This morning I've been thinking about the song, "Now is the Month of Maying." Do you know it? The song is about the wonderful natural developments the month of May brings to everyone - blooming flowers, green grass, love budding, bagpipes playing. In essence, the song is saying - Go away winter, because spring is finally here!
I think in our business we're sort of in a "maying mood." From a sales perspective, we still feel the coldness of winter, despite the warm weather and the bright sun. But from a business perspective, we are in the anticipation mode of new greatness coming after the hard work of 18 months of business.
Paula, our wonderfully wise consultant, has diligently met with us each Friday as we've hassled with business decisions and asked tough questions: where can we get the absolute best bang for our buck in advertising? How can we get more really good customers? How can we reduce our overhead? Which vendors give us great margin? Which vendors give us terrible margin? It's forced us to buy less and sell more. Spend less on advertising but get more customers in the store. Train our employees better so they are more equipped to help us carry out our vision. And the list is endless.
The biggest decision we've made as a result of our discussions with Paula is to hire a part-time store manager that will work in the store 4 days a week. Since we've opened the store, I've been functioning in this role and for anyone that knows me, and knows what I've been doing for 18 months, it is not my dream job. Sitting between 4 starch white walls in the back of a 2225 square foot retail establishment, calling vendors to tell them they've messed up our orders, or listening to ridiculous advertising pitches, or getting on my hands and knees to go through damaged goods ... this is NOT my idea of fun. This is not to say being a store manager is not a fun role for someone, but when you are wired the way I am - full of ideas and creativity and the need to be with people every moment of my day - sitting in this office is not "fun" for me. Fortunately, with some creativity, we've figured out how we can hire a store manager so I am free to be out and about, developing relationships with people, opening new doors for Petite Boutique, spreading the word about who we are and what we do, and in essence, finally acting as the true leader of our business.
There is a part of me that feels like we need to live in May for a while - anticipating greatness, welcoming in new life, the newness of a new season, and the music of a new song. Though I'm not naive and know that shortly after the beauty of May comes the heat of the summer...
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