Lost in Thought

I'm lost in thought tonight and not sure what way I am headed. My job at Kroger has been crazy busy lately and honestly last week, I felt like I worked 2.5 weeks in a 40 hour time. That's how much my head was spinning. I'm hoping that this blog post will help me sort through a few of those thoughts and give me some comfort within the action plans we choose to take for Brass Hammer Designs. Josh seems to kind of be in the same funk. It's hard to explain, but we just have to get our heads wrapped around the idea of what we need to do. Here's why.....

Saturday, we met with a man that is part of an organization called Score that has helpful tools for the start up business owner (www.score.org). We've had two counseling sessions with him so far and it's made us think quite a bit. He assured us that we were doing a lot of things right, which is very comforting. Below is the summary of the action plans we feel we need to take after these two sessions.

Clientele building is basically what our #1 focus is going forward. How do we do that? Again, we're doing a lot of things right currently and that is blogging on here, tweeting, facebooking, and opening our etsy store. All four of those social media usages are directly correlated to our first sale from a stranger (friend of a friend) and we are thrilled to death. But are we doing enough? Our Score Counselor has recommended that we talk to a company called Bare Knuckle Marketing about our marketing via social media in order to better build clientele. So that will be one of our next steps.

The 2nd step we've been commissioned with is to find a good record keeping system for money. Quickbooks or Peachtree have been recommended to use instead of our current excel tracking methods. Again, we're tapping into our network of small businesses by talking to my dad and step-mom about Quickbooks and how they use it to keeps tabs on selling Al's Secret Grilling Sauce. (This is a family favorite grilling sauce and has been in our family for 3 generations. Just in time for summer, if you're looking for a unique new flavor of grilling sauce, I'd suggest you go and check out their website and make sure you browse the recipe page too!) Anyway, we've talked a lot to them about their chosen computer programs, such as Photoshop and Adobe Acrobat and now, we're talking to them about Quickbooks and how that helps them. Hopefully this resource will be the next tool we add to our tool-belt and get us closer to a successful start-up.

Something else we realized is that right now, Brass Hammer Designs (BHD) is self-funded and that is scary as hell. I'm sure our fellow small business owners get this, and we did too, but now we're really understanding this concept. One thing is that for tax purposes, we are researching renting our garage and basement space to BHD and using that as an expense rather than trying to take a percentage of the utilities and current rent we pay for our house. What a novel idea. Another idea is considering our start up costs as a loan to BHD with intent to pay us back. I am so thankful that these ideas were presented to us and will be promptly talking to our accountant about both.

And I cannot say it enough how thankful we are to have a network of small business owner/friends. They have offered so many resources and advice. I am very hopeful that with their resources and Score's tools, we will be able to continue working towards a successful business. We'll leave you with a pic of our first etsy sale, "Amen". Please be sure to check out our other pieces on in our etsy store. Follow our story here and through our Twitter Account and Facebook Page. Progress pics are posted often on all 3 accounts. Oh and on Instagram as #brasshammerdesigns too! And seriously, if you're craving a new flavor for grilling, check out my family's grilling sauce: Al's Secret Grilling Sauce. You can order directly online.