I don't want my blog to look like Instagram!
Don't get me wrong I love making Insta a pretty place like preparing for a good dinner party, getting out the nice plates, and dressing up while anticipating my guests to arrive. But behind the scenes for that dinner party there were lots of mishaps and oh s$@t moments. First there was the screeching banshee of telling everyone to clean up and make it look like we don't live here (practical 😂) and then there was the neighborhood dog who snuck in the back door and is jumping onto the counter to get prepared food. While in the process of screaming NOOOOOO in slow motion and lunging to save the food in some epic heroistic agility course the outfit you carefully selected caught on the damn nail sticking out on the pull out trash can you have been asking the handy child to fix.... and now with food safe and the dog lured out with a delicious morsel and a pat on its head you have to change your carefully planned outfit.
Finally, everything is perfect and guests start arriving. Drinks are handed out. And a pleasant evening starts and commences. This is the Instagram part.
But where do I show the video or discuss the torn outfit and adorable neighborhood dog?
Because let's be honest running a small business is all the things fancy and all the things that are clusterf@)&s and hotmesses. I do all the roles. Or our team passes the roles around like hot potatoes usually at night or in an adrenalized OMG GET THIS DONE FAST because it's about to hit the fan.
I might be Chief Basket Pusher but I'm only as good as the people who do small parts or who are walking this unmapped journey side by side.
So I have been trying to figure out all week why when my customers try to register their bag under the bag registration tab it just blankly stared at them and did nothing much like a teenager asking to clean up their room. You see, we offer a lifetime guarantee on our baskets. We ask that people register said baskets so we can keep track of what they have for replacement if need be, collect emails or numbers for a texting campaign (we are super duper careful not to send many just the sales) if they want that or they can opt out. It's a perfunctory piece of the website with no glam or fun attached to it and usually it just does its job in the shadows without asking it ten times. But this week I have a teenager on strike!
Nothing enrages me more (ok I'm lying social injustice, animal abuse, lying, cheating, bad food, and my children's shoes on the floor are always contenders for rage) when I bother to go to a website and do the the ordering or get the info I need and dang nabbit it doesn't work! Don't they know their stuff doesn't work?
But like all good karma Alex your perfectionists side couldn't even make all the milllion pieces of your website work. Running a small business with the intent of growing not only for your own family's needs but for the responsibility of maintaining my visits to the basket makers takes a constant vigilance. So when a wrench in the works happens and I can't even figure out why I need to lean in on someone who can help me.
Hence why at 12:30 am on a Saturday night instead of tipping drinks with fancy names, being dressed to the nines, and just finishing a lovely meal at the new restaurant that opened in town I am in comfortable fav pajamas with the hole at its elbow, tucked under a blanky, with wet hair from my shower panicking and begging my sweet husband to take a go out the biggest problem that has ever happened to me ....this week 😜 !
When did this start?! How many customers tried and could not register?! Did we lose the names of those who did successfully register their bag along the way?! I had three customers reach out this week to say they were having trouble. On one hand thanks to my lovely customers reaching out and nicely when I'm sure they were feeling ragey I at least got wind of a problem I never would have found on my own. I'm not registering my one million baskets ever on my website so it is not something I would see naturally.
On the bag resgistering it also asks if you want to be a part of our mailing list and so it's vital
I maintain the communication with other my customers if they want my special offers.... and now I feel guilty because those people who couldn't register for god knows how long surely didn't receive my marketing campaign this week for the biggest sale of the year (ok shameless plug .... but relevant right?!)
And this is just one moment of being a business owner. I'm immensely proud how far we have come and we have so far to go! Sometimes these moments get me down and I question am I doing the right thing and should I keep going? Sometimes being the chief basket pusher is lonely and disappointing.
On the flip side of this when a customer goes out of their way to say how much their bag means to them it touches a piece of my deep purpose. When I see a basket makers face light up when I stop by to get more baskets it makes me feel relevant to their purpose because they too are building a business. They are chief basket-maker. When I get the basket hoard organized once in a blue moon or inventoried carefully I feel like I have this business under control. I can do this! (Naive moments of basking in organization because it's only going to last two seconds ;)
-this is what the staging room looks like after too many shows and too many shows curated differently and the guilt that ensues. It gets wild! Note I'm not taking pictures of the website room or the deep storage 😂
Overall being a business owner is riding a roller coaster everyday as some days it stops while I'm upside down and other days it's oodles of fun. I prefer the fun but I have to have enough grit to get through the annoying and hard parts. Enough wisdom to know which battles to choose and which ones to say f&$k it. Who to ask for help and how much to pay them. Deciding if taking photos for your new line on thanksgiving day while my marshamallows just went on top of the sweet potatoes. And we all know (at least us cooks) that once the marshmallows goes on you can't walk away because they go from goo to burnt super fast. Yup. Marshmallows on top of sweet potatoes under a broiler is exactly the metaphor for my business. Watch ever so carefully and keep your eye on the prize. These details are important. This stress is important. The yum I want is right around the corner...right? 😬
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