Inman Park this weekend!

We are busy busy gearing up for the Inman Park festival this weekend. The weather is looking good, which is a big relief. This is my first time doing a big 2 day show, so I have no idea what to expect. I've been making soap for 2 weeks straight! As I mentioned in my previous post, we will be premiering a NEW COLLECTION OF SOAPS as well as a NEW PRODUCT! Plus we've got some serious SALES going on, so be sure to stop by!



Unfortunately I'm not sure exactly where my booth will be located, so if you don't stumble into me, feel free to call: 404.808.6900. Click here for more info about the festival, as well as upcoming markets and festivals that Mama is doing.

Mama update

In the effort to become a better blogger, I'm going to start trying to write some short and sweet posts vs the occasional verbose rant. There will be more of those too, just with some other stuff in between.

I'm currently busy busy getting ready for the Inman Park festival which is in 2 weeks!! Times-a-tickin'and I'm up to my elbows in olive oil, making batches and batches of soap. My mom is making the trek from Ohio in a week to help me get ready and then she will be doing the festival with me, which I'm really looking forward to! She has been an amazing source of support and inspiration in my journey with Mama, and I only wish she lived closer to share it with me more often.

I will be premiering a SPECIAL COLLECTION OF SOAPS at Inman that I've been working on for the past few months, as well as a BRAND NEW PRODUCT! You'll have to stop by my booth to find out what it is. In addition to making the goods, I'm working on a plan to freshen up my booth a bit. I have only done the occasional festival for the past couple of years and this year I'll be doing most of the ones who will accept my application, so I decided it was time to funk it up. I just hope I have time to do everything that I want!

I have also have a new scent in the line called Fresh - it's a delightful blend of pink grapefruit, tangerine & lavender, and has been selling like hotcakes at the markets I've been doing.



I will get Fresh online after Inman. The plan was to do it before, but I'm trying to get better about pacing myself and prioritizing.

Also coming up on May 16th, I will be at the Kirkwood Festival. Hope to see you out and about enjoying our hard earned spring! I'm crossing my fingers for great weather...

Mama has a new retail store!

Mama has some exciting news, which has been brewing for the last couple of weeks. We have moved into our very own retail store! Well, not exactly our very own. We are sharing space with the fab folks at Taj Ma Hound Dog Bakery. I met Krista, the owner and proprietess of Taj Ma Hound, through a very good mutual friend of ours. She has a big old shop and I have been jonesing for a retail space for a while now, so it was serendipitous that we join forces.

You may think, body products and dog biscuits? We thought that at first too. But upon discussing our businesses and our customers, we realized that we have a lot of crossover. Also, she bakes in the back and sells in the front, and I needed a retail space where I could do the same. So it really is such a great fit. We may just be the new business model for weathering this economic downturn! I will miss my spacious studio, and my wonderful studio-mate Mary, but there are so many pluses to my new store. Not only is it less than a mile from my house (I can finally ride my bike to work!) but it also gives me the much desired opportunity to meet and interact with my customers.

The store is located in the heart of Oakhurst Village in Decatur. If you want to come check out the new digs, stop by the Oakhurst Wine crawl this weekend! Click here for address and directions.

Old Friends and New Beginnings

My friend Jim directed a commercial shoot for REI yesterday, and asked me to bring some Mama products and set up my festival booth for the shoot. The commercial is about sustainable living and shopping locally - Mama fit in perfectly, and I was happy to participate. Especially because I got to set up in front of Sevenanda, a local grocery co-op. They've been on my list to contact about carrying my products.



My calltime got incrementally pushed three hours because the lead actor had fallen off of his bike and had to go get stitches. By the time they got to me, they were rushing to make their day because they still had several more locations to shoot and they were running out of daylight. Also by that time, the health and beauty buyer had gone for the day, so I didn't get to meet her but I got her card. This is the first shoot I've been on where I haven't been working, and I found myself more than happy to sit back and do my little part while everyone else rushed around with their hair on fire.

I had the opportunity to catch up with some old film friends I hadn't seen in a while. Everyone was super congratulatory about "getting out" – of the film industry that is. It made me feel like an anomaly (in a good way). People don’t get out of the film industry very often. Partially because it's good money and partially because most of us have resumes that don't translate well into other industries. Which is funny, because film people are some of the most hard-working, intelligent, clever and capable people I've ever met. And they are used to getting more done in a day than most people even think about getting done in a week.

When I sat down to write this post it was going to be about putting yourself out there and things coming back. That's been happening lately with Mama on many small levels, and I'm paying attention. But as I was writing, reflections on my film career and where I am now kept rushing through my head. So I think I need to have a little therapy and write about that.

