And Favorite Ice Cream Flavors.

Couranteer Finished

The finished Couranteer from my last post. This will be the last one I do for a while. As I’m expanding into new mediums and opportunities the drag on my resources these become is too much. It’s one thing when I’m doing nothing but bags. It’s another when I’ve got a lot of balls in the air and have to drop everything to work on a bag. So for now at least they are on hold.

I try not to get too in the weeds about how I run my business. Sometimes there is an idea that I’m wrapping my head around that I think is worth sharing. This time it’s about ice cream.

I remember hearing this story about when Jenni’s Ice Cream was just getting started. Her initial plan was to only offer a few flavors but make them innovative and change them every week. Each week would be a whole new menu of crazy ideas.

She quickly ran into a problem. She could get people in the door but she was having trouble keeping them coming back. She eventually realized it was because of the constantly changing menu.

People need to have their favorites and they want to know they can reliably get that favorite from you. By constantly changing her menu she was keeping people from creating a connection with what she was offering.

Why am I thinking about this? Because that’s what I’ve been doing with my work since I started. Every collection is a new idea. I usually do one of each design.

I’m starting to realize that I’ve made all of these things that people love, had exactly one chance to buy, and then never again. So I’m thinking about how to fix this.

One idea is that I could revisit some of my favorite collections over the years. The other is that I could make more than one of each design.

For now I’m starting small. One of my favorites from the Millstream collection from a few years ago. I made a handful of them in the same pattern. A little butter pecan to balance out the new flavors.

Couranteer in the Works.

I’ve been working away on bags for the last few weeks, This Couranteer being one of the last few in this batch. I’m a about a week and a half’s worth of work in on this one. Once I get to this point it all comes together pretty quickly. Relatively speaking

As I work away I’m thinking about all that has changed with the way I make these. I dye all this leather by hand. It is a three day process that has to take place before I even start making anything out of it.

There isn’t really anyway to recycle leather. I can’t melt it down, or kneed it back into a mound and start again. Once I start cutting the leather down every step I take is one I’m committed to. If the knife slips a little while I’m cutting out the edge of the body of a bag I can’t call my customer and ask if it’s okay to deliver a Couranteer that’s 13.5” wide instead of 14”. If the knife slips I have to start over. Hopefully it’s early on in the process. Rather than a few weeks in.

The knife has slipped more times that I’d like to admit. When it happens there is a whole grieving process. At first I can’t believe it happened. Then I try to convince myself that it’s fixable. Finally comes acceptance and I start over.

Ten years in I’m cutting out the parts slower than I ever have. I’ve done this hundreds of times at this point. Yet still in my head I’m double checking every step I’m taking. I have an itemized list in front of me with each little step written out. I check it as I go. Like an anxious novice looking over a recipe.

The knife makes a cut following along a groove I’ve made to demarcate the borders of the body panel. This first pass with the knife makes the trench deeper. The next pass with the knife will make the trench deep enough to hold the knife to the line. The third cut will pass the knife all the way through the leather. Slowly. Slowly progress is made. One pass at a time.

It has become a mantra I recite to my students in class. Go slow. Pay attention to what your hands are doing. Get each step right. It all adds up. Go slow to go fast.

The body panels are cut out and I’ve moved on to the pockets and gussets that will make the sides of the bag. This is what I’ve done for weeks now. This level of concentration requires all other work to stop in the studio.

As I cut and shape I’m thinking about the future of these bags. Three different weights of leather. Hardware. Strap leather. The commitment to dyeing all that leather. The concentration required. Thousands of spent dollars sitting around me waiting to be made into a bag. This system works when I’m doing nothing but bag making. When I’m doing anything else it’s thousands of spent dollars sitting around not doing anything. Slowly drying out and becoming stiffer and harder to work with.

I honestly don’t know where the future lays with these. I’m proud of my designs. I’ve never had to be pushy with selling them because there really isn’t anything else out there quite like what I make, If you want a nice bag there are lots of options. If you want one like what I make there really aren’t.

At the same time they are so resource intensive that I can’t really experiment with them. In every other area of my practice I’m making progress. Advancing my style. These haven’t changed.

In these few weeks of bag making I’ve done little else. All my other work is on hold while I do them. It’s coming down to math between sticking with what’s comfortable and safe in the past and what holds promise and potential for the future. I wish I could do both but it is becoming increasingly obvious to me that I can’t. There aren’t enough hours.

On any other decision the math is easy. I move forward. It’s what I’ve always done. These are different. I use these bags every day. I get stopped on the street and asked about them. I still catch myself looking across to studio at the display models thinking “Damn. I made that.”

But to stay on that path means giving up the one that I’m headed down. I just don’t think I’m the kind of person that can stay in one place like that.

It would be nice to end this with a clean ending. I don’t have one though. As I work through this bag I’m working through what to do about them. Slowly. With patience. Committed to each step. Watching my hands, checking the plan, thinking of the finished picture, trying to not let the knife slip.

A Second Narrative

One hot day in the middle of a summer two decades ago I received my art degree in the mail. When it arrived I was either away at work, a bar job I got while in college, or was asleep, because I was in my twenties and worked at a bar. I didn't go to my graduation.

A few weeks prior I'd had my final critique with my photography professor and mentor. The meeting was supposed to be a review of the work I'd done during the independent study course I'd taken that year. What followed was a three hour meeting in which we didn't really talk about the art I'd made. Instead Masumi asked me what I was planning for my future and repeatedly told me "Go to grad school. Don't do anything else. Don't stop along the way. You need to go to grad school."

I had another important conversation that week. I told my boss that I loved working for him, loved my job, but even with all the hours I was working and all the cutting back I'd done I couldn't afford to pay my rent. I told him I wanted to keep working for him if he could help me figure out a way to stay. He made me a bartender.

So I didn't go to grad school. I became a bartender. I don't remember giving up on my dreams. I just took one little step away from them, one day at a time, each necessary.

At some point I convinced myself that this was what being a grown up was like. Art was something I used to do. It wasn't a career. Careers are serious, hard, and require sacrifice. So I sacrificed.

It took me ten years to reach my limit. Working at a restaurant when I was in my twenties felt exciting and adult. Working the same job in my thirties, when I wanted to own a house and start a family, felt different. I was tired of missing New Years, Mother's Day, Saturday nights, Sunday mornings. I'd had my head down for so long, taking one necessary step at a time, that when I finally looked up I realized I didn't know where I was going.

So I quit.

I started Wright & Rede. A place where I could be creative, but sell things. Serious things that people could use. Adult things. Not art. Practical things.

In doing so I had to learn social media. How to promote and market myself. I started documenting my work. Business stuff. Not art. I was selling a product.

But sometimes, when I had my camera out, the light would hit just right or I'd be driving my son home from preschool and we'd stop at a park. I'd bring my camera with me just in case there were some pictures I could take to help define my brand. Definitely not for making art.

Then another decade passed and now I'm making art. To be clear, I wasn't making art. I stopped, but now I was making art again. Which I wasn't doing before. Definitely.

And then.

Last night I was looking through all of those pictures. The ones I took because the light was nice. The ones I shot when I had my camera out. The ones to show my kids what I used to use when I made art.

There, hidden in with all the pictures I'd taken telling my narrative of Wright & Rede, was a second narrative. A story about a parent. Someone who stopped to watch the sunrise. Celebrated the bitter sweet moments of watching his children grow up. Knowing that these were moments we'd never be able to return to. Memories we were living in. Pictures where the light was just right, the composition was perfect, and it all came together with how it made me feel. When combined it made something more than the sum of its parts. Art.

I am an artist. I always have been.

Looking back now I can see an unbroken chain of pictures. Taken when my guard was down. When I thought they didn't matter. Just because. Capturing this fleeting feeling I have. To savor life, all the little quiet moments, because they are always slipping away and I can never have them back.

It has taken me twenty years to understand what Masumi was trying to tell me. Don't stop. Take it seriously. Take the next step, but in the right direction.

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A year ago on a sleet colored day in January, I was standing in my studio watching from the window as cold wind made waves in the winter browned lawns outside, and I was feeling lost.

At that point I'd been in business for ten years. Ten years of craftsmanship. Ten years of subverting that by sneaking a little art in there. A few less than ten years of realizing that was what I was doing, and a few years less than even that of realizing that's what I should have been doing to begin with.

I could feel the path I'd planned out for the year slipping away beneath my feet. It wasn't a bad plan. I was going to do a ten year retrospective. I'd pare down all the good idea's of the past decade and make little collections featuring each of them.

Old ingredients make for bad dishes.

The problem was that the work that had gotten me there wasn't the work that was going to get me to where I needed to go. The long arc of progress doesn't bend you back around to where you started.

In February I gave up on that plan.

The next few months were about making messy, intuitive work and then seeing if I could reign it back in. I didn't allow bad ideas. If I made something weird, ugly, or too far out from the work I was comfortable in making, I forced myself to finish it. It worked. Mistakes became seeds. Seed grew into ideas.

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I messed up a lot. I remember a particularly bad day when I accidentally cemented a leather tray to the wooden form I'd used to shape it. I gave up on the piece and tried to at least rescue the form, and in doing so cut a big gouge out of the wood, ruining the form.

At the same time I was churring out cyanotypes. From from the moment the midwestern sun finally peeked out in May through the deep red embers of October I made more work in a season than I have since college. My plan was to make a lot of work. I didn't care if it was good work. Just to make work and see what happened. I came up with three big concepts for collections that summer. None of them made it to fruition.

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I taught myself how to make leather bowls. The first bowl I made was a beauty. The next six months of bowls never lived up to that first one. All of them marked with lessons about what not to do along the way. Patience they whispered at me. This is an old art. Go slower.

