Shopping Carts

I met with my friend last night with whom I'm starting up Business #2 and showed her the product samples. We also spent some time figuring out the next steps - one of which includes getting a website and shopping cart up and running.

So I spent some time this morning researching various shopping cart options and it looks like PayPal is the best bet for small businesses. With a PayPal business account it looks like you can accept Visa, Mastercard, AMEX, Discover, and PayPal but don't have to pay monthly fees, gateway fees, setup fees, etc and simply pay a transaction fee just as you do with any credit card sales. PayPal even helps you set up the shopping cart which is hosted on their site so you never have to worry about misplacing any sensative financial information.

I need to look at it further as I may end up changing Business #1's shopping cart and payment to PayPal as well since I think it'll save me a good deal of money.

If you're interested in learning more about it check out their info here: https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_wp-standard-overview-outside

Just wanted to add that I am in no way paid by PayPal for this and I'll be more than happy to share later whether or not we used them and, if so, what we think about the functionality.

And as soon as we get things set up (hopefully in January) I'll post a link to Business #2. I think it will be fun and best of all 10% of proceeds goes to charity!

Sick Day

Blah - that's how I'm feeling. I can't put my finger on something exactly being wrong other than just general blahness.

In truth I think that this is my body decompressing after a very very busy season. This is the first day that I haven't had a ton of work to do. Since I'm leaving on Friday for a trip I dropped off my inventory and operations manual with my parents (yep - a small company so I have to rely on my folks to take care of stuff while I'm gone!) and now I'm back home trying to tie together a few business loose ends before taking off.

And I think that because I don't necessarily have a ton of stuff on my plate for the first time in literally months my body has decided to take a little time to catch up.

So yeah, I feel blah. But I do need to get a few more things done so hopefully I can get myself off the couch after this episode of the Hills is over (c'mon - what do you watch when you're home sick?).

He Does Hate Me!

(not my picture but the only picture of damaged mail I could quickly find on google images)

The Postman does hate me. How do I know? In the past few weeks I've shipped three packages to Florida (from where I am in the soggy Northwest) and all three times they've come back return to sender because the post office apparently can't find the address. This leads me to believe it's one of three things:

1. 1. People in Florida don't know their own mailing address (which seems unlikely as when I resend the package it gets there without a problem).
2. The Florida postoffice is exceptionally inept (a decent possibility)
3. My postman hates me (I think this is the most likely)

What's worse is that I swear it looks like the packages have been literally kicked the entire way to florida and back. This means that I have to not only call up the retailers to confirm their address (and yes, in all three cases the one on the box was the right address), but I have to repackage the entire order which takes a ton of time not to mention the fact that there are always a few packages I simply can't reuse. Then repackage in a mailing box (since the previous mailing box is a disaster - more money out of pocket) and lastly reship the entire thing at my cost.

Why my cost? Well I figure I can't hold the retailer accountable for the fact that my postman hates me so in the vein of providing good customer service I cover the cost of reshipping the packages. So there's a good $20 that cuts into my profits (we ship Priority Mail on everything).

So yes, I'm pretty sure my postman does actually hate me. Do you think leaving him a holiday tip will help ease his feelings of illwill?

Advice from the Experts

Advice from folks who have gone down the Entrepreneural road before and done a rather good job at it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/27/business/smallbusiness/27toolkit.html?ref=smallbusiness

We're ready for our closeup

We're going to be on TV! Well, in reality, one of our products is going to be on TV. And by TV I mean a local afternoon show so it's not like we'll be getting nationwide exposure. But still, it's our first TV appearance!

This all came about because I have a good relationship with a local magazine publisher. Every time they've asked for something I've made sure to come through (and to be fair - they've haven't asked for the moon) so when they had this opportunity on TV they thought of my company. Obviously I jumped at the opportunity - very excited!

Sadly I'm actually going to be out of town when the program airs and need to ask a friend to Tivo the program for me. I wonder if I can buy the TV clip and add it to the new and improved website?

Market Research

Big companies dump a ton of money into market research to see if their new product ideas will actually catch on in the consumer market. So what's a small company - with a very limited budget - to do? Up until now I've been mainly going by my gut but I'm beginning to wonder if that's necessarily the best course of action. As I look at the new products I'm thinking about introducing in 2008 I realize they fall into one of two catagories:
1. Products that are in line with current market trends or I've had a substational number of retailers ask for a similar type product
2. It sounds good to me

To try and offset some of the risk involved with those products that fall into catagory #2 I'm thinking about doing a little market research of my own. Of course, I'm trying to make it as cheap as possible. First of all I realized I'm going to tap into my business school's network of over-eager graduate students and have them do some of the market research for me. Business schools are actually a pretty under-utilized asset for small businesses and many business school classes require some sort of work with a real company. My bschool has a marketing research course that almost everyone takes and it requires student teams to work on a real-world problem for a real-world company. Best of all, they do the work for free. Granted, sometimes you get what you pay for but I figure it's worth a shot. Which reminds me I need to get in touch with the department head before the end of their fall quarter.

The second thing I'm thinking of doing to test the product is try to get a booth at one of the local farmer's markets and simply see how/if the product sells/what do consumers say about it, etc. I'm still not totally set on this idea and have a meeting scheduled with a friend who launched her company via one of the local farmer's markets to discuss the idea further. The benefits to this idea is that the farmer's markets in my area are very popular and get a ton of foot traffic so it could prove to be a really useful tool. The markets are also relatively cheap and there's always the chance that any revenue brought in could help offset my production space costs in the slower summer months. On the other hand, it means I have to be there week-in and week-out and if the idea totally flops then that could make for a very long summer!

Building the Operation Manual

Yesterday was my second to last day in my production space in 2007. I'm heading off for a belated honeymoon pretty soon so gave up my rental space for December since I won't really be around. Thankfully, my landlords have said they'd try to hold open my normal hours as I've been a very reliable renter. Hopefully it will hold true.

So I'm spending most of this week trying to build up the very last bit of inventory which will hopefully carry through the new year and next week when I'm home more often I'll refocus on trying to get all papers and "office" organization actually organized.

In fact, one of things I've been working on has been an Operations Manual. I started it because I realized that if I want to grow this business beyond simply little ol me, I need to have the company's procedures written down in a way that anyone could pick up the manual and continue the business without my guidance (or even without me!). As I've been putting it together I've been a little surprised by how much knowledge is saved in this head of mine. Nothing overwhelming, but - for example - the passwords to access various online programs that we use daily. Then of course there's the instructions for how to create our product, accept and process wholesale orders, invoice clients, pay commissions, etc. So there's a lot of information I'm trying to put down on paper.

My hope is to have a lot of the actual "accepting and processing orders" portion of it complete before I leave for my honeymoon as I'm leaving my mom in charge of the company (go mom!) while I'm away and want to make things as easy as possible for her. Then, if my grand plan works out, I'll finish up with a lot of the "production instructions" end of things in the first quarter prior to hopefully hiring on part-time help second quarter next year.

Interesting Article

An interesting read about a company I admire for how well they've done based on very limited initial resources. Life IS Good for these guys...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/22/business/smallbusiness/22sbiz.html?_r=1&ref=smallbusiness&oref=slogin

I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving...

QuickBooks (yes, again)

I'm 98% of the way complete thanks to ingnoring any and all Thanksgiving cooking & cleaning today to focus on QuickBooks. The good news is that both QuickBooks and my latest bank statement indicate that there is currently money in the business account. Hooray!

I realize that I spent a truckload of money on two things this year - 1. PR (no surprise and why they're fired) and 2. Sales Generation. We attended five tradeshows this past year plus the Emmy's so it was very expensive once you take into account the actual tradeshow costs and the pre/post-tradeshow marketing. Next year that figure will come down significantly as we're only planning to attend 2 tradeshows with another one that I keep debating about adding.

We're also $883 from my financial goal for this year so I'm hoping we can get that in the next few weeks.

Ok, off to go immerse myself in the pre-Thanksgiving rush. Which brings me to my next (completely unrelated) point - will a 10.7lb turkey feed 4 people? It looks really small - more like a large chicken then a turkey?

The Pursuit of Happyness

My significant other and I rented (via Netflix) The Pursuit of Happyness this weekend. Here's a very quick synopsis in case you don't recall:

The movie is based on a true story of a single father who essentially loses all his money in a business transaction and ends up homeless. He applies for and gets a stock broker internship position (unpaid) and works for them for six months while also taking care of his son and trying to find space for the two of them at shelters on a nightly basis. At the end of the six months only one of the twenty interns is offered a posistion and, (I don't think I'm giving anything away here), it is offered to this guy. Turns out that this guy later goes on to open up his own firm and then in 200X? sold his stake in the firm for several million dollars.

