Newsletter & Coffee Talk

 A few weeks ago I announced that I would be launching a newsletter as a way to better bring information and updates to all of you, and I am really excited to say that the first newsletter will be sent tomorrow! My friend and fellow designer, Brooke, helped me create a really beautiful template by coding it all nice & nice. Thank you Brooke!

So now that I have it basically finished, I want to share a few thoughts I have on the process.

First off, what is the purpose of my newsletter? As I began typing it, I really felt like I was sharing things two people might discuss while sipping caffé lattes at a local coffee house. It felt casual, comfortable and personal. I realized that I view this blog as the more formal form of communication, as if I was giving a presentation to a large audience at a conference. On the other hand, the newsletter is like all of the informal conversations that happen between friends before-hand. The newsletter is where I share with you how I feel, what I'm excited/nervous about, and what my big plans are. Maybe, in the future, you'll hear me formally address some of the topics here on the blog, and sometimes you'll hear about things that go on behind the scenes that are just between us coffee sipping friends.

So if you're interested in having coffee with me, once or twice a month, I invite you to sign up for the newsletter.

I'll also share some insights around my blog, shop, and products. It's important for me to give an accurate view of what it's like to grow a business, and the things that work and things that don't. I plan on offering up which blog posts were the most popular, what shop products sold the most, and what new products and offers I have available. Maybe I'll call this section of the newsletter a trend update?

So if you're interested in hearing about the posts and products that have been the most popular, I invite you to sign up for the newsletter.

If you want to hear about sales, promotions, and new items, I invite you to sign up for the newsletter.

And above all else, if you want to hear me talk, unguarded and openly, about the strategy, dreams, and goals for my business, I invite you to join the newsletter.

Sign up today, so that you get the very first newsletter, which is being sent out tomorrow!

March 2013 Recap - Rebranding, Finding Purpose, and Custom Projects

Every time I get together with friends or family, they always ask "what's new", or "how's the business", and I always give the same answer "nothing new, business is good". But the truth is, there's a lot new, I just don't know where to start, and, since the questions are probably more courtesy than curiosity, I don't want to bore anybody with a long-winged answer about what's been going on with the business.

This month alone has been huge, so I thought I would do a recap, including things I already shared on the blog, and some of the things that have happened behind the scenes.

March started off with a bang, when I attended Jess Lively's Business and Life With Intention workshops up in Boston, MA. I met a group of amazing ladies and they encouraged me to take the next steps that my business truly needed. With their guidance and support, I decided to bring a more focused purpose to my business, change my business name, and start a newsletter. (ps - if you want to hear more about the business name and purpose, sign up for the newsletter). I've also been working with Jess on one heck of an awesome project, and I cannot wait to share the fruits of our labor in April.

With all of the new things going on, and adding a rebranding to my plate, my free time has dwindled to less than nothing. I have learned the beauty of outsourcing, and I have not been disappointed. My free time suddenly became very valuable, and hiring people to help me do the things I needed to do, but didn't have time to do, has been so nerve wrecking and rewarding. I didn't realize how much of a control freak I was until I decided to start letting go, but boy, I am so glad I did. I hired one of my most favorite designers (and friend) to create my new logo, and I cried when I first saw it. Guys, I just cannot wait to share it with you! I'm also going to be hiring somebody to rebuild/update my new website - I build the Believe Notes website myself, and I just don't have to time to fiddle with it. I'm also starting to think about hiring an intern, assistant, or marketing specialist to help free up some of my time for designing while still growing and marketing my business. (a formal announcement hasn't been made yet, but if you or somebody else you know is interested in joining me, please let me know!)

One of the biggest things for my new business is growing my portfolio. I want to offer brides the most stunning custom invitations ever, so I took a leap of faith and decided to waive my custom design fee in order to attract more brides. So far I have had mixed results, lots and lots of inquiries, but only a few bookings. The offer is still standing, so please continue to take advantage of it an spread the word.

Ironically enough, my #1 blog post this month was my curly hair guide. The post has gotten more than 10x my average views and was pinned over 200 times. I should have known that there were a ton of you curly girls out there, just waiting for the best tips ever - trust me, I've been there! I'm contemplating a monthly post dedicated to curly hair. Would you be interested in reading it?

