Party Time

April is a great time for house parties. The month is the official start to the new season. It’s when people do spring cleaning – especially in their kids’ closets. It’s the time to retire the stained, ripped and outgrown clothes from the winter to make way for new ones. There are end of the year teacher gifts to purchase, mothers to shop for in preparation for their upcoming day of honor and camp trunks to start packing. In other words, it’s shopping season!

We like to think of LikeWear as not your typical direct sales company as we differ in many ways from most of the companies in the industry. However, there is one very important concept that all direct sales companies share: house parties. The more sales events that a rep has/attends, the bigger their network becomes and the greater the potential for more sales events, more parties and more sales, etc., etc, etc.

In fact, so many LikeWear independent sales reps are hosting or organizing house parties this month that I thought it was important to reiterate our Hostess Rewards Program and guidelines in this week’s Monday Morning Message, excerpted below:

LikeWear funds the Hostess Program for Catalog reps. We do not provide hostess benefits for Cash & Carry sales events (due to their higher discounted “wholesale” price), however, we strongly recommend that C&C reps follow these same guidelines.

House parties are a primary way to grow your business and you want to encourage people (friends, relatives, neighbors, customers, etc.) to want to host them for you. When people host sales events for you, they are doing you a huge favor and helping you to promote your business and generate sales. As such, they deserve something special for their efforts! Everyone likes to get discounts and credits on their purchases – even if they are your sister or your best friend!! In fact, you should explain what a hostess earns to any interested customers (or even with a flyer or table display card) in an effort to line up additional home sales events. The more sales events you have/attend, the bigger your network becomes and the greater your potential for more sales events, more parties and more sales, etc., etc.

The LikeWear Hostess Rewards Program is :

• One half-priced item – party hostesses are entitled to one half-priced item as a “thank you” gift (this should be the most expensive item that the hostess is purchasing that day)
o This discount is applied to full price items only
• Hostess Credit - $5 credit for every $100 spent at the party
o This is calculated once the party is over and all sales for the event have been totaled (i.e., a sales event that generates $1,238.00 will earn the host/hostess a $60 credit)
o Purchases made by the hostess do not count toward total party sales
o This credit is to be used towards the hostess’ purchases that day (this credit is not transferrable nor can it be held over and used towards a future purchase)
o This credit cannot be applied to their half-priced item
• Free Shipping on all hostess orders (we waive the $3 flat rate house party shipping fee)
• Exclusive Access to Sales, Specials and Discounts – although we have not implemented this part yet, we fully intend to in the near future!

As mentioned, the hostess credit and half-priced item are funded by LikeWear if you are a Catalog rep. It is very important to properly note the house party identifier on all orders originating from the same party so that we can calculate total party sales (and the accompanying hostess credit) properly. Similarly, please make sure to indicate which order from the party is that of your hostess so that we can also apply the half-priced item discount as well as the earned hostess credit.

As a Cash & Carry rep, the hostess credit and half-priced item are funded by you and should be treated as a cost of doing business – a very important and worthwhile cost. Keep in mind that as a Cash & Carry rep, these hostess rewards are just guidelines. You are permitted to alter them as you wish but know that the above is what we recommend.

In concluding this Monday Morning Message, remember: the more hostesses you have, the more rewarding your business will be! Don’t forget to mention the Hostess Rewards Program during any sales events you have – your best potential host is a happy current customer!!!

I Like Big Butts

As a parent it is so rewarding to teach your children something new. But, it’s even cooler when they figure things out for themselves.

