It's Business Baby; How to Self Promote (Without being a Total Dickbag)

• Be active in your community; participate in twitter chats, comment on blog posts - but actually have something to say above “here’s my shop check it out!” Same goes for “hi from your newest liker My Shitty Candle Shop” posts on Facebook. STOPIT.
• Nothing sells better than a recommendation, but only retweet the very best; it can look pretty spammy else. And RTing a RT of something you originally tweeted? Just no.
• Carry business cards everywhere; just don’t hand them out like they’re free candy. You’re not free candy. Actually have a meaningful engagement with someone before offering a card.
• Follow and engage with your industry’s tastemakers on twitter and instagram, but only interact if you have something useful to add. “hey check out my shop!” is not useful, to anyone.
• Share your stories. ‘Hey here’s my new collection!’ is pretty dull when there’s a buzzfeed list to be had; share your influences, your collection’s making of, behind the scenes at your shoot.
• #don’t #hashtag #everything #it #makes #you #look #desperate
• Make friends in your sector for no other reason than it’s nice to have friends. Good things will naturally happen when you’re surrounding yourself with likeminded, enthusiastic folk. Trying to be BFFs with that fashion blogger so they’ll promote your shit is just nasty.
• Use the rule of thirds; 1/3 of your marketing should be self promotion, 1/3 interaction and 1/3 other useful stuff.
• Be genuine; even online, people can smell fakeys a mile off.
• Say ‘yes’ to things without always thinking “well whats in it for me?” Donate to that charity event, reply to a ‘but you could’ve googled that’ email, offer help when someone asks for it.

Grease Lightening editorial shoot for Teen Vogue shot by Josh Olins via InspirationbyColor.com

It's Business, Baby; Busy Babe Eats

It's the holy grail of self employment; finding a repertoire of recipes and meal ideas that are quick, varied, healthy and nutritious and sometimes easy on the pocket for tough times like tax month. It's a topic that I see spring up time and time again on my peers' Facebook pages and suchlike so I thought I'd share a roundup of some of our favourite recipes and meal ideas!



Breakfast

Breakfast is a big deal in the Cooke/King household as it's basically the only meal we'll sit down and eat together. The menu varies depending on our mornings' activities; if we're working through the day it'll be something like poached or boiled eggs with wholewheat toast for Gareth and spinach for me. When I have an exercise class planned for the morning I'll start with a green juice and have a couple of boiled eggs and some smoked salmon after my classes, and in the winter months it's porridge all round. Some of my favourite breakfast recipes are;
Avocado on Toast with Poached Egg
Bacon, Egg and Toast Cups
Mushroom and Spinach Egg Cups
Apple and Peanut Butter (love this 'apple sandwich' idea!)



Lunch

Lunch is a pretty varied affair for us. Sometimes, it's grab it and go; something-on-toast is the go to. Sometimes, we'll make sure we actually take a full lunch 'hour' and treat ourselves to something a little more extravagent. It all depends what our schedule is like and what we've had for breakfast that morning. Here are some of my favourite nutritious lunch ideas;
Quinoa and Sweet Potato Lunch Bowl
Vietnamese Raw Spring Rolls
Red Pepper and Spinach Soup with Orzo



Snacks

When the 3pm slump inevitably hits (even when your work is getting to play with glitter, it hits!) it can be all too easy to reach for a big bag of chocolate buttons and settle in for an afternoon of stealth procrastination. At Crown and Glory we keep a few things on hand to make sure we're not going to be heading into a sugar coma. We subscribe to a Graze box for a weekly drop of super varied, calorie conscious little nibbles and were recently gifted a box of fruit and nut bars by the lovely people at Natural Balance Foods; they're perfect for when you fancy something sweet with a cup of tea but consist entirely of natural ingredients.



Dinner

It's imperative to us that dinner is quick and simple; often after a day in the office we're in the gym until late so we often turn to some sort of protein (chicken or fish) with steamed veg and rice, a stir fry or an omelette with spinach and bacon. It's something I'm trying to expand our repertoire of quick and tasty dinner ideas that aren't too heavy. Here's what's caught my eye on Pinterest and we'll be trying soon;
One Pot Wonder Tomato Basil Pasta
20 Minute Thai Noodles
Lemon-Thyme Chicken with Sauteed Vegetables (in fact anything from this list!)
Edamame Fried Rice

Do you have any go-to recipes to keep yourself well-fuelled when you're rushed off your feet?

