Monday
I met with my accountant on Monday, we had a lot to go through because I'm currently investing a lot in a new project which is due to launch in November. We've been fortunate enough to be able re-invest accumulated capital, with only 20% of the total investment borrowed from private lenders. This has certainly meant that the risk element of investing in a new venture is less stressful, because I don't have the pressure of paying back bank loans and growing interest. My account, Paul is a wealth of knowledge and incredibly good at what he does. He gave me some great advice on the financial planning side of the new venture, and we spent some time looking over my figures from 2011/12 and how they compare to the first and second quarter of 2012/13. It's really reassuring to see the business has grown since last year. I have learnt a great deal over the past few years regarding the fluctuations in income over the year, and how to manage cash flow during our busiest into quietest times. I'll do a more detailed post about this another time as I think I would have really appreciated the perspective of someone with a few years experience in this after making some mistakes in my first year of real income coming into the business.
We also discussed VAT registration for the business this financial year, which may impact our prices. This is certainly a concern for me, because I believe our price points are a great competitive element for us, however with 20% of income soon going to the government in VAT, we unfortunately have to balance this off in our pricing strategy. It's something that will require careful thought.
Tuesday
This was an at home office day. I really enjoy the fact that being self employed allows me to have days were I can get work done on my own schedule. I usually start early, get my emails done, watch some TV and relax, walk our dogs and go back and do some more paperwork. The main bulk of our processes and logistics is managed by Julia, my Event Manager, so my office work tends to be more around the promotion, marketing and strategy of the business, with a good proportion of my time spent on our new venture at the moment. I also still manage all the direct contact with customers for our pop up salon and any ticketed events, which tends to generate quite a bit of email and phone activity. I make a conscious effort to stay connected with the customer facing part of our business, it's important to me that I never lose sight of how things are running in our salon, at our hen parties and with our staff. I'm certainly a great deal better at letting go of control over everything than I was 18 months ago, largely down to having so much trust in Julia and her abilities (I'm sure she will vouch for the fact that it was a 'journey' in letting things go since she started with us in June 2011!) I find I rarely have a true 'day off' in the sense that I'll always do something, even it's a few emails or social media stuff, you never actually turn off from the business, which has in the past been quite draining and means I have to make a conscious effort to plan in time for my husband and social life so I get some balance. This is again a post in itself, which I'm sure I will expand on soon!
I also spent the afternoon and evening with my dad who is helping me put together some new pop up salon and point of sale displays. I spent quite a lot of time researching suppliers to do this for me, but in the end it just made so much more sense to do it ourselves! I like the fact that we still do some things ourselves, just because you have the facility to spend on certain things, I don't think it means you should. I'm incredibly tight with business expenditure and I'll always choose the option to do as much as possible myself and with help from friends and family. I think my 'I'll do a better job myself' attitude to business is a blessing and a hindrance; it means I always take on too much and burn myself out but it also means I'm always teaching myself new skills, that's how The Vintage Salon started after all. I would think a lot of entrepreneurial people are like that, there's an element of over-confidence in your abilities and a willingness to give anything a go, combined with not believing anyone else will deliver your vision as well as you can!
Wednesday
Today we had a photographer's workshop in the salon. The concept behind this came from a photographer I've had the pleasure of working with a few times before, Theresa Furey. She ran a similar day a while back in Malvern, involving our Sugabilly models, my hair and make-up and a group of photographers who took it in turns shooting the models in Vivien of Holloway clothing in different indoor and outdoor sets. The aim is for them to increase their experience and portfolios, and for us to increase our exposure and networking.
Theresa very kindly let me nick the idea from her (of course she'll be coming along to one of the days on the house as a thank you). We had four absolutely lovely photographers join us, shooting our four classicly styled models in and around our salon at the Custard Factory in Birmingham. We've already has some amazing photos come back from the day....
The challenge I faced today was not related to this event but was in the fact that I woke up to finding out from my daily business banking text from Lloyds that a large sum of money had been fraudulantly taken from my bank account. I managed to trace how this had happened in the morning whilst setting up the salon and styling the models before our photographers arrived, then finished off some calls at the end of the day to sort it out further. It was of course on my mind all day but my priority had to be with ensuring our paying customers, in this case our photographers experienced the service they had signed up for, I had to put the issues aside and focus on them for the day. Luckily Paypal, who were the source of the fraudulant activity (my account had been hacked through my using the same user name and password for this and other sites I'd signed up to) were absolutely spot on with their customer service and resolution. The money was traced and is now back in my account, thankfully. I urge everyone reading to go right now and change any passwords that are the same!
Thursday
I usually always cover our Birmingham salon on Thursdays and today was no different. Kia, our Salon Manager looks after it the rest of the time. We had our new Nail Technician Rosie start at the salon, she has quite a busy first day and fit right in, it was lovely having someone else there to chat to and another service to offer our customers. The challenge we face in operating the salon during weekdays is that our core services are very 'special occassion' based... we don't cut or colour hair in the salon, so customers tend to only need to get their vintage hair do's etc on Fridays and Saturdays. We therefore have to start offering more walk in services such as nails and brows to fill the week day slots. This is diversification from our previous business offering. It's essential that these services are still related to our vintage branding though, and Rosie has created kitsch, rockabilly and traditional vintage designs in response to this and our brow shaping is modelled on the iconic brow shapes of stars such as Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn.
I can't rely on a regular 'salon' business model, we don't have the same service offering, we're more an 'experience' company, so our challenge is enticing customers into those experiences outside of the weekends. We're getting there!
Friday
This was a really exciting day at the salon, we were hired out for a professional photo shoot for which I've signed a confidentially agreement about. I'll say no more and share the results when the time is right! I met some fascinating people and it's going to hopefully be a really positive outcome for us.
Saturday and Sunday
I took our (newly-designed-and-made-by-my-brilliant-dad) pop up salon to the Designer Vintage Bridal Show at Hagley Hall for the whole weekend. Having not had time to set up on Friday due to the shoot finishing late I had to set off early and put it all up before the show started at 10am. I was really pleased with how the weekend went.
I honestly get quite emotional when customers get excited when they see my business. I welled up a couple of times after brides loved their complimentary bridal trials, one said it had made her day and I just thought 'that's worth getting up early on a Sunday for'; it's the buzz that keeps you going even when you're knackered and your brain is like mush! I have to take it back to my business philosophy again, if you find what you love, it's not really work. My aim ever since I was young was to blur the lines between work and pleasure, I'm not great with routine, in fact it positively petrifies me. Although I sometimes can't plan my weekends ahead or give myself mouth sores from being so tired, I wouldn't give it up for anything.
Till next time...
Ms Le Keux x
