If you had seen the space we were using for our frame production, you would laugh.
It was WAY to small, we were constantly tripping over each other and everything, we cut them in one place, moved them somewhere else to be painted and then we were driving finished frames over to my studio, 10 at a time, flat, in the the back of my truck to package and ship there. Not the most efficient process, but we were working with what we had available. I can’t tell you how many times we moved stuff over to ship, only to scratch it or damage it in some other way in transit. We would then throw our hands up in the air and say “really?!?”. To then have to send it back for paint, wait for it to dry (again) and then get it out.
With any young business, in my opinion, there is a point that you have more work than you can handle yourself, but aren’t quite ready to bring more people in. Whether it’s financial, trust or a control issue. Is it time to hire people yet? I don’t know. I wanted to, but it was so hard making that decision. I don’t have time to be a manager. I don’t have time to fix the mistakes of others. No one can do this as fast as I can or as well as I can. Obviously, my issue was a control issue. We were at this point a few months ago and I was not only frustrated, but exhausted. I really felt like I must be doing something wrong and a little helpless as to how to transition from working 20 hours a day to keep production on schedule to living a semi normal life, while continuing to grow this business. We’ve had our share of problems. At one point we had a small shop fire that put a screeching halt to production, which put us behind. Then we killed ourselves to get caught up. There were countless mornings that I woke my 13 year old daughter up for school on my way to bed, only to sleep for 3 hours until our 5 year old woke up and do it all again. We had both of our paint sprayers go down in one weekend, which quite frankly at the time felt catastrophic, that put us behind again. Then a third major issue, that is too long to explain. It really felt like there was no light at the end of the tunnel and I started questioning, is this really all worth it? As much as we were loving what we were doing and the product we were producing, at some point, something’s got to give!
So then what? We decided to hire a few people. There was no way we could keep going like this with just the two of us. If you’ve ever employed anyone before, you know they don’t walk in trained and ready to fit right into your workflow. They also come in having not made any of the mistakes you’ve already made and learned from. Jason sent out an order once and forgot to put the tabs in the back before he sent it out. I’ll chalk that up to the fact that he was packaging after only getting 18 hours of sleep for the entire week and it was a really simple mistake. DId he ever do that again? Absolutely not. Have the new employees made that mistake? Yep. >Insert me hypothetically ramming my head into the wall here.< Mistakes happen. We are SOOO happy we made the decision to bring more people in. Even when it feels like we have taken a step backward, we know that the decision is ultimately moving us forward by leaps and bounds.
My dear friend Jen from Photo Prop Floors and Backdrops made a comment once in an online chat conversation we were having when I was stressing about how things were going. She simply replied – “growing pains”. Hmmm. That really made me think. Growing pains. What a perfect way to put it. It’s not that we were doing things wrong or even deserved to beat ourselves up over it. It’s just a part of owning a business and making it successful. You are always going to run into problems, no matter how organized you are, how much planning you have done or how hard you work. There will always be new issues, you will always have an angry client and there will always be someone that doesn’t like what you’re doing. Stuff happens and we do our best to work through those things. The more you do anything, the better and faster you get at it. Once you’ve made the mistakes, you’re less likely to remake them. So we try not to beat ourselves up too much now and learn from each and everything we do. Thanks Jen. If you wouldn’t have said this to me, I probably would have lost it by now. So with any business, it’s your job to just keep doing the best you can do, keep believing in yourself, keep believing in your business and know that you are not alone. Things get a whole lot better once you do that. It did for us.
So, I am writing this because we are experiencing a whole new growing pain right at the moment. We finally made the decision to move to a bigger shop. The new space is big, has amazing window light, is only about 10 minutes from our home and every part of production all the way through shipping can be done in one place. STREAMLINED WORKFLOW. Just saying that makes me take a deep breath and feel a little bit of tension lift from my body. I will admit, there was definitely some anxiety in figuring out how we were going to make the transition without adding another 3 weeks to production. Do we stop taking orders for a week or two, do we tell clients there will be a longer wait or do we work around the clock to make everything happen at once? We figured it may just be a combination of all three eventually, but lets get the process started and see what is really going to be involved in it before we make that decision.
We started moving our stuff over and were told in advance there was a leak in our space. It was coming in from one specific area in the shop and we stacked all of our equipment, wood stock and the frame stock into an area very far from where the water leak would be. They were going to be replacing the roof over the next few days, which is two floors above us and we would be good to go. Jason and Luke pulled an all nighter framing in walls and building rooms to get the space as ready as they could to get back into full production when the roof was done. They could set up, get the crew back in, pull a few long days and hopefully, not be too far behind. Great idea, great planning, hard work, long hours, we’re good right? Well, we were good until we had some ginormous storms which left pools of water on the roof, more like lakes of water. When the roofers showed up the next day to tear the roof off, they said it took over 15 minutes to let the water drain (into the building) which led to a steady waterfall pouring directly on to our stuff, in the opposite corner of the leak. Heavy waterfall! All of our power tools, all of the wood, all of our stock, sitting in their containers full of water. Awesome. Breathe. Growing pains.
Sometimes you have to take a step back, breathe and figure out the best plan of action. Instead of tackling that issue, we are closing out what we know we can first. We have spent most of this week getting orders packaged and shipped each day, with the exception of today. Jason is painting everything that is left that needed a final coat or just wasn’t quite right for one reason or another, so we can ship it by the end of the week. The next batch of orders and anything that was in the middle of production that ended up damaged will be cut this weekend by a few awesome friends that have volunteered to come in and help and we will be taking the next few days, evenings and nights to get the mess cleaned, figure out what we need to replace, replace it and get this new shop up an running! Somehow, as much as I wanted to go lay in bed and cry when I got the news, I hung up the phone, carried on with what I was doing and didn’t beat myself up. I remembered to breathe. It’s my job to just keep doing the best I can do, keep believing in myself, keep believing in my business and know that I am not alone.
We are still ridiculously excited to get this shop set up and have our workflow streamlined. It is going to DRASTICALLY reduce the amount of stress we have and also speed up the process. Heck, we may even get to take a day off each week! We will let you know if you’ll need to expect any delays, either generally on facebook or a phone call if you’ve already ordered. I am crossing my fingers for not, but we are depending on circumstances that are not within our control.
There is a part of me that didn’t want to write this because I didn’t want anyone to know that everything hasn’t been anything but smooth sailing. However, I know so many of our fans and clients are self employed. I know how discouraging it is when you have a problem, how exhausted you feel from working through the night, how demanding your clients can be, how much you miss your family and how often you question if maybe you should just get a “regular” job or just stick with your day job. I know this not only as the owner of The Vintage Crush or having my own photography studio, but I also see so many of you on facebook in the middle of the night and I know what you’re doing. Your editing, designing marketing pieces, working on your blogs and websites, researching products and dreaming of that next 1.2 lens you want to add to your bag. Because of that I know we aren’t alone and I want you to know that you aren’t either. We so appreciate all of the new relationships we’ve built from doing this, our awesome supporters on facebook and our amazing clients. If it weren’t for you, there would be no us, so thank you.
Take care,
Jen
A picture in our new space
) Thank You 
(7 wallet openings)
(I had to bribe her to take this photo by giving her this frame – she loves it!)
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