Here are the top 10 tips to grow your LGBTQ business or charity.

INTRO

Check out our Event Vendor Master Class where you'll learn how to design and build an amazing booth to bring in sales or donations. The course comes with hours of professional advice and downloadable resources at ProfessorPride.com, Linked below.

With Pride season coming up, small businesses around the world including ours are preparing for the busiest time of the year. In the United States alone, LGBTQ businesses contribute $1.7 trillion to the economy and the LGBTQ community spends more than $917 billion, mostly in June and July.

So, with all of this e-commerce taking place, it's time to get your business or charity on the map and get your piece of that pie. But how do you get your foot in the door and compete with the big box stores trying to steal pride away from our community? Well, I started my company nearly 24 years ago and nowadays, our website gets thousands of visitors each week and our vendor booth at Pride events is easily the busiest of all vendors at every event we attend.

That's why today, I wanted to share with you some of the biggest lessons we've learned the hard way so it's a little easier on your path.

1

Build yourself a professional website. Whether you go to events or advertise on social media, you need one central place to send all of your customers. Many businesses we’ve run across in the past used their Facebook page or an Etsy store but I can tell you from experience, this makes your brand look cheap and unprofessional. Having every social media platform is great but your website should be your own domain. 

A lot of companies out there will try to sell you on the customizability of using their services to build your site but there’s none better we found than Wix(.)com. Their premium plans allow you to sell products, allow customers to schedule meetings within your availability, and you can easily take donations of any size on a one-time or monthly basis. 

They integrate with YouTube, TikTok, and many other platforms. Plus, unlike other website platforms we’ve tried in the past, they offer product-based shipping calculations with integrations directly with USPS. This means, you don’t have to figure out how much to charge for shipping on each order. The website does it for you and allows you to print a postal label right from your website.

We’ve used other web providers in the past that made us figure out shipping for each order and since we’ve moved to Wix this year, we’ve been able to offer our customers severely reduced shipping prices compared to years ago. For the record, Wix is not sponsoring this video, we just really like their services and customer service. 

2

If you’re shipping items out, do not use UPS or FedEx for your packages. Their websites will tell you they’re the best for small businesses but after opening a UPS account for our website more than 4 years ago, we spent weeks working with our account representative and spent hours in a mandated class on how to use their services before we found out they were extremely expensive, even with small business discounts. 

We actually did ship one package with them once our account was set up and we passed their course but while the package was delivered, we still to this day don’t know how much the shipping fee was because they don’t let you know how much the shipping fee will be until it’s delivered. According to our account representative, they just charge your credit card for you without ever sending you a notification. That’s not something they like to advertise on their website but if you open a UPS account, you’ll likely see the same result we did. And we’ve heard similar things from FedEx customers.

So, do yourself a favor and just use the United States Postal Service or others in your country which offer lower prices anyway and have more drop off locations. But don’t fall for their flat rate boxes because they are expensive to ship. Just stick to the Click and ship program on their website. It’s a lot easier for you and better for your customers. 

3

Stay organized. When I first started, I had 2 products available to customers at events and online. A children’s book and a single sticker. And I know when you’re first starting out, it doesn’t seem like a lot of work to figure out how much those two items cost, how many you have in stock, and so on. But your business will grow faster than you realize. Before we knew it, we had more than 500 SKUs and dozens of manufacturing partners to keep track of. 

That’s why I literally could not operate my business nowadays without an Excel sheet. If you’re just starting out and can’t afford a hundred-dollar program, at least use Google Sheets. This will allow you to give each item a unique SKU number, description, track its inventory and figure out how much it costs. Remember, everything has a cost and while we have over 70 pins available, they’re not all the same.

For example, we have to figure out how much it costs for a business card to put each pin on so it’s presented professionally when our customer opens their package. We factor in how much it costs for a shipping label, the printing of the postal label, the envelope or box, and any shipping materials like bubble wrap and tape. Oh, and don’t forget a thank you card with a customer survey and a returning customer coupon code. All of those have a cost to them which you need to factor in and every gram of weight makes a difference to your shipping price. So, this small pin won’t ship for the same price as this larger one.

4

Seriously, do not worry about the transaction fees. I cannot tell you how many restaurants, small businesses, and vendors we’ve seen who charge an extra 3% if you use a credit or debit card. It annoys the shit out of everyone and will cost you tons of sales or donations. Just the other day, my husband and I walked into a new restaurant in town that just opened. They had a sign saying they charge a 3% fee for cards and their tables were sticky like they’ve never been washed. We didn’t wait around for a strike 3 before walking out the door before they even got our drink order. 