My son, Ryan, has always been big for his age – especially big given that he is one of the youngest in his grade. From the time he was 18 months old, his height and weight measurements were off the percentile charts. At doctor’s appointments his stats were delivered to me as if/then statements – “He’s now 18 months, but if he was a 2 yr. old he’d already be in the 75th percentile”. He was like a bull in a china shop no matter where we went. He was in constant motion – constantly. I lost my baby weight in record time and was always glowing (okay, in a full body sweat) as I tried to keep up with him. Add to that, the fact that I come from a large family that is comprised of lots of girls, and it’s not hard to see why none of us seemed to know what to do with a boy – especially one that was a whirlybird of energy like Ryan. I have often described my mother’s interaction with him as akin to someone who is clearly not a “dog person” trying to play with a Saint Bernard. One of my favorite quotes is from my grandfather as he watched a then 2 year old Ryan at our Passover seder. “What’s wrong with the boy?” he asked with what can only be described as a mix of confusion and horror.

As Ryan grew I found that most of what I said to him started with the word “no”. “No Ryan, that’s fragile. No Ryan, don’t push your sisters. No Ryan, stop splashing in the mud. No Ryan, don’t throw that ball in the house. No Ryan, I definitely do not enjoy being smacked from behind when I’m not ready for it.” I was worried about what all this negativity would do to his self-esteem.

Instinctively I knew that I just had to channel his “spirit” in a positive way – ya know, put all that energy to good use. I was so excited when he could finally be involved in organized sports. As soon as he was old enough, I quickly signed him up for the 2 most popular sports in town – soccer and baseball. He hated them both. He practiced, he played in the games, but he didn’t enjoy it – at all. He’d run after the soccer ball and wind up barreling into other players (some of which were his own teammates!) knocking them down like pins in a bowling alley. On the baseball field he could make good contact while up at bat, but he was a slow runner. And the speed of play for baseball in 2nd grade was equally pathetic. He didn’t care that these were the sports most of his friends were playing. Soccer and baseball were not for him - he just wasn’t interested. Okay, I thought, so he’s just not going to be a sports kind of kid.

Then Ryan started to play football and his world changed. Now his size, energy and aggression were attributes! His face lit up the first time he tackled someone to the ground and received not only a “way to go” from his coach but also a clap on the back for it! Knocking people over, not being afraid to get dirty, and having a tough enough butt to withstand the knocks (literally) of playing the position of center… that’s what it took to play football – it was the perfect sport for him!

Then spring came and lacrosse was a similar eye-opener - less pads than football but fast physical game play. And his body was made for defense. In fact, Ryan has perfected a move that we have named the “butt hole”. When a lacrosse ball is on the ground, often there is a swarm of players all trying to pick it up with their sticks. Most players shove head first into the fray. Not my son. Ryan likes to back up into this type of gathering . He leads with his butt – shoving and bumping players aside – essentially creating a hole in the crowd by using his rear end to clear the way for him to pick up the ball. And it’s effective!

It’s what every parent hopes and dreams of– that their children can try and try again until they are able to take his/her own unique personality and physical traits and use them to a successful advantage. We’ve been commenting on (okay, and sometimes poking fun of ) Ryan’s broad build his whole life. Who was to know his big strong butt would be the thing to perhaps lead him to greatness someday?!?!

Monday Morning Meeting

Okay I admit it. I hate Monday mornings. It’s when “my list” is longest and sometimes I just don’t know where to begin. That said, I usually try to wake up a little earlier on Mondays so that I can have a half hour of quiet time (while even Ken is sleeping!) to organize my thoughts, make a game plan for the week and try to get motivated!

During this morning’s solitude I was thinking about the fact that I speak to 5-10 of our independent sales reps each day to discuss various topics – table set up techniques, sales tax rules, hostess benefits, boutique store sales tactics and strategies, vendor event sales and website ordering, just to name a few. Over the past week or so, each time I hung up the phone from one of these conversations (or completed an email exchange) I thought how much all of our sales reps could benefit from what had been discussed. So with that in mind, I’ve decided to start a Monday Morning Message. Each Monday morning I plan to offer a brief tip, suggestion or helpful comment that will hopefully help our reps to organize, promote and advance their business.

