Posts filed under 'Planning beyond the collection'
Little snippets of time. Everything in my life, and business, now happens in increments of time – specifically the amount of time between “events”. We had a cash-n-carry shopping event three weeks ago, which left us two weeks until Halloween events with the kids, which left us with a week and a half until the next shopping event. It’s been this way for a few months, since the ABC Show. I think I had a whole month of nothing before the ABC Show, but since then – one thing or another is looming on the horizon.
My daughter started kindergarten (Spanish immersion no less), and so now there are two schools worth of events and stuff to manage. And somehow, having so much “scheduled” is increasing our productivity and, dare I say, our sanity?
The semester that I made the Dean’s list in college was the semester that I was also working two jobs. Both almost full-time. Because the busier you are, the more time-crunched you are, and that’s just the right amount of pressure to kick you in gear. Knowing that I only had an hour between jobs made that hour precious.
This is also exactly why I have to get better at setting incremental deadlines for the business. Instead of just end-of-the-line pipe dream goals. In corporate life, I had to do the project schedules, breaking months and months worth of a project into biweekly deadlines. We can do this for ourselves too. It will help us to hold ourselves accountable and it will help me know where to ask for help more!!!
The more we can break down our project schedules, our business cycles, our to-do lists, the more we’re going to build up our business. Which is good, because our new BIG BROAD focus is taking it to the next level…
November 4th, 2007
I have to learn not to be so reactionary. I have to learn to implement some standard operating procedures and then follow them. We’re starting with standard status meetings. Pop, pop, fizz, fizz, what a relief that is. We’re all on the same page. I never realize how much I’m keeping in my head ALL THE TIME.
I kind of expect everybody else to just know what needs to get done because I do. I kind of expect everyone to hold everything as a high priority, because I do. But no one can read my mind. And if I’m keeping it all inside, I’m getting frustrated at what’s not getting done insted of just making it happen.
I catch myself thinking that just because I’ve mentioned something in passing at one point in time, the person I mentioned it to will know that means it’s now a to-do for them. Sounds totally ridiculous when I write it out, but it is something I’m recognizing.
We’re now documenting everything. So that all the to-do’s are visible to everyone and assigned to someone. We’re setting deadlines for all the little tasks. I can’t believe how big the big picture is, how important it is to sit down and re-visit everything you have on your plate. You’ll find out what is really a priority and what can maybe wait for the zillion other things in front of it.
We’re gearing up for the holidays, so we’re trying to add as much sanity as we can before the insanity slams us.
And concretely – we’ve planned a marketing / sales campaign that we’ll realistically be able to launch by the end of next week.
September 26th, 2007
Do you ever notice how your life weaves in and out of themes? A couple of months ago, my theme was easily pegged as “get organized”. Right now, the theme of the times seems to be apologies. For phone calls never made, order sent out late, emails not responded to in a timely manner. Which weaves out of the “get organized” theme and into the “wear less hats” theme, which I can tell is approaching on the horizon.
I try to take my life lessons and my business lessons from the predominant themes. Right now, I feel like I’m trying to get to a “good” place, where I don’t have black clouds hanging over my head, or any more apologies to make. To do this, I have to first make apologies and then right the wrongs. I’ve done that for most things, free gifts with the late order and a sincere, hand-written apology.
But I’m mainly learning that I need to gain more focus, get more help, tone down how skittered-skattered I am all the time! I need to revisit the business plan, it has changed almost completely from the last update. Business plans are supposed to be living documents, because plan though you might, you can’t predict the future. But the other half of “living document” is that it is supposed to be updated consistently to reflect recent changes in the business model.
I feel like we need this update urgently, just to get a grip of where we’ve let ourselves veer off track. And to figure out whether we want to stay on the offshoot path or try to return to the original plan. Hey, our marketing plan section will actually have some meat in it, now that we’ve gotten our feet wet.
We’re exceeding our PR dreams, somehow magically, it seems. Good reviews lead to new good reviews and if I could ever get around to writing a press release, I’m sure we’d get even more coverage. With a revisit to the business plan, I’ll actually allocate time for all the things I’ve let fall to the bottom of the list abyss – newsletters and press releases.
