In the Meantime...

mean·time

ˈmēnˌtīm/

adverb

1. meanwhile.

   "in the meantime, I'll make some inquiries of my own"

We are 6 months into the year, and I am still scraping to get by.  Day after day of wondering where the money can come from...  Day after day of hoping that I will get enough customers through the door to make it all work.  Day after day of shattered hopes and dreams.  Frustration has set in long ago and I feel like I don't have any other hoops to jump through, I feel like I have thrown to the ground and trampled, I feel so very humiliated and defeated.  Should I have those feelings, probably not, but do I?  Yes.  

So tomorrow will come and I will go to work and I will hope for a better day and more money through the door and a miracle, yes I find myself hoping for those lately too.  I will walk through the door proudly tomorrow morning with renewed hope that the day will be better and the money will come and that the bills will get paid on time... and then I will hope that I can leave tomorrow night not feeling quite so defeated or so stupid.  It is really hard to go everyday when you know that the bottom line is, if people aren't going to shop with us, we won't be able to stay open.

I cannot make my own money, I cannot make people spend money they don't have and I cannot beg them to buy in my store.  I am at the mercy of the general public and that my friends is one of the scariest places I have ever been.  

Years have passed and we are closer to the end of the mortgage then we were when this whole recession thing started... More in debt, and a whole lot of gray hairs more... but we are closer, so tomorrow I will go to work with the hope that more will come if I keep trying to make them happy.
That the money will once again flow in so that we may pay it out to our vendors.  That people will somehow find more peace in their hearts that they can be more pleasant and I wish the same for me.   
A wise woman once told me to have some faith, no matter how bad it is it could be worse...and I suppose that is the truth of it because over the years I thought it couldn't get worse and here I am testing those waters again.... Her motto is to ask the higher up...  In the meantime?  In the meantime, what do I do? In the meantime how do I get by?  In the meantime.....

So In the meantime, I suppose I will get up and go to work tomorrow.  In the meantime, I will try to make some more connections, I will try to be a better person and in the meantime, I will continue to make my customers happy and feel loved.  In the meantime I will believe that good things will some day come my way if I work hard.  In the meantime I might shed a tear or two, question my judgement, and feel like I am going to have a heart attack, but in the meantime I will put one foot in front of the other and plow forward, just like I am suppose to until I can't anymore.  
As Always,
A wondering Shop Owner that feels today the weight of owning your own business.  

Business... The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

You should never want anything bad enough to sell your soul for it.  You should never forgo important things like building inspections, you should never ever believe in the people that are selling you something.  You need to protect yourself and you need to watch out for you.....because no one else is going to.  

Buying a business is just like a relationship.  You may possibly get out of it exactly what you put into it, but if that business has had problems before you bought it that you weren't aware of, then it might have problems after you buy it and you will have to deal with it then.  

There are days when I love what I do, I look forward to going to work and I look forward to redoing a display or making my shop look wonderful.  There are days when it is a peace of mind to go inside and take a deep breath and realize that even through it all I am still here, still in business and still managing to struggle through.  That in itself is an accomplishment in this day and age.

My loyal customers, the ones that look so forward to coming.  They make you smile.  It isn't about what they buy ( yes, I am happy when they buy) but it is about how they interact with the store.  They smell deeper, their eyes darting from one side to the other, their walking slows so that they can take in as much as they can before they take another step.  They seem peaceful, they seem happy if only for a short time in the store.    

Then there are days that I don't know how I will ever make it, how I can keep going from day to day.  That I have tried everything possible and I can't make people spend money that they don't have.  Those days are hard to get through, harder than I ever thought they would be. 

But still again I can say that I AM still here, working through the bad and the ugly, because I still have hope for the good.  I suppose without HOPE

I might give into the Bad and the Ugly, so every day that I wake up and still have HOPE brings a smile to my face and an ache to my heart because It still means that no matter how unbearable it all seems.........there is still HOPE for a brighter tomorrow and a better future for me and my little store.  

As Always, a reminiscent shop owner feeling old and tired tonight, thankful for many things even when the light at the end of the tunnel seems to have been shut off.  

Niche

Everyone in business needs a Niche.  

Something they can call their own, something that people (customers) 

will come back to them for, time and time again.

So after being in business for X amount of years,  I still find myself looking and longing for a Niche!  Business is so hard.  Is it that I cannot come up with it, or is it that every business owner is hunting for their own niche? And with the economy still so unstable and so very dependent on discretionary income that the consumer is still so very finicky about what they will spend their money on and rightfully so.  Hell, the corporate world almost came crashing down around us and the middle class finds itself the minority now, we always were the backbone of the country but I worry that in the years ahead that the middle class will become a thing of the past.  The middle class struggles to make ends meet.  Most of us will fall to the bottom no matter how hard we try.   

Have the tides turned?  They say if you come through a recession in a couple of years that people go right back to their old spending habits... this recession is not over (no matter what the government is telling you), and it has been going on since 2008.  Six years later, I believe that people have new learned behaviors, they have realized that they have to spend differently and to save differently.  I believe that those learned behaviors have changed this world and that with them comes a sense of owning a new truth.  People feel empowered  by a savings account, even if it is not enough...it is something.  They feel good about getting something for less.  If they aren't shopping for the discounts they are shopping for MADE IN THE USA.  These are all positive changes in our society.  

Now, only to find my Niche. 

 Don't worry, I think we are headed in the right direction, I am just so sorry it has taken X amount of years to get here.  But I have learned alot on the way and I believe that all things happen for a reason.  I have stopped worrying about the reason and instead look forward to the change.