Eek this suddenly turned into a proper business! Was I asleep when this happened, or just painting things purple?!? Probably painting knowing me.
Well, what's been happening in the land of the Hippo - yet again I moved the shop around, keep getting told off that things never stay in the same place. However, it now feels like a proper shop and I feel like it's a proper business. It actually feels more like yes, we are doing this for real rather than err would you like to see some bits we made? Also, I've got over the initial crafters dread of apologising for pricing stuff - you know that horrible thing where you know that your stuff is worth money because you've seen it in catalogues or shops elsewhere but because you made it there's that stumbling moment of err yes please, if you don't mind it's £xx? To all those crafters out there struggling with that bit, believe me it's quite liberating when you actually cross that threshold. You suddenly wake up to the fact that actually what you made is good, it is worth money and you don't have to apologise. Just because you grew up making things that maybe your friends didn't understand or in my case Dad saying 'what on earth you doing this time Ange?' doesn't mean that your creativity and ideas are worthless.
The other thing I've discovered is that there will always be those that in order for them to succeed they have to push others down. It's hilarious when customers actually pop in and tell me this about other sellers - slightly awkward but still very funny. However, we don't need to do that because we know where our shortcomings are and working hard to get around them. A friend always described that as moving from the unconscious incompetent to the conscious incompetent then to unconscious competent and finally to the conscious competent. I like that phrase as it sums it up quite nicely. You move from the ooh we have a shop to the eek we have a shop and then to the oh we're selling at the shop to the ahh now I know why we're selling at the shop. Apologies if you are now all oohing and ahhing as if at a fireworks display!
I love this journey, and can't wait to see where it takes us next - and thank you to all those that have joined the rollercoaster that is the Hippo brain, and apologies if your seatbelt is a little loose :)
