Making Lemonade...

Anyone who's followed our blog probably wonders WHERE ON EARTH we've been for the past few months. In a nutshell, Julie and I made a joint decision in the spring to get out of the business. We weren't sure how we'd do it...we just knew we were crispy and READY! Julie has some other business opportunities brewing, and I just want to "retire" to my nursing career.
So...we began formulating an exit plan, and wondered what we would do with all of this "stuff". Very unexpectedly, a pair of potential buyers asked if we would consider selling the business to them. They recognized the value of our name in this area, and the value of our corporate client base. We were excited! They were excited! We hired a business broker, fast-forwarded through a complete inventory, put all of our records in order, and made sure the store was in great shape. We all met over the summer, and spoke on the phone intermittently about what progress was being made. The buyers were doing what they had to do to get their financing in order. They had asked if we would give them first opportunity at taking over the business and we honored that request. (We did not make the business available to the general public.)
The summer months were passing, and we were anxious to move on. We kept busy, tried to be patient, and kept everything running as normally as possible while we waited. The irony of it all was that we were having our busiest summer ever. We acquired some valuable new clients, and had several substantial orders booked into the fall. With shortened summer hours, we were barely keeping up. Still we were confident that the sale would go through, and we were happy to pass on a thriving business to our buyers.
Then one day a couple of weeks ago, we got our unexpected surprise. Julie was on the phone as I was flying out the door to make my evening shift at the hospital. She put her hand over the mouthpiece, and let me know that the sale was not going to happen.
To say we were disappointed is an understatement. With such positive feedback all summer from our potential buyers, we were pretty sure we would be out of the business by fall. Julie is already into some other projects, and I had been mentally filling my upcoming free time with family, travel, and assorted fun projects.
So...I'm fond of saying that what we're doing now is taking our lemons and "making lemonade". With sales on the increase, we're on course to have a fabulous holiday season, and all in all a banner year. We've always prided ourselves on being "gritty girls", so we put our disppointment behind us and dug our heels in for yet another holiday season. Being about a month behind (we usually begin mid-August) will be challenging. Fortunately, we've been through seven Christmas seasons, and have learned volumes along the way.
Last week we began streamlining our inventory and reconfiguring our facility to accommodate our current and holiday business. The store is upside down at the moment, but will be a fully functioning thing of beauty by the end of the week. And then we jump head first into the nitty gritty of holiday prep.
I have to say that twenty hour work days with hair-on-fire stress is not something we thought we'd be doing again this holiday season. But with increased sales, and half of our annual revenue coming in November and December, it wouldn't be such a bad thing to go for it and finish out the year.
And then there's "The Great Buck Howard". While it's still in "post production", you just never know.....we'll just have to wait and see where we are in January!