Not only is the story itself impressive (and very well played by Will Smith) - but as an entrepreneur it struck me on two levels. The first was watching how his original entrepreneural desire got his family into financial straits to begin with (and eroded his marriage). It was a firm reminder that nothing is a given.

The second, and more compelling message, was how incredibly emotionally strong Chris (the main character) had to be to not only overcome everything he did but to do it with a son in tow. In talking to other small business owners, I know that many of us rely heavily on a network of friends, family, and spouse/significant other to help us emotionally when times are rough. Chris had no one as it doesn't appear that he let on to any of the other interns or his superiors at the firm what his true situation was.

I'm honestly not sure I could have done and continue to do this without that support network.

Long story short - I recommend the movie.

Buried Under Paper

Now that the orders are slowing down I'm starting to "take back the house." Since my house is the "corporate headquarters", in the past few weeks it's come to resemble a giant mailroom with all the orders going out the door.

In addition to trying to get the house back under control, I'm also now faced with the realization that I have four months worth of receipts that I haven't yet properly filed. I went through the paper today and now have a folder that is 4 inches thick of paper that needs to filed and inputted into QuickBooks.

The good news is that I actually have all bills, receipts, and invoices as required by the IRS. The bad news is it's going to take some time getting through and organized. I hope to get to work on it this weekend and finish it on Tuesday before my in-laws come into town for Thanksgiving. If not perhaps I'll just make the in-laws work for their turkey!

Right now, in the background, I currently have the Oprah show on and what I've picked up is that they have a woman who had literally tons of stuff in her house including 35 year old credit card statements. In comparison I don't feel so bad.

My Postman Hates Me

And here's why. This is a picture of my front door with packages waiting to be picked up (gotta love Piority Mail - the postman will come pick up the packages rather than watching time slowly tick away waiting in line at the Post Office). Every few days I end up putting out anywhere between 4-9 boxes for him to pickup. I'm sure he hates me.

But I think I'm getting to the end of it. I've got four more packages going out tomorrow morning, one that'll get dropped off in person on Thursday, and then one more going out next week. Granted, there's always a chance I'll have new orders come in but I'm oh so close to actually having ALL tradeshow orders out the door in addition to all orders that have come in since.

On another note entirely, I met with the friend with whom I'm starting the "hobby" business. She's really excited which helped get me really excited again and I think it's going to be fun. I have to drop off samples at the production space (we're having someone else do production) and I hope they turn out alright. We figure at the very worst if this doesn't look like it'll turn into a quasi-viable business then at least we'll have some fun gifts to give away this holiday season.

Good News or Bad News?

It's been one of those days. I've literally spent the entire day on my feet in my production space and I just got home relatively exhausted. I've been so busy with production because we've been getting a bunch of holiday orders including one really large order.

Only I came home today to find that the large order had been canceled because they're just now realizing that the price point doesn't work with their end consumer. On the one hand I'm doing ok because we actually already shipped them 1/3 of the order and they're willing to take that on and I've suggested a similar product with a lower price point so I may still get some sales out of them.

I'm also ok with it because it means I'll finally have a foothold in holiday orders as I've literally only been able to make enough product to fill existing orders and the orders keep coming.

But on the other hand, this obviously means that a decent sized order I had been expecting is now null and void and that's cash I'm going to wish I had come March when orders are few and far between. And I just spent all day on my feet killing myself to get enough product to fill this order.

So I'm not sure whether I'm ok with this change or not. All I know is that I'm exhausted. The good news though is that the work I was planning to do tonight now doesn't have to get done and I'm going to veg and veg and veg.

It's Official

The company name is officially a registered trademark. It's been a long process. I think we started it back in May 2006 and it's just now gone through all the hoops and obsticles. It wasn't cheap but something I'd highly recommend to any small company.

Why? Because I just found another company who is in my niche and whose name is basically simply a respelling of our name. Phonetically they pretty much sound the same (unless I'm very much mispronouncing their name). I don't think it was done on purpose but there is absolutely a possiblity that there could be confusion in the marketplace. Since I have the trademark it means I basically have the upperhand. My trademark attorney is sending me a bunch of information and after I take a look at it I'll have to decide what I want to do - but it's certainly nice to be on this side of it rather than being the company who is using the name but doesn't have the trademark.

Good Advice

1. It's sometimes amazing how small the world really is as it turns out that my husband is working with the CEO of a company I've long admired and am somewhat trying to emulate with my own little company. My husband was telling said CEO about my business and he gave me this piece of advice: This early in your company's lifespan - simply focus on doubling your revenue every single year and the rest will fall into place.

I like it - simple, succinct, and a great goal to have. So, that helps get my 2008 financial goal laid out.

2. This is a piece of advice I actually gave someone. I didn't think it was that spectacular but have since heard from two other people that they thought the advice was brillant (who knew!). The advice was that before you start X company - make sure you know what you're jumping in to. And I don't mean that you should have your business plan and proformas all laid out (which you should) - but that you need to understand the everyday day-to-day running of the business. So if you want to start that fudge store make sure you've worked in a kitchen for a fudge maker - if you want to open a coffee store go work as a barista for a time so you understand the business - and if you want to become a dog walker go work for one for awhile. Learn everything you can and make all your mistakes on their dime and then you have a wealth of knowledge and experience under your belt before venturing out on your own. You may also realize that said career is alot less "romantic" then you initially envisioned it and that your current job (with benefits and salary) is actually a pretty good deal. And if you don't - at least you have a better idea of what you're jumping into.

My very favorite story - which my husband has heard 101 times - is of someone I know who graduated a very prestigious business school and went to work as a consultant at a very prestigious firm and was making a small fortune. However, she really wanted to open up a women's fashion boutique so when she decided she was ready she quit her high-paying job and took a job as a sales associate at a women's boutique making an hourly wage. It was a HUGE step-down in many ways but she spent a year there learning absolutely every facet of the business. Then a year later she left, took all that knowledge with her, and started up a very successful boutique in another city. In a business where you have very high overheads due to the inventory you have to carry, fashion is a very fickle business and she's made it work in large part due to her experience working in that boutique for a year.

3. Don't let your accounting books get 9 months out of date. Yeah - that's a lesson I'm continuing to learn.

Scary

Happy Halloween! Hope you're enjoying the ghouls, goblins, and other assorted monsters. Or I hope you're enjoying dressing up as one.

Scary work is afoot here in the "home office." I was in our production space all day and now am back at the office working through Quick Books - that bane of my existance. I have an appt with my accountant in a month and I've been absolutely horrible about keeping my books up to date. It's been hanging over my head and I just wanted to get it back into shape so I've committed tonight to starting work on it.



Yes, just "starting" because I realized after looking at what I last did (4 months ago), I had to go back to square one and basically backtracked to 1/1/2007 and am slowly working forward through the year. I've made it through the first quarter and hope to get through second quarter tonight. It's actually not going too poorly since I had already inputted most entries through the end of second quarter. So after that large order goes out a week from Tuesday I'm dedicating Thurs and Friday of that week to getting the Quick Books the rest of the way up to date which I imagine will take significantly longer.



You'd think I would have learned my lesson by now. I keep saying that I want to update it every month when my statements come in but I just got so busy these past few months I haven't had time. That's definitely going to be one of my New Year's resolutions.



Anyway, Happy Halloween one and all!

New and Red!

See my new computer! And yes, it's red. I'm so excited! It showed up today and I can't wait to break into it.

Why haven't I done so already? Well, I'm a bit of a technophobe so I'm waiting for my better half to come home and help get me started. I realize these things are pretty foolproof but I'm still worried I'll do something stupid and screw it up.

Nonetheless, I'm really excited about the new computer. I need to find a good name for it and then it will be all ready to join the ranks of "My Company."

Just When I Thought...

Just yesterday I was telling my better half that I was through the worst of it with regards to orders and that after tomorrow's orders - which are ready and waiting by the door - get picked up then it would really just be a small push for the next two weeks and then I'd really just be focused on building up inventory before we take off on our (belated) honeymoon in December.

And then today I got a rather impressive order. Actually, not only is it the biggest order to date - it doubles what we did all of last year (though keep in mind last year we were really only up and running for 4th quarter). Have I mentioned that I have no inventory? So yeah, it's going to be a really really busy next two weeks.

In fact, I'm calling up the reserves and have harnessed the power of some friends to come in and help me package up the product as that's just as time consuming as making the product itself. There's just no way, short of going the next two weeks without sleep, that I could get this order filled without them.

But truthfully, it's a pretty nice problem to have, isn't it? Much better than sitting here with a ton of product and no one wanting it. Plus I think this sale will push us up to our sales goal for this year which is fantastic. The only thing that has me worried is that I just started a promotion with one of my reps which, if retailers like it, could really put me up a creek.

