I am so happy it’s Friday – although I remember thinking last weekend that I can no longer remember what life was like when work was not a part of our weekends. Even beyond the baby business, my husband has been coaching volleyball for years, which is always a weekend thing, so it’s been that way for both of us, for years. And we’re perfectly happy – BUT we are planning a vacation this year; not a business trip, a vacation! Ah, my heart skips a beat at the very thought of it.
So, why “yes, I can, yes I am” as a title today? Is that going to help anyone out there start their baby boutique? Launch their clothing line? I hope so. I have spent so much time over the last year working on blocking fear, negativity, and doubt out of my mind (spirit) and replacing it with hope, positivity, and belief. This has not been easy through the recession, but all the more reason it has been necessary.
We are what we believe we are…when I first thought of launching my clothing line I believed I was on top of the world. It has been a crazy roller coaster ride which has knocked my confidence sideways, updside down, and every which way but right:) I say that with a smile -or the joy of hindsight. But throught those difficult times, my confidence was really building itself on a stronger foundation – when I was knocked down, I was learning. I have always managed to tell myself “just keep going”…and if you just keep going, you grow and learn, and you gain confidence in your skills and abilities.
And now, the reprogramming I’m doing is changing the lovely statement I’ve been making -almost with gleeful pride- my whole life: “I’m such a procrastinator”. I don’t know when it hit me, but it finally did – hmm, maybe I should stop believing that. Now, when that thought creeps up, I consciously replace it with “I’m proactive, I’m action-oriented”.
Which brings me to the real secret of “Yes I can, yes I am” – the more you tell yourself who you are, the more actions you will take towards being that person. It isn’t magic, it’s in our nature. The more I tell myself I’m proactive, the more proactive I am. My mind naturally progresses from “I’m proactive” to “so, what can I get a jump on today?”, I even notice a difference in how I tackle my to-do lists, (I actually tackle them! haha). This has been HUGE for me lately as we juggle so much in our lives. See..I am proactive, so of course I am also good at focusing on the task at hand and taking action.
And it’s true! In the last month I’ve created new wholesale docs and four new organics designs, I’m getting the upper hand on some admin stuff, and taking much much much better care of our customers.
So, make sure you are telling yourself you’re launching the most amazing business, you are an incredible sales person, you have the most unique designs in the world – because you do and you are if you believe it is so…
Have a great weekend! Focus and take action…
February 5th, 2010
We have new designs, so I’m starting to plan the photo shoot. We haven’t done a formal photo shoot since we launched (yes, that’s the truth). When we launched we did a photo shoot with a friend who is a professional product photographer. We were completely unprepared, we went in with our product and no clear definition of the scene we wanted to set, or the mood we wanted to convey.
So, as I’m planning for a photo shoot for our organics collection, I know I have a lot more to think about than just the product being ready:
- Models – need to locate and confirm models
- Scheduling for the day – the setup takes up most of the shoot time. If you haven’t been on a shoot, it’s almost unimaginable how long it can take to get the lighting setup.
- What types of photos we need – we need model shots more than isolated product shots. If you need isolated product shots, you should create a photo shot list that lists every product you need to shoot. For a model shoot – the photo shot list includes all the products /scenes you want shot. Send this list to the photographer; the list will help you group your shots in a logical order and plan for a realistic amount of time.
- What is the mood / atmosphere – this is where I still need to do the most thinking. I learned a lot about “hero” shots from the photographer. You need props – think if your product is candles, you might want to set a dining table scene for your “hero” shot. The candles would be the main focul point and glasses, centerpieces, etc. would be background items. The hero shot helps your customer envision the product in use, it should make the customer WANT that scene in their life.
- The setting – indoor or outdoor? If outdoor, where?
- Costs – of course, there is always the cost to consider!
I’m excited to get to our next shoot and feel happy that I will be much more prepared than the first time. Oh, one more tip – if you are using models (especially babies), don’t have them arrive until the time you anticipate being finished with setup. It will keep them from burning out before it’s their time to shine.
Have fun – it’s one of those aspects of our jobs that is creative and fun!
January 13th, 2010
leaner and meaner and (hopefully) a whole lot greener. I am one happy camper today! Woo hoo, it is the last day of 2009 and I am SO happy to leave this year behind. It was so full of stress and craziness that I don’t even want to reflect on it - I just want to move on! 2010 is already opening with more optimisim and opportunity than 2009 did, so that HAS to be good, right?
