I really believe in taking the path of least resistance. Nothing that “should be” should be that difficult. Learning this has been really really expensive, both on a personal and professional level.
Case-in-point: Opening our Spinning business.
In 2004, my husband and I opened up a Spinning studio – sort of. I say “sort of” because we didn’t know what we were until we closed the doors for the last time and had a few months to ponder the experience. My husband was recently out of work and he had a fondness for competitive cycling and we knew that there would be others who had the same. We made a lot of “mistakes” while launching and operating that business: We picked a tough location. We had identity issues and didn’t catch on that our customers were having trouble making the leap from “Spinning studio” to “a place for amateur yet serious cyclists could meet each other and train together.” Yikes, that’s clunky just typing that. And too late did we realize that it would require way too much capital to get the store going.
I remember how difficult the store was to open. We had a lot of trouble getting financing. Lots of trouble with our store designer. Lots of trouble with our contractor. We spent way too much money on our logo. All the way, if we just listened to the universe, we would have heard the signs telling us that the store should not be opened – at least not the way were doing it and not that time in our lives. But we could also see that our customers were extremely devoted and that at its core, the service we provided was valued.
It just didn’t make a good business model.
After three years, we said goodbye to some extremely loyal people who actually cried and sent us some very touching emails. We closed the doors and dealt with the reality of losing a ridiculous amount of money.
Lesson learned: Anything that’s too difficult to do should not be done.
Put another way: if something should be done, it should be natural and easy – as if you are attracting the goodness towards you. It should feel “right” and you should be rewarded.
To that end, I’ve decided to uber focus GoGoMamaGo to be much more mompreneur focused. I’ve been running my 5 Questions series and it’s been extremely successful. I have a ton of submissions and the articles are the most read and commented on. Not only have I received so much positive support for the series, I just feel good doing it.
I haven’t done any research on whether this niche is saturated – I’m sure it is, but this just feels like the right thing to do. You’ll still see stories about my own saga as a business owner, but stay tuned for many many stories of women and their journeys as business owners and mothers.
If you’re a mompreneur, please contact me! Here are some ways to get onto GoGoMamaGo:
1. Answer my 5 Questions.
2. Submit your thoughts on the upcoming topics for Straight-Talk Tuesdays.
3. Email me if you think you would make a good feature profile.
4. Email me if you think you have a great guest post idea for my readers.
5. Contact me if you have a product that you’d like reviewed on GoGoMamaGo.
Thanks and I hope you guys enjoy some of my upcoming articles!
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Saw this on Twitter today:
“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Coincidence?
GoGoChristineGo! Brilliant you are- brilliant! What an ingenious, fabulous way to breed good karma and publicity for all- WinWinMamaWin! Everybody wins!
Love it- and congrats on your move- sometimes you just gotta go back where things feel right!
Christie