Business Planner
27 Oct 2021 09:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ursulas_alcoveAs a grown-up, I don't get to do back-to-school shopping. I always like the smell of fresh notebooks and new pens and pencils. So when the printer ink ran out or the labels needed to be printed for the yarn before the show, I headed to my local office supply store. They had a grown-up display with small 3 ring binder organizers (fake leather) and paper to fit inside. In the business section, those run for $50 each. These were less than $5. The catch is that the paper hole spacing doesn't match the ones in the business section. I bought the organizer and grid paper, plus lined paper for under $15. I have not regretted it. It looks nice. And it got me organizing, which was the point. In the future, the yellow small tablets will also fit inside.
I got into organizing. The Nature Conservancy sends me a calendar each year. It fits inside. Now comes scheduling with higher level math. I'm still not completely there yet. It involves writing show dates, writing when payments for shows are due, it involves plants- what can be harvested for dye and when, it involves purchasing yarn so that it can be dyed when the plants are ready. The really tricky part is which yarns get which dyes. While all this is going on, I need to scale up so my booth isn't so tiny. In order to make a living, I need two things, enough shows to support me and enough stock to sell at those shows. Obviously, that involves enough customers. Can I dye enough yarn to support myself? The trick will be to carry enough different kinds of yarn while not overwhelming myself. That is the task that is before me. Then I have to be able to stick to the plan.
Part of the plan is that linen can only be dyed in winter. Linen uses commercial dye which is available year round. Plants are only available during a short time of the year, each in its own season. For example, you can't dye with carrot tops in May. They don't exist yet. Labor Day might be a better time frame for carrot
tops. If I spend 2 weeks at Pennsic, I don't have access to my garden to harvest. So I can't dye those weeks. That all has to be blocked out in the calendar. This year I took on some linen commissions. I lost my entire weld crop because I was busy farting around with custom orders. Linen will only be dyed in winter and natural dyes in season. Period. A delay can screw up the whole schedule. Custom orders can only be taken when time is available. I apologize but a single order out of sequence can mean a year's loss of income. Kind of like a spanner in the works. It was a painful lesson.
At the moment, I am working out just how much I can actually process in a day without repetitive strain. Then I have to figure in work on the webpage as well. That raises the question of how often to do a shop update and how often to send out a newsletter. There is a lot to think about. My time is not always my own either.
It's a lot to plan out. Right now, it's easier to focus on the new dyes I did before SAFF. Pictures and perhaps a video will be next on the blog. I have a week until first frost. Next Wednesday will be crunchy, marking the end of harvest. There's a lot to do between now and then.
I got into organizing. The Nature Conservancy sends me a calendar each year. It fits inside. Now comes scheduling with higher level math. I'm still not completely there yet. It involves writing show dates, writing when payments for shows are due, it involves plants- what can be harvested for dye and when, it involves purchasing yarn so that it can be dyed when the plants are ready. The really tricky part is which yarns get which dyes. While all this is going on, I need to scale up so my booth isn't so tiny. In order to make a living, I need two things, enough shows to support me and enough stock to sell at those shows. Obviously, that involves enough customers. Can I dye enough yarn to support myself? The trick will be to carry enough different kinds of yarn while not overwhelming myself. That is the task that is before me. Then I have to be able to stick to the plan.
Part of the plan is that linen can only be dyed in winter. Linen uses commercial dye which is available year round. Plants are only available during a short time of the year, each in its own season. For example, you can't dye with carrot tops in May. They don't exist yet. Labor Day might be a better time frame for carrot
tops. If I spend 2 weeks at Pennsic, I don't have access to my garden to harvest. So I can't dye those weeks. That all has to be blocked out in the calendar. This year I took on some linen commissions. I lost my entire weld crop because I was busy farting around with custom orders. Linen will only be dyed in winter and natural dyes in season. Period. A delay can screw up the whole schedule. Custom orders can only be taken when time is available. I apologize but a single order out of sequence can mean a year's loss of income. Kind of like a spanner in the works. It was a painful lesson.
At the moment, I am working out just how much I can actually process in a day without repetitive strain. Then I have to figure in work on the webpage as well. That raises the question of how often to do a shop update and how often to send out a newsletter. There is a lot to think about. My time is not always my own either.
It's a lot to plan out. Right now, it's easier to focus on the new dyes I did before SAFF. Pictures and perhaps a video will be next on the blog. I have a week until first frost. Next Wednesday will be crunchy, marking the end of harvest. There's a lot to do between now and then.
