DWC Business Health Check — prepared for Bux’n Swaps

Your next 90 days at Bux’n Swaps

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You have 5,100 followers on Facebook, three places where visitors can buy your work, landmark lights that are distinctly yours, and a voice people stop to watch when you tell Guyana’s stories. Headteachers already trust you with their graduation plaques. The work ahead is focusing all of that on the products and customers that bring in the most.

Where you are now

• Custom plaques from GYD 9,000, landmark desk and night lights at GYD 5,700, 6,600 and 8,200, and landmark keyrings at GYD 1,000 and 1,600.
• One sale in the past 30 days, with a goal of at least 15 a month.
• Your last buyers were headteachers ordering custom graduation plaques and a visitor buying Guyana-inspired souvenirs.
• Buyers message or call you to ask for prices, a quote or your location.
• Stockists in Buxton, Inclusive Styles (Fogarty’s) and Wanderlust Adventures.
• Between 2 and 5 hours a week on social media, with the same content shared on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
• You are starting your email list from zero.

The service that brings in more

You asked which service would bring in more revenue. Your last buyers already answered it: custom plaques for schools. A headteacher buys for a whole graduating class at once, comes back every year, and talks to other headteachers.

Schools

• Make one sample graduation plaque you can photograph and carry to meetings.
• Set a price per plaque by quantity, for example for 10, 20 and 30 or more, so a headteacher can see the total straight away.
• Ask the headteachers who bought from you for a short testimonial and a photo of the plaques at their graduation.
• Contact schools between January and March, so your plaques are booked before the June and July graduations.

Businesses

The same plaques work as staff awards, long-service awards and corporate gifts. Christmas is 13 weeks away, which makes now the right time to offer businesses landmark lights and plaques as staff and client gifts, with their logo or a personal message.

Price for profit

Before you set your bulk and business prices, work out what each item costs you: materials, machine time, electricity, packaging and your own hours. Your price covers all of that and leaves you a profit on every piece. A keyring at GYD 1,000 needs many sales to add up, while a plaque order for a whole class adds up quickly.

Christmas and Mash 2027

Two moments are coming, and each has its own buyers.

• Christmas: Guyanese families abroad looking for a gift from home, and businesses buying staff gifts. Set a last order date for overseas delivery and share it early.
• Mash 2027: visitors and returning Guyanese arriving for Mashramani. Your countdown videos are already building interest, so point every one of them to your landmark lights and where to buy them.

Focus on you and your product

Your videos where you speak to camera reach between 656 and 1,541 views. Your product-only videos reach between 1 and 717. People follow you for your voice and your stories.

Put the two together. Hold the lamp while you tell the story of the landmark it shows. Show the plaque while you talk about the school that ordered it. Every video then does two jobs: it keeps people watching, and it shows them something to buy.

• Use your logo or a photo of you with your lights as your profile picture on every platform.
• Rewrite your bio as one line about what you make and who it is for, followed by your WhatsApp number.
• Keep your Gyaffs as the stories that sell your lights, each one ending with the lamp and how to order.

A lead magnet only you can create

Generic freebies are downloaded and forgotten. An original lead magnet, built on what only you know, shows people who you are before they buy, and brings them to you ready to order.

The Bux’n Swaps Travel Guide to Guyana

A full travel guide for visitors and for Guyanese coming home, written in your voice. Your signature section is the landmarks: the stories behind the places your lights show, told the way you tell them in your videos. Each landmark ends with its light and “Message me on WhatsApp to order”, and the guide includes where to find your souvenirs in Buxton, at Inclusive Styles and at Wanderlust Adventures.

Travel guides to Guyana already exist, so your stories are what make yours the one people keep. Build the landmarks section first, while Mash 2027 is ahead, and add the rest of the guide in stages.

Start your email list

Your travel guide starts your list. Ask for a name and email address in exchange for the guide, using a simple sign-up page you can share anywhere.

Keep some things for subscribers only: first look at new landmark designs, your Christmas order dates and early access before Mash. When people know the news arrives by email first, they sign up and stay.

Social media

• Post one or two times a week, then spend the rest of your social media time sharing that content to Stories, Guyanese groups, Marketplace and your WhatsApp status.
• Always post to Facebook, Instagram and TikTok separately. Sharing the same post across all three can glitch and publish it twice.
• Link Instagram to your Facebook page in Meta Business Suite, so all your messages arrive in one inbox.
• Put the price and “Message me on WhatsApp to order” on every post.
• Pin a post with your products, prices and how to order.
• Replace the Call Now button on your Facebook page with a WhatsApp button, and list your lights and keyrings on Facebook Marketplace.
• On Facebook, put links in the first comment and keep the post for your story.
• Reels are always 9:16. Photos are square or 4:5, resized in Canva.
• Each platform has its own audience. Adjust the wording, length and opening line of each post to suit the people on it.
• Reels keep reaching new people for longer than single posts. Stories build familiarity, so people who see you often feel they know you before they order.

Your first 10 days

1. Work out the cost of one light, one keyring and one plaque.
2. Set your bulk plaque prices for 10, 20 and 30 or more.
3. Update your profile picture and bio on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
4. Swap your Call Now button for WhatsApp and pin a post with your prices.
5. List your lights and keyrings on Facebook Marketplace.
6. Film a video holding one landmark light while you tell its story.
7. Write to five businesses offering Christmas staff and client gifts.
8. Set and share your last order date for overseas Christmas delivery.
9. Ask your headteacher buyers for a testimonial and a photo.
10. Outline the landmarks section of your travel guide.

Next step: Meta ads

Once your travel guide is ready, learn Meta ads. Ads on Facebook and Instagram start from a few dollars a day, and you choose your budget, so you can test with a small amount and spend more only when something works. An ad for your guide can reach Guyanese families abroad and people planning a trip to Guyana.

Start with our free checklist, which walks you through everything to set up before you spend anything.

Get the free Meta ads checklist

Come back in 30 days

More from DWC

Free: 100 Ways to Get Publicity Without Social Media

Your stockists already bring visitors to your work. This free list gives you 100 more ways to be found, the same methods DWC Magazine used to grow from zero readers to readers in 106 countries. The top 30 are highlighted, so you know where to begin.

For Bux’n Swaps, it means:

• More places to stock and show your lights, such as hotels, tour companies and gift shops visitors pass through.
• Ways to reach schools and businesses directly, where the larger orders are.
• Methods that fit alongside making every piece yourself.
• More places to share your travel guide, so your email list grows faster.

Pick three methods from the top 30, use them for the next 30 days and tell us which one brought you a buyer.

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