For the last 10 years, Trek Light Gear has been a mainstay booth at music festivals, tradeshows and street fairs in Colorado and beyond. Getting to be ‘the hammock guy’ at festivals over the years has been a pretty unexpected and amazing experience for me. When a day of work involves hanging out at a music festival, beer festival or trade show and actually requires you to lie down on the job, it’s incredible just how much the line begins to blur between work and pleasure.
Over the years, there’s one thing that I’ve heard repeated by people so many times I can’t even begin to count. It gets said jokingly, seriously and every which way in between. It’s a question that I’ve always had to respond to myself with a joking answer, but internally it makes me constantly remember not to take for granted what I’m doing:
“HOW DO I GET YOUR JOB???”
The truth is that even all these years later the novelty of it all is still pretty fresh for me, it’s pretty much why I started the company after all: The ability to combine things like meeting great people, music, road tripping, learning, sharing a passion and making money, all while lying in a hammock?
Somebody’s gotta do it, right?
Well, this is your chance.
In the years ahead, I want to have a presence at as many festivals and expos as possible and I want to enlist your help to do it. But, here’s the catch: I’m not just looking for some bodies to show up and follow a training manual, my vision for this is for it to be as much about empowering you as it is about spreading the word about Trek Light Gear. So, instead of making it just another commission sales job, my goal is to give you the chance to fuel your entrepreneurial spirit and essentially be as successful as you want.
I first started experimenting with the idea back in 2006, and some of you may remember that our friend Bret embarked on a Trek Light Across America trip which we covered in the early days of our blog. The inspiration behind the trip was simple: Bret wanted to take a road trip to see various parts of the country and needed a way to make money along the way. We both had an opportunity to help each other and with just a couple of shows lined up, Bret managed to take an epic road trip and funded the trip by selling hammocks as he went.
Now, I’m ready to replicate that opportunity for as many of you as possible. The reason for doing it this way instead of just hiring employees to do each show is two-fold: The first is that being an entrepreneur, working for myself and seeing hard work pay off is one of the most rewarding feelings I’ve experienced. I want the chance to be able to give back that experience and not just offer you another part time job. The second is that when it all boils down to it, the passion behind Trek Light Gear is important to me. The people that I want helping to grow Trek Light Gear around the country are going to be those with passion: both the individual passion to succeed and the desire to help build something incredible together.
If you’re interested, keep reading for more info… To give you a better idea of how the program will work, I’ll break down some of the quick details here:
- There are festivals, street fairs, trade shows & expos year round in just about every part of the country (indoor and outdoor). They don’t need to be camping shows by any means, we’ve been just as successful at food/wine shows, art expos and music festivals as industry-specific trade shows. A quick search online in your city/town will likely turn up everything from food festivals to home and garden and RV shows that are all great opportunities. This opportunity can mean a couple of weekends out of the year where you make some extra money in your own backyard or something you can literally do all year round, especially if you’re interested in combining it with some traveling.
- As with any other retailer, we’ll sell you inventory at a great wholesale cost. That way, instead of worrying about commissions you’ll be free to make 100% of the profits you earn on every sale.
- Beyond the cost of inventory to get started, there are some startup costs and ongoing costs involved:
- You’ll need to build a booth so you can demo the hammocks (we’ll help with the plans as much as possible) or you can use an EZ-UP tent w/ a hammock stand.
- You’ll need to apply and pay the entry fee for the shows (varies by show) and of course pay any taxes, processing fees (if you take credit cards), etc. All extremely easy and you can often recoup your full expenses on the first day of a show if you’re doing well.
- Marketing materials & miscellaneous: As with everything else, we’ll help you in every way we can and make sure that you’re setup to be successful. We’ll even provide you with an affiliate code which means that when customers stop by the booth but decide to shop online, you’ll still have the chance to profit from customers that you’ve sent our way - we’re all in this together.
It may sound crazy, but I’d be willing to guess that if you’re reading this blog you’ve already sold a Trek Light Hammock before. Word of mouth is our biggest referral source and so many of you have helped us grow by telling your friends and family about our camping hammocks, ultralight daypacks and Eco Totes. Sales experience is obviously a plus, but it really just boils down to being able to talk to people and tell them why life is better in a hammock. Whether you’re looking for a cool long-term business opportunity or just want to make a little extra income on the side, this is a perfect opportunity to turn that passion for our products into a fun and exciting partnership with us going forward. This is also a perfect opportunity for anyone with young, teenage or college-aged children that you want to teach and learn the ins and outs of entrepreneurship with. From purchasing inventory and budgeting properly to sales and marketing, this is a gig that will teach anyone the skills it takes to connect with customers and sell a product - without all the risk of starting from scratch.
So, if you want to be the person that thousands of people walk up to and say ‘How do I get this job?’ and the idea of combining your passion with working from a hammock sounds good to you – get in touch with me today. Let me know where you live and why you’d be perfect for the opportunity and we’ll take it from there.