The first Monday Morning Message:

Consider inviting another vendor (or a few) with non-competitive products to attend/help coordinate a party. There are entrepreneurial moms in every community. Whether they are selling jewelry, stationery, handbags, cosmetics or women’s apparel (just to name a few) they will likely have a customer base that differs from yours. In that way, you’ll all benefit from a more varied and (numerous!) invitee list which will hopefully translate to a better attended event – and more sales! You should give a brief description in your invitation as to what each of the vendors will be selling. Just think, someone who comes to the party looking for a handbag may just not be able to resist your LikeWear clothes!! You’ll likely find too that these vendors will in turn invite you to some of their future events as well.

I hope (and will encourage) our reps to reply to the Monday Morning Messages with any comments, feedback or personal suggestions they may have on that day’s topic or anything else they would like to add. I’m hopeful that this will help to foster a greater sense of unity. Most of our reps don’t know one another but we are all part of the same team – if we all succeed on an individual basis, it makes the company stronger as a whole. To that end:

"The greater the loyalty of a group toward the group, the greater is the motivation among the members to achieve the goals of the group, and the greater the probability that the group will achieve its goals." --Rensis Likert

Giving Birth Again

It has evolved and developed over the past few months. So many have awaited its arrival. It is a composite of blood sweat and tears - a piece of me and a piece of Ken. We even had what seemed like Braxton Hicks contractions over the past few weeks – ya know like a false start that faked everyone out. I am talking about the release of our Collection 5 Spring/Summer ’09 catalog!

Well, to be more accurate, it’s actually in “sell sheets” format – a layout, if you will, from which the official catalog will be printed. We’ve released it to our independent sales rep force for their use to sell-in the line to boutique retail stores and to generate some buzz (and even pre-orders) from customers. The additional sets of eyes (besides just Ken and I’s!) have proven to be helpful in catching any typos or errors before the official catalog is printed. Amazingly, you can get a little fuzzy on the details when you’re doing this kind of work at 3am!!

This is the 5th time we’ve done this - catalogs anyway (I’m not including the birth of our 3 children in this count!) - and I must say it does not get any easier. Given that neither Ken nor I have any real background in catalog production, we’ve both certainly learned a tremendous amount (and if I do say so myself, improved the final result an even more tremendous amount) since Collection 1. That said, there are so many bumps along the way… blurry photography – go back and reshoot, too many pink tank tops – go back and redesign, not enough options for boys – research and find new blank garments (and ones that meet all our strict criteria!), licensors have changes to the creative – rework designs, resubmit and “re-wait” for approval. The entire process is 2 steps forward, 5 steps back. It is so difficult not to lose your footing along the way. Especially when there are so many other things to work on simultaneously… web site construction and launch, new Consumer Product Safety Commission guidelines that directly impact our business, implementing a new accounting program, updating and modifying our GuideBook, staying in touch and motivating our sales force, attracting new independent sales representatives, etc. But, all those other things really mean nothing if there is no product to show and sell, so completion of the catalog had to resurface as our top priority.

We’ve now entered the post birth groggy phase where all you can do is stare in awe with bleary, exhausted love-struck eyes at what has been created. A little dramatic? Perhaps. But it’s hard for us not to be excited about LikeWear’s Collection 5. You can download a copy of it here. It’ll also be up on the website soon. Oh yeah, and please let us know if you find any typos!

Great Quotes

The time to relax is when you don't have time for it.
~Attributed to both Jim Goodwin and Sydney J. Harris

A "Site" To Behold

I’m incredibly proud (and often awestruck) that we’ve been able to say we are going to make things happen and then watch those said things actually become a reality. Like finding a bookkeeper, deciding on a company to manufacture private labels and another to sew them in, reconfiguring our warehouse space, obtaining new licensors, advertising for and adding to our independent representative sales force, designing and producing new creative concepts, art files and heat transfer images etc., etc. All of these accomplishments are the result of hard work, deep concentration, intense strategizing, a fair amount of stress and more than a few arguments!