Film work is made up of planning, anticipating, reacting when your plans go awry, and then pulling a solution out of your ass, all in a very compacted amount of time. It's high stakes, and especially stressful if you're the one responsible for the money part. When I started producing, I did music videos, which are the worst of the worst. On the way home from a shoot, I would get a natural high – almost giddy, because we actually achieved the impossible and got the video in the can. I guess I thrived on the intense ups and downs. And I know that I largely defined myself by my job. There was never a shortage of drama, and it was fun for a while, but the process and the drama stressed me out so badly that I got sick after almost every job. Commercials were better and I got into a comfortable pattern working with the same director. But nonsense is still nonsense, and I found myself getting less tolerant of it all as the years went on.

I was miserable toward the end, and pretty much left while flipping a mental middle finger. I thought it would be a huge relief, and it has been to a large degree. But most of my reflection has been about all of the bad habits I developed – necessary protective measures, but things that went against what I believe in and want for myself. And frustration that it took me as long to break away as it did.

Someone recently asked what I had learned from it. I completely surprised myself, because I couldn't think of an answer. I'm someone who is constantly thinking about things, and thought that I was someone who learned my lesson. But it usually happens once a situation is behind me. This led me to realize that my film career isn't behind me yet. I've been so hyper-focused on moving forward that I haven't tied up the loose ends that I left behind. I haven't honored the transition that I'm making right now. Or rather I haven't honored my years in the film industry, and part of that is seeing the good in those 14 years. Once I started thinking about it, it wasn't too hard to find.

I developed numerous skills throughout my film career. I learned budgeting, scheduling, time management, organizational and people management skills as well as how to work with clients - and that's just the short list. All of these are essential skills to have when running your own business, and most of them are things I never knew that I would or could do when I graduated from college. I got to go places that most people would never be allowed to see (ever been inside a morgue?). I got to meet and mingle with many exciting and well-known people. I got to travel. I made good money and had time between jobs to start my own business. And I met so many great people. Film work is very gypsy-like, and film sets become insular little worlds where friendships develop quickly. For many years I thought I had the best job in the world. I need to remember that.

Change was inevitable, and the prospect of change was and is very exciting to me. But now that I'm going through it, it's been harder than I anticipated. This is going to be an interesting year - I have a lot to learn, and a lot to unlearn. As of my 2nd month out, I haven't had an easy time of it. My worst-case scenario producer planning can be debilitating, as far as knowing what steps to take with Mama and what to wait on. I am a company of one, and I miss having a team to bounce ideas off of, and to help execute the plan. But I am slowly becoming part of a network of other small business owners who are filling that gap. After years of crazy hard work with downtime in between, I'm having to learn to pace myself. Not quite there yet – I still collapse with exhaustion at the end of every week. I'm pretty single-minded, and tend to do best when I can focus on one task and marathon through it to completion. So I’m having to learn compartmentalization - this is a concept that still feels completely out of my reach. Most of all, I’m trying to learn to get out of reactionary mode, which for me has become synonymous with crisis mode. Film work has a "drop everything you're doing and do this" mentality, and if I could pick the single thing that drove me completely insane about my job, that would be it. It made running a small side business very difficult because I couldn't plan in advance, and it was a source of endless frustration. And even though those calls aren't coming anymore, I still find myself anxiously waiting for something or someone to come along and screw up my plans. This makes little upsets become big upsets, and generally isn't very productive. So I have my work cut out for me, but I'm starting to see little flashes of what will be. Little breaks from the chains that bind me, which are mostly in my head. Slow and steady wins the race. And maybe someday I'll believe that.

How this horrible economic crisis could actually benefit my business

Let me start by saying I am NOT a Pollyanna. The original title of this post was "Trying to stay positive and focused when the world is falling apart." These are scary times. I am doing my best to stay positive. It doesn't really help when this is the front page of CNN:



I've spent the majority of January catching up from December, getting really really organized, and having a lot of talks with myself. I made the long overdue decision in December to quit my job and focus on Mama full-time. I have no regrets, but I have had some reservations. Granted, I am not like the majority of these unfortunate people who are getting laid off left and right. But I am now completely responsible for my financial situation. Freedom has a price, but it's a risk I'm willing to take.

I do have some background in an economic crisis of my own personal kind. When I started out a little over 6 years ago, I did the credit card thing (different time, different place, different product line) and I messed up royally. It cost me thousands of dollars in credit card interest and took me three years and a good deal of ingenuity, but I made it out without defaulting on a single credit card or declaring bankruptcy. If you're thinking "she only did what a responsible person should so she should quit congratulating herself," you're absolutely right, but look at the mess around us due to people that have bailed on their debts. So I guess what I should say is that I'm proud that I didn't contribute to the problem. I choose to look at it as having earned my masters in business from the School of Life. I learned a lot, and I'm ready to go round 2. It's pretty scary, but I feel so much more prepared, and ready to face the challenges. And I feel like my excitement and passion will go a long way in helping me get there.

My business is such a microcosm right now, that I have nowhere to go but up. And I'm optimistically thinking that I will be able to grow my business, even in these uncertain times. Maybe not as fast as I would like, but upwards nonetheless. The guy from Clif Bar started his business during a recession. Granted it wasn't this recession, and he lived in a garage and rode his bike to work. Or something like that. Actually, maybe it was Method. Whatever.

