Month: December 2013

Highlight Reel of Lessons Learned in 2013

Film Reel 2013

The lessons I have learned this year have been vast. Here is a highlight reel:

  • Interns can be good or bad. Make sure you get the good ones
  • Assistants can be a help or a hurt to your business. Make sure you get the ones that help you. When you find THE ONE, don’t let that one go.
  • People do not often see your vision as it is generally in YOUR head. Want people to see your vision? You need to share it
  • Changing course is easy for you because you see where you are going. Changing course for a team is not as easy. Again make sure you share.
  • Get 75% up front or be taken when you own a small business. Many people think SMALL means WALK ALL OVER THIS ONE. Be cautious. Trust no one.
  • Having a small business is super hard. don’t try it unless you are committed. (I did not say Be committed though by the end of a year running a small business you might want to be)
  • Contrary to popular belief, being an entrepreneur does not mean doing what you love 100%. It means doing what you love like 10-20% if you are SUPER lucky and the rest is doing all those things you hate…like math. 🙂
  • Business does NOT come to you. You have to go get it. Market, Network, Connect, Join Chamber of Commerce’s and Meet Up Groups. Go to Social Gatherings for fun or business. Putting yourself OUT THERE online or in person is like winning the Willy Wonka Golden Ticket. (Just don’t get trapped in the funhouse)
  • Making connections all your life is like high school. Some people like you, some don’t, some are the cool kids, some are not, some are haters, some you hate. Make and keep the connections that you connect with. the rest will weed off and you will be left with a great grokking group
  • Going to events is also like high school. There are places you don’t want to be caught dead in and places you are always trying to get in.
  • Don’t push business connections. It is either gonna hppen or it won’t. Pushing is like being pushy in dating. Don’t be the crazy one.
  • Enrich yourself. Connect with good coaches, read audiobooks, take e-course, listen to those who are doing it right. Ignore the ones who are doing it wrong or don’t know what they are talking about.
  • Back to being like High School…it DOES matter who you hang around. Make sure you hang with the right crowd.The ones who are doing what you are doing or have what you want to have are not ones to look UP to, they are ones to LISTEN to and LEARN from.
  • Remember your P’s and Q’s. When busy, stressed or frazzled this is MOST important.
  • Smiling can get your through most anything.
  • Music can get your though the rest.
  • Your idea of something and someones elses idea of something could be different. Make sure you both are on the same page.
  • Exercise your brain as well as your body. It will do both a world of good.
  • Working all through the night does not work to your advantage. More mistakes seem to be made this way. Get plenty of rest. Work when you CAN’T sleep. SLEEP when you can. (I know ya all think I don’t rest but I do actually get about 4-6 hours of sleep a night)
  • Make sure you PLAY and WORK. Being able to incorporate them together is awesome. But sometimes they are like arguing kids in the back of the car. You might just need to separate them. 🙂
  • Let go of your electronic leash. You will be amazed at what can happen when you set electronics down.
  • Be Brave. I know it’s scary but if you really want it, you have to Be Brave to get it.
  • Be Fearless. Leaping when there is no net that you can see is sometimes the only way the invisible plank shows up underneath your feet.
  • Be Bold. Sitting in a corner being shy will not get you where you want to go.
  • Be Fabulous. You are Fabulous. It’s in you, as Gatorade says. Just do it, says Nike. All these signs and quotes are trying to tell you what you already know. Stop allowing the lies that some person told you long ago rule you. You ARE Fabulous. Now own it. Walk that catwalk, Baby and strut your stuff!

I am sure there are many, many more, but I just wanted to jot down the ones that REALLY stuck out in my mind.

Have any to add? Please comment here on on Facebook. I ALWAYS love to hear your thoughts and suggestions.

My 2014 is filled with Road Maps, signs and play by plays that I plan on paying a LOT more attention to so hopefully I don’t have such HARD lessons next year. Regardless, all lessons are good ones because they teach us.

Happy New Year Everyone! Be Fabulous!

Trisha Trixie

 

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Be a Person of Honor

Be a person of honorToday in my business I awoke to an order from a client from an eCommerce page I had not used in months. I was in a panic. I didn’t have the fabric in that order, I didn’t do that style anymore, I had grown so much, I charged more, I thought the site was taken down, I wanted to pull my hair out.

I first told the client my situation and sent her an email stating the issues. I sent it off and walked away. But you know that feeling in your gut, you know that twinge when you feel like you should do something about a situation? Yeah, I had that. So I sat down, mediated for a minute and then decided on a better solution.

I deiced to be a person of honor

I decided to be a person of my word.

It was not the clients fault that these things were not in order. How would I feel if I ordered something and was then told I couldn’t have it. I would say “That’s not my fault, honor the order.” So that is exactly what I did.

