virtualmom

Vision Boarding for 2009!

I had so much fun last night, thanks to everyone who should up despite the horrid rain! To me, the night was a total success; old friends and newly met friends sitting around the table going threw a massive pile of magazines and cutting out appealing images and words to ultimately glue on to our own personal vision boards for the upcoming new year. We played Joni Mitchell and the Counting Crows, drank wine, and chatted while doing this relaxing and reflective exercise.

The results? See for yourselves from the pictures I have included. Some awesome work was done!!! I highly recommend making one yourself at home!! Give it a try!!!

Chocolate Weekend

I am working The Chocolate Show this weekend and am excited to do so. Chocolate for good or bad, has been a lifelong passion of mine. Since our family discovered The Chocolate Show back about 6 years ago, I have thought it would be fun to work in the chocolate industry. So this year I contacted a small local company that is exhibiting at the show and asked if they needed help. They said yes and so I am going to experience what it would be like to work in chocolate.
I will report in later. I have a long 2 days ahead of me on the floor for 8 hours pushing samples to consumers. Fortunately, La. is taking over all kid responsibilities this weekend.

OFFICE SPACE NEEDED: Moving from my Kitchen Table!

This morning I am going to check out office space. I believe I am ready to move from my kitchen table! It is a big step for me. There are certain benefits to working from home, the biggest is the cost savings. I have researched 3 temporary office rental companies(in which you can rent space on a monthly basis) and the minimum that I will be shelling out is $425/month for a cubicle.
What $425/month equates to for my business is about 5 minimum order sales. So I have to ask myself if it is worth it to take this next step. Am I ready for this new big expense?
For a big company, $425/month is nothing. The expense would be a no brainer. But I have to think about every dollar I spend. I also have to remember the old saying, Don't be pennywise and pound foolish. Oftentimes, my frugality works against me.
I had trouble spending the $30/month on my credit card processing service--I did not want to spend that much! But as my father in law pointed out to me,"If you can't spend $30/month-you might as well not have a business". He was right, and even though I don't use the service a lot, I still need to have access to it.
Benefits to working from home are:
1) I can work in my PJ's if I want.
2) My desk and work are right here and I can access them at anytime of the day/night.
3) I can do the laundry and dishes in between calls.
4) No rental costs for company.
5) No transportation time.
But here are some perceived benefits from working from an outside office(I say perceived because I haven't experienced them yet).
1) Motivated to work harder to pay for added expense.
2) Motivated by working around others.
3) Motivated just from getting out of the house!
4) With other workers around, I may get to network or at least have conversation with others! (Big plus!)

At this stage(for me anyway), I think the benefits of working in an office outweigh the benefits of staying at home. I need the outside interaction. BEST OF ALL: These new month to month rentable office space companies allow you to start slow and test what it feels like to be in an office. I like the business model of these companies, reminds my of car sharing companies like ZIPCAR, only it is office sharing!

The Rich get PERKS!

Twenty two years ago I moved to New York City after graduating from University of Michigan. Since my husband to be grew up in a suburb of NYC, at the time I met some of his friends from high school and their families.
One family in particular was very wealthy. We have since lost touch with them but they were a lovely family. One thing that I have never forgotten about them was the way the mother shopped for her clothes. It impressed me very much. Again remember that I mentioned the family was very wealthy and because of this-they got 'perks'.
This mother and a group of her friends hired a personal shopper who took them into the showrooms of the biggest, brightest, and best fashion designers. The group of women ordered their clothing directly from the designers and bypassed the retail stores. Since the group of them combined their consumer dollars, they qualified for a wholesale order. Their total order equaled that of some small boutiques so the designers agreed to sell to them directly.
As an naive, young outsider from the midwest, I couldn't believe the luck of the rich!!! I would love to be able to buy directly from the source and save half of the cost!!!! HOW COME THE RICH GET TO SAVE MONEY??? They did not need to save money---it seemed backwards to me?
This thought has stayed with me over the years. On and off, from time to time, I have thought about how to make this business model work for us, the commoners. What I have come up and want to experiment with is a wholesale shopping community that together can generate volume buying power.
This is the story behind my idea!

Shopping Club

I have blogged before about not liking to pay retail(who does?) I have also blogged about starting a Wholesale Shopping Club. Here is what I propose: A bunch of us get together and form a shopping community. We will gather our resources and pool our consumer dollars so that we have the buying power of a small boutique so that we can buy directly from manufacturers. In doing so, we will effectively cut out the middleman/retailer and receive our goods at the wholesale price and save half of what we would pay at retail.
This is an OPEN INVITATION to anyone interested in attempting this co-op type of buying. Please email me at jstern64@gmail.com
I want to point out that this is all new to me; I do not know if we can pull this off. It is a concept that I want to TRY! Here are some facts you should know:
1) This is not a 'for profit' effort on my part. I will not be making any money. My intention is to save money in my purchasing. As the main consumer in my family unit, I know that we spend a lot of money, I have my credit card statements to prove it. I want to try to save money by cutting out the retailer but I can not do this on my own. I need to be part of a group so that we spend enough to make it worthwhile for the wholesaler. Please see my next post about how I got to this concept--something that has been in my mind for some 20 years now! You have heard 'a penny saved is a penny earned' --well then we all will be saving/making money in this venture.
2) I am assuming that the manufacturers will go along with this concept and sell to us--I do not know this to be true yet! I think some, especially the smaller manufacturers will be open to our group. But traditionally manufacturers rely on retailers to sell their goods, so some will not work with us. Some manufacturers will not like this idea because it will hurt the retailers(their bread and butter).
3) We, as a group, have to decide which manufacturers to approach. We have to have a consensus of what we all want to purchase. It could be difficult to find something we all want. For instance, I may want to buy shoes and someone else might not. Everyone may want to purchase handbags but not from the same designer! We will have to decide what we all want to buy in bulk together!!!

First though, we need to form a community. Together we may be able to start something!!!
A woman already contacted me and told me she is doing something similar with a group that buys pet supplies together in bulk at wholesale price--so people are doing it already!
Please get in touch if you want to know more or have any suggestions! Contact me at jstern64@gmail.com

10 -2

Moms: Would you work if you could keep a decent work-life balance? How about working 20 hours a week while your kids are in school? I know I would love something like that!
Recently I read about a job placement agency out west called 10 til 2. Interesting concept. One I think would work in New York City. It is a job placement firm that caters to moms with kids in school who only want to work from 10-2. This way they can drop their kids off at school around 9 a.m. and get to their workplace on time at 10 a.m. Work is for 4 hours a day, so when they get out of work at 2, they can pick up the kids when school gets out at 3p.m.
Sounds like a win-win-win business. Moms win because they still keep their feet in the work(keeping their brains busy), employers win because they get college graduate high caliber employees working part time(no benefits to pay), and the agency wins because it is servicing a high demand market.
Love it!
Anyone want to open a branch here in NYC??? Contact me!