A guide to
Build a recognizable business and give customers a useful reason to return.
Start here
Your name goes on every label, sign, and search a customer will ever run. Here is how to choose one people can say and spell, run the SBA and USPTO checks before you print, and build a two-color, one-mark look you can keep for years without paying a designer.
· 10 min read
A shopper who cannot find a price often walks instead of asking. What the three signs every booth needs should say, how big the letters have to be, what survives weather, and the point-of-sale placards some states require by law.
· 7 min read
Cottage food laws disagree about almost everything except the label. Here are the six elements nearly every state asks for, the exact disclaimer wording six states use, and how to build a label that survives a refrigerator and still reads as a brand.
· 10 min read
Retail display rules were written for stores with shelves and overhead lights. Here is how they translate to a 10-by-10 canopy: height and tiers, the front edge, color, abundance, sightlines from across the aisle, coverings, and a clear place to pay, plus an exercise for seeing your booth the way a stranger does.
· 10 min read
A bag or box has three jobs: keep the product safe and fresh, carry the label your state requires, and sell it from three feet away. Here is how to choose packaging by product type, what a unit really costs, and which states require sealed, labeled packages before you can sell.
· 12 min read
Window light, a clean background, the right angle for each product, and ten seconds of phone settings matter more than any gear. Here is the routine, plus a shot list you can reuse every time you add a product.
· 8 min read
A stranger buys once because of a sign and a sample. A regular buys twenty times a season because of you. Here is why the second kind of customer carries a one-person food business, and the plain habits that make more of them.
· 8 min read