Our most recent milestone has been the launch of our revised website. The new site not only has e-commerce functionality (which it did not have before), but it also allows for personalized “web stores” for each of our reps. Aside from a minor advisory role, I must say that I had very little to do with the website’s creation. The whole enchilada was a “Ken thing”. He worked tirelessly (okay that’s not completely true given that most of the website work occurred between 1 and 3am) to ensure that it would all be in place and ready in time for the upcoming season.

I mentioned that I had very little to do with the site’s actual construction, but I must also confess that I did not allow myself to get too excited about the whole website thing because I just couldn’t fathom how we were going to get everything in place and running within the timeframe we had hoped. I am so excited (okay beaming a bit) to be able to finally have this very timely and important selling and advertising method in place. I think it will exponentially increase the income potential of our reps and hopefully enable us to be found by what I hope are a jazillion online shoppers through web and google-type searches.

And, perhaps most relevant to what I’m doing literally right now, we have changed hosts and moved “Blog What You Like” to www.likewear.com/blog. Just like blogspot (former host), there is a way to subscribe to the feed (if you so desire). Not that there was anything wrong with blogspot… we just needed to keep everything under one roof - so to speak.

With all that said, we will continue to set goals. A part of me knows that we can’t always make it all happen (despite all of our best efforts) and even if we do make it happen it won’t always be on time. I also know that Ken and I have set our bar pretty high. We like that high bar – it keeps us moving forward. We just have to remember to keep looking back at the same time to be aware and proud of the work that has already been done. At the moment, it’s marveling at www.likewear.com - shop on.

Curing What Ails You

There are few things worse than the 4am wake-up call of a vomiting 5 year old. Their glassy, sad, scared eyes as they cling helplessly to the rim of the toilet bowl are enough to bring me to tears. I feel instant “sympathy nausea” which I always overanalyze – “ooh, I don’t feel so good myself”, I think as I’m holding back hair and administering a soothing back rub. Truth be told, the worst part I admit selfishly, is the middle of the night linen changes, towel washings and carpet blotting.

Well, that’s how I started my day this past Saturday – ya know, the one day of the week I actually have the opportunity to sleep in until 7:45am. But, what’s another night with less than 5 hours of sleep? The ironic thing is that all week long I was looking forward to today - what I was calling “the afternoon of me”. I desperately needed some relaxation time. My husband, recognizing I was on the brink, was kind enough to offer to drive my older daughter to her camp reunion an hour away. And, he was going to bring my son and other daughter with him to kill 3 hours at the nearby supermall before picking my daughter back up (oh yeah, and 3 of her friends that he was also carpooling. You see, I was desperately in need of a little R & R – and I’m not talking about rock ‘n roll. There’s so much “rocking” around here lately as we prepare for “rolling” out our Spring/Summer line that I needed the kind of down time that involves just me, myself and I (okay and maybe my manicurist!).

But, Lily’s early morning projectile party (sorry, too much detail, I know) changed all that. So, there I sat, all day long, trying to focus on relaxing while I was snuggling (not too closely mind you) and watching what felt like a Suite Life of Zach and Cody marathon! Never before did I think I would utter these words: damn those DVRs!

I didn’t get my nails done. I didn’t catch up on my very behind photo organizing. I did no laundry. I did no shopping. I didn’t check e-mail. I didn’t even walk the dog. I spent the day on the couch with my ill 5 year old who didn’t feel like eating, speaking or even sitting up. But, we were there for each other. I comforted her while she wasn’t feeling her best and she showed me that sometimes the best way to recharge your battery and get a little R&R is to do nothing at all with the ones you love most of all.

The Good, The Bad And The Nosy

Call it six degrees of separation, a social experiment, the new millenium’s gift to advertisers or my favorite description (coined by my husband): “jewish geography on crack”. If you’ve been living under a rock then you may not know that I’m talking about Facebook - or FB if you’re cool and in the know.

In case you have been under a rock, Facebook is a popular, free-access social networking website that allows users to join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends, send them messages and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. It was founded by a guy named Mark Zuckerberg while he was a student at Harvard University. Originally membership was limited to Harvard students but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League and Stanford. It has been opened up to now include anyone aged 13 and over. The website (incredibly) has more than 150 million active users worldwide.

