Business and Marketing – Page 5 – Coastal Carolina Soap Blog

The Joy of Saying No, pt. 1

When I was in divinity school, I studied how to place personal boundaries on my time, my commitments, and my space. I also learned how to set boundaries on the amount of crap I’d put up with. Manipulation? Nope, I’m choosing not to accept that. Heartfelt pleadings for me to do something for you when my schedule is already overloaded? Nuh uh. Not my problem. Sure, I pissed some people off, but they got used to my “no” and soon grew to recognize that I could still be in relationship with them without the psychological game playing. (I mean, seriously, who has time for that when you’re in graduate school, working, and raising a family?)

Grumpy Cat No — Love me some Grumpy Cat!

While it is no longer hard at all for me to tell people “no,” I have had a really hard time enforcing my boundaries when it comes to my business. I’ll work long hours on production or media, or I’ll burn the midnight oil to get a zero-hour order processed for a customer and out the next day. The transformation seemed to come all at once. A few days before Christmas, a private label customer sent an order to me. I informed her that I was closed for the holidays and gave her a specific date when I would begin to process her order. Ahhh… Telling myself that it was OK not to work proved to be incredibly liberating to me.

More recently, another private label customer and I were discussing her most recent order, which was all ready to go in the mail. My agenda for the following day included taking my car to be serviced before heading to the beach with my girls. As she asked for add-ons to her order – none of which I had expected or had ready – I said, “It’s almost 11:00. I’m not going to do that tonight.” She’d temporarily forgotten one part that would have had me up for a while later and agreed to add those into her next order. Really, truly, I have amazing, understanding customers!!!

In both of these cases, I’d had to say “no” in order to preserve my time, my body’s needs, and my sanity. No longer do I have to give up family time or sleep in order to meet my customers’ needs. This wisdom comes with experience and being in business for a long time. It is wisdom that has seen late nights, high stress, and printer malfunctions (which only happen in crunch times). It’s wisdom that has cried from being overwhelmed with trying to balance soapmaking and present wrapping. While it has been earned the hard way, the reward is giving myself permission to stop, rest, and relax.

If you are a business owner of any sort, to what have you had to say, “no”?

Click here for “The Joy of Saying No, part 2.”

I mistook better, cheaper, faster for di

Moving Beyond the Fear & Hype

A Casual Affair: The Best of Tonic (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The petition crossed my inbox more than a year ago. It was entitled, “Tradition, not Trademark,” (TnT) and they were moving to have the US Patent and Trademark Office remove the trademark for “Fire Cider” that Shire City Herbals had acquired. I signed the petition. At this point, a bunch of my friends had started talking on social media about their fire cider experiments. They posted pictures and recipes (and, frankly, I thought it looked and sounded disgusting, but that’s beside the point). Since “fire cider” seemed to be the latest trend in old-timey, all-natural cold remedies, it seemed that any attempts (let alone success) to trademark this tonic was, in fact, hording something that’s been around for ages.

I bought everything that TnT said. It seemed horridly unfair and unjust for Shire City Herbals (SCH) to take possession of an old folk remedy and prevent all others from making and selling it. TnT has recommended everyone boycott Shire City Herbals’ Fire Cider tonic, claiming that SCH is a huge mega-corporation out to bury smaller herbal companies. TnT has backpedaled a little on some of their claims, but they’ve offered no real apologies.

This week, I posted something to one of my social media feeds encouraging the boycotting of SCH Fire Cider. A certified aromatherapist friend of mine had posted it, so I thought she had the real scoop. Well, I was wrong, and so was my friend. I heard from someone from Shire City Herbals – one of the founders of that company. Apparently, they started making Fire Cider to sell in 2011; others started following suit. This is the way that usually works: A product hits the shelves that quickly gets a reputation for being from an old-fashioned, all natural recipe. All the folks who are interested in having some for themselves without having to buy it hit Google for recipes which they then post on their own social media pages, but maybe with their tweaks. It spreads from there. It seems that, in this case, someone (not one of my friends) started making Fire Cider in her own kitchen and claimed that SCH stole the recipe from her.