Behind the scenes, my home is a wreck, my fridge is empty, and my eyeballs are so dry (from the constant computer screen exposure) that I started leaving eye drops next to all my hand lotions.

Speaking of outsourcing, my husband and I have decided it might be time to hire a cleaning service. Between my full-time job, business, and graduate school, and all of his overtime, we acknowledge that we just cannot keep up with daily maintenance. I'm a cheap chick at heart, so we've been waiting to see a groupon for a cleaning service.

But even thought our dining room table is covered in samples and my office has been taken over by orders and packaging supplies, I think it's all kind of great, because it means I am growing, growing, growing. Using social media efficiently has helped cut down a lot of my time during the day, but I think that once I add a few extra pairs of hands, I'll start to be able to breathe again.

Here are some of my personal highlights from March:

1- Finding my business purpose
2- Establishing a relationship with amazing specialty printers
3- Seeing my work in print in the latest issue of WellWed Hamptons magazine
4- Finishing up an amazing project with Jess Lively
5- Doing some logo work for a few local, talented photographers

So there you have it, my March recap. It's no wonder I sprouted my second grey hair! Thank you everybody for your continued support in my business and blog, if there's ever anything you want me to talk about or share, please let me know, as I want to give you as much value as possible - and, as always, I love comments, so please leave one if you're feeling the urge.

3 Ways to Bring Purpose into Your Business

Just the other day I shared my experience with Jess Lively's Business and Life With Intention workshops, however I did not share how my own purpose changed/evolved because of the workshop. While I'm not completely ready to share all of the details, I am excited to share a few insights along with three key learnings that I think you can apply to your business immediately.

 1- Make sure that your brand is truly your brand. Does your company name really fit that special thing that you do, and does it roll off your tongue with pride when you tell others who you are? This was huge for me - and where I spent the majority of my focus during the workshop. It's also why I will be changing my business name in the very near future. I can't share the new name yet, but I guarantee that it feels to me like a warm comfy sweater I never want to part with (thanks to Elizabeth, for suggesting it! And thank you Jess for encouraging the brainstorm session that it resulted from!)

2- Does your branding actually fit you? I'm not just talking about your name here, but I'm talking about the design. The colors, fonts, textures, packaging, logos etc - do they all look like things you'd have around your house? Are they something that you're friends would see in the store and know immediately that it's so you? For a long time I felt like I needed my brand to be different and unique, but after much trial and error, what I found is that I actually needed my brand to be just the same as everything else in my life. Luckily, my colors and branding are very much my style - and in fact, if you were to have attended my wedding or walked into my home, you'd find yourself surrounded by the same whites, creams, aquas and corals that are also part of my brand. Correction, the style is part of my brand, it's part of me and it just so happens that my wedding, home and brand are all also parts of me. Is your branding an extension of who you are?

3- Just because you can do it all, doesn't mean you should. Find other experts that are able to do what you want to do, but can do it better than you could ever do it yourself. Delegating and reaching out to other talented people is a tool to use. For me, I built my entire website myself because I didn't have the budget to hire somebody, but now that I am going to be rebranding, I'm reaching out to people that I know can help me way better than I could help myself. Plus, but letting other people help, I am freeing up my time to focus on other aspects of business. Anybody out there a marketing pro and want to help me get my brand out there more?

Are the above things that you thought about when setting up your business? Are you thinking about them now?

Sign up for all the Inside Scoop and BIG Announcements

Tomorrow I will be sharing the start of a new journey with you. A journey in which BIG changes will be happening, and BIG announcements will be made. As I move forward with making my business the best possible business it can be, I want to make sure my readers, customers and future clients can come along for the ride. While there will be announcements here on the blog, I will be sharing them through my new Newsletter first.

So please sign up, and let me share with you before I share with anybody else.

And since I know you value the space in your email box, I promise you won't be bombarded with emails from me. You can expect to get at most 5 emails from me over the next two months (containing really big announcements), and then one per month after that.

I look forward to bringing you on my journey to a better business, and sharing some big announcements with you in the Newsletter.