Images via Death To The Stock Photo

It's Business, Baby - Befriending Business Babes

It’s no secret that being self employed can be very solitary by nature. in the first few years of business You’re going to to be faced with long working hours, not a lot of disposable cash and a lot of time spent in loungewear, in a state not exactly fit for public consumption. If you’ve come straight from a traditional work or educational environment, it can seem particularly isolating if the only human interaction you’ve had all week is condescending looks from your postman. You may even find that the very nature of your work and the way you’ve chosen to live your life seems to be alienating those that once seemed so dear to you - some people just don’t understand the importance that cancelling dinner plans can have for your future when you’re self employed.



Which is why finding your ‘people’ - business friends, allies and confidants - early on is so important to ensuring it’s success. beyond business, it’s paramount to your well being. I truly believe that surrounding myself with positive, excitable, enthusiastic people in the last few years has completely transformed my own mindset. Some of the people I’m now closest to share the same beliefs, dreams and fears as me, and I’ve met them all because of my business.



Stuck with where to start meeting new people with the same interest as you? Here are ten ways to meet, befriend and stay friends with some seriously empowering babes;

• Don’t be shy, be the first to make contact. Admired someone’s work for like, ever? Drop them a friendly (but brief!) email telling them as such. Be cool, no-one’s going to want to be friends with a total fangirl. It just makes them feel awkward. Worst case scenario, you’ve just cheered up their day. Best case scenario, they feel the same about your work too! I’m sure you’ll hit it off in an instant.
• Get out from your office and go for a walk. Hit the art district or a coffee shop and people watch. Make conversation! Be available for interaction - don’t stay head down on your phone the whole time.
• Attend networking events and parties specific for your industry - there are a plethora of meet ups, tweet ups and mixers around that are a far cry from the traditional networking event. Yes getting out of your pyjamas and into the real world is scary and annoying but how are you going to meet people sat behind your computer all day?
• Don’t discount workshops or promotional events as good networking opportunities either. I’ve met some of my best business babes through attending wedding fairs that are designed to sell our product to our customers. 
• Are the networking events around you just a little lacklustre? Make your own! Invite all the people you talk to online to a bar that’s in a central location to everyone. Do it during a traditional down—time for your business sector. Throw in a little free booze if possible. You could make awesome connections and encourage others to do the same, too!
• Be memorable and nice. Follow up with the person you had a really good conversation with at an event. Send a thank you card to the person who gave you a bunch of advice over email. Worm your way into those people’s subconsciousness!
• Be loyal. Don’t rip off other people full stop, but especially not your friends!
• Be outwardly supportive. Share the love when your BFF launches a new product. Be a shoulder to lean on if your friend is having a bad day and needs to rant.
• Don’t stand for shit. Some people will just be out to use you. Invest in people who are willing to invest in you, too.
• Have morals. I don’t care “well it’s just business”, if it feels shitty, it is shitty. I’d rather have morals than an extra few pounds in my pocket from doing something against my moral compass.

Images from Wildfox Pre Fall 2014 Campaign via Fashion Gone Rogue

It's Business, Baby - Brand Audit with The Blogcademy

In case you haven't heard, last month our friends at The Blogcademy launched their hotly anticipated set of online courses, The Blogcademy Homeschool. First and foremost, let's get real here. The Blogcademy is not about telling people how they can make like a bajillion dollars from their brand new blog, despite what the naysayers think. The Blogcademy teaches skills about how to use blogging and the internet as a whole that are transferable to anyone who works online. I've waxed lyrical about my time at The Blogcademy workshop before, so when the girls' announced they'd be launching bitesize, online modules as well I was super excited to see what they had to offer.



First on my radar was the Brand Audit booster. I already knew the benefits of taking some time out from working in the business to step back and work on the business, and regularly write plans, goals and reports, but have never sat down and looked at how our brand is being represented online and off, through our marketing and collateral.

