Hello everyone!

Today starts a new monthly project between Ann, Lesley, Jackie and myself. We’ll be sharing our business stories on each others blogs once a month and encouraging each other and you to participate and chime in with suggestions whenever. We’re all pretty much the same: four young female creative entrepreneurs trying to succeed and build each other up. A sister circle. There is nothing better than having the honest encouragement of someone who understands what you’re going through. I decided to create this group and asked these 3 women to join me because I felt that we could all only benefit from the mutual support. Please share your comments and be sure to jump around to meet the other women participating! Now on to Lesley’s story…

♥♥♥

A little back story

I’ve worked in HR for the majority of my professional life as it is often easiest to find administrative jobs that provide financially but I’ve also taken breaks from that ho hum grind in order to work in fields I actually have a passion for, baking and gardening. Although I felt fulfilled personally when I worked in a bakery and a large garden my pockets were a bit shy. The need to have more for my quickly growing (and quite hungry) boys trumped my warm fuzzies about two years ago and I went back to Human Resources. I enjoyed my first job back in the corporate world, as it was at a nonprofit where I still felt like I was doing good work. Not even a year in, another company who offered more money, a shorter commute, and better benefits pursued me. Even though I had a funny feeling about the change I went forward with it. After a week there I was miserable. I wasn’t doing the job they offered me and I was not meshing well with the woman who was maybe my supervisor. (I say maybe because there wasn’t a lot of structure in place.) After four agonizing months they came to me the morning after I returned from a short trip and informed me, “It just wasn’t working out.” For the first time in fifteen years I found myself terminated and without a job! Month one of unemployment I looked tirelessly for a new position and watched seemingly everything on Netflix while lying on the couch in pajamas. My husband suggested I find something else to do with my time while waiting for something to pan out with a new job. I was wasting away right before his eyes. I had sold maybe three vintage dresses on Etsy the year before in order to rid myself of items I absolutely would never fit again as well as my 50s era wedding dress. I had some more items I’d like to unload and a bit of extra money couldn’t hurt. I listed them and thought, “My page looks so sad with only four items. Maybe I should do some thrifting and fill at least one page?” Within a month I had a couple pages filled but business was not booming in the least. My photos were sub par and I truly didn’t know how to utilize Etsy. I was a mess! In an effort to represent my shop and myself appropriately I dove in headfirst. I started taking things seriously and re-photographed my items, read everything I could about how to maximize my exposure, researched vintage, devoured info on Etsy, thrifted, and worked on branding.

Where I am

Instead of one full page of items I now have over 150 listed at all times. I absolutely love the hunt and being able to share a once loved thing with someone who sees it as a new treasure. I currently spend large portions of my time searching out vintage to share with the world. The rest is spent laundering, pressing, modeling, and photographing these wares. I also upcycle vintage earrings so they are wearable for people with stretched ears. That has become a large part of my business and I really love the flexibility that gives ladies with gauged ears. (We wanna wear pretty earrings, too!) Although I admittedly know very little about technology I am now taking better photos with a much better camera. (Thanks to my husband.) I am also utilizing social media for my business and blogging which is also a new frontier for me.

2012 Goals:

- Increase stock in my shop and reach 400 items by the end of the year.
- Provide a wider selection of items to my customers.
- Improve my photography.
- Actually market my business and myself with intention.
- Participate in a trunk show or pop up shop.
- Improve my record keeping.
- Be focused in how I’d like my business to be perceived image wise.
- Network with other small business owners.
- Improve my blogging skills.
- Become more tech savvy. (Seriously, I want to punch things because I’m so bad with technology.)
- Work on scheduling and time management.

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Don’t forget to check out Ann‘s, Jackie‘s and Sherisa‘s posts today!

So, are any of you ladies relatively new business owners? Any tips to share on how to deal with time management? Did you start your business on Etsy? How has it worked out for you?

Last week, I started using the Spark Kit by Danielle LaPorte and I wrote about being super energized into action. Since then, I think my energies have slowed down from feeling propelled to do/make/be into figuring out the why behind it all. For some reason, that has been a popular topic on some other blogs that I frequent. It seems like this is the perfect season to get my full intentions for this business and other areas of my life better sorted out.