This time a year ago, I was incredibly stressed out by the CPSIA (wonder how many sleepness nights they caused coast-to-coast). I shudder to even think about how crazy that was – trying to understand what was going on, what we were responsible for, how much it could end up costing us, and what the heck we were going to do about (when we did finally understand it). Now, it seems there are more options for component testing and reliance on supplier’s certificates (duh!) and an extended stay on required third party testing until February 10, 2011. I’m happy happy happy to have our components tested, I’m happy to comply with a reseasonable law!
We are slimming down the business (so it will reach new heights) – we are cutting the ecommerce portion of the site (at least for the time being), and are likely to cut most of our drop shipping programs too. I feel a huge sigh of relief at the decision to “go wholesale only”…it’s one that has been eating at me for almost a year. So, we have a lot of changes to implement to get that change ironed out, but I feel it is a change in the best interest of our retailers. They now get our undivided attention, which they deserve.
I’m happy to let go of driving traffic to the ecommerce site. I’ve been “sitting” on things for a few months, keeping the business in maintenance mode, but feeling unsure of where I wanted it to go, so I have not really been seeking out new sales channels. It gave me some much needed time to reflect on what type of business i WANT to be running vs. what type of business I AM running. And I approach the future of my business with much more certainty.
I’m easing up on myself this year – I’m making more time for quality-of-life committments, such as playing with the kids more, volunteering at my kids’ school, visiting with good friends, going on dates with my husband, and making sure that I remember to be in the moment as much as possible.
I feel happy and confident that 2010 holds great adventure and much excitement…and I’m eager to get on the roller coaster again.
December 31st, 2009
I innocently mentioned in a morning meeting that I was having trouble (ee gads, BIG TIME) keeping up with wholesale requests and vendor needs. This led to questions about how the process works right now. Which in turn led to immediate clarity that the wholesale account setup and ordering process for retailers was a mess, or in other words, doesn’t really work right now. We identified three main areas that are in need of serious help – the online shopping function is not completely implemented on our site, there is a major lack of links to the wholesale pages on our site (yikes), and we have way too manual of a process for keeping vendors updated.
Which means, basically, the whole process needs an overhaul. The first thing we are tackling is streamlining the ability for vendors to login and place their wholesale orders online through our secure ecommerce site. This will enable vendors to track orders better. We do have issues with an inability to set wholesale prices for some of “add-on” prices for the blankets. But we are very close to having online purchasing setup for the apparel collections. I know that when I have to order supplies, I LOVE being able to login and place my order online (should be standard right?). So why wouldn’t our customers appreciate this same convenience?
The next portion of our wholesale account setup process that needs attention is to make it very obvious to visitors of the site that we have wholesale options for retailers. Right now, there isn’t even a link to the wholesale page from a lot of our pages. HUGE oversight. Our retailers are a big part of our business, so the site needs to be informative to wholesale customers as much as it is to our direct retail customers.
Finally, we had to tackle the manual email response process and how to keep things from slipping through the cracks. In order to clean up this part of the process, we have to rewrite the content on our wholesale page, with clear directions on how to create an account. The biggest change will come from the creation of our wholesale docs page, which contain links to the current line sheets, product images, and other important information for our vendors. And, newsletters, newsletters, newsletters. We will send out a monthly newsletter (no, we’ve just never been able to get on top of this) to keep our wholesale customers updated on new product releases, blanket prints, pricing changes, and everything else that matters to their bottom line.
We have only been able to clean up small pieces of the process so far, but I’ve already noticed improvements. We are crazy busy these days, but are getting better at scheduling time to fix things that will increase customer confidence and relations.
October 19th, 2009
Or did I just think I was? It’s never enough. It’s never enough. I feel I’m never accomplishing anything. Is that a personality disorder? We just shipped a large order to one of the hottest hippest boutiques in town, and they have been a customer since we launched. They reorder and reorder and reorder, as do most of our retailers. Celebrities have Baby Fabulous products. I’ve met celebrities. We’ve been featured in glossy magazines and sell out in ultra chic boutiques. But it’s never enough.
Good thing too. Or is it? I spend some time telling my daughter to appreciate the moment. I see her always looking ahead, making plans for the next event, or dreading the end of the current one, and I wonder if she takes enough time to enjoy what is happening when it is happening.
Yep, yep- I lecture her because we see in others that which we can’t face in ourselves;-) I don’t know – maybe it’s a survival instinct. I would say it helped my business survive over the last year – what’s coming up? What needs to happen next? How are we going to keep on keeping on? Where can we cut the fat? Kept us alive. Did it stifle us at all?
