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.