When One Door Closes, A Window Opens

Just learned some disturbing news about a friend. My mental response was flat out shock. She is extremely talented, very focused and driven, good at her job and compassionate. How could this happen? Why did this happen? You do all the right things, take all the right steps and still things can go wrong. You can be wrenched out of your reality, your comfort zone. I am feeling for her because I’ve been there and was lost because of it. I didn’t have a contingency plan and following the rules got me nowhere.

This got me thinking about how as much as I know about planning and organizing, I hardly apply those techniques to my life. I’ve thought this before and am trying to rectify that but its still true. Back up plans, emergency plans, contingency plans, worst-case scenario plans; we need them for every aspect in life and then we can be relaxed when something goes wrong. I’m an advocate of planning. I’m not saying this would have saved my friend from this situation. It literally just happened so she deserves a moment to readjust. I just think planning could have helped me more when it happened to me. Also, listening to my instincts, my gut at the time was telling me to get out, to move on but I didn’t because I was comfortable. And I wasn't for along time. But when one door closes, a window opens.

At the end of the day (and the beginning) I have to tell myself that I am 31 (almost, I have less than two months so I have to start practicing ) but it’s not the end of the world. I can still do this. All of it. And I will if I plan. People are living longer lives. I’m not automatically destitute spinster if I don’t have it altogether at this age. That whole 20-45 years at one job with full benefits to retire at 65 is not the reality anymore. Its not impossible but it is improbable in today’s times.

Plus variety is the spice of life. Its why I love event planning. I can start my business in the social events. Start as an officiant, start as a wedding planner. Make money, go back to school for meeting planning while getting certifications. Offer event marketing to small businesses and work my way up to conferences and the like. I think my blog can evolve the same way and I am already working on those steps with my etsy shop. Start small, keep my eye on the next milestone while working hard on the current steps.

I wrote this post as soon as I heard the news. This wasn’t my planned post for this week. I had one that was supposed to come out last week but the images have been giving me such a hard time I had to delay it. But this, the feelings behind working for what you want no matter what your chosen field are just as important as the work you put in. I knew I had to share this publicly. I know I am not the only one feeling this way and I know that my friend and I are not the only ones who have gone through this in their lives. Others deserve to know that they are not alone.

To my friend, you should know I still find you to be an amazing person. I know you will rise from the ashes once again. You inspire me in many ways. This post being just one of them. I can only hope that between the two of us we inspire many others.

~Lashette

End of a Partnership

I've delayed writing about this for months. Literally, delayed writing,not just posting. I am only now putting words together. First, I was kind of lost and didn't know what to do. Then I didn't know how to explain what felt like a failure. Now, I only hesitate because I don't want to seem like I'm badmouthing anyone when my intention is only to update and share my experience.

Well from all of that you probably already know what I am about to say. My partnership with R is at an end. It was short but sweet. As a reminder, back in December I asked R to partner with me in the creation and running if an event planning business. They agreed and we excitedly embarked on this new venture. For the first few months if this year we met often, brainstorming and business building. 

Jason Eppink (Flickr)

Then we hit a bit of a snag on my end due to traveling for my day job (like Japan for a month, then LA and Pasadena for another month). Then I got sick and then they got sick and suddenly we haven't met, updated, or anything for months. I buckled down ans tried to get our rhythm back. Our first talk about funding seemed to make R wary. Neither of us are so financially stable enough to carry a new business but we had options to explore, being minority women looking to open our first small business.

Unfortunately from there things fell apart and after a month or two R told me it was probably bet that I go on with the business without her. I was left with a huge feeling of uncertainty since I had been unsure about going into business by myself before which was why I asked R to join me. Also, the way she worded her 'decision' left me unsure as to whether she was completely out of it or not. Lastly, we had spent quite a lot of time coming up with our business plan and other business ideas together. I didn't know if it was ethical to continue with those plans rather than starting from scratch with something that was completely my own.

So, I put it all in the back of my mind and let it percolate. I did talk to a few others to get their opinions and add that to the pot. This all happened back in July. And though I am still unsure about what rights I have to the plans we made, I know I can get a professional opinion about that, and I feel now that I can go on and start a business on my own.

Facebook Marketing

I have come to the somewhat sad conclusion that Facebook is not the place for me to build an original following for Scarlet Moon Creations. Facebook before it went public would have been great for my young business. Unfortunately, I did not create a business page until just before that. The effect going public had was that now Facebook had to prove that it could make money as a social networking site. It decided to do this in one way by changing its site wide algorithms ruling what content users see. Basically, the more you like a certain person's or page's posts the more they show up on your news feed. The drawback to that is if you don't click that like button often enough those 'less liked' people and pages will disappear from your news feed.

Now all of us who have used Facebook for purely personal reasons know that we don't click that button for everything we see on our news feeds but that does not mean we do not want to see it all. Now Facebook did try to adjust things by giving you the option to change your settings and let certain people and pages onto your news feed while blocking others. They then came up with the Pages Feed so that you could actually see what the businesses and groups are up to without them getting lost among your more personal contacts. You can even make lists for family, friends, co-workers, and any other specialized grouping so that they can essentially have a separate news feed that you can look at. But honestly, when it comes down to it who wants to do all that work to find out what's going on with the people, places and things you have already taken the time to find and like so you could follow them easier. It somewhat defeats the purpose.

After officially going public, Facebook took even more measures to show its backers it can make money by creating advertising and boost payment packages for pages. "Hey, not getting enough followers, why don't you pay for an ad that you create for your target market here." Not a bad idea; a good one actually. But on top of that Facebook's new algorithm says, "hey all those followers you got (and possible paid for ads to get) aren't really seeing your posts. Really it's only 6% of them so you should pay to boost your individual posts so that the people who already liked your page can actually see you on their news feeds." Many business pages went from having, as an example, 1,000 followers and roughly 600 likes and/or views for each post they publish down to roughly 60 likes and/or views per post. For those of us just starting out, you only get about 5-10 views or likes per post unless you pay to boost your posts. And that's hard on a new small business. Unfortunately, within the past few weeks Facebook has done another update that reduces views for posts to only 1-2% of your following.

Courtesy of Pixabay

One way to get around the views issue is for your followers to click yes for notifications from your page once they like your page. This means every time you post something they will get a notification. The drawbacks are if those people don't look at their notifications often, it makes no difference or if you post a lot all those notifications can become annoying. So with all of this, these past few months I've been very frustrated trying to crunch the numbers and coming to the conclusion that Facebook is not the place to build a new business following. I think it's best to be more established elsewhere first and then give those people the option to follow me on Facebook and to offer Facebook only specials.

What does this mean for Scarlet Moon Creations and Facebook? Well, I've reduced my presence there by not posting as much. I plan to be more active on this blog and on my personal blog on tumblr. I use Pinterest, Instagram and most recently Google+ as sort of behind-the-scenes looks into Scarlet Moon Creations inspirations, creation process, ingredients, and its owner. I hope to create a full picture from all angles so you can see the business grow without being redundant across multiple social networking sites.

So Facebook is not going away entirely just having a reduced presence. I know that means more work for me since one of the perks of Facebook was if I go on for personal reasons and see or think of something worth posting on Scarlet Moon Creations page I could do so easily. That and already having a follower base to work from. But if even my friends and family cannot see my business posts to like and share it short of defeats the purpose. I wanted to end this post on a positive note and not a bitter one. I've gone back and forth over this entire issue and how I feel about it and I think that this decision is best for now and that is why I feel I can write about it. Its not the end, its just the beginning.