Working Weekend

There is no royal, flower-strewn path to success. And if there is, I have not found it. For if I have accomplished anything in life, it is because I have been willing to work hard. – C.J. Walker

This past weekend I have been at the mall doing a vendor show for my Stella & Dot business.  I signed up for this show on a whim less than a week ahead of the show and spent 4 days panicking and trying to find a few other people to split the time and cost with.  I shared most of Sunday with a couple stylists but spent 11 hours on both Friday and Saturday standing in essentially one spot.

I have been vacillating about whether to continue to pursue my Stella & Dot business but decided with the holiday's approaching I just couldn't pass up an opportunity to capture some Christmas shopping business.  And when I saw a sign for this show I went for it.

I ended up getting quite a few great leads and am confident I will more than recoup the money I spent on the show.  But even if I hadn't gotten a single name it would have been worth it for the experience and for the training I received from the other vendors who were more than happy to share their tips and tricks for both doing vendors shows but also for running a small business.  And I think, more than ever, I realize that selling Stella & Dot jewelry is not a job but a business.  Two very different things.

So the tag line for this site is "How hard can it be to make $5,000/month?"  Over the past few months I have come to realize it is a little harder than I thought.  But not impossible.  The tasks themselves aren't hard but deciding to make the commitment and put out the effort necessary can be, at times, very hard work.  Standing 11 hours a day, most of those hours spent just watching people walk by you madly avoiding eye contact, was really hard work.  Exhausting.  It will take days for my feet to recover from the experience.  I have a totally new respect for people who work retail.

One of my big take aways from another vendor was something he had heard at a recent training event.  He said in the beginning you are paid way less than you are worth.  While I make good money at my shows I am having to continue to reinvest in new product plus take time away from shows to prepare, learn, set up, market, etc.  In the beginning you do a lot of work that doesn't pay and spend on products and promotions which can eat up your profits.  Then at some point your hard work pays off and you start making about what you are worth.  If you keep working you will eventually pop up to the level we all want to be at, where we are making far more than we are worth.  This is not just true of a direct sales business like Stella & Dot.  While I can see exactly what I need to do to reach each of those levels the reality is each of those levels exists in any business.  The question is which level are you at and which level do you want to be at?

What I realized is that I am on the first level but trying to pretend I am on the second level.  On the first level I need to realize it is not about making money, it is about building a business which will eventually pay me what I am worth.  I have been focused on making the money and as a result am holding myself back from building the business.

So I continue to march forward very much in the hard work season of life and business building but slowly I am learning to embrace and appreciate this season.

Can't wait to see what happens next!