*Fanfare and Fireworks*

It is with much fanfare, great excitement and not just a little pride that I get to make this stupendous announcement....

SARA'S SOAPS 'N SUCH IS TEN YEARS OLD!!!

Isn't she so sophisticated and sexy!?

It has been an awesome ten years marked with growth for my business and me, as well as some memorable moments, great laughs, frustrations and some amazing friends who've been walking beside me for several of those years.

One memorable moment...  It was 2002, and I'd been in business about 18 months or so.  I'd done one huge show and was doing my first ever EPA Show.  With about two hours to go in the event, Mom (who was helping me sell) starts hawking percentage off discounts - without consulting me.  I asked, "What are you doing?" 

Her reply was, "Since you've been at this for over a year now and are still in the red, I figured it's time to liquidate and cut your losses."  I explained to her how long it takes small businesses to get out of the red, and she accepted that.  Now, it's ten years later and my business is squarely in the black.  She remains one of my biggest advocates and supporters, and I still do the EPA Show each Fall.

So, how are we celebrating this milestone?  

1. All purchases during the month of June get 10% off their total.
2. Enjoy free domestic shipping throughout June.
3. All customers who make purchases will be automatically qualified to win a Sara-dipity Gift Set with a bar of spa soap, a 4-ounce bottle of lotion, a jar of scrub and a lip balm (retail value - $25.50).
4. A special feature product each week that has its own special discount.  Keep your eyes peeled to Facebook or Twitter each Monday to find out what that week's feature product will be.
5. A brand new business logo - she's grown up and is looking hot!
6. A new, improved website, launching next week.

Thank you to all my customers, Twitter followers, Facebook fans and friends who've supported my business with encouragement, guidance, rim shots as needed, shares and retweets.  These past ten years would not have happened were it not for each of you.  Many blessings as we grow toward another ten years!

Balms Away!

The Cary Senior High School class of 1991 is pretty amazing.  When I walked on 9 June 1991 and flipped my tassel over, I was honestly glad to be done with high school, done with my classmates and ready to move on to college and the next chapter of my life.  However, our 20th class reunion and that modern marvel known as Facebook brought a lot of us back together beginning last Summer.  And, with the passage of time which has affected all of us - even bringing most of us to a new maturity - we've been able to reconnect in pretty neat ways.

One of our fellow alumni is a soldier currently serving in Kuwait with personnel under him serving in Afghanistan.  He identified a need back in the Winter - some of his soldiers were feeling lonely and weren't getting many packages from home.  So, our class stepped in, sending some necessary and just some plain enjoyable supplies.

There's some talk going around our class's Facebook page about getting together again to pack yet more boxes to send overseas.  I'm hoping I get to drive back "home" to help pack the boxes this Summer.  Either way, I have been stocking up on granola bars, popcorn and stuff like that to put in the boxes, and I decided to send some lip balms, too.  Check these out for our well-deserving, brave men and women serving in the Armed  Forces - you know, those folks who are fighting for those freedoms we all enjoy.

Balms Away! lip balms in patriotic colors

Would you be interested in joining us in supporting our troops?  Comment below, and I'll happily give you  some suggestions and ideas.

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Theme Songs

The shipped cha-cha dancing motion file assigned to the Baby model data (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You might remember watching the show Ally McBeal, and if you know the show at all, there was an episode in which Ally starts seeing a psychiatrist (played by Tracy Ullman) in an effort to get rid of her dancing baby hallucinations.  In the course of the first session, the psychiatrist asks her, "Theme song?"  Ally has no clue to what she's referring and shows her confusion.  The psychiatrist explains that your personal theme song is a song that boosts your spirits, gives you that "oomph" to get through a situation.

Following that episode, I decided that I needed a theme song.  Mine's "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison.



This is the song that gets me going, energizes me and puts a kick in my step.
It stands to reason that my older daughter would end up having her own theme song (also adopted by my younger daughter).  I couldn't think of a better song in all the world for my little CEO Kid than this one.  It's "Firework" by Katy Perry, and I love it.



What's your theme song?  Which song motivates you, energizes you and keeps you moving toward your goals?