Having a Small Business in NYC

So many people flock to New York City - the city of opportunity & lights - to come visit, to come live, or to come try to make their lively hood. I've lived in New York my whole life, born and raised on the south shore of Long Island and then moving to Queens (part of NYC) three years ago when my husband and I bought our condo. Buying a home was the first time I realized how much of a struggle it is to live in this part of the country (world). Everything is so beyond expensive that it actually disgusts me. When we were buying our 925sqft in Queens, I had a friend that was buying a 2,300sqft home in upstate NY for less than we were paying. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous, and I'd be lying again if I said my husband and I haven't thought about leaving NY. But at the end of the day, this is where our family and friends are, and I think that if I ever left the smell of low tide and ocean, I'd be heartbroken.

Not only are the costs of living in New York ridiculously expensive,  but starting a business is no small chunk of change either. If you live within the 5 boros of NYC, you are required to publish your business in a reputable publication in order to validate the business. If you don't publish, you're business and Tax ID number will become void. There's a good chance that technically I'm a void business right now, because I haven't yet published. I've been dragging my feet because I think it's the stupidest thing in the world, it's super expensive (between $1,000-$2,500) and it seems like a way for NYC to take a crap on small businesses and milk start-ups for whatever money they've saved or borrowed. Regardless of how much I hate the rule, we all still need to do it, and I do plan on having my business published within the next few weeks, even if it puts me in debt.

While each county is every so slightly different, the following steps seem to be the same everywhere. So, if you live anywhere within NYC, plan on doing the following: To have your business published you need to call your county clerk to let them know you started a business, then send/fax them a copy of your article of organization and then they'll tell you what two publications you must publish with. I think that's the part that bothers me the most - that they dictate where you have to publish, and you really have no choice (at least that's how it works in Queens). Anyway, you have to then go and publish an announcement stating that your company is open for business. The cost depends on the publication, some are very inexpensive and some are extremely expensive - but again, you have no choice because it's dictated by the county clerk's office. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my publications aren't more than $1,500 because any more than that and I won't be able to do it until I have more dough saved up. Also, I do plan on begging the clerk to please show mercy and not give me expensive publications. I am not above begging.

Since I'm on the topic of expenses, and money, and living in NYC, I thought I would open up about something else that has been very much on my mind lately.

It's almost impossible to live in this area without two incomes, and they need to be two good incomes. Luckily, my husband and I are very comfortable right now because we both work full time, however, my ultimate goal in life is to grow Believe Notes into my full time job. I'm not saying I want to leave my full time jobe right now, because I happen to love what I do, but I also know that when the time comes to have children (and not any time soon, btw), I want to be present to raise those children. While I have a ton of respect for successful working moms, I don't know that it'll be the right thing for me. I want to be a kick-ass mom that is home to raise children and also bring in an income. It's an absolutely terrifying future goal because I have no idea if I'll be able to ever bring in the type of income that we'd need to live off of and have the type of life I want to have. To be honest, sometimes I feel a little bitter, because if I were living anywhere else right now (except for the other top 5 most expensive cities in the US) I would be able to comfortably call my current income from Believe Notes a true income that I could maybe live off of. Here in NY, I need to make at least 4 times what I'm currently making in order to be able to move back to Long Island and even contemplate leaving corporate America.

Not being one to shy away from a challenge, I am giving myself 2013 to really push every limit that exists. I'm just curious to see what type of potential is in my little business, and how much more efficient and profitable I can make it. I have to start thinking like a business person that is strategic about the future and try to figure out where I want to be and if I can actually get there. While I love my job, and I really don't want to leave, I also adore stationery, and stationery will give me the flexibility to someday have a better work/life balance situation. And of course, the fact that I live in such an expensive area just compounds my anxiety about the future - but I'll continue to work my butt off (in all jobs) until I know I can confidently go in the direction I need to.

Helpful Resources for Stationery & Creative Small Businesses

 I’m the first person to admit that I don’t know the first thing about running a business. My undergraduate is in psychology, and while my Master’s in I/O Psychology, think of it as business psychology, I really have no educational background at all on marketing, managing a company, finances and so forth. And since I also don’t have a formal background in art or design (one year of interior design school, almost ten years ago, really doesn’t count) I feel like I’m sometimes fighting an uphill battle.

