When did November show up?

All of the sudden it's the first weekend in November and yet the house (aka - my office) is still full of orders going out the door while I also try to tackle some other projects I need to get done before half of my family descends on my tiny house for Thanksgiving. My to-do lists are growing longer and yet no matter how much I get done in a day I don't feel like I'm making much headway because for everything I manage to cross off there's at least two more things that get added to the list.

My better half is also in the midst of his usual fourth quarter craziness (he's currently on the first of what will likely be several conference calls this weekend) and this past week I don't think we actually managed to spend any time with one another because each of us were constantly going different directions.

I'm also working on some pretty big projects at my part-time zoo job that I undertook because I saw tremendous room for improvement. Everyone's excited about the ideas, I'm super excited about them, but it's an awful lot of work. It'll be fantastic at the end of the day but for now my days are literally jampacked. A typical day starts with my company work, zoo work for part of the day, then back to my work until bedtime with little time to breath.

It won't last forever - I know that my orders will slow down at some point in the near future (though then I need to get ready for two retail shows I have the first two weekends of December) - and pretty soon we'll be able to enjoy some lazy weekends again. In the meantime though it's a busy few months here.

But you know what, in this economy I can't tell you how grateful I am that both my better half and I are as busy as we are. Not to get too spiritual on anyone here, but I truly feel that we are incredibly blessed right now so while I may be tired I am not for a moment complaining. This economy will hopefully be the toughest that we ever see in our lifetime and so far the little liferaft we've strapped together is riding out the storm pretty well.

Locked Out

For some reason I'm getting locked out of everything lately. First I was locked out of this blog for several days (which is why you haven't heard a peep in a while) and now I'm also locked out of my own company website. I have no idea why. The website works on everyone else's computer and even works on my better half's computer which is running on the same wireless internet so I literally have no idea what's going on. Anyone have any thoughts?

A Good Call

Last week was the second of the two big Fall tradeshows and for the first time in four years I didn't go. It was a bit sad as that was the first tradeshow I ever went to with the business and I distinctly remember calling my better half partway through the show saying "I think we have a legititmate business here!" There was just that much interest.

But that was the heyday of the economy and as the economy slid into the doldrums so did that show. Last year it was painful to be there and stand around for three days - from 9am - 6pm - twiddeling my thumbs. The good news is that I wasn't the only one staring down the aisles just hoping a buyer would come along simply to have someone to talk to. It was that bad for everyone!

So I made the decision not to go back. It's bad enough to kill three days with nothing to do and no orders to show for it. It's even worse when it's cost you about $4000 once you figure in booth fees, flights, hotels, etc etc. I was nervous about the decision but just didn't have it in me to go through that again this year.

Turns out I made the right decision. In talking to some folks I know in the industry who went to the show it was even slower this year then last year (something I find hard to believe). My one friend said she had a total of five sales all show. That's not a quick way to make up the $4000+ investment in the show.

I'm sad to see this show become so poor but am glad I didn't go back this year and certainly won't be jumping on the bandwagon next year to head back!

Pulling A Double

It's been quiet on this blog lately because I'm doing double-duty of both employee and business owner and right now, when things are busy with my business, that leaves me little extra time for blogging or just about much of anything.

Orders continue to go out the door almost daily so things are pretty good right now. And while I wish I knew that a big order was coming in on the scale of last year's big orders, honestly the fact that it likely won't happen has actually taken a huge weight off my shouldars. Even though this means I'll be sitting on some inventory for the next few months and working through it, I am happy that I'm leaving my workspace at the end of the month on my terms yet I have some time to figure out what I'm going to do next workspace-wise. As I think I mentioned before, my workspace had changed significantly over the last few months not the least of which is that the owners are putting it up for sale. While it won't likely sell too quickly in this economy, I feared that one day I could show up and learn that I had 30 days to find new digs. With this build-up in inventory I have time to proactively determine what my next steps will be rather than simply reacting and trying to make do with something.

So it's all good here and I'm loving what Fall can be like when my stress level is ratchted down significantly. I imagine it'll get even better come November when I'm not constantly running between job to workspace to FedEx/UPS for order shipment to home to packing orders...it'll all be good!

Lemonade Anyone?

Cause we got plenty of lemons around here this week.

