I had purchased an existing business on a whim for $7000. I had a vision of a huge event someday, one that would fill the convention center and be bursting at the seams with customers. And so, I decided to call it "The Bay Area's BIGGEST Resale Event For Kids". Was it the biggest resale event? I had no idea. I really didn't know much at all about the resale world other than the fact that I had shopped at this event when my son was a toddler (who was a 10-year old in 2005), and then sold and shopped at the event again for the girls in recent years. I also knew that I had managed to "grow" the event from 19 sellers the previous fall to 50 at this event. I'd also managed to find a location, which apparently had proved to be the death of many consignment sales before. And I also managed to join forces with the most dynamic, hard-working team in existence - my family. In the beginning the entire show was a family effort. Every single task from preparation to setup, to cash register and packing was done by me, Mike, my mom or dad, my sister, my aunts, my in-laws, and even my grandma. It was actually pretty fun spending all that time together, although I'm not sure they all found it quite as endearing as I did. They've all stuck with me, though, and in some way each of them has continued to help make the show the success it is today. And somewhere in there I managed to convince my mom to become my business partner, and working with her has been the most amazing experience by far. She fills in every space where I'm lacking, and together we make such a great team. Along the way, I've learned so much from her and I'm extremely thankful for the excuse the show has given me to spend so much time with her.
In those days, despite the dreams, I had no idea how big this thing would become. Back then our supply list of items to bring to the show included "something to do" for the down-times between customers. Today, I'm lucky if I remember to snap a picture or make note of the final layout before the whole thing is finished and packed up. In a sense, it's kind of like planning your wedding over and over again. You make all the plans for every aspect of every moment, agonize over tiny details, get everything set and then adjust them again, pour tons of money into making it the best ever, and then you blink and it's over. And you're left with this faint memory that something cool happened and you liked it, even though you can't really remember all that much about it.
For many years we did everything we could think of to get the word out. Everything, that is, except to spend actual real money. We handed out flyers at parks, put flyers on windshields, drove signs into the ground and attached them to street poles. We sought out online calendars, called day-cares and schools, and even put out press kits, trying to entice the media to cover our event. And through it all, the show started growing, and just kept growing and growing and growing. Pretty soon we had 100, and then 200, and then 300 sellers at our event. The workload became unbearable and we hired staff to help us carry the load, literally and figuratively. We hired friends, family, sellers and their husbands, and even a few guys who were down on their luck. And suddenly giving money away became almost as much of a joy as seeing the business grow and hearing how much people appreciated coming to shop there.
But then something happened. It seemed like it happened suddenly, though I suppose it was actually happening all along and I just didn't notice. The show had grown too big. Granted, the show had been growing all along. In the beginning we used 1/2 of one side of the Hall. Later we used the full 1/2, only to become disillusioned with the Convention Center staff, which would land us ultimately at the Fairgrounds. We started in a small building, moved to a bigger one, and slowly began occupying more and more of the space inside it. But now the show had become a stressful challenge just to fit all of the items in the building, and the line to pay on the first days was spiraling out of control, hitting nearly 2-hours at its peak. I honestly couldn't think of any way to fix these problems. We'd gone vertical, we'd sped up our checkout process, we'd used every inch of space we could, but our previous growth in sales had completely halted and was now slowly starting to slip downward.
And then my mom, in all her brilliance, suggested moving to a bigger building - the biggest building they have at the Fairgrounds. And Mike suggested using barcode scanners at the registers, to scan tags live instead of removing them. And although it felt like a huge weight had been lifted, these propositions were extremely scary to me. Moving to a bigger building was going to cost considerably more money, and we were already slipping financially. Scanning barcodes at the registers meant that an infinite amount of things could potentially go wrong (including the thought that we may find ourselves at the end of the show with no record of what sold and no way to pay any of our sellers - terrifying!). But after some serious deliberation, I decided that there was no way I could go on providing bad service to the customers at an event with my name on it. So either we made the changes, or we quit.
This most recent show that ended a week ago was our second in this new giant building and we're still trying to figure out how best to use the space. The financial numbers are very slowly on the rise again, though, which made me confident enough to sign contracts for two more events next year. And the barcode system is amazing and not only cut the line time by more than half, but saves me weeks of work after the event. Of course, there's always kinks to work out and adjustments to be made (like the truck days - I'm working on it, Dad!), but that's the best part of this business and why I've loved it so much all along. It's like a never-ending round of process improvement and streamlining - a business that I get to tweak and adjust and change whenever and wherever I think it's needed. It's been the ultimate learning experience for me, and it's been a ridiculous amount of fun.
So what have my kids learned from Outrageous Outgrowns?
- customer service, as they see me deal with unruly or unhappy customers
- marketing, as they watch us find new ways to get the word out
- event coordination, as they sit in meetings and hear us talk about logistics, and demand and bargain for services with our event hosts
- integrity, as they see me run the business with honesty and do the best I can even when no one's looking
- budgeting, as they plan how many hours they want to work in order to buy the things they want
- hard work, in learning that I'm not paying them for hours when they're not really working hard
- thinking on your feet, which needs to happen way more often than I'd like it to, during the event
- diligence, when they see me keep pushing even though they know I'm tired
- business planning, when they go with me to check out the competition in the area and are able to tell me what I do better or what I should try to fix
- entrepreneurship, as they've grown up watching me make tough decisions and face my fears
- faith, when I say that the show is God's gift to us and I want to honor Him with all I do there
- family devotion, when they see everyone willing to help out for no other reason than the fact that they want me to succeed
- etiquette, when they learn how to speak and act around customers in a business place
- kindness/gentleness/patience, as we try to control our tempers and emotions after 9 days without much sleep
- generosity, as they see us give and give, and then give some more, for no reason at all
I'm not sure how much longer we'll keep running these events. We just finished our 9th year - 18 Outrageous Outgrowns shows, including several shows that almost didn't happen, and at least a couple of years where I'd been ready to call it quits. But thousands of people come through those doors each time we open them, and I hope we've made their lives a little happier, a little less stressful, a little more peaceful. I hope we've encouraged people, given them something to look forward to in dark times, and brightened their day with that one good deal or the check in their mailbox. If I was ever sad about selling or ending the business, it would be those opportunities that I would miss the most. I feel so fortunate to have been able to experience all of this. It has changed the way I think about everything.
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