The Debut of Miss Hattie B...!

The new collection from Balagan, Miss Hattie B, will be unveiled at the Spring Fair. Miss Hattie B loves hand-made jewellery, frippery with pearls, pretty semi-precious stones and, to be honest anything soft and pretty.

Miss Hattie doesn't aim for perfection in her jewellery, preferring to see a trace of its hand made qualities, the tiny imperfections that create the unique beauty of the pieces.

So, for pretty, feminine and fun jewellery, visit us at Hall 18 on Stand B30 / C29 to experience some serious Hattitude !

The rubber band challenge - Just for fun !

Just for fun, and to lighten the mood,here's our accounts' rubber band ball, they've been collecting them for about a year !

Its massive - a bit pointless, but fun !

Does anyone out there have a rubber band ball to beat it ! A paperclip trail to lead to America? Barak Obama's portrait made out of post it notes???

So, you want to know does it bounce???

How big is it??

Why do we have sooooo many rubber bands??

How many bands are in there anyway?

All these questions and more answered in the next post !

See you at the NEC !

Campaign to Support Independent Retailers !

As some of you may know, we have a couple of shops too, and so we've had the opportunity to see business from both sides - Retail and Wholesale.

With this in mind, we're starting a "Thanks for supporting an Independent Retailer!" Campaign....

Its still a work in progress at the moment, so we can't tell you too much, but the idea is that it'll be a resource for small retailers to download information, share success stories and generally be a voice for indpendent retailers on our High Streets.

The Spring Fair exhibition site publicised us, you can see the link below and we're hoping for lots more great publicity.... so watch this space.

http://www.springfair.com/Balagan/RetailRehab

More information to follow very very soon !

Parking Charges Withdrawn at the NEC Spring Fair !

EMAP have just emailed us to tell us that the vastly unpopular proposed parking charges at the NEC Spring Fair have been withdrawn.

This is great news and in their words stops the issue from becoming a "disproportionate distraction", when we should all be concentrating on the upcoming show.

Good news for all of us who are off to Sunny Birmingham in the near future.

Balagan business tip of the week, Yes we know we missed the first two weeks, but hey, better late than never. So here it is:

Choose a regular customer to spotlight as a Customer of the Month.

Create a brief write up to submit to your local newspaper about the customer, and your shop, and why they're customer of the month, and be sure to give them a copy of the article as well as have one framed to hang in the store. Over time you could build up a wall of great customers !

The ice blocks in our heating have melted.(Still no sign of the engineer) But everyone's much happier, and its a new week ! So have a good one ! x

Positive Mental Attitude

Well, since there's quite enough doom and gloom pervading the media to anaethatise anyone, we've decided that what's called for here is a positive mental attitude (PMA)

Don't get sucked in by all the bad news in the media, while we admit that its not all good news, wallowing in a sea of despair never helped anyone. So have a look at our link to see 28 tips that cost hardly anything to increase sales http://www.balagan.co.uk/increaseyoursales.php

We're also featured in lots of press this week. Love must be in the air, as its all wedding magazines: Rocks was in Wedding Venues, Le Journal de Lola featured in Perfect Wedding and Studio was in Wedding Ideas. These are all the January issues, and they're all available to download as printable PDF's from our website http://www.balagan.co.uk/press.php

So now its back to work on the new collections for the Spring Fair launch.....

Have a great weekend - fingers crossed for some good sales

PMA all the way...

BRRRRR

Well, we've had a chilly start to our New Year as our heating has completely frozen in the office Mr Engineer, if you're reading this, get a wiggle on please

The annual, all singing, all dancing Stock check is finished, which everyone is pleased about because we've got a flippin lot of small things to count...

Anyway, orders are going out again as from today ! So thanks for your patience :-)

We've added a link on our website loaded with 28 ways to increase your sales (that won't cost you a fortune ) to keep your grey cells whirring away during this cold spell.

We're also hard at work on the Balagan Business Audit, which is now a bit of an epic, so it'll probably come out to you in stages. More updates to follow shortly

Fingers crossed for the engineer tomorrow...

Brrrr

Firstly, a very Happy New Year !

While its still close enough to New Year to be topical, here's some of our new years resolutions....!

Laugh more and worry less. Drink less and exercise more. Definately give up smoking ! Eat more fruit and veg and fewer take outs ! Make the time for more bubble baths. Make fewer to-do lists. Cook more meals ! Dance more, sit less. Help our customers more. Spend less money. Get a funky hat. Make more money! Give up smoking..! Go to the gym, and enjoy it ! Be nicer to our partners. Bake some cookies and cakes. Make funky jewelry. Make our business more successful. Make our business less stressful. Give up on the remote control. Play with our pets. Learn to play an instrument. Wear more colour.Wear more jewellery and fewer frowns. Discover new places. Travel the world. Complain less, praise more, and the best till last: Smile, have fun and don't get stressed out about life - enjoy it !