So Many Hats

"Ms. Missy, do you have a janitor at your school?"

"You're looking at her."

"Ms. Missy, do you have a principal at your school?"

"You're looking at her."

Suffice it to say, I wear A LOT of hats. I am a:

Decorator
Janitor
Cafeteria Worker
Event Organizer
Party Planner
PR Person
Writer
Secretary
Graphic Designer
Photographer
Lesson Planner
Idea Person
Marketing Coordinator
Teacher
Artist
Mother
... And More

http://www.traceybuchananstudio.com/shop/prints_shop/silly_me/silly_me5.html

I read somewhere that when you have a business, specifically teaching art, about 70% of your time is spent marketing and promoting, and 30% is spent teaching .

Based on those numbers, that means that for every hour I spend working with children, I spend about 2 hours and 20 minutes behind the scenes. Somehow, those numbers seem a bit off to me. It seems like the split should be more like 90%/10%. There is always something that I am working on. Today, that's updating FB pictures, working on Constant Contact email newsletters, designing a magazine ad, organizing stuff for our fundraiser yard sale, and preparing for our art fair. Not to mention, unloading the car from yesterday's festival booth setup, cleaning up from last night's Kids Night Out, and redecorating the art room for Easter. Also in my head are ideas for new classes, new marketing/promotional ideas, next weekend's art show, additional flyer designs, tax returns, lesson plans, and plans to install a kiln in the back shed (and all of the stuff that goes with that new venture!). 

It's a busy life, but it's so much fun.

In business, it doesn't matter how good you are at what you do. You can be the best teacher, chef, builder, musician, or craftsman- you can be smarter than people who are more successful than you are. You can have more integrity, better ideas, superior skills... But if you don't market yourself effectively, have the right resources, and know the right people, your ship is as good as sunk. How many restaurants have you tried that were wonderful, only to see them shut down? How many wonderful little businesses have you seen that just couldn't make it?

Every time I see a business that has failed, I imagine how much heart someone invested in it and how much heartache its failure probably caused. It's hard to not be emotionally attached to something that has demanded so much time, energy, and attention. That's how I feel about this place. It is an extension of myself- and every hour that I spend trying to make it better is an hour well spent. I'm honored that I have the opportunity to create a place that is so well-loved by children in this community. It truly is a labor of love.

Please Mr. Postman

Snail mail is supposedly dead, but I still love getting the mail. Always have, always will. My mail infatuation began with the green Sweet Pickles bus. Since then, I've spent my life checking the mail for the equivalent of coolness. Few things have come close.

Oh, does this bring me back! All those little cards and file folders with games and activities. Remember he nifty map on the inside covers of the books with all of the character's houses? I could just imagine what it would be like to walk around their little town. Me Too, Iguana was my favorite. Did you have Sweet Pickles books when you were a kid? 

"I want some good mail!" I can hear my dad saying it, as he thumbs through bills and credit card applications, and I totally know what he means. Good mail: stuff like catalogs and birthday cards and magazines and surprise packages. I remember actively soliciting for "good mail" at a very young age. If there was an ad for a free catalog in the back of a magazine, I would send away for it. Never mind that I was only about 7 or 8 years old and that I had as much use for a rototiller as I did a pair of orthopedic shoes. It was just fun to get mail. "Any mail for me?" I said it every day.

Later on, I would discover the joys of "5 for 99 cents" operations like Book of the Month and Columbia House Record Clubs. That was before you had to furnish a credit card number on business reply mail- how I loved to check that little box next to the words "bill me later." It made for good mail- and bad credit. But that's another story.

The Post Office has announced that they are cutting down their work week to save operating costs- yet another indication of the slow death of snail mail. But I'm not counting it out just yet. In fact, I'm placing my faith in it. Hubby and I were discussing how to promote The Big Red Barn, and the idea of direct mail came up. I had never really thought much about doing direct mail because I figured that the cost of postage would be entirely too high and, even if it wasn't, that I didn't have access to a worthwhile mailing list. Still, I thought I would look into the idea some more and discovered that The US Post Office has a fairly new program called Every Door Direct Mail (Retail). The program allows small businesses to mail items at a great discounted rate without having to buy a mailing permit. What's more, you can specify where you want your mail to go by carrier route and you don't have to have "real" addresses.   

