Where's My Coffee?

I always forget how exhausting tradeshow season is. Every day is filled with making product for orders, filling orders, shipping orders, billing orders, and then turning around and starting all over. Yes, this is exactly what a company wants to be doing all the time but during tradeshow season it's done at a frenetic pace and still it doesn't feel like we're keeping up. Then add to it the final packing of items that have to go to the next trade show, the sending out of marketing material, and basically trying to keep all bills paid on time while also maintaining your sanity is just exhausting. Then try doing all of that with a broken leg.

Which brings me to a really important lesson I've learned through all of this. Having help - and being able to ask for help - is priceless to a business. As I think I've mentioned, my mom is in town helping (for three weeks - basically from one show through to the next) and I've also hired someone who comes in and does packaging twice a week. Between the three of us we've been able to pound out a ton of inventory and get the shelves stocked and ready for orders to ship out. Plus my mom and I have shipped out a ton of orders that had to go out already so things are running smoothly - and they definitely wouldn't have been without the help.

The other day I also ended up grabbing another part-time employee from another person in my workspace who was going on vacation. He worked with us this past week and will help out again on Monday. Thanks to his help we've honestly been able to get more done then I ever anticipated. So while I'm still frustrated by how slow I am thanks to the broken leg, I've learned how much more can get done when you hire the right people to help (should be an obvious point but it was one I was hesitant to learn).

It's a good lesson to learn. Especially given that we received a call from a bigger company yesterday who may be interested in bringing in some of our products for the holidays season. Not on the magnitude of BIG COMPANY but enough that it would be a really good test of our operational system and how fast we can turn product around if needed. I'm excited for the possibility of the exposure it could give my company and the revenue it could bring in, but also excited to see how I would figure out the operational needs of the company to be able to meet the deadline. In the meantime though, I'm going to go get some coffee.