April is a big month of the year for me. Mainly because I run all my businesses in quarters and in April I look at my numbers and see where they all stand. I do comparisons from the previous year, but more importantly I adjust and revisit my plan of attack of the year.
Things can change really quickly. Even in a short 3 months into the year a lot can happen. So in April here’s my game plan:
Revisit the Ninong’s sales and come up with a focus for me and my team for the next quarter.
Create our detailed game plan for Ninong’s next steps (can’t say more than that at the moment).
Focus my creative juices on preparing for Las Vegas Market for CO Creative Cartel.
Have CO join as many craft shows as we can.
Start filming for GBF again.
Implement my new blogging plan and make it a habit.
Utilize my planner more.
Enjoy my day off more, which means utilize my work hours.
Create more video content.
Take more photos. Visual content is what makes your words more interactive.
I feel like every time I write one of these “Lately” posts that’s the first sentence that I always lead with. SMH.
But they have been busy lol
Charlie and I have been busy with a home project and working on yard maintenance. It rarely ever rains in LA so our “grass” never really grows. And yeah, I put “grass” cuz it’s not really grass. Since we’ve had to conserve water we just decided to stop watering our “grass” all together. But since it’s been raining a lot this winter our “grass” decided to grow. If you saw my instagram story a couple weeks back the height of the grass was so tall you couldn’t even see my dogs when they’d run through it. Since then we’ve been trying to do our best to do yard work every week so it’s easier to maintain. #adulting am I right?
Aside from a little house maintenance I’ve been chipping away at my business projects.
I guess that’s the way things are when you’re an entrepreneur. You try to make decisions hoping for the best with the best intentions
CO Creative Cartel has the Jackalope Fair coming up and we’re using this as an opportunity to work on our product line. We’ve got a few new products we’re currently sourcing and hopefully we’ll be able to debut those soon! We’ve also applied to a few other Spring 2017 craft shows to gain local brand awareness and to get direct customer feedback on our products. All of this is to prepare ourselves for our biggest event of the year, Las Vegas Market coming up in August. I’m scheming up some fun things and am really excited to make my wholesale trade show debut. It’s been a long time coming, over 5 years – I can’t believe it! But the time has finally arrived, we’re making it happen this year and I’m glad I didn’t rush into it. My patience was tested over and over but I’m more prepared than I ever would have been in the past.
A sneak peek into some fun things coming soon 🙂
Ninong’s is undergoing a big transition this year, in a million different ways. I always tell people that this business has been my testimony of faith as well as entrepreneurship. I firmly believe that Ninong’s has been the reason I have learned and grown so much as an entrepreneur and as a Christian. We’ve recently changed our FOH (front of house) operations to sit down service and it’s been quite the challenge to change the way we’ve been doing things for 8 years. But this was just another decision we made to help us grow, do what is best for our customers, and try to create a better experience. We’re finally beginning to adjust and our operation is becoming a bit smoother. We’re still a long way and we will never be perfect but I can see how this decision was a good choice for our business.
I guess that’s the way things are when you’re an entrepreneur. You try to collect data, observe your customer base, take in constrictive critique, and make decisions hoping for the best. What sucks is you’ll never know for sure if that was the right decision until you try it, implement it, and give it time. But you have to jump in fully and trust that you made the decision for a reason, the right reason.
Because of this, my blog got put on the back burner.
But I decided that it was okay.
Normally, I’d be stricken with guilt over not posting. I’d rack my brain about how I can make it up to the few readers I have. I’d tell myself my blog will never grow if I don’t take it seriously. But honestly, I do! lol. I take my blog very seriously and so this time I said NO. No to feeling guilty and no to making myself think that I don’t work hard enough. Because I do work hard, it’s just…priorities. 😉
If you haven’t guessed already, I’m a productivity nerd. The last 3 YouTube videos I’ve done are about how I keep my crazy life organized. Today, I’m finally sharing my third and final product that I use to keep me on track – Todoist!
