The Daily Challenge

From my early plans to may be have a couple of orders a week as a bit of a hobby, I have been running Spangly Sparkles as a business for a year now.  Fortunately the process of running a business wasn't new to me having worked as a self employed HR/Employment Law Consultant prior the birth of my second daughter.  So I was able to apply that knowledge to get myself set up correctly with the Inland Revenue, absolutely essential and not as scary as you might think, and organise a very simple accounting system which, as long as I put the right information in, keeps track of my order values and costs and tells me if I'm actually making any money.

So if I knew how to run a business what were the challenges of my first year in business?

One of my biggest challenges initially was finding suppliers.  I needed regular and reliable suppliers who would be able to provide me what I needed at a good price and of good quality.  A price that would enable me to make my finished products at a price customers would pay, whilst allowing me to make a profit.  When I started I didn't know what stock levels to hold.  I didn't know what would be the most popular items and at the same time I wanted to expand my product range, so that meant taking a chance and buying more raw materials.  A year on I still haven't cracked this particular challenge.  What is popular one week will suddenly be replaced by something else.  When I first started out, my 20cm Letters were the most popular item and I would make, sometimes, 20 or more a week.  This last month I am busier than ever but I have made only 2!

My other challenge was Customers!  Perhaps it's wrong to consider Customers a challenge but believe me they are, and that is not because I have difficult customers! First of all without customers you won't have a business, so you need to get some. I was fortunate that I set up on facebook, made a few sales through Ebay and before I knew it word of mouth and recommendation meant my business grew at a rate I was happy with, so fortunately that wasn't a particular challenge for me. 

My Customer issue was and still is Managing Expectations.  Don't get me wrong most orders run without a problem, the order is placed, paid for, made and dispatched, but now and again life gets in the way!

First of all just about everything I make is a custom piece.  You can't just pick them off the shelf.  My work is made just as the customer wants it, from scratch, which takes time.  What also takes time is that unlike most of my competitors my wooden items are all sanded to within an inch of their lives, painted and then varnished so I know that my customers are getting quality that will last and survive the everyday bumps and knocks family life has to throw at them, which provides value for money as a lasting keepsake.  Now although most of my customers are aware that my items, by their very nature, take time to make, some of them think they can order today and it will be posted tomorrow.  Try as I might to manage expectation on this, I am not always successful.  Firstly, I cannot expect all of my customers to realise the work that goes into one of my items and secondly, because we have become a society that is so used to being able to get whatever we want right now that some people just don't do waiting very well!  This isn't a huge challenge but it is a notable one because it will be faced by anyone who hand makes custom work.

By far my greatest challenge related to Customers is managing their expectations to fit in with my own needs, something I am still struggling with and am likely to for some time yet.   First and foremost I am a full time Mum to two young children.  My children are my top priority and I only run my business to put me in a position to afford to pay for the likes of clothes, shoes, dancing and gymnastics lessons!  So as every Mum of young children knows your time and your life seldom is your own and rarely goes to plan.  Throw in the fact that I suffer from Hyermobility Syndrome which causes chronic pain and often means I struggle with day to day activities such as standing, walking, and lifting and you may understand that I have a bit of a problem on my hands from time to time!  There are no local Aunts, Uncles or Grandparents who can step in to help so my my long suffering husband and I muddle along as best we can, and that includes finding time to get my work done.

Someone I know who also runs a similar sized business said to me that her customers don't seem to care that she has a family and other responsibilities.  The absolute bottom line is, no, they don't, they want the product they have paid for by the date they said they wanted it!  Now if you make and provide something that they simply cannot get elsewhere then they will probably cut you some slack as long as you communicate with them.  Something I try to do, but it's not always easy when your child is ill or you are simply at the end of your tether.  I'm sure we all have those moments!  

If you are very lucky you will start to get regular customers who want what you make and no one else, and so will pretty much stick with you through thick and thin as long as you don't abuse the relationship.  I think I am very lucky, I have a core of lovely regular customers who have been more than understanding about the personal and supplier challenges I have faced this year and have stuck with me.  For that I am always grateful and I am even more grateful to now consider a few of these people my friends.  Designing for people can really give you an insight into their personality and I very much enjoy that about what I do.

As with all things, sometimes despite your best efforts you just can't win.  The realisation that you can't keep everyone happy all of the time is a tricky one, and if you're anything like me any type of complaint or criticism hurts.  I put my heart and sole into what I make,  I give up time with my family to make orders, so when someone complains, I'm not happy!  Fortunately it is a rarity.  A word of advice to anyone starting out in business, however hard you work and however hard you try there will always be someone who isn't happy.  For your own sake be ready to let a few customers go, you aren't for them and they aren't for you.  Work for those who you know appreciate what you do, they are the ones who will recommend you to others and they are the ones who will be repeat customers.  You may think that's easy for me to say when I am as busy as I am if you're just starting out and need every customer you can get, but it was true when I worked in the corporate world and it's even truer now making custom design work.

I don't always get the balance right between my family life and my work life and that's something I am trying to address this year.  Twelve months in I've learnt a great deal and I'm learning to manage my own expectations of what I am able to achieve in a day.  There will never be enough hours in the day, so the challenge for this year is to organise myself better and I think a part of that will be learning to say 'no' sometimes!  More on that another time.