In the beginning, a friend and I wanted to buy jigsaw puzzles for the summer literacy program at our church. We went to the toy store, walking up separate aisles to see what we could find. We saw puzzles featuring cartoon characters, but not puzzles that build character and cultural awareness. We got to the end of the aisles. "We ought to make puzzles," we said at almost the same time. A light went on. A business was born. We learned a lot over the years, but if we had it to do all over again, there are a few things we would have done differently:
1 - Don't spend. Invest.
When starting out you may try to do everything by bootstrap methods - do-it-yourself website; printing your own materials; guerrilla marketing; etc. Often this is a necessity and we certainly learned our strengths this way. But we also learned our weaknesses and the things we plain hate to do. Our time is better invested doing the things we love and do well.
You are going to spend money. It just may be slow and not as painful. The thought of putting out a couple of thousand on a website, for instance, may give you the shakes. But consider the time it will take you to build that site and maintain it. There may be a learning curve you have to overcome before you can even get to the nitty-gritty. Think of what you can do yourself, what you want to do, and the time you have available. Will this project be worth your time? Can you delegate it? Before you spend that first dime or your time, make a detailed plan, then get help. A virtual assistant, bookkeeper, lawyer - it is worth the money getting the expertise of people who already do exclusively what you need done at the moment.
2 - Get Help.
Don't go it alone. In our case, we started this business as two partners with friends and family who had some of the skills we needed. But we should have also been working with people and businesses that could help us grow right from the start. Some businesses are not necessarily competition. Maybe they offer something your business does not, but your target markets are the same. Try to synergize. You may be able to delegate some things to them; learn some new tricks; or team up and double your efforts.
Other help worth seeking is that of a counselor - business, marketing, PR, or otherwise. These are the people who can be impartial and also help you grow, a sometimes tricky hurdle to overcome when you are emotionally and otherwise invested in your "baby." I recently acquired a very smart and fast virtual assistant and she has made a world of difference!
3 - Leave home.
In the beginning, we wanted to test things in our own back yard and see what our community thought of our product and price. They loved the greeting card puzzle we developed. Most had never seen one before. Most also balked at the price. Even after explaining what went into the product, price was still a problem. We realized this was not our target market.
Your own back yard may be the best place to find customers; it may not. Don't be easily swayed, however. Look at the competition to see what they are charging. Are you pricing yourself out of the market or could it be you are simply not in front of the right people? Know your value. Don't give your product or service away. Don't waste time trying to appeal to the wrong people. If you aren't sure who your target market is, consider who is responding to you. Do they have anything in common? Is this going to be enough for you to be profitable? Don't give up easily.
4 - Keep an eye on the customers.
From the very first customer, think exceptional customer service. Consider the experience you want them to have that will reflect well on you. If you don't, they may sully your reputation before you get going. Create a system that will allow you to always give the same level of service no matter how many clients you have or who is serving the client. We failed to have a system from the very beginning so we often found ourselves reacting to every request that came in, essentially re-creating the wheel every time. We have since developed a customer contact system. A spreadsheet tracks everyone. It has names, addresses, emails, phone numbers, project information and whatever else we can think of. Eventually we'll add birthdays! This is a work in progress, but requests no longer make us feel scattered.
5 - Get confident.
Believe it or not, it was an older, white, retired man who had more confidence in us in the beginning than we had in ourselves. My business partner and I were both first-time mothers at the time and didn't realize we had to get our mothering ways in check. We needed to step up our professionalism, he said, and by the way, we had an excellent product to boot! Now, this is not to say that motherhood and professionalism cannot coexist. But sometimes a mother may be a little too flexible, too understanding, too accommodating.
Back to price, we struggled with the pricing of our product. We knew we had something fun and unique. It was charging with confidence that tripped us up. We were being as fair as we could yet that little nagging voice, "There has to be a better way to produce our product," pushed us until we found a gem literally in our own neighborhood. (Sometimes, your back yard IS the place to find what you need.) Now, we produce a quality product at a fair price. We even found two more companies with who we had synerygy and that allowed us to expand our product offerings and even do the one thing we had never been able to do before - create a single customized jigsaw puzzle. We are faster, more affordable, and even offer a money-back guarantee. We can tell you that with confidence.
Do what you need to do in order to be confident in your product or service. Is the product the best it can be? Are you proud of all aspects of it? If one aspect is bugging you, it shows. Fix it.
I often wonder where we would be if we had done then what we know now. Nonetheless, our experiences shaped our company, and us. So now we are heeding our own advice and taking our business to another level. See you there!
Monica Dennis is a professional juggler and she loves it. She juggles family, writing and a business, among other things. Monica believes God endows everyone with talents, gifts and passions that are meant to help fulfill the purpose for which each person is created.
One of Monica's passions is her custom puzzle business, Village Works Enterprises LLC, located in Stratford, CT and online at http://www.vwepuzzles.com. She and her business partner of over 10 years create greeting card jigsaw puzzles, children's puzzles, and customized puzzles.
Monica also has the gift of writing and has had a flash fiction story published in the online magazine Word Riot. She blogs about her life as a wife, worker, writer, mom and business owner at http://www.multiobjectmanipulation.blogspot.com. Monica is currently working on her first nonfiction book for mothers looking to start businesses, as well as a children's picture book.
Monica's family is the inspiration for all that she does and strives to achieve. She and her husband have two children, the birth of whom released and continues to energize her entrepreneurial spirit. It is because of them that Monica seeks to be an example of purposeful, fulfilled living.
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