No Limits Ladies.com

Networking

While away at the tradeshow we went out at night to some of the related networking events. One event was so packed there was no way we would get in, so we went to check out Paris Hilton's CD release party. Yes...she was there, we saw her. We met someone there who was an exhibitor from the tradeshow and spent the evening talking about his concept and ours. We exchanged business cards and vowed to keep in touch.

A few weeks later, last week, we got a call from him inviting us to the POST magazine launch party that night. Laurin couldn't make it, so I called Erin and she went. Briefly, his childhood friend is co-founder/publisher/editor of the magazine. It's been in distribution locally for a year and just went national. These were a couple of guys who sat around one night and said "Hey, lets create a magazine" and so they did. George Clooney is on this month's cover. My new friend also knows John Kelly from Entertainment Tonight, who has a regular editorial in the magazine, and was at the party, so I met him as well.

At another tradeshow after hours event we met a promoter who does fashion shows for celebrities who have their own clothing line. They just finished doing a fashion show at that event. While we were chatting with him he was interrupted by a client...Queen Latifa's partner who introduced him to the vice president of Death Row records, Snoop Dog's label. Before we left he said he would love to have us represent a celebrity's jewelry line and if he has such a deal fall in his lap he'll contact us. He may even be able include an appearance in our store from that celebrity. Who knows if anything will come of it but the point is to NETWORK. Get out and meet people, promote yourself and your business.

Also met the lovely Erin this summer. I emailed her, told her what I do, she was familiar with my store, and we got together to play Cashflow that night. It was the first year anniversary of the store and we celebrated it with Erin, a moderator for RW. That was VERY cool for us, since RK and Kim are the reason we are where we are right now! I invited Erin to POST for her to gain something from it for herself but then she promoted me all night! We weren't there 15 minutes and she asked me for another stack of business cards! That girl is a Connector...read about what that means on her blog. I've already met several people on the Rich Dad forum through her. But most importantly I've made a new friend.

I've attended two Rich Dad Insider's parties in the past and met other like minded people from the Insider's forum. We all keep in touch and one of them was in town last week and called us. He has real estate investments here.

I met a lady a few years back at a Cashflow Club. She was just starting a web design business from her home. I got a newsletter from her today and she's one of the coordinators for a huge Urban Living event in our city. I went to her website and WOW has she grown! I'm going to reconnect with her by showing up at the event this weekend.

Next my goal is to attend women's Chamber of Commerce meetings, luncheons and social events. Hopefully, I can find a few mentors at these events. Kim speaks about this on the Rich Woman blog. I believe if I hang out in "target rich" environments and am a "take action" kind of girl, that the teacher's will show up.

These are all "take action" ideas ladies. JUST DO SOMETHING.....ANYTHING! The reason I'm writing all these posts is for you to see that I was JUST LIKE YOU not that long ago. Look at how much my life is changing! It doesn't happen overnight, you just get yourself there little by little EVERY day. Do something today. Get to a Cashflow game, or read a relevant book (I'm partial to RD books). Keep going, it will gain momentum.

Just came back from two tradeshows and placed orders for the fall/holiday season. Funds were tight but if we don't go on these trips our product lines get stagnant. Some of our product will rarely change, especially our licensed collection. But we need to fill the rest of the store with fresh new product in the fall and spring or our customers would run out of things they would want to buy from us. It was a productive trip. Every time we go we get better at being buyers and this trip we were more focused and productive then we've ever been before. Most of the new items will ship between now and the end of October. Also, did some great networking in the evenings while at the shows. Will have to talk about that in the next post though, it's too lengthy for here. It ties in with Erin's POST party blog.

In order for us to go to the shows we needed employees again, which is fine because the holiday season is approaching anyway. One of our best employees contacted us; she hated her new job and wanted to come back. It was perfect timing for us, so we hired her back. Another girl came in to apply; she was really great so we grabbed her too. They worked 50+ hours each the week we were gone, then we worked all the hours the following week after we came back to prevent overtime for that pay period. Then the next week we left again, they worked a lot, we came back and gave them another week off. It took some creativity but we got it done with only two employees and no overtime. Overtime would've killed us right now; our budget is way too tight for that with sales still being low. Again, I'd rather buy product that will make us more money.

