Here’s a snippet of the interview…

What has been the most rewarding part of being an entrepreneur for you? What has been the most challenging?

The most rewarding has also been the most challenging. Being an entrepreneur has given me the flexibility to create my own lifestyle. When my husband and I were married in 2004 we discussed the kind of life we wanted to create for ourselves. In hindsight, this was one of the smartest things we ever did. We decided that we wanted the opportunity to raise our children TOGETHER. And, so we embarked on a life that would allow us to be home with our children – each of us active in their lives. I began my stationery business. And, my husband continued his consulting business. Being entrepreneurs has afforded us this lifestyle. I truly have an equal partner in marriage and family.

While this is rewarding, it is also a challenge. For the first 16 months of my daughter’s life (a few years back) we were her only caretakers and we ran 2-3 businesses. This was an incredible shuffle of schedules and baby passing. Slowly we took on additional help: babysitting and then preschool. But initially we were the only ones caring for our child. It’s what we want. And, it was crazy hard. But, we look back and say, “We were both there!”

 (Follow this link to read the whole interview - including something that none of you know about me. )

This week, let’s focus on the present.  We’re doing a bit of introspection and working on ourselves this week.

I always get to this time of year and appreciate the time with family and friends.  I appreciate the slower work pace (albeit more frenetic holiday pace).  And, I begin the new year with a desire to have better balance in my life.  Do you feel this way too?

But, I’m a firm believer that work-life balance is a complete myth.  We make choices with how we spend our time.  (As I’m writing this post I have literally stopped 3 times so far to hug my daughter Lili who has wandered into the office.  I literally have chosen to stop what I am doing, look over, smile, and hug her.  This is a choice.)  I have had to work on being conscious of these choices and being much more intentional with how I spend my time.

And so today, I want you to think about your perception of balance.  Here’s some questions that will help you…

What is balance to you?

How will you live a life that is balanced under this definition?

What limitations do you need to set on yourself to do this?

When do you need to say ‘no’ more often?

When do you need to say ‘yes’ more often?

How have you been challenged in making these choices in the past?

A holiday deal for you…

Throughout these 3 weeks, we’ll be offering $100 off The Simple Plan Exclusive which is our one-to-one partnership with small business owners to help build a business plan.  Simply visit The Simple Plan website to learn more about The Exclusive and enter the discount code “2012” when you enroll.  This offer is only good through December 30^th and space is limited to first-come-first-served.

This week, let’s focus on the present.  This series is going to be a bit more introspective.  I want you to reflect on your personal life today… where are you in your life?  And, what do you want from your personal life?  I ask these questions because many of us start our businesses because we have personal goals (completely separate from career aspirations) that we are trying to achieve.  We start a business because we want a lifestyle that will afford us those personal goals.

I’ll share with you my story.  In 2004 I was married.  My husband and I actually sat down and talked about what we wanted our lives to look like.  In a nutshell, we wanted to be equal active partners in raising our future child(ren).  I didn’t see myself as the primary caretaker and he didn’t want to see his kids on only nights and weekends.  We wanted to share in those things.  We designed our lifestyle and cut our career to match.  I started a stationery business and he has always either worked for himself as an independent consultant, or negotiated an employment contract whereby he can work from home.  Our careers were built to match the family life we aspired to have.  It hasn’t always been easy, but I’m glad to say we’ve been able to do it OUR WAY.

So, I’d like you to reflect on your personal life.  A few questions to consider…

Where are you NOW?

What do you want from your life?

What are your life goals and aspirations?  (not business goals)

What sort of lifestyle do you envision for yourself?

What do you want your life to look like in 5 years? 10 years? 15 years? 20 years?

A holiday deal for you…

Throughout these 3 weeks, we’ll be offering $100 off The Simple Plan Exclusive which is our one-to-one partnership with small business owners to help build a business plan.  Simply visit The Simple Plan website to learn more about The Exclusive and enter the discount code “2012” when you enroll.  This offer is only good through December 30^th and space is limited to first-come-first-served.

