Purpose

Every time we face great change or growth, we often reflect and make adjustments to enable us to move forward again.  I know I am no longer the same person who began my journey in entrepreneurship 2 years ago and I am re-focusing on my purpose and in doing so healing some older wounds.  The first time I faced this type of challenge was when my oldest daughter was born.  She was my pride and joy; but helpless as all babies are.  I was a young mother and many people criticized me for that.  I was fresh out of high school and had a steady employment history but gave up my secondary education because nothing was more important than being her mom.  As most moms do, I hated going back to work and leaving my angel with anyone other than me.  I had great sitters over the years but no one does it like mom.  With the criticism I faced, I had to grow a strong backbone quickly. While I was not exactly ready to do this, being a mom gave me purpose and nobody and I mean nobody was going to hurt my little girl.  Face no furry like a scorned mother I have heard time and time again and now I realized it.  So I did what I had to do and continued to push forward when it came to challenges with my girls and now it just comes naturally without the second guessing and anxiety experienced when I started almost 16 years ago.  As I continued to grow and expand my knowledge I found purpose and I tried to share my experiences and knowledge to inspire others.  Most of my career choices have been about helping others and that is who I am.  Several years ago I was actively helping many people in my community when my superior in the workplace expected me to do something that did not help people and in fact hurt those I had been working with over the past several years.  In my years of management, I have had to lay people off and even fire people; and while those were both extremely challenging to me, I totally understood the rationale.  Rules were broken or we had sales to ratio of employees goals that had to be met.  The actions expected of me at this time was not for the benefit of anyone involved or so I felt.  Knowing my purpose and values in my life, I chose to leave this employment and search for something new.   A choice that cost me personally in many ways.  I felt inadequate and wondering if I had made a good choice; because I was putting so much at risk. Maybe just maybe I was not the valued employee I thought I was.  Most people who know me say I have been going through the healing process of a loss, being withdrawn, angry, depressed and trying to move on.  I believed I had found purpose again when I started the store and I was able to maintain that purpose even though I have not completed everything I expected to when I started my business plan.  My current store location and set up created a "safe zone" for me to learn to live, work, and interact with people again however, I am no longer content in the safe zone I created for myself as it stands now.  I am reevaluating and believe I am ready to face the next growth period of my business, making it everything I expected it to be.  Before I can do this, I know I still have some healing to do,  accepting things in my past and letting go.  I have done a lot of healing this past year and I think I am ready to do what I have to do to go to the next level.  In business those who truly succeed don't give up.  There have been several times in the last year that I considered giving up, but I keep going and making changes to make it work. 

Crossroads in Business

Coming to crossroads in your business plans is never an easy time period.  Businesses will always have up and down periods and you have to make adjustments to things that change around you.  I am coming upon my second year celebration and making plans for the coming year so it is review and reflect time and starting goals for upcoming year.

Recently a bigger box store opened down the road from my shop and it has affected my business some, not much but I do notice some changes and I am making adjustments accordingly.

I have much to ponder as I am trying to expand to the next level by adjusting my inventory to include more top selling items, expanding my online sales, considering options for a permanent location, expanding the size of my location for storage, and adjusting my plan for processing new items alone or if I am stable enough to hire staff, and increasing my marketing.  As my store grows and changes my older ways of completing these tasks are becoming more a challenge so now I must find a way to expand yet remain stable.  Biggest challenge is having the capital to make the choices I need to make, but since having enough capital is always a challenge for small business, I have to find something that works for both and that requires creative thinking. 

I have gotten a lot of inspirational words today to help in my planning for the upcoming year so I want to share them.  All entrepreneurs are searching for the opportunity to prove to themselves they are something more than they believe.  I do this each day and may be my worse critic which can be self sabotage if you allow it.  I am now in the researching phase of this planning and it is much like the research for a business plan.  Each business must grow and have slower periods to reflect and grow again.  They only continue to grow when you continue to make choices that allow for growth.  So review your original purpose on your business plan, refocus your thoughts, surround your self with positive business owners like your self and push on through the crossroads as I plan to do in the next few weeks.

Stop by this weekend and check out my two year celebration with my famous Treasure Chest of prizes and Rummage Sale outside where you can pay what you want to pay for overstock items outside only!!!

Nightmares with taxes!!

I realize I have not posted much lately.  Not many changes with my business but I am now nearing the 2 year mark so I am beginning the phases of becoming an established business and no longer wet behind the ears as older people say. 

