Mind Body 'N Spirits

Thanks Abbey!

2009-08-13T19:11:00.000-07:00

Abbey found us on StratUp Nation Leading Moms in Business Contest. She has a great website that was created to help moms like Sarah and myself to draw more traffic to our website.

Check them out - http://livingmymoment.com/

Starting on Monday you can enter to win a free t-shirt!!!!

Thanks so much, Abbey for having us join your site!

Cheers,
Jennifer (and Sarah)

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

What to do???

2009-06-19T06:16:00.000-07:00

I feel like my feet are stuck in cement - we need to sell down on our inventory of shirts to move forward with our business and of course to pay the bills that keep coming in. But how? We had a saleswoman take out shirts to two "Mommies Who Shop" events and she was able to sell one shirt. One shirt is just not cutting it. We have put the shirts on sale recently and notified our customers via Facebook Fan updates and still no takers - we just haven't figured out a good way to get women to our site. Right now we are toying with the idea of placing an ad on a blog that has high traffic of women views, but we have never had luck with advertising so we are a bit leery of the idea. So the question is -"what to do?" How in the world do we move our inventory? Do we risk blowing more money on advertising? or do we use that money to pay the bills? HELP!!!!

Cheers,
Jennifer(and Sarah)

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

It's Been So Long

2009-06-01T20:58:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I blogged - I came on because I was just checking my email, and Facebook before I headed off to bed. To my surprise there was a comment posted under our last blog - and it was dated April 20th!!! Our first comment since we set up the blog and I didn't even see it until today - June 1st - hopefully Stephanie will understand that it wasn't anything personal. I haven't had a lot to blog about lately, but I am back... what can I share? Times are tough out there and if anyone had some great suggestions on how to get women to our website - we would love to hear them - although a friend of mine told me over the weekend we should try sending out some sample shirts to magazines - so I think we might start doing that again and keep our fingers crossed. We haven't had much success with that in the past, but it would be worth a shot to try it again. Well, its getting late - good night!

Cheers,
Jennifer (and Sarah)

www.mindbodynspirits.com

The Never ending Quest to Get the Word Out!

2009-04-03T09:53:00.000-07:00

We have found that it has been a large challenge for us to try and get the word out about our business. We have explored many different avenues and we are still having trouble getting people to our website! We are now in the works with Createdbymom.com to have them show several of our shirts in their store. We are hoping that the traffic they get to their site will help lead people to ours. We recently did an event at the Mount Saint Mary's school in Manchester and had some success selling that night. I know that it is increasingly hard to sell in this market, but we still remain positive and hope to continue to grow our company. We are hoping everyone can be patient with us as we are two stay-at-home moms and can only throw so much time and money into our business - we are trying to be smart about the way we spend our money right now - so I know a lot of you are looking for the "7 and 7 minute mile" - our running tee, but we have to make sure we can sell some of the shirts we have in stock before we add a new shirt to the inventory.

We want to thank everyone for their support and patience and we ask that you share our website with as many people as you know so we can continue to get the word out. If you haven't all ready become a fan of ours on Facebook or on MySpace - we would love to see you join our groups!

thanks again and cheers,
Jennifer

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

Five Locations

2008-12-30T10:17:00.001-08:00

Mind Body 'N Spirits is now in five locations in New Hampshire! Our latest is True Necessities in Colony Mills Marketplace in Keene. When I walked in, I was greeted by the very friendly manager and instantly knew that this was the right location for our shirts. The owner, Chris was extremely nice and purchased five different shirts to try out. We are hoping for great success in this new location!

Cheers,
Jennifer and Sarah

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

Skin Color

2008-11-20T09:46:00.000-08:00

I was recently asked if we would do a shirt with women with different ethnicities? this was my response...

We really battled with giving her a skin color to begin with - but if we didn't then she would have taken on the color of the shirt - i.e. green, blue etc. The skin color we picked is tan so she could be white or Hispanic - we have girls with red hair, brown and blond. We were waiting to hear from customers to see if there was a demand for us to make a black woman on a shirt - so far we haven't had a request (we do live in NH so our exposure has almost exclusively been with white women) As soon as we have the interest we can for sure make a shirt, but we really wanted to get feedback from women - would you wear a shirt with a blond girl on it if you had brown hair? Would you wear a shirt with a white girl on it if you were black and vice versa? We approached the Oprah Show and the Tyra Banks Show asking to use their studio audience as a focus group because it is a good discussion. So far - we haven't gotten a response. We do have a shirt on the "coming soon" page of our website that is a runner called the "7 and 7 minute mile" - she could easily have darker skin - again if we knew the shirts would get purchased we would do them in a heart beat. I hope that makes sense.