Every year for the past few years I've gotten slammed in the fall between orders from my small independent retailers and a few BIG orders from BIG retailers as well. Which means that every fall for the past few years I've run around like a chicken with my head cut off. Earlier this year I decided I was done being so nuts in the Fall and worked feverishly in the first part of the year to build up my inventory so at least I'd have something to fall back on when those orders came rolling in.

Only now it doesn't look like they're going to be rolling in. My little independent guys are ordering but the BIG guys have taken a pass this year (apparently you can get stuff cheaper over in China...who knew!). So now I have all this inventory and no where to send it. As you can see...lemons.

But here's where the lemonade part of it comes in. After sulking for about two hours yesterday about the BIG guys passing on me, I realized that the amount of inventory I have actually sets me up very well for next year. I have plenty of stuff to sell and it all fits with my company's mission of being handcrafted. Which means, I realized, that I don't need to hold onto my workspace lease because I don't need a place to make stuff. This is actually great because it not only frees me up timewise to spend more energy on 'selling' but it also frees up a significant portion of cash to put towards 'selling.' So I'm really excited by the change. Starting in November (I was able to get out of my lease at the end of Oct) I will be operating like most other manufacturers in my industry as I will have 'bought in' (or in my case - made and paid for) my inventory already and will be focused on selling it.

So yes, while it was raining lemons for a little bit yesterday. I'm surprisingly excited about this new tactic and seeing where it will go.

Hangover

Remember when you were in college and perhaps woke up with a dead squirrel taste in your mouth, feeling like your body had been hit by a mac truck, and trying to figure out why you had been sleeping on the lawn? (no, mom, I never did that - I swear!) That hangover was a breeze compared to this week and sadly I don't even have alcohol to blame for it.

Last week was truly the perfect storm I had anticipated. I got all my event orders late in the day on Monday so literally spent a good chunk of Monday night, all day Tuesday, most of Wednesday night, and all of Thursday getting those 150+ orders packed up, invoiced, UPS'd, and shipped out.

You notice that I wasn't doing anything Wednesday during the day? Well that's because I was manning the desk at my zoo job for our Groupon. I had played a major role in convincing senior management we needed to do a 'Groupon' despite a fair bit of resistence. Since this was the first major project I'd taken before senior management I was terrified that a poor response would be a black mark on my reputation not to mention the fact that I simply wanted it to go well. The two nights before the Groupon - when not packing up orders - I was tossing and turning in my sleep and having nightmares.

Wednesday I was up and online by 5:40am. By the time I went to bed that night we had becoming the second best selling Groupon in our city of all time and by Thursday morning (the Groupon ended at midnight the night before) we had bumped up to the top selling spot. Needless to say, I was ecstatic as was senior management. And then I got back to packing up orders for my business.

Now that it's all over and I'm merely back to packing up tradeshow orders I find myself dropdead exhausted by 8pm and crawling into bed at 9pm every night this week. Oh wait...look at that...it's bed time!

Next Steps

I'm back from the tradeshow - not quite sure why I'm awake and functioning already given what time my flight got in last night. But I'm home and glad for it. Vegas, I find, is fun for about the first 24 hours and after that I grow weary of being inside all day where the temperature is a constant 68degrees and there are no clocks on the walls (which is actually my biggest pet peeve about Vegas). I did however find the pool (hooray!) and made it to my favorite 'off the strip' Thai restaurant which was even better then I remembered.

The show went OK. Not great - not horrible - just OK. The big event that is currently happening is also going OK. Not great and not near what I had hoped at this point. But it's OK. Not sure if it'll be good enough to get invited back for another event though.

So this is what I find myself pondering this morning. The business is going OK and in this economy I should be happy with that. But the truth is that I'm just so darn tired right now and I need to figure out what my next step is going to be. The truth is that as much lip service as people give to wanting "handmade" or "Made in America" products, at the tradeshows at least, what sells is cheap crap from China. I just can't compete with that nor do I want to. Which makes me wonder if there really is a strong market for my products or whether that market withered and died with the economy. Do I keep searching for that market or do I just shut down all together?

Right now I'm leaning towards keeping the business going but moving it into much more of a part-time or, dare I say it, even hobby catagory. I'm probably halfway there already this year given how little I spent on advertising and tradeshows this year. Or do I just decide to try and sell the thing and get whatever money I can out of it? But who would honestly want to buy a business that's just ok? And, if I'm perfectly honest with myself, selling this business feels like it would be selling off on of my appendages so maybe I'm not ready for that yet.

We'll see, I need a little more time and space from Vegas before I make a decision one way or another.