So now I'm working on some postcards with EDDM dimensions (larger than regular letter or postcard size) and brainstorming on how to make them noticeable, keep-able, and effective.

Hopefully, friends and customers I haven't met yet will consider our mail to be "good mail," and our bright, colorful postcard won't get thrown out with the dollar store ads and pizza coupons. Fingers crossed! :-)




   

Catalyst

 

About a week ago, I couldn't sleep. Worry was keeping me awake, my brain bouncing thoughts back and forth like a metronome, ticking "what if, what if, what if."

Maybe I should read this.

I had seen some posts on Facebook about a new art place for kids in Mandeville. It offered lots of the same sorts of things that I offer at The Barn, and it had a "real" storefront. I wasn't particularly worried about the business because it was in Mandeville, but my mind did start spinning webs about what would happen if someone else opened something similar in this area- my goose would be cooked. I've often thought about the feasibility of opening The Barn in a more popular, commercial area; a place that would have more exposure. However, when I look at the numbers, the prospect is daunting, if not impossible. To put it mildly, I'm not raking in the dough, and the thought of having to make enough money to pay overhead AND furnish myself with a worthwhile income is just mind-boggling. That's not to say that it couldn't be done, but I know that I'd have to sink a lot of money (that I don't have) into the business before I ever grew enough to see a profit. If I were of means, maybe that would be an option- but I'm not, so it's as much of an option as sprouting literal wings.

Silly Ms. Missy, wings are for fairies!

I was also thinking about how to increase enrollment in our Mom's Day Out program. The Mom's Day Out program is geared toward stay-at-home moms who would like to give their child an opportunity to socialize with other children but don't want the commitment of full-time childcare. At one time, Mom's Day Out was the bread and butter of The Barn. The problem is that the kids keep growing and moving on to "big school" and I have to refill their spaces. My advertising budget (if you want to call it that) is less than what most coffee-addicts spend at Starbucks in a month, so getting the word out is challenging.

Granted, many of our programs are doing very well. Camps and Kids' Night Outs are consistently filling, Birthday Parties are on the rise, and FB likes are slowly but steadily increasing. People love this place- I've had great feedback and most of my business comes from the word of mouth of happy parents and their children. I am thankful for all of the repeat business that I have and the support that I receive. But, our enrollment needs to keep growing, just as our students are inevitably growing and outgrowing, and that means that I need to proactively advertise The Big Red Barn.

I decided that laying in my bed of worry and doubt wouldn't do me any favors. In my experience, the best cure for depression is expression (It's true!). So, even though it was only about 3am, I got up, made coffee, and sat down at my computer.

The Ponchatoula Chamber of Commerce had asked me to write something about The Barn up for a Spotlight on Business email they wanted to send out. I wrote a descriptive piece about the barn, about 4 short paragraphs long, but they said that it would need to be shortened to include more bulleted points. I decided to create an eye catching graphic that had a listing of our services and our contact information. I decided on a background of colorful polka dots, which I thought looked fun, playful, and creative. I posted it on FB and sent it to The Chamber. I liked it so much that I considered putting it on as a FB profile picture for The Barn, but the text was too small for it to work. Instead, I made a FB cover photo (the kind that goes all the way across the top of the page) with the same polka dots. I liked the way it looked with the my logo on FB, so I set to work recreating the look on my website.

The small ad I created for The Chamber.

The subsequent Facebook cover photo.

My poor website, bigredbarn4kids.com, had needed a facelift for too long. I am sorely guilty of not keeping up with it and updating events and dates on a regular basis. What's more, the pictures on it were from years ago at our old location. In the wee hours of morning, I made fun web headers for each page, added new graphics and content, and gave the site a "Stacy and Clinton worthy" makeover. I knew that when people went to our site it would look good, and that made me feel positive and hopeful. You can check it out at http://www.bigredbarn4kids.com.

