What’s your 80/20?

So I have finally gotten around to reading the 4 day workweek. A book I picked up about 2 years ago. And tonight I get to this part about the 80/20 rule. Essentially, the theory is, that 20% of your inputs, equals 80% of your outputs. As the author applied it to work, 20% of his customers = 90% of his business. And those customers took up way less then 20% of his time. The other time was spent chasing the other 80% that didn’t make him much money anyways.

I take that concept and apply it to our sales and realize that less then 10% of our business is wholesale, and yet chasing those customers down is what I have been worrying most about this year and thinking about for next year’s growth. But our money is made in direct to customer sales. Our 20% that equals 90% is making good products, with good online presence, and  happy customers. So that’s where we are going to spend our time this year… Focusing on our products,  and on our customers and finding ways to grow our tribe.

Take that principle and apply it to my life and things get a little trickier. There are so many different angles to take. I went totally big picture first – What 20% makes me feel like an 80% happier better version of me? My immediate answer is exercise and yoga. Because those activities give me the quiet and clarity of mind to do other things better. To create. To love. To cook. To grow. To make choices. To take action.

Is it that I shouldn’t worry about the other 80% that doesn’t contribute as much? Or is it that I now can better recognize the value of those 20% activities, and therefore make them a more important part of my life, rather then an add on if I have time?

I challenge you, to think about the 80/20 divide in your life. What does it give you a reason to focus on? And what does it give you a reason to stop worrying about? Please comment.

Re-thinking my Christmas spirit

I’ve been struggling with the idea of Christmas this year. Its feels like a big game of hoopla that I’m unwilling to participate in. And yet, the traditional Christmas makes for a good business month for us, a nice way to end the year. We still give gifts, but they are heartfelt. The gifts we give now are either handmade by us, or they are things or experiences that we know people would never buy for themselves but they would truly enjoy. The gifting is minimal, but exquisite.

We aren’t going to visit any family this year, and up until this week we’ve been absorbed in business busyness so I have felt almost no holiday excitement. I’m writing this piece at the same time that I’m realizing what is I want my Christmas tradition to be, the spirit I want to be in, and the gifts I want to give.

This Christmas I’m excited about the gift of time. With daylight hours being short and RAGGEDedge in our living room its easy to always feel like the work must get done before anything else. So this Christmas I plan to celebrate by doing all those other things during daylight hours I wish I did more often… I’ve proposed a hiking trifecta: The Buffalo, McAfee’s Knob, and The Cascades. Plus mom piped up and said she’d like to bike more of the New River Trail, and possibly Fairy Stone. Hank got on board and suggested Pandapas again. So its looking like an outside adventure kind of Christmas. Plus, let us not forget our craftyness projects: Mom is weavering; I’m quilting, painting, and mail arting; and Hank is making beats. The Hawk-Mo Collective is having a show in February!

Now I feel much better. I can wrap my head around what I want to celebrate this Christmas, and how. Because all I knew before is that there was no certain time off from school or work, no plans to visit anyone, and no desire to get involved in the holiday shopping pandemonium. And without all of that, what is Christmas anyways? That was my question. I think I have my answer. At least for this year. For me.

How do you want to grow your business?

Over the past month or so I’ve been mulling over how our business would change if we were to “make it big.” The question has been lingering in our minds since REI first approached us last year. The deal fell through after we had spent much time, and some money, preparing for their sure thing order to be placed. We were, of course, quite dissapointed. But I can say now, a year and a half later, that I’m truly glad it didn’t work out. Our business would have grown too fast. We would have to move quickly and spend lots of money to accomodate such an influx of orders. I’m almost certain we would have run into serious cash flow problems, in addition to the fact that it would have made us, in some way, tied to the whims of REI. I say this because REI would have made up such a large percentage of our gross income that odds are we would have felt  pressure to keep them happy. Which I imagine would have involved ever lowering prices based on increased quantity, rights to cancel POs up until ship date so we’d be left holding stock that it would take a long time for us to sell and/or shipment deadlines with late penalties. Now I realize this is a lot of guessing about what it would have been like, but most of this comes from some other experiences we’ve had with larger companies. Basically, they aren’t small manufacturing friendly.

The growth question is always on our minds. How big do we want to be? What’s our goal for this business this year? In 5 years?

This year we thought that we were finally ready to take RAGGEDedge to Outdoor Retailer, which is THE trade show for the outdoor store retail industry. A market that we feel our products are appealing to. Financially it was a squeeze for us, but we firmly believe in investing in our business and our future and expanding in new directions. So we signed up in August for the January show in Utah and paid our first two hefty deposits. As time went on, I kept researching booth setups and sales floor techniques and what it would take for us to pull of a professional presentation and get noticed, and perhaps get some business out of it, and the more I learned the more expensive it got. These companies spend $10k, on the super lower end, probably upwards of $100k on the high end, to go to one of these and we were trying to do it for under $5k. This made us pause and ask ourselves what we really hoped to get out of being there – the answer was more wholesale business, mostly via a foot in the door at some smaller outdoor stores, perhaps a dozen.  Is this really something we need to spend $5k to accomplish? We decided no, we could do it right from the comfort of our very own home if we wanted to. And the big guys that I sort of had dreamy eyes for, the REIs and the Gander Mountains (anything mainstreamish), they would change things about our business.

The catch 22 of selling products that you physically make is that the more business you do, the more you have to work and I’m just not sure that working more is what we really want. What we do want is enough. Enough to pay off our startup debt. Enough to shop local and shop small. Enough to eat good food. Enough to travel. What’s left over after enough is time we can spend enjoying where we live and how we live. Its time we can spend cooking and learning how to grow our own food. Its time we can use to visit family and friends and see the world. Its time we can use to create.

So the question I ask of myself, and of you, is what does your success really look like? How much do you really want to grow? How much is enough? At what point would you start to lose the part about working for yourself that you love so much? I suspect the answer might surprise you, I know it did me at first.

My Mission:

Is to evaluate, reevaluate, change things, and move forward. It is to learn from challenges, enjoy moments, and look for opportunities.

I want to be a good human. To speak my mind and my truth. To overcome my fears and go do whatever it is that I desire to do, that I am here to do. To find those things in life that make me smile. To love and be loved in return. To relish the experience, whatever it may be. To endlessly seek out the what, the who, the how and the where that make me happy. To understand that that will be a forever changing entity. To be forgiving, and try to see things from another perspective. To act honorably and with good intentions. To apologize for my mistakes. To inspire others. To be humble. To share. To create.

Interactive Doodle Art Project Installation

Located at the Blackwater Loft, Floyd, VA
This is the note of explanation-

Interactive Doodle Art
brought to you by the Hawk-Mo Collective

We invite your participation:

Take one
If it makes you smile

Leave one
As a gift
For someone else

This work is inspired by my recent road trip adventure West and participation in Burning Man. A festival that is about community, participation, contribution, sharing, and being you, whoever and whatever that looks like. I came home wanting it to continue. This doodling is a part of that. Its an experiment in what is possible and what a group of people are capable of creating. What strangers can inspire each other to do. Its about appreciating how one tiny little thing can make you smile. And how that smile makes your whole day better. And how you can then pass that smile on to someone else. Its about the Universe providing the opportunity, and you showing up in the moment. Its about the give and take, and the natural flow of life. Things are never quite in balance, and yet, in some way, they always are. Its about how one small detail can change something big. Its up to you.