Working with the great British public presents it's unique challenges and believe me,after 20 years of customer service, I've pretty much dealt with them all from being groped while carrying a full tray of glasses, being spat at after refusing to serve a drunk customer, being stuck with a £60 bill after my table legged it without paying and cleaning up more alcohol laden puke than I care to think about... so it is with great joy that travelling to work these days only involves going down the stairs and turning right out of the kitchen to spend the day with myself.
My studio AKA the dining room is tucked away at the back of the house with no distractions...or so I thought smugly as I hung up my serving cloth for the last time and embarked on starting my own business,working from home. I'm now 5 months into this crazy venture and every day is a huge learning curve and hanging out in the dining room now has a very different purpose.
I'm not complaining,I was so ready for a new challenge. Quite frankly it's a miracle I hadn't all ready spontaneously combusted whilst polishing my millionth piece of cutlery. In retrospect throwing myself in at the deep end of being my own boss was possibly the act of a desperate woman but,like motherhood,it's probably not something you'd actually do if you only looked at it in black and white, which goes to prove this Cheryl Strayed quote correct.Those shitty waitressing jobs did add up to something, they gave me the drive to go out and work doing something that I actually love and that fit's in with the ever increasing demands of my life.
So I get to my desk/dining room table by 9am,5 days a week then all hours of the weekend too .I'm ever increasingly surrounded by piles of bright fabric, all begging me to make something, and random vintage items that I really want to keep but have to sell.
It's a weird midcentury cornucopia of work & love,I couldn't ask for more inspirational eye candy, although I fear the imminent toppling of my vintage suitcase tower...up to 8 this week,its like a game of retro Jenga when I want to find something in the bottom one.
This week however things have been quiet and I've been going a bit stir crazy stuck in the studioslashdiningroom and have been wandering away from my desk a fair bit. If I make it out of the kitchen I don't seem to find my way back.The hall needs hoovering, there's a pile of washing,grass needs cutting & when is the last time I changed the beds? Housework jumps out at you with every diversion from your desk and it's easy to get distracted.
After wasting away a good hour touching up the chipped paint on the stairs...with Hammerite ( It's not even like there was a tin of gloss beseeching me from the shed) I have realised that getting the motivation is one thing,keeping it is another,especially when sales are sluggish and Ebay send you a whopping bill for all your hard work...
Staying inspired when the chips are down is to be another challenge on this learning curve so I've had a word with myself and spent the day away from the sewing machine.I finally used the accounting software I'd enthusiastically signed up for, then studiously ignored, watched some how to succeed on Ebay videos on You Tube then decided I'd write this blog about procrastination whilst blatantly procrastinating...My multi tasking is getting awesome ;)
And as an ironic joyful consequence I've sold two things while I've been blethering onto you so maybe a little break from bossing myself around is no bad thing...
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http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/wildsandfree
So here we are,officially in business...I have a letter from the Tax office with my company name on it & everything...The fact that I can't actually log in to my account because I've lost my reference number, I am blaming on the Admin assistant/ Marketing manager/ Senior Seamstress/Sales Rep/Head buyer and Tea girl,errr, Me.It's no wonder I couldn't see where I'd put it from under all those hats...
Thank God then (and my sister who bought it for me) for #Girlboss by NastyGal founder Sophia Amoruso (http://www.nastygal.com/) which is kicking my ass through the first few weeks of being the boss of me. I won't spoil her story too much with details but from one girl going out on an Ebay wing and a prayer, to another, she is inspiring me at every page turn.
I'm a single parent, which is a confusing curse and blessing. If I don't make any money I can't rely on another income to pay the bills, which in turn gets me out of bed at 4am to get stuff done and fuels my determination to make my business succeed. One of the many reasons I want to be own #girlboss is so that I can work flexibly to be there for my kids.Another is to stand by the life lessons I am trying to teach them,that you can do anything you want, if you work hard at it.
Three weeks into selling and I've had one good sales week and two of the 'Beans for tea' kind but thanks to Sophia I refuse to be phased. I knew from the start that this was going to be the steepest learning curve since realising babies don't come with a guidebook...and I need to heed her sage wisdom that, " When your goal is to gain experience,perspective and knowledge, failure is no longer a possibility."
She advises that when an item doesn't sell, it's not because of the item ( My mantra is if you don't love it, don't sell it in the first place) but how you've gone about marketing it and I know that that's the hat I'm least comfortable in (though clearly the admin hat needs a jauntier angle too.)
Sewing machine wins over self promotion every time but I 'm going to have to put my fabric away and get busy with my sales pitch. Suggestions welcome.
There are moments of doubt,I'm only human and a stupidly sensitive one at that but I'm learning to tell those niggles to shut the hell up. I've never done most of those jobs before,it would be arrogant to assume I can nail all of them from the off.
I took a rare day off this week to have a huge sort out (before I lost one the children in the piles of stock) & to actually get out the house. Something about driving always lends my brain to serious thought,the kids joke about the conversations we end up having, I find it's a perfect time to enlighten them, as they can't walk away from me...
So I'm musing on how to move forward with the business and trying to silence those asforementioned doubts when I had a problem with my truck and I pulled into Kwikfit in Heanor and the mechanic was a girl. I've been driving 20 years and trust me, I've frequented a lot of garages, but I have never met a female mechanic before, I'm sure she's not the only one but it didn't stop me gushing over her like she was the second coming. Afterwards I wondered if it was conversely sexist to comment on the fact, after all why shouldn't a woman be a mechanic? but whatever the politically correct reaction would have been, I knew she was a sign to ignore the odds and as Sophia puts it ,"Difficult doesn't mean impossible and out of the bajillion things in this universe that you can't control,what you can is how hard you try."
I best crack on then...
http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/wildsandfree
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Find me on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/wildsandfree/
I'm not complaining,I was so ready for a new challenge. Quite frankly it's a miracle I hadn't all ready spontaneously combusted whilst polishing my millionth piece of cutlery. In retrospect throwing myself in at the deep end of being my own boss was possibly the act of a desperate woman but,like motherhood,it's probably not something you'd actually do if you only looked at it in black and white, which goes to prove this Cheryl Strayed quote correct.Those shitty waitressing jobs did add up to something, they gave me the drive to go out and work doing something that I actually love and that fit's in with the ever increasing demands of my life.
So I get to my desk/dining room table by 9am,5 days a week then all hours of the weekend too .I'm ever increasingly surrounded by piles of bright fabric, all begging me to make something, and random vintage items that I really want to keep but have to sell.
