dh says i cant delegate...but i dont think thats right..... he doesnt delegate much at all in his part...ive seen him struggle of hours to find a 50 cent mistake on the books... and he would never let anyone esle do any of his bookwork...
im so glad to have delegated lots of things i used to do alone...
*counter work im sure glad to get out of this one....you can get trapped....and it has to be just right...and she can shield me from some of the phone calls...
*most of the carrying, i can still do it of course....but i try and let someone else do it....still if im there a lot of time its easier for me just to grab...
*half the buying, and carpenter ordering..jon does half and i do half.... he thinks i should be out buying more because i know the smalls better.....
*half the fluffing i would love to hire a great merchandizer....we do the best we can... im in awe of a great displayer.... of course its art and they cant tell you how they do it!!!
*ordering, for the gift department i mark what i want in the catalog and how many with a sticker and carol does the rest!!! yay i dont get why i should care if my workers know what we pay..... not many secrets around here...
cleaning......i dont think we ever cleaned in the old days...i sure didnt...
i would like to delegate more....but not so much that i dont even need to be in the store.....
i go for the idea that the best manure for the garden is the farmers footprints
...... i would like to delegate more like the emyth says...and make more time for running the business not just doing the work..... but its pretty hard....i need to know whats going on at all times........ lots of my customers tell me i work too hard...but i dont see it that way...4 or 5 things going on at once and getting interrupted all day long seems normal ...
i have so much stress and pressure and frustration...its a boiler room for me most of the time... .there are so many details and people to deal with..and space and projects.......sometimes i just go in the back and paint ON a piece of furniture....now WE have about the best crew weve ever had so that helps a whole lot... the stress doesnt spoil it for me thats for sure...
ive tried hiring a potential manager about 3 times....and it never has worked out yet.... ...
THINGS I WISH I COULD DELEGATE....and have it turn out like i want...
- advertizing
- a whole section, like the foo foo or the country, ordering and displaying...
- putting the antiques away correctly...
THINGS I WOULD NEVER WANT TO DELEGATE
- BUYING
- display, not completely anyway
- designing
- painting
- being on the floor with the customers, roaming around on the floor..
thinking about stress....im on a stress discussion online....mostly about women with stores and stress......and i m getting to feel like the oddball, for being too ok or positive....... i know i face tons of stress too ........BUT and its a big one....our store is DOING WHAT ITS SUPPOSED TO DO, it supports us and lets me do my own thing...that outweighs a lot of the hard parts of running a store....... .....
if i was facing closing or not being able to pay the bills , or owing friends or family that would be a whole different thing...
.my point is stress is probably more about the math or financial health of the store . and not the hassles and workload.....im a happy camper and work like a dog....i want to keep on working like a dog... if our math goes lots further downhill i dont know what i would do..
as always, i cant help but blame the advice women seem to soak up, from the popular press and their friends and from people wanting to sell them things... live your dream, you can make it, go girl..when really we are in the same boat as the men in business and better look hard at the realities we have to face if we want to survive........
. we experienced having a business go under, about 30 yrs ago and it was devastating.....all i can say is if you are facing that....get it over with quick..... if its really unsolvable..... and our situation was... the whole thing had changed and we were stuck with totally the wrong price.... and our customers moved on to the other store .... this was a record store when a discounter came to town with new record prices... we had to close....it was very sad and embarrassing and taught me a lot....mainly that its all about the customers...lol... but it gave us a good hardnosed, careful background for our green oak antiques venture... http://www.greenoakantiques.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment