The day that we had all been dreading for months had finally arrived ……. It was the day the judges from the Kildare Enterprise Board came to look at our Mini-Company projects. The few days previously had been pretty hectic, but on the day we managed to pull it all together! Here’s how it all happened…….
Step 1 – A Product: Our idea was to make a fashionable pocket, designed as a bracelet you can wear on your wrist when you are out and about to hold all your essentials. Literally like 2 days before the judging we had managed to get our product (after months of looking in China and Hong Kong and God knows where else for a manufacturer to make it for us , it actually happened that a women in my home town of Clane was able to produce it for us!) So the day before the judging I went to pick it up. I was really happy with the way it turned out – it looked really neat and professional.
Step 2– Packaging; the packaging company (also in Clane) had actually closed for the day so we used card in our logo colours to make up boxes. We weren’t really happy with this but we knew it was only a temporary measure until we were able to get professional boxes.
Step 3 - the judges were going to ask us about was our selling points so we went around the school, showing our product, and taking orders. Then several shops in Clane expressed an interest in our product, after we explained our idea to them and they provisionally agreed to sell our product for us!
Step 4 – Our stand for the day: We got a poster made for free very kindly by a girl in our class (thank you Aimee! :D ), and on the day we were busy blowing up balloons, untangling fairy lights, displaying our business cards, hanging our poster, for our stand. Considering we had had barely anything done the week before, I have to day it looked pretty good on the day. We all wore black instead of our uniform, as we thought this looked more professional, and we wore badges with our company logo on them.
Step 5 – the Presentation: When we were called we approached the judges nervously and we went to shake their hands (after a moment of awkwardness where one of them was writing, looking down and did not see my stretched hand :P). Anyway we started off by explaining our idea and then I ‘opened the floor to any questions you might have’. One of the judges said that although the product was really good – apparently it has ‘no weakness’!, she would like to see better packaging (see step 2) and more volume (we only had one sample to show them on the day). We took all their suggestions and comments on board and then we returned to our places, feeling that it went OK.
The Result: that day they announced that 3 groups were shortlisted, and we were one of the three! We ended up not getting through but we were really pleased to get acknowledged like that and we plan to enter our product into as many competitions as we can! Anyway I was happily surprised at how we pulled it all together on the day – just shows that sometimes a little pressure can be good! You’ll see us on the cover of FORD magazine yet…
Watch out world…
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