By September I was sitting in my studio making beautiful bowls, trying not to think about how I didn't know what people would use them for. I wasn't making standard brown wallets. I'd stopped talking about the satchels and briefcases I'd spent years developing. You can't even eat out of them, these bowls.

In October I decided that the bowls were used to hold a person's memories. Memories of the person they were when they got it, and dreams of the person they're going to become. I haven't told anyone that until now. But it's what I think about when I watch people pick them up, feeling them to see if it's the right container for all that they were and all that they will be.

In November I poked my head out from the teetering stacks of images I'd made and realized I'd nothing to show for it. A bunch of half finished ideas. In the waning days of November I made one last collection. An entire body of work in just one week. It was about uncertainty, and anxiety, and the chaos of being a parent, and worrying about the future, and interruptions, and changing plans, and all the noise and static and frustrations, and in all that mess finding something beautiful. Something beautiful not despite all the chaos around it, but because of it. I think it's the best work I've ever made.

In December I broke records. I brought my work out into the world for people to pick up and see in person. They all picked up the bowls. No one asked what they were for. They took them home. The weird funky trays went too. The cyanotypes went faster than anything else. I tried not to get tongue tied trying to explain that I had made them too. That both types of art were mine. That I was allowed to make them. That I was sorry they couldn't eat them, or seek shelter under them, or anything practical.

I just smiled. They made me feel something when I made them.

On my table there was quite literally no room for all the work I'd made in the past ten years. I didn't bring any bags to show people. I didn't have my standard brown line up of practical goods. Yet still. I broke records.

Now it is January again. It is still grey. The wind is picking up. I'm still looking out the window. But I am not the same person. Armed with uncertainty and the knowledge that what I'm doing is of value I'm heading out on a new path.

Behold the gnarliest piece of leather I’ve ever tried to work with.

When you buy leather you order it by the side, or roughly half a cow. What you get doesn’t come in nice uniform sheets. You get something roughly cow shaped and all the trials and tribulations that cow has been through are going to show up on the hide.

As you can imagine, not all parts of the hide are equal. There is nice tight grain that is smooth and dyes beautifully along the back and flank.

Then there is this. This comes from what would be the front under neck area. It is usually considered waste leather. It is spongy with loose grain. It has scars and bug bites. It is wrinkled and folded.

I’m very diligent about not wasting anything. Thicker leather scraps get cut down into punch pads or cutting mats to protect my tools. Thinner leather gets used as liner or filler in handles or I’ll make a case out of it to protect my tools when I’m not using them.

This part of this hide though I’ve never been able to use. It won’t lay flat so I can’t use it as a work surface. That loose grain means it won’t hold up as a tool cover.

The thing about it though is that I find it really interesting. All though wrinkles and folds and changing density in grain does weird things as it tries to soak up dye.

To me this is like burled chestnut. For a long time highly figured wood was seen as waste. All those curls and whorls make for very poor chair legs. As we got better at cutting and refining wood suddenly that gnarly piece of firewood had a new kind of value.

So here is what I’m trying. I want to see what happens when I take all that nasty messed up leather and then stretch it over a form and smooth it out.

It’s different. And weird. And if it works I’m going to love it. In all honesty I think its going to fail. But I won’t know until I’ve tried.

I start off every year by looking back at what I have learned in my previous year. I write it down so that I'll remember it when I'm neck deep in work and too busy to think. The lesson I'm thinking about today will be an unpopular one, but one I have given a lot to learn. The Hustle, and the lifestyle that we small business owners proselytize about, is a myth and if you are not careful it will kill you.

In our culture we have this ideal image of the independent business owner giving it all to succeed. It's part of the story we tell. The long hours, the late nights, the stacks (finished and unfinished) of work that we use to prove how busy, and thus successful, we are. I'm guilty of it too.  A month ago I was bragging about working at least 12 hours a day 7 days a week to keep up. Your see it in credit card commercials, blog posts, and Instagram. We make insider jokes about it to each other. In fact I just noticed I did it in the first paragraph of this post. Really though, we are all just helping perpetuate what is ultimately a perversion of the great American Dream. If you try hard enough, and are willing to work for it, you will succeed.

The problem with that ideal is what happens on the flip side when your feet actually hit the pavement. If by working hard you can succeed then if you are not succeeding you are not working hard enough.

When you are your own boss success is murky at best. I can attest, and anyone I have asked has agreed, that you never reach an end point. You never get to a point where you've had enough. There is no peak to stand on and look back on your accomplishments from. We are business owners. We are Hustlers. There is always another peak.

When you tether your success to your effort the problems that you create become manifold. The truth is that effort doesn't equal success. Some people are born to rich parents who will bank roll their business. Some people ooze social grace and will succeed based off their ability to network even if they make shit work. Some people are just stupid lucky. For most of us the best way to get ahead is by throwing a bunch of effort behind it. The creates a problem similar to the race to the bottom-line we see with large corporations. If you can make it cheaper than your competitor then you win. So you end up with a bunch of cheap stuff. With small business owners this is a race to out work each other. It's called the Hustle. If you work 15 hour days and I work 16 hour days then I win. Instead of crappy imported goods you end up with crappy over worked business owners.

So who cares if I work hard? It's my choice, right? Here is why it matters. You are only human. You live in a physical body. A body that needs sleep, and food, and social interaction, and rest, and to be able to set down burdens, and to live life and experience the world that you only get the one chance to be a part of. If you ignore these things for too long it will really and actually kill you. This problem is compounded by the fact that you can't come up with good ideas when you are tired. You can't give good customer service when your are pissed off. You make mistakes when you are distracted. You end up trading away the days at the end of your life for some hours poorly spent in the middle. Sooner or later the one will catch up to the other.

So what do you want me to do about it, Jordan?!? Stop. Just stop. Don't buy into the Hustle. Start by sitting down and defining success. Define it in real terms. Something check-listable. An end point. Then take a good look at what you really have to do to get there and decide if its worth it. Reassess on a regular basis to see if you are getting there and what it is costing you to get there. Be ready to fail. Not in the positive "fail upwards" and learn from your mistakes fail. I'm talking about the ugly someone-else-won-by-being-shitty-and-undeserving kind of fail. That's going to happen and it's okay. You are human. Take it on the chin, and then go home and play with your kids, take a walk in a park, drink a beer and catch a fish while watching the sun set. For the love of God don't post about it. Stop selling. Stop working. Drink it in. When you look back on all of your days let them be filled with moments of a life well lived. Life is about the journey not the destination. You can take life at a stroll and savor every step, or you can hustle through it. The choice is yours.

I was at a large family gathering over the weekend. While sitting around and talking about life in general one of my in-laws asked what was the hardest part about running my business. I thought about it. My response was "deciding to keep doing it every day." I could see the look of confusion cross their face. Why not production, time management, budgeting, advertising, or something more mundane? What do you mean deciding to keep doing it every day? Does your job suck that bad? Your business must not being doing so well.

My father has a saying. "Working for yourself is easy. One day you get out of bed and decide to not go work for any one else. The hard part is that every day after that you have to get out of bed and decide to not go work for any one else."

Production times get better as I do. Time management is something that will sort itself out. Budgeting and advertising are all problems that can be solved. The plague of questioning yourself is something that will never go away. Am I doing the right thing? Is this worth it? Wouldn't it be easier to just get a normal job? Should I feel guilty for not just going with the flow? Could I be doing better?

I love my job. I love what I have done so far. I love all the possibilities it presents for the future. I also have days where I wake up and think, "am I really going to do this again today?"

When you are your own boss you have to learn to be your own cheerleader. You have to learn when to give yourself a break or cut yourself some slack. You have to learn how to keep going. You have to learn to remind yourself that today you took a step forward from yesterday. Tomorrow you will take the next step forward again. Every morning when I wake up my business is failing until I get up and get it working. I have to ask myself, "am I really going to do this again?" Then I get up and do my best to make sure that when I have to ask myself that question again tomorrow I can think "Look at what you did yesterday. What can you do today?" Because if you are your business then without you there is no business. Take pride in your work and keep one eye on tomorrow. The future is filled with uncertainty and questions with out clear solutions.  The only real answer is, "Yes, I'll try again today."

Somewhere around November 6th of last year I hit the two year mark for Wright and Rede. Only I didn't notice and I'm just now realizing that I never did my end of the year round up. I think that is a good example of what this second year in business has been like. The first year of starting a business is all about moments. The series of firsts that keep driving you on to the next milestone. The second year is a steady slog uphill. Not that I don't like the slog. I love the slog. I eat slog every morning for breakfast and love it. Slog is what makes you feel like you are starting to get a grip on what you are doing. Slog puts a little ground under your feet for the first time. It's also kind of sloggy. What use to be a major milestone last year is just another task to be completed this year.

The second year heralds just a little bit of normalcy. I have a general idea that I can actually make a living doing this. I have a reasonable grip on how much work it is going to take and how much material I need to have on hand. The days of stumbling around in the dark are fewer but strangely missed.

I had some hard lessons learned and a few roads blocked. In 2014 I decided to stop seeking out wholesale business. After sitting down and doing a little math and some serious soul searching I had to conclude that my work is too labor intensive to sell at wholesale prices. Maybe someday I'll be able to produce enough that it is an option again. Right now it is just noise that is distracting me from the work that needs to get done. In April I pulled out of my last consignment shop as well for the same reason.

I also succeeded in having my first truly public failure. I spent six months promising and promoting messenger bags that would be ready for the holidays. Then the holidays arrived and I discovered that hand stitching bags at a production level is a superhuman task no matter how many extra hours I throw at it. I had to come to the conclusion that for the amount of labor I put into each bag, I'd have to charge a price that I didn't feel they were worth.

