Spam.

There is nothing more frustrating then receiving spam.

I just spent 3 hours deleting posts from my blog that were spam, 100 at a time. I.e. like 27,000 spam messages. Hense, what has prompted this post.

So here we go,

I sign up for a number of online newsletters I receive through my e-mail. Probably about 6 or 7 in total that I read consistently. Each one sends about one letter a month, some 2 (bi-weekly), but one of the newsletters I’ve subscribed to recently sends on every week.

Every Single Week.

Not only that but it also shamelessly sells “promo spots” to be featured as the main story in the article each week.

Here are my thoughts.

The key to any good publication is good content. (I have a full rant on this I’ll eventually find 4 hours to write out) but without content you’re dead in the water.

Which brings me to the golden rule.If it adds value, it’s fair game.

If you have something that you know someone will enjoy, they will be happy that you let them know.  In these cases people wont mind being sent an e-mail because they enjoy reading it.

The problem becomes when it becomes a primary sales tactic.

So a word of warning. Be honest with yourself when looking at your marketing and sales tactics, and don’t over harvest your clients. Sales is a two way street.

Create value, then make a sale.

Otherwise you might as well be sending out junk e-mails every week.

J

Here’s one I didn’t think I’d ever have to write, but here it is.

In business school they teach you about how to make good investment decisions. They teach you all about the break-even point, the time value of money, tax shields and CCA and hope you’ll use them when you go out to purchase a new piece of equipment.

But recently I’ve found myself in a little bit of a debackle regarding re-investing in my business.

You see… I want 3 new inflatables. A jumping castle, a water slide, and another inflatable carnival game. And deep down my gut tells me to go and buy them. But the numbers on the page tell me, to make the most profit. I should only buy 1, and that is only if I can book 11 shows with “double bookings”.

Even so, I’ve spent nearly a week fiddling around on different websites looking for manufactures in China and in the US to get the jumping castle, repetitively getting quotes on the equipment, very full well knowing I shouldn’t be investing yet.

Why?

Big Top Carnivals is my baby. I’ve realized I’ve fallen into the trap of being a small business owner. Over investing to feed your ego for running a growing business, rather than making rational investing decisions based on the numbers.

Empire Building is the coined phrase.

Here’s my two cents, It’s all to easy to get caught in the “start up” mindset; thinking your investing is always rational and not driven by emotions. It’s easy to convince yourself that you NEED a piece of machinery and ignore it when you don’t put it to use.

Were all humans, we don’t like to admit our mistakes, so my word of advice is to try and not make the mistake at all.

And do that Discounted Cashflow Statement and Break even, the numbers don’t lie.

J

Aside.

Here are links to what a discounted cashflow statement (or the time value of money) and Break even point if you want to brush up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXm5mZqMp6Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu8vs2P9xKg

I had a dream last night that I booked a carnival for our neighbors four doors down, and when it came to the day of the event I was missing all the details about the party. The time, the location, how many kids, what was involved, who my staff were… Needless to say it kinda sucked.

I woke up, thankful it wasn’t real. And spent the first part of my morning re-organized my desk and calling back all my pending clients filling out all the information I was missing on each of my events.

Nothing like a subconscious kick in the but to get you going.

J

First story of the season. Here we go…

I’m not going to mention the suppliers name, but this is the jist of what happened.

It all started about 2 weeks ago when, after getting settled in at home after final exams, I started to kick back into gear with BTC and start buying all the things I was going to need for another summer of Jumping Castles and Cotton Candy.

My first party was on the May 7th (Saturday), and I needed this particular item to run my carnival that weekend.

So I call up my supplier on the 2nd (Tuesday), and tell him I’m going to need the product ASAP because I have a party this saturday.

He then responded that normally he would have to wait until monday to start my order, but since it was a smaller one he could have it ready for Saturday morning for pickup.

I thanked him and said that if he were to have it ready for Saturday, it would have to be by 10 because I had to be at the event by 11.

He responded by saying, “Oh man, I dont want to break your balls on the morning of your event, how about you come pick it up on friday at 7 at night then.”

Wow! Thats fantastic! Thanks so much! (I respond)

So three days pass, here comes friday…

I drive out 55 minutes to his shop through rush-hour traffic.

I show up, at 6:55. Walk into the shop.

“Umm, Hi James… what are you doing here so late?”

“Haha what do you mean I’m here to get my stuff.”

“Oh well there not going to be done until tomorrow morning”

“…uhh… but……….*clears throat* Didn’t you say you were going to have it ready by 7?”

“…No-no-no-no…umm… I said I would call you if they were done by 7. You must have misheard me.”

…

“Soo.. when are they going to be done by? Will they be done tonight? Should I stick around here for a hour or two?”

“Welll….they’ll be done for sure by tomorrow.”

“…That doesn’t answer my question. Will it be done by tonight?”

“Well…I can garentee you the’ll be done by tomorow morning.”

“Sorry. Your not answering my question. A’m I driving back home? or will it be done tonight?”

“Well to do it tonight I’d have to stay until like midnight.”

“So. Yes? or No.”

“… No. The’ll be done by tomorow”

“Thanks. Thats all I needed to know.” (I leave the shop)

So.

Now I get back in my car, Drive back through the same traffic because its now 7:05. And get home feeling ripped off.

Heres my analysis of this situation.

My supplier went above and beyond when he said that he could have it ready by Friday. He originally told me it was going to be ready by saturday morning. Which although tight, would have been good enough for me.

From that point in my mind, he made 3 mistakes.

First and foremost. He re-negged on his promise. He told me ”I don’t want to break your balls, Pick it up friday night” and he didn’t deliver.