After perusing some information directly from Shire City Herbals, I’m left with a couple of impressions of this company. One, in light of everything with which they’ve had to deal, SCH has stayed focused on their own business, which led to their controlling their business growth. While I’m sure the antics of TnT were annoying at best, SCH seems to have worried more about what they were doing than what TnT was doing. Two, TnT’s call to boycott SCH’s Fire Cider backfired and proved that boycotts tend not to work. If anything, a call to boycott intrigues the non-customers (turning them into customers) and it makes the company’s loyal customers rally behind them.

TnT was using fear to promote their agenda, and I am ashamed to say that I bought into it. They created a fear that Shire City Herbals was going to monopolize the Fire Cider market, making it illegal for anyone else to make or sell it under that name. The thing is, I’m not even an herbalist in any commercial sense of the word, so no part of this ordeal was even going to impact my business. I guess the unspoken fear agenda could be, “If one company trademarks a generic folk medicine remedy, then what’s to stop other companies from trademarking other generic product names?”

They create environments of positivity, focusing more on the good that’s going on than the bad.

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It was, in fact, Shire City Herbals who first claimed the name fire cider, and the recipe they use is one they derived from one of the owners’ grandmother, as you can read about here. In light of a few years’ worth of trials, Shire City Herbals has not only managed to survive, but their business has nearly doubled.

Successful, outside-the-box thinkers & movers will draw their haters & critics.

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Successful, outside-the-box thinkers and movers will draw their haters and critics, but they don’t stay successful by listening to the hatemongering of their critics, nor do they buy into the negative hype surrounding them. They create environments of positivity, focusing more on the good that’s going on than the bad.

Day 38: Fire Cider

What Was I Thinking?

Last week, I got this great idea to start doing squats. As I really, truly hate squats with a passion, and it was the week I’d determined to do taxes, which is also not my idea of fun, apparently I was truly a glutton for punishment. I thought about doing an abs challenge, and my abs could use more work, but crunches don’t faze me. I started with twenty squats, which is bad enough. Feeling all good and mighty, I googled “30 day squats challenge.” Oh crap! I was supposed to have started with FIFTY squats. FIFTY!!! 5-0. There’s that many Shades of Grey. (There was masochism there, too. Hmmm…) Well, I was determined to do this, and it’d be dumb to give up before I even started because it might be hard.

I gamely did my fifty squats, and I felt great! Great, that is, until I tried to walk down the stairs. The Big Bopper sang a song back in the 50s called “Chantilly Lace,” and one of the lyrics says, “A wiggling walk and a giggling talk make the world go round.” Pay attention around the :37 mark.

(I promise, I won’t tell if you start getting up and dancing around your office. It’ll be our little secret!)

So the 30-day challenge starts with 50 squats. No big. Except for the fact I had that “wiggling walk” going on and could barely make it down the stairs safely. Day two kicks it up a little to 55 squats. I was almost working up a sweat with these, and in trying to figure out what to do with my arms, I thought, Hmmm… I could add a curl to this and work my arms, too. Right after, the probably more rational part of me said, “That’s crazy talk!” I was good as long as I stretch my legs before walking, sitting down, standing up, or climbing stairs. You can imagine how challenging going to the bathroom painlessly was. That more rational side of my mind was beginning to convince me to give up. Just quit. Let my thighs quit hurting and get back to normal. Then the crazy, business woman side of my brain kicked in.

“Quit!? Are you kidding me!? No!!! We’re not going to quit just because things get a little hard. Remember, pain is weakness leaving the body. Now, quitchur bitchin’ and do today’s squats.” I didn’t have time to knock out my 60 before church, but I was on them afterwards. Before I went upstairs, I took a detour into the garage where I keep my work-out equipment and grabbed a hand weight. (I couldn’t find the other one, but I did find my younger daughter’s missing soccer ball, so for today, I was BEST MOM EVER!!!) I went up and changed out of my dress and heels and added arms to my squats. Know what? Today’s squats were easier. I’ve still got a little bit of that wigglin’ walk going on, but I’m getting around OK.