There were some great moments in 2014 as well. The good folks at Cleveland Magazine were kind enough to put a nice big picture of my goofy mug in their publication. The article that went along with it made my mom proud and (hopefully) everyone who ever picked on me in high school green with envy and self-doubt. There was the morning I woke up to discover that my website had sold out over night. There was that weekend where I sold an entire season's worth of stuff in three days. There were all the people I had to apologize to when they came looking for a bag I didn't have who responded with “We can wait.” There were trips to cities I've never been to before. New products were stumbled upon. Things were made and sold. Blood spilled. Tears shed. Acquaintances were turned into friendships over pints of beer. Burdens were lightened and gossip was dished. The second year has fewer milestones but the more I look back on it the more I smile. There is something to be said for the quite happy moments. They might pass by unnoticed but they have added up to a life that I'm happy to live, which is the point of this whole venture anyway.

The biggest (and best) moment waited until after my season was over. He is currently napping right next to me while I (quietly) type. While he was asleep he went from being four weeks old to a five weeker this morning. Nothing has provided more clarity to my life than this little guy. You can gain a lot of confidence when it is required rather than volunteered.

Social Media:

First, before I rattle off some numbers here, the biggest social media milestone is that I stopped giving a flying fig as to how many likes I have received. I have been witness to too many social media juggernauts putting out crappy (and over priced) work to really care any more. The simple reality is this: some people will get me, some will not. I'd rather have 200 people that are really interested in what I'm trying to do than 5000 anonymous followers.

Facebook followers: 360

Instagram followers: 734

Pinterest followers: 101

Tumblr followers: 34

Twitter followers: 185

Mailing List subscribers: 782

What's Up For 2015?

That is the big question. January is always the time of year when I sit down and do all my planning for the year. Mostly I just ask myself if this is the way I want my life to be going and if not what can I do to change it. The little guy is going to change a lot of things. Working from home makes childcare a lot easier. It also makes getting any work done much more complicated. I foresee many late nights in my future. I'm also going to have to scrap a few of my more labor intensive products. While that's a little sad, it's also a chance to try new things. The bags (once again....) are on the drawing table. A new design that requires a lot less stitching but is much stronger is in the works. Hopefully this pony will make it to the finish line this time. A couple of side projects have turned out to be a big success. I hope to spend more time working on special one offs and experimental projects. That is one of the benefits of not courting wholesale accounts. I think the biggest change for 2015 will be in the way I do business. Last year I didn't have a weekend off from April until October because of all the events I do. It's a lot of fun getting to talk to everyone. It's a lot less fun having your livelihood dependent on whether or not it is windy that day. So starting with the website relaunch I did back in October I'll be devoting much more attention to the internet side of my business. Also, I have plans for some interesting collaborations, but that will be a discussion for another day.

Finally I want to take a moment and thank everyone for all of their support in 2014. I was talking about how the milestones fade as the time passes. This past holiday season was one that not only broke records but sent them packing. It is rare that I am left speechless (imagine that), but that is exactly what happened and on more than one occasion. What all your support really means to me is that right now, during my slow season, I can take time off and sit here and watch my son sleep and daydream about what he is going to be like when he grows up instead of worrying about paying bills. It blows my mind that I've gotten myself to the place I am at right now. I could not have done it without all of your support. So thank you.

This will be a hell of a year. Hope to see you out there.

Starting a business isn't easy. There are no paths to follow. There is no right way to do it. There are plenty of people out there who are more than willing to talk about how they succeeded. Who doesn't want to sit around and talk about their accomplishments?  A few people are willing to talk about the hard parts, mostly in the context of how they overcame them.  Almost no one talks about the day to day struggle of starting or owning a business, mostly because it can be kind of boring and ugly. I also think that in part it is because our brains like to block out the bad parts and only remember the good. It's a defense mechanism. This is why I've taken to writing it all down. For the first year of my business I dutifully wrote down every fear and worry I've struggled with. I'm now well into my second year of being an independent business owner. I have gained a lot of experience and I'm much more comfortable with the risks associated taking the path less taken. I've also learned a very hard truth. The second year is much harder.

Year one is marked with highs and lows. I had lots of sleepless nights because I honestly had no idea what I was doing. There was the first time I disappointed a customer. The first time I got into a really big show. The first account I had to cut ties with. The first time I got mentioned in the paper. The first time I made a dumb call that cost me money. The first time I ran into a stranger who had a friend that bought something off me. The first time I was asked a question I didn't know how to answer.

It's all those firsts that helped get me through it. Even the bad ones were some sort of new horizon. There is a lot of momentum created when everything is new and people hear about you for the first time. All you have to do is stay on top of that momentum; just stay ready for anything.   I've found the second year is all about hard work because the momentum has to come from within me. I think that is why a lot of business don't make it out of the honeymoon phase. At some point you have to stop drawing on the energy from around you and start drawing it from yourself. It's exhausting and it is constant.

I can see now how successful business fail. You keep pouring your energy into it. The bigger you get the more energy you pour into it. Your reserves run low. Something goes wrong, and because this is real life, lots of other little (and usually completely unrelated) things go wrong a long with it. So you reach this weird juxtaposition. Where you've kind of made it to your goal (or at least you are making progress on the path to it) but the part of you inside that was driving you dries up.

Now that I know what to look for I see it constantly. A new business is suddenly everywhere. Their Kickstarter funded. They're getting lots of press. They can't make new stock fast enough. Then the updates start getting farther apart. Then the orders start to get more and more backed up. Then they just walk away and no one understands why. There is this new television show. The plot is great, characters gripping, and the critics love it. Then suddenly two years later they've jumped the shark, quietly get canceled, and no one will ever know the ending (I'm looking at you Heroes). Boy meets girl. They fall in love. They move in together. They annoy the crap out of their friends and disappear into their own little world. Then one day they have nothing to say to each other anymore. They part.

This is the reality of the second year. Sounds horrible right? It's true. There are some moments that can really suck. There are days when it's hard to keep showing up. The dream is still there but it's so hard to keep reaching for it. I'm in one of those moments now. This is why I’m writing this now because later my tricky brain will whitewash over this. I am, however, not willing to walk away.

Fortunately I've learned a few tricks. First, realize that newness is like a steroid. It can build you up quickly and provide a lot of strength, but it is false strength. Real strength comes from within. There is a big difference between the professional athlete that gets carried off the field because of a bad hangnail and the one who finishes the quarter with a broken thumb. One of them is strong and the other was just big.

Cultivate your strength. Sometimes the best way to do this is to walk away. Get some exercise. Go for a run. Hit the gym, hard. Hike in the woods. Play tag. Get away from your work and work your body instead. You'll live a longer and you'll give your mind a break.

Do something unproductive you've never done before. Take a pottery class. Go to a museum and look at art, not because you are looking for inspiration, but because it is freaking beautiful. Drive to a nearby city that has nothing obvious to offer and spend the day exploring. Volunteer somewhere.

Talk to someone that is in the same boat as you but does not love you. This is important. Your friends and family care about you, which is great, but their primary concern will be to make you feel better. Finding a good peer to talk to will give you a good place to vent to someone who actually knows what you are feeling. You'll also probably discover that they are going through the exact same shit as you and for some reason that will make you feel better.

Put down your phone and walk away from your computer. Because the internet is the devil and here to make you feel like you are being productive when really it's just sucking your life away. There are no answers for you on the internet. So stop looking. Strength comes from within. You can't find it on someone's blog (this one included). So put the phone down. Not for an hour. Not all morning. Put it down for as long as it takes. What ever happens while you are not there will be waiting when you get back. Right now it is just sucking up the little bit of energy you got left.

Most importantly I try to remind myself that my life is about more than the business I have created. I'm more than my job. If my business implodes tomorrow I'll still be here. Those reserves I was talking about before are there because of the richness of the life I have lived up to this point. If the life I'm living outside of work is dull and grey then of course the energy I'll have to devote to my work will be lack luster. When I take some time and live a little a can see that my business is just a little part of me.

Will I feel better when I'm done? Will the problems go away? Will the day to day struggles become less of a burden? Nope. What I will have, however, is a new coffee mug, a healthy heart, a new gallery to check out, a greater appreciation for Hudson, Ohio, and the strength to take another step forward. That is what owning a business is really about; finding the strength to take the next step forward.

As an owner of a small business I've had to learn to tackle the world of social media over the past year. While it is a powerful an effective tool for any fledgeling entrepreneur, I also worry that it is doing as much harm as good. In the interest a clarity I'm going to break this one up into three posts. Here is part One and part Two.

Part Three: Fair Weather Followers; Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Aplomb

Establishing the real impact and value of your business is important. Especially if it is a business that you have built yourself. If you have poured your heart and soul into a company, and that company is a reflection of your self, you want to know that people value what you have built. If you do any kind of business online this value is almost always measured by a series of customer interactions. This day and age your quality is measured by the number of "likes" (or follows/retweets/shares/upvotes/repins/or favorites) you can bank in a given day. When people try to establish the importance of their venture they might start by saying "I've got 120K followers on my Facebook page." Which sounds impressive. When they speak, over one-hundred thousand people will listen. That's power, right?

This actually reminds me of a phenomena that has started to die out recently. Up until the late nineties when two business persons met at a conference (kind of like the internet but with worse coffee) they might introduce themselves by saying something like:

"Bob Dallas, I own a sprocket factory in Boise that employs over 5000 people."

"Hi Bob, I'm Frank Newhart. I own a cog  franchise with 130 locations in the Tri-State area."