Fast Track Girl:
Summer arrived and business slowed down. We cut back on our employees’ hours by working most of the hours ourselves. Consequently, the employees were forced to have to seek employment elsewhere, at least for the summer. We didn't know what to expect in sales and didn't want to spend what we did make on unnecessary payroll expenses.

Shortly after we opened I got behind with accounting. Accounting for a small cart with no build out expense didn't take near as much skill as a store and the LLC. I was overwhelmed and barely had time to sleep much less learn how to do all of the accounting overnight.

So I found an accountant/bookkeeper/consultant in Nov. and contracted her to do all of our books and taxes. I was too busy with the holiday retail season to be able to meet with her much, then she was too busy at tax time to meet with me, so we spent the summer getting caught up. We got an extension on our taxes and are still cleaning it all up right now. The books should all be in order in the next few weeks. This should've been done from the start, lesson learned! I have learned a lot from her (Mabel) and look forward to learning more. But I have a lot of work to do still! Including going back over the past year and looking at where the waste was and the consequence of not knowing how to better manage the cashflow earlier on. Hey...you learn by doing.

We spent the summer learning, organizing, cleaning, making repairs, and working on bettering our systems. My older daughter (Leasa) is a manager at Chase. Chase has awesome training programs for their management and Leasa has offered to put together a basic employee handbook for us. Just basic legal stuff using templates. She's going to come in and do training with our new employees on how to handle customer complaints, difficult customers, inappropriate employee behavior, etc. She does this training at Chase.

We contacted Best Buy Solutions for Small Business and Best Buy Geek Squad to meet with us to discuss some computer and POS software concerns we have. They sent four reps out to gather information from us about what our needs are. They came back with a proposal of what they think we need to do to solve the problems. We like their solution but are investigating it a little further before we decide. Beside it'll be $4k to implement it after we spent $2500 on our current system and it's not that urgent of a problem at the moment. I'd rather grow that money by spending it on more product.

We'll be meeting with a several different SCORE counselors in the next few weeks. These are retired business owners and advisors who volunteer their time to help others. I'd like to meet with someone who has a strong background in retail. Also in accounting, for comparison sake just to be sure the person we're currently using is the person we should be using.

Called the insurance broker from my last job to get health insurance through the LLC. When you're a sole proprietor (as I was in my cart biz) you get self employed insurance and they can put exclusions on your policy for pretty much any medical issue you've ever had. Not this time! We got group insurance for us and full time employees, which we don't have many. Since I'm the decision maker I made sure that the Mayo Clinic (here in Arizona) was on our plan. Now we have our primary care doctors at the Mayo! I'm no longer stuck with crappy insurance through my employers. I had a say so in it.

More to come...

As promised, more of Fast Track Girl's story:

Black Friday

The day after Thanksgiving we were to be on TV again. In July, the same week we signed our lease, the mall was to submit a list of 12 merchants to a local TV station, who would then select about half of them to be featured during their Live Broadcast from the mall on Black Friday (Good Morning Arizona Ch.3). The mall marketing manager put us on the list, the producers interviewed and selected us. This time we had to bring product down to where Santa was to arrive and set up....at 6am. The store was open at 5:30am and we packed up our stuff to haul down to the opposite end of the mall...and it was already packed with shoppers! That was not fun.

We couldn't leave our stuff unattended and had no idea when they were going to call to us to set up. We waited forever, it was organized chaos. We had our Visual Merchandiser there to help, and thank goodness because it turned out we had one commercial break to set up. It was crazy! Poor Laurin rolled out of bed at 4am, threw on sweats and a tank top with a baring midriff and that's what she had to wear on the air. She had no time to change into more appropriate clothes but she did manage to get her hair and make up done. At least her tank top had the store name on it! This time she was much more natural and relaxed on camera. She had fun with it.

Overall, the holiday season went very well. Now, it's not appropriate to talk numbers but I want you to understand what's possible. Our biggest day was just under $8000. That's not a typical day though and, as RK says, what's more important is how much of that did we keep. You see, if you are not responsible with your paycheck, you will not be responsible with more money. You just have BIGGER money problems. You have bigger bills, bigger responsibilies, and bigger consequences if you don't manage it well.