Cheers,
Jennifer and Sarah

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

Positive Feedback

2008-11-07T11:02:00.000-08:00

An old pal from college just sent this along. We love the positive feedback! Thanks Aimee.

"I am doing well, thanks for asking!  But I am so excited for you!
Your T-shirts are going to do so well in Luna Chics for a couple of reasons
(as you probably know). First, the store itself is so cool.  Second, Exeter
is such a posh town and third, Phillips Exeter Students love to shop there.....
and Phillips Exeter Students come from all over the world.....your name is
going to get out there!!!"


Cheers,
Sarah and Jennifer
www.mindbodynspirits.com

Luna Chics

2008-11-05T16:59:00.000-08:00

Thanks to our New England Territory sales rep, Jessica Infante, the store Luna Chics is now carrying a few styles of our t-shirts. Luna Chics is a fabulous shop in downtown Exeter NH that carries a great selection of jeans, jewels and other fashionable clothing items. Please, stop by their shop or visit them online at www.shoplunachics.com

Cheers,
Jennifer and Sarah

www.mindbodynspirits.com

our first piece of hate mail

2008-10-05T11:16:00.000-07:00

I thought I would share this with you, because one it was upsetting to receive and two the sender of this email sent it anonymously with a bogus email address. That being said I will post what they wrote to us and then the reply I had written that bounced back. Hopefully, this anonymous person will read this and know how we feel...

Name: anonymous
Email: nonr@nonr.com
Comments: ok so you are educated chicks in the burbs who obviously all look alike and drink to much.  in between your workouts and kids you really were wasting your talents so you thought up this idea.  you need to figure out that not all women have kids or think you are interesting or talented.  In addition, you are promoting alcohol which is a legalized drug as a funny cheeky thing in between your family and working out.  you really need to get a grip, get out of the burbs and get a life.  by the way, who is the artist that does the designs?  perhaps you should mention that eh?

This was our response...

Hello,

I just want to start by saying that when we started our business, we
knew it wasn't going to be for everyone. We are happy to listen to
anyone who has something to share, but the comments that you made in
your email were not directed at our product, but at us personally.   I
am still trying to figure out what we did to upset you so much that you
felt the need to be so hurtful???  If you are interested in finding out
more information about our artist, you can read her bio on our "About
Us" page on our website or go to our "links" page to click on her
website and view  more of her  artwork.



Warm Regards,



Jennifer Simoneau

Co-owner Mind Body 'N Spirits LLC

Playful apparel 'n accessories

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

Sales Rep New England Territory

2008-10-03T17:18:00.001-07:00

We are happy to announce that we have taken on an independent sales rep for the New England Territory. Jessica Infante will be out there checking in with retailers of gift shops, boutiques, tanning salons, gyms and college bookstores. If you are interested in opening a wholesale account with us you can sign up via our wholesale page or contact Jessica directly - MBNSrep@gmail.com. We are so happy to have her on board!

Cheers,
Jennifer and Sarah

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

Femail Creations!

2008-10-03T17:12:00.000-07:00

We just received word that we will be in the Winter 2009 catalog for Femail Creations! We are so excited to have our Cosmopoli-tan heather purple shirt in this catalog. The catalog will be sent out all across the country and is a great way for us to reach so many women who have not had a chance to see our shirts yet. It will be great exposure for us as we just launched our business and website in February. We can't wait to see our shirt in print! If you don't receive that catalog - go to their website and start sign up to get it!

Cheers,
Jennifer and Sarah

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

MySpace pays off!

2008-09-22T21:47:00.000-07:00

I have been adding, adding, and adding friends to our MySpace profile. I have spent hours at it, and it has quickly paid off! One of our friends from the other side of the country ordered two tank tops and a bag! We were so excited to see that this way of reaching people wasn't a waste of our time. Now, people from across the US will see a beautiful woman sporting our products! Hopefully, more orders will follow!

