Product Development and Marketing Workshops

One cannot imagine how things will turn out when one set out to do something new, especially in a foreign environment.  In teaching, Lydia’s usual class size in Family Studies was under 20, so when thinking about conducting hands on workshops, 25 was the suggested limit for participants.  We did 10 full day workshops with 43 people attending each day, including the day of the typhoon like weather when all ferries were cancelled!



43 Participants showed up first day.....how do we handle this?
 

An excellent room is found.  Chairs and tables are brought in by participants each day.

 Each morning the participants carried 50 stacking chairs and 8 tables from a storage shed to the large empty room that served us well for our workshops.   We had a borrowed white tarp which served as a screen for the projector that Allan carries as hand luggage from Canada. 


Tables set up each morning, returned to storage shed each evening.
 

Canvas for a screen. Projector from home.  We are all set!

The young mothers participating cared for their little ones as we conducted the workshops. That brought the numbers to well over 50!    These mothers and their families live on $1.25 Canadian/day social assistance.   

Allan brought his marketing expertise, incorporating many pictures of the local market to bring marketing principles to practical reality for TAWLA (Tablas Womens' Livelihood Association) participants.  Below are a few examples of their handcrafted work needing markets!

 



 

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How could we work with such a large number of people?  The morning sessions were first presentations, then group work.  For the group work, they formed eight groups, each having a card table sized table to work around.  As you will see in the slide show, they grouped around those tables to prepare their marketing presentations and do their practical.

 

Lydia had brought a limited number of jewelry kits (40) she had made up from beads that were donated from the Colchester Community workshop.  Coupled with Walmart style jewelry kits, these worked well for the participants to learn basic necklace and earring making.   Fishing line and fasteners would be more appropriate another time, using native seeds and shells with the exception being earring making.    Participants were very interested in a number of samples, giving them ideas for how to use the native cowrie shells and seeds.   This island, especially this area, has the best anywhere for collecting shells that wash ashore from the rich coral reefs that surround the island.

 

 

Lydia decided to take on a venture that she was not sure would work!  A few of the women were producing limited product, most having no market or if there was a market, people here have very little money to pay for anything.   Lydia was surprised to be able to buy fabric paint and tshirts at the local hardware store (one half hour away).    In Bamenda, Cameroon, Africa  we had a sign made for the school project.  It was there we saw how one could cut a stencil from ordinary paper and effectively use it.  So, armed with 20 utility knives and some printouts, we began to experiment in groups cutting letter stencils.  Day three, we attempted our first stenciling on tshirts.  Results were good.  The fabric pen sets brought from Canada helped make the lettering more legible.  One of the groups, in their evaluation, said that it took a lot of courage to take a brand new tshirt and put paint on it.  Allan noted that participants were reluctant to write on paper because paper is precious.  In Allan’s marketing activities, they used markers and Bristol board. 

 

Early on, we were able to buy heavy plastic portfolio bags, one for each participant.  Inside, they had a pen, small notebook, a good sized board to work on (good when you don’t have a table to work on or if the table you have is ridged bamboo)  and a ruler.  Each day they added to their own stencil collection. 

What an interesting progression to watch.  Participant showed real ingenuity in using the stencils and the basic colors.  One young mother had access to a computer and printer and did great lettering for her group.  That group totally surprised us, arriving for the closing dressed in four stunning turtle tshirts they had made  on their day off! 

All the things Lydia worried about had a solution.  The participants are very used to making do with what they have.  The painted  tshirts dried quickest laid out on the top of the hedge with  Bristol board underneath.  The drying tshirts were stored in the nearby Catholic church overnight.  An iron was purchased to set the paint.  They often ironed on a towel on the floor!  Nothing seemed to be a problem for them including one day when we arrived we found  a big wedding happening in the room where we usually had our workshop.  We were adequately accommodated in the day care center, fortunately free that morning.  Moving was never a problem with so many willing hands.     

As we moved through the workshops, Allan’s marketing lessons took on a very practical application.  There were over 60 tshirts hand painted.  So, a marketing plan is needed.  Each participant was to see if they could sell their tshirt.  So a price needed to be set.  A top rate person named Tess was brought to our workshops by Cecila.  Tess is a first class business person and very skilled in all aspects of business.  She showed the participants how to use a formula to determine price.   At a cost of 110 pecos per tshirt, allowing for other inputs, labor based on hand painting 7 tshirts a day (now that is quite a day!) etc, they determined that the cost was 247 pesos so the tshirts could sell for 250 for the domestic market and 400 for the wider market.  That is $6.00-$10 Canadian, yet these women who live (entire household, some with 5-7 children, elderly parents and others) on 1500 pesos social assistance a month (1.25 Canadian a day), this sounds good.   And better yet, a way to be creative and productive besides making babies. 

OK, the reality of selling.   To relate one person’s story.  Next door to the place we are staying lives a participant.  Her name is Candy.  We visited her week one.  He husband of 25 plus years was born in Holland and is in a wheel chair.   In the household live children, sisters and brothers and an elderly mother.  Candy seized the opportunity to ‘get out of the house’ and immediately moved forward with the project idea.  She brought a painted turtle tshirt to the villa and sold it to Michaela.  Michaela began asking questions about designing a tshirt for her staff, red in color with a sunset picture and Sunset Beach  Binucot Cove written on it.  So Candy went to Odiongon by motorbike taxi, bought red tshirts and her own paint and set to work.  Candy’s son has a computer and became very interested in helping with design and new painting techniques.  Candy also contacted her daughter in Manila to buy fabric pens for lettering for them.  Candy made two sample tshirts, came to show them to the staff and Michaela, went home to appear again in two days time with two more sample tshirts.  Like Allan says, when you see the change in her life, the light in her face, you know you have helped one.  

http://www.slideshare.net/LydiaSorflaten/product-development-and-marketing-with-low-income-women