The Pumpkin Plan
Mike Michalowicz
Penguin Books; $26.95

This week’s book isn’t directly about quilting, it is about building and sustaining your entrepreneurial business. The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field is an entertaining read that you can really learn from.

In the book, author Mike Michalowicz uses the growth of a freakishly large pumpkin – you know the kind you hear about at state fairs in the fall – as a metaphor for how an entrepreneur can successfully manage and grow a business. He addresses entrepreneurial burn-out, how to handle clients that sap your energy, how to staff your entrepreneurial business, and how to recognize when it is time to make a change in your offering. And throughout the chapters, he includes “Work the Plan” sections that will help you to create great success in your business.

Look for the book at your favorite book retailer. Here’s a link to  Amazon if you would like to learn more about the book.

With quilt show season at its height, I thought I’d share some tips for shopping large shows, both wholesale and retail.

1. Pack comfortable clothes and shoes. You can easily be on your feet for eight hours or more. Take to heart the Quilts Inc. admonition, “Remember at Market, fashion stops at the knees!”

2. Take some healthy snacks with you, like fruits and nuts. All the booths will have snacks of the chocolate variety and while a bit is fine, you want to be sure to keep your stamina up. Once you start walking the floor, it’s hard to leave. Something new or an old friend catches your eye. That sugar rush just won’t sustain you. And, don’t forget to bring water or an empty water bottle to fill to keep hydrated.

3. Take advantage of the learning opportunities. Quilts Inc. has lectures and classes the day before Market opens and then the mornings and evenings when the vendor floor is closed. This is a wonderful opportunity to take back knowledge to share with your staff and customers and to build your business. At retail shows, you can often find wonderful classes that will teach you something to share with your customers. Even just bringing back knowledge of “what’s new” is important.

4. If you go to Quilt Market, don’t wait in line for Sample Spree. I always check the lines for Sample Spree and often find the same people at the front of the line every show. They recognize me coming now! Some of these attendees get in line at 2 pm for an event that starts at 8 pm. They miss half of the Schoolhouse Sessions and terrific learning opportunities. Once the doors open, most everyone in line gets in within five to 10 minutes. Even latecomers get in. Last I heard they weren’t giving a prize for first one in the door!

5. Don’t forget your business cards. You are going to meet shop owners and quilt business owners from around the world in addition to buying for your business. A good tip is to make a note or two on the back of the card as a memory jogger for when you get home. And, to make it easy for ordering, try printing the information on labels to make filling out forms easier.

6. Start with a plan to shop the floor. Spend time the night before going through the show program, marking those you must see. Set a schedule that includes any appointments you have with fabric companies or distributors. If you are shopping with a group, be sure everyone knows the schedule. Many shop owners walk the floor and collect literature during the first day, go over the material at night and then buy the second or third day. Other shop owners know what their shop needs and buy on the first walk through. Figure out the plan that will work best for you.

7. If you are traveling with a group, be sure you’ve got everyone’s phone numbers programmed in to your phones. Market is really big, and it’s easy to get separated from your group. Even keeping up with your group at a small show can be a problem.

8. Keep a journal so you can track what you see, need to follow up on, etc. I usually have a small 5″ by 8″ notebook where I make notes about what’s new, action I need to take when I get back, and secure business cards I collect. It’s fun to see what’s transpired over the years.

9. Look for ways to connect. Everyone has to have lunch and/or dinner. Look for someone at a table, go join them. You’ll probably pick up a business tip and be able to share one, too. And, likely you’ll make a new friend.

Please share your thoughts below.

Does it seem like your time just slips away and that at the end of the day, you didn’t accomplish all you planned? Do you have dreams about what you want to do in your spare time, only you don’t have any?

For some people it’s not being clear on what you want from your day – or even your life. There’s that clarity thing again, but it really is the key to everything. One of the exercises I often hear suggested is to look at your life and decide what your days would be like if you were not limited by time or money. Once you do that, here are some additional steps.

1. Get clear about how you are really spending your time. To do this, you will need to track how you are actually spending your time, all of it. Keep a diary – kind of like when you keep track of what you eat – of what you do with all the time in your day. Start with when you get up and go through the end of the day. Do this for at least three days, preferably a week. I guarantee you will learn something unexpected.

