Maybe it’s because I’m a typical type A personality that I’ve never been one to take loosing with anything resembling grace. It pisses me the fuck off.
I expect a lot from myself, and especially from my business. My business is an extension of myself. If I don’t do well, I don’t get paid. Period. Unfortunately it can get a bit too tied into who I am, when I fail, I feel like a failure.
All shows that I attend, I have a goal in mind. Sometimes I set a goal to set “x” number of home parties and to make “x” number in sales. I usually either wildly exceed the goal, or come close to meeting it.
I had a show today where I had set a goal for myself, and I barely made enough to pay for the table. It was HORRIBLE. Not to mention the fact that it was freezing, right on the waterfront with bitterly cold wind whipping at me from 8am to 4pm. The show itself was poorly organized and the boat was filled with foreigners who were rather stingy with their money. I wasn’t the only one feeling the pinch. Frankly I’m not used to doing that poorly. It’s one thing to have a poor showing at a farmers market where the traffic simply isn’t there. It’s another to have 1100 people saunter past you and many other vendors without a second look. It’s demoralizing. To plan, prepare and put all that work into a show set up, to sit there freezing your ass off hoping that people will buy some soap from you. Yeah, not how I choose to spend my day.
To add insult to injury, as I was dragging my trolly of goods to my site, my totes tipped over, the lid popped off my soap and my soap boxes spilled all over the muddy grass. I won’t tell you how many hours I’ll spend re-labeling tomorrow. I should have turned around and gone home right then.
12 hours later I found myself soaking in the tub, popped some Motrin, ate chips and dip for dinner and followed that up with chocolate ice cream spiked with Baileys for desert.
I’m debating eating something healthy to balance everything out.
I’m trying to look at this realistically, and not take it personally. But it’s hard. I have another sale on Saturday, a local craft sale that I’m hoping will make up for my projected income lost.
Aw dude….I know exactly how much work you put into these shows and you deserve more than to be sitting outside freezing with muddy soap. Likely, no one wanted to buy because they were cold too! Blame the org, not you. Anyone who has tried your product LOVES it-it’s a good product. That was just a horrible, terrible, no good very bad day.
I still can’t believe you do the shows all by yourself…
LOL! Neither can I some days.
It’s spelled losing,hon.
I am a journeyman on this losing thing too of late. My last novel was marked down to $l.63 at the Chinese convenicnce store in Newmarket, Ontario. No buyers for months.
So I go around making anti-establishement speeches, war on poverty and all that. Well, at least I get fed at those events.
And apparently I didn’t use my spell check. I’ve been blaming Mars in retrograde…just to have something to blame.
I don’t remember the password for protected posts. Can you send it to me please?