Sue Bowler: The Balloon Expert

W hat can I say! The balloon industry is made up of some truly generous people who want to help other "Balloonies" succeed and grow their businesses successfully! Last week the fabulous Michelle Severino, CBA, of Party Splendour in Peakhurst, NSW, Australia, sent me a copy of her amazing Helium Cost and Volume Calculator to share with the ballooning community. Michelle says that this tool has been invaluable to her business and hopes that it will help others, too! The calculator is very easy to use. You will be able to find Michelle's original calculator in both the Qualatex and QBN Facebook Groups in the FILE section in both Excel (PC) and Numbers (Mac) formats (unfortunately, I cannot share these files on Blogger.) To start, you will need to change some of the fields to suit you and your business. I have marked these on the image below and colour-coded them with descriptions. Those of you who are more familiar with creating documents using Excel and Num...

I have some fantastic news to share with you! Chris Adamo, CBA , of Balloons Online in Sydney, Australia, has just added some amazing new features to his Balloons Online Design Tool software. With immediate effect, you can now design Arches and Columns. Simply log into   http://www.balloons.com.au/tools/   and follow the CLICK HERE TO START as shown in the image below. Once you enter the software, you will be taken to the Design Template page. To find the template that you want to work with, click on ADD MODEL - this is on the right-hand side of the page. 

H alloween is creeping up on us. It's time to get ready with our "balloontastic" designs and excite our customers with witches, ghouls, and ghosts! The key to any successful holiday sales campaign is in the planning, preparing and of course, organising. Get displaying! The purpose of good displays and visual merchandising is to attract, engage, and motivate customers towards making a purchase. Good visual merchandising can help: Create interest and excitement  Prolong dwell time (we want people to stop and look)  Increase customer understanding of what you can offer

 Think about all the potential display areas that you have: Windows  In-Store Displays Till/Checkout area Wall Space Ceiling Space If you own a die-cutter like a Cameo Silhouette, create some fun and exciting decals for your shop window and other display areas. I found this cat image at Snazzy Little Things.com . It has a great selection of Halloween window silhouettes that are free to d...

I was very excited to meet the very talented Jackie Ochitwa, CBA, of With A Twist Balloon Creations in Alberta, Canada, earlier this year when we shared the instructor's prep room at the World Balloon Convention in San Diego, California, USA. The prep room is one of my favourite places at a convention because you get to meet some truly lovely and very talented balloon artists. You also get to see all the amazing designs that they are teaching! I am always intrigued to find out a little about the artist behind the balloons and their ballooning journey. So, I asked Jackie how she converted her former radio show host career into becoming an international balloon artist!  Jackie Ochitwa, CBA . "I continued my radio career until my second child was born, and I decided that it was important for me to stay home and raise my babies. So, that’s what I did. My kids always loved balloons, even at a really early age. We brought them to a fair one summer, and there was a gro...