BUT....do you see the possibilities here and how EMPOWERING it can be?! Next posts I'll bring you up to today and share some of our mistakes. As Kim said a few days ago on RW Home page, you WILL make mistakes. It's part of the learning process. I'm learning ALL of this as I go and I haven't had any mentoring. Just networking with other cart owners and now store owners. It was my mall "neighbors" who told us where to go for payroll, store suppliers, found the bag guys in the Yellow Pages. I learned it all by just doing it. I WISH I had a mentor, I could use the help. But if I sat around waiting for someone to tell me exactly what to do and how to do it, I wouldn't have this story to tell. If I fail, I'll just start over again with more experience.

For all of Track Girl's Posts Click Here

Our beloved Fast Track Girl returns with more tales from her business...

Holiday Season

We began to prepare for the holiday season. Prior to opening we found a specialty bag business who helped us create custom bags with our store name on them and matching tissue paper. We needed to place a re-order for the busy season. Normally we need to allow 5 weeks for delivery but for the holidays they needed up to 2 months and they wanted half down up front. We were still "chasing our tail" and this was a huge expense for something we wouldn't have for another 2 months, nor was it product we could sell. But it was good marketing (we thought anyway) because customers love our name and save our bags, so it gets our name out there. We placed the order.

Our two main vendors informed us that we would need to place a manufacturing order for all product that we might want for the entire holiday season....immediately. It takes two months to get orders back from overseas manufactures and they close for the holidays. AND we had to pay for it all up front! If we didn't, they couldn't guarantee that they could keep up with our orders. Usually we order weekly or every other week and it arrives within a few days. I expected UPS delays but not product shortage! We negotiated a compromise of half down and borrowed money from a friend...at the buzzer....and agreed to pay him back, with interest at the end of Dec.

We weren't sure how much product to order because we've never done this concept before, nor have we had a store. Cart/kiosk concepts are more specialized and your vendor's stock up their own warehouses to accomodate you, it's a more seasonal type of business. But there's a formula for figuring out what you'll need based on your normal sales and we winged it from there. In the end it turned out we estimated it very well. I remember reading an article once that said never depend on one vendor for your entire product line because if they can't supply you you're in big trouble. I now have MANY vendors but that makes ordering lots of fun...NOT...being a store "buyer" is a lot of work. Laurin does it, she loves it.

Then we had to figure out how many employees we would need and start working on holiday schedules. The malls have extended hours during the holidays and we needed to to consider shift changes and breaks. We hired our crew and they turned out to be pretty great. We had a few bad ones but we got them out and replaced them quickly. We got the staff all trained and comfortable before it became busy. Also, had to write a few policies and procedures (rules) as problems would arise. It's pretty easy to get applicants in a mall at this time of year, so we had quite a few to choose from. We try to stay away from those under 18 though, the young ones never worked out too well for us overall.

As for payroll, we didn't want to do EVERYTHING ourselves, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed as it was, so we contracted out to ADP. I process payroll every 2 weeks for about $40-50 a payroll. They take care of all employee tax filings and take the money each payroll, so I never have it to use when things are tight and then end up in BIG trouble with the IRS. Also, ADP handled my worker's comp. insurance for just a few dollars a payroll depending on the amount of that payroll. Then they do W2's at end of year and make sure I'm compliant with relevant laws. When I had a cart someone referred me to a smaller payroll company who didn't pay my taxes for a quarter, they did eventually but I didn't want to risk it again. ADP and Paychecks (sp) are the two biggies and they didn't cost me anymore than the smaller guys.

We don't have a back room in the store, so we rented a small storage room in the mall and set up a workspace for receiving new inventory and storage of back stock. This way we were able to get price tags on items and inventory them in without customers trying to buy it before you even have it opened! It can be a real frenzy! I definitely didn't want to be hauling stuff back and forth from my home. That doesn't work too well during the holidays.