July 9th, 2007
When I first started down this path I read in more than one reference book how big of a deal it is to ship on time. I had no idea that the reason it’s such a big deal is because it’s a really hard thing to do. I’m on it about 95% of the time, but that still leaves 5% of the time that stuff doesn’t come through on time.
As my husband said to me yesterday, about an item we’re a whole week late on shipping, “That’s TERRIBLE.” Because it IS flipping terrible. And as hard as I try, it happens once in a while. Sometimes it’s events down the line, issues with the contractors, but most of the time it’s fair to chalk it up to poor project planning. And there’s no one to blame for that but me.
We have a constant production cycle with our blankets, which are dropped into production upon placement of the order. Now we’re throwing traditional production cycles on top of that and I have to figure out how to plan it all and make sure that we are consistently on top of our shipments.
Not shipping on time to these few customers isn’t the end of the world. But I feel horrible about it. Sick to my stomach almost – and even as I say that I feel like surely I could’ve carved a few more hours out of last week to make it happen. Am I slacking? Am I doing the best I can do?
Yesterday I made the radical decision to straighten up my office – using those hours for cleaning instead of all the stuff I need to do to get above said item shipped on Monday. I’m determined to get it organized like it’s never been organized before. And this event has been sparked by two things: first, because a fellow designer recently posted her freshly Spring Cleaned office on her blog, which made me want to laugh and cry at the same time. I told her I would send her a picture of mine – but when I took the picture and looked at how truly horribly dis-organized and messy my office looked, I was too embarressed to actually send it. Second, I’ve been reading “Simple Abundance” and it’s all about Spring Cleaning towards mental refreshment right now. So, I was inspired. And desperate for the clean out.
For my mental health, I needed to carve the time out yesterday to start getting the office into some kind of working condition. It’s finally organized into stations: embroidery station, shipping station, my main work table and my designing desk. And then there’s the loads and loads of fabric I have that I’m not supposed to have because I wasn’t supposed to buy it until orders were placed. ha ha -
How we’re going to sell through all that fabric almost needs to be a seperate business plan. I laugh, but really, it’s not so funny. At least I can see it now. I see many bibs and mini-blankets in that fabric’s future.
May 20th, 2007
Since we’re now in the sprint to Spring ’08 sales, the designing must begin. This means we have to have the major milestones (deadlines) figured out. Each season, there are things that need to be done on the design side of your project, and things that need to be done to prepare for the sale of your collection. Manufacturing happens after you go to market, so we’ll start tackling that project schedule mid-design-season.
The following design deadlines need to be defined and met in order to have a successful season:
- Select Fabrics
- Create Technical Sketches
- Order sample fabrics
- First, Second, and Third Pattern drafts
- First, Second, and Third Style Prototypes
- Sample fabrics and spec sheets dropped for manufacturing
- Salesman samples complete
The following sales deadlines need to be defined:
- Product photography
- Catalog (either updated from previous season or recreated)
- Price Sheets
- Line Sheets
- Season Launch Press Release
- Create your Terms & Agreements form if you don’t have one already
If you can start with the above major milestones, and map out a deadline by which each of them MUST happen, you’ll be in good shape for a good season. It’s a good idea to set your market date a week earlier than it really is – to see if your season schedule is realistic. Remember, work backwards from your market (start of sales) date!!
And keep in mind that your deadlines should be realistic based on the number of styles you are creating for the season. This is one of the main development decisions you will make, and everything in your project will be based on how many styles you decide to design. If this is your first season, I highly recommend that you stick to just a few designs. Highly, highly, highly recommend it.
Our project schedules should be complete by Monday. I will share mine on Monday. I have already been requesting swatches from suppliers and sketching out designs. I’m hoping, that by tracking where I’m at in the season, it will A) hold me more accountable to my own deadlines and B) prevent others from making some of the costly start-up mistakes I made in the past.
Spring ’08, here we come!!!