The module consists of a 10-minute video seminar with The Blogcademy's branding expert Shauna, two worksheets and a checklist of the steps to go through to conduct your own brand audit. Armed with washi tape and stacks of print-outs, I was excited to see what we might find.



Looking at the bigger picture with brand C&G, I was happy to see that we're quite consistent with the overall look and feel for the brand but it's cemented that I'm not sure how relevant it now is to our products and company ethos. Our brand has grown and evolved in so many ways in the past three years and I feel like our visual representation in our logos needs to now match that. Conducting a brand audit has also given me more firm ideas on the sorts of online content we can create to go alongside our existing products by looking at a snapshot of what is popular amongst our fans and customers.



Some more detailed observations and changes we've made as a result of our brand audit;
 - our social media profiles weren't looking completely consistent so we switched up the cover photos so that they matched throughout.
- we noticed a slight difference between logo representation on some of our collateral, so we've updated the artwork files for next print runs.
- found out some definitive themes in what is popular throughout our different social media profiles; for example, our top Twitter posts are personal tidbits and slightly sarcastic jokes, our top Facebook posts are inspirational, self love themed quotes/memes, our top Pinterest posts are pastel hair and glitter makeup and our top Instagram are quirky/off kilter images (James Franco in flower crowns, Gareth’s ‘beard garden’) and fun memes. Overall I was happy to see that our social media is coming across in a fun, inspirational, personable way and now I can dedicate certain content to each platform.
- we noticed that our the twitter and Instagram handles were quite brand-centric, so I updated to add a little personalisation in “account managed by lilac-haired cat botherer, Sophie” to match the content we were posting.
- we noticed that we never used blue colour from our brand colour palette, so we've updated to the punchy hot pink we instinctively use quite regularly.




Have you conducted a brand audit recently? Did you find anything surprising? The Blogcademy actually hits London this week with their two day workshop on 19th-20th and 22nd-23rd, and a little birdie tells me that they might just be able to squeeze you in if you were interested in coming.

It's Business, Baby - I Wanna See Your Depop-pop-pop...

(...Your Depop-pop) If you now aren't singing this song over and over we can't be friends!

Death To The Stock Photo

Never one to miss out on a trend here at Crown and Glory HQ, our latest social media obsession is Depop. Ever scroll through your Instagram feed and think - damn I wish I knew where to get that cute skirt/top/headband from? Well Depop saw that gap in the market and ran with it - quite literally. Think of it as Instagram but for buying stuff, users can take pictures of the pieces they want to sell right into the app, add a description, set their price (though haggling is encouraged I do believe!), set their postage and push the listing through to their Facebook and Instagram pages. It really is that. easy. Users follow their favourite feeds, and scroll through their listings altogether much like the instagram feed we all love to waste hours at a time on.



While the adopted presence at the moment seems to be for personal users selling their unwanted clothes and accessories, brands are hot on the mark and joining suit; our favourite feeds so far are Mod Dolly, Motel and Ever Ours but we'd love to follow others so leave your links below if you're jumping on the bandwagon, too.



So far, we've been using our Depop as a kind of Outlet store - posting one of a kind, samples and ex-stock items at up to 70% off RRP. It's a so much easier to navigate than an eBay shop (though we have one of those for our Outlet range, too!) and with only 10% commission and no listing fees is more purse friendly, too.

Will you be opening up a Depop account for your business?

It's Business Baby - Coping in a Crisis

As the eagle-eyed among you might know, Crown and Glory HQ was brought to a pretty tumultuous standstill last month when, travelling back from teaching a spin class at the gym one evening, our Gareth was involved in a nasty road traffic accident. I'd had a pretty lazy day that day, actually spending most of it in bed trying to fight off tonsillitis and fitting in some admin tasks in between napping. When the police turned up at the house after Gareth was 2 hours late returning and told me he was being airlifted to the hospital with possibly 'life-altering' injuries, I'm sure none of you will think bad of me for the business being the last thing on my mind.

Thankfully, for an accident so severe, his injuries were pretty minimal - well if broken vertebrae, ribs and sternum can be classed as minimal - but he will heal back to full health in the long term and is already almost back to normal day-to-day life. He was very, very lucky.