One thing that has helped me immensely is the wealth of knowledge that’s already put out there by others who have paved the way. It's inspired me to continue to blog about my own business growth - I have hope that I'm helping others out on their own that are going through what I've went through. I also rely on the design community to help me when I have questions, when I want to bounce ideas around, or when I just need a pep talk and some encouragement. But, at the end of the day, I know I’m a classroom learner, so as generous as people are in sharing their insights, sometimes I feel like I just need to take some time and attend something more formal.

Which is why I am so glad that some awesome ladies have put together different types of classes, conferences and seminars to help encourage and grow other small businesses. While I currently don’t have the budget to attend some of the trainings, I keep my eye on them, wishing, hoping, that someday I can attend. Here are a few options out there for those of you that may be interested in attending:

The Stationery Academy – Hosted by Whitney English & Natalie Chang
Making Things Happen – Hosted by Lara Casey, Emily Ley and Gina Zeilder
Business With Intention – Hosted by Jess Lively

In addition to workshops – there are also a bunch of really awesome conference type events that are out there, here are the ones I love (and the ones I hope to attend soon)

Altitude Design Summit (Duh)
National Stationery Show
New York International Gift Fair

I’m sure there are a lot of other great resources available out there, so please feel free to share them in the comments to this post. I’d love to hear about anything else!

Designers Care: Growing a Second Brand

As you (hopefully) know, Designers Care was a HUGE part of 2012 for me. It’s pretty crazy to think that something that happened in mid-November could have such a huge impact on the entire year, but it most certainly did.

I learned a whole lot about business in just a single month with Designers Care, and what I’ve learned has helped me really sit and hash things out for both Believe Notes and Designers Care. Since I know a lot of people had eyes on Designers Care, and tons of designers participated by donating designs, I wanted to take some time to really talk through the behind-the-scenes things that went into getting the business up and running in the first place, and then all of the things that have happened since.

First – let’s start with how it got up and running.

I wanted to create a shop that would sell products that were great quality and fairly inexpensive to make, so that I would be able to donate as much as possible. I also wanted flexibility to be able to sell small quantities and a variety of options, which would eliminate big printing costs. Having stamps created allowed me to spend a one-time fee for the creation of the stamps, and then use the stamps over and over with different colors, papers, inks, sizes etc.

Starting up was fairly easy, with all thanks going to the Minted designer community for setting up a fund where people donated. I also received very generous donations from companies such as Simon’s Stamps, French Paper Company, and Envelopes.com, which helped provide me with enough paper, envelopes and stamps to get the shop up and running. Whatever wasn’t donated was covered by the fund, and luckily we had enough to get through the first wave of orders.

Fast forward to now, and I’m finding myself having to figure out the future of this shop. I’ve run out of almost all of my initial materials (except for the stamps) and there really isn’t enough money left to replenish everything. I also realize that the business isn’t set up legally (as a charitable donation with an appropriate Tax ID), and there are no real business processes or policies in place. There is also a challenge around the fact that I donated my time (and a LOT of it) to actually stamp all of the cards, and it was incredibly time consuming and began to take money away from Believe Notes (since I had to turn down paying design projects due to the time it took for me to handle Designers Care).

During the month of December, I spent a lot of time thinking about the future of Designers Care and where I wanted to see the shop go. Closing down was never an option, since I genuinely believe in the purpose and message, but I knew I needed to make changes. I considered options such as creating a Designers Care Zazzle or Society 6 shop, which would remove me from having to spend so much time stamping, but at the end of the day, I stand by the original purpose of the shop, which is to have high quality, hand stamped designs. So there won’t really be any product changes moving forward, but there will be a lot of thought around business models and whatnot.

While I still have some big fish to fry, I’ll be making the following changes in the very near future:

• Orders will only be filled on Saturdays and will ship on Mondays
• I will no longer be donating 100% of the money. While I haven’t worked out the exact percentages, I need to take out enough of the earnings to cover raw materials and operating fees
• Prices and shipping will increase slightly
• Suggested paper & ink color pairings will be on each listing

As I move forward in working through changes with Designers Care, I do plan to accept new designs. I will certainly make it clear and known when I am ready to accept new designs – I know so many of you are interested, and I am so appreciative of that!

Thank you to everybody that has helped Designers Care come so far, and thank you in advance for all you’ll do to help move the brand forward!