We worked out a lot of problems we had with our POS cash register system and with the way we had our understock organized. With some team brainstorming we came up with a way to re-organize understock that involved buying ring trays from a local jeweler's supply house and our employees did all the work for us. They did an awesome job and it's still organized the same way today.

More from Fast Track Girl tomorrow...
Fast Track Girl Part 1
Fast Track Girl Part 2
Fast Track Girl Part 3
Fast Track Girl Part 4

Fast Track Girl continues...

Opening Day

We didn't go to bed the night before the store opened, there was still too much to do. But we sent Laurin home early, so she could sleep and open the store the next morning at 10am. After the sun came up and the mall turned on the music, Debbi and I pulled down the black drape that covered the glass store front and it was going to have to be good enough. It was a very cool moment but now when I look back on it, the store was pretty bare compared to now! It was something that had to evolve though, on our small budget.

BTW...not all of that $80k went into the store, I paid down some urgent debt and we used some of it to support ourselves until the store opened and we could start paying ourselves.

I went home to sleep and stay with Laurin's daughter, Sakora, while Laurin went to open the store. Sakora's never had to be with a babysitter, except for with family, so one of us had to stay home with her.

Laurin was there alone and got SLAMMED! We didn't have locks on the display cases yet, people went behind the cases to help themselves, it was insane! The ladies from mall management hung out to act as security, while we got a locksmith up there to start working on installing locks. LESSON LEARNED!
Also, hired some employees right away too!

We opened on Friday, Sept.2, 2005, shortly after the Katrina crisis. That Saturday the media was in the mall broadcasting live to appeal to the public for donations for Katrina victims, many of which were brought to our area for housing. Some of the other merchants in the mall were donating a portion of their sales, we were new but felt we wanted to do something as well. The mall marketing manager, who LOVES our store, made sure we got a mention on the news for our pledge.

Well....we were a tad busy that day! We got SLAMMED again with people coming in saying that they heard about us on the radio! We have no idea how or why THAT happened but it was very cool!

On the following Tueday, the first Tuesday we were open, a journalist called and said she loved our store and wanted to write a piece on us for YES.

YES is a local fashion / shopping magazine (actually more like a newspaper though) that is circulated with the Friday local newspaper and it's also distributed independly through out our city, such as at colleges and coffee shops. We were readers of the magazine and were ecstatic when we got the call! They came in that Friday to do the interview and took product to photograph in their studio.

We later found out that the editor and journalist of that magazine live in the area of our store and saw that "teaser window"my designer created. I should let you know that a store designer actually has another name for those of you who may use one in the future, it's Visual Merchandiser.

Now, we knew we wanted to send out promo materials to the press, that was part of our initial plan, but we intended to wait until we had our decor finished, more product in the store, a few employees and at least a feel for our system and to work some of the bugs out before we got super busy. But they found us first!

The article came out three weeks later and was also posted on our local newspaper's website, which we were unaware of until a local TV program saw it and called us that morning! They wanted us to do a spot on their program the following Tuesday! Does this just keep getting cooler!!! Of course, we said YES! For those of you in the area, that show was Sonoran Living. For those who don't know, it's a very popular show with a huge audience of those who would want our products.

Sonoran Living was to do our interview live in their studio, so we had to bring product to set up on a table which they would then turn the cameras on when our spot came up. We had to arrive early in the morning to set up before the show started. We hired our visual merchandiser to help us, so we made a plan in advance of how we were going to set it up. We wanted the table to represent the store, so we brought fabric that was in the store to cover the table, etc. We
brought risers for various heights, a variety of our merchandise (as much as we could cram on!), lamps, pictures and other items that would give the audience a feel of what the store was like. Then we hung out in the Green Room (I know, we got to be in a green room, so cool) until they were ready for us.

Only one of us could go on and, since Laurin had more hands on with our product line and knew it better than I, she was the one who went on the air. She was so nervous, poor thing, she had just turned 23 yrs. old and success was coming at her so fast and all at once. But she did an AWESOME job, we have it on tape.

It's been a year since that taping and we STILL get new customers from it frequently, plus they do re-runs of it all the time! There's more media stories to come but this is long, it's late and I'm playing Cashflow tonight with Erin and a group of other's from this forum that I haven't yet met....that's pretty cool for us too!!!

