So Much For Waiting

So much for waiting until later in the week to attack "Shed Cleanup Project." This morning, after it dawned on me I really should update my business website to mention the new product (oops!), I figured I'd step out to the shed 'just to take a look.' And that one look turned into just moving a few things around, which turned into maybe just straightening up the back of the shed, which ultimately turned into a five hour cleanout of the entire shed.

I have to say I'm rather impressed with the work that I did. Cleaning out the shed is nowhere near as easy as it sounds b/c I had to keep the emergency supplies within easy reach should there be an emergency (what can I say, we live in earthquake country) while also making sure that my husband has access to the glorious yard tools and we have access to our bikes and the entire 2 tons worth of stuff that manages to go with the bikes. But I did manage to get it all rearranged so that now one side of the shed is the yard/bike/hiking/emergency side and the other is my packaging inventory and a soon-to-be-setup table where I can hopefully accomplish said packaging. For the moment my actual packaged inventory is still living in the basement but hopefully as I start to go through some of the packaging I can make more room out there.

I even have an old rug that is currently in the wash to make the shed truly homey. And then it'll be me, my packaging, the yard tools, the bikes, the emergency supplies, and a multitude of spiders all coexisting happily out in the shed...or so I hope!

This is the week...

This is the week I release not one - but two - new products. This is the week I launch my largest ever direct marketing campaign. This is the week I sit on the edge of my seat hoping that all the work of the past few months getting ready for this week is not in vain. And this is the week I keep waiting for the phone to ring/email to fill up even though I know that people won't be getting the direct mail until later in the week, probably won't look at it right away (for those who evevn do look at it) and once they do will wait another few days/weeks to actually place an order if they're so inclined.

In short, this is the week that I am a bundle of nervous energy with no place in particular to direct it. Sadly, I'm also incredibly sore from some weekend workouts so my usual stress release of exercise is temporarily not an option which only serves to make me an even larger mess of nervous energy. My husband is contemplating stuffing one of the dogs' sedatives into a brownie and feeding it to me.

Insead I've decided to take over the shed. Let me explain...

I've been on a tear recently about office space mainly because having all the packaging, inventory, and other business-related accessories taking up every inch of free space in my house is driving me absolutely batty. I've half-heartedly looked into getting office space but the problem lies in the fact that most places in my area don't have air conditioning and for one or two weeks every summer my inventory will need it to keep from essentially being destroyed. Today I realized that with a little work I think I could rearrange the shed in our yard to that it could be 50% yard materials and 50% packaging space. At the very least I'm pretty sure I could set up a desk and some shelving units out there to hold all the packaging and have a spot to do the actual packaging that is not the dining room table. Best of all, if I actually get things rearranged just right I think I can also keep all my inventory in the shed as well which will free up so much space in the house. As for that week or two of really hot weather - I'll just move the inventory back into the basement (where it currently is) as that stays pretty cool year-round.

So that's my new plan. I have 101 things to get done tomorrow but I'm hoping to start to have some time starting on Thursday to get into the shed and start the rearranging. At the very least it will keep me from hitting the refresh button my email inbox every 45 seconds.

Thank Goodness for To Do Lists

One of the small things I'm thankful for this morning is the foresight I had yesterday to make up a long To Do List of what I'm hoping to accomplish today. I'm sitting here looking at it this morning - after a morning swim practice which means I'm never really fully awake - and realizing that I would have forgotten at least half this stuff. And it's all stuff that needs to get done today. Thankfully it's turning into a nice day here in the Northwest so I can get down to work on the dining room table and the dogs can hang out on the porch and enjoy the slices of sunshine.

And I should add, yesterday after having a small fit about how much I've been spending on the business I ended up getting the 500 direct mail postcards in the mail (the other 12,000 are being sent out directly from the company). Wow - they turned out incredibly well! I can't stop looking at it and I swear it hasn't hit me that what I'm seeing on the postcard is actually my company and my products! I did spend some time yesterday afternoon stuffing the postcards into the 500 envelopes I had the foresight to address so I'm thinking I should put the dogs to work and have them lick the envelopes closed.