So while I really did do a decent job of not working too much this past weekend - maybe only 20% of the time - it looks like the next two weekends that percentage will be closer to 75%.

Weaning from Weekends

I had an interesting conversation the other day with another small entreprenuer in my kitchen space. She said that she doesn't work on weekends. GASP!??!

Not work on weekends, how does anyone do that? I wondered.

I can't tell you the last time I didn't do some work over a weekend. Oh wait, I can - it was the weekend I was in NYC for a wedding and didn't have my computer with me. Even the weekend I was away doing an Ironman I actually did work as well. So that recent wedding and my wedding back in July were probably the two last times I didn't do some sort of work on a weekend.

Now granted I think that part of being an entrepreneur is that you're most likely the type to let work consume you if you let it. But I'm going to try and see how much of my weekend I can keep to myself over the next two days. Sadly, I already know that I have some work that needs to get done so I can't go completely cold turkey (besides, I would probably have some pretty severe withdrawel symptoms if I did) - but I'm going to try and get away with just doing what's needed to get me off to a good start next week and not necessarily spend all free time working on some aspect of the business or another.

We'll see how it goes...for starters I'm going to sit down with a glass of wine tonight and try to finally get through my wedding photos to figure out which ones I want to buy.

Lack of Focus

In truth I'm not really procrastinating today - more like I'm having trouble staying focused enough to see tasks through to completion. This morning I was supposed to go into my production space but got caught up checking the internet to see what the suspicious lump on my dog's leg could be (most likely from her recent vaccinations) and then decided that I really needed to reorganize my recipes. I managed to get about 2/3 of the way through that task before finally going down to my production space.

I got a little work done there until I decided that I really needed to head to the grocery store to pick up some goodies for tomorrow night's dinner. Tomorrow is my better half's birthday and I've promised him - after weeks of being ignored - that I'll make it all up to him tomorrow with a really yummy beef brisket and his favorite Red Velvet cake!

While picking up the items in the store I came across all their Halloween accessories which are now on drastic sale. And this is where this post swings back into the real of entrepreneurship and business ownership...it dawned on me that if all goes as planned and we release a new product geared towards Halloween/Fall this time next year it would help to have some Halloween accessories to use in the booths at our Fall trade shows. And I realized it would be far cheaper to get the stuff now then try to find it at the end of August next year. So I picked up a few cheap items that I think will work and, if at worst, they don't, then I'm really only out $8.

And I got a flu shot while at the grocery store! But I forgot to get the beef for tomorrow's dinner. Yeah - one of those days!

DONE!

The first wave of orders is out the door! Sweet relief! I think the tally was 21 orders in the last seven days. I know it doesn't sound like much to some - but given that these are wholesale orders as opposed to single retail orders means that every order has many many many componants so they took longer to pull together.

I still have a second wave that has to go out early next week - not to mention the fact that I just got two more orders and two more requests for information - and then a third wave to go out the second week of November. But I honestly think the worst of it is over and I'm taking the afternoon to breath, reclaim the house (which doubles as my packaging and mailroom), and take stock of where I am with production (all of it's gone) and where I need to be both in terms to fill these next two waves of orders and in terms of getting a slight lead on the holiday season. Though since I'm mostly wholesale orders I'm hoping that the holidays shouldn't be too nuts for me and that the truly nutso part is right now.

Phew - feels good to have that first wave out!

Free Time...HA!

If you're thinking of starting up your own business so you have more free time let me tell you that it's a giant GIANT lie. I have spent ALL last week and all weekend (my birthday weekend nonetheless) getting out these show orders. After tomorrow I should be through the worst of it but it's literally been 10-14 hours daily on my feet. Worst of all, it's infiltrating my dreams!

Good News Bad News

As I mentioned before, the good news is that we had a really really good show. Course now that means I'm rushing around like mad trying to get all the orders out by next week and it turns out I'm about 1710 units short of one product. Our new product turned out to be much more in demand then I anticipated! Thankfully it's not horribly labor intensive - but this does mean I'm in for a long week of long nights trying to get everything made and packaged and shipped.

The bad news is that one of my packages from my packaging company is backordered and won't be in until 11-23. Not good! Now I have to reach out to my orders and find out if they want to wait or cancel that part of their order. It's not the worst thing that could happen but it's definitely not great. Again, it's a new product so I just had no idea and obviously the inventory I prepared with is not enough.

Going to be a busy week!

Home Again Home Again

It's good to be home! I got back earlier this afternoon from my 10 day stint around the country which ended with the Chicago tradeshow. I'm tired and my computer is running out of juice so I have to keep this short but just wanted to say that the tradeshow was a HUGE success. We more than doubled our results on any other show and, interestingly enough, made 400% more in the last three days then I made in 2006. Definitely reason for celebration. But celebration has to wait until after I get all the orders out the door! It's going to be a really really busy next week (or more if it takes more time!).

On the plane I was thinking about the fact that last year at this show the majority of my orders were <$75 per order while at this show the average is - at first glance - most likely around $150 per order. The difference is due, I believe, to the fact that I created "sampler" packages for retailers. For example, let's say my company offers chocolate fudge, vanilla fudge, and mint fudge. At last year's show I had minimums for each flavor so if retailers wanted to bring the fudge into their store they had to buy, for example, a dozen of each flavor. Many retailers were hesitate to bring that much "untested" fudge into their store so would choose to only bring one flavor in. This time around I offered retailers a few sampler packages (of varying sizes) which enables them to bring in all three fudge flavors without having to buy the minimum of each. For retailers it provides piece of mind that they can bring in this "untested" product without spending a significant amount of money. But the sampler package costs cost more than simply the minimum of one fudge flavor so rather than paying $30 for one dozen fudge pieces the retailer is paying $75 for 28 fudge pieces.

Ok, I'm not sure that math totally makes sense but you get the idea I hope. Anyway, very good show and I'll be busy for the next few weeks! By the way - I do not make or sell fudge. But I'd love some if anyone has a good recommendation!

Tradeshow Day 1

Just got back from a nice little 12-hour day at first day of the last (hooray!) tradeshow of the year. All in all the first day was pretty successful. We had a bunch of people come by and pick up material which is typical for the first day and hopefully we'll have a good attrition rate and a fair number of those folks returning over the next two days to place actual orders. We also had a decent amount of new retailers place orders today and a good number of folks come up to us and say "oh, I've heard of you before" which is validating.

Most exciting however was probably the first person who stopped by our booth this morning. Without giving away too much information, it was from a large chain retailer (though not as large as a Target or the like) specific to this industry and even more specific to my niche. I honestly thought that they produced everything inhouse but in the last year the company was bought and new management took over. It was the CEO who stopped by our booth this morning and seemed sincerely interested in potentially bringing our product into some of their stores. It may, as I've found, come to nothing at the end of the day but it's always exciting to have that as an option. Always good to have options, right?

But at the same time I'm tired, been traveling far too long, and have those moments that I'd be willing to sell the company to the first person who asked. Thankfully they are only brief moments and I've so far managed to regain sanity before anyone comes looking to buy.

Letting Go

So I fired my PR company. Trust me it was not nearly as easy as I made it sound. But first, the backstory:

I hired a PR firm in early summer after interviewing a number of them truly believing that the one I chose would help me get a tremendous amount of publicity which would in turn help build the brand equity. Between then and last week they got me precisely one radio spot on a local radio station. During that same time period I got (without even trying but simply through contacts I had who contacted me) four print pieces and one national radio spot (albeit all were within my industry) for or about the company. If you do the math - their one radio spot cost me more than the annual rental cost of my production space whereas my 4 print pieces and one radio spot cost the company nothing (though one could argue that I should be getting paid for my time - which hopefully will happen one day).

I'm incredibly frustrated that I spent all that money this year - money that could have gone to so many other things.

But that's what I'm learning running a small business is all about. While you do your absolute best to make the right decisions based on a combination of knowledge, know-how, and gut instinct - at the end of the day there's still a fairly large amount of trail and error and sometimes, as in this case, you error.

What's the plan from here on? I really believe PR is a huge asset to a company but I will most likely be bringing it "in-house" after the new year. I'm right now looking into getting a PR Newswire subscription in 2008 and once I have a chance to investigate that a little further I'll let you know what I find.

Another Goals Post

(Please excuse the cheesy photo - I thought this post needed something a little "extra"). I was recently contacted by an export company about potentially exporting my products overseas. Like anything, I'm finding, it's not nearly as easy as it looks between deciding whether this is a company I want to work with (under a 5 year contract) plus all the bits and pieces of bureaucracy that I have to get through simply to get the product ready for export.

And truthfully, I'm somewhat scared. Scared that I won't make the right decision with this. Scared that neither I nor the company are ready for this next step. And at the same time scared that this is a huge opportunity that I may potentially pass on.