In the Spark Kit, Danielle asks that you do a past purge, where you list every business mistake you feel you’ve made. Every single one. Let it all out and let it sit on the paper, ink still wet. I also took the time to list all the things I mentally blame myself for. Things that are generally beyond my power to control, but I still allow it to suck my energy. Even if I don’t constantly think about it. Just knowing that it is there, somewhere, swimming around in my brain.

The next step is to pick your top 3 biggest mess ups and list the following:

Your best screw up
Lesson learned
Pattern you’ve noticed
Betterment

When I did that, it really actually made me feel better about letting go of crap because I realized the issues I picked are ones that require conscious character readjustment. They are ones I have historically struggled with personally then get serious about and stop, only to have it manifest itself in some other area of my life without fully realizing it. This time, it entered my business mindset.

Coincidentally, I was reading Amy’s (Angry Chicken) last post after I finished that worksheet and she was talking about one of the exact same issues I deal with emotionally. She spoke about feeling honestly good for a friend of hers after hearing good news about that friend:

“I had to admit, I don’t always feel that way about all the successes of others. Sometimes I feel sensitive, hyper-critical, and prone to comparing and all that.”

“I don’t think anything horrible about that person, but it gets me going, feeling like I need to do more—read more, create more, utilize more of my potential, or something like that. It’s not just online either, it comes up with so many things in life. The constant need I have to improve. To be goal oriented. It’s a slippery slope and so very detrimental to my creativity and overall contentment.”

Amy then goes on to say how she started to declare “good for them!” every time she heard good news for people and how it released her to just be who she is without feeling pressure because of their success. It’s funny that in the same way the internet can make you feel like you know people after reading their blog but never interacting with them, the online small business world can make you feel like you have to be ahead of everyone who seems like an overnight success.

Or you have to be an overnight success.

I know I’ve struggled with that.

I have read personal blogs for years and then one day the author says “I just decided to whip up this jewelry real quick. I hope you like it” and they are an overnight success. I know I’ve felt like that isn’t fair, but what was I really complaining about? It isn’t about those people as much as it was about me. Me feeling like I just don’t have it, when I know I do. I allowed those temporary feelings to take root. When I did the purge exercise, it lead me to one of those conclusions. Then Amy echoed it. It is perfectly fine, great even, to feel good for the success of others. It also should have no affect on how you proceed in business and in life.

Recently, I was chatting with a girlfriend of mine and she asked me how I was doing. I replied with “I am exceptional!” I decided in that moment that one of my goals is to try as much as possible to feel exceptional. It is a wonderful feeling. Then it got me to thinking about the other posts I’d been reading online about the WHY of your business.

In the next post, I’ll dive down into the WHY.

I just noticed this is shaping up to be one extremely long post.

Hi!

(Yes, this is a bit long winded. Bear with me.)

It is now 3:30p here in Amsterdam and since about 10a I’ve been going non stop into Danielle LaPorte‘s SPARK kit, which I purchased yesterday.

Can we talk about fire???

LIT UNDER MY ASS AND IN MY BELLY??!

Seriously.

Yesterday I read most of the first part of the module where she discusses The Burning Questions. In there, she shares a pivotal moment for her and asks us to explore what ours might be. Why are we entrepreneurs. This isn’t a hobby for me. It never was, actually. Creating with my mind and hands and affecting change are two core aspects to my every day life. I live to bring out the good in others and have them take more care with surrounding life. I find great joy in making others happy. But not superficially, more truly. I take great pride in the items I make. I am not interested in fleeting things. I am interested in permanence, legacy. I feel like a lot of the time, for whatever reason I do not project outwardly what I am inwardly. That is very damaging to me personally and professionally and it’s time to make a change. I am learning in leaps and bounds daily. That is what life is for.

Today I’ve been going through the worksheets. Taking my time and writing with pen and paper. Feeling out my thoughts, really writing to get what I think about constantly on paper. Making sure that I am not withholding anything, because that will do me absolutely no good. Her questions are simple enough to fool you into giving a surface answer, but I think when you are really serious about change, no question crosses you as surface.

