I'm Camping!

Even us hard working mompreneurs need a break! I'm camping with a big group of friends and will be back on Monday. I'll see you all on Wednesday, June 24th! I hope you are doing something fun, too!

How Do You Pay For It?

How do you pay for your business? It takes money to make money and it certainly takes money to launch a product. We did okay getting the ball rolling, but now we have product ordered and need to pay for two trade shows, a booth, travel expenses, and anything else that crops up.

I know people who have relatives who foot the bill, and others use credit cards. The days of home equity are long gone for most, and banks aren't making business loans nearly as easily as they used to. So what do you do?

I'm pretty creative when it comes to fund raising. When Dave and I were planning our wedding, we got a donation of a weekend vacation and sold raffle tickets. We made over $800 and that was almost enough to pay the caterer. Yes, we got off cheap! Our friends all rallied and provided their professional services either at their cost, or in several cases, as our wedding gift. It was wonderful. When Dave was in Iraq, I got big name musicians to autograph a guitar and then the local morning DJs would auction it off for me. This money paid for shipping of hundreds of boxes of CDs and DVDs to our troops.

Have you ever sought out a creative fund raising solution? I would love to know how you raise money to make your business fly.

Can You Work With Your Spouse?

Some couples work together beautifully and others wind up in divorce court. What about you, could you work with your spouse?

I've worked with my friend Mike and it worked out fine. We had some ups and downs, but we always seemed to be able to work through them. I've also worked with my friend Julie, and that didn't go as smoothly. Fortunately, we've been friends long enough, we could recognize that the work relationship was not working and the friendship was far too valuable to put at risk.

Dave and I have never worked together in a full time capacity. We plan to once the glove business starts to get busy. I think we can do it and here's why. Our relationship is based on friendship. We were friends for more than six years before any romance began to blossom. We got to know each other, the good and the bad, with no prejudice. As we've made our way through almost eight years of marriage, we do a really good job of defining our roles and each others expectations of said role. If we just keep working our business the way we've worked every other aspect of our relationship, we'll be just fine.

What do you think, could you work with your spouse? A good friend? I'm interested to know what you think!

Going Out On A Limb!

This is a duplicate post to my IWIL blog (you can see more pictures at http://www.intentionalwinning.blogspot.com/, but I wanted to put it here because I feel it ties into being an entrepreneur.

When your family life is happy and you allow yourself time to play, you find that your business gets a shot in the arm, too. While we were off riding with the wind in our hair, we were also talking about new ways to market our gloves, and even talking about new product ideas. It gave us the opportunity to brainstorm and be inspired. The best part is that we were inspiring each other! We laughed as we took this picture of me going out on a limb! As entrepreneurs we do this every day. Here's how our day went.

Dave took the day off and we had a spontaneous day of fun.

We started off with breakfast at Awful Annie's in Old Town Auburn where we had breakfast outdoors on the veranda. After a delicious meal, we put the top down on the Miata and headed over the summit to Boomtown where we had a few dollars to play poker. We played for an hour or so with the seniors who clearly play everyday, they all knew each other, and the dealers, too!

From there, we headed back home stopping at a beautiful spot along the Truckee river. The water is raging and the scenery was gorgeous! We kissed and played on the rocks like new lovers, and took pictures to remind us that we an still have fun like we did as a brand new couple.

After our stop at the river, we stopped in at Fox Barrel Brewery and tasted cider, yum! We planned a nice barbecue for later, but before we picked Mason up, we made our final stop at Carpe Vino back in Old Town Auburn, for a lovely glass of zinfandel.

What a great day. The best part is that Dave acts on his intention to keep our marriage full of love and life. Friday was the epitome of Intentional Winning in Marriage!

Is It Ever What You Think It's Gonna Be?

I say rarely. I can't say never because I try to make a practice of not saying "Always" and "Never."

Think back for a moment and try to remember a time that what you envisioned at the start of a journey was exactly what you got at the end. I look at my life and for the most part, I've laid some pretty good plans. I've taken action on most of my dreams, but the ones that have been the most satisfying are not even close to what I thought they would be when I started.

A great example is my marriage. I am married to the love of my life and can't imagine that I could be happier. When I was single and really wanting to be in a relationship, Dave was a friend of mine. He was the friend I called when I got stood up (Oh yes I did, more than once!), when a guy had "expectations" after a burger and fries, and when I was dumped in South Korea. In an instant, we were a couple, having a conversation about how the universe had shifted, and within a few months, we were engaged, and three days after that, married. After being friends for six years, I never in a million years thought this man was meant to be my husband. For the record, I fully intended to be happily married. I was not willing to settle, I just never imagined that the man who would make me so happy would be Dave!

I purposely didn't use our ZipperBack Gloves as an example because we've only just begun our journey. But I can say this, I originally set out to license our product. I was adamant that I did not want to go into the glove business. Though I don't have any big success stories in how our empire has evolved and grown, I can say that on so many levels, we have found success and have every reason to believe we will only keep that momentum growing.

Lay a plan, take action, and then go with the flow. Be open to what options and ideas are presented to you and that some of these "not your own" ideas may be really good. Though it may not be what you thought it would be, doesn't mean it won't be great!