Can I mention Christmas yet?

1st September today and I spent a good part of my day planning the Christmas line for 2008! Man I can’t believe we didn’t even have a summer (weather wise) and here I am now on the first of September thinking about making Christmas tree candles, getting a cinnamon headache and trying to get in front for the Christmas scented votive candles in bulk! I’ve got the seasonal shop page already designed for the website – I have some bits and pieces I need to make tomorrow and photograph asap … but it’s all good right now!

The weather has changed too. The evenings are starting to get dark by 8pm … it’s coming!

Orders have picked up again … cash flow is … well, it’s flowing! OMG FINALLY it is flowing! I checked the bank account today and the first customer payment that I processed a week ago has actually been paid into the account within the seven days that NetBanx promised!! I’m in a MUCH better position than I was a week ago … and by this time next week it should be even better too!! By the time the real run up to Christmas gets here … fingers crossed that … well, just fingers crossed! LOL

A quiet house

It’s so weirdly quiet in my house right now. There’s no yelling or screaming, no yells for “Muuuuuuuuuuum s/he is hurting me” and only half as many requests for food and snacks.

Megan is away for the week at Brownie camp until Friday afternoon.

But it is so QUIET! Nathan has been quietly doing his own thing without interruption in the lounge with me and Hub is upstairs doing whatever it is that grown men do behind closed doors with a PC, computer games and an internet connection (I don’t ask too many questions!!)

And me? I’ve had almost uninterrupted time to get caught up on some emails and do a bit of work!

The wolves are beginning to bite at my heels though. If something major doesn’t happen soon then I’ll potentially be too far into a hole to pull myself out of it. The WORST that would happen is that I’d have to close down my workshop and move the business back into the kitchen & garden shed whilst circumnavigating Hub’s motorbike that lives out there too! This would immediately squash the vast majority of my outgoing costs and mean that I could operate on a lower figure to pay off the business debts.

On the downside I lose the only space that is my ONE sanctuary from the world (well, when I switch the phone ringer off anyway!!) and home becomes work and vice versa. I moved the business OUT of home 5 years ago – it would be a huge step backwards, and honestly the last thing I would want, but I may not have any choice.

The thing I found when I worked out of home before is that I never ever stopped working. I had a work phone line and I was out the back until all hours cooking up smelly stuff in my back garden, and I was then permanently on the computer. Hmmm not so much of a change there other than the location of the main operation. Maybe it wouldn’t be quite so bad after all!

Middle Man Bollocks

I could run my business a LOT easier if it wasn’t for the middle men I have no choice but to use.

My phone and Internet went down at work recently. What could I do? Absolutely nothing!! We were out of touch with the outside world for several days and had to use my mobile number to call their “free phone” number … which isn’t actually free if you don’t have a frigging working phone line … and then rely on the person on the end of the phone to actually do what they had promised to do… which … 99% of the time (in my experience) they don’t!

I used to have quite a senior role in customer services for a utility company before I started my own business. I know what these people are thinking when they get a really stressy pissy person on the phone, so I always try to be as polite as possible because it isn’t THEIR fault that they work for a company who doesn’t manage to actually provide the service you are paying them for (well ok it is – they could get another job! LOL). Trouble is, when you are polite and nice … you are also easy to ignore. On the flip side if you then GET pissy with them … ooopsie look you got cut off.

I have been trying to set up a new merchant account for the last 4 weeks. It was supposed to take a week. Meanwhile customers are placing orders but I actually have no way of processing their credit cards until the new merchant account is in place. The whole idea of switching merchant is for cash flow reasons … ie I have NO CASH FLOW right now. My old merchant account took 28 days to pay the funds into my account … the new company will be just 7 days so it will make an enormous difference to the company accounts, but damnit it is taking TOO long to set up. I have been promised faithfully that I am on the “integration list” for Monday morning … I’d better be or I’m gonna be firing rockets under people’s asses!

How can I run a business without any cash flow whatsoever? I still have invoices coming in that I need to pay and no way of paying them until I can process my own incoming payments! Thing is … I’ve been a huge believer of “if you want it done properly, do it yourself” for so long … and that combined with my serious lack of patience … well GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR is the result when it’s something I can’t do without a middle man!