I cannot stress to you how much business or donations you’ll lose tripping over dollars to get pennies. Our average order when we’re at a Pride event is about $15. If they pay cash, great - we still have to report it to the IRS on our taxes so, prioritizing cash sales or punishing them for paying with a card are pointless.

Let’s say for example they pay using a card. We have to pay Wix which has a 2.9% fee, just $0.43 to make $14.57. Even for restaurants where the average 2-person bill comes to about $60 nowadays, you would have to pay $1.74 for credit card processing to make $58.26.

Donations are the same way. Asking donors to cover your cost in processing fees is the cheapest and tackiest thing any business or charity could do. Best case scenario, someone pays it and you get an extra penny. Let’s say your restaurant charges a couple $60 for an appetizer and two entrees but they use a credit card so you charge them 3% extra. Now their bill is $61.80 but now you have to pay 2.9% on that larger amount to a credit card processing service like the superior Wix or a crappy service like Square which will charge you an extra 30 cents per swipe and they’ll have shotty service on weekends for that increased price. 

Now, you’re paying $1.79 for processing fees and the customer paid $61.80 so you get an extra penny for the privilege of swiping their credit card. But, because you’re cheap and tacky, either customers walk out before ordering or they won’t come back. A study of consumer habits by LendingTree found that 71% of consumers would avoid businesses that charge credit card processing fees. So, you might get that dollar now but you’re losing out on 71% of your return business later.

In other words, don’t trip over a dollar to save a nickel and just pay the processing fee no matter if you’re selling a $2 pin at events or a $100 order at a restaurant. 

5

If you’re vending at a Pride event, take 20% to sell. When you’re a vendor at events, figuring out how much product to take is a big decision and when you’re first starting out, especially for perishable items like food, you may not know how much to take with you. But ask the event organizers how many people the expect to attend and bring enough of your products or services to sell to at least 20% of the expected audience. 

If you’re a charity, bring enough pamphlets to give out to 40% of the expected audience because pamphlets are free to the guest and you want to use them sort of like businsss cards.

If you sell out - great. Next year or at the next event, bring enough to sell to 30% and so on. For context here, we bring enough to sell to 90% of the expected crowd because we rigorously investigate demographics and audience habits before attending any event. Plus, many of the events we attend are Pride events and we sell LGBTQ books and accessories so that’s our target audience. That’s not to mention, we have a large following who literally cross oceans and take their vacations to meet us at events so we have to plan accordingly because of our size. 

If you don’t sell out, maybe that event wasn’t a good fit for your products or services and you should try another event or try selling online or in a brick-and-mortar instead. So, don’t be discouraged because maybe your signage, you, or your products weren’t to blame. Sometimes it’s just a rainy day, the economy is in the tank, or sometimes other events were happening in the next town over that drew a larger crowd than expected.

6

Ask yourself what would you pay. When I was first starting out, it took me more than one year to write this book, “LGBTQ Friendly Classroom”. It’s about 350 pages long and is formatted under the Danielson Framework which is required for any materials used in schools across the United States. When it first came to market, I priced it at $40 for a paperback and $50 for a hard cover.

I was so attached to this book because it took so much time and effort to write. It was a labor of love that I thought had a high value to teachers. But after going to several events and only selling one or two copies, I asked myself if the message of my book was just not needed. 

That’s around the same time when I first started dating my now-husband, Michael. He saw how many hours it took to write but he also asked me to step into the consumer’s shoes. If I was a teacher, how much would I pay for this book? And that begged the question, how much do I have to spend because teachers in the US are already underpaid and spend thousands per year out of pocket on their students.

In the end, we reduced the price to $20 and $25 respectively and it now sells great at events and online. But nowadays, every product we design and manufacture, I ask myself the same question - how much would I pay for it if I haven’t spent hours designing it or risked thousands of dollars to make it? 

7

You’re going to have failures. As much as we spend on research to know consumer trends and no matter how many revisions we do with printing companies to design our booth, we’re going to have failures. Some items we spent months planning and rolling out still ended up on our clearance rack. We’re the largest booth at many events we attend but still about 10% of people attending events walk into our booth and just aren’t interested. 

Our website has been operating for 24 years but we’re still making small changes every so often based on our monthly reports. For example, we spent about a year testing which shade of blue our “Add to Cart” button was going to be and eventually, we landed on this shade. It will likely change many more times and it won’t work for everyone, but one thing you learn is that nothing is ever perfect. 

About 5 years into building my company, I spent thousands of dollars advertising a new service line we were just breaking into. We put ads in the paper, we put a float in Halloween parades in town, and we started to get major interest. But after a few years of giving it everything we had, I realized that new branch of the company was costing us way more than it was bringing in. In fact, it was killing the profits from all of the other branches at the time. So, it was one of the hardest decisions I had to make at 15 years old to shut down a major investment but the company would have never survived if I didn’t cut my losses. 