I think the history of the site is pretty interesting. I know most people don’t really care how FB got here, all they know is that they can’t imagine their lives without it! In November I attended my 20 year high school reunion. Many of my fellow graduates described the activity on Facebook in the months leading up to the event as the “pre-party”. I wasn’t sure if already having connected as “friends” via the site and having an opportunity to read up on profiles, work activity, marital status, pictures of kids etc. would steal the thunder of the point of the reunion – catching up. In my opinion, that did not prove to be the case. In fact, I think it gave most people (not everyone is on FB after all) a loose familiarity that made it easier to strike up the kind of quick small talk – much like speed dating - that occurs at reunions.

Of course, some of the daily minutiae that people broadcast (“I am watching my daughter poop on the potty for the first time”) can be bit annoying and the pictures and video that others dig up and post (ya know, ones with the 80’s hair, eyeliner and prachute pants or the stupid drunken ones from prom weekend) can be embarrassing and even border on an invasion of privacy. No one minds when they are “tagged” in a photo that they look fabulous in, but the ones that catch you in bad light, with 6 chins or your mouth open while chewing, make you want to morph into one of those people who are living under a rock.

Overall, Facebook is what you make of it. I know some people that are truly addicted. They’ve even added the FB application to their phones so they don’t miss any status updates or friend requests. Others (myself included) find FB a very useful tool for bringing awareness to their business or philanthropic cause. And still others get and stay involved for the voyeuristic thrill of it all. Human beings have a natural desire to feel connected to and involved with one another. Facebook is just a modern day way to accomplish that. I would even go so far to say that it could singlehandedly have a long term sociological effect on the way people communicate and essentially “stay in touch”. I mean, where else can you satisfy a basic human need while seeing if your old college boyfriend who dumped you is fat, balding and friendless?

Garbage In, Garbage Out

I’m new to electronic organization. I’ve always been a pen and paper kind of girl. I never had a PDA or a Trio. I never even kept a contact list in my cell phone. What was the point when I had a school directory and address book on me at all times? I played around with a Palm Pilot for a while but while I was using it I was the most disorganized I’ve ever been in my life. Seriously! It was double work because I never fully committed to it. I would keep my handwritten calendar and then transcribe new entries into the Palm – and not always immediately. And, since this era was pre-LikeWear it wasn’t even as if my computer was on 24/7 (hard to imagine now) so syncing and backing it all up always seemed like a chore. As a result, my Palm was never completely accurate or up to date – and as a result, neither was I.

About 2 years ago, I got a Blackberry. It forever changed my email life. But at that time, I still (to the incredulous, head-scratching, eye rolling wonder of my super-tech husband) didn’t use it for my calendar or phonebook. I didn’t see anything wrong with keeping my life organized in my Month-At-A-Glance – thank you very much! But, as LikeWear and my 3 children evolved and grew, my commitments, plans, meetings and activities, all became too much for my brain, and those small calendar boxes of only 6 lines per day, to handle. It was time for a change. That change had a name… Microsoft Outlook.

Very quickly I felt like I had acquired a personal assistant. Recorded birthdays now repeat every year without me rewriting them annually after waiting to purchase the new year’s paper calendar. Events can be color-coded to stand out or have special emphasis. And talk about bells and whistles – important meetings or events cause my computer and Blackberry to buzz, chime, beep (and practically reach through the monitor to slap me silly) each time it has to remind me to do something.

All that said, mine is still not a perfectly organized world. You see, very quickly I not only learned the joys and highs of Outlook but also its inherent weakness. You see, it is only as good as the information that you put in. Today I missed my daughter’s indoor soccer game. I had the game down for 3pm. My computer chimed at 2:30pm reminding me I needed to leave at that time in order to arrive the required 15 minutes before game time. The only problem was, the game had been changed to 1pm (apparently via an email sent out earlier in the week) and this new information had never been updated in my calendar. Ugh! And then last year there was the pre-camp get together for my son a few weeks before he left to go to sleepaway camp for the first summer. My daughter goes to a different camp and they too had a meet-and-greet the week after his. I reversed the 2 start times and we showed up at my son’s event just as it was ending. Definitely not a moment on my “mom highlight reel”.

