Ha! I love the pic Ken chose this week! Growing up on a farm, I have often let little lizards hang on my finger like that….odd I know. haha  Anyway, this article makes me think of that saying: “It’s easier said than done.”….this is soooo incredibly true and I have learned this the hard way just like Ken. See, when starting a business it is pretty easy to think of ideas and for some reason in our heads our ideas just magically come together and are instantly successful! haha…wouldn’t that be nice! The reality is that any successful business takes hours and hours of TLC and never just falls into place. Even if a business makes a lot of money quickly, that does not always mean the company will accomplish true success. To me a successful company is one that is built on a solid foundation and has longevity and in order to acheive this,  from the begining the company must have people who understand what it takes to build a company from scratch OR as in Ken and my situations have the ability to learn and change very quickly.  So basically, when we bite too much, we need to know when to spit a little back out so we don’t choke! -Julia

Biting Off More Than I Can Chew

Julia gave me this topic for this week and it so happens that I am intimately familiar with it and feel well versed to write about.

My first step in starting Twig was to write a business plan.   After a taking five weeks to research and write the plan, I was rather pleased with the end result.   I felt it was quite thorough and represented a common sense method to solving a problem all retailers face: how to make more money.  

What I left out of the business plan was the role in which my partner (my Wife Margo) would play.   She asked me about this, and I said to her “honestly, I think I have everything covered.   I may ask you to take care of some of the minutia, but nothing too time consuming”.   Margo was quite pleased by this as she wanted to continue being a full time Mom to our three kids.   Within two months, I was crying Uncle!

I very quickly learned that starting and running a company is a lot harder than writing a business plan.   I tried to stick with my outline, but quickly realized I had done an woefully inadequate job in estimating the time(and money) everything would take.   I was going to build the line, come up with the box design, come up with the name, sell the product, think up the marketing, develop a catalogue, oversee the website design, and on and on.   It was not  too long before I was completely underwater, yelling at everyone, and sinking into a spiraling depression.   Margo then volunteered to step in and offer aid.  

I had originally retained a CPA/tax attorney to use as our book keeper.     I honestly thought he could handle the day to day book keeping responsibilities which he was more than capable of.   After two weeks, we got our first invoice and I realized he had managed to chew through 25% of our book keeper
(yearly) budget after 14 days.   Margo stepped in and offered help.   We bought Quickbooks and to her credit, she learned the programs by watching the tutorials.  

When we were finally ready to ship the product, I had no idea what was really involved in getting the product across the border.   Once again, Margo (wearing her cape) offered to take over the dealings with the customs broker.   Thankfully, with her persistence, we somehow managed to get everything across.

The next obstacle came under the heading of “routing guides”.   When I worked for big companies, this was something I had heard of but paid very little attention to.   We got one routing guide that was 90 pages long.   I did not have time to review this, so Margo offered to take over all responsibilities as the “traffic department”.

The list goes on and on.   There really is no way of knowing everything involved until you are actually doing it.   I was fortunate enough (and smart enough) to have someone step in and take over some of the responsibilities.   If you want to be an imbecile, try doing it yourself.   I can promise you a quick ride to frustration, and depression.   If you do decide to go it alone, order your Lexipro while you write out your business plan.

Ken Proctor
Front Man
Twig Footwear, LLC
Ken@twigfootwear.com
www.twigfootwear.com
501-276-0140