Small Business Survival Tips

The past nine months in preparation for the launch in Belk department stores has in no way been a walk in the park. We've run into more obstacles than we can count.  When our line was picked up by Belk, we were immediately treated just like any other large vendor that we would be competing with in stores.  This required my husband and myself to wear multiple hats, many of which we are still learning our roles in. The number one thing that kept us pushing to achieve our goals was the passion we have for the brand and the business.  My advice to anyone interested in entrepreneurship is to make sure that whatever it is you are doing, be sure you have a love for it, so much that you'd do it for free if you had to. This is what keeps you from walking away when things get tough.

Going to New York to pick up our first order for a major department store was huge for us. The entire trip was extremely surreal. It was somewhat difficult to come to grips with the fact that after all these years this was finally happening.  Although we'd come very far there was still so much to be done before we could see our collection in Belk stores. We still needed to tag, sort, pack and ship to Belk Distribution Centers.  This is where a lot of the technical side of the business came into play. At this point we were pretty much at the mercy of two separate third party companies that would take care of setting up our electronic data interchange (EDI). EDI is a great tool that gives me the ability to keep track of each and every item that I send to Belk, even while my handbags are in stores. This system will allow me to log into their portal and see what styles are being sold and what stores they are being sold in on a daily basis.  As a designer this is extremely helpful in letting me know what styles are resonating with the consumer.  

As awesome as EDI is, the setup process is very tedious to say the least. 
Our shipping labels had to be sent off for scan ability testing, our barcodes needed to

 meet certain dimension requirements and all allocation codes needed to be correct

 before anything was shipped. Working with third party companies can be hard because you are basically putting all of your trust into the hands of a totally separate company to see to it that things are getting done as they should be. This is the point where we had to wait patiently to get the green light to ship our merchandise. For me this was extremely difficult because I like to have my hands in every aspect of the business, and take care of what ever needs to be done if need be. Unfortunately it was time for me to sit, wait, and pray that things would move along as quickly as possible.

 Here are some survival tips on being a small fish in a big pond.

-Don't be afraid to be a stalker haha, (But seriously)
Call who ever you need to call as many times a day as you need to call them to get to the bottom of any issue you have. When it's your business there is no one else that is going to figure these things out, no coworkers to turn to. If you have an issue don't assume things will work themselves out because they won't.

-When sending emails that involve different entities attach all parties involved so that there is never any room for miscommunication.

-Find out the work schedules of the individuals you are relying on.
Email them 15 minutes before they go into the office so that whatever it is you need is the first thing they take care of when they get to work.

-Always express yourself in an extremely pleasant manner
Having a poor demeanor will only hurt you in the long run. Your needs will not be a priority.

Having four companies all working to achieve the same goal definitely isn't easy. Do whatever is needed to get all parties on one accord.

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