Crunch Time & Plan B

It was around my birthday in September when I decided that the best gift I could give myself was to re-open Crater Lake Company. At that time, I thought I had a lot of time to get everything in order given that I had a target re-opening sometime mid-January. But my how time flies!!! Looking back, I've been consistenly checking off all my tasks on my to-do list, so technically, I'm in pretty good shape. There are times however, when I feel overwhelmed and can't believe that in spite of all the foundation work I've done, there's still more ahead of me. I just want to open already!!!

Now it's crunch time. In less than 3 weeks, I will have to have all my product pictures taken, Fragrance Bar edited, copy and layout finalized for the storefront, and other details which I'd rather not mention for fear of overwhelming myself! I know it's getting down to the wire because my web designer is now listing all my deliverables and before he starts his list, he writes, "Don't freak out!" I'm running on adrenaline, excitement, anticipation and sheer terror and I love it.

I know I wrote about trying to find a new space for CLC, but I've decided to resort to Plan B, for now at least. My space requirements are unique and my budget pretty tight. Two factors that didn't make my task of looking for space very easy. What I've found in my search for a new CLC HQ is that in order to get the space requirements I needed, ie. plumbing, I was basically looking at retail spaces which charged a premium for their location. Since all I needed was a manufacturing space which wouldn't be open to the public anyway, why would I pay the premium rent for the traffic and location that I didn't need? On the other hand, I could have rented an office space that was more in line with my budget, BUT most don't have plumbing in the space itself. I mean, I was looking at professional office spaces suitable for lawyers, accountants and the like. It certainly didn't fit my needs. I can just imagine the conversation with my new office neighbours going something like...

"Oh hello there. I'm Charles Winslow Stratford III, CPA, your neighbour down the hall. And 2 doors down from you is renowned attorney Rob U. Blind, Esq. Welcome to the building." (Sorry, bad lawyer joke. Couldn't resist!)

"Hi I'm Sharonn My Mom Didn't Give Me a Middle Name Itliong. I don't have any alphabets at the end of my name, but I do have a Dual Masters Degree, does that count?! I just love to make things that you put on your body to make you smell good and make your skin soft, smooth and glowy! Do you suffer from dry skin? Do you want to try a small jar of our Whipped Soy Body Butter?"

Yeah, I'm gonna fit in just fine! Eventually, when CLC grows enough to afford the rent a retail space charges, I'd like to move into one, but for now, I've decided to resort to Plan B.

CLC's office will be a custom designed room in my humble little home. Previously, we housed all our supplies in the space in which we worked, making it difficult to find and store all the materials we needed. Learning from that lesson, I've rented a large off-site storage space to house all the excess inventory (ETA: I'm talking about packaging supplies here, which I buy in the thousands) that I don't need to have on hand. Since the storage space is only 5 minutes away, it shouldn't a problem accessing any supplies I need. Thanks to my grad school professor, Dr. Silverman who taught Organizational Something or Another, I've designed my workspace so that everything I need to make my products are within my reach and is organized in such a way that each step of the production process flows smoothly into the next. For all you chefs out there, it's mise en place, as you say. Whereas before, our workshop space wasn't really conducive to our production process, we're designing this room to ensure that this process goes smoothly. Believe you me, it's going to save me a lot of time. So, as CLC grows, my storage facility will be able to house the overflow.

All this work is going to be done while I'm away, so when I get back, I'll have a brand new space waiting for me. Yey! I can't wait!!!

Well, I think that's about it in terms of an update. I received 11 LARGE boxes of supplies the day before Thanksgiving and I'm getting ready to head out to our storage facility.

Thanks for reading. Don't forget about this month's Gimme That! 3 ladies will win a 4 oz jar of our foaming sugar scrub, Sugar Cloud. I'll announce the winners around the first week of December after all the winners have responded to claim their prize.

I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving and made out like bandits in your quest to find the best bargains ever.