Back Away From the Credit Card

My business credit card needs a rest. In preparation for this new product release I've had to buy a fair amount of inventory (still being completely unsure whether the amount of inventory I've bought is the right amount). All of which has been charged to the business credit card.

Add to that the cost of the direct mail campaign to the 12,000 retailers nationwide. Also on the business credit card.

Add to that the cost to personally mail (with handwritten notes nonetheless) information on the new product to 500 "key" retailers in my area. Also on the business credit card (and desperately trying to beat the May 12 postage increase).

And lastly, my brillant idea last night that I should bring in some sort of baked good to my retailers (trust me - there is a connection to the new product - though not necessarily a direct one) because if I'm going to be making actual sales calls to approx 50 local retailers I may as well bring in something yummy for them. At the very worst if they don't buy anything atleast my prescence will trigger a positive reaction for them! But ofcourse you can't just go off toting food along in any old thing so this morning I bought ecologically-correct boxes that more or less match the new product boxes. I'll tie them with the same ribbon and stick my business card on top with a glue dot.

And yes, once again all of this is on my business credit card as well.

At least I'm getting miles!

Tryout #1

My new product release is t-7 days away, I still have a ton of inventory to build up and marketing stuff to get ready...and yet, today I spent half the day playing with my new machine.

Now I realize that it is going to take more than one pass to get the raw materials exactly right to work with said machine - and yet I was every so slightly disappointed that after the first try it didn't work exactly as I had envisioned. Thankfully the machine works exactly as hoped but it's my combination of raw materials which isn't exactly right yet. Half the reason I bought the machine now for a product I plan on releasing next year was to have the time to work/play with the machine and the raw materials but still...there's always that part of you that hopes the machine will work right out of the gate.

The good news though is that my new employee is excited to play with it the next time she comes in so perhaps she'll be able to help me unlock the secret. In the meantime I need to focus on the product that's just about to go out the door.

Earth Day

In honor of Earth Day I want to share this great printing company I found. If you need any type of marketing material printed up this looks like the company to go to if you want to do it green. Skeptical? You can request samples from them to see what their paper stock and printing quality is like.

www.greenerprinter.com

I'll warn you that their site is running really slow today - perhaps due in part to Earth Day traffic - but they are the company of choice for names like CliffBar and other Fortune 1000 names so apparently they're good at what they do.

My Own Vegas?

I was away over the weekend enjoying a girls weekend with a good amount of swimming, biking, and running which was great fun. While I was there I met a gal who works for the gaming industry and we talked a little bit about how some machines pay out a little at a time to keep you interested while others don't payout at all but when they finally do it's huge.

For some reason, during yesterday's run, I started to think about how running a small business is really not that different then gambling. In some cases or even with some products within a company's portfolio there is a small but relatively consistent payout at a fairly regular business. But just like sitting down to a slot machine, that money you get from these regular payouts typically goes right back into the business machine in the hopes that one day that business will hit the jackpot and payout big.

A Mini Vacation - Sort Of

A few weeks ago I wrote about how I had spent all of one Friday night searching for a specific piece of equipement that I wanted to try out for my new business and I had managed to find a used one up in Canada just a few hours from me. Well Tuesday I went up there to pick it up.

My sister had actually come into town for a visit and since the piece of equipement was up in Victoria BC I figured we could make a mini vacation out of it and go up and spend the night. The whole endeavor turned out to be much easier then I anticipated as we took the ferry over (beatiful ride through the San Juan islands) and then managed to stop and pick up the piece of equipement on the way into Victoria itself (the ferry dock is slightly north of the actual city). I'm really happy with the equipement. It's not 100% what I wanted - but it's 99% of the way there and I can purchase another piece if needed to make up for that extra 1%. Most importantly though it's in good clean working condition and I really wanted to see the machine for myself rather than blindly purchase it online via EBAY having no idea what sort of condition it was in.