May 4th, 2007
I’ve been determined to tackle my priority list – in order, and that means that today I’m not going to make it up to the LA textile show. There’s too much to do before our next event (now only a week and a half away), plus aspects of running the business that got pushed back by taxes, and to wipe a day to go up to the show today doesn’t seem like it’ll happen.
But I really want to go. I love getting the color cards and seeing the trends, getting inspired. See, as I write that I’m tempted to jump in my car and get the heck out of here. Maybe I can swing it for tomorrow if I get some stuff done today. Anyhow, I won’t get to meet my friend from Baby Nika until the ABC Show.
This is a realistic business decision for me to make, I have the books from the last two textile shows, so I have plenty of contacts to call for swatches when I’m ready to get new fabrics. I did want to source some new types of fabrics, so I was hoping to find a few new suppliers, but by the time I’m ready to do that product development, I’ll have plenty of time to make phone calls.
Can you tell I’m going back and forth between need and desire? I need to stay here and hammer out a lot of the “to-dos”; I want to go play and go shopping, meet my friend. Ah, it’s like torture. Of course, I’d sit in traffic for literally hours before getting there. But, I could still make it.
If only I’d planned my time better up until now, so I could be breezing out the door worry-free. Instead, I’ve got a ton of stuff hovering over me.
April 17th, 2007
The advent of yearly taxes has forced us to finish up our spring cleaning. I couldn’t be more thankful. I feel like we’re getting a little bit of control back. Going through this exercise, coupled with mis-placing important papers over the last couple of months, has been just the slap-in-the-face we needed to get the business paperwork together.
To create a method for the madness, for the madness will never subside.
I’ve learned that I need to keep much better records of our every move. I’ve learned that there is a lot I don’t know, so “bookkeeper” is high on our list of must-hire goals / priorities. But we’re alright for this year considering we’re still a small company. And I kept receipts and bank records help on the double-check.
Taxes are this great big black cloud that just hovers until the fateful day arrives. The silver lining is that mounds of papers have now been properly filed and it feels like my head got de-cluttered at the same time. We’ll be going back to our tax accountant next year, guaranteed. Especially since we plan on being a much larger company. I guess this isn’t much of a helpful-post business-wise, unless someone out there gets motivated to keep track of everything from the get-go. Every thing, every thing, every little thing.
I can’t believe how stressful it is. We’re in the home stretch. And we have to be, because I’d really like to make it to the textile show tomorrow.
Besides taxes, there is so much admin stuff that has to happen today it’s crazy. Go girl, just keep going.
April 16th, 2007
Could it possibly be that the arrival of Spring has me feeling better, feeling at peace? I don’t know, but I’ll take it. Business is booming and we’re selling our personalized baby blankets in boutiques. We have a large order of our graphic baby tees and onesies to ship at the end of the week, and we’re working on new designs. It’s been a long time coming. Now, the key is to keep the momentum.
I’ve given up on the lost package. Someone has that darn thing sitting in their living room, I just know it. It was for a big celebrity and someone at that post office knew it. But, the cool thing is that I found better one-of-a-kind fabrics closer to the requested color scheme than I found before; so I’m going to be happier with the end result. For whatever reason, *those* one-of-a-kind blankets weren’t THE ones she was supposed to receive. What is exciting is that this isn’t just us shooting these blankets out to a celebrity in the hopes she’ll receive them; these blankets were hand-selected by her personal assistant as THE newborn gift she wants to give. That means a lot and that’s why it’s worth it for us to do them over. Sometimes, “do overs” are nice.
Now that we’ve completed some orders, it’s important that we keep the sales process rolling. You have to keep stuff in the pipeline all the time. This is why I’m trying to make 10 contacts a day. I didn’t meet my goals last week, but I made more contacts than I made the previous weeks, so the plan is working in that respect. The more boutiques we can get these blankets into, the more residual sales we’re going to have. The fact that a boutique can sell unlimited blankets from one display blanket means that we’ll be selling unlimited blankets through those boutiques too.
Today is a day for re-grouping, admin tasks, and prepping for a great week. I want to hit the ground running manana and feel like I’m prepared for it. That’s the best possible way to start a week. Getting more and more organized by the day will help me hit the ground running.