Obviously I need to know more about the opportunity itself (have a phone call scheduled for Wends) but I think at the crux of it I need to reorganize my thoughts and figure out exactly what I want out of the company in the next 1, 3, and 5 years and then see if this fits in with that plan. Hoping to have some time today (while on the train from NYC to Philly) to put some of my thoughts in order in the hopes that it will give me a little more clarity in this and other matters. Guess I'm feeling a little lost right now as to what my goals really are which makes it very tough to accurately weigh potential future opportunities.

Rethinking Goals

This is actually a tag-on to the earlier post about thinking like the cake guy...so let's talk goals.

When I started this company I laid out a set of financial goals and an overreaching goal of becoming "the" luxury brand within my very specific niche. And I laid our financial goals for the first and second year which I did alter based on quarterly results.

But what I haven't done - and need to do - is come up with other short term goals. And I think those goals need to be two-fold. On the one hand they do need to encompass the short-term financial goals, the steps I want to take to grow the business (and help meet those financial goals), and other business strategy goals. But at the same time I think that I need to have "personal" goals when it comes to the business. Things that my not be as tangible as end financial goals but will help me remember, even when things get really tough, that progress is still being made.

I also think I want to make out a five-year plan so I can lay out - to the best of my ability - how I get from where we are to where I want us to ultimately be and what my role in that is going to be.

I'm leaving tomorrow night for a ten-day trip that starts on the west coast, takes me to three cities on the east coast, and finally lands me in the last trade show of the year in Chicago before coming home again. My hope is that sometime in all of that - since I won't be able to be using my production space - I can sit down and better articulate these thoughts onto paper. That and get a new rough draft of my business plan (version 2.0) completed. Those are my first two new short-term goals.

And Then...

I got a new copy of a new industry publication (consumer publication for my niche) and right in the front of the magazine - which by the way appears to be a really nice new magazine, great editorial and wonderful layout/photos - is a HUGE picture of one of our products. I mean we really have the entire page to ourselves. It's like a big beautiful ad - only it's editorial!

I'm leaning towards - if I have any money to do it - creating an ad budget for next year to target to a few of these consumer and business pubs in my industry. Editorial like this certainly encourages me to buy ad space when/if I can afford it!

Blustery

The weather outside is frightful! Not a winter frightful - a true fall frightful. If Halloween were today this would be absolutely perfect weather for the ghoules and goblins. Truly frightful weather.

Which makes it the perfect day to stay indoors and get stuff done. And there is a ton and a half of stuff to get done. The past few days I've been busy trying to get all our Las Vegas orders out the door (they all finally shipped today), get everything shipped out to Chicago that has to go to a trade show out there, and continue to work on building up inventory before what will hopefully be a busy third quarter. Not to mention trying to pack up for a wedding on the east coast this weekend and prepare to take my older dog into the vet tomorrow for a teeth-cleaning (the type of deep cleaning where they've got to put her under to get it done).

Perhaps it's the weather that's making me cranky but for the past day or so I've totally been in a "I'd be willing to sell" mood. As my husband rightly said - if you didn't feel that way every so often I'd worry that you weren't taking this seriously. I knew it would be hard, but I honestly didn't think it would be this hard. Yes, the production end of things is hard physically, but for me it's more of the day-in and day-out always thinking about the business, working on building the business etc. It just never ends!

Yes, I'm whining...I'll shut up now...

End of Week Thoughts

It's been an interesting week - two radio interviews with the last one being yesterday. I think it went pretty well but as usual afterwards I thought of 1001 other things I could have said. Hopefully it'll edit well. Then I'm meeting with a potential new sales rep today at 11am and on Sunday I'm having dinner with a friend to discuss our potential new "hobby" business. And I'm packing up - once again - for yet another trade show. Thankfully it's the last one of the year because I'm sick of traveling!

In other news - I found, via NYTimes Small Business Section, the following website. I haven't looked at it in-depth yet but it could prove to be interesting for entrepreneurs or wanna-be entrepreneurs: http://www.startupnation.com/. At first glance it looks a little elementary and doesn't necessarily provide in-depth details about starting and running your own business but it could provide some good high-leve information.

If at first you don't succeed

There's a piece of equipment I want (one of many) that in theory would make the production of my product significantly easier. But it costs upwards of $10k not to mention how much space it would take up in my production space so it's really not a realistic option at this point.

In a moment of what I considered - at the time - pure genius - I found an $18 machine that would, I thought, mimic what the $10K machine would do so I could at least see if said machine would, in threory, work. I figured it would speed up production slightly but it would also give me insight into whether - when and if - I had a spare $10K laying around, the big beautiful machine would be a smart investment.

So I got the $18 machine and set it up in my kitchen yesterday figuring that if it went haywire the kitchen would be the easiest place to clean up. Rather than using the "typical" raw material I use, I decided to first test it out on some "other" raw material I had bought some time ago but hadn't exactly worked the way I needed it to.

I don't know why I thought that if it didn't work the first time it would miraculously work the second time with this brand-spanking new $18 machine but I thought it did. Let's just say the only smart part of this plan was the fact that the kitchen is, in hindsight, the easiest room in the house to clean up.

So after trial run #1 I took the dogs for a run (which is like tying two screaming banshees onto your waist and letting them go wild) and figured:
1. My husband was going to be working late that night and
2. The housecleaner is coming next week

Which in my mind meant that yesterday evening was the perfect time to try again.

So once again I went through the process of preparing the raw material (this time using the "real" raw material and praying that it worked otherwise I'd just lost a fair amount of expensive raw material) and getting it into the machine. To my surprise and amazement it actually worked! And I was right, it does cut down production time a surprising amount. In fact the $18 machine works so well for my current purposes that I may just hold onto that extra $10K when I happen to find it!

Lesson learned - sometimes thinking outside the box can lead to a giant mess. But sometimes being stubborn enough to not let the idea go means you may actually find success!

Today's Tips for Business Success

As I was getting ready to get out of the "home office" and into my other office I had the Today Show on and they happened to do a piece on entrepreneurship. The piece was mainly geared towards women and entrepreneurship but I think the advice they offered can - for the most part - be applied to anyone. Here's what they recommended (I've added my own thoughts in italics):

1. Build your cash reserve - save up enough money to live without an income for two years. They basically said to figure out how much you'd need and then double it. Also take into account if you're going to have to pay for your own health insurance and other costly expenditures.

2. Strive for a FICO credit score of 750 or better to help get approved for business loans.

3. Know your financial risk - how much of your money are you willing to risk in the new venture if it doesn't work out. Keep in mind that most small businesses fail due to lack of capital, experience, and planning.

4. Don't be afraid of debt - initially use personal assets and then seek funding from institutional investors.

5. Seperate personal and business accounts

6. Base your business on what you know (this one I think is really critical. The office space I work in has other entrepreneurs in it and I see a lot of people who just thought that to open a business in that niche would be "fun" but don't have real experience in it and don't realize how hard it really is. The best story I ever heard was of a MBA grad who was working for McKinsey Consulting and had a very healthy salary. However, she really wanted to open up a clothing boutique so she quit her job and went to work at a clothing boutique with an hourly wage. If I remember the story correctly she spent a year there learning every single aspect of the business and then left to open up her own boutique in a different city. She has done exceedingly well and credits it with the fact that she went in with her eyes open after having worked in the industry for some time.)

7. Create a business plan - you have to make sure you understand your market completely (this one is also really important and it's worth remembering that the business plan shouldn't be something that's simply locked into a drawer after it's done but needs to be a "living" document. I desperately need to update my business plan since the business has shifted its strategy and am hoping to to it after the last tradeshow next month.)

8. Develop an exit strategy in case things don't go well

9. Be flexible about your idea

Resources:

Local Chamber of Commerce

Small Business Association - SBA.gov

National Association of Women Business Owners - NAWBO.org

Uh Oh Radio

Wohoo! Look at me adding photos to the blog. It's only taken me - what - almost a year to figure out how to do it. :)

So why a photo of a radio? Because this is apparently radio week for my little company. I got a call yesterday afternoon from a retailer who purchased my product for the first time at the Las Vegas show wanting to know if I'd be willing to come onto their Saturday radio show and talk about the product. Of course I jumped on the opportunity - despite it meaning I had to call in at 8am my time - and think that I came off sounding relatively intelligent. The great this is that after the tradeshow I'm in good shape with the "marketing sphell" for my product/company after talking about it for the past week. So I think it went well and I wasn't too nervous about it being a live call-in show.

