Progress Report #2 on Nomad Manager - Part 3 of 3
Burnout & Rekindling
[I’m excited about the Kindle I’m to own in about a week’s time, but this is not about the Kindle, and there was no pun intended.]
Earlier this year, in January 2011, I experienced the worst burnout/meltdown as a business owner. My partner Gail had migrated to Canada in May 2010, and while she did what she could from there, I managed the business alone locally since then.
When you manage your own business (and you don’t have a physical store of your own), people don’t seem to realize the extent of the work you still have to put in. I had to oversee production, quality control, coordinate with consignees on deliveries, sales reports and collections, prepare accounting documents and shipments, split the work of creating marketing collateral with Gail, man bazaar booths without any permanent/truly knowledgeable fellow booth manners (i.e. teammates like Gail who I could count on to answer product/brand-related inquiries confidently). I had to beg true friends/coerce househelp to help me man booths. I only ever left the booth to pee. Sometimes I didn’t leave at all. I felt I had no weekends. Or when I did, I felt guilty about them because I knew there was still pending work to be done. I could go on. But I won’t. In a nutshell, I basically died last December.
The burnout.
The backlash.
And then the bingo.
I feel things turned around for me when Nica came into the picture. This was not immediate, but a lot of things changed for me since she joined us. While we have yet to improve sales, having her around, showing her the ropes, and being able to trust that she knows those ropes helped lift a heavy weight off my shoulders, giving me more anxiety-free days to focus on more long-term planning for PdP.
Jonver & Joseph are pretty much part of that team now. And while I’ve yet to really officially work with them, if they work like Nica, then I’m lucky enough to have a strong team to work with (making me less anxious). At the same time, it makes me feel like the business has an even higher purpose than myself or the PdP-losophy/cause. This time, 3 other people will be dependent on me for sustenance. Both financial and otherwise. And while it’s a daunting responsibility, I also find it quite exciting.
‘Til my next progress report.
Lovingly yours,Helen Jen
Progress Report #2 on Nomad Manager - Part 1 of 3
10.17.2011
It’s been around 3 months since I first started this blog, with the intention to chronicle my steps towards “nomadic management” by 2013. But this is only the second progress report I’ve written thus far. Heh.
I was reviewing old entries to see if maybe I had written about my progress in one way or another, apart from my Progress Report #1, but I guess I just had bits and pieces everywhere without any comprehensive summary. I did find it helpful to review my original track, and I am enjoying the fact that I seem to be working my way towards nomadic management quite well (in the sense that I’m building my team). I’m disappointed that I can’t really seem to find any old entry on actual strategies though. Meh. Anyway. So here we go. Here’s what’s up or what’s been in my head as the wannabe NM.
The “New” PdP Team
Our 2 new hires (former PdP interns and incoming marketing officer Jonver and creative director Joseph) are finally starting employed work tomorrow. I’m really excited about working with them to further PdP and developing a rock-solid team.
Our sales for the last quarter is probably the lowest I have experienced with PdP thus far, and while most entrepreneur-friends share the same circumstance, I am not certain to what degree they are experiencing the same. However, an entrepreneur friend agreed with me when I said it was odd that during the year of the fuel hike, or Ondoy, and the year of recovery after Ondoy, people still seemed to buy more. I can’t tell if it’s because of our products/designs (though I feel we’ve leveled up), because I’m pretty certain that our marketing this year has been more intense than in previous years. Nonetheless, I intend to end the year with a bang, and milk the last quarter for everything it’s worth. :P
While it may be counterintuitive to hire more people when low sales leave us with less money to allocate, I am counting on Joseph and Jonver, together with Nica, Gail and I, to really bring in more revenue, either through increased sales or new business. So yeah, we really have to work hard, guys. :) Gail, Nica and I were working on closing some international deals a few weeks/months ago as well, but we’ve yet to get feedback on that, but I do hope we close them because it will be a big deal for us and for the workers behind our production. It would be especially nice for them this Christmas. *fingers crossed*
