"Balloon decorating tips, techniques and balloon instruction for the professional balloon decorator and balloon enthusiast alike."


"How Allen Shelton went from being a broke college graduate to becoming a successful balloon artist making well over
$100,000 year!"

Secrets of money-making revealed !

(Please allow time for photos to download.)


"It's worth the wait."

Telephone Interview with Allen Shelton:
(August 29, 1997)


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How To Make A $100,000 A Year Doing Balloons

Prosper: "How're you doing, Allen?"
Allen: "Oh, pretty good."

Prosper: "Now, I've been knowing you well over 10
years, and I remember when you first walked
into my class. How does it feel to be one of the
top balloon artist in the world?"
Allen: "Well, I don't know about that, but I can say that
from what you taught me I've learned that the
road to success is built on the golden bridge of
opportunity. Everything is choices and chosing
the right career and doing what you feel in your heart
you want to do."

Prosper: "What got you interested in balloon decorating of all things at a time when balloon decorating wasn't even know to many people."

Allen: "I graduated with a degree in business from Grambling. In my last semester on campus, I actually founded a balloon business in the fall of '85. It wasn't anything of what you showed me, but we really got going with it in the spring of '86 which is the year that I graduated. We did very well just selling the mylar balloons. As a business major, I looked at the cost compared to the markup value of the balloon, and I thought, gosh, this is something I could really make some money off of; it doesn't take a lot of knowledge or experience to sell a balloon! Well, just by chance my aunt came across your add in the L.A. Times and told me I might want to look at that. Well, I wasn't sure, being a college graduate, I thought I needed to get a regular job, you know, corporate America. But I was interested because I always wanted to be able to create on my own without any limited boundaries."

Prosper: "Let's take a look at your first year. You came every week, I remember, from Las Vegas..."
Allen: "Yeah, driving down.'

Prosper: "In your first year, in the beginning, what was it like, where were you, and what were you doing?"
Allen: "When I took you class and I came back, I was so excited to get started. But of course because when I started there was only one person in Las Vegas that I could call a competitor. Except that they sold balloons on a string. But no one actually did the things that you taught me. And I knew it was a process of marketing and educating at the same time."

Prosper: "Now, tell us physically where were you in you first year when you were operating?"
Allen: "When I started I was doing little parties at the house. My mom would let me blow up some things at the house, and she had some friends that had parties. And I would say, let me do your party. Of course there was no charge to it, but it got to a point when people started seeing what I could do then the value was there, and then I would started charging. But in my first location I was lucky, I should say blessed enough to have an aunt who had a beauty shop who had a storeroom almost like a closet where she kept some of her beauty supplies. She let me lease that out. So I moved out all her beauty supplies and shelves and stuff, and I put a desk. I wasn't a big company, but I put everything in there. But that was fine for me. I was just so excited to actually have a location that I could call my own and put an ad in the paper and have people come down and see me."

Prosper: "What was your overhead? What was that little beauty salon costing you every month?"
Allen: "She only charged me like $100 a month. But we're taking back in '87, April of '87. We're talking like 20 by 20 foot, almost like two closets."

Prosper: "You were basically doing your balloon bouquets and things like that?"
Allen: "Yeah, I was doing occasional other things like weddings. My first really big job, and this is so funny, my first really big job happened to be in a church in California."

Prosper: "So, you came back."
Allen: "My aunt was from San Bernadino, my other aunt, she had seen some of the things I was doing and they were having a pastor's anniversary, and I guess she had told them what I could do. And I think the first job was $300. I thought I was rich! (Laughter)

Prosper: "Well, I know the experience. My first one was $375, and I thought I was king of the hill." (Laughter)
Allen: (More laughter) "Yeah."

Prosper: "Now, you have done some pretty big jobs in Las Vegas, haven't you?"
Allen: "Oh, yeah, absolutely. We just did a job this week for Carl Canay Company. Carl Canay is an extremely huge fashion designer, a muti-million dollar company. I was referred by another balloon company."

Prosper: "Dollar wise, can you share with us the largest grossing job that you have had because many people don't even believe that balloon decorating is lucrative?"
Allen: "Oh, gosh, the largest job for a single job was I think the Sands Hotel of about $15,000."

Prosper: "Wow, $15,000. The thing is that people need to know that it is possible in balloons."
Allen: "And this was in "89 and things have really blown up since then."

Prosper: (Laughter) "Yeah, literally, literally. Allen, this is usually a question that most people would shy away from, but I'm going to give it to you indirectly."
Allen: "Okay."

Prosper: "Would you say that it's possible even very feasible for a person to make $100,000 a year?"
Allen: "Oh, yeah, it's real possible. It depends on how passionate you are for the knowledge of the business. The more you know, the more you can do. Your limitations are based soley on your aspirations to learn more about your craft. And, that was one of the things I knew early on that business was totally different than I had in college as opposed to what you taught me. I had no idea until my aunt showed me the ad that you had I'm thinking, oh, this is exciting! I can use my creativity to design events. And it's so boundless that it crosses over all types of markets. It's just phenonmenal!

