Testing Times

What a time I've had over the last couple of months! Firstly I feel the need to apologise for 'falling off the radar' as it were. I've had so much going on that, other than keeping on top of incoming orders, I've just not had either the time or brain capacity to keep up to date with social media and blogging.

​Usually I'm a positive kinda gal, so I'll try not to be all doom a gloom whilst retelling what's been going on... after all every cloud has a silver lining, supposedly!

​It all started quite a while ago when my (now ex) landlord told me he was selling up. "Don't worry" he said. "I'm selling to a friend that want's to keep you on as a tenant" he said...

Well that didn't happen, not only was the house sold to a private buyer but I ended up having to do all the viewings myself. And to top it off, none of the prospective buyers had been informed that the house was tenanted!!

​So there's me, thinking all is fine and dandy because I've got a tenancy agreement in place that wasn't to expire until the end of this month (July 17). Which would give me plenty of time to view alternatives and find something suitable.

​And there lies the second issue, virtually no properties available in the area and the few that were available you wouldn't, quite frankly, keep a dog in!

​Mid stressing about where I'm going to go my (now ex) landlord starts getting his solicitors to send me stroppy letters asking me to sign documentation to agree to forfit my rights as a tenant and vacate the property upon completion of the sale. Very sneaky and cleverly worded letters that on the face of it didn't look like I had a choice in the matter. Luckily as an ex employee of a letting agency I knew my rights and refused to sign. Unfortunately it didn't stop the letters coming or the stress building, although I did at least know I wasn't going to be ousted before the end of my tenancy.​

Eventually I managed to find a nice place, its not in the right area so I have to do 20 miles a day to get Mini Goddess to school and back but at least she now has a nice garden to play in.

​Whilst all this is going on I'm slowly seeing a decline in the amount of order I was getting, despite not doing anything different to what I've done for the last couple of years. At first I thought it was perhaps just a slow month, then I thought maybe all the negative vibes from the house problems were impacting my business. It all came it all came to a head when I realised that over the first two months of this financial year I'd only made £300 profit... not enough to even feed myself and my Mini Goddess let alone pay the bills!

I did some investigation and discovered that a certain rather large competitor had started to do charm beads, just like the ones I made most of my income from, around the time that my orders had started to decline.

​​It's so sad when a company that already has a monopoly on the industry feels the need to push other smaller business out of the market. 

​I've always got such joy from the very personal service I offer to my customers, and love hearing how much of a difference what I make means to you. 

So once I got the house move out of the way it was clear I needed to evaluate my live and business.

I love doing what I do, and would dearly love to be able to help out anyone that requires my service but unfortunately, as a single mum,  I have to be able to make enough money to provide for my Mini Goddess. She has to come first no matter what, and I'm sure you'll all agree with me on that. 

So in the short term nothing is really going to change, I'll still be here doing what I do, making memorial beads for you. Behind the scenes it'll be a slightly different matter (here comes the silver lining) ...

​I'm going to become a student again! It's clear to me that I'll never be able to sit in an office 9-5 feel the sense of satisfaction I get from making beads, So I need to re-energise my creativity and re-focus mind. I'll be doing a part time Art and Design course at North Notts College starting in September.

​I do hope you'll all support me on this next chapter of my journey, as always I'll keep you updated on my progress and let you all know where this fork in the road leads me and as it stands at the moment, for now the only change to business will be a slightly extended turn around time for orders of 14-21 working days from receipt of ashes (currently 14 working days).

​Jules x