I own a small, predominantly online handcrafted jewelry business. I have been in business 3 years, 5 months & 2 days - exactly the same amount of time that I've been sober because I am an alcoholic. I'd like to think my success in both of those areas are directly linked. I stay sober by making jewelry. Successfully selling jewelry keeps me from drinking. But what if sales decrease or straight up end? Would I drink again? I drop new jewelry on my website every Friday at 9am est. It is 11:30 and I have zero sales. In all the years in business, that has NEVER happened on a drop day. It's depressing. I've watched sales steadily decline over the past few months, often daydreaming about the what if's and the why's. Is it our declining economy? Is it crappy designs? It is me?
Recently it was brought to my attention that I offended and upset one of my long-time, consistently supportive customers. I noticed that she hadn't placed an order in several weeks. I was almost afraid to ask and just eventually told myself that she had a ton of earrings anyway. But eventually, I asked. I offended her because of something I said in a social media post. I said something along the lines of "buy jewelry to help me pay my bills." I mean, I do this business full time as my sole income earning endeavor. What the hell am I supposed to spend my income from jewelry sales on? I, by no means, live extravagantly. I am not over here buying yachts and Jimmy Choo shoes or Gucci bags. So how was that offensive?
I also sat here with myself consistently being brought back to something I saw on Facebook this morning. I saw a group of friends I went to high school with on vacation together on an island off the east coast of Mexico, all beach hair and sunkissed cheeks smiling while posing with tropical drinks in the ocean with toes in the sand. It bothered me. I mean yay for them but I sat here thinking how different our lives are. Last week, my husband who is literally the hardest and best working employee of a company got a letter stating that his pay is "temporarily being reduced by 15%." Sales from my jewelry is down 40%. I immediately think ' well, I must not be trying hard enough.' I start getting down on myself because we can't afford lavish trips to seaside resorts. I can't even afford to pay my bills this week (as of right now), leading me to steel from "profit" last week. This is a never ending, gut wrenching, stress inducing cycle. Robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Now, this not-making-enough is no one's fault, not even my own. I have had 25 surgeries in 20 years. That is A LOT of debt. The out of pocket deductibles. The medications. The charging bills due to time off work needed for recovery. The job losses due to my inability to perform the tasks involved. I feel like my decision to not put my kids in daycare, to stay home with them until they became school age was the only thing that I did that was sorta hurtful to our financial situation. Then again, when we crunched the numbers, I would just be working to pay for childcare with zero profit so what was the point? We've never invested, never had extra, have extremely low savings. But, we've always made ends meet, working paycheck to paycheck. Again, we don't live extravagant lives nor do we take yearly family vacations. We have good vehicles that we still owe on. We have like 15 years left to pay on our small home. I have a lot to be thankful for but also, I'm mad. I'm mad that we've gotten the short end of the medical debt stick. Almost all of our credit card debt stems from medical debt. When my husband had 3 strokes 5 years ago and was off work for 4 months, we had a lump sum payout from Aflac that got us through BUT we had medical expenses that were charged. When I had a $70,000 surgery at the University of Chicago, we charged our expenses of travel to Chicago weekly leading up to and weeks after. We were given a financial hardship status, reducing our out of pocket which was very helpful, but we were still left with a hefty bill that we had to make payments on. And those types of scenarios have been constant over the last 20 years, year in and year out. We estimated at one time that my cancer cost us over $50,000, paid over the course of years. We have played the credit card game, transferring balances to other companies with 0% interest for a period of time then scrambling to transfer again when the 0% period of time ran out. Recently, I charged over $7,000 through a "helpful" program provided graciously by my dentist for a new pair of dentures - because I lost all my teeth before I turned 40 due to cancer treatments in my 30's. Did you know dentures need replacing every 5-7 years?! I didn't.
This just seems like an endless list of complaints and maybe it is. But when someone says they are offended that I need to pay my bills with the money earned from their purchases, I get upset and go over and over and over this list of our shitty financial story of the past 20 years. It's a crappy hand to be dealt. It's no ones fault, except maybe the United States' flawed medical system & my poor biology, possibly bad life choices in my younger years. I'm not entirely sure. Maybe a combination of all of it. One thing I do know, I will never be shamed by saying that my jewelry business helps pay my bills. Also, I'm upping my in-person market game to offset the decrease in online sales. You gotta do what you gotta do.
Why is entrepreneurial transparency not a thing? Am I just lacking the connections to these peers or is everyone just tight-lipped competitors, lacking in mutual support of other likeminded small business owners? Are small bizz owners just affraid to share because they might come across as a "failing business?" Someone might copy you (which happened to me)? Maybe I will research small business support groups. But for now, while I seek out other boss babes like me, I will just blog about the struggs to func sometimes.
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