After we picked up the machine I had to do a little bit of work and then my sister and I hit the town to check out the city. It's really a very cute little city and was pretty quiet given that April is not a busy season for them. Luckily we had great April weather - cloudy but no rain - so were able to walk around all day, get some good food and try out some of the region's wine before heading back on the ferry yesterday. Despite the fact I was freaked about getting this machine back through customs it turns out that the customs agents are more concerned with weapons and drugs then legal equipment bringing brought back over the border so we made it back in one piece.

Now I'm trying to finish up a few last minute things before heading off on a real mini vacation through the weekend so I'll be back next week.

Ace of Cakes...Again

You may or maynot remember that I have a love affair with Ace of Cakes on the Food Network. It is seriously my favorite show on tv and I watch it whenever I can mainly because I love the environment of the cake decorating shop not to mention the wonderously creative things they manage to come up with.

Earlier tonight I was flipping through the channels and happened to come across "Chefography" on the Food Network which is essentially Biography for the food network and looks at how a chef made it to where they are today. I managed to catch the last 15 minutes of the one with Chef Duff from Ace of Cakes. I won't bore you with all the random things I learned except for one thing. If I understood this correctly, at the time Chef Duff was being invited to partake in Food Network challenges (and apparently coming in last those times that his cakes didn't literally collapse during judging) and was actually getting his Food Network show, it was just him and one other guy working in his shop. What you see on the Food Network now is the gorgeous facility they work in and his trusty staff of 15 or so. But as he was getting going and getting recognized it was pretty much him and another guy working out of some basement type kitchen.

Learning that is really empowering to someone in my position working out of rented workspace with my one lone part-time employee. Gives one hope...ya know...

Foray Into Management

My new employee started the other day and I'm honestly not sure who was more nervous - her or me. I've just never really had a good manager so while I know "what" should be done it's not anything I've ever seen in practice. You think I'm kidding - I watch The Office and I swear it was written by someone who used to work at an old company of mine (which eerily enough was also located in Pennsylvania where the show is set). I had one manager who once reamed me out for coming over to talk to her about what had/hadn't been accomplished and instructed me to send her emails instead. Fair enough. About ten days later I get screamed at again (literally screamed at in an open loft-like office space well within earshot of everyone else) for not keeping her up to date on what I was working on. I explained to her that I had sent her several email updates as she had requested. "I don't have time to read emails," she yelled at me, "come over and talk to me." (I swear to you those are the exact words as they are burned into my brain.) I wisely gave notice after the weekend. So that's the type of role models I have and transitioning into a 'manager' is something I'm spending a decent amount of time worrying about.

For the record, I ended up going with a payroll service who will complete all necessary tax forms for me in addition to payroll despite the fact it costs twice as much as QuickBooks. As I've probably let slip in other posts - I'm deathly afraid of screwing up some aspect of taxes or another so I wanted to make sure that someone who knew what was going on was taking control of payroll.

Hmm, worried about taxes and management...I'm not sounding like the world's best entrepreneur today.

Not Today

I woke up this morning in one of those sleep-deprived hazes that made me want to go out and grab a cup of coffee just to make it through until noon despite the fact I don't drink coffee. And, in this state, what is the very first email I open up? A rather strongly worded email from a publication editor essentially screaming at me for only donating 5% of my sales to a specific charity. WTF?

Maybe I am wrong and someone here can set me straight. We donate 5% of sales - not profits - so the total sale cost. That means that unless there's a little fairy who lands on my doorstep and drops the product off I first have to pay the raw ingredient cost, pay to have the product made (which I do myself and don't take a salary), package up the product (packaging's not cheap). Then I make a sale and rather than just giving 5% of the profit (sale price minus my costs) I give away 5% of the total sale price. Just for the record, my sale price is not so incredibly high as to make this an easy give.

Honestly I'm totally confused here. Sure, I wish I could give 10% or more away but then I might as well become a 503C as this business definitely wouldn't be making any money.

After sitting on it for about an hour I sent her an email back saying that I apologized for offending her and then tried to quickly layout things like the fact that this was sales price, that I'm not drawing a salary and nor are we renting office space so it's not like I have a bunch of fixed costs that have to be paid which is why I'm limiting the donation amount.