One question that really stumped me was, “What books have inspired you?”

Why would that stump me? Mainly because I am not really much of a small business how-to book reader just like I’m not into self-help books all too much. As I started to write my honest list I noticed a very striking and common thread. One that also read to exactly the type of person I see myself as.

I’ve listed these books before on my blog. When I started thinking again off the top of my head to answer this question, this was my list (you can purchase all of these books on amazon):

:To be young, gifted and black – Lorraine Hansberry
:The long dream – Richard Wright
:Lady Sings the blues – Billie Holiday
:The fire next time – James Baldwin
:Black boy – Richard Wright
:Their eyes were watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
:Invisible man – Ralph Ellison
:The metamorphosis – Franz Kafka
:Manchild in the promised land – Claude Brown
:Joe Turner’s come and gone – August Wilson
:For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf – Shange Ntozake

Each one of these books deal with real, serious struggle and end with revelation. Be it good or bad based on your interpretation of the text, revelation is always the outcome. Strong revelations. The stories all bring me to moments of madness and real anger and pain and there is a relief at the end of the story. Life altering books. Strength is the common thread. Regardless of everything they are put through they are victorious in their own right at the end. I think for me, as far as a personal list of my favorite books, this speaks oceans to how I really see myself. I relate to these characters. I may not have similar literal struggles (I never woke up and was a bug) and some burdens may be self inflicted, but there will be relief and I am strong. And just realizing that as I wrote out this list woke me up a bit.

Danielle asks us to let go of all the crap in your past in order to concentrate on your future. As I was writing, I feel like I left a lot of weight in those pages and will be leaving more still as I make my way through the program. She really asks us to write out our dreams. I wrote an entire page of what I want for my future and left space because I know I’m not done. I can feel me revisiting this repeatedly to add more. That is exciting and powerful. Truly.

There are lots of things that will be changing about this space. LOTS. I feel like although I’ve been working at it bit by bit, I am about to sensibly steamroll through everything. I have no reason why I should be doing anything less! REALLY!

Then, I come across this awesome link on Leandra’s blog, What My World Is Like: I thought, “AMEN!”

We need to be doing all these things as often as possible. Daily.

I am pretty positive I’ll be talking about this as I go through it bit by bit. If you are using the Spark Kit, feel free to chime in. If you don’t have it, PLEASE go to her site and do yourself the favor!

Goodday!

So I was supposed to go out last night to a birthday celebration, but I hadn’t been feeling the best all week AND yesterday morning I woke up with a serious (and I mean SERIOUS) creative itch. I just had to make as much as I could.

And I did!

Not only did I experiment with whatever was going on in my head…I started seed beading again..AT NIGHT! And couldn’t stop until I did a few pairs of earrings. I’ll be doing more of that today too.

I know that lots of creative people say that you should try and give yourself normal business hours when starting an at-home small business. For fear of not having some sort of structure. But isn’t that one of the reasons we no longer want to be a part of the cubicle world anyway? Constriction and too much structure?

I’ve always known I am very much the person to want to do something when it hits me. That can be dangerous (because what if nothing hits me? For days, weeks, months, years even? I’ve had it happen before with writing.) But it’s also soooo freeing. I don’t care where it hits me. So long as it’s somewhat clear mentally. Even if I’m on vacation, I wouldn’t mind. When I’m creating, I feel free. Until my hands start to hurt (this too, applies to writing…haha)

So I created yesterday. A multitude of things. I am going to start using a plugin soon as the hubby shows me how to use it (I’m so analog quill and paper…he is futuristic moon baby). Just to cut down on the scrolling factor.

Anyway, this is isn’t one of those times. So get ready to scroll! HAHA!

All my love,
Sherisa

There you have it! I’m actually missing one or two I think. I packed them somewhere else and I don’t remember where right now

So I am guessing there will be more of the same today. Between washing my hair. And twisting my hair. I actually might not do any today, depending on how many hours I’m dealing with the hair.

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