I once got a stubborn patch of ivy in our backyard to grow exactly where I wanted it to grow by trimming branches of an overhanging tree to allow sunlight into just the right area and adding an old fence post.
For a short period of time I blew my own mind with my sense of power over this wayward patch
(kind of like the first time you trick your kids into doing something you want them to do by convincing them you do not want them to do it)
- but soon began to look closer at the un-naturalness (and yes, this is totally a word - if you need to use it in your next game of bananagrams, go ahead - just be sure to offer up this post and not an actual dictionary as proof of its wordiness) of what I had created and think ... hmmm ... maybe there is something to be said for the beauty of things that grow organically.
I am thinking the same way about our businesses lately.
Last year I set out to get a certain specific percentage of my business income from wholesale selling and increase sales by X dollars.
Well ... I did increase sales by X dollars (although maybe I should say x dollars - ha!) and this increase did come through wholesale selling -
although not in the traditional wholesale structure of "store places large order which makes deep discounts to store possible", but more of a "store places one order at a time which I make and ship to buyer one at a time and store still gets deep discount kind of wholesale selling" ... sigh
Of course, the bottom line is that I got what I set out to get but just not in the way I set out to get it. So the movement, which I tried to force into a particular direction, grew in a different direction which although unintended was maybe a more natural direction ... for me ... for now.
More proof that our inner state of being and our outer success is irrevocably connected - the reason we set goals at all is because of who we become as we’re reaching them ... whether we do or not. If we do, it is just the beginning of another journey; if we don't, it is just the start of another journey ... there is no end zone in crafty, maker land - it is all process so we had better be loving it.
(which I am ... most ... of the time)
My metaphyscal friend, who is all about setting intentions containing the word "effortless" as in "good things flow to me effortlessly", said that maybe I have some inner work to do to truly believe that things should be easier - that I likely have deep-seated beliefs in the fact that money comes through hard work ...
Of course I really do believe that money comes from hard work and from setting the right intentions and from walking through those open doors and from elbowing our way into those doors that are only slightly ajar and from bulldozing our way through the closed doors ... but only sometimes ... because sometimes the bulldozing gets us in, but like my wayward ivy, doesn't really get us where we need to be.
* mama don't let your babies ... print by KZukowski
2 comments
It is only through careful tending that the vine becomes and stays in a way that produces the most beautiful results, as well. Rambling may be best from the vine's point of view but isn't always the best from the result's point of view, if the perfect rose is what you're after. I guess that makes some (underlined!) sense.
That said, I like your last paragraph and I, too, still believe that it takes hard work, plowing through those open doors and pure drive to make it all work. Off to check on my 'inner work' and do some 'outer work' . . .
Wonderful brain boosting post, Cat :: lynn
ps : nobody tougher than a rodeo clown, srsly
At the end of 2010 I was feeling the same way about wholesale... that I had landed some great orders over the course of the year, but what I wasn't getting was follow up customers... then the lightbulb went on that I was simply waiting for them to contact me again, rather than me updating them on what's new every so often, which in turn granted me some repeat orders from some of those same customers in 2011... Not that you haven't already though of this or tried it, but I guess the point I'm getting at {and I get this from my husband because he is a salesman too} "A sale is a sale". Sometimes they are from the people we want them to be from, and sometimes they are from new people or people we haven't seen or heard from in ages, but a sale is a sale... If you've got some customers you want to hang onto, make a list and check it twice... but don't be so hard on yourself if some of those orders are not repeats... you never know when they might become one again. ;) In the mean time, just keep moving forward. ♥
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