Theses numbers sound impressive when you hear them, but when you really think about what they are saying it's pretty meaningless. Are those 130 locations profitable? Are the 5000 people working for you doing good work? Do they care about their jobs? Take this example:

"Hi, I'm Bob Dallas. I have a company where 5000 people are doing work that could have been done by 1000. We are very inefficient and 4500 of them are just working there while they try to find something better."

A little less impressive, right?  Recently, internet industry gurus have caught on to this problem and have introduced a new set of metrics. It's called "conversions". A conversion basically means, I ask/you do. If I post a message, you share it. If I offer a coupon, you buy something. If I tweet something humorous you favorite it. The iGurus assume this to mean that your customers are engaging you and that all those Follows are adding up to dollars. This is the fundamental idea behind social marketing. It almost makes sense. Until you start to look at comparative analytics.

Analytics are a set of tools that let me see how the conversion process (gee, that sounds kind of menacing) is going. When I say "check out this page" how many people actually do? When I send out an email I can see the percentage of people that opened it (kind-of-but-not-really but that's another story). You can also set some comparative analytics whereby you identify as an industry and you can see how your rates compare to others in your field. That is when the truth really starts to set in. In my industry, an average mailing list blast has an open rate of 24% and a conversion rate of 4%.  That is the rate set by industry leaders that have office buildings full of people who's sole purpose is to figure out ways to get you to click a link. That's pretty weak.

So 120K followers might sound impressive, but when you break it down it's not so great. Of those 120K followers 91K will ignore what you have to say completely. 115K of them will not be willing to use your coupon, click share, or comment on something you've posted.

So enough of the hypotheticals. Let's take a look at my Instagram account. At the time of this post I have 533 followers. Through my extensively insecure, self-doubting research I have concluded that this number is less than companies of equal mass in my field. If I further break that down, using common sense analytics, I can safely assume that  I can subtract a given percentage of those people right off the bat because they will never buy anything from me. These are people who will scroll past my pictures without reading what I wrote. People who are my kinda-friends but don't want to buying anything right now. People who followed me because I followed them.  (I see the follow-for-a-follow technique as the equivalent of bailing water into each others sinking ships.) People who are looking to copy my designs, ideas, or dumb jokes. People who need a little inspiration and are just looking at pretty pictures. People who don't speak my language. People who set up an Instagram account, followed my feed, and then never logged on again. And finally perverts (because any given population on the internet is at least partly kinky weirdos). I feel it's safe to assume that about 10-15% of the people that follow me will actually commit to buying something. Which, according to my analytics account, sets me well above the industry standard. So all that work for about 50 people. Why even bother?

Here is why I bother. Of those 50ish people that are willing to be "converted"  two of them saw a post on Instagram, showed up at one of my events, bought what I had posted, and then hung around (literally) to act as human ballast for my tent while a wicked storm blew in. (You know who you are if you are reading this. Thanks again!). Another one of those 50 people saw something I had posted and drove from Akron to Cleveland (30+ minutes) so that he could pay me in cash and therefore save me the credit card processing fees. Of those 50ish people well over 90% are returning customers (I still use restaurant lingo and call them my regulars). I know this because I know their names and faces.  I've met them. I've engaged in actual human interaction.

Sure, I could inflate my numbers by posting vapid lifestyle photographs in my feed. I could repost unoriginal material because it looks good and will earn me some likes. I could conduct surveys where I don't bother reading the answers so long as I can count a higher number of interactions. I could offer give-aways and gain (and then promptly loose) 100 followers in the hopes that a small percentage will stick around.

I don't though. Not just because it makes me feel cheesy, not because I'd rather be making stuff than posting about it, but because I'm not concerned about growing the percentage of fair weather followers on my feed. I'm more concerned about finding that 10% that will stand around in the rain with me.

My take away from all this. Be honest. Work hard. Make good shit. Of all the people in this world only a small percentage will get what you do. If you focus on staying true to what you do they will find you. Everything else is just noise and worry.

(P.S. Bob Dallas and Frank Newhart are just figments of my imagination and weren't harmed during the making of this post. If you are actually named Bob Dallas or Frank Newhart I'm not writing about you it's merely coincidence, but seriously, you should check out my Pinterest account. You might find something useful there.)

As an owner of a small business I've had to learn to tackle the world of social media over the past year. While it is a powerful an effective tool for any fledgeling entrepreneur, I also worry that it is doing as much harm as good. In the interest a clarity I'm going to break this one up into three posts. Part Two: Down the Rabbit Hole;  Don't Believe Your Own Hype

In part one I discussed social media as an alternate reality. The idea being that by continually witnessing a series of notable moments (staged or otherwise) you are hampering your ability to advance your own purpose. In part two I'm going to take this idea a bit further and look at what this alternate reality does when you become part of it.

When you really boil it down social media (and branding in general)  is all hype. You are basically taking your message (look at what I make, I like cats, I'm important, here is something that needs attention in the world, high school was awesome, high school is over...) and putting it out there in the hope that other people will be affected by it (they read it, relate to it, like you more, take action, buy something). There is nothing good or bad about this. As a business person it gives me a unique opportunity to educate people about what I do and why I do it. Obviously, hype can be used negatively. Like how the burgers in fast food advertisements don't look anything like the sad lumps of green/grey proto-meat you get at the pick-up window.  Don't get me started on the negative impact social media is having on our collective self-image.

As I have gotten more into the business of doing business I've started to tackle the hype hurdle. I'm focusing on better pictures, sharable nuggets about my business, packaging, my story and visual identity. Like everything in life, this will be a perpetual work in progress. What I'd like to look at is what happens when you get so caught up in nailing this one aspect of your business that you forget what it is you are doing. I'm going to do this via a real life case study.

The Bandana Bandito (not the actual name of this company BTW)

So I have been following a graphic designer on Instagram for a while. He has started his own line of of screen printed clothing and accessories. His message is one I enjoy. He has a really clean aesthetic. Lots of pictures of campfires, mountain sunrises, old trucks, making things with your hands, and quality old stuff. He got me; I moseyed over to his website. The website is solid too (lots of stories about travel and foreign places, Kinfolk-y pictures) and really well designed. I went to the store and looked over the products. They look pretty cool. I'm a big fan of bandanas (pocket sized functional artwork), so I picked one up.

A few days later the bandana arrives. Again the branding is spot on. The envelope it comes in is custom made, a nice linen bag with custom graphics, a cool looking free sticker, and a screen printed bandana. The bandana is lame.

The design isn't bad, but it is really poorly printed. More importantly the material it's printed on is plastic-y and see through.  Why is a company that markets itself as rugged and outdoorsy sending me this lame-ass man doily?

I don't think he is a huckster. He is not lazy. Clearly a lot of very hard work and long hours went into the message. The bandana was fairly priced in comparison to its competitors (about $20). I think he got lost in his own message. I hear the expression a lot "I'm not selling a product. I'm selling a lifestyle."  This is the new battle cry for branding on social media. I think that is a bunch of crap. I'm selling leather goods first and for most. Yes, my message is important, I want people to get what I am trying to do. First, however, I have to start by executing everything I make to the best of my ability. I constantly ask myself if what I am making lives up to the hype I'm trying to create for it. If the answer is "no" then it goes back to the drawing table. Because ultimately my message ends in your hands. My message will speak every time you use something I've made.

A solid website, engaging posts, jaw-dropping photographs, and perfect staging can be essential to elevating your brand. If what you are producing doesn't live up to the promises that you are making then you aren't "selling a lifestyle" you are shoveling something else entirely. Let your work speak loudest. Everything else can follow after.

As an owner of a small business I've had to learn to tackle the world of social media over the past year. While it is a powerful an effective tool for any fledgeling entrepreneur, I also worry that it is doing as much harm as good. In the interest a clarity I'm going to break this one up into three posts.  

Part One: An Alternate Reality.

The primary threat to a new business social media presents is one that usually starts doing damage before the business is even started. It is also a plague on any business that is still trying to find it's footing.

If you are anything like me, or if you are reading this on any social media platform, you probably spend a fair amount of time looking at other people's lives. If you are a small business owner, or are thinking about becoming one, you probably follow a lot of other business owners in your field. Their feeds can be very inspirational. Photos of well crafted leather goods perfectly staged on one hundred year-old barn wood that has  "I *heart* Judith 1911" carved into the bottom corner are part of what got me into this gig. Photos like that are also why I almost didn't start this business and why I have to reaffirm my desire to keep with it on a regular basis.

Okay now, stay with me here. There is this thing called the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle which basically states that by observing an experiment we alter the results of that experiment. The way I see it, every business is an experiment. We come up with a theory of how to reach a goal (How do I make money?), come up with an experiment (make leather goods) and alter the procedure based on the results (write more blog posts).

Now we assume that we are accurately witnessing the results of that experiment by following along on social media. Pictures don't lie after all. This is the heart of the problem. Ignoring the fact that some of these pictures are painstakingly constructed by a staff of stylists/marketers/photographers/set-designers to look natural, the fact of the matter is that this reality is being presented by someone who is part of the experiment and has a vested interest in the results.  Assuming that the person running that feed is genuine and trying to be honest about their business, they are still making a decision that something is notable enough to be worth mentioning.

The result is that as a fledgling business owner, in a best case scenario, you are being bombarded with other people's notable moments. In reality most moments are not notable. Every hour isn't perfectly lit and surrounded by perfect decor. The people in your life are not always influential. Your kids are sometimes weird looking or boring. You have to sit there and write your return address on all your utility bills and sit on hold with the cable company. There is no lake with a tire swing in the backyard. The backyard needs to be mowed and the neighbors have ugly lawn ornaments.