Cheers,
Jennifer and Sarah

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

Mind Body 'N Spirits is on MySpace

2008-09-14T06:26:00.000-07:00

We just put up a profile on MySpace! We are using any means possible to get the word out - and what better way than making friends with various people on MySpace? It is time-consuming, for sure - to do search after search for women who might be interested in our site, but it is all free and has become a fun challenge to see how many friends we can find. We are up to 40 friends and we put the page up four days ago. So, if your aren't friends with us yet - please add us ASAP.

Cheers,
Jennifer and Sarah
http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

Our Screen Printing Adventures!

2008-08-06T11:37:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! Jennifer just informed me that she has out blogged me 16 to zero. Guess it is my time to get writing.

We were just talking about our screen printing experiences. We started our search with Logo Loc in Manchester. We were so excited about a company so close by and with all the things we were looking for. We arrived at our appointment ready to go. After just minutes we were totally put off by the sales rep that we were meeting with. He talked non-stop, entered conversations that were not appropriate, and then made big promises! We were promised information by the next day and it never came, we made several attempts by calling for information with no avail. Needless to say, Logo Loc didn't happen.

Our next stop was another local screen printer in Milford. They were very friendly and happy to serve us. We were off to a good start. We placed our first order and were anxious to get our first shirts. The only flaw with this company was with the sewing of our special labels. The turn around time also developed into a problem, so it was on to the next company.

Finally, our third attempt turned out to be our best! Blue Dolphin in Sommersworth was friendly, happy to meet our requests, and had the ability to sew our labels. We have been very happy and look forward to continuing our business with Blue Dolphin.

catalog???

2008-07-29T06:08:00.001-07:00

We were recently contacted by a catalog company that was interested in possibly carrying one of our shirts. We are so excited to put together our sample and send it off for their review. If we make it in the catalog we should hear from them in September. They are looking to have one of our designs exclusively for their catalog - which can be found both online and via the mail to people's homes. This would be huge exposure for us since we mainly reach women in New Hampshire. We will keep you posted if, and when, we hear from them. Cross your fingers for us.

Cheers,
Jennifer and Sarah

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

The Bedford Bulletin

2008-07-29T06:02:00.000-07:00

We were recently featured in the Bedford Bulletin! The newspaper highlighted our artist Dana for adding her artistic flare to our designs. Our photo was in the paper as well. Very exciting for us to be seen again in black and white. Under our photo, they mentioned that you can find our shirts online, at Bedford Custom Baskets, and at the New England Velodrome. They forgot to mention that you can also purchase our shirts at J.M. Princewell on the oval in Milford. Unfortunately, when we send out our press release we have no control of how they edit our information. We are just lucky that we did get in the paper.

Cheers,
Jennifer and Sarah

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

Sold Out!

2008-07-22T16:56:00.000-07:00

Our most popular shirt, the Jarah in raspberry, is all sold out. We weren't planning on ordering the shirt in that color until our friend, Molly, saw our sample shirts and said, "I would buy one in this color." I thought, "Well I know I will get at least one sale if we order the shirt in raspberry." So we ordered 24 raspberry Jarahs and yesterday we sold the very last one. We will be ordering more, since she is such a hot seller, but we might wait until after we order our next design which is the "Vodka on the Rocks" - which you can see on the "Coming Soon" page of our website. You can also cast your vote for the next design to come out after we have "Vodka" completed- we have two posted on the site and dozens more in the idea box waiting to be sketched up. Check us out and see what will be the next design to become sold out!

Cheers,
Jennifer and Sarah

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

Our artist

2008-07-22T16:46:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to write a blog about our artist, Dana. She has been working for us for practically nothing and we could not have done our business thus far without her. Her drawings are so fun and they really capture the vision Sarah and I have for each shirt design. She does several drafts of each design until we get the image perfect. We would like to thank her for all the time she has spent, and we are hoping to cut her another check soon for a small portion of the money we owe her! So help us out and spread the word - the more shirts we sell, the more able we will become to pay her! Dana also has a website - if you would like to see her other pieces of artwork - www.ABreathofFreshArt.com

Cheers,
Jennifer and Sarah

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

Draft Beer

2008-07-20T09:14:00.000-07:00

Our latest shirt, "Draft Beer," is selling well. We have sold 5 so far this week. Tracey has earned a few bucks for the New England velodrome - two sold by her alone. We gave her a stack of shirts so she would be able to have multiple sizes for anyone interested in purchasing. We are hoping that we can order our next shirt "Vodka on the Rocks" - we just need to sell at least 15 more tees to help foot the bill for the next order of shirts - so if you know any cyclist, please spread the word for us. Thanks!