I can not stress enough to keep all your tax info from all types of taxes close by and organized.  I received a letter from collections about a month ago for very small amount that I owed on back sales tax and employee withholding tax.  First, I do not have any employees yet other than me so I do not owe any withholding tax.  As a self employed person, I pay a self employed tax which is similar but not the same.  I also keep all my tax documents for many years even over the 7 year requirement since I have needed to go back before on my personal taxes for my local office and I think it was at 7 year mark or older.  But I file them with all my year end stuff since I know I paid it and everything is filed.  This request was for the 2nd quarter that I paid in right after I opened so I had to dig out everything and find out what document was missing or misfiled.  After some research, I found that I spoke with someone about resigning my employer withholding and was told not to file since I did not qualify at this time, so I called and asked who I need to work this out with and I was given the run around but we came to an agreement and I filed 00 to clear it from the machine and they dropped the fee attached.  The other discrepancy I have a check number and date it cleared so it was taken care of immediately.  The hardest challenge was finding the tax info among all other end of the year stuff so I am suggesting keeping all tax info in a safe spot to its self.  We think that our local, state, and federal IRS do not make mistakes with all there paperwork but in my two times of having to review, one time was my error and the other was theirs.  I always recommend calling and working out any problems right away. 

Another suggestion that someone gave me once and I really like it is, using a different checking account for taxes.  I collect sales tax each day at my store but only pay it quarterly.  That couple of dollars each day really adds up after 3 months and for a newer business that dos not have the large cash flow to pull from it can sometimes be overwhelming to come up with.  This goes for any taxes, like withholding and ect.  When you make your deposit, pull aside the amount of taxes and deposit into the separate account then you know you can make the payment on time after filing.  The tax agency will tell you that is their money not yours and you collect it from employee or customer directly so it should be paid directly.  It is not coming from your sales and was never your money so that helps keep it that way.  I really like this system and it works well if you use it properly. 

Some of the most important paperwork you have is proof of sales, tax forms, and proof of payments.  Keep and organize these well so you can tackle anything that comes your way.

Mixing Family and Business

The month of July has been quite a challenge for me when it comes to mixing Family and Business.  One reason for starting my own business was to allow me more flexibility with my family.  Working retail management often trumps events due to long hours and lots of weekend work.  Plans change often when employees call off, you have to cover the shifts, and handle deliveries that are ahead or behind schedule.  So when I planned my hours of operations I planned time with my family but still weekend and evening hours.  I also put in time after operation hours gathering items, marketing, and accounting but I schedule that when it best suits me.  Since I am owner and operator at this point (when I reach my next financially goal employees will come) I must close my shop for vacations, family emergencies, and other things that may pop up along the way. 

I am beginning to think balancing my business and family is like searching for a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  I wonder if it really exists.  I have been struggling with this as a career mom, stay at home mom, and now entrepreneur and I still haven't found the time to do it all yet.  Something always gives so I try to make the best choices and live with the consequences.  Knowing that my career supports my family and I can not live without it that but my career will not love me in return and everything I do, I do for my family because they are my number one.  I am very blessed to have a large well blended family and I would never want to compromise them. 

What describes a good enough reason to close my business?  This month, I have closed down for 3 days connected with my 2 days off so that I could take a much needed vacation.  I have not taken a vacation except for 2 days close to Christmas since I have opened the store.  I know that the longer I am in business the easier it gets because you maintain your business but I am still in the building blocks stage of my business.  I closed early a day last week for a family emergency concerning a family pet and I may have to close a few days next week to help out a group that I support in need because it directly affects my kids.  Those all have been concerns that I have needed to address personally and when it comes to my family it is a no brainer of what to do.  Today is another example, my daughter got to do a once in a lifetime event and cheer with the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders but I did not close to go since I knew my mom had her all day and would make it special.  I would get to see her perform at the game after I close.  As I worked all day, I really wished I would have closed to join her but I realize the more often I close the less reliable I am for my customers and that will have a negative effect on my building blocks that I keep placing trying to grow my business.  As a rule of thumb my plans are to close for a vacation each year and concerns that require my direct attention and I can not plan another route.  Unfortunately these many be more negative concerns than the positive ones like today.  I have closed before for positive events like field trips just not as often.  I try to address things via the telephone if it is not an extreme emergency but sometimes I need to find a better balance of phone calls too, since it hurts my bottom line of productivity at work. 

I am searching for others like myself and what they do to balance family and business.  I know everyone has to balance work and family but being an entrepreneur has more demands.  So please share your tips.

"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving" Albert Einstein