How will you take care of yourself over the next few months?

I’m asking this question because I want you to be proactive in your health.  Instead of letting things happen to you, how will you take preventative measures to stay healthy?

The machine needs to be taken care of.  Otherwise, the whole operation will fall apart.

I remember reading something before giving birth to my daughter Lili that changed my outlook on how well (or not) I take care of myself.  When you have a child, you need to take care of yourself or you cannot provide for that child.  You know the airline emergency preparedness instructions?  They tell you to put on your oxygen mask before taking care of those around you.  When the plane is going down, mommy better be able to breathe in order to take care of her loved ones.

It’s like this in business too.  Your business cannot run without you.  (WELL – some of you have gotten to the points in your business where you staff CAN take over if you are ill or face an emergency.  KUDOS to you for getting here!)  Your business needs you to have health.  The machine needs to be running smoothly or the operation will fail.

I repeat… How will you take care of yourself over the next few months?

Here are some things that I do:

• Get sleep
  Ideally 8 hours, but 6 hours at a minimum (and only on rare occasions).
• Nip a cold in the bud
  The minute you start to feel the cold symptoms, try my “MAGICAL TEA” (below) and take a nap.  I swear on my next born child that you will be able to prevent getting sick by doing these 2 easy things.  Rest is key.
• Take time off
  The holidays can be a slow time for wedding businesses, but we tend to fill them with a lot of other obligations.  Just because you aren’t working 80 hours a week doesn’t mean you’re taking care of yourself.  Slow down and take time to relax.

And now… for something totally non-business related… but totally health related… my recipe for…

MAGICAL TEA

The three secret ingredients to the “Special-Tea” are:

1)    Ginger (Fresh Ginger Root)
2)    Lemon
3)    Honey

That’s it!

It’s like rubbing Vic’s Vaporub on the inside of your lungs or throat – when you have a cough or sore throat.  When I have a cough I will drink this every two hours – and it is incredible.  Also, the combination with the lemon and the honey taste so good.  (I like LOTS of honey.)

Here’s what you do: (you may need to experiment with amounts to get the taste that suits you)

1 – Boil water in your teakettle.

2 – While you are boiling the water, fill a thermos with the following:

• Grated ginger (about 1” of the root) – (See * below)
• Juice from 1 lemon
• 3-4 tablespoons of honey

3 – When the water has come to a boil, pour it into the thermos.

4 – Let the ingredients steep for 15-20 minutes.

5 – Strain the tea into a mug and enjoy!

If you don’t have a thermos, you can boil the water in an open pan, add the ginger and simmer for 10-15 minutes.  Turn off the heat, and add the lemon and honey and let it sit for a minute before straining into a mug.  When you want more, just heat it up.  (I like the thermos because I can keep coming to a nice warm batch over a long period of time and not having to keep boiling it.)

* I get tired of grating ginger when I’m sick.  Whole Foods (or the Asian aisle in your local market) will have jars of “minced” or “grated” ginger.  I will sometimes use this.  The minced version is a bit more like a puree – so it will go thru a strainer – but it doesn’t bother me if the tea is a little thick.  If you do mind it, then go for the jarred “grated” ginger.

Also, the ginger’s spice is what is so therapeutic.  Make sure you have enough so that you can feel it tingling.

Download the MAGICAL TEA recipe.

Here’s to a healthy and happy holiday season!

… if you feel like you’re trapped in a 9-to-5 job and you want to do something different.

… if you are in a very ‘stuffy’ job and want to do something more creative.

… if you’ve decided to stay home with your kids for a few years and know you want to return to working some day.

… if you want to spend more time with your kids and leave your 60 hours/week job to be home with them.

and even if you have a business now… and aren’t sure what the next steps are… keep your eyes open… it can blossom into something new.