I'm a big believer in creating a cohesive look in business and advertising, so I couldn't stop there. Over the next week I created new advertising materials (business cards and postcards) to match our updated look. I was so excited to upload my new designs to Vista Print that I totally overlooked the spelling of Ponchatoula. I submitted an order with the word Ponchatoua (the Waterboy pronunciation) on a postcard. My sister caught it and I was able to call Vistaprint and cancel the order before it went to print. I am looking forward to receiving my order of goodies and distributing them throughout the community. Here's hoping that they help build The Barn's business :-).

Large Postcard Design

An interesting out-of-the-blue coincidence, I got a phone call yesterday morning from the owner of the art place in Mandeville! We ended up talking for about 45 minutes, sharing woes, joys, and frustrations, talking shop, and discussing ideas. I could tell that we would be friends and that she was down-to-earth, resourceful, and friendly. And I learned a couple of things: the grass isn't always greener, you never know who is admiring or envying you, and that life opens doors when and where you least expect it to.

I can't wait to see what happens next. :-)

Great advice and inspiration available at this site!

First Love

True Love

Bear, or more accurately, Freezer (his TY Pluffie given name), was a gift from Lily's Great Grandma Durel. She found him at Walgreens and thought he was the perfect size for a one-year-old. He started out white but is now a variable shade of gray, depending on how recently he's had a swim in the washing machine.

As is the case with so many kids' stuffed animals, Lily's menagerie had accumulated over her short time on earth, so when she got one more stuffed bear as a gift, it was just added to the pile of many others. Lily wasn't overly interested in many of her stuffed animals, but one day she set her sights on Bear and she has hardly looked back.

Now, that's love. When Lily is upset or tired, she rubs Bear's tail. Even now, at almost 6 years old, she does it. Sometimes she says, "feel Bear's tail- it's really soft!" But Only if she trusts you enough to hold him. Not everyone is so lucky. :-)

Lily adopted Bear as her special friend when she was about 17 months old. For months, she carried Bear in the crook of her little arm, slept with him as her pillow, and brought him along on car and stroller rides. So, on the morning that I saw her discover another bear among the dozens of stuffed friends waiting their turns on her toddler bed, I had to wonder how Bear felt, splat on the floor by the Little Tikes table, looked over by his own best friend. She marched right by Bear with her new suitor tucked under her arm. He was bigger, he was brown, his name was Alvin (I had named him after my grandpa).

...and this set my mind spinning the old story about how toys come to life when the door closes behind us. I imagined what others would say to Bear- not unlike the movie Toy Story. "Oh yeah, look at how she just sailed past you, buddy bear. Your days are numbered!"

LeMutt, my own first love, sits high on the top shelf watching everything unfold, like a grandpa who's seen it all before. His fur is matted and dingy, his yellow plastic eyes are scratched from going through the washing machine. A trip in the spin cycle could never return Lemutt to his virgin color and fluffiness. But boy, has he been loved. I've had LeMutt since I was about 6 years old. He was a gift from Lily's Great Grandma, too. And while I know that he's just a pile of dusty fur and stuffing, to me he will always have a heart, a personality, a spirit. He's a relic of my childhood. Even if he is no longer carried everywhere with me, he still bears witness to my life, and now Lily's- and that is never lost.

LeMutt and Me

As it turns out, Bear's replacement was only a fling. It wasn't 10 minutes before Lily rescued him from the floor and gave him a hug. Some things are always true. Who knows if Bear will one day roost on the top shelf of my grandchild's room. It's too soon to tell, and Lily is still apt to have many more loves in her young life. But I will do my part to preserve Bear's posterity, and when she tires of him and moves on to someone or something else, I'll pick him up off the floor and set him beside Lemutt, and they can sit and watch the story unfold- together.