Help Wanted

I’ve been trying to figure out how to write this post for a long time now. I don’t want to sound whiney or ungrateful. I’ve tried hedging around the situation. I’ve tried denial and avoidance too. As to be expected, those tactics haven’t worked. So I’m going to go back to what has worked for better or worse for me in the past, the direct approach.

Things at My Eclectic Mess aren’t going great. Some days they are barely going at all. I’m in the midst of trying to figure out how to move forward and what direction to take. The projections and plans I made a year ago are worthless now. The money I had to start with is all gone and the bills and credit card balances are piling up. Things have cost much more than projected and sales still haven’t reached even the barest minimums that I had projected. I spend many a day here at the store all alone coming up with great project ideas, classes, and events with no one to share them.

The biggest glitch in my planning is that classes, clubs, and camps didn’t get filled up like I had proposed. I had projected a couple different scenarios when doing my budgeting. One was worst case: 10-20% enrollment in scheduled classes, summer camps, birthday parties and sew-by-the-hour. The other was best case: 90-100% enrollment. What I didn’t plan for was zero enrollments. The plan was that with summer camps and budgeted start up money, I’d get through the summer months. By fall I was supposed to have my classes paying the rent at the minimum, and sales of merchandise paying for new inventory. Best case scenario was that by Halloween I’d be able to add another teacher or a part-time salesperson so I could be open 6 days and have someone to cover the front room when I was teaching classes. All of these projections have fallen short and I’m barely covering expenses let alone having anything left for reinvestment in new inventory.

One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced is just getting the word about what I do and what I sell out to the right people. Advertising costs a lot of money and needs to be eye-catching, informational and motivational to do the job. I’m telling you now that it takes a lot more to accomplish that than I ever thought. I still haven’t found the perfect mix. I did work with a local small advertising group to try to find a way to do this but I had to pull back on that because the cost was way beyond my current budget. We will be implementing a few small changes to the front of the store in the next few months to try to take advantage of my Main St. location and communicate what I do here more clearly to passersby.

Currently I’m looking at two different directions for the future of My Eclectic Mess. I see now that I cannot fulfill my original vision by myself. This doesn’t make that vision any less viable it just means it is beyond my abilities as one person. So I must now decide whether to give up complete control of my dream in order to see it realized in some manner or to scale back my dream to a size and scale that I can handle alone.

The first option is to continue moving forward with my original vision. In order to do this I will need help. I’ve come to the realization that I don’t have the skill set, financial know-how and marketing knowledge to do this all alone and I can’t afford to hire professionals to help me do it. I need a partner to fill in my weak spots. What I do bring to the table are innovative ideas, creative talent, customer service know-how, retail experience, merchandising abilities, industry knowledge, the ability to teach my skills in an approachable way and a great passion for what I know this business can be. I had a vision and I know in my heart of heart that it can be a success. Every week someone comes into the store and tells me how much something like this is needed in the Fox Valley and how happy they are to have these products and my expertise available to them. A week doesn’t go by that I don’t receive some kind of supportive comment or expression of admiration for what I’m doing here. Believe me, these are what keep me going and keep the anxiety and worry at bay.

The second option I’m considering is to scale back and regroup the business. So far the thing that has been paying the bills is fabric sales. The fabric industry is seeing big growth right now and I’m really excited by the new designers and lines I see coming out now. I am considering finding a smaller place or even seeing if I could rent a partial space from another retailer in the area and focus solely on fabric sales. This would enable me to continue to bring what I do to a local market and to work with customers face to face while putting more focus on selling my fabrics online through my Etsy.com site and also move toward setting up my own e-commerce site. If I took the classes, sew-by-the-hour, kids programs and camps out of the picture I would need much less space and thus, less rent and utilities. In September and October Etsy fabric sales were the only thing that enabled me to pay rent without having to dip into the family savings. I could also generate some much needed operations money by selling my classroom equipment.

I’m still trying to decide which of these scenarios is the right answer for me and My Eclectic Mess. The first one really depends on the universe delivering the right person at the right time to be the partner that I need. The second one is only slightly dependant on my finding a new location that costs about half what I’m paying now in rent and utilities while still being somewhere that my local customers can find me.

A third option that is somewhat related to option two is to find another small craft-related retailer or two that is facing similar dilemmas who would like to group together. Because I will probably have to at least temporarily give up the dream of being a truly eclectic craft store, I’d love to share my space with a bead/jewelry maker, yarn shop, stamp store, clay or glass studio, etc. Maybe the future of My Eclectic Mess is to become a craft retail cooperative rather than an independent multi-craft store. I know that many if not all of my customers do multiple crafts. They knit, sew, stamp, scrapbook, bead, weave, spin, collage, paint, and on and on. If they could go one place (other than the big box stores) to get it all and to find unique higher end supplies, they’d love it. I thought that was what I was going to be but I know now that I can’t at this time. If there are other entrepreneurial minded crafters out there that have thought about opening a store that caters to their specialty but have been afraid of jumping in alone, maybe we could work together. Or if there is another small retailer who thinks that what they do compliments what I do and is facing similar challenges as I am maybe we can combine forces and knowledge and help each other out.

This post is not about me whining about how tough things are right now. I know they are hard for most of us in this economy. This is not about me wanting to make money. I don't intend to make an income from My Eclectic Mess for many, many years, if ever. One doesn't go into small retail business with that intention. I just want to keep it and my family solvent so I can continue to bring the products and services that I love to others and to know that I am contributing to my community and using my skills and knowledge in some way. It also isn’t about making anyone feel guilty for not doing more. If you’ve stopped in to the store (buying anything or not!), posted a comment here, sent an email, given me an idea for an event or class, made one of the projects from my tutorials, told someone else about my store, or even just read this blog regularly, you’ve done something to support me and I appreciate it.

What this post is about is me assessing the situation and making an effort to find solutions to the problems I’m facing. It is also about me being honest with myself and with my friends and customers (who I’m happy to say on many levels are most often one and the same). I’ve spent the majority of my 40+ years on this earth being staunchly independent and trying to muddle through life on my own power. I’m finally learning that sometimes I need help and the only way to be sure to get it is to ask for it. So here I am being very Oprah-like and asking the universe to give me a gift. I'm putting my wishes out there and hoping the universe sends me the help I need.