Here’s something not many people know… a few years ago before I started this here blog I went in for a job interview.  My business had been running swimmingly for 5 years.  But, I saw an opportunity to do something with my knowledge of the wedding and stationery worlds and take my career in a different direction for a really great company.  Honestly, I don’t know if deep down I really wanted the job.  I do like the life of an entrepreneur.  And, I hadn’t really thought about the impact on my stationery business.  But, I was intrigued by the possibility of a new challenges.  I didn’t end up taking the job, but the process was a good experience nonetheless.

Why do I share this with you?  Because I want you to be open to changes in your career.  No matter where you are, if you feel stuck, you won’t be.  It’s temporary.  Your career will evolve.

I am a business dork.

I have always loved getting to know other business owners and finding out what makes them tick.  It seemed that I was always having coffee with wedding pros and learning about them and their business.  I started thinking about ways to share business knowledge with wedding pros.  I started thinking about this back in 2007 but wasn’t quite sure how to share it or where.  In 2009, I started writing this here blog.  Initially I thought I’d reach out to 20 readers and so be it.  It was also an outlet for me to write.  I’ve always enjoyed doing so.

In a few weeks I came to see that people REALLY wanted BUSINESS tools for their wedding companies – not just theory.  People wanted ACTUAL “how you do this” type of information.  And Sage Wedding Pros began to evolve to what you see today.  Kelly Simants partnered with me and we started to develop The Simple Plan, an easy-peasy no-nonsense approach to business planning.  We wanted to change the way people saw business planning and make it fun, simple, and flexible.  We first developed the workshop and then The Simple Plan Exclusive in which we now work 1-to-1 with business owners to help take their business to the next level.

I make a better business person than I do an artist.

So 7+ years after starting my stationery business and 2+ years after starting this blog, here we are in 2011.  I do spend 85% of my work time on Sage Wedding Pros these days.  This percentage has evolved and shifted in the last several years.  I spend my days talking with business owners and learning of their challenges.  For some things I can help.  Some things I cannot.  With some people I advise them on ways to make their business smarter.  I work with these people to build their own businesses.  With some people I actually get into the meat of their business on a project.  I mostly get involved in these sorts of projects to develop financial strategy for a company.

I do still work on stationery, but I am very limited in the number of jobs I take on.  And, usually they come from referrals or past clientele.  I have to REALLY love the job and the client to take on a stationery job.  I love these jobs and I love the clients.

Some things I’ve learned about myself in this transition… I am more interested in business-building than I am in creating my own art.  I am not an artist.  I am business person.  I think I started having these feelings a few years into my invitation business.  While I first started my business out of a passion for paper and creating, I later realized that I was more passionate about creating the business.  And, truth be told, creating invites (for 70+ clients a year) became boring to me.  I know that sounds crazy to all of the amazing artists in our industry.  But, I wasn’t intellectually stimulated by spending most of my days working with my hands.  Don’t get me WRONG – I enjoy making handmade things.  I enjoy it very very much.  But, in terms of my career, I soon came to enjoy the business-making much more.  I am a strategy girl.  I like puzzles.  And, business-building allows me to solve puzzles.

And, so I naturally evolved into this place I am now.  It was not an intentional master-minded move.  I know a lot of people out there want you to think that every move they’ve make was with lots of preparation and dare-I-say-it planning… but, this is a career change that I just naturally started fitting into more and more every day.  Your career will do the same.  Be open to what life brings you.

I love helping people with their businesses.  And, I’m good at it.  I pondered the irony a few months ago when I was speaking at Eventology that I left a world of accounting to now find myself giving a talk on Accounting for Creatives.  It’s interesting how life comes full circle.  It’s interesting how we’re drawn to our roots, whatever those might be.

So, these days my life is a really great mix… mostly business strategy… that puzzle-solving that I love… mixed with some sweet artistic release on very special invite jobs… which I enjoy now more than ever and keeps me connected to the industry.

Thanks for listening to my story.

How about you?  How has your career evolved?

