

I write, more than anything. I write and publish my own books. I am, of course, writing this blog post right now. I'm a crafter (I've got my first class up on Skillshare! You should check it out!), an entrepreneur (I make and sell  soap and skin care, and have been for 17 years), I play roller derby and workout in a CrossFit gym for sanity, and I have a family and friends. I’m a public school teacher, as well.

Many of those friends have exclaimed, many times, "How do you do this?" Well, they also have to realize, when they are asking me that, is that I haven't seen them in a long time, because I'm busy. But so is everybody--life isn't a busy contest. This is about how to juggle. This is a circus management contest. 

I'm sure there are plenty of bloggers in the Universe who can tell you how to get your home organized. How to organize your closet. Your kitchen cupboards and pantry. Your children's clothing and clothing donation when they grow out of it. 

I am not that person. 

My home is very often a wreck, because we craft for a living. My closet is a disaster (I'm an 80/20  person, for sure). My kitchen has food in it, somewhere. My child's clothing needs a good purge, as she has grown 8 feet the past half year. 

I can live with all of that. I CANNOT live with having my business affairs in a mess. Absolutely not. 

Hey, business is important! This is how you feed your family, right? (Or how you want to feed your family. You’ve thought of starting your own handmade business, haven’t you?) For me, everything else can be a wreck, but come retail tax time, my taxes are PAID, because I set the money aside and planned for it, and I did it efficiently because I had all the records for it at my fingertips. 

Yeah, go ahead. You can be jealous. I'll wait a minute. ::flips hair, looks at watch::

Over the years, I have become very good at organizing my business, it's true. In our crafty circle here in Denver, some call me the Tax Lady, because I know so much about this stuff, and I'm practical about it. I have had to be—I have had years in my business where finances were touch and go, and incurring a late fee would be too much to bear for that month. I’ve had to learn the hard way, but I’ve learned to get and stay organized with the back-end paperwork for my business. If they are going to call me The Tax Lady, I’d better have some semblance of organization. When a vendor friend (“friendor”) comes over to ask me a question, I want to be able to help. Hey, I'm happy to help them--it's not like I have some big secret.

I'm happy to help you, too. 

Fill out the form below and sign up for my free mini-course, 5 Days to an Organized Business! Over the course of a workweek, you will receive an email every day with a link to a private video I have made, outlining my organizational systems. Hopefully you will find some good information, and you can also leave a comment on the video so we can all have a conversation about it, and help with problem-solving. 

Get your act together, and keep it there. This IS your circus.  These ARE your monkeys.  You can do this! ​