So I guess no matter how high tech or sophisticated society gets, we can never fully escape the original governing principles of computers 101 that were taught 20+ years ago… GIGO – garbage in, garbage out. I definitely need to be more careful in the data entry department. And I recognize that mistakes are bound to happen. I just hope the next time I google GIGO, a picture of Lisa Gold doesn’t show up.

Temptation

I’ve got a lot on my plate. In fact, sometimes I feel like I have so much there, that like eating an ice cream cone on a hot day, I’m constantly licking up all the stuff at the edges before they drip to the ground. Of late, I feel like I’m holding a multi-scoop cone. The next flavor is getting piled on top before I can finish the lower ones. Add to that the heat wave environment I’ve been in and it goes without saying that it has been quite challenging to keep my cone neat, so to speak.

I don’t need any new challenges right now. However, Ken and I were approached by a friend with an opportunity that could really help take LikeWear to another level. While I’m not prepared to discuss the specifics of that opportunity (sorry, don’t mean to be mysterious and annoying, I’m just a little superstitious until the ink is dry), the proposal does suggest a business dilemma of sorts for me that I’m trying to flush out.

Should a company remain unwaveringly focused to its core business or should it try to take advantage of potentially fantastic opportunities - even if those opportunities are a bit peripheral to the main focus? And should you go for it even if those opportunities have the potential to spread you even thinner and perhaps divert efforts for a while? Hmmm… I suppose, once pros/cons, downside risks, upside potential and all possible scenarios and factors you can think of can be examined and analyzed, and if you still in your gut feel like the idea is an opportunity as opposed to a distraction, then the decision has already been made.

Of course there are no crystal balls and hindsight is always 20/20 with these things. I’m sure there are several more cliché phrases I could use right now but I think my point has been made. Calculated risks don’t necessarily equate to risky if you’ve done the calculating part. I think I've done my homework on this one. We’re going to move forward with it. Now I just need to work on clearing a space on my plate.

Great Quotes

After spending another workday at home with my kids off from school for Martin Luther King Day, I offer this:

"If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylum would be filled with mothers."
-- Edgar Watson Howe

Multi-Tasking Secrets: Watch and Run

There are some shows on TV I just can’t get enough of – Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, So You Think You Can Dance (don’t mock it until you’ve seen it) and okay I admit it, Lipstick Jungle. Can such an inspirational drama that so realistically depicts NY city life for 30/40 somethings really not have been picked up again for another season? I’m being sarcastic but truth be told I will miss it. And not because I’ll miss settling down to watch a little TV after my kids are in bed and the work/school week is completed on Friday nights. You see, I NEVER watch TV at night.

I don’t really have time to watch during the week. I’m too caught up in finishing homework with my kids and making lunches, etc. for the next school day. Plus, my alone time at night has been diminishing as my kids seem to be going to bed later and later – what are they getting older or something? And then there’s the double whammy of 1) my husband (better known around here as the nocturnal night owl) who does his most productive work at night going strong until the wee hours of most mornings (ya know, the only time my house is quiet with no kids screaming, no phones ringing or doorbells chiming) and he and I usually need to confer and strategize together before his work happens, and 2) all of our reps are moms who start sending emails (and some even making phone calls) at night once their kids are asleep and their brains refocus post-mommyness for the day.

