Vacation

So, deciding to tag along with my husband for work was a little more complicated then usual. The rain just wouldn't let up and that narrowed our activities a bit. We were in L.A. and yes we did go to Disneyland, in the rain, until it started creating little pools of water in our ponchos while seated on the rides.
However, we did get to go to a few great indoor activities for the kids. All in all it was a good trip- just not exactly the way I had first imagined.
Over the course of the week we were gone one of the products I sell, BabbaCo. carseat covers, was featured on Rachel Ray's talk show. Lucky for me Lizzy's Busy Baby Products was featured on BabbaCo.'s site as store of the month so we got a little bit of action. This was a nice surprise and definitely a boost to the slow January sales.
Unfortunately, I did not change my settings (email,website,phone) to acknowledge a time of business delay or out of office. This trip was short and somewhat close to home but, in the future I will need to teach some of LBBP's supporters how to handle shipping and go over our products storage. Having another person help out every now and then would be nice!

Credit-eesh!

I started my business and was maintaining it via credit. Then all the passages were created to insure credit responsibility and they took lots of said business credit away. Of course I had felt that it wasn't any fair since I had made all my payments on time for the life of that card-but that was neither here nor there- it was gone!

So I moved on to my husbands card and eventually they did the same thing- apparently actually making your payments on time isn't enough, starting a business is nothing they care about and a great credit history us just that history.

Blarg, bleh, eesh, uck and AAAHHHHH! Crying didn't work either!

I started to go crazy worrying thinking I couldn't get to where I needed to be- how could I buy supplies, get items manufactured, advertise with out the money?

I started sewing with the fabrics I already had, and bought small amounts of scrap fabric with my measly spending dollars I had every month. I started doing focus groups to get extra cash to infuse into my business and pay the bills that were rearing their ugly heads and the credit was almost gone! That helped a bit.
Of course the most magical thing that could ever happen happened...I started to sell things here and there, and October was better then September ,November better than October and December the best month so far. I am no where near turning a profit but at least I could pay my last outstanding bills, buy some things (2) for Merry X-mas, buy some sample materials for a new bin design and the best yet start saving to take over one of those 2 mighty large credit card bills that funded this "project" as my 3 year old calls it.

I feel like a teenager setting out into the big world- needing some, wanting much, with empty pockets and a budget book.

Monday, I sold out of my 3rd BabbaCo. carseat cover. I only have 1 of each so I just reordered the same 2 that I am out of (leaving the 3rd for a spring reorder if not sooner)- I hate to see the temporarily out of stock notice on so many items in the new year. Don't get me wrong, I love that I sold out of things. However, I need to fill those holes in my stock for the new year. Plus, my store is BabbaCo.'s highlighted merchant for January- so there is a little video spot about my company. How embarrassing to have my store featured but her products sold out! She is so great and her products are original and cute, and I am excited to have the additional advertisement from her company. I hope to do a lot of business with BabbaCo. in the future. She is a good mentor!

I am feeling very squished- my goal is to pay my bill January 12 with business money...God I hope that can happen. January needs to be a better month than December to keep this expansion rolling.
My thoughts to get that done- weekly giveaways, sales and informing more blogs about my business.
Remember my goals: Pay own business bills,
grow the 4-7 year old section, revamp and market one of my items to the big time, do the Expo (market the revamped item), website redesign/greener web host and if all of that goes well- expand the busy mommy section.
Breath...eesh!