Control freaks & tumbleweed...

I'm a bit of a control freak at heart.

I may deny that if you catch me at the wrong moment but if I analyse most of my 'quirks', shall we say, they pretty much come down to me not feeling in control. And freaking out a little about it.

• Scared of flying. (I want to know who the heck is steering this giant airborne tin can).
• Always hours early for things. (what if there’s some wildly unpredictable event like a meteor landing on the motorway and it makes me late..)
• Moaning at the hub for never sorting out the online food shop but know if he did it himself it’d drive me crazy as he’ll forget to order the ravioli and toilet roll and it’s Just Better I Do It Myself…!

You see what I’m up against here?..

So, something I’m having to learn to master in the wondrous world of running my own business, is the unpredictability of the retail industry.

Sales can flourish and go Whoosh! Kaboom! on a Tuesday but on Wednesday you find yourself Googling if there’s been a national WIFI outage because that Shopify sales ping has been discouragingly silent all day.

Like any good and bad cheer – we all know for the 1000 fabulous comments we may receive on how bloody marvellous something we did is, that 1 shitty comment someone deigns to impart is the one emblazoned in our minds forever.

Similarly, a week of chart-topping sales followed by a day of tumbleweed can send you into all kinds of irrational panic – no-one will ever buy again, that it's game over, maybe I should go and sell Peppa Pig ice creams in the Caribbean?

Talking to any fellow business pal is a sure-fire way to put your mind at rest – it seems we’ve all been there at one time or another and it’s just having the gusto not to think bonkers thoughts and presume the worst.

Likewise I’ve also learnt to steer clear of the business WhatsApp chats when I’m not in the right mindset – the ones where on non-tumbleweed days you can embrace the cheer and goodwill of other’s successes but during the radio silence moments, seeing other people’s record-breaking orders can make you want to go swim at the bottom of a particularly grubby pond and wallow in your own smelliness for a while.

Whilst I may not like it – there’s only so much of who, when and how much my customers pounce to buy my (bloody marvellous) products, that I can influence myself.

The rest of the time it’s in the hands of the shopping gods (I’m going to call them Vera & Bert) to weave their magic…

**Now how do I make Vera & Bert my bestest lifelong friends?....