An envelope I 'wove' recently for Elevated Envelope - visit ephemera-press.com for details

A common question I’m asked is: “What are you working on these days?”  I thought it’d be fun to share with you.  I always enjoy learning what other people fill their days with.  It’s also evolved a lot in the last few years as Sage Wedding Pros has taken off.  Today, learn a little bit more about me and how I got here exactly.

Career Transitions

In my younger years, I was very intentional about deciding how my career would go (or so I thought).  I applied for colleges at age 16, identifying the top accounting programs in the nation.  I had visions of ‘rising the corporate ladder’ and knew that USC’s accounting program could get me there.  I worked for Deloitte right after college, an incredible experience in which I truly learned the ins and outs of business.  If you can read a company’s numbers you can understand the ‘secret code’ to how things happen in that organization.  But, I was young… and I longed for ‘more’.

I knew I wanted to leave the world of accounting for a more creative life.  So, in 2000 I left my prestigious job at Deloitte for a small but well-established company that imported and distributed children’s high-end fashion.  I was a west coast sales manager and also oversaw the corporate showroom in LA.  It was a huge change but I loved the opportunity to build relationships with people as my sales responsibilities required.  I also loved merchandising window displays and communicating to our client-buyers how the brand ideals from our French manufacturers could be shared with their American customers.

In my job I worked mostly with specialty boutique buyers and some high-end department store buyers.  The boutiques were independently-owned clothing stores and the owners were just every-day people.  I became so intrigued with the life of the entrepreneur.  I found myself unconsciously researching these business owners during my sales meetings with them.  How did they start their business?  Why did they start a business?  What are the biggest challenges they face?  And, in 2004, I decided to give entreprenurialism a shot.  I quit my job and jumped in head first.

An invitation company is born!

I have always loved paper and launched my business mmm… paper.  Honestly, I had no idea what I was doing.  I didn’t know a thing about design, but I loved paper.  In hindsight, this was totally irresponsible of me!  But, I learned a lot.  And, I learned to specialize in the paper and making paper come together.  I am a tactile designer, not a graphic designer.  And, I specialize in forming wedding invites out of beautiful papers.

The early days of my business were trial and error.  I made some little notecard and stationery sets and would sell them to friends and parents’ friends.  I even did a craft show in a small town near my parents’ house and failed miserably.  (Everyone said I was too expensive.  HA!)  My mom, god bless her, bought 5 sets of stationery at that craft show.  She was my only customer.

I had a friend who was getting married and she knew that I was starting a business.  She asked if I’d be interested in doing her wedding invites.  I was honest with her.  I wasn’t sure if I was skilled in putting together wedding invites.  But, I planned to put some ideas together to see what she thought.  And – she LOVED them.  We ran with one design.  And, that’s when I really started thinking, “I like this wedding invite thing!  I don’t know if I want to be making notecards.  This wedding thing is amazing: the couple, the decor, the design, the colors.  I want to do wedding invites!”  And, my quick little accounting head worked quickly to realize that the profit margins were also better than selling stationery sets.

And, from there it went.  This friend had a friend at work.  The co-worker friend had seen the wedding invites I did and fell in love.  She wanted to work with me too.  And, really that’s how it all started.  Soon enough I was making wedding invites for friends of friends and their friends and co-workers, etc.

Keep in mind, I was the queen of odd jobs in addition to my growing business.  I did some part-time visual merchandising for Coach.  I helped a relative with his market research business by writing reports.  I did some bookkeeping for my father-in-law.  My business wasn’t yet paying the bills and all of these funny odd jobs allowed me the flexibility to work on my business while still earning an income.

For me, this was a time of “I’m just gonna see if this business takes off.”  When I moved to Seattle in 2005, it did.  Seattle is an incredible city.  Businesses begin and thrive there.  People support small business in a huge way.  And, it’s very easy to promote your business in Seattle and ‘be discovered’.  My style of invite design, paper crafting, was not yet being done in Seattle.  I was in the right place at the right time… and things took off!

