This week, a new way of growth has appeared on our path. Our friend in Madrid (you’ve heard about her before) is starting to build a clientele for her Tarot readings, and wanted to start selling our products to her clients, instead of sending them to shops in the area to get magical supplies. That means we will supply her regularly with a selection of the products that are more suitable for Tarot customers, and she will be sending me the work that needs a more seasoned practitioner, like spellwork and such.
That, as you can imagine, means a LOT of extra work in the following weeks. Besides preparing and creating extra items for her to sell, I have to train her and guide her as a seller and seeker of opportunities, as she has very little experience in the field. When she came last month we spent two days teaching her a very intense Tarot workshop – she has been practising for several years, but dealing with clients is something entirely different – and now we’re working on the business side of the training, mostly through phone and chat.
The first thing this experience is teaching me is how much we have learnt and accomplished in four years, since we started on Dawanda (more or less the European version of Etsy) – and the second thing is how much we need to learn yet, since we had never had what you would call an employee. New levels of organization, supply buying and item creation are coming for us, and we have to learn how to manage it without losing our minds :D. We are already working on a catalogue website for her customers, and on a Facebook group to keep them informed and connected. All that on top of the online shop, the online customers, the local customers and well, our life.
People tend to tell us how lucky we are – and while I do not deny that we truly are lucky, that has nothing to do with building a business at all. The only secret behind our success is hard work, more hard work, and even a little more hard work. One week is the longest time we’ve been away on holiday, and the shop has never been closed one single day even if we were on holidays. We have tried every promoting tool we have come accross, and kept it or discarded it as it suited our needs. And above all, we have strived to improve our products and customer service with every new item, keeping quality versus any other consideration always as the top priority.
For those who are reading this and starting their businesses – do that for four years, and you will have what we have, or even more! We may be lucky, but what people don’t see is the amount of things we have denied to ourselves because House Of Eleggua was first – you can’t imagine how many times we have been eating canned tuna and boiled potatoes because all the money we had left was for shipping orders. Please understand that I am not complaining or whining – we make all those sacrifices willingly, and I do not regret them one bit. The reward for those sacrifices is not only the business itself, but the amazing people we have met, the always generous and encouraging patrons, the pride of having the best customers in the world. And who thought that after building this for ourselves, we could grow into this new venture, offering someone we love as family a chance to build her own profession and economic independence.
So, if there’s a little less blogging in the next weeks, please forgive us!
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