Truthfully, of everything that's hit me with running a business this one caught me totally offguard. I NEVER thought anyone would take offense at the fact that my company donates 5% of sales to a specific charity (for the record, they weren't offended by the charity but by the amount). At this point I'm not sure if I want to laugh or cry.

Office Space Is Out

I did go and check on the office space that's available in my workspace building but it's not going to work for a couple of reasons- the biggest being temperature issues and my products. Oh well, the dream was nice while it lasted. I'm hoping this means that really in a few months - when the business is flush with cash (dream big!) - a spot will become available in that little neighborhood a 5min walk from me. In the meantime I'll continue to work from the dining room table.

Thinking About Office Space

Office space has been on my mind lately (not Office Space as in the movie but office space as in location/real estate - though the movie is fantastic and perhaps should be added to my NetFlix list just so that I can watch it for the laughs). To first explain - I do rent workspace for 15hrs a week but it's actual "work" space and not so much really office space. For example, if I were a carpenter - which sadly I'm not becuase the floors in my house need to be redone - the workspace would be where I kept all my carpenter tools and did all my carpenter work but it's still my dining room table that acts as the administrative, hr, shipping and receiving, accounts receivable, accounts payable, communications-hub. With what I'm hoping is going to be a pretty successful new product launch come May 1st I was thinking that perhaps it would be nice to move just a little bit of that off of the dining room table and into some place other than my house which, while I love it dearly, at 1200sf doesn't have an extra room that can act as as office space other than the dining room table and a small corner of the second bedroom.

The other day my better half and I were driving down near my workspace and I told him that one of these days I was going to rent space in some loft space that's right nearby so that I could be close to the workspace and yet still have the chance to get all the product and packaging inventory out of our small basement. Plus I love loft spaces so I thought it would be enjoyable to go to work there. Then another friend - who also owns a small startup business - and I were talking about how it would be even better if we could get office space in the small little neighborhood that's literally a 5 minute walk from both of us. We could even set up a little retail section to serve all the many many many passersby.

But then today, while working in my workspace, I realized that there is actual office space in that same building that's up for rent. It's not a huge space but it is climate controlled, has it's own door (and windows) and I might be able to talk the landlords into letting me bring the dogs to work with me. On the one hand it would be great to rent it - even if it were just for the month of May and June as I can do monthly - to get this inventory out of my house, do all packaging, shipping, billing, etc there and keep my home as somewhat of a "home" as opposed to a workspace of it's own. But then on the other hand I'm not sure it makes sense to spend the money to rent the space not knowing if this new product is actually going to be a hit or not. I've already spent a fair bit of money getting the packaging ready to go, building a small inventory (which I fret about constantly), and creating a marketing campaign around the launch.

Plus then I remember that the home office has some snazzy new french doors which, as the weather continues to get nicer, I can open and let the dogs play in the backyard while I continue to work from the dining room table doing all that shipping, receiving, billing, etc, etc, etc.

Quick Update

My friend who was leaving her business actually ended up selling it - for her full asking price - in just about two weeks. The ink is still drying on the papers but she is obviously over-the-moon!

You Catch More Flies With Honey

Ok, I can't lie - I'm incredibly excited right now. But first the backstory:

Yesterday was a super busy day trying to get a bunch of things done here at the home office (aka - the dining room table) so I didn't actually go collect the mail until around 4:30. In the mail there was an envelope from one of the two big fall tradeshows I'm going to with my booth assignment for the show. Two years ago, when attending my first tradeshow, I learned that booth placement is a pretty important thing as I received next to no foot traffic being tucked back into the far back corner. So this is now something I pay a lot more attention to and send in the applications way in advance to try and secure good space.

I opened up the envelope to find that while I was given a corner booth like I requested (and paid more for), I was still back pretty far and only two rows from the back. I was not pleased. It would be fair to say that I was livid but it being 4:30pm here made it 6:30pm there and no one was answering the phones.

So instead I sat and stewed and identified which of the open booths I would want since I was going to call in and change. That's when I noticed that there is a PRIME booth in a FANTASTIC location that wasn't taken. The only catch - apparently it has some sort of pole or something in it.