Now, here’s for the straight-up truth about my business… I’ve had some great successes and some huge failures.  I’ve never made millions (never even close).  There have been times that my cash flow was super-solid and there are times I had a hard time paying the rent.  (But, I ALWAYS paid my rent.)  And, there are times I didn’t pay myself.  There are times that my pricing was too low and then I learned to make it right.  I always had great people work for me.  (I am so grateful for that.)  I *NEVER* have missed a deadline and I always put out quality work.  And, as I’ve matured I’ve learned that I am a better business person that I am an artist.  (More on that later.)

If you want to see how this story ends, you’ll have to come back tomorrow… please do!

“Oh Renee is having major FOMS over missing that party next weekend as she’ll be out of town.”“

“The hardest thing about living away from home is the FOMS you get when your friends are getting together and you can’t join in the fun with them.”

“I had a bad case of the FOMS for missing that Prince concert.  I heard it was amazing!”

“You know Jeff.  He always has such a hard time committing to activities on the weekend because of FOMS. He doesn’t want to miss out on anything good – ANYWHERE.”

Fortunately, my friends and I are all pretty balanced individuals and the FOMS never get too out of control.  But, we do all suffer from FOMS from time to time.  We want to be in all fun places at all times.  It’s the opportunity cost of having to choose one thing over another.

But, the FOMS can be dangerous.

The FOMS prevent you from totally being present in what you are doing.  It prohibits you from focusing on the current moment.  It minimizes your ability to let go and enjoy yourself.  It puts the focus on “what could have been” instead of “what is”.  We glorify the former and minimize the latter.

We do this in business too.  We get the FOMS in business.

In business, we often have to make hard choices.  We choose one place to advertise over another.  We choose one networking event over another.  We choose one style of branding over another.  We hire one assistant over another.  Some of us are good at being content in our decisions. While others toil and deliberate in those decisions. The FOMS attack and there is constant second-guessing of the choices made.  It’s a stressful existence to say the least.

It’s hard to be at peace in your business and mature as a business-owner if you allow yourself to be a victim of FOMS.  Next time you feel FOMS creeping in, look at everything around you, enjoy your place in the present, and keep your eyes looking forward.  There’s no reason to fear that you’re missing something, when you’re surrounded by so much goodness.

Do you experience this fear of missing something?

As business owners we become so accustomed to doing things on our own.  In fact, we are incredibly resourceful and can figure out almost anything.  This becomes second nature to the point that we rarely ask others for help.

But, this is silly when you think about it.  We should lean on each other more often.  One of the things I love most about this industry is people’s willingness to help out a colleague.  We should ASK for HELP.  We are not alone.  We should recognize our weaknesses and ask help from others that are strong in those areas.  In some cases, it may just be a little advice that we need on an area we are exploring.  In some cases, we should be hiring professionals to work on things we are not always qualified to do.

We should look at our colleagues as our business partners and team-members.

Who could you go to for help?  Make a list of your top 5 ‘wedding industry friends’ who can help you grow your business.  List their strengths and how they can support you.

I’m not just speaking to start-up businesses.  I’m talking to anyone at any level of entrepreneurship.  No matter how long you’ve been in business, there is some ‘next level’ that you’d like to achieve.  What’s holding you back?

Can you think of someone that is not perfect at what they do but fearless?  I can.  They don’t always get it right, but they aren’t afraid to get out there and take a risk to achieve something.  They may not even the best at what they do but they put themselves out there whole-heartedly.  And, they manage to shake things up.  They continuously introducing new ideas and concepts to our industry.

As entrepreneurs, none of you are short on ideas.  Every single one of you has huge potential to do great things.  However, it’s the innovators that are able to overcome their fears and take a chance.  It doesn’t mean that they had more intelligent ideas than the next guy.  They just acted on those ideas.  It doesn’t mean that they aren’t scared.  The fear never totally goes away.  They’re only a little more accustomed to ignoring it.

How is fear holding you back from being an innovator?