And then on Thursday I have an appointment with a local am station to go in and do a "CEO Spotlight" interview with them (which just ought to show how desperate my city must be for new CEO's other than the "big" guys everyone knows). I think that it's a recorded interview which makes me a little more comfortable knowing that they can cut and edit my sphell into something brillant. I hope it also goes as well!

Vegas Rundown

I've got to keep this relatively quick as I'm in the Las Vegas airport waiting for my flight to board which ought to happen momentarily. Very excited to get home!

The show itself ended yesterday and all in all I think it was a pretty successful show. We ended up essentially covering booth costs via the orders that were written at the show but from vendors I've talked to who have been at the show in past years all say that they get many more orders post-show from retailers who were there. Our first day was actually stupendous and I barely had a moment to breath. We wrote more orders that day then we have on any other day at any other show and handed out so many brochures I worried that we'd run out.

However, the second and third days were a little slower with not quite as many orders written which is too bad as otherwise we'd have been on track for a new record. I do need to go back through my records though as we may have hit a record with the sales from this show (I can't quite tell if we did better at this show then we did at San Francisco in February). Given how many brochures we handed out though - and we only handed them out to people who specifically asked and showed interest - I'm hoping that we'll get a lot of followup orders that will make this the most successful show to date.

Interestly there weren't any sales reps walking the floor - or at least none that I saw - so I wasn't able to get contacts for sales reps which had been one of my goals at this show. If I remember correctly, the show I'm going to in October did have reps last year so hopefully that will be the case again this year.

Well, they're calling my flight so I ought to shut down. I'm definitely ready to get home!

Thinking Like Ace

Last night in my hotel room I got caught up watching Ace of Cakes on the Food Network. I don't know if you've ever seen it but it's probably one of my favorite shows and I highly recommend it if you enjoy watching shows about food (trust me - it's not your typical cooking show).

For those who may not have seen the series - it's about a cake shop called Charm City Cakes based in Baltimore MD that specializes in really off the wall celebration/wedding cakes. The type of stuff they make is probably more a feat of engineering as opposed to baking and always ends up looking phenominal. The staff is really a bunch of characters many of whom would probably not do well in any other work setting but thrive in the environment at Charm City Cakes and they're a blast to watch.

So how does this relate to entrepreneurship? Well it got me thinking about how the owner - Duff - always looks like he's having fun. Even when things go wrong - and they sometimes do - he never seems to get completely down about it and rather just approaches it with a "well, let's fix it and move on" mentality and that's what he and the staff does. Now granted, I know they also take a week's worth of footage and melt it down to one 30 minute show so there quite possibly is a lot that I'm missing but the sense is that the owner is having fun and, subsequently, so is the staff.

I think somewhere in the past couple of months I've forgotten the "have fun" aspect of entrepreneurship. Yes, it's very stressful to be working to build the company and knowing that any money you make this year is strictly based on what the company earns (and doesn't get thrown back into the company coffers) - but at the basis I started this company because I truly believed two things 1. there was a market opportunity for this type of product and 2. I thought I could do it better then most and have fun doing it. I still do believe those two things but somehow the "fun" aspect has fallen by the wayside.

So what I need to do over the next few days is reprioritize my short and long term goals and incorporate fun back into the business. Because if I'm not having fun then I may as well go work for someone else and get paid!

Heading out again

I'm in the final phases of getting everything organized (and then hopefully the house cleaned up) before leaving tomorrow for a quick weekend away and then more or less straight onto the tradeshow next week. I've gone through the list of things I'm meaning to bring 101 times and I think I have everything - but yet doesn't it always seem like something is missing? And at this point I feel like I've done everything humanly possible to make this show successful so keep your fingers crossed.

As for my main goals from this show - I want to pick up some sales reps for what I consider to be my "high profile" parts of the country which is a radical shift in business strategy from this time last year. And I'd ideally like to make 2x more then spent on this show. Well, in truth I'd like to make 3x more but by then we'll be hitting the very bottom of my inventory and I have another show to travel to in three weeks.

Wish me luck and I'll let you know how I did when I get back...

WSJ & the Coolness Factor

Two quick thoughts before getting on with my weekend:

1. The Wall Street Journal has an updated, new and improved, star-studded Entrepreneur Section (used to be called Startup.com). It can be found at the WSJ via this link: http://online.wsj.com/small-business/main?mod=4_1101
I checked it out this morning and it had some interesting web networking ideas some of which are applicable and some of which aren't at this point. Interesting nonetheless and definitely worth considering. I'm hoping this turns out to be as good as the New York Times Small Business Section so I'll have two new places to procrastinate at.

2. My dogs have officially joined Dogster (the friendster for dogs - www.dogster.com). Given that I don't have a Friendster or MySpace page it means that my dogs are now more hip then I am. As such, I've promoted them both to Director of Internet Marketing.

He's Done

I think my husband may be done with me. Not in a "call the lawyers it's time to seperate the assets" type of way - more along the lines of shaking his head and wondering what exactly he married in to (while knowing full well he went in with his eyes open).

Last night, right before bed, I asked him what he would think if I went into (another) business with a friend of ours. To his credit he didn't say NO right away and gave the brief outline I presented him with as much thought as anyone can while getting ready for bed, but I have a feeling that he was just shaking his head.

I'm actually not talking about starting up another "real" business - more along the lines of starting up a "hobby" business that could potentially bring in a little bit of mad-money for this friend and I to have while we continue to funnel money into our respective real businesses (she also owns a business). I also think it's one of those one-hit-wonder type of ideas that I could see doing well for a max of 24 months and then it's time to shut up shop. Obviously there are pros and cons with this new idea which I'm just starting to work through and no business idea is foolproof so there's always the chance that money can be lost...but it's an interesting idea nonetheless and I think this other gal and I have a good grouping of mixed skills and experience that could help make it work.

In the "real" business world - my funk has lifted and I'm back on track getting ready for an upcoming tradeshow. I'm pretty excited that the show is in Las Vegas only because I haven't been there since I was 20 (yes, too young to go to the casino's) and want to get a sense for it - though in truth I'm not much of a gambler (outside of starting up businesses). I'm also excited because I got the list of confirmed attendees for this show and it's a really good mix. There are certainly those who are outside of my business niche (reptile retailers...yick!) but there appears to be a good number who do fall into my classification so we'll see how it goes.

One of those moments

I'm sitting here waiting out the feeling like I've totally gotten myself in over my head. Nothing in particular set it off and the day was going along pretty well but all of the sudden I got one of those overwhelming rushes that was saying I'm totally out of my element and somewhat directionless. As to whether the feeling was refering to directionless with regards to life or the business I don't necessarily know - but I'm thinking (hoping) it was about the business.

Correction - And Not Made In China

First a correction - in my last post I encouraged folks (anyone?) to email me with their experiences, thoughts, blogs they like, other references. I'd still love to hear from anyone else out there but it'd probably help if I gave you the right email address. Email me at lewisjennif at hotmail dot com. Sorry!

So today started out in a really good mood and then it slowly deteriorated as I realized how little inventory I have leading into these two shows. Ironically I have significantly more then I did at this time last year but the problem with making the product by hand - and not in China - means that every little piece is a huge labor of love and takes a ton of time. I didn't end up hiring anyone just because finances are, as always, running tight, so I'm doing all production, pre trade show organization, marketing, etc etc etc by myself and I'm right now wishing I had more inventory.

My fear is that after these two trade shows I may be lucky enough to have our product picked up by one or two consumer publications (pr is being sent out to them in the next few weeks) and then I'm trying to fill wholesale and retail orders while simultaniously making more product and I'm hoping that I'll be able to keep my head above water. I guess that'll be a nice problem to have but it worries me none the less.

Perhaps I should just go out and buy a ticket for the $250M lottery.

The New Printer Has Arrived

I finally broke down and bought that new printer I've been coveting for over a year. The sad thing is that it's not an expensive printer at all - it's simply a little B&W laserjet that cost under $100 (PS - OfficeMax is having big sales on technology equipment this week for "Back to School"). But it's so fast and so compact...I'm so happy. Best of all, it has enough MB to be able to print out mailing labels and postage from USPS and FedEx (which my little color inkjet wasn't capable of doing) so now I can get all postage organized at home and then simply drop packages off at the post office. And, once the weather cools a little bit (as my product is temperature sensative) I can even leave the packages on my doorstep for the mailman to pick up. How convienant!



Other than that, right now my house looks like I'm in the process of moving out since I'm getting all trade show orders ready to ship along with the big shipment next week for our big PR event. Think that has the dogs a little nervous!



I'd love to hear what's going on in the thoughts & minds of other small entrepreneurs (or those who are simply considering the change in career). Email me at entrepreneurrollarcoaster at hotmail dot com with any thoughts, posts of your own, or other references/blogs/

Finally!

