Article 18 : Learn How To Price Your Products Competitively - Get The Formula Here!

When determining how to price your products, there are several things you need to consider. Obviously, you want to price it within the range that your target market is willing to spend. You also want to price it good enough to recover your costs and keep a nice profit for your efforts.

Depending on how you plan to market or to sell your product, you may need to have more than just one price for a certain product. You might want to have a retail price and a bulk selling price. You might also want to think about giving a percentage off or a commission to re-sellers and sales agents who are willing to help you promote and sell your products.

Before you can price your item, the first step is to identify your costs.

To identify your costs, you need to list down all the ingredients you need for each bar of soap and put a dollar value to it. And I mean ALL the ingredients - every drop and every ounce.

Once you've accounted for the cost of the ingredients, you need to add a value to the labor costs that went into product creation. That means identifying how much time each person involved in the process spends in creating a bar of soap, and the computing the cost of those minutes or hours.

Next, you need to account for the cost of the packaging material that you will be using for each bar of soap.

Once you have these 3 components of your product cost, you can now compute for your wholesale and retail prices. You can use this formula as a guide and adjust as necessary:

Wholesale Price

[(Cost of ingredients) + (Cost of labor) + (Cost of packaging)] x 2.35 = Wholesale Price

Retail Price

(Wholesale Price) x 2 = Retail Price

If you would like to read more about pricing and marketing strategies that you can apply when setting up your soap business, this book has it - "The Super Soap Making Book". It has what you need to start a soap making business, including information that will teach you all about making unique homemade soap that you can create for fun or for profit. Head on over here to learn more:

The Super Soap Making Book:
A Beginner’s Guide To Soap Making

To learn more !

In our next lesson, we'll talk about ways that you can reach out to your target market - cheaply and effectively.

All the best,

NOTE: Picture (s) and content are original and should not be used without permission of the author - Christophe Leroy - aka cleroy61, Copyright 2013, All rights reserved.

All third party products, brands or trademarks listed above are the sole property of their respective owners. No affiliation or endorsement is intended or implied.

Article 17 : The Secret To Get Your Soap Products Noticed and Stand Out From The Crowd

There are many ways to stand out from the crowd. But having that for a goal is simply not enough. You need to think about being consistent in what you are trying to say about your product while getting your target market's attention.

In the previous emails, we talked about how to identify what your target market likes. And then, we talked about creating key communication messages to communicate the features and benefits of your product as they relate to your target market. 

When figuring out ways to stand out, making sure that they're consistent with your key communication messages will reinforce the position that you want your products to have in the hearts and minds of your target market.

So, what are the ways you can stand out? Here are some ideas:

1. Creating a unique product - creating soaps that are unique in appearance (shapes and colors) can help people take notice of your product.

2. Using signature scents - play with different scents and find a blend that's appealing to your target market

3. Add special properties - your products can also stand out if the have properties that make them special such as curative properties or soothing properties.

4. Packaging - using colorful packaging materials, or unique and unexpected packaging materials will definitely help you catch the attention of your target market.

5. Selling concept - instead of selling by bar, how about selling by weight, or by jar? Or how about creating selling packages?

6. Endorsements - being endorsed by a well-known person will help your product gain recognition fast.

7. Selling location - selling in unexpected places can help your product stand out.

8. Pricing strategy - using price as a way to get attention can be tricky. You don't wan to price too low that it makes it too hard for your to breakeven.

I'll repeat this because it's important. Standing out for the sake of standing out doesn't work unless it's tied to your key communication messages. By having it consistent with your overall message, you'd be able to create a stronger identity for your product in the mind of your target market.

In our next lesson, we'll talk about pricing - how to price your products competitively for wholesale and retail transactions.

Talk to you soon,

P. S. Still not sure about getting "The Super Soap Making Book"? Then this is the best piece of news yet. Did you know that the book comes with a 60-day money back guarantee? From the date of purchase of the book, you have 60 days to review the product and decide for yourself whether it's good or not. If it doesn't meet your expectations, just send an email and you get a full refund. No need to return the book, no need to give an explanation - you get your money back and you get to keep the book, and the bonus book, for free.