Cheers,
Jennifer and Sarah

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

Namaste Australia!

2008-07-14T16:50:00.000-07:00

We have broken out of the US and we are now international! Michelle Baldwin, the owner of Hot Tropical Yoga of Queensland Australia, found us through Google and just ordered six shirts and a bag! We could not be more excited - you have to love the internet for sure! How else could two stay-at-home moms reach halfway across the world to share our fun little idea with the women down under. We will be putting a link to Michelle's website on ours and she has offered to do the same for us. I have to say that so far during our experience with this little business of ours we have come across some very wonderful and supportive women. Cheers to you, Michelle!

Namaste,
Jennifer and Sarah

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

thank you Tracey!

2008-07-05T18:21:00.001-07:00

I just wanted to write a little something about one of our favorite customers, Tracey. She has been selling our shirts for us at the New England Velodrome in Londonderry, NH, and today emailed me that she sold three more shirts! I could not be more excited. She is really one of our biggest fans, and is even asking her friends to go to her house to check out our shirts. 20% of all of her sales go to the cycling programs at the velodrome. We should be getting our "Draft Beer" shirt in around July 15th and hopefully that will stir up some more business at the velodrome.
Thanks again, Tracey!!!!

Cheers,
Jennifer and Sarah

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

press release

2008-07-05T18:21:00.000-07:00

We were very excited to see that our press release made it into the local paper. We were trying to get a press release out to the papers in the area and had no luck. A friend of mine whose parents run the paper here in town asked me to get rid of all the references to alcohol because they most likely wouldn't put something in the paper, that would be going into the homes of families, with anything alcohol related. Once we removed the references and resubmitted it we were put in the business section! They did edit what I had written and removed the part where I named the local businesses that are selling our shirts - which was a total bummer - I thought maybe if the person reading didn't get a chance to look at us online she could at least go into one of the stores and see our product up close and personal. Anyway, it was in the paper and it did mention our promotion with T-Bones so people could see our shirts on display in the lobbies there.

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

advertising on Facebook

2008-06-27T07:48:00.000-07:00

We just started advertising on Facebook. Visa is currently running a promotion and if you sign up to be a part of their business platform they give you $100 towards Facebook advertising. I jumped at the chance to get some free advertising. Setting up an ad on Facebook is easy enough. It is similar to advertising on Google Adwords, but Google lets you prepay - so you can kind of beat the system when it comes to getting the optimum ad viewing without really having to spend your "monthly" budget. You can prepay $10 and when that runs out they stop running your ad even though you said your budget was $150 for the month. Facebook gives you an option for a daily budget, and I still haven't figured out how to cancel my ad when the free $100 from Visa runs out. We have had over 50 clicks so far. The nice part about advertising on Facebook and Google is that you only pay when people click on your ad versus advertising in the newspaper when you have no guarantee that anyone will even go to your site. I did like that on Facebook we were able to target our customer properly - we were able to have only women over the age of 21 see our ad - which is nice being that we sell a product for women that features spirits. Crossing my fingers that we find some women who see the fun in our shirts!

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

getting results

2008-06-26T05:32:00.000-07:00

We finally are seeing some results from our promotion running at T-Bones. One of the managers that works for my partner's husband saw our shirts hanging up in T-Bones and he was so excited that he came home and ordered five of our shirts. Yesterday, a woman from Hudson ordered two shirts after seeing us at the Hudson location. We are so excited that more women will be wearing our shirts out there. If we could only get the word out outside of New Hampshire!

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

new t-shirt design

2008-06-24T07:06:00.001-07:00

We have made a new design for the cyclist. We should be ordering her today. We will go with our top selling shirt the raspberry basic tee. We only have four left in the "Jarah" design and thanks to Molly saying that was the color she would want to buy - we ordered it and everyone seems to really like it. We will order her in at least one other color top - the v-neck in the Ladies' size for women who like a roomier fit. Hopefully, these will sell at the velodrome. The more people wearing our shirts the more people will hear about us.

