"You're Not Trying To Make Money"

A quote from my beleaguered husband this weekend: "You're not trying to make money, you're trying to build a business."

Funny, I thought we were doing this to make money? Actually, I know he's right. You can't build a business without pumping some money into it. In the grand scheme of things we haven't funneled a ton of money into the business (if you don't count the opportunity cost of me working for someone else) but right now it feels like every penny coming in is going out two-fold. Not a great feeling but it is what it is. Right now I'm buying up packaging in case the People Magazine thing hits. Unfortunately the good people at People won't share with me whether or not we're being featured and even if we are I'm not sure if that will result in 1000 sales or zero sales. But, like the boy scouts, it's best to be prepared. Thankfully if it doesn't hit I can always reuse the packaging next year. Just means I'll have to carry the inventory cost until next holiday season. Ah well, it will just join the rest of the packaging that is taking over our shed and threatening to overrun my husband's lawn equipement.

So, no word from People but lots of other good stuff going on. Not necessarily in terms of sales (though we are still getting in orders) but I did have a conversation with another small business in my industry where we shared ideas and came up with some joint ways we could market ourselves and split the costs. My gut is telling me that the whole splitting costs thing is going to be very important in the new year. More about all of that later though as I need to spend a few minutes turning my brain away from work. I've been sleeping horribly for at least a week (if not more) mainly because I find myself waking up at 2am and my brain absolutely racing through business issues. Except last night where I dreamt a friend and I met on a beach and talked for two hours. Think that was my subconcious' way of telling me that I've been crap at keeping in touch with friends these past few months? So a few minutes of nonwork time before bed and if that doesn't work I'm hitting the benedryl.