That also brings us back to Excel. Keeping track of every item means you know what’s selling and what needs to go on a clearance shelf. No matter how much you love a product, don’t be afraid to move on. Keep one copy for nestalgia but the rest is just business.

8

Don’t forget to tell people who you are and why you’re doing this. This is especially true for charities but also true for small businesses. Explain to people why they should support you instead of someone else. 

If you run a homeless shelter, there are tons of homeless shelters in major cities so why should people donate to yours? Well, you could open your doors to LGBTQ people in an area that is dominated by religious shelters which either turn them away or push them to conversion therapy once they’re inside. So, tell people those proprietary aspects.

Speaking of which, a portion of our profits go to an LGBTQ-welcoming homeless shelter in our hometown so just because you’re for-profit doesn’t mean you can’t do good locally or advertise that fact. 

Whether you have a website where you offer an About Us page or if you have a short sentence or two memorized and ready if anyone comes up to you at your vendor booth, tell people why they should choose to support your organization.

Don’t just say “we sell candles” but tell them how you hand-made all of the candles and how you constantly have new fragrances each season of the year so they should subscribe to your social media.

Don’t just say you sell dog beds by Stella but tell people how you were looking for a safe and stylish dog bed for your chocolate labrador and just decided to make your own with locally sourced materials and your friends wanted one too so you started your company. But now, you donate a portion of your proceeds to providing food to local animal shelters and you share pictures of dogs in those local animal shelters every week on your social media to help animals find a loving home. 

My point is, don’t hide the great things you do behind the scenes and don’t hide your story. 

9

Get insurance. My husband is a senior workers’ compensation insurance adjuster. I work on the side as a general liability claims adjuster. We can tell you from experience how many times companies still have to pay out even though the claimant is committing obvious insurance fraud. It’s not about who is right or wrong. It is about proving it in court. 

Even with the strictest safety regulations, employees or customers might still get legitimately hurt. You don’t want that one slip and fall on the sidewalk outside of your storefront in the middle of the night when your store wasn’t even open, to bankrupt your company. Some law firms are great but many, many law firms advertise they could win you millions of dollars.

One we, as adjusters, deal with all time advertises they could win you Billions. What they’re not telling you is that’s a cumulative number of how much they won all of their clients across the country over 50 years but it makes people think they’ll be millionaires if they sue a small business. 

See these law firms love to tell people they’ll win millions of dollars. What they don’t tell you is settlements like that only happen if the claimant died as a direct result of the company’s wrongdoing, it can be proven in a court of law to an impartial judge, and the deceased person was 20 years old at the time which means they had a long life ahead of them. Law firms LOVE to leave out those details from their commercials so it makes workers and customers think they can sue for anything and become millionaires. 

My husband, Michael hosts another YouTube channel called Workers’ Comp. Adjuster if you’re interested in hearing more but my point is, insurance is inexpensive, usually about 1 or 2 dollars a day, to cover you for literally millions of dollars if you get sued. So, it’s just not worth the risk not to have General Liability or the far superior BOP (Business Owner’s Policy) to cover what you do.

10

Data is everything. If you’ve ever watched Shark Tank on TV, you’ve likely heard the sharks ask business owners about their numbers. How much do you buy it for? How much do you sell it for? All of that good stuff. But growing your business means knowing a lot more than just profit margin. 

In order to know which products to make, which of our designs will sell best, what shade of blue our table covers are in our booth, where to place those products on our website or how to present them in ads in our videos, we have to know a lot more data. We use analytics from the backend of YouTube, our own customer surveys, and leading organization surveys to track everything about our business. 

We could tell you how many of our customers are gay males living in a major city like San Francisco, California. Or we could even tell you how many transgender women from a relatively small and poor city like Southampton, United Kingdom check out our videos. My point is, you have to know your data. So, ask your audience of customers to help you. 

You cannot start swimming until you know what size or kind of pool you’re swimming in. So, ask people about their sexual orientation, gender identity, age, income level, or any demographic data set you think can be helpful to make your organization grow in an online survey using a free program like Google Forms or your own Wix website. Assemble that data into a data bible like this one that you can use to make any decision moving forward. 

We assembled over 282,000 responses from a study we do every other year into this data bible which we use every day to help us make decisions on every move we make including making this video. 

Lastly, if you’re looking for even more tips for collecting donations or making sales at events as a vendor during Pride season, check out our Event Vendor Master Class on our website, linked below. And if you’re interested in learning more about insurance, check out my husband’s channel at Workers’ Comp Adjuster. 

OUTRO