The online store is officially up, running, accessible, and now taking credit cards. And we even had our first real order (aka - not my test sale to myself) already! If you want the store site let me know...yes, I'm very excited.

I also went online today and ordered some "interlocking mat" flooring for tradeshows. The deep dark secret of tradeshows is that not only do you have to pay for your booth space, dryage, etc etc etc - but you also have to pay an arm and a leg to have your space carpeted and some sort of flooring is required. I did the quick math and realized that for this year's two remaining shows alone it will save me 50% to just buy my own interlocking flooring mats. And the good news is that they're squishy which will help when you're on your feet for hours on end with nothing but concrete below you.

Three Days - Max!

Trade shows should not be four days. There's just no need for it. My feet hurt, my back hurts, my head hurts...ok, pretty much everything hurts. Jeanette says she's hurting as well.

Seriously though, four days for a trade show is just rough. By the fourth day all the exhibitors are toast and the buyers are really just looking through to see if you'll sell them any of your samples at cost. Today I felt like one of the old women I used to see when we lived in China using a newspaper to swat the flies away from the fish. And with that analogy you can see why I'm not a very good saleswoman!

A few notes about this weekend's tradeshow if you care to read on:

1. It was nowhere near as successful as I had hoped. Everyone told me it would be better then the one I went to in San Francisco earlier this year but honestly I had better sales in SF I think in part because my product is higher end and has a higher end price point as well. This show had a lot of "small town" folks who may have loved my product but, understandably, didn't think the price point would work with their clientele.
2. I kind of knew I was in trouble from day one when I walked in to set up the booth and realized how much stuff that was for sale there was stuff I would never put into my home. Not that it was bad stuff - just that it was very "country craft" stuff which, while it works for many many people - is not the same audience who will be buying my product.
3. However, I did have a chance to meet one of my potential new biggest accounts at this show. I've already been working with them but hadn't met the head honcho in person so it was great to meet her and give her some samples of the product to look at. She seemed excited about it and loved our packaging so that is all good.
4. I also had a really random contact with the PR director for a major race event that falls within the realm of my industry. He just happened to be at the show accompanying his wife but loved our product and was wondering if there would be a way to incorporate it into this major race. I told my husband that if there is - even if we make no money off of it - we're going to the race simply to be there and take part in the atmosphere because it'd be pretty cool.
5. Lastly, and thankfully, we did make enough money to cover the cost of this show. That was probably partly due to the the fact that the show was local for me so I cut out a huge amount of expense by not having to ship product, not having to fly down there, not have to pay for hotels, etc. So at the end of the day we at least came out even.

I'm waiting to hear back from one of my sales reps who took some of my product to a huge show in NYC this past weekend as well. It was a show we were thinking about going to next year so I'm very eager to hear how it turned out. Keep your fingers crossed that the reason I haven't yet heard is that she's knee-deep in new orders for us.

And lastly, this show helped me realize that sales really is not a strength of mine. To be really good at sales I think takes some real talent and skill and it's just not something I have. Mainly because I don't enjoy doing it. I LOVE to create the product, work on marketing, develop new product ideas, etc but really don't enjoy the sales end of things. I think I realized that I need to more seriously look at getting sales reps who will not only have relationships with their local stores but will also be able to make "housecalls" to those stores to showcase product, get reorders, etc. Thankfully my product pricing is such that I can handle having the 15% commission taken out and if they bring in more sales then it seems worth it to me and would free me up to focus on the things I do enjoy and am better at. And give me time to get back to my accounting which I've managed to ignore for the last quarter or so.

Introducing Jeanette

Let me introduce you to our newest sales person - Jeanette.

But first some backstory so you can truly understand how insane I really am.

Several years ago while working in a job I absolutely detested, I started making up different personalities for myself while on plane rides. Essentially, if the person seated next to me struck up a conversation rather than telling him/her what I actually did for a living (and hated with a deep passion) I would make up another career entirely. Sort of like trying on a career for an hour or two and then I'd discard it later. It was fun and better then talking about a job I hated.

Even though I love what I'm doing now, as my last post shows, I'm terribly emotionally (and financially) invested in this business and it's hard for me to have people walk by our booth and disregard it. So I've decided that rather than being "Founder" this weekend at the trade show I'm going to be Jeanette - a happy (perhaps even perky?) sales person who doesn't really have too much invested in the business. Granted, Jeanette obviously believes in the product and wants the business to succeed but if someone walks by and says something negative she doesn't take it personally because it's not her baby. Instead, like a good sales person, she'll shrug it off and look forward to the next person to talk to.

Yes, I know it sounds insane but I'm going to see how it works this weekend.

In other news - the trade show booth is all set up and ready to go first thing tomorrow morning. I'm a bit nervous about the fact that I'm literally in a back corner (this is one of the shows I don't get a say in where I'm placed) but I had some new professional photography blown up and put it up in the booth and had a fair amount of vendors today stop and check out the booth simply based on the photos. So we'll see...

Hopefully Jeanette will be a killer salesperson. Though if she is, does she get commission?

The Usual Course of Action

It's 48 hours before the tradeshow season officially begins and I'm doing my usual stress-out routine. For the record, in the last year of operation I've done a grand total of 2 trade shows. In the next two months I have four shows and the Emmy Awards so I'm feeling totally overwhelmed and just doing everything I can to keep my head above water.

A huge part of the stress is sitting here worrying that in the upcoming shows my product is going to be ignored - or worse - seen and then disregarded - and that just kills me. It's so hard to stand there for days on end feeling like you're being judged. Yes, I realize that it's not judgement but the opinion of each retailer as to whether the product fits into their store, their store design, and what their customers will purchase. But still, it feels like judgement.

I've been working like a dog to get ready for the shows (two of which start this weekend) which is serving as a very good lesson that should things go well, in 2008 I really need to hire at least one person to help me with production.

Course I'm terrified that these shows won't go well and...well...at what point do you stop throwing good money after bad.

Just frightened...and nervous...and stressed.

Big Accomplishment

Very proud of myself for today's big accomplishment. After weeks of working on it in bits and pieces (and, truthfully, procrastinating) I finally got our online store up and running. The good news is that it's live and appears to be working and doesn't necessarily look "cheap" despite the fact that it was put together on a very cheap budget. The bad news is that technically it's a subdomain of my web site so I have to have my web friend get it linked into the main site correctly since that's beyond my grasp of limited web knowledge - which means I have to wait until he has time in his schedule. So while the site may actually be live, no one going to my main web site can yet see it. If you want the shop address email me and I'll send it your way. :)

So very happy with today's accomplishment - despite the fact it took far longer then anticipated and kept me from doing 101 other things this afternoon - that I'm taking the dogs for a bath. They, as you might imagine, are now not as excited by today's accomplishment.

Online store and a bath - good work for a Friday.

Foiled...

by math. Yes, it's sad but true and those who know me well will agree. I am horrible at math. Lord only knows how I actually got into business school - aside of course from my good looks, witty humor, and the fact that there was no one else from my career path applying to school and they figured why not, it'll make for an interesting addition if nothing else.

Up until now I've been thinking that I had to support four trade shows in the next three months. I realized today that it's four in the next eight weeks. Ah - so not good at math.

Interestingly enough I was only going to be supporting three trade shows in the next eight weeks until the other day. I had planned to go to a trade show that was just outside my industry niche but from which there's been increasing interest in products like mine from retailers and consumers. It's in my home city so easy to get to and I've heard great things about it. Then I had also planned to go to a show in Vegas in September which will hopefully bring in a lot of southern california buyers who should, in theory, be interested in my products. And lastly we were headed to one of the biggest industry trade shows in Chicago in October.

Of course there are others that I've had my eye on but finances being - as always - tight - I figured that we'd see how this year goes (in truth, our first full calendar year of operation) and then reevaluate for 2008. The other day I got a call from one of my sales reps who wants to have our product in her booth at one of the biggest and most well-known luxury trade shows within our industry. The luxury market - for which we were created - is growing in leaps and bounds (hoping the economy doesn't collapse) and we had wanted to attend the show so now we've got a very cheap way to get in and see if it works. I'm a little hesitant about the fact that for the first time someone else will be representing our product but she promised me I can send her some cheat sheets to help keep the marketing message the same everywhere.

So we'll see...

And There It Goes

It's that time of year again - there's just so much money going out right now and not too much coming in as we prepare for what we hope will be a really busy trade show season, holiday season, Emmy Awards Show Season, etc etc etc. Essentially everything that could potentially bring in a good deal of money is hitting in the next three to four months which means we're doing everything possible to prep in advance and that's a lot of money going out. Money for trade show booths - trade show furniture (did you know that with your 10x10 booth space you have to "rent" carpet?) - travel expenses for those trade shows - marketing material that has to be printed in advance of the trade shows - product that has to be made and packaged in advance of trade shows, emmy awards, etc. Honestly the list is never ending and it's freaking me out. I'm just hoping that everything will go well over the next few months or we'll be tapping out of cash.

