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Happy 5 Year Anniversary Sugar Crush Co!
You guys - 5 years, I have been running a successful online business for five years! That is crazy right?! I very clearly still remember the hustle and bustle of getting it all going while I was 6 months pregnant with my little girl. I took every penny that I made in those last few months of my pregnancy and poured it into my business. Well that was risky. Most rational people would squirrel away their money because we all know that maternity benefits just don't cut it. In addition to investing my last few dollars in my own business while I was pregnant, I worked hard, really, really hard. I would come home from work and spend my time designing products, taking photos (man they were bad!), listing them online, designing business cards and marketing materials, communicating with customers, and the list goes on. I worked right up until the day Annabelle was born and barely took a week off after her birthday.
I just kept fighting for this dream of running my own business and slowly it started to flourish.
Prior to going to university I worked at a non-profit organization and I believe that this job really helped prepare me for life as an entrepreneur. In a non-profit organization funds are tight and staff is limited. In addition to being an event planner, I was a volunteer manager, social media manager, graphic designer, copy writer, and more.
Now as an entrepreneur, I literally do it all. From designing products, copywriting, photography, bookkeeping, marketing, social media marketing, inventory management, website design, the list goes on and on and on.
There is never a dull moment in the world of an entrepreneur.
But I must say that there are a few things that I have learned on this journey that I knew absolutely nothing about. University nor my previous work experience prepared me for some of my responsibilities as an entrepreneur.
As a graduate from teacher's college, photography was not one of my strong points! I knew how to plan a lesson, read a book (yes there are special ways of doing that in the classroom), and assess student learning; but photography!? I very quickly learned that if you are going to run an Ecommerce business, photography is KING (or shall I say QUEEN!). If you don't have the best photos, nobody will stop by your virtual store to browse around. During my first year in business my Mama bought me a beautiful camera. To this day, I am still learning how to use it but hey - I think my product photography has come a long way. I am so sorry that I deleted all of my early pictures because they were absolutely terrible. It would have been fun to reminisce on how far my photos have come.
Some of you may remember that before I made cake toppers I made burlap banners. Well here is a photography blooper that I just had to share. Hmmm, too bad that my mother-in-law and I didn't notice until the end of the photo shoot that the banner was backwards, HA! Annabelle still nailed it though.
It took me a very long time to understand what Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is and man, sometimes it still befuddles me! However, after five years I am slowly starting to figure it out! SEO is simply how well your site or shop is optimized to rank in search engines such as Google. Yes product photography totally matters but if people can't find your products then nothing else matters really! So learning about SEO is something I do in very small doses every single day. Algorithms change every day so there is no time to sit idle when it comes to keeping up with SEO.
When I approached my photographer to do the headshots for my business, I had all of these fun visions. When you're a Mompreneur of a handcrafted party supplies business, you can't have a boring headshot right? Well we had a blast that day. I was about 4 or 5 months pregnant with Colin and I wanted to get those pictures done before I got tooooooo big! Here are a few of the pics that we snapped that day.
You can't do a headshot without kissing a unicorn right?
It looks like this ginormous balloon is going to knock me over!
This confetti shot worked really well in my mind. It seemed like such an easy shot to do. Grab some confetti, throw it up in the air, stare at it while its falling in your eyes and look really cute while you're doing it. HA, not so easy friends! It turns out the best way to get this cute photo is to have your photographer photo shop the confetti in because honestly, the pics weren't cute! I should have saved some of them to show you.
Perseverance, hard work, risk taking, and simply believing in myself have been some of the key ingredients to getting me and my business through the natural highs and lows of both life and business. I have never worked so hard in my life to be quite honest. There have been many days when I juggled two little ones while attempting to get through phone meetings, photo shoots, post office runs, order fulfilling, eating and showering - what's that? Needless to say, there were some very rough patches when the people around me suggested that I simply find something else to do. That would totally have been the easiest thing to do this whole time but nope, not me, I am not a quitter. LOL
Well the most important thing that I am learning these days is that you simply can't do it all. My husband is not going to believe that I am saying this, but it's true. As my business continues to grow (and it is exponentially growing these days), I am realizing that sometimes you just have to hire help. I have started to outsource some of my product photography, blog writing, social media management, and I might even have to hire a helper to work in the studio. The ad will be titled: "Must love lattes and wearing slippers". If you know of anybody, let me know!
Thank you - thank you - thank you to all of you for your ongoing love and support. Without my family, friends, and fans I would not be popping a bottle of bubbly tonight. You are the absolute best and I cannot wait to share many more celebrations with you all!
As a token of my appreciation, please enjoy free shipping for the rest of the week! Use the link to activate the free shipping or use the discount code 5Years at check out.
Much love!
Congratulations Quinn on your first 5 years of success. You have worked incredibly hard to keep everything afloat while working to keep your business soaring and raising two lovely little humans with Caley! We are so proud of all you have achieved! Cheers to the next 5 years of even greater success!
Cynthia @runningfrogstudio
March 12, 2019
Congratulations on five successful years! May you be blessed with many more.