Once the drama died down and life started getting back to normal, it became evident to me that in a short-term scenario like this, I actually had a crisis plan in place, even if it wasn’t written down on paper as such. Here’s some of the things we did to manage the damage that this could do to our business.

• Let your existing customers know as soon as possible if there’s going to be a delay to their orders. As long as they’re given notice, most will be absolutely fine. There might be some that need to cancel the order or service, and try not to panic about this - remember their priorities are completely different to yours, and that’s totally understandable. Just because you’ve let them down on this one occasion doesn’t mean that they’re going to vilify your business forever. For those that are happy to wait, include a little sweetener (free gift or discount code) to say thank you for being understanding once you do get their order out. Little things like this go a long way.
• Prioritise your work. I often use the Covey Time Management Matrix without even really thinking about it, but physically making a grid on a big bit of paper and putting your tasks/projects/orders on post-it notes to organise into the different quadrants can help to stop it all feeling overwhelming and give you a clear agenda for the foreseeable future. Also make note of tasks that could sit in the different quadrants depending on who is considering it. For example, I had to choose between completing a last-minute bridal party order on time or preparing press samples for a big photo shoot. One had to give; the bridal party order was obviously incredibly 'Urgent and Important' for the client, but for us, could be considered 'Urgent and Not Important' if I was thinking in terms of exposure and the future of the business. However, as I have a soul and a conscience behind all business decisions, without a heartbeat I chose to complete the bridal order. There’ll be other photo shoots. There won’t be another wedding day.
• Use social media to reach out to your customers and fans - I suggest this with caution; for me, there’s nothing more off-putting than a small business that is always having some sort of drama. It’s really not going to make me trust them to fulfil my order if there’s some sort of excuse for being behind on their work every week. BUT if this is a real once in a blue moon, actually affecting business emergency, social media is one of your fastest ways to spread the word. How much personal information you give is up to you, really, it depends on the sort of business you have. Keep it concise and clear and give us much practical information as you can. Get a friend to read through it if you’re a bit worried about it verging into X-Factor sob story territory.
• Carefully consider how much new work you can take on. ASOS recently closed down their whole site for 48 hours when there was a fire at one of their main warehouses. We removed fast - track shipping options for a few days to give us a bit of breathing space with receiving new orders. Now’s probably not the time to post that website-crashing social media promotion you had planned - hold off on business-growth until you’re back on track.
• Remember there are some things more important in life than your business. It’s hard, when your business is your lifeblood, to not panic that it’s all going to come crashing down around you. But sometimes you’ve just got to take a deep breath and get on with it.

Like I said though, we were really lucky. I was able to implement these things pretty easily and quickly, and after a few short weeks Gareth was able to return back to work. But realistically, and without wanting to be too maudlin, it is important to sit down and consider some worst-case scenario solutions should you not be in a position to take things in hand yourself. For example, I’ll be enlisting a trusted business friend with our social media and email login details should we ever be in a position to not be able to make announcements ourselves. I’ll be showing Gareth how to use more of the back-office management systems like downloading and shipping orders should the tables ever be turned. We’re making sure our insurance details are bang up to date should there ever be a fire or theft of our precious equipment or stock.

Do you have any crisis management protocol in place in your business?

Photographs by Craig McDean for Vogue Paris, April 2006 via À la Mode

It's Business Baby - Introducing Your New Best Friend...

One of the most amazing and frustrating parts of running your own business is that, more often than not, there’s no real set ways of doing things. Amazing, because you get to trust your gut a lot of the time, take an idea and run with it and be the creator of the sort of environment that suits you best. Frustrating, because sometimes, you know the way you’re doing something isn’t the most time or financially effective but you’ll be jiggered if you can think of a better way of conducting the aforementioned task. I’m talking things like bookkeeping, data management and inventory tracking. Sure, we can look at how our peers and contemporaries are presenting themselves online, or visit open studios and talks run by likeminded businesses, but more often than not, the very nuts and bolts that keep a business ticking over like clockwork can seem like carefully guarded secrets.