Ladies, I hope you see how I was just like many of you...broke, lurking, and sitting on the fence full of fear for several years until I took the initiative to just take one simple little step, which led to another little step, then another....and now I have this story to tell. It's really that simple. The hard part is being committed, focused, determined, having perserverance, etc. Without all of that, I could give you my store and it would likely fail. But we'll get into all of that later and you'll understand what I mean. So far it looks like fun, and it is. But there have been, and still are, tough times and I'll share that with you too.

Fast Track Girl Part 1
Fast Track Girl Part 2
Fast Track Girl Part 3
Fast Track Girl Part 5

Fast Track Girl's Story Continued:

I now had money to secure and start building build out the store. I didn't know
how far the $80k would go but based on the estimates my designer gave me I
figured we could make it. That's all I could get and it was going to have to be
enough. We had to purchase inventory with that as well.

A few things went wrong and there were extra expenses we didn't anticipate. Like the mall accidentally taking down the backdrop from the last tenant's sign that we were going to paint and reuse. They broke it and we had to start with a new one...cost $1000. But overall it turned out okay. My designer refused to spend money on new store furnishings; she said it's a waste to spend too much money on things "staying IN the store, rather than things going OUT of the store (product)."She gave me a TON of free stuff she had in storage, items that weren't wanted or were left over from other stores she had done. For example, she gave us display items from Macy's. It was all nice stuff. Anything that wasn't nice we painted or covered with fabric.

For nearly two months we worked day and night in the store doing much of the labor ourselves. We got very little sleep, bought a small refrigerator for food and pretty much lived there. We set up a play area, including a TV and DVD player, and a sleeping area for Laurin's 4 yr. old who was there with us most of the time.

Laurin, the designer Debbi, and I did all of the work ourselves. We painted, sewed, cleaned, organized, re-organized, argued, apologized and created the store together. Debbi hired her carpet contractor and high voltage power electrician to lay carpet and do electrical work, like hanging chandeliers and re-doing the existing track lighting.

The store is a boutique and the design is VERY girlie. Debbi did all of the shopping for lamps, carpet, fabric, picture frames, and other decorating items. She brought us fabric, carpet, and paint samples to include us in the final decisions on colors and textures. This in itself was well worth what we paid her! It was pretty much like hiring a designer for your home but she specializes in how to control traffic through your store, etc.

Laurin focused on setting up the computer POS (cash register) system, which took over a week for her to enter in inventory, vendors, barcodes, prices, she had to create prices, etc. At the last minute we figured out we had outgrown our old cash register and quickly decided to buy Quick Books POS, which involved having to buy a new computer too. Extra expense $2500 but worth it!!! (Today I think I would us Microsoft POS though, I'm still researching it.)

Laurin and I did product ordering (our territory license gave us a few vendors to buy from) and decided how the product would be organized in the store and the designer later put it all together so it was visually appealing. For us...she was an industry "coach."We learned a LOT from her! Many people advised me to do it myself and save the money we spent on her. This would've been a VERY STUPID MISTAKE!

I worked with an attorney to form an LLC, got licensing, set up file cabinets, purchased office supplies, and other office / management tasks.

Debbi worked on decorating, painting, sewing and arranging furnishings. She first created a "Coming Soon"teaser in the store window for all mall traffic to see, the rest of the windows were blacked out so nobody could see what was going on inside.

The mall hired a contractor to spray paint the ceiling, they messed it up and we got the job for free. It wasn't what we wanted but it couldn't be fixed and it's not that bad. Saved $1200. But I learned VERY important lessons about paint contractors and what to watch out for next time!

During the build out Laurin and I went out of town twice to attend tradeshows to find more vendors for product. Our one product line is an exclusive and is the main concept of the store but we wanted to sell other items too, so we went shopping! Debbi took care of the store build out, while we were gone.

Our projected opening date had arrived, which we knew would be too soon, but the mall had pushed us for an earlier opening date than we could deliver. If we didn't agree we might've lost the deal, so we agreed. Now rent had started and we were two weeks late to open. Customers were getting edgy putting pressure on the mall and the mall came down on us. People were literally trying to push through the doors past us when we were coming and going! I was paying rent and was running out of money. My bills were getting behind and we needed to open ready or not. It was time to open.