The Battle of Self Doubt, Business Doubt & Being Discouraged

Today I want to talk about the absolute biggest business challenge I have ever faced: myself.

I've been going back and forth on whether or not I wanted to write this post, but at the end of the day, this blog is supposed to offer insights into my business - both the high and low. While I would love to only post about the great growth and fabulousness, that wouldn't be showing what really goes on behind the scenes.

Last week I shared some of my Common Business Mistakes, and while it was a scary mini-series to write, I thought it would be helpful so I wrote it, and it has gotten a ton of views, so thank you! Today I'll let you in on something that's even scarier to me, but I think it'll be even more helpful for you and the life/business you may be trying to grow.

Let's start off with my big confession: I seriously doubt myself. Like, all of the time. I doubt that I have the business savvy to really keep Believe Notes growing, I doubt that I have the accounting savvy to not have the IRS knock on my door and take me off to jail, I doubt that I have the actual design talent to create something timeless and versatile, I doubt that I have a warm & inviting personality and that I won't be able to make friends and be successful at networking, and I doubt that I have the ability to come off real and authentic in my blog posts.

Most days I am able to dock my doubts in the back of my mind and just plow through my to-do list,  but lately my to-do list has grown overwhelmingly complicated and my available time has dwindled to just about nothing. I'm so consumed by my business that I basically ignore all other house chores. There are stacks of laundry that need to be put away, my office is a mess, if it weren't for auto-pay, our bills wouldn't be paid, and I have a chronically empty fridge.

 my fridge, a few weeks ago: apple sauce, milk, eggs, beer, plain pasta. Oye.

One day last week I came home from my full-time job, exhausted and in dire need of some R&R. I needed to clear a spot on my sofa just to sit down, seriously. I looked around and noticed that my dining room table was covered in envelopes, samples, stamps and boxes - with just a little area cleared for my husband and I to have dinner every night. My sofa table was stacked with "inspirational magazines" - but wait, what color is my sofa table again? There was a giant pile of empty boxes sitting by the door, waiting to be taken to the recycling bin - one of Miss Juliet's balls was in there somewhere, but she was too chicken to dig in an get it herself, so she sat and cried and begged for me to reach into the pile and get it for her. Suddenly I felt overwhelmed, guilty, upset and out-of-control. Usually I'm able to come home from work and fold laundry, go through mail and tidy up. But lately I've been so busy filling orders and designing for Minted challenges, launching my wedding line, and prepping for the holidays, that I literally come home from work each day and go straight to my computer. I feel like a bad wife, and feeling like a bad wife is a sucky feeling (even though my husband swears I am not exactly the mutant stationery zombie that I think I am)

The hardest part for me, honestly, is the doubt around whether or not my business is legitimate. While my sales have increased, I'm still not anywhere near where I want to be. My Shop has days with zero visitors and weeks with zero sales. Granted, some weeks I have more sales than I can keep up with, and that feels fantastic. But on the weeks with nothing, I feel like a failure, and I start the doubt cycle again. I'll also add that I have a particularly hard time in the beginnings of the month, because all of the statistic stuff for website/blog/shop go down to zero. It's overwhelming when I look at the zero on the charts and have to think about how hard I'll be working over the month in order to get my numbers where I'd like them to be.

Speaking of numbers, I know I want more exposure. It's a goal, and I'm definitely working hard at it. I had reached out to a bunch of advertisers in the beginning of September and was so overwhelmingly surprised and happy that ALL of them not only supported my business, but wanted to feature me as "hand picked" or the like. I was on a high, until I realized that while I had money in my savings, I didn't have enough to pay for all the basic advertising. Well, that totally killed my high. I know it takes money to make money - and maybe I should take the risk of pulling money from my personal savings to pay for some of the ads?

So, at this point you might be sick of hearing me talk about this, and you might be looking for my advice or a tip of some sort. Well, I don't have one yet. I'm not exactly sure what my next step is from here, but I'm going to make sure it's a smart one (who wants to make a stupid step, right?!). Maybe I need to reduce the variety of products in my shop to just a select group of things I truly, truly love. Maybe I need to recruit my mother to help me manage some of my accounting & paperwork. Maybe I need to take some money from my personal savings to help get the exposure I want/need. Maybe I need to have more defined business hours. Maybe I just need to be patient and keep on doing what I'm doing (success doesn't come overnight, right?).

