Further ruminations on this whole business of starting a business
Yes, yes, there is more. Always there is more. I have just called SCORE to make an appointment with a retired business person to help us prioritize and take the right steps before we go under. I took a business class a couple of years ago and the teacher highly recommended this organization. Why not get free help from someone who's worked in your industry and actually has the time to tackle the nitty gritty details?
I have also just made an appointment with the sign guy. He's about to go on vacation, but if signs can be made by the end of the month, this dead dead month, that's good enough for me.
If you're going to be a success in anything, you have to be willing to ask yourself the hard questions. After publishing the last post, riding my bicycle to work, and opening the store, I found myself asking one that I really am afraid of.
What if having a store isn't what we're meant for? What if we would be better off being just a wholesale business, like I was before? Just because I've dreamed of having my own shop for years doesn't mean I am good at it. What if having a store downtown, having a store on-line, and also doing wholesale is wasting our money and spreading ourselves too thin? Like women who try to have it all and end up with angry adult children, divorce, and when all they've got left is their career they get laid off because there are younger more desperate women willing to work for half the pay.* What if we aren't capable of giving enough energy to each endeavor to make any of them work well and end up with nothing?
I have to ask that. How can you answer a question like that before life answers it for you with the cold hard light of a trailer park life? I should be the best judge of this. I should know. We are trying all the angles because we want to have that many more outlets for selling our goods. It sounds good, sounds reasonable, but you have to put tremendous energy into each one to make them work.
I'm afraid I might know the answer.
Here's what I am, what I've always been:
Designer. Color swatcher. Product developer. Costumer. Production worker. Shipper. Stock girl. Design Assistant. Writer.
What career seems like the best fit?
I'll tell you something else I've noticed. We've had exactly four on line orders. We can track how many people have visited; hundreds of people have visited. No one is buying. Why? In six months we have not been able to move a significant amount of merchandise in the store. The two best sellers? Mrs. Meyers and my aprons. (Runner up to my aprons are Chelsea's cocktail aprons.) Cleaning products and adult aprons.
I know, you can't expect to do well in the first year or two of business. How many hundreds of people have told me that? I'm not a firm believer in that. I believe that if you're providing what people want and need, if you've really got it figured out, you will not have to wait for two years to do well. People want Mrs. Meyers, and surprisingly, they want my aprons. But those two things can't pay the bills alone. If everything in my store did as well as those two items, we would already be successful.
Another significant piece of information is that no one ever tells me how to improve the quality of the products I design and make myself. They don't because I am good at designing products that function well, that look good, and are made well. I know how to make an apron that looks professionally sewn. My own products don't seem to invite the same kind of criticism as my store does because I have complete confidence in my ability to sew better and to draft better than almost everyone who comes in my store. Maybe you're looking for something different than what I have, but you can't tell me what I have isn't the best quality and pretty damn cool. People can tell when you know what you're doing. I know what I'm doing when it comes to design and production.
I do not know what I'm doing when it comes to setting up and running a store. I was always meant to be the person on the supplier side. I'm not saying I can't cross over. I'm just saying that explains a lot.
I'm hoping that someone from SCORE can help me answer these questions before we run out of enough resources to be on the right track. If we're going to make this store successful then we need to completely believe in our ability to do it.
I'll be interested to see how our future unfolds. Why-oh-why did our magic 8 ball break? DOES GOD HAVE NO MERCY?
*I just want to mention that I know a lot of women and families don't have any choice but to both work to make ends meet, and aren't actually trying to "have it all". But that doesn't change the fact that there is a price that comes with that arrangement whether you choose it or whether life pushes you into it.
I have also just made an appointment with the sign guy. He's about to go on vacation, but if signs can be made by the end of the month, this dead dead month, that's good enough for me.
If you're going to be a success in anything, you have to be willing to ask yourself the hard questions. After publishing the last post, riding my bicycle to work, and opening the store, I found myself asking one that I really am afraid of.
What if having a store isn't what we're meant for? What if we would be better off being just a wholesale business, like I was before? Just because I've dreamed of having my own shop for years doesn't mean I am good at it. What if having a store downtown, having a store on-line, and also doing wholesale is wasting our money and spreading ourselves too thin? Like women who try to have it all and end up with angry adult children, divorce, and when all they've got left is their career they get laid off because there are younger more desperate women willing to work for half the pay.* What if we aren't capable of giving enough energy to each endeavor to make any of them work well and end up with nothing?
I have to ask that. How can you answer a question like that before life answers it for you with the cold hard light of a trailer park life? I should be the best judge of this. I should know. We are trying all the angles because we want to have that many more outlets for selling our goods. It sounds good, sounds reasonable, but you have to put tremendous energy into each one to make them work.
I'm afraid I might know the answer.
Here's what I am, what I've always been:
Designer. Color swatcher. Product developer. Costumer. Production worker. Shipper. Stock girl. Design Assistant. Writer.
What career seems like the best fit?
I'll tell you something else I've noticed. We've had exactly four on line orders. We can track how many people have visited; hundreds of people have visited. No one is buying. Why? In six months we have not been able to move a significant amount of merchandise in the store. The two best sellers? Mrs. Meyers and my aprons. (Runner up to my aprons are Chelsea's cocktail aprons.) Cleaning products and adult aprons.
I know, you can't expect to do well in the first year or two of business. How many hundreds of people have told me that? I'm not a firm believer in that. I believe that if you're providing what people want and need, if you've really got it figured out, you will not have to wait for two years to do well. People want Mrs. Meyers, and surprisingly, they want my aprons. But those two things can't pay the bills alone. If everything in my store did as well as those two items, we would already be successful.
Another significant piece of information is that no one ever tells me how to improve the quality of the products I design and make myself. They don't because I am good at designing products that function well, that look good, and are made well. I know how to make an apron that looks professionally sewn. My own products don't seem to invite the same kind of criticism as my store does because I have complete confidence in my ability to sew better and to draft better than almost everyone who comes in my store. Maybe you're looking for something different than what I have, but you can't tell me what I have isn't the best quality and pretty damn cool. People can tell when you know what you're doing. I know what I'm doing when it comes to design and production.
I do not know what I'm doing when it comes to setting up and running a store. I was always meant to be the person on the supplier side. I'm not saying I can't cross over. I'm just saying that explains a lot.
I'm hoping that someone from SCORE can help me answer these questions before we run out of enough resources to be on the right track. If we're going to make this store successful then we need to completely believe in our ability to do it.
I'll be interested to see how our future unfolds. Why-oh-why did our magic 8 ball break? DOES GOD HAVE NO MERCY?
*I just want to mention that I know a lot of women and families don't have any choice but to both work to make ends meet, and aren't actually trying to "have it all". But that doesn't change the fact that there is a price that comes with that arrangement whether you choose it or whether life pushes you into it.