Summer & Fall Fabric-tainment

Summer is officially here and with that I wanted to get both my consumer and shop owner friends excited for some summer and then fall fabric-tainment with me Scott Fortunoff of the Jaftex Companies (think A.E. Nathan Co., Inc., Blank Quilting, FreeSpirit Fabrics, Henry Glass Fabrics, Studioe Fabrics and 3 Wishes).

Last year I brought you the Jaftex Facebook Live Video Shop Tour Challenge for shop owners to take us on a tour of their amazing and unique shops. Immediately thereafter, I followed that up with the #scottsentme challenge to gauge how many shops an individual consumer could visit in 3 months.

These were just a couple of half baked ideas that morphed into something pretty interesting and fabric-taining if you ask me. The thing is that the second time around should be even better as I now have had a chance to analyze what went right and wrong last year and make tweaks to improve matters. So if you missed it last year, there is no better time than this year to join in on the fun.

For 2019, I plan to run the video challenge again in August and the #scottsentme challenge from September until end November. Do not start planning yet though because some of the rules have changed and you don’t want to find that you have wasted a lot of your time trying to game the system. Patience I say.

Regarding the video challenge, I hope I have the problem of too many entrants. Last year, I only had around 75 participants which wasn’t much, but I guess it could always have been worse. Beggars can’t be choosers. If we could double that to 150 that would be a good goal. That would allow for about 5 videos a day.

Ahem, ahem, (let me clear my throat) let’s say that too many quilt shop owners are camera shy. Say it isn’t so Scott! Yes, that’s me calling out all my quilt shop owner customers and basically saying that there are a lot of scaredy-cats out there. Meow, meow and meow! Did I say that out loud? And make meow noises too? I guess I will be the first company owner to call his customers out to the center stage for a Facebook Live Shop Tour. And yes, I am talking to you. Please stop blowing me off and start mustering up some guts as I am not going away or going to stop nagging.

Let’s call it how it is. It’s a short video about your shop that you live and breathe day in and day out. You know it like the back of your hand so who better to take us on a tour? And please allow me to remind you that this isn’t a beauty pageant or the Grammys or Emmys or whatever. So just get out of bed like any other day and go to the office to do your job. Today the job is a video. I am going to stop harping. You got this.

Enough picking on my favorite customers….you all know I love you and my intentions are good as I only want you to be successful since your success is my success. We all need a push sometimes to get out of our comfort zones. If I didn’t think this would prove to be fruitful for you and your business, I wouldn’t be bothering….I promise you that. From my experience, I know, and all the shop owners that made videos in the past know, that this is effective marketing and helps to sell fabric.

Now let’s talk about the next challenge which is me challenging consumers aka my customer’s customers to visit as many different shops as possible in around a 3 month period. You consumers better start tweaking your prior September to November appointments and open up the calendar for an amazing journey. Last year a bunch of people reached around 50 stores visited and documented which was amazing.

Please don’t forget the most important rule of this contest since I don’t want to put any undue pressure on the consumers: You need not make a purchase at the shops to win the #scottsentme challenge, you just need to visit and get the proper documentation. Omg, I can’t breathe. Omg, this isn’t good. I am laughing so hard about this rule. This is the best rule ever made because quilters in quilt shops are like kids in candy stores. The irony! In any case…no purchase necessary!

Lastly, let me just say that I sure hope you all get involved with my challenges in one way or the other. Now who is in?

Signing off…….Scott “I am here to fabric-tain you” Fortunoff

Ps….I forgot to mention that the prizes are getting much, much better this time around too. Just sayin’.