Sometimes, business is hard, too. That promising customer doesn’t reply back to my email. That batch of soap suffers a grand mal soap seizure so that the beautiful swirl I envisioned looks more like a particularly nasty crime scent. A wholesale stockist closes its doors. One of my girls or I get sick right in the middle of putting together a huge (talking multiple hundreds) item order.

Around every September, I think about quitting. Just selling off all my remaining inventory, getting rid of most of my ingredients and supplies, and enjoying life without curing racks and with plenty of space to work on some sewing projects I have queued up, and it’s usually because of one particular account. Then, ego kicks in, and I don’t have any desire to give up my customers and accounts to anyone else. They’re mine, darnit, and I worked very hard for them! So I muscle through, and you know what? As I’m plowing through the work once again, I discover that a whole bunch of my colleagues and friends also think about quitting once a year, so I’m not alone in this.

I will beat on. I’ll grit my teeth and gut through 26 more days of this 30-day squats challenge. I’ll keep pushing my business, knowing that huge growth often follows those thoughts of quitting. And I’ll be stronger and better for it.

Buddy Holly plane crash probe may be re-opened

I Feel… Free!

It’s normal for me, in January, to randomly let the next six months float through the ether in my brain to see what settles out. This usually includes must-dos, events, trips, holidays, etc. This afternoon, I was in the shower, letting the steam mix with the ether as all these thoughts drifted in and out of my head. (I don’t know about you, but I do some of my best thinking in the shower.) Let’s see…

January… Inventory is just about finished, and it’s time to restock, maybe order more ingredients if restocking depletes me too much. Gotta get all those wine soaps stocked and run through top sellers for that other account to make sure I’m good there.

February… Second weekend – taxes. Ugh. but then by the 4th weekend of February, refund, so it’s all good.

March… April… Soccer. Open house – maybe? Hopefully – at a friend’s house. It’s already in the planning stages.

May… Pender Spring Fest. Mother’s Day. I’d really like to take Mary on that “just us” beach trip that didn’t work out a few years ago.

June… Father’s Day. Maybe ConTemporal. Peter’s birthday. Blueberry Festival. Wait. Hold on! I’d decided not to vend Blueberry Festival this year.

Oh. My. Gosh! I feel so… free!!! Blueberry Festival is almost always the Saturday before Father’s Day, and with prepping and vending, working all the day long in the sun, by the time Sunday rolls around, I’m still in “Where’s my weekend?” recovery mode, which is hardly conducive to helping the girls facilitate a special Dad’s Day celebration. Not vending Blueberry Festival means being completely present for that. It means spending time with Mary before she goes to a week-long mission camp. It means not having the application deadline cluttering up my mental space. It means more time for me, more time for my family, more time for trips to the beach and stuff.

This is the year that I’m allowing last year’s developing attitude and mindset to grow a little bit more. I said last year that 2014 is not my year; it is a year of preparation for 2015, which would be my year. And hear it is. I have been taking steps to owning my business more, instead of letting it own me. It will be a good year, a saner year, a happier year.

What can you give up this year in order to free yourself for more pleasurable things?

Holidays and Christmas

As we navigate through the coming months, you’re going to see and hear me use different words to refer to this time of the year. Already you’ve seen references to “holiday event” and “Holiday Shoppe.” Yet, those who know me know I’m a Christ-follower (it’s pretty much everywhere on my social media profiles) and are probably wondering why in the world I’m not referring to everything red and green as “Christmas this” and “Christmas that.”

Christmas is a holiday, a holy day. It’s a day when we celebrate the birth of Jesus with family and friends. This is a beautiful thing. We observe our traditions, like attending a flotilla each year and watching Christmas specials together. We bake Christmas cookies, and we spend time with family and friends. The girls help me make the traditional family coconut cake for Christmas dinner with my family, and we attend a Christmas Eve Lovefeast service each year before driving around and looking at lights.