2. Once you see how you really spend your time, review what you do that isn’t part of that ideal day. (If your ideal day was sitting by the water in the Caribbean with an umbrella drink, you might have a lot that doesn’t fit, but at least you know what you’re aiming for!) Look at what you are doing that could be done by someone else on your team. If you don’t have a team, look at what you could have someone do if you did, and consider moving in that direction.

3. Consider what you are doing that you shouldn’t be doing at all. If you find lots of those activities, learn how to say no. Look at those where you should be limiting your time, e.g., surfing the Internet. What you do should be using your skills and helping you pursue your goals.

4. Look at what activities you pursue that are really your passion. Try to spend more time there.

5. Review which activities are “putting out fires.” You may be familiar with Stephen Covey’s quadrants from his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Things are urgent and important; important and not urgent; not important and urgent; or not important and not urgent. Your goal should be to spend time in the important and not urgent quadrant. If you are spending time in the urgent and important quadrant, you are putting out fires. Likely, this is because you didn’t prioritize or you procrastinated. Many of us spend too much time in the not important or not urgent areas and then we end up with those fires to put out.

6. If you want to spend time appropriately, plan your day the night before. That way you decide your priorities and can get more accomplished.

Remember, how you spend your time is how you spend your life.

Do you have any tips on spending your time more appropriately? Please share your thoughts below.

One of my favorite business tools is the SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. After completing your SWOT analysis, you should be able to set goals and make plans that let you capitalize on on your opportunities and minimizing any potential threats, all while keeping your business strengths and weaknesses in mind.

So how do you actually do the SWOT analysis? Easy. Just get out a piece of paper or your journal and draw four columns. Label them S-W-O-T and start brainstorming. Consider internal factors, i.e., those within your control, and external factors, i.e., those outside your control. Look at competitive factors, environmental factors, technological factors, economic factors, sociological factors and political factors as they affect your SWOT.

When is a SWOT analsyis helpful? I like doing one each year when I review my goals. It’s also a helpful tool whenever you are considering a new product or big change to your business.

Do use use a SWOT analysis now? If not, what is your favorite business planning tool? Please share your thoughts below.

In the Winter 2012 issue of The Professional Quilter, Sue Tucker, Chief Financial Officer of Studio 180 Design and our financial columnist, wrote about seven resolutions you won’t want to break. One of them was “Look at Your Financial Numbers on a Monthly Basis.” Now that we are at the end of month two, how are you doing on this resolution? I know that lots of creative types just aren’t that interested in numbers. And, that’s great if you’ve got someone to input your data, but you still need to look at the numbers on a regular basis. Here’s an excerpt of the Winter issue with Sue’s article on this resolution:

How do you know if you’re making money and reaching your goals? How do you know if you need to change an approach that’s not working or cut back on expenses to make up for a shortfall in revenue? If you aren’t looking at your financial numbers on a monthly basis, you don’t. Some people look at their bank balance when the statement comes, and if there’s money there they think they’re OK. But let’s say they’ve started a slow slide. How many months will it take for that slow slide to wipe out everything in their account, at which point they’ll realize they aren’t OK? If they’d been looking at monthly numbers they would have seen the problem right at the start and been able to take action before their bank account ran out of money.

If you don’t know how you’re doing month-to-month, you can’t be making the right decisions as quickly as you should be to keep your business strong and growing. At the least you should be looking at your revenue and expenses for the month and year-to-date. That will tell you if you are making money. But in addition, many of you should be looking at month-to-month changes, annual growth, receivables and your balance sheet. Your accountant can help you identify what you should be looking at based on your business situation and help you plan the best way to get the numbers you need.

Please share how you’re doing with tracking your financials below.

During the Creative Arts Business Training Series I did a couple of weeks ago, I talked about clarity in a number of areas. One of those areas is getting clear on what your “Big Why” is. That’s the term that both of my coaches have used. I look at your Big Why as the piece behind the vision for your business and how it fits into your life, why you do what you do.

For years I never really gave it much thought. I was working to add income to our family coffers. When I first started my business, it was actually at my accountant’s suggestion. He saw I loved quilting and thought I could turn it into a business on the side. That was great, though I never really gave it much more thought. As the years went by, the business grew and changed. I earned a graduate degree in journalism and thought how wonderful it would be to combine the quilting and journalism together, which I did. Again, not really giving it a huge amount of thought. The past couple of years, I decide to actually put real thought into the process and can now articulate what I do and why. I can tell you that knowing this absolutely makes a difference. Once you figure our your “big why,” you complete your tasks, reach your goals, lifve your life with so much more ease.

