There are often times that we, as business owners, have great ideas and plans for the future that somehow fall by the wayside. We lose focus, finances change or the idea doesn’t take flight the way we thought that it would. Don’t get discouraged! Take the next step by looking at what did or did not work for you in that situation. Did you have a clear vision for the project or program? Was there a budget or did you think about what obstacles there could be in doing such a project? Who could you have talked to get insight for this project?

Maybe you did have a vision and a well thought out plan but you still were not able to complete the project. Don’t fret. Change is the one thing that we always must be ready for in business. (I know you are trying to figure out how someone can ever be ready for change) There will always be times when we come across opportunities and obstacles that will make us take a detailed look at what we are doing as an entrepreneur. You can be the business owner who always complains that they can never keep up or you can be the entrepreneur that is better equipped to handle change. It’s starts with your vision and along the way there will be times where revision is necessary. Let’s take  look at revision. I believe there are a few areas that consistently are in need of revision. – Quality, Expenses & Marketing.

Merriam dictionary defines revision as:

– a change or a set of changes that corrects or improves something

Don’t start to get discouraged when the opportunities arise for you do a revision. It is not a shot to your ego, more like an opportunity to fine tune what you have. An example of this is from when my daughter started her business. She wanted to create things out of duct tape, a popular idea amongst pre-teen and teenage girls, in order to make a little bit of extra cash. She mulled over what types of items she would be able to make before finally settling with creating Christian Bookmarks as her first item. This was her first time ever owning a business, hey she was only 12, and her first time attempting to make the bookmarks. On top of that she was offered the opportunity to sell her bookmarks during the intermission of a play that a family friend was conducting. As we all know, customers can be our best friend and worst critic when it comes to retail.

Quality

My daughter got her supplies, worked hard and was very excited to do her first vendor event. The day was finally here. Me being a mom, coached her on things to say and how to great customers. I also showed her how to handle her money and to always smile. She sold a total of five bookmarks at $3 each. Not bad for her first time but frustration quickly took over as my daughter began to replay the days events to me. Customers walked away after finding out the price for her bookmarks. My daughter and I had a heart to heart about her bookmarks. See the first ones that she made were not very good. They were flimsy because she only used duct tape and loom rubber bands. Also, her bookmarks were not the average bookmark size. A customer suggested that my daughter look at using cardboard inside of the duct tape in order to make the bookmarks less flimsy and to think of added crosses or scriptures to the bookmark instead of using the loom rubber band at the top because it would appeal to different age groups. My daughter had two options once she received this information. She could have ignored them and continued to do what she was doing but she chose to look at it as a learning moment.

How does your service or product hold up? Are there areas that can be adjusted to meet a larger market? How about the material you are using? Is there a more durable brand that you can use or is there more colors available then what you use? Take a moment to just think about the quality of your material.

Leave comment and let me know what you think about this post and take a look at my previous post titled – First Steps