Tuesday’s is here, Wednesday’s is here, and Thursday’s.
Your passion is waiting for your courage to catch up.
What is keeping your business from greatness?
Today, the last day of the free giveaways to celebrate my 35th anniversary in the consignment business, let’s hear from you on what your stumbling block(s) may be. Why isn’t your business fulfilling the dreams you have for it?
Tell us what your biggest barrier to success is, and how you will be facing up to the challenge. After all, Your passion is there, just waiting for your courage to catch up.
Some previous posts on the topic of achieving your success:
- Are you #1?
- Twinkle with Enthusiasm
- If you’re unsure how to apply your efforts, I found an inspiring article for you here.
- A business plan in 3 words. Funny thing is, it worked.
- Don’t let your sparkling joy and eager enthusiasm be wasted.
- Read the 4-part series on Playing Store.
Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 
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My biggest stumbling block is time management. I sometimes let the issues of the day crowd out the bigger picture. I know my business better than anyone else. I know who I’m selling to and I know how to market my business but until I hired a manager, and a bookkeeper, I didn’t have time to “sell my store”.
Since I have “let go” and learned to delegate responsibility, my sales have gone up every single month in the last year and a half. I met last years sales figures by September of this year.
It’s very easy to get sidetracked. Some days I walk into my store and everyone tries to get my attention including the customers. I have taken to entering via the back door so I can at least get into my office and put my purse and laptop down before I get sidetracked. Unless it’s dire, my employees are not to approach me for a half hour after I get there. This allows me to set ‘my’ agenda for the day. I have phone calls to return and appointments to set (on my schedule) with ad reps, my web designer, and local charities.
I have started a genealogy club that I host twice a month in the store which brings attention to my store. I have many marketing avenues I haven’t even approached yet but without looking at the big picture I will never get to them.
I have hired someone to clean my house once a week. For the amount of free time this gives me, it pays me back tenfold by freeing my mind to make my business grow.
[…] or consignment shopkeepers felt that talking about their biggest stumbling block would be of interest to their peers. I knew this topic was risky when I posted it: who likes to […]
Money. I have an awesome location, but it’s very expensive. I’ve learned the value of having a business plan BEFORE you commit, as I totally over-estimated the number of customers and how much they would buy when I first opened. I’m barely making it month to month, even though my customers love the quality of the items in the shop, the customer service and the convenience of having my shop in the neighbourhood. I could get a small business development loan once my business plan is done, but I’m so busy and exhausted, it’s taking forever! I have everything done except the financials, because I’ve been in business less than a year and don’t have an accountant who has done the first year end balance sheet, etc. I’m lousy with math and accounting (I have a bookkeeper, but she’s not up to the business plan financial requirements), so I’m really stuck. I feel like I’m on the verge of success, but can’t quite get there.
SIGNAGE!!! Vermont has a ‘billboard’ law…it’s illegal to put any signs on any state or town land/highways. You can buy a state sign , initial cost totaling about $400, and another $175 or so every year to keep it there. Well, I can’t afford this, and second the state signs are brown and no one pays attention to them as they blend in with the landscape. Vermont has lots of small businesses and how are we to make money if we can’t advertise? I think it’s fair to let a business put a sign at the end of the road directing traffic to the business. I think it shouldn’t be illegal across the board, I think there should be state or town permits, with stipulations as to size, etc. My shop is only open 2 days/week, and I just need my sign out on those days. Not sure where I’d go…start a petition with other business owners, maybe?
I can’t decide whether my biggest stumbling block is my lack of storage for my incoming consignment items or that I don’t have enough staff to keep the incoming “pile” small enough to confine it to my backroom. My business has grown and I have hired an amazing lady who works for me on Saturdays, another lady that works with me from 8:30 to 2:00 each day and I have a teenager working after school. I have taken on 100 new consignors in the last 2 months and the inventory just keeps rolling in. I am using advice from the forum and have become even more picky and scrutinizing than I already was, making sure to only take items that will be great sellers. This has helped somewhat, but I still have a full back room and inventory pouring out onto the showroom floor. My store is 2400 sq ft so I didn’t anticipate this being an issue when we relocated here from a 1200 sq ft shop. I have another girl starting next month in hopes that this will make a difference. I know that one big solution is to hire yet another person but I wonder if this will ultimately reduce my take home pay. I have high hopes that there is a solution that will work. I find that all of the ones that I have tried so far aren’t quite getting me where I want to be.
My biggest stumbling block is me thinking I can and should do everything myself. No one can do it better, right?
That’s what I thought until I got caught up in a never ending circle of intake, inventory, tag, stock, intake, inventory, tag, stock, intake….. I couldn’t do anything else! Every time I thought I was catching up another consignor walked through the door with ‘just what I needed’. I recruited help and now have a nearly always caught up intake area with time to do other things to grow my business, not let it stagnate.
I still think I can, but know I shouldn’t do it all.
Oh, I can relate to THAT! After all, it’s our store, right, and we are the star!
That attitude was proved wrong the day I saw a pretty-new staffer handle an awkward customer situation better than I ever could…or saw how another helper could make a display sparkle in 5 minutes instead of my fussbudgetty 15 minutes.
It’s a hard pill for me to swallow, and I have to keep swallowing it almost daily, that gee, some people do and create and accomplish better than me! (Well, at least in some areas 😉 )