Click on this link to learn more about this offer:

The Super Soap Making Book:
A Beginner’s Guide To Soap Making

To learn more !

NOTE: Picture (s) and content are original and should not be used without permission of the author - Christophe Leroy - aka cleroy61, Copyright 2013, All rights reserved.

All third party products, brands or trademarks listed above are the sole property of their respective owners. No affiliation or endorsement is intended or implied.

Article 16 : Here's An Easy Business Plan For Your Soap Business

Before you start a business, you need to plan it out really well. By committing your ideas in writing, you are helping yourself look at all the possibilities and prepare for any eventuality.

Creating a business plan is easy when you know what you need to do. There's a lot to discuss and not all can be included in this email.

If you are looking for a more comprehensive resource on soap making and setting up a soap business, a good place to look would be "The Super Soap Making Book" by Sandy Simmons.

Be sure to check it out here:

To learn more !

When writing your business plan, these are the major sections that you need to have:

- Forecast

Forecasting is when you project the amount of products you need to sell or you believe you can sell. This is not a number that you just pull out of thin air. What is usually done in this case is you base your forecast on the volume sold by your nearest competitors.

Forecasting is important, because the numbers will be able to help you plan how much raw ingredients you need, if you need to get people to help you manufacture the soap and how many people you'll need, seasonality and fluctuations inherent in the industry and so on.

Forecasting will also help you decide whether going into business will be something worth your while or not. Or on the flip side, it can help you decide how many you need to sell in order to reach

your earnings goal.

- Target Market

As discussed in our previous email, determining your target market is essential because this will help you plan the type of product you need to create and the type of marketing campaign that will get you noticed.

- Marketing Plan

This is where you decide on your key communication messages - messages that will set you apart from your competitors and appeal to your target market. Part of defining your communication messages is also identifying your communication channels. Are you putting up a store, joining trade fairs, building your own Website, tapping retailers and re-sellers?

- Operations Plan

This is where you identify your SOPs for creating your product, defining exactly what kind of products you will be creating, how many people you need to help you with it and so on. Every detail that goes into creating your product should be addressed – from where to source your raw materials to packaging your soap to storing it until it's been sold. Getting relevant permits and licenses are also included in this section.

- Financial Projection

This is where you plug in the amounts associated with the investment you need to make. You have your initial investment which will include your start up costs, buying equipment that you'll need, building your website or your stand alone store, your initial inventory of raw materials, etc. You will also need to identify your monthly cash needs in order to run the business to cover for your monthly expenses like staff salaries, purchases of raw materials, electricity, communication costs, transportation costs, and other monthly dues.

Under financial projection, you will also determine your breakeven value and return on investment (ROI). These are computations that will help you determine how much you need to be selling in order to be profitable and how long you expect to run the business before you fully recover your initial investment.

- Exit Strategy

This is where you think about the risks associated with setting up your business and what action you would take in case you decide to stop operating. It is important to think about this because when things don't turn out as planned, you don't want to be stuck in a rut with no other recourse.

In our next lesson, we'll look more into how you can create a product that will stand out from the rest.

Cheers,

P.S.
If you haven't checked out the book, "The Super Soap Making Book", I encourage you to head on over to this site now:

Aside from the $5.00 limited time discount that’s being offered, you will also receive a FREE BOOK, "Soapmaking Essential Oils". This book talks about how you can use essential oils to enhance the

fragrance of your soap. It's a great supplement to the book, "The Super Soap Making Book" and will definitely help you if you plan to blend your own soap recipes.

Don't miss out on this great offer. Click here now:

The Super Soap Making Book:
A Beginner’s Guide To Soap Making

To learn more !

NOTE: Picture (s) and content are original and should not be used without permission of the author - Christophe Leroy - aka cleroy61, Copyright 2013, All rights reserved.

All third party products, brands or trademarks listed above are the sole property of their respective owners. No affiliation or endorsement is intended or implied.