Growing my business

It's been 6 years since I started my teeth whitening business. It's kind of an interesting story full of ups and downs. My first venture in selling my teeth whitening products was with a direct mail piece - actually 100,000 pieces to Las Vegas, NV using Valpak. With a $7000 investment I purchased the mass mailing campaign, set up my first website (all flash and not at all seo-friendly), and set up a live 24/7 phone number using a Canadian company.

I was excited! I even set up about 300 mailing boxes in my basement, got packing supplies and waiting for the great day when the Valpak add was going to hit the market. The day finally came and 2 months, I had a grand total of $40 in orders! Not a very good ROI.

I then decided to jump on some local trade shows to try to unload my inventory before it got old and no longer usable - what happened next (after having decided to get into another business) was I found customers - lot's of them that truly appreciated the quality of my teeth whitening products; and, I made money - about $1700 in two days.

I did another show - this time for weddings; my sales were about $1200 in one day! I decided to stay in the teeth whitening business and started planning my next move. The moral of the story - blanket advertising didn't work for my teeth whitening trays.

Advice for others

Sell to people who want and appreciate your products!