I quickly got back online and sent her another email. I took a picture of fabric that I thought might be the closest to what she originally ordered. I told her the value of what she was getting, I told her how I understood that it was not her fault and how in the end I wanted to be a person of her word and a person of honor and would she be ok with the other fabric and have the understanding that these are normally priced higher?

She loved the fabric and so that is the direction I am going in.

Could I have declined the order? Sure

Would it have hurt my business if I had? Most likely

Would it have hurt my reputation? Most likely

What message did I want to send? That I was a person of honor, that my brand was solid and that myself, my brand will honor what was done.

What do I think the outcome of this will be? I think she will be happy with her apron. I think she will also be happy with the fact that I am honoring the price, though that is NOT the current price, and I think she will end up being happier than if I had canceled this order therefore a happy customers brings about more business and more happy customers.

Being a person of your word is not always easy.

Being a person, a brand a company is not always easy. But doing what is right, IS EASY and in the end THAT is what SHOULD be done.

Remember the message you leave behind as it will be the message you carry forward

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No Comparing

A few years back I took a few E-courses for art, encouragement, and more. One of the thing that was often said over and over was No Comparing!

The best I heard was in Brave Girls Club on Comparing

It is hard to be happy with others good fortune. It is hard to say, good job, congrats, when really you want to say NO fair, and ask yourself,

“Why doesn’t that happen to me, for me?”

Believe me, I know. My friend Pat, knows I know.

But as Brave Girls says

The greatest act of love is being genuinely happy for someone else’s good fortune, especially when your luck is down

There is a difference in Market Assessments (i.e. checking out your competitors, knowing their brand over yours and making sure you are not infringing on any Trademark or Copyrights) and Comparing.

When we Compare we often get in the “I’m not good enough” phase. We think because someone else is doing well that then we should not try. We tell ourselves lies that someone else is “better” than we are.  We have a tendency to throw in the towel or give up when we compare because we then lie to ourselves touting that we will NEVER be as good, as successful or as popular. These are lies we tell ourselves. Untruths that our mind plays with us.

Do not believe everything you think

Different things happen to different people for different reasons. Sometimes Good things happen to others sometimes bad. Sometimes they just have the right connections, sometimes they are in the right place at the right time, sometimes they may have just gotten lucky. Sometimes perhaps they ARE better than us, but that doesn’t mean we should give up. Instead we should try that much harder to be our best.

The only one you have to be better than is yourself

there is a Friends video I love that goes with this. Phoebe convinces Monica to do Thanksgiving dinner again urging Monica on that “You would be in competition with yourself!” Monica says ” That’s my favorite kind [of competition]“

Here is how I handle it:

  • Take a deep breath
  • Realize they are not me and I am not them
  • Find ways to challenge yourself
  • Keep the faith
  • Keep up the work
  • Take stock in yourself. What can you do better? What can you do to take a step in the direction of your dreams? Realizing we really are NOT doing everything makes a difference. When I make this assessment I notice that there is something, even if seemingly small that I could do differently
  • Serve someone else. Serving another takes focus off ourselves and when we help another we are helping ourselves. Maybe in that serving we will get an answer to something we didn’t see in ourselves and that might be the thing we need to change

Remember, each of us is fabulous in our our way

Be Fabulous

As you already are 🙂

 

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The Goose and the Gander

I think the hardest lesson I have had to learn this year is that the story quote we were often told growing up does NOT apply to business. We were often told by authorities

What’s Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander

However in business, people don’t always play by the rules. they sometimes don’t play by the rules they set. People do things unfairly.

People get connections they don’t deserve.

People get funded for things and you don’t.

People get to do things you don’t get to do.

People will tell you NOT to do something and then they go off and do it themselves.

People will set a rule, then break it

People think rules don’t apply to them

People are just unfair sometimes

Business is just unfair sometimes.

I really want to stomp my foot and throw my hands on my hips, tilt my back ever so slightly forward and shout “Not fair! That’s not fair!”

But since that would be silly, I just have to take it. I just have to suck it up. I just have to go on and try hard as I can not to allow those things to bother me. I have to try to not pay attention to them and what they do and how they break the rules.

So how DO you overcome without throwing a tissy fit tantrum?

Here are a few business tips that have helped me and maybe they will help you

  1. If you have to cry go outside (Kelly Coutrone’s famous line)
  2. If you have to scream do it in a pillow or go to your car
  3. Take deep breaths if need be
  4. Walk away from the situation
  5. Don’t name them or talk about them on Social Media (It will only hurt you and make you look bad)
  6. If it really bothers you, bring it to their attention. There are times when I have done this and I have dearly thanked and someone changed their course. It was a rare occurrence but it did ACTUALLY happen. Once.
  7. Rise above it
  8. Be a person of values/morals and live up to them
  9. Be the best at what YOU do so what THEY do doesn’t matter
  10. Focus on YOU. By focusing on what YOU do and how YOU react and how YOU handle your business, other will see a person of character and a business they desire to do business with
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