How much of survival mentality is fear mentality? I’ll never know how much I held myself back from…being afraid we might not make it. That’s the daily balancing act of running a business – walk a tight-rope right down the middle of risk and fear and you’ll probably hang in there. Me however, I’m feeling a little restless. I think I’ll fall towards the side of risk and see if that net down there will catch me. I feel a need to be a little better than I have been – on the creative side of life. There has been a whole lot of focus on organizing and hunkering down and getting it done and making it happen and now we need to focus a little on growth and fun and possibilities and outrageous ideas. Because I mean really, I am so much better than this…
October 6th, 2009
Oh bla dee – oh bla da, life goes on, la la la la life goes on. I’m sure that’s a trademarked phrase. We just got an email letting us know that Gerber® has trademark rights to the word “Onesies®”— we honestly had never even looked into it. So, we will be spending the next couple of days making sure that we are no longer infringing on their trademark. I can’t believe this is the first time we’ve been told that. I thought it was as generic as “t-shirt”, but nay.
Fall items are shipping
How in the world is everyone doing? Preparing to ship / already shipping your fall items? It’s already hard to find summer stuff in the stores around here. Well, I shouldn’t say hard, but there isn’t a huge selection. Stores are working on clearing out their summer items and bringing in new fall stuff.
Time to pitch gift guides
And in the PR arena, it’s gift guide pitching time. Remember to target your pitches to your audience. Visit magazine’s websites to find their editorial calendars. The editorial calendars will tell you the closing date and topics of upcoming issues. Magazines plan and complete their issues months ahead of the release date – so to get featured, your product / pitch has to be in their hands long before the closing, or completion, date.
Make re-ordering easy
Here’s a tip to increase business: make it easy for your customer’s to re-order. We just FINALLY created a wholesale quick order form. I love it! I love it! I love it! More importantly, all of our vendors were very excited to hear that we are making it easier for them to place their orders.
Have a great week!
July 20th, 2009
Hello everyone!! How is everyone? I’m hanging in there. Hanging. Everything is one step forward, two steps back. I had a conversation with one of the entrepreneurs that I met through this blog and that I admire very much, Jamie Lentzer at Jamie’s Painting & Design. I had stopped in at her blog and read that she had just not been up for blogging lately. I wrote “me too! me too!”.
She connected with me and we gabbed about how really, sometimes it’s just all too much and something has to fall by the wayside.
I’ve been all over the place like a yo-yo so why would I have anything to write? Um, gee Amber, because that is why you started this blog. See, somewhere I got caught up in the trap I said I wouldn’t – stopped sharing the aches and pains lest it should make my business look less successful. But that’s ridiculous. I know from every job I’ve had that mistakes happen everywhere on a daily basis. It’s the mistakes we learn from, and it’s my learning experiences that I wanted to share in the first place.
So, I thought I’d like to share a couple of BIG mistakes I’ve made (there are a lot, but in the interest of keeping myself upbeat this morning, I’m not going to share them all at once).
So many of the mistakes made over the last couple of years are wrapped in that second bullet point. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said “what if we try this…” without following up and researching the change in direction, but just jumping in instead. I attribute a lot of that to impatience on my part, I want to see results a lot sooner than is realistic for a mom running a business at the same time she is raising two kids.
June 4th, 2009
We’re getting more help. Hip hip hoorah. We’re growing good and good help is on the way. We’re bringing on more sales reps and more seamstresses. A virtual assistant has to be next b/c I’m going to pull out my hair with the admin stuff. But, I’m most excited about the new sales representatives. We brought on a sales rep in the Fall of last year and that was a complete disaster. I keep hearing from other business owners, almost everytime I mention wanting sales reps, “(ha) good luck finding someone good”. Good is such a subjective word – should be “someone who delivers”. In the form of sales. Lots of sales.
But, having gone through working with (if you could call it that) a sales rep, I feel like I’m in a much better position to support the next rep we bring on. Here’s a huge noticeable difference w/ the new rep compared to the old rep – the new rep sought us out because she loves our products. The old rep sought us out because we were somewhat new and they were looking to build their sales rep business. They thought, rightly (unfortunately), that we would be willing to take a risk because we were pretty new too.
Here’s the biggest mistake I made, which actually ended up having them cost us money instead of make us money – gave them exclusivity to a territory. DUH!! Don’t do that – I won’t say never, because if someone was established, reputable, and had a zillion accounts that they just couldn’t wait to show your stuff to, then maybe I’d consider exclusivity. After they first turned in x number of sales. But otherwise, proceed with caution. Or put time limits on it, you can have exclusivity for 90 days provided you meet (enter quota here).
