A Good Start to the Weekend

I went on my second in-person sales call this morning and brought with me a box that contained what was my currently packaged inventory in order to give the retailer a few samples to hold onto. After a brief conversation she asked me if she could buy ALL the inventory off my hands. Why not! While this means I'll spend yet another weekend doing work to rebuild my inventory, the business is also significantly wealthier then it was at the start of the day. Hooray!

First Sales Call

I made my first in-person sales call today. This is different, in my mind, to selling my wares at a tradeshow or shipping samples to folks in far-off locations and then following up by phone. Like someone preparing for battle, I put on my best "workplace casual" clothes, rummaged through the bathroom for my makeup that hasn't been used in ages, and prepared myself to go out and make the sale!

Only when I get to my appointment I find that the man I'm supposed to meet with is out sick and has asked his business partner to meet with me. Now I can't be 100% sure, but I think that his business partner is also his mother so I ended up spending a lovely half hour talking to this grandmother about everything under the sun. It was certainly a nice, calming way to enter the world of sales calls.

Best of all she loved the samples I left with her so I'm hoping to hear back soon! Now let's hope tomorrow's sales call goes just as well! And in the meantime, I'll continue to follow up with all those people who I sent samples to and need to call by phone.

Covering Fixed Costs

As I may have mentioned in an earlier post, my fixed costs are relatively small and really only consist of the rent that has to be paid on my "office" space. The rent itself is interesting in that you more or less pay by the amount of hours used per week. I'm not locked into a yearly lease and can change the number of hours every month.

In the past few months I dropped my weekly usage down a little bit and did more work from home to save some money but now the business is feeling like it's picking up enough that it makes sense to go back to number of hours I was using before.

Sounds simple right? It is except that there's the part of me that's still worried that this momentum may slow down and then all of the sudden I won't have the cash to cover the rent. I realize that I can still reduce hours next month if things don't go well, but I'm conservative enough that I love to have money in the bank and am nervous about spending it (which is not necessarily a good trait in an entrepreneur).

That's why one of my biggest Q2 goals is to try and find some avenue that will produce regular monthly income for the business and cover that fixed cost. I'm trying several different angles and am hoping that something pans out (sooner rather than later of course) so that I know every month my rent is covered by one or two specific accounts and then anything else that comes in is like icing on the cake.

One Little Snowball

I just did a real quick check and it appears as though in the first quarter of the year we've managed to grow sales by 150% over all sales last year (though in fairness, we really only were in business about six months last year).

I feel like right now there's one snowball rolling down a hill and I can feel it pick up speed and momentum. I hope to one day have a ton of snowballs all racing down the hill (an avalanche would be nice) but right now I can definitely feel my one little snowball starting to pick up speed.

And with that I find that I'm both really excited by all the potential for new business and new opportunities. But at the same time I find that I'm holding my breath just a little bit for fear that something will stop this momentum in its tracks.

With 10 more days left in first quarter I'm going to see if I can bring that percentage up to 175% above last year's sales.

In Retrospect - First Hire

I realized after my last post that I have indeed hired my first new person. In truth, she's a sales rep so I don't have to pay her directly out of my pocket as she takes a commission on any sales she closes. I gave her a pretty generous commission as a way to hopefully incentivize her to make even more sales.

So I guess I do have my first employee. Now I need to work towards getting my second.

Reading...

While at the gym the other day I read about a woman who started up a candle company. The brief article happened to say that soon after starting the woman was so overwhelmed with orders she couldn't keep up and had to hire staff.

So that got me wondering as to what "soon" actually meant. Did this woman have to hire on staff within two weeks of starting? two months? two years?

The reason I'm wondering about this is that I'd love to hire someone this year to help out. But I'm relatively conservative and don't want to do it until 1. I know that I can pay that person's salary consistently while also covering other expenses and 2. That I'll actually be able to keep that person busy.

The first quarter has been pretty busy and I'm not sure but I think next week when I do my first quarter review I'll find that in the first quarter we did close to - or more - then the total amount of sales all last year. Which is a great start for what is typically considered the slowest quarter in my industry.

But at the same time, not having gone through a first or second quarter before, I just don't know if next quarter will be busy enough to bring someone on (and also pay all the associated taxes of bringing said person on).

What I'd love, and what I'm actively going after right now, is a larger wholesale account that would provide consistent montly orders. The orders themselves wouldn't even have to be that large, but just to know that for the most part month in and month out there would be a relatively stable amount of cash injected into the business as opposed to hoping that some of the boutiques I work with happen to place an order. Here's hoping some of this work falls into place!

And the Roller Coaster Goes Up

There's a reason I titled this blog "Roller Coaster of Entrepreneurship." My last post was whining, tired...in fact, exhausted by the entire entrepreneurship process. Today however I wake up to find four requests for information from potential new retailers in my inbox. Far from the norm for a Sunday morning. And I just got back from a run to find another request for information from another potential new retailer who just received our latest marketing postcard in the mail (which would make my bschool marketing professors so happy to hear!).

That's the joy of enrepreneurship isn't it. One day you feel like you're scrapping bottom and then next you're gladly spending your entire Sunday answering emails from potential customers who are interested in learning about your product.

slogging...slogging...slogging

I'm tired. I'm tired of stressing over money. I'm tired of working like a dog to make a single dollar (which ironically just goes back into the business). I'm tired of working what feels like 100 hour weeks and not being able to go out and afford a latte or a foot massage which would be so nice because at least 90 of those hours are on my feet.

Yes, I'm whining. And for no good reason really. Things are actually going pretty well. I'm being courted by two different sales reps groups about adding our line to their portfolio, I've got some samples ready to send out to potential partners, and we're getting in some orders from boutiques around the country (and even had our first Canadian order yesterday).

So I can't really complain about too much right now...just that I'm tired and having one of those moments where I - just for a second - wish I had a regular paycheck coming in so I could splurge on something for me.

Ok, whining over. Back to work.

Not a Millionaire Yet

Well, it's official. I did not win tonight's Mega Millions drawing so I'm now $5 poorer (I only play when the payout is above $150M aftertaxes and if I actually happen to hear about it on the news and retain that information long enough to buy a ticket).

However, I did get a call this morning from a company that I met five months ago at my first trade show. I haven't heard a single peep from this company in the meantime despite following up with them but apparently today they decide to call me out of the blue and are interested in making some orders. I don't think their orders will get me to that millionaire mark but it's a start, right?