This is the nitty-gritty of my post. First lesson. Don’t make promises you cant keep. All you have as a small business is your reputation. Treat it like gold.

Secondly, after made a point that he made said promise, he told me I misheard him.

Even If I did mishear him, making a point of it doesn’t help his situation. The last thing an angry customer wants to hear is that It’s their fault. All they want to hear is “oh my gosh. I’m so sorry. I apologize. I’m going to do everything in my power to fix this fast.” So even if he comes back and says “Hey look, I screwed up and I’m sorry, theres no way I can get this done by tonight, I know its shitty but I can have it done by tomorrow.”  You’ll leave feeling disappointed, but not insulted. And if your sincere, you can make it up to them.

Finally, and probably the most subtle mistake, was he let me leave feeling angry. He didn’t try to apologize, or calm me down. I left his building feeling like I wasn’t a valuable customer and I immediately called a friend to rant about what just happened. In small business word travels quickly, do everything you can to contain bad press.

Here’s what he should have done. (Or I would have done)

Sucked it up. Appologize. Take the blame. And if he could have, offer to stay to midnight to finish the job.

If he couldn’t stay, make a point of admitting how sorry he is and make sure the customer feels valuable. I would have also made it a point to offer some sort of discount or attempt to make it right.

Icing on the cake. Write a hand written apology letter saying again how sorry you are that this happened, with some small giftcard (like $15) to chapters.

I guarantee you. If you do that, your customers will not only come back to you. They’ll tell their friends how professional you acted were when you were wrong.

Treat your customers like gold, and make your screw ups a selling opportunity.

J

Ladies and Gentlemen, Step right up.

It’s May. And Big Top is back.

We’ve already had a party and I already have plenty of stories to share.

Were also thinking of starting a new party idea. But more about that later.

Get ready for a great summer.

J

Hello Everyone!

First and formost I want to thank all of my amazing clients for a spectacular summer, you were the ones who have taught me that it is possible to make money doing things I love to do.

As many of you may know I am enrolled in Queens Commece and will be closing down the company for the remainder of the year until next summer starting  July and starting next fall will have a plan to run Big Top Carnivals year-round.

On another note, I’m writing the book to share my experience of running my own business and hope to publish it within the next year.

I’m sorry that I haven’t been more diligent in keeping up with my blog posts but my business got the best of me and at times I was working 65 hour weeks so I’m sure you guys understand.

I think that’s it for now were closing up the summer and I hope you guys have a wonderful year.

J

There’s nothing worse than a bad day. Especially if your a business owner. and its all too easy to get yourself in a negative frame of mind.

Quite recently there was a chain of events some of which that were and weren’t due to my actions that significantly hurt the current way I do business, and as a result spent a week and a half not being productive and angry at the world.

But since then I’ve leaned a few things, that I know will save you frustration in the future so I decided to share them.

The first thing that went wrong was a chain of 4 parties canceled, leaving me with a 2 week gap of no work. The Lull. I now realize I should have been more adamant in getting a proper deposit down on the party, not just their word, as I’ve realized, when a client puts money down, 29 time out of 30 they’ll follow through without any problems.

The second thing that happened was the crash of my laptops hard drive. So not only did I not have any gigs, but I lost all my contacts, invoices, pricing spreadsheets, time logs, and to boot I didn’t have a computer to make new promotional material to get over the lull.

The obvious lesson there is to back up your information, but theres a more subtle learning experience here.

As I said it took me nearly 2 weeks to get everything back together, but in that time, I spent most of my time running around not being productive.

I was treating the symptoms not the cause,

(The reverse of Rocky Horror Picture Show)

the root problem, was I got myself into a negative way of thinking.

I could have got a replacement computer sooner, I could have done other promotional activities, I could have not waisted a lot of time bumming around the house walking between the fridge and the computer… but because I choose to become frustrated with my situaton instead of taking it as it lies and trying to create solutions, I spent my time chasing after problems that weren’t the root of the problem.

So, here’s my advice.

Whenever you get yourself down, or into a slump. Don’t beat yourself up like I did. Take a sheet of paper and brainstorm, What do I need to do to get out of this? What can I do NOW that will improve this situation?

Feeling sorry for yourself doesn’t do you much good in business.  When you run your own company, you have to be the one who kicks yourself in the but to get you going again.

Hope it helps,

J

First of all, after about 10 cones, you’ll never want to eat the stuff again.

But more importantly I thought I’d share a few things I’ve learned about buying, running, and maintaining my machine with you.

If you want to read about my buying experience with my cotton candy machine you can read about it here http://bigtopcarnivals.com/wordpress/?p=65 .

A few things I’ve learned about running/maintaining a cotton candy machine;

• Buy a cotton candy screen/fence to go inside your bowl (it will save you A LOT of frustration when collecting cotton candy)
• Be sure once you have your Cotton Candy fence to pull the slack between the clips tight, the fence (looking from above) should look like a octagon in your bowl, not a circle that follows the circumference. To make the best cotton candy, make sure there’s that space between the screen and the inside of the bowl.
• Get a ratchet kit and keep it beside your machine in storage, your going to have to clean the spinning head every time you use it, and in order to do that you have to take the head appart
• It may seem logical, but use hot water to clean the sugar from your head, not cold water
• Keep in mind cotton candy comes out best when you operate in dry places, not humid or wet ones

I also found this instructional youtube video really helpful, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl8QRj0gR1Q

It starts a bit slow, but it’s only 10 minutes and really helps!

If you have any questions feel free to leave them as comments.

J