One of my many self-improvement goals for this business year was to be able to devise a system that meant that Gareth and future employees would be able to have a much better grasp of our inventory without me being involved. To be able to head onto the computer to find out what components made up which product. To be able to forecast stock control in order to get the best deals from suppliers. To stop end-of-year stock take being a task I completely dreaded. To even be able to do the material purchasing without my being there - hell, my old method of trying really hard to remember where I bought grosgrain ribbon from 18 months ago wasn’t cutting the mustard for even me anymore. As the business grows I need to be able to streamline the countless barely updated spreadsheets and word documents into something clear, concise and completely user friendly. A task I thought completely unachievable without getting some heavy-duty (read: dollar) back end system in place that would take a millennia to figure out how to use.

And then I stumbled upon Craftybase. An online inventory tracker and project management tool dedicated to handmade products. Super user friendly, Craftybase boasts at-a-glance stock tracking, the ability to create ‘recipes’ for your products and automatically creates pricing models so you can make sure your margins are up to scratch - even with labour cost involved, too. Sales data can be automatically imported (just from Etsy at the moment, though the creators have said that Bigcartel and Shopify are in the pipeline) and analysed in order to keep track of how your products are performing. Supplier details are stored in an address book - so no more racking your brains trying to remember where you bulk-bought washi tape from 12 months ago at an amazing price. Craftybase can also supply all sorts of reports, from cash-flow to customer activity.

Slightly-shit name aside (anything with ‘Crafty’ in the title makes me toes curl a little bit, to be honest…) I am really rating Craftybase as my go-to solution for our in-house logistics and project management, even though I’ve only touched the surface at its’ capabilities. As we currently make everything to order, I haven’t fully explored the inventory capabilities of this little bit of kit but know that when we move to holding more completed products in stock, we won’t need to update to another piece of software to control this is totally invaluable. I am using it to store supplier contact details, create our product ‘recipes’ and make sure our pricing is right as we expand our wholesale markets. It’s completely streamlined our production operations and I’m safe in the knowledge that it’s so user friendly, that anyone involved in the business in the future should be able to get their head around it pretty easily, too. 

How do you deal with your in-house logistics? I’d love to hear! By the way, if you fancy giving Craftybase a go for yourself, there’s a fortnight’s free trial - and if you sign up using this link, we’ll both get 10% off the (already very reasonable) monthly subscription. 

Images via Death To The Stock Photo

It's Business Baby - Updates to Distance Selling Regulations Demystified

From June 13th 2014, the UK government are updating the old Distance Selling Regulations to the Consumer Contracts Regulations.  If you're a UK business that delivers products, whether that be physical or digital, or services, you'll need to update your terms and conditions of contracts or you'll be trading outside of the law. The main changes to legislation for selling physical products via the internet are as follows:

• Consumers now have the right to cancel their order for a minimum of 14 days after receipt of the order instead of a minimum of 7 days. This does not include made to measure or personalised items. This 14 day period is regardless of how long it takes to deliver the item to the customer.
• You must refund basic cost of delivery when orders are cancelled, regardless of the reason for cancellation. Returns delivery is still liable at the customer's expense unless the product arrives faulty.
• You must provide details of the key information of the contract either on paper or on another 'durable medium' e.g. the order confirmation email. This includes; 

         - description of goods/services
         - the total price of goods/service
         - cost of delivery and details of who pays for returning the item if the customer decides to   cancel their order
         - details of the customers' right to cancel
         - information about the seller and how to contact them

• You must make a standard cancellation form available to make the cancellation process easy for the consumer. The consumer is not obliged to use this to cancel the order, though. 
• Refunds must be made within 14 days of receipt of returned goods, or 14 days of the customer's proof of postage, whichever is soonest. The customer must make this proof of postage available to the you in order for this clause to be adhered to.

We'll be making sure our order confirmation emails include all key information, updating our terms and conditions on our website and our email templates to reflect the extension to refund timess and making sure our returns form details who is responsible for paying for returns' postage. How will you be preparing your business for the updated regulations?

Disclaimer:  I am not a solicitor, and this is merely my interpretation of an update to legislation. To ensure you're in full compliance with the law, please ensure you read the governments' Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013

Image via Death To The Stock Photo