I hope this is helping someone because it's a long story to be boring you all
with!

Fast Track Girl Part 1
Fast Track Girl Part 2
Fast Track Girl Part 3
Fast Track Girl Part 4
Fast Track Girl Part 5

Fast Track Girl's Story Continued:
Where I am now:

Just before closing the last cart in the Spring of 2005, I aggressively searched for a hot new concept for the 2005 holiday season. Still working 80 hours a week but I was able to find time to do internet searches. And then I found it. This concept required that I purchase the entire territory that I wanted to sell in but then that metro area would be mine exclusively and the vendor would not sell that main product line to anyone else in that area. The licensing fee was $6995.00. I didn't have it and there was another party interested in my area if I didn't buy it.

My daughter's friend, Megan, stopped by the existing cart, while shoping with her mother who was visiting from out of state. She introduced her mother to my daughter and Laurin proceeded to tell Megan about our misfortune. Well, Megan had a cart next to us during the 2003 holiday season and boy was she a mess, she was making so many mistakes and we helped her, A LOT. Her mother remembered Megan telling her about that and wanted to help us. She disclosed, much to Megan's surprise, that she had recieved an inheritance from a relative who had passed away and she wanted to loan us the $6995. OMG....I didn't even know this woman but she was grateful that we helped her daughter from getting into legal trouble by informing her about sales tax laws and returns, along with some other basic bookkeeping.

We bought the license and began working on a presentation for the mall. I stomped my foot and said I don't want another cart / kiosk, I want to do a store this time. So, we built the idea of both options into our presentation. When we presented to the mall they were ecstatic about our concept and they strongly encouraged us to do a store. Okay, how much will all this cost because I still don't have much money.

All I needed was a small deposit, I think it was $2500 up front (same manager who let us pay as we went on our first cart), and then rent didn't start until we opened our doors. They would give us two months to do a build out....free of rent. But it took them a few more weeks to get contracts ready, so I had some time to get the $2500 together. Now I needed to find out how much a store designer would cost, I wasn't doing this by myself!

There was only ONE free lance designer in my entire area who was worth hiring and she was booked solid but she agreed to meet with us to just do a consult. She met us in this empty 802 sq. foot store with ugly ripped up carpet, grey paint and after seeing our concept she had a vision and got excited. She saw the finished store in her head and said she wanted to do us and would bump some other clients to free up her time. Her fee was $3500 up front and $3500 when she finished the job. We could give her $2000 for shopping (lighting, fabrics, carpet, etc) and replenish it as we went when needed. The mall manager was shocked that we were able to get her!

I committed to the designer and the mall but had no money but I had a house with a crap load of equity! The first lendor who could refinace me at the lowest interest rate and get me funded in two weeks or less had my business! I got $80K and left $70K still in my equity. The mall, nor the designer ever knew that I didn't have the money. In the meantime I bought more licenses, on a payment plan of course, for three more major cities, including Las Vegas. There's another story there I'll tell you about later...

Fast Track Girl Part 1
Fast Track Girl Part 2
Fast Track Girl Part 3
Fast Track Girl Part 4
Fast Track Girl Part 5

Fast Track Girl is a friend of mine from a business, real estate and investing forum I have been at for years. Although she doesn't have a blog (working on that for her!), she has a very inspirational story. With thoughts about scarcity and abundance this week, I thought it was time to share! It might be long, but it's good!

Fast Track Girl: I read everything in RD series. If I didn't have the money (RK says don't say "I can't afford it", it didn't cost any money to change that habit so I did) to buy the latest RK book I just sat in a book store and read it. I wanted to play Cashflow, didn't have money to buy it, so I found a public game event and played the game, learned a lot and all it cost me was gas. In one of the books RK says "read the business section of the newspaper", so I did. The Wed. issue cost .35 and Sunday $2.50, I could do that. I read the articles and looked at deals in the businesses for sale section.