Regardless, I called this morning and figured that rather than flying off the handle I would just be as sweet as honey as someone once told me that you catch more flies with honey. So I chatted them up, commisserated with them about all the work they had to do, sympathized that they had to deal with callers like me calling to complain about their booth positioning, and lo and behold they were more than happy to not only switch my booth assignment for me but also send me the booth skematic so that I could look at the booth layout and figure out if it would work for me. My thinking being that I can be creative and work around anything for this space - not to mention that my product is small so it's not like I have a huge display I have to worry about setting up - and I am now the proud owner of the 10x10 booth (minus the space taken up by the pole).

I just looked at the diagram again - it really is a killer location. I'm so happy. Guess what they say about real estate is also true in tradeshows: location, location, location. Now I'm eagerly anticipating the news on booth assignment for the other fall tradeshow.

Insomnia

There is one thing to be said for a bout of insomnia - it gives you a lot of time to think about the business! In truth it wasn't an actual bout of insomnia but the fact that I was tempted by a piece of dark chocolate that was coffee flavored (real coffee - not extract). I don't drink caffine and am apparently uber-sensative enough that just a little bit of dark chocolate sends me into an insomniac tailspin.

Regardless, it kept me up and as such I was thinking about work.
Pretty much my mind was racing between two scenarios: 1. What if this new product is a total flop and 2. What if this new product is a wild success. I don't know which actually makes me more nervous. If it's a flop then I'll have to eat the packaging costs I've already incurred which while not pleasant wouldn't necessarily break the business - though not having that new product income into the business will hurt. But I think I may actually be more nervous about what happens if it's a huge success as I'm totally stressed as to how much inventory to have on hand. I'm trying to have 50 orders worth ready to go by May 1 but with my direct mail pieces going out to 12,500 retailers i have no idea if that will be enough or not (I'm assuming that maybe only 30% of the direct mail pieces will be read and then even out of that only a small fraction will be interested in the product and, sadly, only a fraction of that will actually ever get around to ordering. Since I did put a promo code on the direct mail pieces I will be interested to see what the response rate actually ends up being).

One good thing did come from the insomnia though. Despite managing to work myself up into a tizzy I did realize that in addition to trying to trademark the product name (which the trademark guy is working on), I should also buy the domain name for the product and have it direct to my main website just to prevent anyone else from going in and grabbing it out from underneath me. I'm sure if I owned the trademark I could probably fight someone else buying it but this way is a heck of a lot cheaper by simply getting it outright from the start for $9.99.

Now if I could just find my web guy to get my website redesign underway it would all be good!

Buying Ad Space

I just pulled the trigger and am signing up to advertise in an upcoming edition of one of the B2B publications for my industry. I've always been a little skeptical of print advertising (well, all advertising really) but this particular trade publication has been really good to us and is giving us a ton of free press. Plus, from talking to other small businesses in my industry I've heard that they get pretty decent ROI on their trade publication print advertisements so I figure it's worth a try. Heh, it's certainly cheaper then what I spent on PR last year and that didn't exactly pan out as planned!

So while part of me is conservative on the adversiting front another part of me feels like I'm actually way behind on getting on the ball with this one given that my biggest competitors all do advertise in said publications. I don't exactly want it to sound like I'm trying to keep up with the Joneses but I also know that many of the small retailers are so busy they almost need some sort of constant reminder to get them to order and reorder and reorder.

If it all works out this first print ad should actually coincide with when an article that will feature/mention/highlight (I have no idea which if any of those it will do) will be run in the magazine so I'm hoping that the combination of the two will get our name out there and possibly result in orders.

So now I have an April 21 art deadline and am trying to pull together a print ad that is similar graphically to the direct mail piece we have going out at the beginning of May to 12,500 retailers. My thinking is that if all my advertising/direct mail uses similar graphics and then I utilize those same graphics at the tradeshows it will hopefully build brand awareness and trigger folks to come and order when they come see at the tradeshows. Though if nothing else at least we're getting great usage of our new professional photos!