Holiday refers to this time of year marked by commercialism, secular trappings, sales, promotions, and Christmas-theme products. This doesn’t really have a whole lot to do with the true meaning of Christmas. Now, I know I’m a business owner, and I make and sell Christmas-themed products. I love these products because they’re fun products to make and sell.

But you want to know something? While I like making money from my business (otherwise, what’d be the point, ya know?), that’s not what drives me this time of year. My absolute favorite part of selling during the holiday season is sending smiles. It goes like this. I pull orders off my site’s admin section, then I start pulling products, usually with the help of someone in my family. We spread all these orders out on the table, I print off the packing slips, and we start packing these to ship.

My favorite thing is when I see the shipping address and billing address are different. That usually means someone is getting a gift. So I wrap their products in tissue, tie them with a bow, and attach a gift tag (this is just something we do). The person on the receiving end of the package gets a surprise, and who doesn’t love knowing that someone else is thinking of them? Or, if the buyer has me ship the package to them, then there’s the chance that they’re going to be wrapping those lovely goodies themselves to tuck under the tree or into stockings. Or, perhaps a soap and a lotion will grace a powder or guest room, all ready for visiting family and friends to enjoy.

Peppermint Twist Bundle — Zippy peppermint oil makes these products smell just like peppermint candy. Yum!

Do you see where I’m going with this? It’s all about the giving. I might be the middle man in this lovely gift-fest, but I have the privilege every year of helping send smiles. And love. And fabulous soaps. And that’s just really several layers of awesome.

Joyful Scribbles by Sharon Harnist

How Indies Beat Stress

I am a member of a great organization called the Indie Business Network. There are oodles of benefits to being an Indie, but I would have to say that our Facebook group jumps up to the number one reason for me. It’s like having a support group at my fingertips 24/7 for anything – questions about business; rants about the increased cost of shipping; or support when home, school, and business all overwhelm me. It’s also a great place to celebrate that huge stack of wholesale orders and to laugh with other business people. I know from experience that, when one member is just totally sinking, the leader of the organization, Donna Maria, will reach out to that member by email and/or phone to lend personal, one-on-one support and guidance. Been there, done that, still enjoy putting that guidance into practice. (“Mom, can you wash my clothes after my sister’s?” “I’m not in charge of laundry. You’ll need to ask your dad.” Oh my gosh, that felt soooo good to say yesterday!!!)

There comes a time in every Indie’s life and business, though, when the stresses get to be too much. Money is tight, supplies are low, and when you go to look for your customers, you hear crickets instead of cash registers. On top of that, one of the kids is sick, the cat has to go to the vet, and the septic tank is backing up. What’s a business owner to do?

This came up for discussion this week in our group, and I offered to compile all the suggestions, including some of my own, into a blog post to share with everyone. We all have our own unique ways of handling stress, and you hopefully can find inspiration from our ideas. I promised anonymity, so there will be no names attached to these.

Drunk elephant riding

(1) “Get drunk and ride an elephant.” One member did this as part of her personal retreat to re-evaluate her business. It’s come to represent to me doing something so totally different from your personal norm that it shakes up how you view things. Closely related to this is…

(2) “If there’s no elephant available, get drunk and ride a hot guy.” Because, seriously, unless you’re in Asia, Africa or a zoo, elephants are hard to come by. Sex is great stress relief! (My husband suggested making the UPS guy verrrry happy. Hmmm… “What can Brown do for you?” just takes on a whole new meaning when you put it that way, doesn’t it?)

(3) Spend time taking care of you first. I love this message about taking care of yourself for 24 hours. Do things just for you. Call it being selfish, if you will, but that time can make you such a better parent or business owner.

(4) Cuss. A lot. Loudly. To hell with acting and sounding like a lady! If a man building a house were to hit his finger with a hammer, he’d be cussing up a storm. A woman building a business takes her hits, too. She should feel free to express her anger, hurt, and frustration in crude, primal ways.