My point is, what this financial crisis has done is forced me to look at how I grow my business, which could really do me a favor in the long run. Because there aren't funds readily available to borrow, I will be forced to sell products before I can buy new ingredients, and I will have to use existing capital to grow. This will take longer, but I'm in it for the long haul, which I have to keep reminding myself. This will also help me weed out what is working and what isn't as I go, versus becoming heavily invested in some idea or product that turns out to be a big flop. My conclusion about using credit cards to run your business is this: racking up credit card debt might be an option if you're the type of business that stands to attract a big investor, or better yet, stands to be bought straight out for a huge sum of money. Then that 6 digit credit card balance might worth the risk - I didn't owe that much, but I've read about people who have. But I want to keep my business small and privately owned. I have no desire for human resources or overseas outsourcing to be items in my business plan. I know it takes money to make money, but unless Kiehl's comes knocking (which I'm not counting on), it's really not a good idea for me, or businesses comparable to mine, to borrow big. Like I said, I learned that the hard way.

So rather than writing a 5 year business plan, because frankly I have no idea what this year will bring, I'm writing a 1 year action plan. My goal is to take this year to figure out what is working and what is not, on a very small scale. I probably won't get to half of the things on my list, but I hope to be able to prioritize the ones that keep me moving forward and upward. In regards to borrowing, I am looking at applying for microloans as a means to help cover myself if I were to have the opportunity grow more quickly than I could afford. For example if I got a big order that I had to fill, and needed some capital to buy the ingredients or get a bigger piece of equipment, etc. But I fully plan to let the means dictate the end. Or is it the ends that dictate the means? I guess it's whichever one that doesn't involve using my credit cards. And it's going to mean working my ass off.

Another thing our stressed economy has done is helped me really start to pay attention to how I spend my money. On the rare occasion that I treat myself to a latte, I now make a point to steer clear of The Corporate Giant and head over to my neighborhood coffee shop. I'm not particularly impressed with how a lot of big business are running their businesses these days, and while I know they make a bigger impact on our economy and create a lot of jobs, I feel like it's my responsibility to help support the little guys. Because they're also creating jobs and paying taxes, just on a much smaller scale. And because I'm the littlest of little guys. I also buy as much local food as possible. Not only does it taste better and fresher, but I have done a ton of reading on farming and food distribution, and have learned that a big part of the world food crisis is a result of huge corporate farms who grow single crops - using pesticides which ruin the land and have other major consequences. Their existence has put many community farmers out of business, whereas increasing the number of community farms, who grow multiple and varied crops and serve smaller communities, could actually solve the food crisis. This is greatly simplifying a complex topic and I don't want to stray too far from my original point. Which is that as a result, I make it a point to spend as many of my grocery dollars as possible at local farmers markets. As well as avidly supporting other local food makers, crafters and artisans.

So, to sum up my long winded post, perhaps some good will come out of this big mess. Maybe it will create a new generation of more responsible consumers, small business owners and (gasp) corporations. My hope is that those of us who are trying to make a go of it on our own will be able to weather the storm and keep moving forward. And of course I really hope that jobs will be created for the staggering number of people who have lost theirs. And if not, maybe they'll join the growing ranks of small business owners and start one of their own. Yes we can.

Big Big Mama sales this weekend!

The Beehive Co-op (in Buckhead) and Gifted (in Roswell) are having BIG SALES this weekend, and I have marked a bunch of Mama goodies down 50 to 75% off. So get out there and stimulate the economy!

I'm playing big time catch up right now, so I'm getting somewhat of a slow start on my blogging this year. Lots of stuff going on behind the scenes, so there will be much more to come soon.

Happy New Year!

Quick update

Haven't had much time for blogging because I have been filling orders, restocking stores, and making lots of product for the holiday festivals that I have coming up. As well as celebrating a very fine moment in American history.

My first show is this Saturday at Mary Lin elementary school in Candler Park. Click here for details. I will be stocked with all my new holiday scents (that I still haven't had time to put up on my website). Unfortunately, Studio 658 will be closed this coming Saturday, because Mary and I are both doing Mary Lin, and we couldn't find anyone to mind the shop. We have worked out our schedules for the rest of the year, and will be open every Saturday from 11 to 3 beginning 11/15.

As soon as I hit one deadline, I have another one looming right behind it, so catching up has become a fruitless effort. I've decided to just go with it. On my list for next week: updating my website with everything holiday and trying to prepare myself for the onslaught of upcoming shows. I will post info and pictures of all my goings-on very soon!

Of course, in typical Emilie fashion, while my hands are making everything for the next weeks, my brain has already moved onto next year. After 6 years of plugging along in some form or another, I finally feel like I have hit my stride, and Mama is ready for the masses. I have some great ideas, and can't wait to share them with you! All in due time...