I like to stay on the positive side of things, so I think the best way for me to get the shakes out of the old (and bad) sales rep experience, is for me to share with you what I learned about supporting a sales rep:
Have good sales materials, marketing collateral, and lots of it
You need to have materials for your representatives to use as sales tools. A look book would be great, but at the very least, line sheets, account setup forms, and postcard mailers. Make sure that you use consistent branding so that your sales rep, and potential vendors, will feel they are working with a professional company.
Setup a weekly meeting and address questions
I did not set up enough phone conversations with the old sales rep. This time around, we will have a weekly phone meeting – at the very least. The reps should feel that they have a direct line to getting their questions answered and should feel comfortable calling to ask questions.
Provide great customer service to your reps and their clients
Always beat expectations for your representatives – happy reps will be passionate about representing your company, so I think it’s important to treat them well. I simply didn’t pay enough attention to our last representative.
Also, if you are a representative, you have to keep in mind that we don’t know what you don’t know. You have to speak up and ask questions about our products, our shipping policies, special offers, company philosophy, etc. Ask for the support so that we know where and when you need it. It’s a win win!
May 4th, 2009
One of my intentions when I started this blog was to share “where it all began”. I could never find stories of how people had made the leap from idea to real products on the shelves. Everywhere I would read “she started in her garage and then blew up into a mega —”, you get the idea, I’m sure you’ve read the stories too. I’ve received a few emails lately of people asking not so much why, but so much HOW, it all began for me.
It began for me with headbands on ebay. From my dining room table. I’d have my newborn daughter sleeping safely next to me while I sewed and starting researching business basics like mad. I quickly moved on to selling outfits on ebay and quickly learned that I couldn’t sustain anything if the production was up to me. So I quit ebay and sales and went seriously into product development and learning about manufacturing.
Once I had a good product, I started to hit up the industry trade shows and local boutiques. It’s been a building process from there. A slow one for me. We receive a lot of press and once our products are in boutiques, they can’t get enough. But I honestly started this business because my kids were my priority and so, especially during the development phase, there were times that I put things on hold for long periods of time. Such as when I was pregnant with my second.
If there is anything I’ve learned since launching, it is that growing a business is exactly that – a growth process. We are picking up momentum on a daily basis, and the reality that we ARE making it is starting to sink it. Every day I learn something new, everyday our processes get more efficient, every day we improve on our customer service.
This year, I’m looking to branching into a separate work space. Right now, the business occupies two full rooms of our house. Both of our kids will be school age next year, so it won’t be necessary for us to operate out of the home. Yesterday I discovered a retail space for lease in the heart of one of the cutest shopping districts in town. I can’t stop SEEING our stuff in that window. Maybe our first retail store is in the cards, it just seems so perfect.
April 25th, 2009
I really thought that I would be up at the LA Textile Show today. However, my daughter’s playdate fell through yesterday and today was the only day to re-schedule. This is something the kids have been looking forward to all week, and the kids are absolutely my priority. And today was the only day I could have made it up to LA for the show. Ah well. When it all fell apart yesterday, I did what all good little entrepreneurs do, started thinking of plan B, what would be crucial to me about missing the show, and what I would do about it.
I wanted to go there to identify some new organic textile suppliers. I have lists of companies from shows past, so sourcing this time will involve a lot of phone calls and header /swatch / referral requests. But it can be done.
Really, the more I thought about missing the show, the more I realized how much I wanted to go for the fun of it. I love visiting the trending section and saying hello to existing suppliers. I love visiting new booths because nothing compares to having the entire collection in front of you to see / touch / ask questions about. It’s a fun part of the job.
But I also realized that I probably would have done what I always do and get running on different tangents and design ideas that aren’t realistic to implement this year anyways. We have taken great care over the last year to hone our product lines down to the best-sellers. The next design that I will put out is already sourced. We’ll keep adding new blanket prints and new designs for our organic collection, but the supplies and vendors for both of those are already sourced. Even the tools and equipment we’ll need to take us to the next level have been identified.
So, it’s not world-ending that I didn’t make it up to the textile show this week. I’ll definitely be itching to make it to the October show and at that time, I’ll really need some new woven organics (I want prints!!). I’ve finally learned the true calming beauty to taking everything one day at a time. It’s the only way to operate with any sanity as a mom, wife, and business owner.
Anybody out there make it to the Textile Show? Did you find some good new vendors? Anything to share about trends?
I was also wondering about the new show at the convention center – is anyone attending that one? I think it’s later this month.
April 16th, 2009
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