(5) Be in the moment. Do what feels right for you in that moment. Cry. Laugh like a maniac. Whine. Gripe. Scream. Experience the catharsis.

(6) Enjoy some chocolate and wine. Dark, milk, or white. Liquor-filled or basic Doves. Chardonnay, Merlot, Riesling, or Sweet Muscadine. Indulge responsibly. I have found that a glass of dry white accompanied by some dark chocolate m&m’s can greatly improve my outlook on life.

(7) Get yourself into some hot water. Whether your prefer a milk soak, bubble bath, or bath salts, grab a book, maybe some wine or chocolate, possibly even the guy from point #2, and sit back in peacefulness. Leave your stress in the tub and watch it go down the drain.

(8) Escape. Take 15 minutes to yourself. Take half a day for a trip to a day spa. Take a night away in a B&B. Take two nights. Or three. Or a week! Unplug. The world will survive without you for a few days. Close the doors on the business for a while and come back refreshed and recharged. I try to take 15 minutes to myself each evening and an overnighter at least every other month. These times away from my business and family make me a happier mom and a more productive owner. As I said in our group, I love my girls, and I love them even more after some healthy separation.

(9) Exercise. Yoga, running, walking, lifting weights or whatever works for you. Just do it. Get those endorphins going and cleanse your mind as your sweat out the stress.

(10) Finally, reassess. After going through any or all of these de-stressing routines, determine what you are gaining from your business. Is it spending money? Is it extra income for your family? Is it the reward of being your own boss? Your business should be benefiting you in some way. If it’s not, then it’s time to assess whether this is the best choice for you. Stepping aside and looking at your business from a new angle can help put things in the right perspective.

I’m sure you have your own ways of beating back stress, frustration, and hopelessness. What works best for you? Share them so we can learn from each other.

Some Are Not What They Appear

Poorly cut grass and well cut grass — “Professional” grass mowing

Take a look at this picture. The grass in the foreground was cut by a so-called “professional” lawn mower company. The grass in the background (up to the driveway and just beyond it), my husband cut. The “professionally cut” lawn is scalped – cut way too short – and was cut wet. I took this picture 4 days after it was mowed, and it’d rained some in the interim. By contrast, Peter (aka “swirl god”) mowed our yard, cutting it wet (it just hadn’t had a chance to dry out between showers), but mowing it with a 20″ push mower and high. The “professional” service uses a heavy-duty, top-of-the-line riding mower, has the big trailer, nice truck, and so forth.

The point I’m making is, not everyone who presents themselves as a professional knows what they’re doing. My husband is a true professional lawn care expert, knowing both the chemical care needs of various types of grasses and the best way to maintain those lawns. The company who butchered our neighbor’s lawn has demonstrated repeated ignorance of lawn care.

I see this same behavior in my industry. There are hundreds of great soapmakers out there. There are dozens of fabulous cosmetic manufacturers I know. Then there are the rest. They’ll claim their lotions are “all natural” and “preservative free,” not realizing the safety value of preservatives in lotions. That always leads me to wonder, Are they ignorant of good manufacturing practices, or are they intentionally mislabeling? Some soapmakers will say they make their own soap and do so without lye. That’s pretty much impossible, because without lye, there’s no soap – not the real stuff, anyway.

I’ve seen other soapmakers claim their soaps as “all natural” and “fragranced with essential oils.” Yet, they leave me wondering, Just which part of the gingerbread cookie do you have to press or distill to get the essential oil out? So-called “professionals” from all fields – not just lawn care and cosmetic and soap manufacturing – drive their businesses on their own ignorance and that of their customers. The part that really bothers me, though, is that these business owners or employees can cause some significant harm and expense for the people they deceive and who are ignorant enough or gullible enough to believe them.

Having business cards doesn’t make one a professional at anything, any more than wearing a choir robe means one can sing. Professional people exhibit certain characteristics.

