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| The latest creation "Marianne" all that red white and blue just made me think patriotic |
Like you haven't already guessed from my gibbering on on this blog! Well the source of my dweebery is that I was supposed to start work at 9H30 this morning and here I am just sitting down to business and its 11am - an hour and half late for work, that sort of thing would get me into trouble if I had a boss and since I'm the boss well! Rocket up the arse matey! I can account for 40 minutes, that part of the original timetable didn't allow for which was taken up doing exercises and yoga and, whilst I agree that a work day should not necessarily be an exercise free day, I should have organised this better and probably got up earlier for example. Oh yes I ran on a bit on the personal correspondence too, again by at least 30mins add to that a bit of domestic faffing around and that explains the 90 minutes fallen by the wayside. I'm wondering if I can't work later to make up for it, lets see. I might get away with 30 mins for lunch and possibly an extra 30mins before supper. That'll have to do.
Hmmm not exactly the way Richard Branson or Bill Gates must have done it but then, this is my business and its not going to cost me my health, nor my sanity, so I need my sleep and my exercise. Just have to watch it next time.
I managed to do the pricing thing and the business plan last week and both have turned up some interesting thoughts and decisions. Not least the necessity for me to institute some sort of timesheet system. Haha just spent a minute dithering wanting to go off and put together a sexy timesheet for me to fill in - decided that can wait and I'll pop it on the todo list, meanwhile, scrappy bit of paper while I finish this.
Number one decision and discovery - my aprons are going to be really quite expensive, correction they're expensive now that I have factored in 1 hour of plain sewing but since the apron I made on Thursday took me 3 hours they are moving into the extraordinarily expensive range - and that wasn't even an embroidered one or anything special. There are a number of things slowing me down, so, I'm not that worried about this at this stage but it is something that needs to be addressed. I'll probably end up talking about this on a later post since its all about work flow that hasn't really had a fair run for its money yet.
But, here's the thing, it was fantastic to actually come up with a price that truly reflected what had gone into making the object. I know, its not rocket science and all business people already know that - there's a sort of "duh" bumping around in my head. But here's the thing everything I make is always very intricate and labour intensive, its usually beautifully made and gorgeous but it takes me a long time. What this means is that I have spent my entire life making stuff, loving making it but never actually trying to sell it because it would just be "too expensive". I have always gone on the premise that no one would ever pay me for the labour, let alone the quality and creativity of my work, of course what I'm thinking is that I wouldn't pay for it and, possibly I don't know anyone who would but that doesn't mean that no one would pay for it, does it? And that's what this whole palaver is about, trying to find out if anyone will buy my work for what it cost to make it.
My mother has this annoying habit of referring to profit as any money you make over and above the price of raw materials, it is possible that she is merely expressing an attitude that is prevalent today, I'll have to hope not, because the reality is that labour is a cost and time is not paid for with profit, profit is just that profit. Even now I'm bashing back the little voice in my head saying "yes but thing is only worth what someone's prepared to pay for it" - we're learning that bitter lesson trying to sell our house at the moment, and anyone who's had to sell their home with negative equity knows, its a bitter pill to swallow.
Anyway, my aprons aren't houses are they? And I have more control over my outlets (theoretically, at least) and, here's the thing, if I can't sell my aprons for what it cost me to make them, then I won't sell them - I would like to think that over the fullness of time I will either work out ways to reduce my costs or find customers who can and will pay the price but if I don't try, I'll never know.
I read about a woman who opened up a dog bakery in Paris the other day - so, if there's a market for baked goods for dogs, surely there's a market for my aprons…I believe the comment that was made was something like "if the figures stack up anything is possible". Do you know what? I think I'll contact him and ask if I can quote him on here. Mutter, mutter another thing on the todo list…
I did the business plan too, I could since I'd thrashed my way through pricing, its only written out and not looking sexy yet (but that will come) but there was one part of it that gave me pause for thought. Come to think of a a few bits, even all of it, but the one that's had me humming and haaing all week is the bit about goals. The blog said that it was a good idea to set goals to work towards. I'm still essentially in a "holding position" as I write this. My aprons are posted on Etsy and are for sale but I haven't really "launched" yet. I've got most of the social media accounts lined up but am not really completely conversant with what I'm doing with them and they'll all need a bit of polishing. And then there's advertising which I will need to move to at some point, particularly given how expensive my aprons have become overnight. So, a logical goal would be a launch date.
I don't think you launch with only 9 aprons for sale - I wonder how many I would need? The sewing day last Thursday made me realise that I need to invest in some better equipment - not just repair some of my existing kit. And then, of course there's the packaging and stationery to pay for - I'd love to do a proper photo shoot too.
Ah yes, that's all the fun stuff but what about my company status? I need to get to the bottom of that and make sure that every thing is above board and, I dare say, that's going to cost money too… so, the long and short of it is that I'm going to need some money to get started. Fortunately I won't have to ask anyone else, banks, parents, friends - which of course, no one ever really wants to do anyway, but because we're trying to sell our house, one fine day, we'll have a bit of spare cash and I'll be able to invest into my fledgling business, and, who knows, maybe even pay it back! Of course the big question mark with all that is when is the house going to be sold?
But that can be my deadline - I'll have at least 3 months warning before the funds will be available, which will give me 3 months to get my act together. Big sigh, there, I really think I need my excellent photo shoot to launch and am wondering if I can take the photos and be the stylist and just hire a model. Of course, that's the problem when you're a one woman band - everything takes just a bit more time and you don't necessarily have all the skills - finding a photographer might be a plan…
In the meantime I'll just plod on making my gorgeous aprons and building up a stock and working out how to speed up the process without losing quality or individuality, and my latest little discovery, try to fathom Canva and its many secrets…
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