First Time Out

Volume 4

So this past weekend was the first time actually placing www.kbyshay.com shoes in front of the public eye. With this being the first event there was really no planning done. Just a group of excited people who knew they had product and that it would sale itself. The items were presented at The Cincinnati Ladies Fair and Entrepreneur Extravaganza at the Sharonville Convention Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. The overall event went pretty well, it was totally different from what I expected. I was originally thinking hey I’ll go and work this trade show and get my product in front of the eye, I was expecting there to be large crowds of people looking to find stylish, comfortable, and elegant shoes at low discount prices. At the event I also displayed earrings custom made by  Alisha Payne-Hicks who can be found at www.twitter.com/@lishzdesigns another aspiring female entrepreneur. Below you can find images from the show and accessories that were made by Alisha, feel free to view her designs via Facebook.

Though the event was not a sale out, I was able to walk away with vast amounts of information. I was able to walk away with knowledge to take into my next endeavors with The Shoe Café and K by Shay. Luckily I was able to have the assistance of my public relations manager Marquita Williams who also blogs at http://melodicfashionista.blogspot.com or can be found on twitter at www.twitter.com/@golden_Life. I am now understanding the importance of knowing who will be present at the event, know the customer and have products to suit them. I received many compliments about the style of shoe that was present but was informed hundreds of times as to why people did not want to buy because they could not wear heels for this or that reason. This let me know that the styles that I had were fashionable. If I had known the crowd I would need to cater to I would have been more prepared with lower heeled styles and loafer styles. Now don’t get me wrong we did make a few sales just not a sale-out event. I also noticed how the vibe from the other vendors could easily rub off on everyone there before long all I kept hearing was “This is my first and last year here. I thought there were going to be this many or that many people here. Blah, blah, blah". Next thing you know I was starting to feel the same way even though I tried to keep high spirits. The best thing I took from this was to tune everyone else out and stay focused on my main goal, which was to make my product known to the public.

The main lesson that was learned from my first time out is that there is a lesson to be learned in every situation rather the overall experience is a success or failure. For all future events the team now understands the importance of proper planning.

Business or Pleasure

Volume 3

     Starting a business with friends is something that we all would love to do for various reasons. In the case of The Shoe Café the want for hiring friends was simply for the desire to have friends available to travel and enjoy each others time while making a lifestyle that was personally comfortable. For specific reasons I will not go into great detail as to who did what and how, but I will say that it took us less than one month to ruin everything that had been planned for the last half of the year. We moved to Orlando August 9^th, 2011 and had fallen out and decided to go separate ways by August 28^th, 2011. It was at this point when I came to realize that all of the warnings about mixing business with pleasure were coming true even though I thought that our friendship would be strong enough for our business to survive any problems, and prove false all of the friend and business taboos.

     In Robert Greene’s the 48 Laws of Power law #2 which is “Never Put Too Much Trust in Friends, Learn How to Use Enemies” Greene speaks of the mixing of friends and business and how it can sometimes hurt you more than starting a business with your enemies, “A friend is rarely the one who is most able to help you; and in the end skill and competence are far more important than friendly feelings”. A lot of times in the business world there are certain things that need to be said or done and if both parties are not able to separate friend feelings from business feelings things could turn bad pretty quickly. This law also speaks of the need for all working situations to have a sort of distance between the people. There are various documents and stories to be read and heard about that will detail the accounts of many friends who tried to start a business together and ended up losing everything including friendships and business investments. 

Office Space No Office Space

Volume 2

I was sitting around the house and started thinking that maybe if I could find an office space for rent then I could get more work done. So I started to Google and craigslist search for cheap office spaces. To my surprise there were office spaces ranging in price from $50 a month to well over $700 a month. The lower priced office spaces were generally the virtual office spaces that have become the new craze of starting entrepreneurs. Many of these virtual offices consist of a live receptionist or a voice recording, a phone number of your choice and a physical address. Now the physical address is not necessarily some place where one can go work for a full day at no additional charge, the addresses are usually used for mail delivery and occasional office space rentals for meetings with future clients. These meetings where the pre-purchased office space is used can range from $20 per hour to well over $50 per hour.

While the virtual office is a great idea and convenient for most entrepreneurs I decided that it would not work for the office of The Shoe Café. Only because I was looking for somewhere that I could setup daily office hours requiring myself to go in for a set number of hours everyday. While performing my search I also came across office spaces that could be rented on a monthly basis. Now this really caught my eye because it was a physical address and the office would not be a shared space. So my two-man crew and I loaded the car and headed to view the potential future office space. When we arrived the building was not too pleasing from the outside but hey it was still worth taking a look at the inside, after all they were only charging $149 monthly. When we got inside of the office the leasing guy did not seem very happy to have potential future occupants interrupting his computer time, but he took us on the tour anyway. The office building was setup like an old abandoned hotel. When we got to the door of the available space I got a little nervous. The door was opened and we looked into what looked like a 100 square foot walk in closet no windows and dimly lit. This would not be the location for the office that I had envisioned. I realized that I would dread going to the office instead of looking at it like an escape route for the daily life dramas. I wanted my office to be my escape route but how could I just escape to a closet?

On the ride home things were a little quieter in the car. This is when I realized that if I could wait about six more months and save what I thought I would spend on the office each month, and then I would be able to afford the type of space that I wanted. I decided that for now since I lived downtown that I would turn the corner with the most windows in my apartment into my office space. This would be where I would find my fashion inspirations by watching the occupants of downtown Orlando move about their daily tasks while I watched from my window or balcony.  With working from home I now could pick any location in my apartment where my office would be setup and save money for my one-day soon office space.

 

The Stiletto Diary Volume 1

So I decided that since there is no one road map for how to successfully open and run a business, that I will write about the daily trials of trying to start a business. As children we grow thinking that one day we will own our own businesses, but at this age we could not begin to think of all of the stresses involved with such an exciting thought.

In February of this year I decided that I wanted to start a shoe business that would offer shoes comfortable enough to stand in for hours. I decided that if I wanted the business to be successful that I would need to devote every hour to piecing things together. It was not until I looked up and realized that I had almost let my entire senior year go past me that I needed to find time for personal and business not just try to blend it all into one.

I never realized that opening a business could be any harder than deciding what you wanted the business to be about and purchasing supplies. I mean with those few ingredients, who couldn't be successful? Well I have come to find out that a good idea and supplies are not all that is needed to run any business.

With my daily postings I hope to help other aspiring entrepreneurs avoid the same mistakes and setbacks that The Shoe Café has come across. I have already placed shoe orders that have either fallen through or were ordered through scam sites. This blog will provide insider information that is usually only offered to the select few starting a business.