The damage comes when you look at your life of relatively un-notable moments and feel like you are missing out on something or that your aren't in a position to be a real competitor.  It gets worse when you start thinking things like "I need move to Portland, rent a cool studio space, and then I can start my business the way it should be."

I had to come face to face with this a few weeks ago. I'm planning on relaunching this website sometime soon and as part of that I had a photographer come over and take some pictures in my "workshop" (read this with fully intentional air quotes around it).  At first I really didn't want to shoot here because the reality is that it is located in my sad, crappy basement. There is no golden hued light streaming in through barn windows. I've got glass block and fluorescent bulbs. There is laundry I haven't gotten to yet in the corner. My tools are not family heirlooms oozing patina. They are the cheapest ones I could find that would get the job done. For some reason I felt like I had to hide all of this. Like I wasn't legit unless I had a shop-dog napping next to a freshly baked blueberry pie cooling on the window sill complete with antique silver server.

Then I realized that is a bunch of crap. I started this business a little over a year and a half ago with $150. I turned that into a business that I can do full time. I have waded into the deep water and painstakingly hauled my life back on to shore. I've done it all in my crappy basement with my ugly tools.

You don't need perfect lighting, artsy tattooed friends, a rehabbed industrial studio space, a white washed house in the country, or a set of tools that look like they were last used by Noah while building the ark.

People do amazing things every day with what is available to them. Most of them don't even live in the Pacific Northwest. All you need is the desire for change, the will to take action, and the determination to keep moving forward. It may not always be pretty, but it is pretty damn notable.

Anxiety and insecurity are constant companions when it comes to running your own business. Taking the path less traveled means you'll be walking hand-in-hand with the fear of the unknown. Worrying about what everyone else is up to is a pretty normal part of the process. You worry about how your competitors are doing. You worry about your peers being more successful than you. You worry about how the market will respond to you.

What I have come to accept is the fact that absolutely none of these factors are under my control. It is easy (and dangerous) to fall into the trap of following your competitors too closely. You see a nice write-up they got and you start to feel like you're doing something wrong. They get a grant or come out with a great new product and it feels like you lost at something. You start trying to figure out what you can do to respond to these developments, which seems like a productive idea, but really it's a trap. If you spend all of your time responding to what everyone else is doing you are guaranteeing yourself a position that is always playing catch up.

When I find myself slipping into this mindset I remind myself, mind your own business. Work on developing your skills. Create better products. Refine your designs. Push yourself further down your own path because that is something they will never be able to beat you at.

When you start to focus on your own business you come up with your own novel solutions, seize the opportunities that are right for you, and force everyone else to respond to what you are doing. Except, you won't care about that because you will have already moved on to something else.

My story has always be about taking an honest look at starting a business. So here is a little honesty. Okay, so I screwed up. As I get busier, and I make more and more things, I'm bound to make some mistakes every once and a while. Last week I screwed up. I'm going to tell you all about it because there is a really good lesson in it.

I decided to test out a new thread from a different supplier. I was making watch straps that day and decided to make myself one to see how it would break in. The following day I had a show and without realizing it I packed up the strap I had made for myself. While I was setting up for the show I grabbed this particular strap out of the straps I brought, put it on a watch, set it on the table, and thought nothing of it (because I thought my tester strap was still at home).

I have a nice show and I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself. Then Monday rolls around and I can't find the strap I made for myself. Then I get an email. It basically says, "Hey I bought this watch off you yesterday (Editor's note YESTERDAY!!!). It looks really nice but it's kind of falling apart..."

And my heart sinks. I immediately start thinking worst case scenarios.  I mean the main point of everything I make is that they are very durable. This guy has had the thing for less the 24 hours. He must think I'm either trying to screw him over or I'm a total asshat.

Here is where a lesson I learned in my previous life comes into play. I wish I could remember who said this to me, but it was probably said in a moment of chaos. Every screw up is a chance to prove how good we are.  As a server in a restaurant you get to apologize a lot. Even when something happens in the kitchen and I had nothing to do with it, it is still my job to go apologize to the table.  So having to learn how to fix mistakes is an art that any good server has to master.

So I stopped freaking out and starting thinking about this as a challenge. The first thing you should always do is try to meet the customers expectations. In this case they wanted a nice looking strap that doesn't fall apart. First I apologized and took responsibility.  I asked him to give me a chance to fix it. Either mail it back to me or drop it off at a show (one of the benefits of having a busy show schedule if you don't have a storefront) and I'd fix it and get it right back to him. He decided to mail it because he wanted it back ASAP.

I received the strap in the mail two days later. The mail arrived at 10 am. Within the hour I had the strap restitched. I then gave it a nice cleaning with saddle soap and re waxed the entire thing. I let it dry and spent a good amount of time messing with the stitches to make sure they wouldn't come loose. I then sat down and made another strap. Why? If for some reason this one got lost or ruined in the mail I'd have a backup ready.

I then sat down and wrote out a nice email letting him know that I had received the strap, it was already fixed, and explained what I'd done wrong.  Once it was dry I packed it up, added a matching keyring to the package (because I was grateful for the chance to try again) and had it in the mail the following morning.

This morning I got an email from the customer. The strap and keyring had arrived successfully. Not only that, but he was looking forward to using them " proudly."

I think that is really the lesson here. Just like how you can see what a person is really like when they are down, you can see the same with a business. It's important to impress people when you are doing to good job. It is even more important to shine when you have really screwed up. Because that is what I am really selling.

You can buy a watchstrap online that was made in a factory halfway across the planet for a lot less. I'm not reinventing the wheel here either. When someone buys something from me they know that I've put my heart into it. They know that I actually give a crap about what I'm making.  They get the confidence that what I've made is up to my highest standards and if it comes up short then I really want to make it right. They know that I am proud of the work I am doing. I have invested myself in it, and they should be able to be proud knowing that they made a good choice in buying it.

As a business owner you are going to screw up. It is inevitable. What is important is that when you do; you screw up really well.

(As a side note, if the watchstrap belonged to you and you are reading this: thank you very much for your email. A happy email resulting from something I screwed up is invaluable.)

One continually evolving issue that I have to think about is whether or not to offer my items to wholesalers. It's a question that many makers will have to think about at some point and I've spent a fair amount of time making decisions (and then changing them) since starting Wright and Rede. I thought it might be helpful to write down some of my thoughts on the issue.

If you want your stuff to be carried in a brick and mortar store  (or online for that matter) that's not yours, you generally have two options; consignment or wholesale. Each has it's pros and cons and there is a correct and different way I handle each type of account.

I see a wholesale account as a owner-to-customer relationship. The wholesaler will order a larger quantity of your goods in exchange for a discount so that they can resell them at a profit. This can be a single transaction or a repeatable transaction. I say it is a customer relationship because people seem to forget that just because you landed a wholesale account does not mean that they'll ever order from you again. Like any customer, they expect quality customer service with their purchase. They are going to expect well made goods that are thoughtfully packaged, cross promotion of their store, and ready trouble-shooting if any problems arise.

The Pros:

The right wholesaler can add to your brand identity. Getting your things carried in a really cool store can make you cooler by association.

A good wholesale account can introduce you to new markets.  If you live in Cleveland trying to sell your goods in L.A. can be kind of difficult.  A good wholesale account (who is enthusiastic about your goods) can excite and educate potential customers in that area.

They can sell when and where you can't. If a customer wants to check out your goods, but you don't have a storefront, you can direct them to the wholesaler to see your goods in person. I found this to be very helpful during the holidays. Towards the end of a show I might run out of something. It's handy to be able to tell someone that you're all out of phone cases but they can check out so-and-so's store because they still have some in stock. This can be especially handy a few days before Christmas when people are a little panicky and you are running low on product.

A wholesaler has an investment in your product. They've already spent money on your goods which they need to see pay off. They have a fairly large incentive to make sure that your goods are being presented in the best possible way to sell. 

The Cons:

A discount of 50% is pretty standard for a wholesale account. Can you make a living selling your goods at 50% off? Is it worth it? Are you charging a price that will allow you to sell at that much of a discount?

Your pricing structure gets linked to your wholesale accounts. Let's say you try out a new product. You charge $50 for it. A wholesaler loves it and buys 20 of them. Turns out that new design wasn't the hot item you thought it would be and you want to keep producing it, but at a lower price point. How happy is your wholesale account going to be when they see on your website that you are selling the item that they have to charge $50 for at only $35?

How many will they be ordering? Let's say a really cool store wants to carry a new item that you are making. The new design is a pain-in-the-ass to make but you really want to be in this store. So you cut them a good deal. You bust your butt getting the order out and you don't make much money in return, but hey you can tell people that you are in that really cool store. Then they never order from you again.

The opposite side of that coin is even worse. They order a ton from you on a regular basis. You're so busy filling their orders that you can't make your own stuff. Now you are in the business of providing one pain-in-the-ass-item at less than you should be charging for it. Iif any of your own customers wants one you can direct them to this really cool store where you will be making less than 50% of what it is worth.

You'll need to invest a fair amount of time writing out a wholesale agreement (that clearly defines the relationship) and coming up with a price sheet (with pictures and descriptions).

Consignment is a different kind of relationship. I think of a consignment account as taking on a small business partner. The arrangement is basically that you will be the back-end (manufacturing) and they will be the front-end (distribution and sales) and then you'll split the sales 50-50. (Notice I said sale and not profit.)

The Pros:

Consignment agreements tend to be a little looser. Most stores will ask to carry your stuff and you can decide what specifically to bring them. This can be a great way to promote a new item. You can also tailor what you bring to the account. You can work with the consignor to figure out what will move the best at their location.

