Common Mistakes Theme #3 - Learning to Say "No"

We're now on our last theme for common mistakes that happen with small businesses - or at least, the mistakes that have been common to my small business. This last one is probably the hardest, and I know a lot of you deal with difficulty in saying "no". I'm no pro now, but I'm much better, and here are some of my experiences.


Theme #3 - Learn to Say "No" When it Comes to Doing Favors

I could go on and on about the lessons I've learned from this theme (maybe another blog post someday). When I first started my business I was happy to get whatever experience and project I could. However, as my business grew, I found myself needing to value both my work and my time. I could no longer bend over backwards for people in ways that cost me significantly more than I was charging them. While I don't want to give a specific example for this one, I can tell you generally how this goes:

An old friend from highschool/work/town contacts me and asks for invitations/announcements/cards but really doesn't want to spend a lot of money. They ask what I would be able to do for them, and I basically agree to give them whatever they wanted for such a small amount of money that I knew I really would be losing money. But maybe I'd get a referral, so I convinced myself it was worth it. Then the old friend/coworker/dog-walker would want to make ten thousand design changes, and what about matching envelopes, or skinny labels, or textured-shimmery paper? And, oh, they needed them within two days. You get the picture. I know we all want to help out our old friends and acquaintances, but unfortunately undervaluing your worth as a designer is just not a good business practice.

Lessons Learned:

• Don't undervalue your work
• Offer a flat percentage as a "friends and family" discount off of regular, full priced items
• Not everybody is your "friend or family"
• Unless I sit next to you at Christmas Dinner, I am going to charge you regular pricing for any super-fabulous-totally-custom design
• Learn the word "no" and use it when you need to
• Have a contract that outlines your services and exactly what you'll be delivering (I am working on mine right now!)

So there you have it - the three main themes of which I've learned most of my small business lessons. My main themes were Theme #1 - Rushing Isn't Always Good; Theme #2 - Test Things Out and Theme #3 - Learning to Say No. Like I said in the introductory post, I'm not highlighting mistakes I've made in a way to put myself, or anybody else down. I'm actually doing it for the opposite reason - hopefully you'll be able to learn from these mistakes, or maybe they seem familiar already and you have your own ways for dealing with them.

The point of this mini-series is to show that mistakes happen, we learn from them and hone our business practices so that the same mistakes don't continue to happen. I'd love to hear your input on if this mini series has been helpful, and if you have any experiences you'd like to add.

Common Mistakes Theme #2 - Test Things Out

So we're onto the second theme in the Mistakes Happen series - I'm sure you're already laughing at how similar Theme #1 sounded to you. Let's move right on into the second theme...


Theme #2 - Test Things Out

There are lots of techniques and tools out there, but just because other people have mastered them, doesn't mean you'll be able to pick it up over night. Test things out thoroughly before offering to charge money for it. Here's an example:

Remember these pretty pink silhouette little girl cards? We used little crystals on the fronts of the card, and I had heard somebody recommend self-sticking crystals, so I decided to use them. I spent hours attaching them to the cards, and once they were all done, I packaged them up and sent them off. A few days later my client emailed me to let me know that she got the cards, but all the crystals fell off. I was devastated. I reprinted all of the cards and used the clear crystals I had always used in the past (I knew they would stay glued forever!). The next day I wiggled each one to make sure they were secure, and then I sent them to my customer. My customer emailed me to say that the cards arrived and were in great shape, but that she had really needed pink crystals. I ended up mailing her a third batch of cards, without any crystals at all, so that she could try to find the exact pink ones she wanted. At the end of the day, my client was so fabulously understanding and patient, but I completely felt like a failure.

Lessons Learned:

• Don't ship something new until your positive it's good quality
• Communicate often - I should have told my customer that I was using clear crystals because the pink ones were back-ordered 
• Do more research - don't take just one person's opinion. Or if you are taking somebody's opinion, test out a sample of something first
• Double-check your work. When I switched to a new program for printing invitation envelope addresses, I found the new system botched a bunch of addresses. Unfortunately, I found out when my bride got all her invitations back.  

Anybody want to share how long their first orders with ribbons/crystals/bows/embellishments took to put together? Luckily my husband is super detail oriented, so he always helps me get things perfectly. But the very first order I had took us both nearly all night! 

Ready to learn a little more? Can you relate to Theme #3? It's all about learning to say no when people ask for favors - which is even harder when you know the person!

Small Business Mistakes Happen, Learn to Fix Them

*yes, I know it says miskates. sh!t happens, what are you going to do about it?

I don't care what you call them - mistakes, mishaps, errors, learning opportunities, screw ups, whatever - they happen, so you better learn to deal with them. I've made a lot of mistakes since throwing myself into the self-taught world of stationery design and small business ownership. I've had little mishaps, big meltdowns, and many sleepless nights. However, I am a firm believer in learning from the past, and so lots of mistakes, means lots of learning. The mistakes weren't intentional, these things just happen, and if you have a small business, I am sure you could easily rattle off all of your "learnings" from when you started off. I'm glad the mistakes happened, because that's how I got to where I am today, and how I learned not to make the same mistake twice.

The "Mistakes Happen" posts aren't exactly ones I am proud to share. Nobody wants to admit that they've done something wrong, especially not to the whole wide blogiverse. But I'm confident that my experiences will be helpful for those of you just starting out. While you may be able to avoid some of the mistakes I've made, don't fool yourself into thinking that you'll never again make a mistake. I'm sure this little series of posts will be a continuous one, and I'll try to periodically reflect on things I've learned the hard way.

I've bucketed my mistakes into general themes, since that seems to be the way things happened. The three themes are:

Rushing Isn't Always Good
Test Things Out
Learn to Say "No" When it Comes to Doing Favors

I'm going to do a blog post on each theme, starting in about an hour with the first theme, so keep checking back throughout the week. In each post, I'll give one example of when that theme really tripped me up, and then give the lessons I learned for moving forward. Are any of your mistakes in themes? Have you had to learn some things the hard way?