March 25th, 2007
Sometimes, an amazing amount of stuff can get done in a limited amount of time. Such as some last-minute samples we need for the next week’s trade show. Pattern maker and sewing contractor are literally jumping through hoops to make this happen, but it’s happening.
It makes me wonder what the hell I’ve been doing for the last 4 years it took to finally, finally, finally launch our line. Officially. For about the third time. 
If I can get samples done in literally a matter of weeks – from sketch to complete salesman’s sample – why did it take us so long to get to “GO”?
Then reality hits and I remember that on the surface, it seems like it’s just the business that took a long time to get going. But life is always happening, and actually happening more than the business is. So, earning a paycheck, having first one baby, then another, buying and selling a new house – all these things relegated starting a business to a mere few hours a day. If that.
Oh the nights I couldn’t drag myself off the couch or away from the tv to go work back in the quiet end of the house. During my second pregnancy, I was so exhausted from chasing a toddler around and working full-time, that I pretty much put everything about Baby Fabulous on the back-burner.
But the “back-burner” is the key. I never said “forget it” in my head, just that it was on-hold. And in retrospect, that was ok, because life is more important anyway. Time with my kids, what little of it I did have, was far more important than me building a business fast.
And, another thing that makes it seem so simple NOW, is that I’ve come so far. I’ve learned so much. From being absolutely a deer-in-the-headlights at my first trade show, I now see that trip as a “must do” and know where I’m going, who I’m going to talk to, and the really huge difference – what I’m looking for when I’m there.
It seems simple now because I’ve gone through that first boutique sale, I’ve gone through the first line sheets, catalog, web launch, advertising campaigns, publicity event, etc. Now we have our first big trade show in a week, and there is so much to learn over the next couple of weeks. I’m reeling to be honest with you. Reeling from another big publicity event we piled on top of this, reeling from going full-throttle since after Christmas. Full throttle as in 3AM mornings. Though I’ve only been able to drag myself up at 4 the last few days. But there are these times when you go full-throttle and push through because passing up the opportunity is not an option. So, we go on and on and on and come a week from now, we’ll be winding down and we can get back to a normal groove.
February 7th, 2007
These days are so crazy busy, but this is a *good* thing, we’re on the upswing. We have this last week and a half push to the Vegas tradeshow. But what’s cool is that all the stuff we’ve had to do for other deadlines in the last month has pushed us to get it together, really together. Most of the print materials are done, just waiting for a few new pictures. Including the catalog. I want to shout from the mountains; that thing was hanging over my head forever. Now, it’s done. And I’m actually happy with it. If you have these print materials when you walk into a boutique, you’ll have enough information to walk out of there with an order, signed and sealed:
- Catalog / Line Sheets – I put these together because you can get away with the line sheets if they have good technical sketches – but the catalog adds some pizazz and imagery. The line sheets contain:
- Technical sketches
- Style#
- Colors available
- Useful name (maybe just my opinion but it helps to say “the retro flowers” instead of “BL2-8998-99″, better reference point)
- Price List – These can be really simple – just tables of the item#; brief description; and wholesale price.
What I don’t have here is bulk pricing, which I want to add.
- Purchase Order – I use the PO form to gather all of the store information; the order form, payment options, AND the terms & agreements. This keeps it all together and helps me stay focused long enough to gather all of the information. This is important because you’ll find that there’s a lot of chatting going on and it’s easy to get distracted.
We’ve made a few boutique sales this week and it’s been a great experience. I can’t get over how much I learn at each appointment. I get so much feedback on our product, what’s selling in the market, what sells well in that location; how many items they’ll purchase, and most importantly, their personal style.
It’s cool to visit all the boutiques and see how they set up their stores, you really get a feel for how each is unique, even though they are all baby boutiques. Some are edgy, some are frilly, some SO pink, some not pink at all – it’s pretty cool.
Back on the topic of getting it all together for the tradeshow; a lot of people are jumping through hoops to make it happen and to make another project happen on top of that; both now with a one week deadline. That’s amazing. And we’re so grateful – really, really, really grateful. There’s still A LOT to pull off on this end, but we’re in motion.
February 1st, 2007
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