Many consignment agreements will allow you to adjust your prices and inventory as situations change. If you thought something would go over well, and instead they're just sitting on the shelves, you can frequently ask the shop owner if you can swing by and switch some stuff out.

Like a wholesale store, your items can be found in times and locations where you aren't present. If you have a bunch of accounts and decide to take the day off, your consignment accounts are still out there trying to sell your goods for you.

Consignment stores are always bringing in new vendors. As a result they tend to have very active social media campaigns. A supportive consignor can give your social media platforms a nice little boost.

Because the inventory is fairly flexible in a consignment shop, new products getting dropped off by the other vendors will help add to the interest for that location. If the shop owner is doing a good job curating the store then this means a steady supply of interested customers even though you aren't coming up with a new product every week.

The Cons:

The relationship with a consignment shop is very different from a wholesale account because they are looking for a different return on investment. A wholesale account is looking to get their money back. So it is in their best interest to move items that are selling poorly.  A consignment shop is looking to make the most profit on the space and energy they have allotted to you. If your items aren't selling, then they probably aren't going to get a prime spot in the store and not much enthusiasm from the staff. A bad consignment deal can turn into a graveyard for your goods.

You are going to get product back at some point. If you have a consignment deal that isn't working out, and you pull out of the shop, you are going to get back all of the product that they were holding for you. This can be a boon if you are low on stock. More likely you will be getting back a bunch of stuff that didn't sell. There is also a good chance that the stuff you get back has been sitting around for a little while and may no longer be up to your more developed standards as you improve your skill level.

You'll be signing a contract. Most run from 6 months to a year. If the consignment deal turns out to be a dud you're going to be dealing with them for the length of the contract.

Consignment shops tend to profit off of quantity of dealers not necessarily quality. This is not always the case. I can think of several consignment shops that carry really fantastic stuff. In general the shop is betting that enough of their dealers will be profitable to make their business successful. The more dealers the better chance they have of finding a winner. Sometimes this means that you get to have your stuff surrounded by a great mix of popular items. Lots of times it means that the shop needs to try out new dealers on a regular basis and some of these dealers don't have the same standards for their business as you do for yours.

Signing with a consignment shop really is like taking on a business partner. They will be getting 50% of the total value of everything you give them. Ideally you should be reviving 50% of that value in service back from your consignor.  This means promotion of your goods in the store and on social media, proper merchandizing (making your stuff look appealing in the store), educated and interested staff, theft-prevention and security, and reliability. If you sign a contract with a store that turns out to have pissed off lazy staff, they close the store randomly and at odd hours, the only people who know your stuff is there are the people who you send in there, and they display your stuff in a dusty stack in the corner, you are going to be dealing with them for the next 6-12 months.

In general I wouldn't recommend consigning with a store that I can't get to on an occasional basis. When I ship out a bunch of product to a new store I now have a significant investment in that store. The responsible thing to do is to occasionally make sure that your investment is well placed. You should stop in every now and then and make sure that your product is being looked after. Most consignment shop owners are friendly and want to see a client that is engaged in their store. If you live in Cleveland and the store is in Atlanta you are pretty much hoping that they are holding up their end of the deal.

Another issue from having distant consignment accounts is inventory related. Let's say I sell t-shirts and I get a check saying that I sold 12 shirts that month. Fantastic, were those Small, Medium, or Large? This is a pretty common issue. If you can't get to the store and figure out what sizes you need to restock and the store's owners or employees aren't cooperating, trying to restock that store is going to be a regular pain in the butt.

There is also the possibility that they sold 20 of my shirts and paid me for 12 of them. I'd have no way of knowing this if I couldn't stick my head in there every now and then. I've never had this happen to me. I know of many people who have had this happen to them. It sucks and it happens.

My Guidelines

So was that a lot of information to take in? Most of these issues will be relevant to your business in specific ways. If you are a graphic designer selling posters, and getting a bunch printed off isn't a huge deal, then consignment shops all over the country might be a great option for you. If you are a ceramicist and making really labor intensive products, consignment and wholesaling may be the wrong answer for you entirely.

For myself I stick by these rules (which will probably get changed as my business grows and changes).

• My goods are labor intensive so I limit the total number of accounts, of any sort, pretty heavily.
• Not every item I make is offered to my accounts.  Some things I just can't make at 50% off.
• I have almost zero consignment. I love the idea, but I have discovered that the proportion of investment between the two parties is rarely equitable.  The only consignment I do these days usually involves some sort of pop up shop, seasonal event, or a very specific goal or cause.
• I will not take on a consignment account that I can't comfortably drive to and from in a day.
• I try to walk though any store I'm going to have my goods sold in. If possible I do this anonymously. While there I will look at the other goods sold, their price point (I don't want to have the most expensive or cheapest goods in the store), and how they are displayed. I try to ask some casual questions of the staff to see how engaged they are. Finally I look to see if the store is getting managed properly. A little chaos is fine. My workshop is a mess sometimes, so I don't judge. There shouldn't be boxes piled up around the store, broken display pieces, or frazzled or clueless staff.
• Is the shop brand appropriate? This has been one of the hardest ones to deal with when starting up. At first it's really exciting to have someone want to carry your stuff. Especially if it's a wholesale account and they want to give you some money. I ask myself if I'd be happy telling people my stuff is there. A shop that sells local handmade things, a shop for guys, a shop for rugged outdoorsy things, a cool stationary store, might all be good matches. A shop that sells accessories for girls ages 4-12 and is called Silly Sally's Princess Palace (I just made that up, but if you're out there SSPP I love your store name)  is probably not the best image for my brand.
• I sell things personally all over Cleveland at all times of the year. I also sell on this website 24/7. Since what I produce is labor intensive, and I can only make so much, having a bunch of accounts (wholesale or consignment) all over Cleveland isn't the best option. If I'm selling everything I make then supplying a bunch of shops in my same area, instead of producing for myself, doesn't make much sense.
• The number of shops I'm willing to take on is also influenced by the amount of variation I can generate between my products. It's doesn't make any sense to have four stores selling the same thing in a 1 mile radius.

Like I said these are just some of the guidelines I've developed for making decisions on what accounts to accept or pursue.  As my business grows and changes so will these guidelines. I think the most import thing is to have a set of rules that help me figure out which opportunities are good ones. It also helps me feel more secure when I have to tell someone no.

If you are a maker or store owner I'd love to hear your input as I'm always evolving my opinion on this. You can comment below or email me at jordan@wrightandrede.com if you are worried about airing your dirty laundry on the internet.

I started off this morning watching this really intelligent presentation by Kathryn Minshew for 99U called "7 Classic Startup Founder Mistakes and How to Avoid Them".  The one mistake that really stood out for me was the one she calls "Perfect vs. Done". This is a trap I fall into all of the time, and since I'm writing this at the cusp of busy season, I think it is very relevant.

For me there is a constant tension between designing a product to completion and making a product to sell. I know a lot of people who have this same issue. I can't tell you how many people I've met that have failed to execute a really great idea because they never felt it was ready.

The thing I am starting to realize is that what I'm trying to make will never be ready. It will never be perfect. Worse, if I spend all of my time trying to make something that is perfect I'd never make anything at all. Even if I managed to put something out there that I thought was ready, in a year you could show it to me and I'd tell you all the things wrong with it.

This can be a trying struggle because I can't (no one can) make something that matches the ideal in my mind, but I'm also responsible for making something to sell.

I have come to realize that this is an issue of perspective. From my perspective I want to execute a flawless design. Like any good craftsman, I always want to produce my best work and any shortcomings in my execution are viewed as failures. From my customer's perspective, they want to buy a good that will provide value in their life.  Where I see a product that never quite lives up to the idea in my head, my customers see something that looks good and holds their business cards.

Will I produce something better next year? Will that card holder be more "ready" next year? I really hope so. Is it wrong of me to sell that card holder today even though I know it will be better tomorrow? Not if I'm producing it to the best of my ability. If I am doing my job right the person that buys my card holder today will enjoy having it enough to want to seek me out in the future. If I'm really doing my job right they'll be even happier with what I make down the road.

The trick seems to be to always reach for the ideal in your head for tomorrow, but produce something you can live with today.

I was never a very good art student. I would not have made a very good "A"rtist. The problem was that I was always far too practical.  I couldn't justify asking someone to spend money on my work when there was no practical benefit. You couldn't eat it.  It didn't provide shelter.  It wouldn't make you healthy. 

Some people might disagree with that last statement. They would say that art can provide meaning, clarity, or solace in an otherwise cold and confusing world. I agree with that. Art can be a very powerful thing. Just not the art that I was making.

My problem was always transitioning from craft to art. Craft is the study and use of the process. Art is the reason why. During class critiques I'd would hear things like, "This portrait represents mankind's struggle against alienation in a world where technology is ever present" or, "This is a still life of items left behind by my grandmother. She raised three children in a Japanese internment camp". I was just making things that I thought looked good.

I think that is why I've fallen so happily into the life of being a craftsman. You may not be able to seek shelter under something I've made, but at least you've got a place to keep your library card. The tricky part is that successful craftspeople don't just make things really well. They have a vision of why they are making what they make. 

Since starting my business and fully devoting myself to my craft I've discovered something really interesting. You don't start out with a vision. You end up with one. I'll be the first person to admit I didn't start out with a vision. I started because I was sick of waiting tables and working nights. It has been only recently that I have really been able to say what kind of work I make and why I make it. This is not a process that you can rush no matter how much energy you devote to it. It's kind of like growing up.  Below is my take on it.

