The racking for the New Office finally arrived this morning - and we move in tomorrow! It's exactly what I wanted and fits just as I visualised it, which is encouraging, and adds to the sense of excitement I feel about the whole move.
In total D and I will have spent about £5K ont he project, and while it would have been useful to take that money for ourselves, it feels really good to invest it into our business.
Especially when I think of the story he related to me this morning of a friend of his (a client, with whom he seems to be getting increasingly 'involved') who has just paid the same amount to get her one room office decorated???
Makes you realise there are a ridiculous amount of people out there who are gullible, totally unaware of how to look after themselves, care not about the money when a business is paying for it, are prepared to rip people off.
Quite shocking. Also makes me realise perhaps the value of having a partner with whom to embark on such adventures.
But £5K, for decorating an office and laying some carpet...?? hello?
She's not even happy with the result and thinks she might look to move anyway.
There's no doubt that many many businesses (most, but that would be cynical) prey on the ignorance of their clients.
On which subject, we had a photographer round three or four weeks ago who spent four hours with the family taking shots to 'practise' with and to use on her website to promote a new business. We've had three 6 x 4 prints that have been Photoshopped to Hell and back, selected by her from a DVD slideshow containing 75 beautiful images.
All we want is a CD of those original images, which would cost her what - half an hour of time and the negligable cost of a disc?
For whatever reason, she won't do this for us, instead insisting that we buy the disc for a 'massively reduced' £120. Otherwise the pictures are £5 each, £8 for 7 x 5 etc.
Places like Venture are an absolute rip-off and charge hundreds of pounds for a single image (big size) which represents an enormous and completely immoral mark up. They run their filters automatically on the original pictures (which applires their trademark 'style' to the images which takes next to no time.
I don't quite know what Julie Davis problem is with giving us the original images, without all the FX, just copied straight from camera to CD.
There could perhaps be a potential loss of income, but there is no cost, and the whole exercise was supposed to be a mutual favour.
I hate being let down by people.
Anyway up, the shelving. Took me four hours of hard work to erect it all and bolt it together in place - and now I have the 'packing room and store' more or less sorted.
Everything is packed up in the old place now and tomorrow morning I pick up the van with Ian and we get shifting.
It's a great feeling. All ours too, going back to the money. We have no investors, no loans and no overdraft. That's what makes us use the money sensibly and make it go as far as we can. And being so hands on with a business like everything else makes it all much more real and tangible.
So different from just borrowing someone else's money and throwing it at anyone who quotes for something.
Get involved, get off your a*se and do it yourself. get your hands dirty, make your back ache.
Then feel the return on the investment.
The antidote to all this?
Cooking.
This evening I've just made the most gimungous pumpkin pie for the Church Family meal on Sunday. It's cooking now and smells delicious.
Aside from music and a dabble at writing, cooking has to be my most enjoyable stress buster. And my pastry is better than my mum's, which is a buzz as she taught me in the first place.
It's annoying and disappointing that she's treating us like a customer, when in fact it was she that approached us because we have children covering a wide age spectrum and it would be a good opportunity to get some promos.