OK, so how do you figure out your Big Why? Here are a couple ideas.

1. If you are having a hard time asking yourself why, instead complete the sentence: “I am doing this because ….”  or “I’m doing this so that….”

2. Take a look at your top passions and try to see what they have in common. That can lead you to your why.

3. What gets you out of bed in the morning and drives you to take inspired action.

4. Remember that the why is the driving force behind our actions. We need strong, or Big, Whys to keep going.

5. Our Big Whys can change over time so it’s a good exercise to look at yours on a yearly basis.

Please share your Big Why below.

During my call on Monday I talked about my CREATE! system for building and growing your creative arts business. The A in the system stands for Action. Action is what drives your results, yet so many of us get stuck here. What should I do first? I need to know all the steps. It has to be perfect before I go on. None of us is immune from getting in our own way.

Yet if you look at successful people, you’ll see they all have one thing in common: They take action. And taking action is really a habit that you can develop. Here are five ideas to help you build your action muscle:

1. Don’t get overwhelmed with the big picture, with having to know all the steps to accomplish your goal. You only need to know the next thing to do and act on it. After that, then pick the next step. Remember Martin Luther King said, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

2. Write your SMART goals on paper or index cards and keep them in front of you. What you focus on makes a difference.

3. Decide that you will take three action steps towards your goal each day.

4. Plan your day the night before so you are ready to hit the ground running. And, you’ll find that your brain will even work on those plans while you sleep. I know that sounds odd, but I find it really happens.

5. Do it now! As you’ve probably heard, there’s no time like the present, so just start!

Here’s a wonderful quote about taking action from Leonardo da Vinci:

Please share your tips for taking action below.

Several years ago I decided to forego the regular New Year’s resolution. The same resolutions were there every year – lose those extra few pounds, exercise more, clear the clutter – and mostly they fell by the wayside after a few months. At that time I decided to choose a word that would act as a guide for the year. Those of you who have known me for a while know that I started this practice in my yoga class and that I wanted to trade in the word I drew. As the year went on I realized what a magical concept choosing a word or an intention was. It really did act as a direction. I continued to choose a word or intention each January. Words I’ve chosen over the years included openness, challenge, enjoy, abundance, mindfulness. When I was thinking about the direction I wanted to take this year, the word openness kept coming back. In church this past Sunday during her sermon, our priest used the word open or openness at least eight times. Maybe that was a sign for me. In the end I decided that I would choose openness and one other word. That word is opportunity. I want to be open to new opportunities, new experiences, new adventures, new challenges.

Now that you’ve chosen an intention, what do you do with it? Here are a few tips:

1. Write it down where you can see it. I put mine on a sticky note and attach it to my computer where I’ll see it every day.

2. Share it with someone else, especially if the person will hold you accountable. I shared mine with some of my mastermind partners and we talked about why we chose the words we did.

3. Do something that lets you take action on your intention.

This morning as I was reflecting on my words, I looked up at a sign on my bathroom wall. It said “What is your choice/intention for today?” That little note has been there quite a while and reminds me that each day I have a choice about how I will approach my life. I know many of you also choose an intention for the year. Please share yours below. And, if you’ve made a piece of art for your word, let us know where to go to see it.

It seems every year many people make a resolution to manage their time better. How about you? Funny thing is that we all have the same 24 hours in the day. Some of us just do a better job of managing ourselves. Here are five tips to help you do that this year:

Here are some time management quotes I really like:

Please share your thoughts on how you get control of your time below.

Your Best Year Yet!

Jenny Ditzler

Grand Central Publishing; $13.95

One of my favorite planning resources is Your Best Year Yet! by Jinny S. Ditzler. I’ve been using this little book for years and recommend it widely. It offers a framework to define your personal values, identify the various roles you play and create goals for those roles. Here are some of Jinny’s questions plus a couple of my own:

1.    What did I accomplish?

2.    What were my biggest disappointments?

3.    What did I learn?

4.    How do I limit myself and how can I stop?

5.    What are my goals for next year?

6.    Where do I need to find education or support to get there?

7.    How can I make sure I achieve my top goals?

I find one of the most empowering aspects of Jinny’s system is the look at the successes of the year. It let’s you focus on your successes and not get weighed down by what didn’t work. It also lets you get off the treadmill of working on your business to see if you really are on course.

Here’s a quote from the book I particularly like: “We must prepare our soil before we’re ready to plant the seeds we want to grow in the new year.”