So obviously discretionary free time is limited for me these days. That said, I feel it is important to my sanity (not to mention my ass!) to work out and exercise on a regular basis. As of 18 months ago I gave up my local gym membership (time thing again) for the treadmill in my basement. I DVR all my favorite shows and get caught up watching them while I’m huffing and puffing and sweating out all those stress toxins. In fact, there has been many a morning when the draw of a new episode like Entourage has gotten me to drag myself out of bed on a Monday morning and lace up my sneakers! And, when all else has already been watched (or we’re in the dreaded repeat season), there’s always Oprah for a little inspiration, suggestions for a great new book or tips on simply how to dress and look 10 years younger!! I’ve also become very familiar – and I must say feel very current and hip - with new friends named Akon, T.I., Kanye, Paramore and Great American Rejects. I watch them too while obsessively flicking to and from all the MTV channels (I am an 80’s girl after all – MTV was born in my generation and I still think it rocks).

Staying current with popular shows and musicians makes me feel “in the loop” and less like the hermit I sometimes feel I’ve become – holed up in my office working, working, working! The one negative (actually it borders on dangerous) aspect of catching up on shows while running on the treadmill is that when watching the tear-jerker scenes of my favorite dramas, I’ve stumbled a bit because my vision is blurred by my watery eyes!!

But, “watching and running” is a perfect example of where I’m at these days. There’s not enough time to do all the things I want to do – so instead of forgoing or eliminating things I enjoy, I just double-up and do more than one of them at the same time. Humph… and my mom said that all that time I spent perfecting walking and chewing gum at the same time would never come in handy.

139 Days Past Due And Counting

Owning and operating your own business is risky business - I get that. Often you have to jump blindly and simply accept on faith other people’s word – I also get that. And there’s no guarantee that the people you do business with will all conduct themselves in a moral, honest and trustworthy manner – believe me, I get that too. Yet despite all this knowledge, it is still inconceivable to me that a seemingly well-established Upper East Side children’s clothing store can simply choose to not pay their bills.

I am talking about a retail store located on Madison Avenue in Manhattan. They have placed 4 orders with us over the past year or so and we have extended 30 day credit to them on each of the invoices associated with these orders. We struggled a bit with late payments on each of their past bills but this past experience with them has really gone above and beyond moral correctness. But, when dealing with most retailers (not all) 30 days is apparently a loose term. Then again, we have allowed it to be – giving them the benefit of the doubt (of course they are going to pay) and quite frankly not wanting to hound people down for money (we don’t want to present LikeWear as financially aggressive like that – although maybe we need to get over not coming across as “nice”… that’s a whole other topic for another blog post!).

We reminded them when they were 45 days past due with a phone call to the store. The owner gives a “shuck and jive” every time you call saying she can’t talk right now, or she’s on her way running out, or the store is really crowded now, each time promising a call right back which has NEVER happened. When I finally managed to get her on the phone and remind her they were past due (the first time), she told me they were really busy and would be paying it soon. Hmmm… maybe I ought to try that line with the credit card company if I’m ever late with a payment – “Sorry, Visa I’ve been really busy lately at work but I’ll pay that bill soon – really I will”.

At 60 days, after calling a few days in a row to finally get the owner on the phone again, I asked if she wanted to pay over the phone with a credit card to take care of her obligation with us and she asked me to resend the invoice because her accountant would be coming in that week and they would take care of it via check. I knew she was putting me off but decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. That said, another good one to try… next time after receiving goods from one of my vendors and neglecting to pay them for 60 days maybe I ought to justify it by telling them “my accountant should be coming in sometime this week and we’ll get back to them”. Again, I take some responsibility here for not being more assertive, but she didn’t even give me a chance to say good-bye during this conversation, let alone point out how wrong and unfair her procrastination was – not to mention illegal.

At 90 days the store owner actually had the nerve to sound annoyed that I was calling again (ya know, after waiting another 30 days for her accountant to fill out a check and mail it in to us). I told her I would be happy to stop calling and resending (at her request) our invoices each month - which she can’t ever seem to remember where she has put – if she would please just give us a credit card number over the phone so we can settle the account. She then proceeded to tell me that I was rude in telling her saleswoman who had answered the phone the day prior to please make sure that she returned my call this time. She continued to be argumentative and when I told her she was giving me no other choice but to contact a collections agency, she told me I should “do what I needed to do” and hung up. Is she kidding?