One of the biggest expenses I'm struggling with lately is for PR. I know that one needs PR but I'm just having a hard time swallowing the amount that's being spent on PR and when I think of all the other things that money could be spent on it makes me want to cry (I've wanted - heck, NEEDED, to get a new printer for about a year now and never seem to have enough "untouched" cash to draw from to go out and get it!). It's not that I don't think PR is valuable - it's just that I'm not wholly convinced that the professionals are worth the price they're being paid.

Now I know that PR is one of those tough things to measure and that if it works a lot of it is going to come down the line later - right now we're essentially laying the groundwork. But still...I'm just not sure I couldn't do an equally good job for a fraction of the price. And yes, I realize that it's insane to think that I can be doing everything. But really - compare the amount I've committed to PR for this year versus what it could cost me to get a ProfNet subscription and do it on my own...that's more then enough for that new printer. That'd be enough to perhaps even pay me a small salary!

I'm pretty committed to seeing 2007 through as planned with the PR plan in place. But I have to admit that I need to see some pretty significant results to make it worth it for 2008.

Talking to a Real Person

I imagine this is a pet peeve most people can relate to - you call up a company and end up either getting an automated message or going through a list of choices and never actually talking to a live person. Now, for a small business like mine I don't have to worry about dealing with massive call volume, but since I am going into a very busy season (I hope!) that will have me on the road a fair amount, I was very concerned with the fact that retailers and vendors who called our "office" number would get dumped into voicemail.

Thanks to the New York Times Small Business Section (my new favorite section of the paper), I am in the process of hiring an answering service that my office number will forward to when I'm not around to take it. They can either take a message for me or forward the call directly to my cell phone. Even though in the end a person may end up getting dumped into my voicemail, my hope is that talking to a person at the beginning of the conversation they get the sense that 1. We are bigger than a single gal (and two dogs) organization and 2. A real person knows they called so they have more confidence that they'll actually get their message returned quickly.

I was happy to find a small local company that can work with me and they always have a live person - no machines - answering the phones. I figure I'll give it a try through the end of the year (the busiest time for me and I'll be away for a good portion of it) and see how it all works out.

To Oprah or Not To Oprah

I've been away from blogging for a little while it seems. That doesn't mean a lot of stuff hasn't been going on. I've got three tradeshows coming up back to back to back in the next few months so I've been really busy preparing for those...and yeah, and I went and got married! So things have been busy to say the least.

One thing that has been on my mind lately is the whole PR push that we're in the midst of doing. I'm meeting with the PR company tomorrow morning so I should have a better idea of where things currently lie and where they think we should head versus where I think we should head. One point that I'm going back and forth on is whether or not to send samples and a pitch to Oprah.

Why Oprah - well even though it's a long shot (very very long shot) - if you manage to get mentioned on Oprah (ideally on the Christmas show) it can blow your product/company out of the water. The revenue and the branding opportunity would be huge and would definitely put me on the map. Plus I'm worried that at some point a direct competitor is going to come along and all of the sudden I'm going to have to do more work to differentiate myself - and what if Oprah features that competitor?

On the other hand - as is argued by my PR folks (I should mention - PR folks with many many many years in the field and far more experience with this then me) and my business partner - you really only get one solid shot at an Oprah or the like and it's better to wait until you have a little more buzz built up around your product and know that you can handle the potential increase in production that would be required.

I can't say that I totally disagree with them - but I'm impatient. So do you go with your gut or trust the voice(s) of experience?

Online Shopping

The great thing about getting outside for a run is that it forces you to turn your mind off and get away from the business. Or in reality, it gives you some time to really think through and talk through - with your willing running partner - some of the problems, challenges, and thoughts you've had about the business. On one recent run my running partner (and business partner) and I talked about the pros and cons of adding a shopping cart to my company's site.

Originally the idea had been that my company would only do wholesale to retailers and let them do the selling directly to the customers. But given that we're about to launch a big PR campaign and wanting to avoid any issues like we had last time (where the retailer got all the leads and didn't pass them on to us), we realized it makes sense to add a shopping cart to our site. Not to mention, as my running partner pointed out, any sales that come through the shopping cart as opposed to from one of my retailers more then doubles my company's profit.

There are cerainly some cons to it - the main one being that retailers may get pissy. But I've checked out other "competitors" and they all seem to be doing it so I'm assuming I'm not doing anything that's totally out of the norm.

The other big con is that it then requires more packaging/shipping on my part. But, low and behold - it looks like the US Postal Service is coming to my rescue! Turns out that USPS has a "flat rate" shipping box that would be big enough to fit what I assume any one individual order would be and it will always cost me $8.95 to ship regardless of how much it weighs. And then it turns out that those flat rate boxes are free and will be dropped off at your house if you simply go online and order them! That makes figuring out shipping much simpler and cuts down on the potential cost of moving into the retail segment. Plus I can print out shipping labels from my home computer (once I get a new printer...desperately needed) and have the mailman pick any packages up on my front step. Seems like a no brainer to me!

So hopefully by the end of the month I'll have an online retail outlet.

Connecting with the Outside World

Two thoughts for this post:

1. I saw a discussion this morning (on the Today Show - I keep it on in the background during the morning) with a group called Ladies Who Launch. Apparently the idea is to bring together women entrepreneurs (and wanna-be entreprenuers) to help one another through the process. They have an introductory workshop in cities around the country (for $250) and after that it looks like you can attend monthly meetings, access their network, etc. On the one hand it looks like a great way to connect with local entreprenuers which is something I'm constantly trying to do. On the other though, I'm not sure I necessarily agree with all of what the group says with regards to the fact that women starting up businesses don't necessarily think "business plan" and shouldn't be forced into that mold. Perhaps I'm not reading what they're saying correctly, but I do believe that every business - if you want to make it a real business - does need a business plan and set of financials that are constantly evolving as your business grows (says the gal who desperately needs to update her business plan). But then again perhaps I was just brainwashed by business school. I'm not yet ready to put down $250 for the experience but I'll let you know if I do and what I think of it. If you're interested in checking it our for yourself you can find out more here: http://www.ladieswholaunch.com/

2. I had my first meeting with my new PR team yesterday. In an effort to get the word out about the company/product to a national audience I've hired them to help me with the process. It's a little frightening to put down so much money but I know it's something that will be good for us (assuming it works). The PR team seems to think that my product is an easy placement for a range of print/tv and that perhaps the bigger problem is can I keep up with potential demand since everything is handmade. Hiring staff...that's the next problem to tackle.

Confession

Here's the truth - today is a day when a decent part of me wouldn't mind simply selling the business or shutting it down. It's a day when I dream about what it would be like to sell the business and have all the associated stress be done with.

Let me start this post out with saying that ironically the business has never been going better. We've gotten an incredible amount of opportunity literally land at our feet due to the BIG PR piece a few weeks ago that is bringing in new customers, new potential customers, and interesting marketing opportunities (we'll most likely be given away at the Primetime Emmys). So honestly things have never been better and when I compare it to this time last year I'm overwhelmed at the progress we've made both in terms of building the brand and finances.

But today I'm tired (didn't help that I was up at 5am to drop fiance off for a flight to Vegas for his bachelor party). And I'm tired of dealing with the stress associated with the fact that I now find myself in a position that I may need to hire part-time workers to help with production. Hiring folks makes me nervous because like any true entreprenuer - I'm obsessive compulsive and a control freak. So the thought of having other people help create "my product" makes me have to take a few deep breaths to slow down my speeding heart (all the while fully realizing that the only way to truly grow is to expand production).

I'm also tired of dealing with all the red tape associated with hiring folks - even part-timers - and am working with the accountant to get that little mess sorted out before I can even start to figure out if I can afford to hire part-time workers once unemployement taxes and such are taken into account.

And I'm worried about the fact that we're about to drop a substantial amount of money into a nationwide PR campaign. It's the largest amount of money we've put into anything up to this point and I'm terrified it won't work. And then at the same time I'm terrified that it will and we'll end up on Oprah and there I'll be all by myself (having chickened out from hiring anyone) desperately trying to keep up with production.

And the fact that I'm still not bringing in any money and am essentially just a drain on my fiance weighs heavily on me. I dream of when I can actually bring home a paycheck - even a small one - to help out with the variety of things we seem to be spending money on right now (lesson learned - weddings and honeymoons are not cheap). I hate not being able to help out whereas I could have taken a corporate job and be making enough to support us while simply socking his salary & bonus away for a rainy day.