A Sample of Allen Shelton's Work!

A Saturn Car Trade Show & A Vegas Casino Grand Opening!

The Mindset Of The Successful Balloon Artist

Prosper: "What must be in your opinion, Allen, the mindset of someone who will be successful in balloons? What is the mindset that they must adopt to be successful? Can you share your thoughts on that?"
Allen: "You have to want to do it. I know that. The business is not an easy business. It takes work. And the person going in understanding that its going to require a certain amount of their personal time. And you have to have a certain degree of passion about what you want to do, and that will show in your work. You have to have some type of integrity to give quality service. That was my bottom line that irregardless of all of my competitors, my focus was going to be simply on giving my customers what they pay for. One thing that I've learned in business is that anybody can charge the least amount. That doesn't take any skill. But the question is how can a company charge more and still have customers come to them? That was the point where I wanted to be. I didn't want to be a wholesale balloon decorator. I wanted to be the balloon decorator, so I have the flexibility to charge what I believe I'm worth and give the quality of work that they have heard from somebody else that was referred to them."

Prosper: "Another question, Allen. I'm a beginner let's say. I want to start a successful balloon business. How do I promote and market my business?"
Allen: "You have to go out there and promote your business. You have to be where the people are. If people are going to be at church socials, you may want to volunteer some balloon decorating for that church social, and leave cards. One of the things that really helped me was the thing I got from you when you told me that you put the cards on the tables after every event. Well, that really (Laughter) that was a good one! That was right on time, and that's what I started doing! And do you know that every event that I did, someone would call me, say that they got my card, and they saw the decorations. And see that's what you want. When a person can physically see what you've done for a room and they have access to your phone number that's one of the best selling tools that you can ever get - outside of someone recommending the service to you."

Prosper: "So, actually you're saying what I have been preaching for years is that the best thing to do make sure to promote yourself on the spot when people see your work."
Allen: "Absolutely. That has been most effective - even in bridal shows. If you have at booth in bridals and you make elaborate designs, people see that. Pictures sell a lot of your work, but actual designs when people are there, and they can see what you're doing, and you give them a card, they have sold themselves. There's not a lot of convincing that you have to do. If you can just show them without saying a whole lot. Because sometimes we can kill it for ourselves; we say so much, (Laughter) people get confused about the fact. But if they see the designs and it's something they like and they want to see more, of course they're going to call you up."

Prosper: "And the name of your business is...?"
Allen: "Dynamic Balloons of Las Vegas."

Prosper: "Dynamic Balloons - just like the owner."
Allen: "That's right." (Laughter)

What Allen Would Do DiffentlyIf He Had To Start Over

Prosper: "Allen, knowing what you know now, if you had to start all over again, what would you do differently?"
Allen: "I think I would have really promoted the business early on a little harder because everything is like a multiplying effect. The more times that you are able to tell a person about what you do, the more people you talk to, the more money you make. I've tried the gamut of advertising media : yellow pages, the newspaper, fliers...but the most effective is a person-to-person contact where you can actually sit down with a person and tell them what you do."

Why Balloon Decorating Is A Wide-Open Market

Prosper: "Isn't it amazing that you and I, we've been aroung so long in balloons and still there's so many people that are unaware?"
Allen: "There's almost like an open market of people. Because when I think about it, and that's one of the things that really keeps the business going because it's not something that you can saturate. Because everyday someone's proposing to someone. Someone's going to get married. Somebody's having a birthday party. And in Las Vegas, there always celebrating something. One thing I had to learn was to put away my inhibitions about talking to people. I really had to get rid of that, and kind of step on that and just jump out there. Because if you have all the skills and techniques to do the business but don't go out there and tell someone and shout 'Hey, look I'm over here, I can do this' - no one knows!"

Advice To The Single Mother Wanting To Be Free

Prosper: "Now, there's a single mother who feels like she has a bleak and grey future because she sees a dead-end job that's she's in. She has kids. She wants to offer them something better. Can she make it if she has the right attitude ,and does the right things, and sets a plan, and moves forward, can she make it too?"
Allen: "She can. The thing that I like most about this business is that it doesn't cost a lot to get your inventory and to get started. And once you learn the skills, there is so much money out there that you can make."

Our Thanks To Allen Shelton

Prosper: "Allen, I want to say that of all of the students I have taught, the thousands of students I have taught over the course of the years, I am indeed most proud of what you have done. And I am glad that I have the bragging rights to Allen Shelton of Dynamic Balloons of Las Vegas. And I want to thank you for the time that you have taken to give me this interview and much continued success to you."
Allen: "Oh, thank-you."

Allen Shelton - the sweet smile of a success

Charles Prosper
P.O. Box 29699
Los Angeles, CA.
90029-0699
(213) 644-8221 fax #
(213) 662-7841 phone

We look forward to making you the next balloon super-star!


With Warmest regards,

Charles Prosper


P.S. Don't delay. Take action now!

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Charles Prosper
P.O. Box 29699
Los Angeles, CA 90029
(323) 662-7841 phone
(323) 644-8221 fax

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Copyright ©1999 Charles Prosper
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