Money, Money, Money...

They say that if you have plenty of money, it’s a whole lot easier to make more, which seems fair enough. People with vast amounts of the stuff are granted access to audiences and contacts the rest of us can only dream of. Plus, if you’ve got money to invest in the first place loan free, there’s always going to be larger profit margins with whatever it is you’re trading in.

What they don’t say though, is that, if you don’t have masses of it, you really, really, have to believe in what you’re doing.

So far, all of our investments have been fairly comfortably within our means. Noticeable, sure. Heart fluttering amounts even when you’re talking stock runs. But, safe enough to be more exciting than terrifying. With two regular professional incomes, they’ve been the kind of business investments you can see that a year or so down the line you’ll have earned enough to cover at work should it all go tits up…

As we look to where to go next though, like everything since the big shake up, it gets pretty bloody scary. Because this time, there’s not a lot coming in from any other sources to replace whatever we spend.

It’s always been our intention to grow both the styles and the sizes we offer of our swimwear range. But it seems like, in a lot of ways, it’d make sense to do that sooner rather than later, which wasn’t the original plan. Initially, the idea was to start small, do a few runs and build over time. Already though we’ve had lots of people asking when we’ll do bigger sizes. And a wider size range gives us a wider target market, allows us to be a ‘one stop shop’ for babies and siblings and brings about plenty of brothers/sisters twinning options (something which seems to be pretty popular right now, but I’ll be dead honest, I am so grateful was not when I and my brother were kids). So, do we do it?

If I had a spare $2Million I’d be in for $20K no issues. If I had a spare $20K I’d probably be in for it too. If that money was the core savings I was supposed to live on for the next 4 years while my husband was at Uni? Yeah…

That really is a leap of faith. And it needs some serious belief in not just our product, but myself.

Can I get the next prints right? Find the best producers for the new styles we want to bring in? Increase our reach on social media so people actually see them? Convince the right stores to carry them? Oh yeah, and bottom line, sell enough…

Belief in myself; it’s a fickle old thing. Ask me one day and I am pretty sure I might well be the next Lorna Jane (except, fatter and a lot more shit in the kitchen). Another, I’m doomed and useless at everything. Mostly, I hover somewhere in the middle. But that’s not really where my head needs to be if I’m going to start working on the new stuff sooner than the business plan stipulates.

So, as 2018 approaches, before I worry too much about the bigger question of to invest yet or not, I’m going to work on that belief in myself.

I got a ‘Passion Planner’ for Christmas - which is a diary and exercises about decluttering, challenges, direction and achieving goals (not sure if the husband thought it was something else a bit more sordid when he bought it…) and I intend to use it to get some focus in my life and generally feel a bit less frantic and a bit more prepared.

I got a new book about Declarations. Finding it, owning it and shouting it from the rooftops the subtitle tells me. Handy, as since becoming a mum I have definitely lost it. Marbles, style, the lot…

I got a bracelet with ‘She believed she could, so she did’ engraved on it. This, according to the packaging, is to anchor me and to remind me that I have the strength and will to do what it takes.

Since two thirds of the Believe in Yourself kit requires me to carve out some time of my own, something which anyone with small children will know you can’t even get when you go to the loo, I’m not sure how this little self-help project will go. But, I am sure that if I can find even half as much belief in myself as my product it’ll be a much less terrifying choice to make. As well as funny and sunny in that rich man’s world, it’s safer too...

But hey, safe is kind of boring.

#Money #Business #Belief