The Steps of Creative Development:

Step One: The Baby Phase. When I started leather working (or anything really) everything was new and exciting. I knew very little about what I was looking at and it all seemed amazing. During this stage I kind of collected everything into my mental database and stored it all away. There is no curating or direction. It's all great. Like shiny car keys.

 Step Two: The "I want to be just like older brother" or the Aping Phase. This is when I started to have a little bit of discernment. I had found a few people who's work I really liked. Makr, Will Leather Goods, and Bexar Goods Co. were chief among them.  I spent a lot of time making really bad knock-offs. This is a normal and healthy thing. Most classically trained artists and craftspeople spend their early days producing stuff that looks like other people's work. The important part is that I saw this for what it was and knew that I had to make work that is my own. Don't sell your knock-offs!

Step Three: The Terrible Twos (or the Everything I Make Is Crap) Stage. Turns out you can't look at a Picasso and then sit down and paint like Picasso. No matter how much time I spent staring at the Makr website I couldn't make anything that looked as good. Stage Three is filled with a lot of nos. I started to learn what works for me with my methods of production. A style that works really well for Will Leather looks really bad when it comes from my hands. So I started to cut back on what I was trying to make and started making what I could make.

Step Four: The Snotty Teenager. So now I knew what I could do and I was starting to make work that looked like my own. Here is where I almost got caught up. I found a narrow space that I could occupy and thought,"okay, this is the kind of work I do."  This can be a really good place because for the first time I could tell what I didn't want to make. Designing got a little easier and I spent a lot of time dismissing other peoples work. "Ugh,  I don't like polyester thread", "look at how sloppy that stitching is", "that design really sucks." Now I'm not saying I'm above a little Schadenfreude from time to time, but at this point I didn't really have a right to talk. I was no longer producing work that sucked but I wasn't exactly Corter Leather either.

 Step Five: Moving Out of Mom's House. This is the stage I spent most of my time in (I still do spend a lot of time at this stage). Here is where I stopped worrying about what everyone else is doing. I don't see how I could have gotten to this stage without quitting my day job. When I had to start making a living, I stopped focusing on the outside world and really began to focus on the work I was producing. Instead of trying to find a new clever wallet design I was more focused on making sure I had enough product on hand for the show I was doing that weekend.

This sounds like the most boring phase, but I found that by keeping my nose to the wheel I began to really develop my vision.  When I would dye ten or twenty wallets in a row I found that there were some I liked more than others. I began trying to replicate those features on the next round of wallets. It's not always a conscious action either. There are a lot of little tricks that my hands have picked up on that my brain is not aware of. As a result I'm a lot faster now than when I started.

I also learned that I like the funkier leather. Vegetable tanned leather will show off all the scratches and weird blotches when I dye it. I started trying to bring that out more in my process. I like things that are unfussy and my design reflects that. I like things that look old, so I try to make things that will age beautifully.

I wouldn't have learned any of this with out grinding out the work that I have to do on a daily basis. It's a type knowledge that is gained in increments.

  Stage Six: The World Traveler. This is the stage I'm just starting to get into. I don't think anyone really gets to spend all of their time here. It seems like most people jump back and forth between 5 & 6. I couldn't have gotten to this stage without the confidence that was built up in the previous step. This is the stage where I'm confident enough in my vision to draw intelligent inspiration from around me and use it to create work that speaks with my own voice.

For example, here is an iPad case  I did over the holidays. The blue part was inspired by a Japanese textile pattern that represents waves. I include a journal with all of my cases in that hope that this will be something that you carry with you on the journey of your life. The waves speak of the journey. The contrasting color scheme inspiration came from a really old Louis Vuitton logo that was screened onto some of their bags. You can see how nonuniform the grain is which has been brought out by the dyeing process. I tried to create a contrast between the highlights and the darker areas of the leather. This reminds me of old photographs.

Why I'm doing what I'm doing not always a straight forward answer, but the spirit of my personal style is beginning to show. I'm very focused on gradient and tone on the leather's surface. I'm always referencing my love of personal history and my hope that someday my work will become part of it. I like things to be simple and unfussy. 

I'm not all the way there yet. I'm not really sure that this is something I can reach the end of anyway.  I have learned that they only way to get here is through consistent and thoughtful work. I first had to learn what I didn't want to make, how to make what I did, how to stop worrying about what everyone else is doing, and then finally I could start to understand what I had to say.

If you would like to see where some of my inspiration comes from I've set up a Tumblr account where I keep a curated collection of things I find that visually inspire me. I also have a Pinterest account where I like to keep inspiration for projects I'm actively working on. If you are active on either platform please look me up as I'd like to see what inspires you.

I have never been a huge fan of motivational memes. Especially since they are typically presented in either a barrage of positive thinking or completely lacking in context. Let's face it, twenty separate quotes from Herodotus, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Maya Angelou, won't make you get out of bed and face the day, no matter what font they are in.  A few days ago I stumbled onto this little nugget. For those of you who don't feel like clicking over it says,

"Many of the great achievements of the world were accomplished by tired and discouraged people who kept on working."

Wise words indeed. This quote happens to be paraphrased from a Douglas MacArthur quote (the above being more gender neutral).  It got me thinking about a little story I think about on a daily basis and how it relates to running a business in general.

This one comes from the good folks at Mason's Creamery. Like me, they are also experiencing the trials and tribulations of their first year in business. About midsummer they were handed a string a bad luck. First the lid blew off their freezer en route to an event. Then the trailer for the freezer broke. When they finally made it to the outdoor event it was raining and cold. Tired and discouraged they unpacked their sodden tent and began to set up for a long day. It was during set up that another, more veteran, vendor looked over at them and said something along the lines of,

"Welcome to owning your own business. The ones that make it are the ones that keep showing up."

-Attribution Unknown (help me out here Helen)

There are a lot of different things people claim that you must have in order to be an entrepreneur. Determination, charisma, good financial skills, chutzpa , gumption, or just dumb luck. In reality none of these qualities are worth a damn if you don't show up to use them.

Owning your own business is just like starting your own business. It is a decision that you must make. The day you decide to give up on your business is the day that your business fails.

I have really taken this message to heart. Right now I'm in the deep end of the holiday season. In true indie business style I've just found out that the hardware I use for my best selling item is no longer stocked on this planet. (Those of you hoping for a new watch band this Christmas should rethink your list. You have no idea how sorry I am about this.) One third of the leather I ordered for the season arrived way too thick. I'm really struggling with balancing making money versus making promises of Christmas delivery dates. I've had to tell more people "no" in the last month than I have all year. Finally, looming just around the corner, is the dreaded slow season. Which I'm really hoping to make it through with my credit score intact.

Any one of these makes me want to throw my hands up in the air and just walk away. Instead I'm planning on designing a new watch strap. I'm making products that work with thicker leather (iPad cases anyone???). I'm saying "yes" to those that I can and forgiving myself for those that I can't. I'm making lists of what I need to do now, but can't, so that when January rolls around I'll be able to keep myself busy.  Because that is what it takes to have your own business. All the leather in the world could be back ordered and I'd figure out something else to show up with.

So that is what I tell myself when I get up to deal with the day's problems. You just have to keep showing up.

Right now is a stressful time for Wright and Rede. I'm heading into the holiday season for the first time and I don't really know what to expect. One of the ways I'm coping with this stress is by talking about it. Sometimes I learn the most interesting things by having casual conversations with people I'm close with.

After getting my one of my notebooks mentioned in Cleveland Magazine this month, I jokingly said "Maybe now people will finally start to realize that I don't know what I'm doing." It was a lighthearted comment but there is a lot of truth in that. I tend to joke about things that worry me.

I am an impostor, or at least that is how I feel. I've tricked people into thinking I know what I'm doing. I've mistakenly gotten attention I did not deserve by accident.  I always feel like I'm probably doing things wrong. Maybe it's because I am self taught. Maybe it's because I've never started a business before. I'm just fumbling in the dark here. Sometimes it seems like I live in a house of cards built of misinterpretations and coincidence, on a ground of false hope, and populated by little people made of LIES. Maybe I need to spend less time alone in my basement workshop.

It is true. Most of the time if feel like a fake. When someone buys something from me it fills me with pride, but a tiny part of me want's to say "Wait! Are you sure you want to buy that? It's not ready and I don't know what I'm doing."

I always just figured this was a personal quirk. Maybe it was just part of being self-employed. What I found interesting was what happened a week later.

The person I had been talking with was asked to join the board on a nonprofit they work with. While being very happy they also told me that they were kind of intimidated.

"I'm not old enough to be on the Board. It's kind of weird that they picked me. What do I know?"

There it was again. This feeling that they had somehow accidentally tricked people into thinking that they are qualified for something they are not. What really struck me was when they told me that they had confessed their fears to a coworker who said something similar.

"I sometimes feel like people are going to walk into this office at any moment and tell me that I don't know what I'm doing."

The interesting thing about these two is that they are both very successful. They went to good schools, work for a multimillion dollar company where they have both received accolades and promotions, and have happy families. So maybe this feeling is not unique to me.

I did a little research. Turns out this phenomena is called the "Imposter Syndrome" and it affects about 70% of the population at some point in their lives.  Tina Fey, Mike Meyers, Maya Angelou, and Stephen King have all been quoted as feeling like frauds.

Okay, so it's not really all that uncommon after all. I like to think that there is more to it than that. The same study suggests that more successful people are more likely to experience this phenomena. The Imposter Syndrome can be a driving force.

It is this feeling that makes me try to reach for the limits of my ability. If I always feel like I'm going to let people down then at least I can give them the best that I got. It is this feeling that is always forcing me to try to do better than I did before. It's feeling like a fraud that drives me to learn the skills that will make me a master rather than a fake.