True professionals start at a place of knowledge. Those of us who have been in the business for a long time know that it takes a lot of time and hard work to become an overnight success. Before we start, though, we learn as much as possible about our business fields.
True professionals never stop learning. Whether it’s books, forums, peers, videos, seminars or conferences, professionals always look for what more they can learn.
True professionals accept feedback graciously and seek to learn from it. Being defensive helps no one, and certainly does not keep customers.
True professionals work with integrity. Whether it’s a mislabeled soap or shooting weed and grass clippings onto a neighbor’s yard, accepting responsibility for sub-standard work only makes one look better.
True professionals realize that appearances don’t matter as much as quality work. I see lawn care companies in old trucks and open trailers do exceptionally good jobs on lawns. I mean, every. Blade. Of grass. Is. The same. Height. I watched one guy, and was just waiting for him to get out the ruler and scissors. Yet, the guy who cut the lawn above has jazzy equipment but doesn’t know his stuff. A soap company can look charming and adorable on social media, but doesn’t know correct labeling or the difference between fragrance oils and essential oils. In absolutely every facet of life, the inside needs to match the outside.

What other characteristics do you see in companies or businesses that strike you as being truly professional-grade?

I Quit!

CHOC Walk 2009 (Photo credit: Denise Cross Photography) – Thought this was appropriate, as one of our movies was “Aladdin.”

Last week, I quit. I quit work for the most part. I quit the business for a week. In fact, I quit everything but motherhood. My older daughter was at camp, leaving me home alone with my younger daughter for a whole week. What a treat, as we haven’t gotten to do this in about a year!

We did all sorts of fun things! We went to the library and got books. We went to the beach with my mom. We got haircuts. We watched movies – lots of movies. We read books. And we cuddled. That was the best part, that cuddling.

I checked my business email once a day, and the Wee Princess and I went through boxes and boxes of soaps to parcel out which ones we’d be donating. Then she helped me organize those in my storage space. I made phone calls, did housework, and made products while she napped, A couple of days, I napped, too. So, I didn’t quit completely; it wasn’t a planned break, so I didn’t think it would be fair to my customers just to close up shop completely for the week.

The break was restorative and a great lead-in to beginning school this week. It taught me something valuable, too; it taught me that I can, in fact, give myself a break from running my business full-tilt, and the world won’t come to an end. It reminded me that my goal isn’t to build a lasting legacy through my business. My primary goal is to raise two kind, compassionate, giving, loving, brilliant daughters. Teaching them those character traits is the legacy that’s most important to me.

Email as a Productivity Suck

Think Different Wordle (Photo credit: Ian Aberle)

Email. Love it or hate it, most of us rely on it as a speedy, efficient way to communicate. I use it for everything from general shared things (links and pictures), to grocery lists, to business matters. It’s faster than old-fashioned “snail mail” but less invasive than a phone call. I’m in the habit of checking my primary two email accounts daily, and I used to check them both every morning while sipping my pre-breakfast water. But an article I read which one of my fellow Indies posted changed that. (That link is well worth the read.)

As I read this list, even in the midst of our absolutely insane last month, two things resonated with me the most: #2 – “Don’t check your email first thing in the morning,” and #6 – “Define your goals the night before.” Wow. With two events and three large orders, how easy it would be to implement at least those two goals in order to be more productive. So, the next morning, I denied myself the obsessive urge to check my business email. I skimmed my Facebook feed, tidied up my Gmail a bit (that’s my social email address), then ate breakfast and read for a few, completely oblivious to what might be in my business inbox. After breakfast, I showered, then focused on some of the items I needed to get done for my events and customers. In fact, it wasn’t until early afternoon before I ever got to my email, and nothing needed my attention. That night before going to bed, I wrote my to-do list out on the dry-erase board and slept soundly, knowing there wasn’t anything that I was forgetting.

The article points out that reading email first thing in the morning makes a person more reactive than proactive. The day before, my time was my own, focused on my goals and my agenda. There was nothing I had to deal with that had cropped up, leaving me free to work as I wished. The second day, I got cocky and checked email in the morning as was my habit. In amidst the usual notifications and alerts, there was an email from one of my wholesale stockists. Yes, I read it. While I didn’t respond to it then, it stayed in the back of my mind until I did deal with it, distracting me from giving my tasks 100% of my focus and attention. That alone was enough to encourage me to stick with waiting before checking my business email.

