I'm a Pathetic Dweeb

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…

The Price Isn't Right...yet

Introducing Evie my latest apron inspired from a 1920's pattern made from some of my "expensive" fabric

So, this is clearly going to be the way of things… start off the day with a "collecting of thoughts" and post it on blogspot. Two main jobs on the horizon today.  Sorting out my pricing strategy and putting together a business plan.  My goodness just writing that down has got me all hot and bothered and I've had to take my jumper off!

Last week I started rootling around the Etsy website looking for information and ended up perusing what they call their Shopkeepers Manual, I think that's what it was called (haha idiot! its called the "Seller Handbook") but it seems to be basically a collection of informational blogs.  Two in particular caught my attention the one about getting the price of your product right called "How to Price like a Pro" by Abby Feuer and the other one about the importance of a business plan "How to Write a Creative Business Plan in Under An Hour" by Caroline Cummings.  

Of course I haven't done any of this stuff yet, just been letting it rattle around in the back of my head for the last few days but, to be honest, the pricing thing has been an issue right from the beginning.  The way I came to my price in the first place was to see how much everyone else was charging and then charge just a little bit more knowing full well that that wouldn't get me anywhere near my costs I suppose the idea being that I needed to get them out there and that I could worry about price later.  Well, they haven't exactly flown off the shelves and after having read the blog about pricing I realised that by not pricing my aprons properly I wasn't really taking them or me very seriously. 

I have also come to realise that there's not much motivation to be had from making something that won't make you any money.  So, given that the aprons haven't sold at the cheap price (albeit that I haven't been knocking myself out to promote them either) I might as well charge what I want since they're not selling anyway.  Aha now there's a freudian slip if ever I saw one "charge what I want" that could mean anything but of course what I want is to be paid for my labour (at least) and my creativity(at best) so, what I want is not exactly the Earth.  

Of course there are a few unknowns in the mix too.  "How to price like a pro"  suggested paying myself a minimum wage that's going to take some looking into and I'm guessing that employing myself here in France is not going to be the cheapest option but, of course the idea behind that is that the business has to be sustainable even if you're only doing it for a day or two a week.  Thank goodness for the internet is all I can say.  The other imponderable - now I'm guessing that that's not even a word in English but the spell checker hasn't twitched so I'll go with it - is my raw materials.  I can't even remember where I got a lot of my fabrics let alone how much they cost.  The best I can do is "that one was expensive".  Of course any fabrics bought in the future will be systematically labelled and there will be book keeping to keep track but, to start with…I really will just have to pluck a figure out of the air.  I could also function on a sort of budget: that I don't get to spend more than a certain amount on fabric for an apron for example - naaaaa that's not going to work what about the gloriously sequinned peacock apron that just sprung into my head?

Here's the thing, all this serious stuff has meant that I've really had to force myself to work today, I really, really didn't want to sit down to do the sensible stuff.  And then I realised its not the fact that its the sensible stuff its that I'm taking this seriously and therefore finally, after all this time committing to my own little business.  Its funny really, I never really had myself pegged as a commitophobe, but then running my own business has been a dream since childhood and, for some reason I've always shied away from it.  Actually, more to the point, I've refused at the last hurdle.  

There have been a few endeavours in the past and I've always found reasons to move on to something else, but the blog about creating a business plan "How to Get Serious About your Etsy Shop" really put me on the spot - talking about fear of failure or success. 

I was just thinking about how I'm a bit of a harsh critic of aprons and am thinking that that's all part of the trying to back out of it type stunt and then musing about the fact that I have decided to stand my ground on this particular venture and wondering "why this one?".  I find the answer to that one is easy, "because I know its right" ; its right for me, its right for now and its doable.  But here's the funny thing, of all the things that I have ever made and sold or talked about selling people close to me are the least impressed by the aprons, they just don't seem to get them.  I'm thinking most particularly about my little sister, Nicky, who, strangely was the recipient of my very first "glamour apron" 7 years ago on her hen night.  Nicky died last Christmas, she was ill for a long time before hand, and was someone who had a real zest for life.  She was always very encouraging about my creative endeavours and always telling me how I should sell this or that item but never really got the aprons.  So its a bit ironic that I have decided to push through all this angst and dithering and do this thing precisely because I want to make my life count for her.  Still that just makes it all the more real.  I'm the one who has to believe in my product, oh yes, me and my eventual customers.  

And that's what Etsy had to say about writing out a business plan, even if its just on a sheet of A4 and only takes an hour (haha here's hoping) its a commitment and makes the whole thing real.  Whoop, whoop I'm going to grit my teeth and come out of this with a proper business and I'm not going to knock my lovely aprons ever again!