How do I start my own Greeting Card company?

The good news is that as your own boss, you have total control over what you want to create. There is one important drawback, though - you are not focused solely on the creative aspect, you need to take care of the supply chain, production, financing, marketing, selling, bookkeeping and administrative tasks. In addition to being the creator, you will be an entrepreneur who has to wear many hats.

Start by putting together some samples or prototypes of the cards that you intend to make. Determine what type of greeting card you like to create... inspirational, sentimental, humorous. Start by doing some shopping, buy as many cards as you feel comfortable buying that inspire you. I’m not suggesting you copy anyone else’s work, but to find your voice it often helps to see where you tend to gravitate. Start up a conversation and hopefully a relationship with the store owner or buyer and pick their brain about what is selling best in their store and why. This can serve two purposes. It gives you an insight into the market and with luck, might give you your first customer.

You’ll also need to start thinking about your market. Who is the end user and what type of retailer will carry your cards. Remember, there are over 50,000 retailers of various type that carry cards. Are your cards aimed at the general card shop, mass retailer or are you aiming for the high-end market. Each of these markets have pro’s and con’s.

Once you believe you have a good handle on the product itself, it’s time to decide how you want to enter the market.

You also need to know about the "technical aspects" of this business -- where to sell your cards; printing and color; buying the right paper and envelopes; renting spaces and finding a sales rep or distributor.

There are several things you’ll need to consider.
1. Printing and preparing your cards.
2. Setting up your office.
3. Setting up your accounting package so you have the ability to input an order, and record your sales.
4. Determining how you will market and sale your cards.

The first thing will be to determine how much money you will be investing in your new business and how big you expect it to be.
I’ve broken this down into 3 basic categories with an estimate on what you can hope for (depending on the market acceptance of your line). Here you have a few choices and they basically come down to dollars and potential revenue.

1. An initial investment of less then $20,000 and a hoped for first year revenue of between $10 - $100K.
2. An initial investment of between $100-250K with a first year of between $100K-$1M in revenue.
3. An initial investment exceeding $1M

In future posts, I’ll cover each of these topics…for now, think about your new life, the fun you’ll have and the work you will be doing.For more information on me, please visit my website at www.managementbyintention.com