One day there was an article on retail mall carts. It got my attention, so I looked up a trade publication on the internet that the article quoted from. That trade website had a sample article from their publication that listed numerous mall cart concepts. I looked up each concept and chose 3 or 4 that I got excited about and sent links to friends and family for their feedback. They all agreed that they liked 2 of them, in fact some we're owners/users of one of the products. I contacted that company and requested more information and they sent a promo package. I was still too broke to do it and put it aside. This was in July 2002.

In November 2002, I got an email from that company wanting to know how they could help me get going for the holiday retail season. I emailed back that I was willing but broke and thanked them for their time. They called me immediately and offered to "front" me $7500 worth of opening inventory until the end of the season. Huh?!!! But, they said, you'll have to contact the malls and see if anyone still has a space open. Okay...phone calls are free, so I started calling malls. No spaces available...oh well.

Until one mall calls back saying they loved that concept and wanted to make room for us (my daughter, LilFastTrackGirl, was doing this with me). However, rent was $14,000 for the Nov./Dec. term and they don't prorate (it was already into Nov.)...Gulp! I apologized to the mall manager for wasting her time. She then asked if I could come up with $2000 and they would work with me on paying the rest a little each week. HUH?!!!!! I called my husband and told him not to mail the bills I had just paid! Okay..this probably isn't wise advice, I'm just telling you how it happened.

Then another mall called and made me a similar deal. There was so much to do and I didn't know what any of it was! The mall managers and those who fronted me the inventory were all very helpful and got me started. I had to get licenses, insurance, sign contracts, get a merchant account, phone service...and everyday I wasn't open I was losing money. So...1 1/2 weeks later, I had quit my job, had two carts open with 12 employees.

Now, this wasn't an ideal way to go into business. We were inexperienced, made a lot of mistakes, chased our tail a lot juggling rent, inventory, wages. We pretty much borrowed from Peter to pay Paul but we definately got our feet wet and learned a lot.

One cart performed horribly, the other suffered because it had to support the poor one. But in the end we made money and were able to pay our bills and prevent our house from going into foreclosure, which was about to happen prior to all of this. We closed the bad cart at the end of the holidays. The other we tried to keep going afterwards but it's a tough business during the off season and we closed it in the late Spring 2003. Afterwards, I sold products at an open aire market place on weekends and on ebay. Actually, I became an ebay powerseller during that time. Also, I spent time on the internet learning more about the retail industry...for free. Waste not money or time (can't remember who said that)...I gave up T.V.

In Nov. 2003 we opened another cart, this time with more money in the bank (I saved up for it by not buying DooDads), and in a higher end mall. That cart performed very well but our temporay lease wasn't renewed in late Spring of 2003. Mall managers can be pretty "catty." It's a long story.

In the meantime, we had been to Las Vegas for a trade show and visited some cart owners who had a cart next to us in our last mall. They also had carts in Vegas malls. They convinced us to open a cart up there. Not so easy to do because spaces don't come up often but it didn't hurt to ask and get on a wait list. Lots of naysayers said it couldn't be done...thank you for caring enough to share, I promise to weigh it heavily ; ) Two months later we get a call from a hot mall, the one our friends were in, inviting us to be a tenant.

This was a hot casino mall but, unbeknownst to us, that location busy as it was, it was much slower than the rest of the mall. We did extremely well some days but very poor others and the hours there are long. In the end it wasn't worth supporting the additional household, so we closed up after a short time and went home. We lost our butts on that one and had to go back to a job to catch up. Did another cart at home, lost our butts real bad this time and worked 80 - 100 hours a week at my job for 7 months to recover from those last two deals.

I'll tell you in another post where I am now, it's pretty exciting!

The bottom line is that it doesn't take much to simply take action. One action leads to another and doors open up. I'm not rich "yet" but you'll see in my next post that I've come a long way and the above actions are the reason I am where I am. It was a learning curve that I had to learn "in the field" and that it was the lessons I've learned from the mistakes and failures that have taught me how to be where I am now.

Fast Track Girl Part 1
Fast Track Girl Part 2
Fast Track Girl Part 3
Fast Track Girl Part 4
Fast Track Girl Part 5