World Tea Expo 2018 – Little Prayer Tea Company

We packed our bags, jumped on a plane, arrived at our very first World Tea Expo and one of the questions we received the most was… Do you have a business card?!!!!!!! OH NO! I left all of our business cards at home!!! Who goes to an expo hoping to tell everyone about your awesome new tea business and doesn’t have a business card? I’ll tell you who, Little Prayer Tea Company, that’s who!

Oh well, at least Thea looks super cute sipping from her World Tea Expo cup.

Preface

I want to start off by thanking my parents for traveling to Las Vegas during the World Tea Expo and babysitting Thea for us, since nobody under the age of 18 is allowed in the expo. Thank you so much, we really appreciate it! And thanks Dad for eating half my In and Out Birthday burger :).

We first heard about the World Tea Expo last year when our tea business idea was just taking form, and wanted to go so bad, but Thea decided to enter the world just before last years expo, and we weren’t about to take a newborn down to Las Vegas only a couple weeks in.

We were welcomed to Las Vegas for our very first World Tea Expo by 110 degree weather and a lot of excitement. It was Monday June 11th and we were a day early, but were allowed to pick up our ID badges so we stopped into the convention center to take a look around. It was very exciting, we stopped in, got our badges and some free swag from @theteaspot:

Express Yourself

Day one of the expo was exciting and a little overwhelming. We didn’t know where to start, what to do, who to talk to or what to talk about. We decided to start on the far end and work our way around.

Side note: When you think you are lost and overwhelmed, God shows you the way. 

The very first booth we stopped at, we didn’t really know what to say. The woman in the booth had introduced herself and told us she flew 22 hours from Rwanda to be here and promote their tea. Wow! 22 hours just to come to the expo and promote your tea. She then went on to ask us FOR OUR BUSINESS CARD! and inquired about our company. We explained to her that our company name was Little Prayer Tea Company and we promote community and relationships, and each one of our teas has a custom prayer written on the package. She replied with “oh, that’s wonderful! I am a christian” as she pulled her cross necklace out.

We were off to a great start :).

We took our time, talking to every single vendor and by the time the day was over, we were only half way through the expo. After the first day, I felt like we learned a lot about what the expo is and how we can better utilize our time on day two. Unfortunately on day one, we did not make any connections and did not learn as much as I had hoped. We did however get to drink some delicious tea and see a bunch of cool products that we had never heard of!

“This is how we do it” – Montell Jordan 1995

Day two is here, it’s around 10:45 am and since we now understand that “business casual” at the World Tea Expo is actually “regular casual” it was a lot more comfortable walking around in the heat.

We arrive at the convention center ready to get moving and set to place some orders with vendors since they were all offering World Tea Expo discounts. We start on the other side of the expo this time, working our way toward the middle again. As we work our way through the booths, this time at a faster pace, we are approached by a fellow tea entrepreneur. Shout out to Freya! Freya approached us after she heard that we were an online store. She was at the expo to take the “Tea Business Boot Camp” class and learn more about starting a tea business online. One of the first things that we learned about Freya was that she lives just down the way from us in Seattle! What a great connection to make!

I felt like day two was a lot more informative and we made better connections. We had a better understanding of what the World Tea Expo is all about and also got to participate in a tea tasting contest!

In The End

At the end of the day, we had a great time at the expo, and got to take home some new contacts and some delicious tea. You can find a few more photos from the expo below and I’ll leave you with a few words of wisdom: Always remember to bring your business cards to an event that is all about promoting your business!

Sincerely,
Ryan Conlon
Employee of Jesus Christ