Like I said before, ironically the business is going really really well and we are already at 40% of our annual goal which is stupendous given that first and second quarter should be incredibly slow for us. In fact, I've readjusted our year end financial goal given how well things are going. And when I look at the big picture - the building of a brand and a company that means something to me and is focused on some way or another in giving back to the community I'm incredibly excited and passionate about what we're doing. But today I'm bogged down in the little details and it's making it hard to breath.

Maybe it's because it's such a nice day outside that I want nothing more then to head out with a book and some sunglasses. But then again, if I wasn't doing this then I would be stuck in an office with flourescent lighting working hard for someone else with no opportunity to enjoy the sunshine. At the very least I can take a two hour lunch today and read. That's gotta be equivelent to a $100K salary, right?

Picking up steam

Things the last few weeks have gotten really busy all of the sudden. The big PR piece I talked about a few weeks ago brought in a fair number of really interesting leads (despite the fact that my one retailer didn't pass over all the leads as expected). So now we're weighing the options and starting to move on some stuff. The biggest one being that we're hiring an outside PR agency.

I had actually had the search for a PR agency underway before the big PR piece came in but that really lit a fire under me. So I spent the last two weeks interviewing PR agencies and have found one that I'm comfortable with. Truthfully, it came down to this PR company (Company A) and another company (Company B) and while Company B probably had more direct experience, Company A was much much more hungry for the business and seemed to care about my product and understand my consumer. Company A did also come in about 3x my budget so I've had to significantly reel them back, but they seem excited for the opportunity.

I'm hoping that this works out as we're devoting a really large chunk of money to it. Largest that we've spent so far on any one thing. Can't lie - it all makes me a little nervous!

To Do Lists

I've been meaning to post in the last ten days or so but things have ramped up at an incredible speed. Ever since that last post about getting some really big press, things have gotten a little crazy. All of the sudden we're fielding phone calls from Award Shows about being part of their gift bags and gift lounges among other opportunities!

So every day I dilengently make out my long to-do list so that I can try to continue juggling what is becoming an increasing number of balls. The problem is that I seem to loose the to-do list every single day! If I had more time I'd develop a much better to-doing system but right now I barely have time to eat (or blog).

I've got a ton on my mind so hopefully if I have a chance I'll get some of it down here. In the meantime I'm off to find my to-do list.

Sleep?

I woke up this morning thinking that I was going to update this blog with some thought-provoking post on the world of the small entrepreneur. At this point I can't even remember what I was going to write about but let me tell you it was going to be good...I think. Then my day got completely turned upside down.

Let me set the stage -

I live and run the business out of the west coast...which as most of you probably know is three hours behind the east coast.

My VPs (the dogs) and my fiance were sick all last night. Total hours slept were probably in the neighborhood of 5 hours which wouldn't have been too bad except none of it was contiguous (can't spell, sorry!).

I wake up in the morning with a list of personal and work stuff that has to get to done to find a few emails from friends and one from a retailer with "DailyCandy" in the subject line.

For those who don't know, DailyCandy is probably the premiere online publication for trendy affluent 20/30-somethings. It reaches 2.4million readers and is considered by many to be the barametor for what is new and unique in the retail/services world. In short, it's a really big deal to a company like mine.

And guess who was featured in it this morning! The emails I had from friends was the first word I had gotten that we were being featured so the entire thing caught me a little unaware to say the least. Don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly happy with what is undoubtably some amazing PR but wow did that get today off and running in a hurry!

Being three hours behind the east coast to begin with meant that by 7am I was already three hours behind in phone calls and emails so it's been a massive day of playing catchup. And like any windfall, there are good things and bad things so it's been a day full of celebrating the good (and trying to build on them) and trying to remedy the bad before they become an issue.

I feel like my brain has been going 101 miles an hour for the past 15 hours and I just don't know how to turn it off right now. There feels like there are a million things that need to get done/could get done/should get done and I'm almost so overwhelmed by it all I don't even know where to begin.

For the record - let me state that I am incredibly overjoyed that DailyCandy thought the product was worthy of their attention and I have no doubt great things will come of it. But as I am right now at what will hopefully be a strong PR push, this is a good wakeup call to me about what I need to do to get the business and my own personal emotions/mind in order for what will hopefully be some big responses. First things first - I need to turn my mind off and get some sleep...but how?

Small Business Section

Looks like the NY Times is jumping on the entrepreneurial bandwagon with a new section dedicated to small businesses. I haven't read through their articles yet but it definitely looks interesting.

http://www.nytimes.com/business/smallbusiness/index.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1178165630-pFnRE9GCpNzgU9h1DvP92g

(may require you to create an account if you don't yet have one but accounts are free and well worth it)

Playing Professional

One of the biggest kicks I get is when on the phone with some "large" company. I've been that person before, calling from the multi-million dollar company and acting all professional sitting in my cube. Now I'm calling from a little dollar and a half company, sitting at my dining room table, and trying to convince them that I'm actually just another run-of-the-mill million dollar company. It's little things like answering the phone with my business name (and business voice), having a dedicated web address and email address helps immensly, and otherwise trying to convince them that's it's more than just me and dogs hanging out here at home. I'm not sure I have everyone fooled but so far it seems to be working.

How to Grow a Thick Skin

I'm learning something that I'm sure folks with a sales background already know how to do - let things roll off your back. The difference I think, is when you're selling something that is literally your own blood, sweat, and tears (not to mention your creative energy) versus selling something that "the company" creates.

I have to admit that I'm getting better at hearing "thanks but no thanks" because I know that it's simply part of the game and that there are a myriad of reasons why a company may not be interested in our products. Even though rationally I know that, there's still that little stab of disappointment every time and just for a moment or two I take it personally.

And then I suck it up and make another call. I guess you win some and you loss some, right? Cause that's the way the game is played.

Words of Experience

I talked to my grandmother this weekend which, normally, is not what you'd expect to read about on a blog dedicated to entrepreneurship. Except that my grandmother opened her own retail store back in the 1960's and successfully ran it for 68 years despite her only having a high school education and two children at home.

We talked for a while about my business and how things were going and there was one major aspect of our conversation that really resonated with me. She agreed that while the idea of paying yourself first (as so many bschool professors say to do) is a nice one, it really isn't realistic when you're running a small business with limited access to cash. She told me that there were some times when she felt like she was working for free because she had to make sure to pay her employees first and then any cash that was left over always seemed to be needed for one bill or another. Even those times she would take trips to bring in new business it was always 50-50 as to whether or not she'd be able to cover the cost of the trip with the new business.

It was interesting to hear this and her other thoughts about running her own business. She did say that even though she didn't always make money, she relished the freedom and creativity that running her own business gave her. Apparently I know where I got this entrepreneural bug.

Weather Delays

Turns out that most of the deals I'm currently working on are on the east coast. This has become painfully evident in the past two days while the east coast has been gripped with a Nor'easter that has everyone home from work bailing out their basements. As such, my phone and email are eerily quiet. At least I'm able to put the free time to good use by teaching my youngest VP (8 month old pup) how to play Fetch.

Now Class...an Example Of How Not To Be

I mentioned before that I'm not a patient person. That's not a trait one should have when trying to build relationships with BIG companies. You see, while I want to stay small, I realize one of the fastest ways to grow my bottom line (and build the brand) is to partner with a big company who can get my product before many more folks. I'm not talking about a wholesale retail relationship to a Target/Walmart/or the like, but rather a true partnership where both parties give and gain something from the relationship...like Seattle's Best Coffee and McDonald's - their partnership increased Seattle's Best's revenue and got the product before thousands (if not millions) of new consumers and McDonald's got a coffee that was actually drinkable which, one would assume, increased their coffee sales...so they both benefited.

But the thing with BIG companies is that they don't move quickly...in the least. This is where the patience thing (the thing I lack) comes into play because it's not realistic to think that because you met with them on Monday they are going to have an answer for you that afternoon. But darnit, I want that answer!

Here's an example of my exempliary patience in action:

• Monday: Sent sample package and introduction letter to key person (name given to me by another bigwig in the company) in BIG company. Package is timed to arrive on Thursday or Friday so that key person gets it before the weekend.
• Friday: Kick myself for not remembering that it's Good Friday and even though it's not a national holiday, many people do in fact take it off which may mean my sample package won't be seen until Monday and even then will be under a pile of mail & emails. Decide to followup on Thursday of following week.
• Following Monday: Break down and call key person but don't leave a message. Decide to continue calling back through the week until I either reach them or it's the end of the week and then I'll leave a message.
• Tuesday (the very next day): Call again - no answer. Call a second time a few hours later and leave a message that subtly threatens I'll keep calling until I talk to them (aka, mention that I'll try again later in the week). Then plan to call again on Thursday...not even sure I'll make it until Wedns afternoon!

Yeah, I'm not so patient.

Friday