The Need for Intelligent Small Business Planning

The most important thing I can be doing in the next week or so is to think about what my bead business needs. I know what I need from that business! I’d love it to take off! Plain and simple. It is quietly successful, and people love my work, but I’d really love it to be more consistent. I’ve been making beads and jewellery for about 10 years, and in the past 6 years, since I moved back to Ontario, I have not found a consistent location to sell my beads. I’d like to be doing more of this work. It’s so rewarding and it’s just so fun!

I’ve spent a great deal of time this summer establishing the foundation for getting my beads out there locally. I’ve done 2 summer-long art shows and I haven’t sold much but I have my beads now in 3 locations and I will be applying to a 4th in a week or so. I’ve also spent the summer watching and learning Instagram. Hamilton runs on social media and Instagram is the perfect way for me to advertise and create a following – and of course customers!

I’m away right now and close to a glass blower here and also a big store that sells really unique and high end things. Both those stores would be ideal places to carry my stuff. I brought most of what I have up here with me so I could make some meetings and show off my wares…

BUT…

Suddenly I remembered my own words and advice to coaching clients who were expanding their businesses. It’s absolutely essential to expand and grow only as fast as you are able to keep up with the successes you create. Once success starts to happen, there is such a pull to do and offer more than you can actually deliver. In short, your business must be easily scalable, and you must plan ahead to keep up with the demands of success.

These next few weeks are going to be exactly that for my bead business – planning and expanding only as much as I can deliver. Truthfully, there is a limited inventory, and I already have 3 stores. If those stores sold something today, I would be not as well prepared for the big art show on the weekend, AND I need to leave 15 pieces to be juried for the 4th store. The 4th store, if I get in, will be the most popular store to buy Christmas gifts. There is lots of potential, but only if I can keep up! It’s a really funny spot to be actually. Knee jerk, I want to sell it all immediately and have the money immediately, go on a ski trip this winter. My brain is there, and being egged on by the networking success I’ve had over the summer. My brain also knows to intelligently plan out what goes where, and to how many stores, decided one store at a time. I need to think about this Christmas and the following Spring. I’d really like it to be more than a flash in the pan.

So, for the time that I am away from home, I am going to make a scalable plan for my beads. It’s actually the perfect time to pull everything out of the bags and make a proper inventory. I’m not in my own space, so with the backdrop of someone else’s living room floor (ha!) it will be really easy to put the packages for each store together.

I’m really excited to be moving forward with the bead business. It’s been hanging around in the back ground for 6 years! It’s so amazing to also feel this organised about what is going to happen, who to contact, new styles I want to try. I expect to do really well over the Christmas season, and most important I feel really solid, confident, and in control of this fantastic part of my “business” at large. I am actually noticing a difference in how the successes in that business help pave the way for the successes via blogging for a living. It’s so great to see and feel how the businesses work together to feed my confidence in myself.