There really are some big and exciting things coming with Believe Notes, and I know that I'm running a good business, but I think we all get to a point where we need to think a little more strategically about the future. I do promise, though, that whatever happens, it'll only be in the interest of improving Believe Notes as much as possible.

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!

Common Mistakes Theme #1 - Rushing Isn't Always Good

Are you ready for the first theme in the Mistakes Happen series? Yes? Well, then let's just get right into it.


Theme #1 - Rushing Isn't Always Good

When I first opened my business, I was afraid to say "no" to any potential customers. Lots of times people would contact me and ask for rush orders. Instead of saying no, I would always try to do it. I'd make mistakes (usually by trying to cut corners to save time) and it would always end up costing me more to make the product than I got paid for. Here's just one example:

One of the very first orders I sold on Etsy was for a time-crunched customer. I was so eager to make my first sale that I agreed to have the cards to her within a week. I used an online printer that typically delivers to me within 3 days. All was going well until a blizzard hit New York and my online printer lost power. Panicked, I found a local printer, that was willing to print overnight for me. The local printer had crappy paper, and charged me 3x the price - but I did it anyway because I didn't want to let my customer down. In the end, I had the cards to her by the end of the week, but I lost a lot of sleep and money. The day after I mailed her the cards printed at my local printer, the gorgeous ones arrived in my mail from my online printer. I had to throw them out.

Lessons learned:

• Charge a LOT more for rushed orders (like, double the price you'd normally charge)
• Only agree to rush an order if you're actually able to do it. If it isn't possible, just say no
• If something happens, don't compromise the quality of your work
• Email your customer, tell them the situation, apologize, and offer something nice in exchange for their patience. I tend to offer free note cards, a stamp, or a coupon for a future order
• Slow and steady wins the race (this must be why I like turtles so much)

 Have you ever made any mistakes because you rushed? Would you mind sharing?

Coming up you'll hear more about Theme #2 - Test Things Out, and Theme #3 - Learning to Say No

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?

Lessons in Product Photography

Lately I feel like I've been climbing a hill, no, a mountain. At the bottom of the mountain are tons of poorly lit, blue-tinted photographs, with fuzzy lines and bad staging. At the top of the mountain is Megan Gonzalez, of Mae Mae Paperie, and all of her impeccably staged & photographed designs.

In reality, I am probably somewhere about 65% up the mountain, but lately I feel as if I am at the very bottom, with the goats. And the goats have diarrhea.

While feeling like your surrounded by ill goats isn't fun, it is certainly very motivating to get the hell out of that place. After re-taking the photos for my iPad covers at least 5 times, I finally said "enough is enough" and started really looking into ways to improve my pictures. I asked my peers in the Minted community, I googled specifics and I asked my photographer friends. And by golly, I have learned a lot.

My biggest complaint with my pictures were the colors. My whites weren't white, the colors themselves weren't always true to the original print, the text was fuzzy. And while all of these things might not have been a huge issue with, say, business cards, they were big issues to me in preparing to launch my wedding line. I simply don't have the budget to hire a photographer, so this girl needed to give the goats some tums, and learn to take good pictures. And by take good pictures, I mean edit, edit, edit in photoshop.

If you like the iPad cover in that picture, you can go get yourself one here! 

So here are some tips I generally follow:

1- White balance. I always adjusted the white balance on my camera, but now I do it again in Photoshop. I adjust the curves, vibrancy and saturation of every picture. The three together seem to be a good combo for me right now.
2- Add an unsharp mask. My Mintie friends turned me on to this one. I put a sharpening mask over the entire image so that the text looks clear & sharp.
3- Use natural light. I always take my picrures by a window on a cloudy day. I also put white tissue paper over the windows to help diffuse the light even more. The tissue paper helps me to take pictures on sunny days without a glare.
4- Background counts. I had taken hundreds of pictures of my iPad covers on top of a light cream fabric background only to find later that there just wasn't enough contrast. Every product will look different depending on the background.
5- Speaking of backgrounds, I just purchased a bunch of seamless papers from Adorama. I thought it would be easier to use a gray bed sheet from Target to shoot my wedding line on. But after ironing it for hours, and then having to edit out all of the wrinkles, I think the seamless paper is a fabu-freaking-lous idea.
6- The lens matters. A lot. Unfortunately, the lens I used to shoot my initial wedding line photos distorted all of the "head-on" pictures. I was using a standard 18-55mm lens, and a photographer friend suggested I used a macro or 50mm lens. It's an investment I am going to be making in the very near future.