Take a look at it from another angle. While doing my research I found that there is also something called the "Dunning–Kruger effect". This is "a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes."  So that jackass at work that thinks he is Gods-gift-to-the-company, but is really just an incompetent buffoon, is displaying the Dunning–Kruger effect. Are you as happy as I am to know that there is a term for this???

So if you take a look at our Dunning–Kruger effected coworker (lets just call him Jack) you can see how the Impostor Effect can be a good thing. Jack thinks he does perfect work. Jack doesn't need to try hard. Jack doesn't feel the need to improve. Jack will never rise above his failings and Jack will never reach for his full potential. Poor Jack.

Personally I'm comforted knowing that I'm not alone in this. Most people feel like a fraud at some point in their lives. Statistically, it means that you are likely succeeding at something. More importantly it can be a powerful tool if you don't let it hold you back. So I say go forth, do the best you can, feel like a bit of an ass while you are doing it. It's okay to smile while you do it, and when you are alone with someone you trust tell them the truth. You might be surprised what you hear back. 

As of November 6th I will have been in business for on year. I've decided it was time for an honest look at the past year.

Part of being a small business owner is dealing with a lot of uncertainty and insecurity.  One of the ways to cope with this is to hear the story of those that have tread this path before you. So basically I read a lot of other maker's blogs. One of the things I have found most useful is to go back and read the blog entries from when they first started out. I've found that I can glean a little confidence by reading about how they didn't know what they were doing, how they took really bad pictures, and rambled in their posts. There is a lot to learn from those early posts. There is also a trend that I find very frustrating.  The posts tend to go like this:

May 21: Just bought our first supplies

June 2: Just got our first order!

June 28: Here is us at our first event

Dec 28: Just landed a contract with Anthropology.

I feel like some important things probably happened between June and December. That is ultimately the problem with life on the internet. Only the good or noteworthy moments get documented. No one ever posts "Accidentally bought $50 worth of the wrong-but-not-returnable hardware today. There goes the tiny bit of profit I had for this month." 

So without further ado here is an honest look at my first year in business.

Finance: 

Am I paying the bills? The honest answer is:  kinda. In the beginning the answer was a resounding no. My day job was still my main source of income and leather goods was just a little extra cash. Once I made the transition and quit my day job the answer was still no. I was busy enough that my day job was hampering my ability to produce goods but I wasn't busy enough to make a living. Mostly I was pleased that the business was able to pay it's own expenses and not drain our bank account. Without support from my wife I would have had to transition more slowly or have a fair amount saved up.  Once the summer show season rolled around I started getting close to making a living. Some weeks I made a lot more than I did waiting tables. Some weeks I was grateful that last week was busy. Little by little I've managed to make more at each event.

Here is where things get tricky. I hear all the time about how it can take years to make any profit when starting a business.  That didn't make sense to me. If you start with little or no overhead and keep your profit margin high enough then you make money. That is true, but only if you want to stay the same size. The growing is the tricky part. Basically what I spent the summer doing was thinking "After this next show I'll be able to pay us." Then the next show would go well and I'd have to buy more supplies to make even greater amounts of product for the next show. I was selling more at each show but having to buy more for the following show. Step by step I climbed until sometime in mid-July I was able to both pay us and buy supplies.

The bottom line: Am I making money? Yes. Wright and Rede is in the black despite all the initial investments and the cost of buying new equipment. Hopefully, after the holidays, I'll be heavier on that side of the ledger. I never took out a loan and owe nothing to either banks or creditors. Most importantly I am still making money. It's just that the money left over after paying the bills tends to go towards more supplies instead of leisure spending (IE. crap I don't need).

Social Media:

Let it be on record that I am an introvert.  I do not have special skills or training. I'm a normal person doing the best I can. The best thing I've learned here is to apply the if-I-didn't-know-me-would-I-give-a-crap-about-this filter to what I post. The most important thing I can say is to get in the habit of doing it regularly. Try a bunch a platforms and see what works best for you. I like Instagram the most and that is reflected in my followers. (If you are not following me on any of these platforms I won't mind if you take a minute and go ahead and hit that "follow" button. Really, it's okay. I'll wait...)

Facebook followers : 133 (I remember being really desperate around December to get to 27 so that I'd have analytics.)

Instagram followers: 208

Pinterest followers: 37

Tumblr followers:  19

Twitter followers: 55

Members of my mailing list: 143

Lessons Learned in No Logical but Handy Bullet Point Format:

• The tent that you are bringing to a show to provide shelter for you is not waterproof. (!?!?!???)
• Be the kind of guy that has garbage bags (or a waterproof tarp)  and duct tape with him at all times. You'll be really glad you carried them around all year on the one day you need them. Optional bonus: People might think you are a professional hit-man. Likely side effect: People might think you are a serial killer. (You win some. You loose some.)
• You can never have enough weights on your tent regardless of what the weather looks like.
• Really good photographs are almost as important as the work you produce. A really good photograph will; entice strangers on the internet to buy your stuff, make blog posts more interesting, get you into better shows, get shared by people who want their blogs to look cooler, look really nice in publication (which will make people want to put you in publications), and make you not look foolish when people ask you what you do for a living.
• If you are accepted into an event it's a good idea to respond by saying thank you and here are some photos for publicity if you need them.  Organizers are under a lot of pressure and will use what they have handy when they need something for a flyer or press release.
• If someone asks what you do for a living say, "I'm self-employed." If they want to know self-employed doing what, have an answer ready that is no more that five words. "I make handmade leather goods." Anything longer and they'll start to tune you out.
• I find networking easy because I don't do it. Anytime I've had a five minute conversation with someone and exchanged business cards it has never turned into anything. The relationships I've found to be successful are the ones I've made with people while helping set up their tent, shivered next to them on a cold day, provided a confidence boost when business is uncertain,  suggested events they didn't know about, and watched their booth while they snuck off and bought some breakfast.  These people are not assets in my network. I just call them friends.
• The best thing I can do when stressed out/lacking confidence/ insecure/ depressed/ or seriously unsure of what steps I should be taking in my future is to go get some real work done. By real work I mean making things out of leather not blogging or updating my mailing list or doing "research". I might not be any more confident at the end of the day but at least I have ten more wallets to sell than I did before.
• To come up with a really good design: Draw out what you want to create. Then start taking things away from it. When you are down to the most simple way to do it: it's ready. 
• Sometimes the best business opportunity is the opportunity to walk away from one. Once you start doing business with someone then you are in business with them.  To quote my dad on this one "the closer you get to the skunk the more you stink."
• Read blog posts out loud to proof read.

Failures:

In my best estimation I have seriously burned two bridges, really pissed off one customer, made four things that either broke or were a different size than what they ordered, had 4 shows that were a total bust, and had to respond to at least 20 awkward emails in ways that were not graceful enough to answer successfully.

I have wasted 30+ square feet of leather because I wasn't paying attention,  not giving up when I should walk away, creating a bad design, or just didn't know what I was doing.  This translates into about $1000 - 2000 worth of ruined leather goods. (ouch! R&D days are hard days.) Additional I have about $300 worth of hardware that has no purpose or will never be used. (I was pretty sure I needed it at the time.)

The take away:

• Not matter how hard you try you can't make everyone happy. Sometimes it's better to walk away and piss someone off than get involved in something that will be bad for your business. The other party will never understand this because they can only see how it would be good for their business.
• Always try to fix what you can. It will usually be waaaaay more work than it is worth but you'll sleep better at night.
• Custom orders tend to be more trouble than they are worth. It is nearly impossible to create what someone else has in their head.  (And if they start saying "Oh, since you are changing that could you do this too?" It's time to walk away or raise your price.)
• Only buy supplies for what you are working on tomorrow not for "later." By the time later gets here you'll be working on a different project than you thought you'd be.
• When they day is not going your way, despite your stubbornness, it is usually best to give up and do something else. 
• When you really screw up, apologize in sincerity. If possible, look them in the eye when you do so.
• Also, look people in the eye when you say thank you. Doesn't really belong here, but it's worth mentioning.

And to end on a positive note, Successes:

One year ago I raised about $160 in key rings sales to help support those effected by hurricane Sandy. This was the first $160 I made as an official business. My smallest accomplishment but the one I'm most proud of.

There are 500+ people out there that find me interesting enough to follow my goings-on via the internet.

I have stuck to my guns and never taken out any sort of loan.

I have insisted in making things the way I feel they should be made and have managed to get my customer's respect in doing so.

I have been in four separate retail locations.

I have landed my first few wholesale accounts.

I have helped two other people start their own business.

A year ago I was intimidated by the big holiday shows in Cleveland. I felt that I wasn't good enough to be in them. I was hoping that maybe in a year or two I'd be good enough to show at them. Those events were: The Bizarre Bazaar (now the Cleveland Bazaar) , Made in the 216, and the Last Minute Market. Wright and Rede will be selling at all of these events this year.

I've been in three publications and interviewed twice.

I've been on two vacations since starting this business. (I had not taken a vacation in the five years prior.)

I decided to follow my dreams and quit my day job. This might sound all nice and fluffy but it has real world effects. My blood pressure is down (I had prehypertension). I've lost weight. I'm happier more of the time. I'm more focused, driven, and confident. I feel that I'm all around a better person to be around.

I say all this not to brag but to point out what you can do if you put your mind to it. I am not extraordinary.  I didn't start with a bunch of money or a special set of skills. When I needed to make money then I found a way. If I didn't have a necessary skill then I learned it.  My point is that you really can live your life the way you want if you are willing to truly commit to it.

Thank you for sticking with me this first year in business. I've enjoyed meeting many of you. I've grown in ways I never would have imagined. I'm really looking forward to year two.