How can a business owner (or human being for that matter) blatantly use avoidance and procrastination in her dealings and then be righteous about it? If she had been honest and explained that the store was having some financial issues I would have gladly worked something out with them. But they continue to operate and do business with no sign of insolvency or financial trouble. And, it’s not like they did not do well with our line – not that that would justify not paying anyway. So why exactly are they not paying up?

At 120 days past due, we did in fact contact a collection agency (a first for us) and this store owner is now avoiding their calls. I just don’t know how someone can live their life and conduct their business like that. I believe in karma – enough said here.

I’m so grateful for what I have learned from some businesses and their owners in how to run and manage a business. I guess there is also much to be gained from others in how NOT to behave and how NOT to operate a business. In that regard, I guess this experience has not been a total loss, as it has been an important lesson - albeit an expensive one.

You Know You’re Working Too Hard When…

I’m a hard worker. So is my husband Ken. We wear many hats in our company – and never one at a time. Sometimes I can’t help but laugh at some of the things I have to do, deal with or endure in my day to day. I often feel like I have a Rodney Dangerfield-like comic sitting on my shoulder pointing out these aspects of daily life like a comedy bit – “You Know You’re Working Too Hard When…”. It must be my subconscious’ way of dealing with the stress involved in running a new growing company. So like my Multi-Tasking Secrets, I’m going to throw jokes out there every now and again.

So, for my first entry:

You know you’re working too hard when… You live in the same town that you grew up in. Your sister lives in town too. You have 3 kids in school in town. They participate in a bazillion different sports (of which your husband coaches several) and your youngest is enrolled in the local dance studio, etc., etc. You then take these 3 kids to lunch at the local hot-spot diner and the only person you or your kids recognize in the whole place is the UPS delivery man! Ba dum dum.

But seriously folks….

The Black Hole

I didn’t realize how many people were actually reading my posts until I dropped off the blog planet. Since the end of October I’ve had people asking me, “why no blogging?” Can it really be almost 2 months since I last posted anything!?!?!? I guess that statement alone sums up how our holiday season was… BUSY!

We were hopeful that Holiday ‘08 would be our best season yet. We tried to prepare well – bought an additional heat press, hired and trained more manufacturing help, added a part-time bookkeeper – and made sure my mother was “on call” to pick up any children on a last minute basis. My grandmother even contributed by dropping off “business essentials” from her weekly trips to Costco. I joked that she in fact may have had the single most important job as I’m not sure what business – regardless of industry – can thrive without coffee and toilet paper!! Once the season began (right around my last blog entry!) we hunkered down to make sure our new employees knew what they were doing, small orders didn’t get lost, inventory reorders weren’t forgotten and holiday shipping deadlines were met. In some respects, I felt like I was holding my breath for 6 weeks –ready to extinguish any fires that may have started – sometimes literally!

The preparation paid off. I won’t go so far as to say that it all ran smoothly all the time, but we did our best, got through it and were thrilled at all the last minute retail re-orders despite the fact that each and every one was contingent upon a shipping deadline! When the dust all settled from the holiday tornado, this past season was in fact our best so far. Phew!! I can now take a deep breath.

My New Year’s resolution (one of them anyway) was to start the blog up again (yeah, yeah I’m a few days late on that one). I want to get back to it not just because some of you are actually reading it (and BTW, thanks for continuing to check back to see if anything new has been up - the answer to which has been NO up until now) but even more so – at the expense of sounding selfish – for myself. Life’s busy. This blog has been therapeutic in many respects – a way to take a moment out of each day (or every few days anyway) to focus on what’s going on. What important happened with the business, my kids, my family, my feelings… I know Blog What You Like is rewarding for me now, but I also know that it will be an invaluable diary of sorts as I look back on this hectic, challenging yet incredibly rewarding time in my life. 2009, here I come.