So there you have it, some of my photography tips. I'll try to post more tips as I learn them, since I have a feeling that product photography will always be a new adventure.

If you'd like some more tips, take a trip down memory lane and read this post, which I wrote over a year ago on photography and staging for stationery.

Making Money

What's always amazing to me is how people become "professional" bloggers - where they somehow make enough money to quit their day jobs and blog full time. I have to admit, I am really jealous. Not so much that they were able to quit their jobs (ok, I am jealous about that) but mostly because they found a way to make some money off of something they love doing and that they made it seem effortless.

In my full time field of Industrial/Organizational Psychology, I've read a lot of research that has found entrepreneurship is linked to personality - some people want it and strive for it naturally, and other people just don't. I'm the first to admit that it doesn't come naturally to me. Every personality inventory, motivation assessment and value survey I have ever taken has rated commerce as low priority for me. Meaning that, generally speaking, I don't value money as much as I value say, feeling empowered. It also means that when I decided to open a business, I had an uphill battle because the first priority for me never seemed to be the profit.

Back in 2008, when I first started fumbling around with Believe Notes - my priority was to learn the trade. I did a lot of work for free, for friends and family mostly, and I made a few sales here and there, but I always lost money on the sales I made. I under priced, made mistakes, and miscalculated. If I can be really honest, I still struggle with underpricing. But it never bothered me to lose money, because I felt like I was gaining the experience, and the experience to me was worth more than the money. I understand that my nonchalance about losing money really is a personality thing, but I'm a smart person, and smart business people need to find a way to make money.

After a few years of testing the water, I started to grow - as a designer and as a business owner. I started to become more confident, and began making goals and decisions that would specifically aim to increase my profit - it was, and still is, very hard for me. I created a Facebook Page, a Twitter account, and an Etsy shop. I joined Facebook groups for Etsy sellers, I started participating more in online forums, and I began to read other blogs that had small business tips. With every little bit of effort, I would see a little bit more return. Maybe just one or two more Etsy sales, or more page views on my blog. I was thrilled.

But then I stopped.

I thought "Ok, so I did all the stuff, now I stop and let it ride." Right? Wrong. Things started to slow down, my sales decreased, I had less visitors on my blog, and people actually started to drop my facebook page. Ouch.

So then I started again. But not only did I start again, but I started with an entirely new feeling of empowerment, because I felt like I discovered something really, really good. Ready for my secret? Here it is:

It's simple, but it works. I know some people make things looks easy, as if they put no effort at all and all of their success comes magically. And maybe some people really do have viral/instant success, but in reality, most people don't. Most people have to work for their successes, and not just work, but work really goddamn hard.

Around January of this past year I decided I was going to start working hard. I didn't want my business to be a hobby anymore, I wanted it to make money. I realized that my day job, while good, should really only be responsible for taking care of my "regular" life, but it couldn't keep paying for my business. My business needed to pay for itself. I started thinking about all of my expenses and figured out how much I needed to earn in order to at least cover all of my business costs. I started making clearer goals for myself that I followed through. I really began taking things seriously - I got my Tax Id and registered my business, I'm making a very pointed effort to network more, I am adding some affiliate marketing to my blog and am thinking of selling some spots for recommended vendors, I started thinking about who/what my audience looks like and what they actually want, I'm researching new products before I invest in selling them. I took a hard look at what failure/success means to me, and I allow myself to redefine that definition if I need to.

Since I've been making so much more of an effort, I really have been seeing the results. I've been making not just enough earnings to cover my costs, but I'm at a point where I can save the money and start thinking about future business investments. I've learned the truth behind the saying "you have to spend some to get some" and I've been trying to spend little bits of money (for things such as search ads and advertising) to make some pretty big returns.  I hope some day to revisit this blog post and be able to talk about some major successes, but for now, I'm going to just keep on swimming and putting in the effort.

If anybody has any of their own little business tips, I would love to hear them :)