It’s been ridiculously easy to liberate myself from looking at my business email first thing in the morning, though I have had to become even more intentional about that since fixing the email app on my phone. It all comes down to boundaries. During the day, my time belongs to my girls, my business and myself. While my customers are certainly the lifeblood of my business, there are many times when my business itself needs to be my focus, when I’ve got to be OK with putting off emails and phone calls until that batch of soap has been put to bed, or while that batch of lip balm is setting up. There are other days, though, when my lovely customers come at the top of my day, and I can push other things to afterwards.

The to-do list has been a harder discipline, not because I don’t know what to put on one, but because I keep adding to it all day. During our academic year, I would identify 2-3 key goals for that day, and if I just met those goals for my business, then I could keep things going just fine. This time of year, that list expands to 6-7 items just for my business, nevermind the plethora of household tasks that demand my attention. However, my nights are more peaceful and my days more productive when I take 2-3 minutes to create a list before going to bed.

What tips do you have for improving your productivity each day? Feel free to share for everyone’s benefit!

Just Can’t Do It

Business (Photo credits: www.roadtrafficsigns.com)

It seems like my computer is starring in a soap opera. First, my Wee Princess spilled water on my laptop, rendering half the keyboard inoperable. Then I purchased this great wireless keyboard, which had been working great – until last week. I took it back to Staples yesterday, where they put the “that was easy” in the exchange. I brought my new keyboard home, and it worked great – for about three minutes. Then it started doing the same thing.

No way, I figured, for two keyboards to be lemons when the tech said this was the first he’d ever heard of this happening. Then it dawned on me: Perhaps one of the “ctrl” keys on my laptop itself is the problem? You see, the problem is, certain keys are acting like keyboard shortcuts, so I type “n,” and a new window in Firefox opens up. “P” brings up my printer box. I popped both of the keys off, finding nothing that would be holding them down.

My computer geek friend, Ellen, said to go on ebay and buy a new keyboard, then go to YouTube to figure out how to swap it out. OK. Fine. Because, as much as I don’t want to spend any more money, the fact remains that I do most of my business work on my laptop, so not having it perform to meet my needs is frustrating, to say the least.

I found the keyboard that goes with my laptop for a cool $12.79 with free standard shipping out of (I think) New Jersey. Sweet! Eastern seaboard means it could arrive before the expected delivery date of Friday. Then I noticed that this seller has a “Bill me later,” and Paypal is extending a special offer – $10.00 off your first purchase (if you qualify). I could get this keyboard for under $3.00. Woohoo! Sign me up! *click*

But when I got to the page, I just couldn’t do it. Maybe it’s all the Dave Ramsey books and knowledge, but I just could not sign up for a line of credit. The money was there to pay it off quickly, but I just could not bring myself to do it. Mostly, I was afraid I’d get caught up in the hustle and bustle of life and forget to pay it. So I backed out of that page and just paid for the keyboard directly from my Paypal account.

So what does that have to do with my business? Since I use Paypal’s services, they send me emails about their offerings, including Bill Me Later. I’ve thought seriously about adding that option to my web store, but something keeps stopping me. Now that I know exactly what all Bill Me Later entails, including the outrageously high interest rate (19.99%!!!), I can be very content with not offering this service. You see, my family is working very hard to get out of debt, and we know first-hand how easy it is to get into debt, and how hard it is to get out of it. As a business owner, I realize that people will use credit cards to buy products. However, as an ethical business owner, I just can’t bring myself to offer my customers a way to get into debt out of convenience. That’s all there is to it. My customers are valuable to me, and I’m going to look after y’all every way I can, not just with awesome soaps and body products.

I am curious, though. Would you be more willing to buy a product (any product) with a line of credit, or would you rather pay for it out-right?

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