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Little Blue

I have a car that I really like.  It's a total Mom car, a PT Cruiser with tons of cargo space and a cool profile.  I fell in love with the Cruiser when it first came out, because I liked the gangster, "Al Capone would've driven this car" look.  It drives like a dream, and it's cooler than the typical sport utility Mom-mobile.

I still have my other car, too.  My husband's been driving it, because it gets really great gas mileage.  She is a great little car - zippy and cute with awesome handling.  She's ocean blue, though her paint job is looking a bit ragged from age and dings.  Every now and then, I get to drive Little Blue, and tonight was one of those times.  The girls wanted to ride home with their Daddy, but there was no room in Little Blue for them, so he drove my car with the girls and I drove home in my little car.  Sitting at a light, I texted my husband, "I feel like I'm sitting six inches off the asphalt and reclining."  No matter how hard I tried, I felt like I couldn't get the seat back up as high as my seat in the Cruiser is.

Eventually, I settled back, got comfortable and cruised (yes, cruised!  Ironically, my Cruiser doesn't have cruise control) on home at a smooth 80 mph.  I put Little Blue through her handling paces on our off-ramp, letting her hug those curves at 60 and decelerating.  Because that's what she does.

We Mompreneurs sometimes find it so easy to get used to handling our businesses with the steady dependability of our Mom cars.  We're sturdy, reliable and able to take on a lot of stuff.  This is good; it's what we need to do.  However, we also need to remember the cars of our pre-Mom days - cars with good gas mileage and little cargo space, cars that were exciting and exhilarating to drive.  In remembering those cars and how it felt to drive them, we also need to transfer that same feeling to our businesses.  Setting aside momentarily those sturdy and reliable ways of running our businesses, how might we embrace the thrill and excitement of pushing our businesses - once more - to their limits, daring to test our businesses against the basic math of what "could" happen, but refusing to play it safe anyway?

Sucked In

I really enjoy a catchy commercial.  Whether it's moving, funny, powerful or extremely creative (like the latest Cartier offering - Super Bowl quality in the middle of network prime time), a really good commercial will definitely make an impression, and sometimes, sometimes, it'll make me consider buying whatever they're offering.  My favorite commercial of last year was the Verizon "Susie's Lemonade Stand" commercial.





This one caught me.  With my own little girl in business and me having periods of mobility where I'm away from my computer for long periods of time, I thought, Hmmm... Smart phone.  Then, Hmmmm... Verizon (we currently have T-Mobile).  With a few hours a day for a week while my older daughter was in Vacation Bible School, I took time to shop phones and plans.  It didn't take me but two days to think, "I'd rather be car shopping."  Oh my gosh!  It's like comparing apples and tomatoes - they're both fruits, they're both red, but that's about it.  They serve different functions, are used in different recipes and taste very different.  The same with phone and plan shopping.

I'll spare you the gory details, but by the end of the week, I didn't have a new mobile carrier, nor did I get a new phone.  I'd gotten caught up in the whole thing!  My ocean blue Sony-Ericsson flip phone is covered with paint chips (apparently this is a normal complaint with this phone), and it's developed this really annoying habit of turning itself off at the least opportune times.  At the time, AT&T was looking to acquire T-Mobile, and I really didn't want what AT&T would be bringing to the table.  However, since then, the FAA has squelched the merger and T-Mobile is improving its coverage areas.

So, with a flip phone (for a few more months) and my non-Verizon mobile service, what can I do to make my small business grow?  I can use that phone (yes, it's really more than a camera, Tweeting device and mode of updating my Facebook statuses) to make phone calls.  I can arrange meetings and make cold calls. How cool is that?  I can even use my less-than-smart phone to run credit card sales.

Enjoy cool, cute, well-created commercials, but don't get sucked in.  Good commercials are made to get you to buy stuff.  Take the time and make sure you're buying something you really need, not just what you want.  I'll be replacing my phone so I can take care of my emails when I'm traveling, but that's after almost a year of shopping and comparing phones.

What great commercials have you seen recently?  How likely will you be to buy those products based on those commercials?

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