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

finding new ways to sell

2008-06-20T19:36:00.000-07:00

We are always looking for ways other than hitting up our friends, to sell our shirts. We ran an ad on Google and after having 340 views of our site we still did not get a sale. We are currently displaying our "Cosmopoli-tan" shirts and bags in the lobby of all T-Bones and Cactus Jack restaurants. They are also featuring the image on their "Summerfest" menu, and it's a drink you can order and enjoy. The menus came out on June 1st, the display went up on June 10th, and we still have not had a sale. We just printed out 1000 recipe cards that tell you how to make the drink and also our web address. We are hoping to have 100 of these in each of the seven locations. The promotion ends at the end of July- we are keeping our fingers crossed that we will get some sales when people catch on to what exactly we do. Yesterday, a very happy client of ours, Tracey, took a size run of all of our shirts and bags to the New England velodrome in Londonderry, NH. They normally don't sell things there, but are trying this out. 20% of the sales will go back to the programs they run there for the cyclists. She sold one shirt yesterday and had some good feedback about our latest shirt that is due out in a few weeks - "Draft Beer" - which features a cyclist drafting another cyclist while drinking a big foamy beer. You can see a sneak preview of her on the "Meet the Girls" page on our website. Tracey will continue to offer the shirts at the velodrome, on a weekly basis, as long as they are getting noticed.

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

thank our friends

2008-06-19T19:42:00.000-07:00

I just want to take a second to thank our friends who have all been supportive. Whether it be by sharing our website with their friends or buying the shirts themselves. With the help of them and the people who haven't heard of us before, but like our idea, we have sold almost 130 shirts since mid-February.

Thanks everyone!
Jennifer and Sarah

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

first negative feedback

2008-06-19T19:24:00.000-07:00

Since we started our company, which was officially back in February, we have had tons of positive feedback. We recently put a social ad on Facebook and it went out to people in a news feed. Shortlythereafter we got an email from a woman who was questioning why we were teaming up health and alcohol and wanted to know if we sold things in children sizes. When I first read the email I wanted to go off and defend what we are doing and where we are coming from and make this woman understand what we are all about. Thankfully, I spoke with my partner and she calmed me down (without her there would be no balance- and like I always say "two mommies together make one functioning brain) She told me no matter what I said I wasn't going to change this woman's mind or her way of thinking. She was right - this woman was looking to make some kind of point with her question and truly did not want an answer to her questions. Would you like to hear them?
We do not sell children sizes and if we did they would never feature a cocktail on them. Why put a drink with an activity we do for our health like yoga, hiking, cycling, running or tennis? Well, most of us women over the age of twenty-one do have a cocktail every now and then and do enjoy taking care of our minds and bodies as well. She also wanted to know if we were sending a subliminal message to teens that we need to drink to relax. I say what better message to teach about alcohol - I mean I am a mom of two, and I want my children to understand that alcohol is not something you use to the extreme or go to to solve your problems. It is something we have to relax and unwind. That is what we do at our house. Anyway, that is what we are doing at Mind Body 'N Spirits - trying to remind women to take that time for themselves, and raise a glass in good cheer. We are all strong women who need to celebrate ourselves. When we can do that then we are able to deal better with all the stresses that we encounter.

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

about Mind Body 'N Spirits

2008-06-19T19:12:00.000-07:00

Maybe I should have started with some information about our company. That is if you didn't get here via our website which is http://www.mindbodynspirits.com Our company sells t-shirts and bags with different images of women doing things for their minds and bodies while drinking a cocktail. We started with yoga and we are branching out to other activities. We have one for the sun bather, and have two more headed to the presses as we speak - the cyclist and the hiker.
Our images are fun, colorful and feminine. We do offer one style of shirt that does not feature an alcoholic beverage which is our "Nama Stay" shirt - this of course, is a play on the word "Namaste." It features a woman telling her dog "Nama" to stay - get it? - I sold one of these to a five year old. I'm sorry, let me correct that, she's five and three quarters and her mother did purchase the shirt for her. We do not sell our shirts in children sizes, but she desperately wanted one of our shirts and since (of course) her mother would not let her wear her own because she has one sporting a beverage. Anyway, if you'd like to find out more about our company - please check out the website.

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com

getting the word out

2008-06-19T18:03:00.000-07:00

OK - I am new to this whole blogging thing so bare with me. My business partner and I are both stay at home moms trying to get the word out about our new t-shirt business. We have very little time and are looking for any kind of free or low cost ways to spread the word. I had put a bunch of postcards out in the locker room at my gym and just recently received an email from a woman who picked one up a few months ago. She told me that she is no longer going to that gym, but would be more than happy to post some up in her new gym. It was so great to hear from her and we will be sending her a small stack for her to post and pass out.

http://www.mindbodynspirits.com