What does success mean or look like to you?

[tranguyen]

Happy October everyone 🍂 🎃

As we jump into a new month, we'd love to know:

What does success mean or look like to you?

Success can mean different things to different people. For some, it may mean expanding their businesses to a certain size or reaching a certain level of financial stability. For others, it may mean having a balanced life or positive impact on their community. 

Can't wait to read everyone's replies and learn what success means to you! 

[mpmpmp22]

Such a great question! For me, success looks like being able to enjoy what you do for a living and the people that you have in your life. 

What about you @Candlestore, @CareyJo, & @DestinyMay57?

[Candlestore]

@mpmpmp22 ;

    Well for me so far its been the reviews from our customers telling me how much they like our candles.  The best reviews are the people that come in the store and talk to us.  Why are these the best, because we can ask questions for clearer answers, and ask if there is anything they would like changed.  Now all reviews are not the best and some leave more questions than answers.  But when my google score is going up that is a form of success.  Two of my best reviews came last month in store.  One customer was mad at me because she took one of our new scents in a small 18 hour votive. I told her to try this one since she likes Patchouli.  The next day she came in looking to yell at me because "It smelled so good and filled the villa she was staying in and was mad I did not talk her into a Dozen of that scent.  So now she had to come back the next day to get a Dozen of them to take home."  That had me looking at her husband like I did not know she would like it that much, but I am glad she did.  The other review in store was, a customer who came in as I was helping others,  thanked me for our candles because they burn clean, clear the jar, and filled her house with the scent and not just a room like most candles do now.  The people I was helping started asking more questions about how they burn etc and I have samples of test jars we do and showed them.  These first time customers went from a $10 purchase to 2 of our $20.99 jar candles.  Hopefully they will be some of our life long customers.

These are the things I think are successful, Happy customers that become Loyal customers that get their friends and family to also buy our candles.  These small steps build a business to become more profitable and then the financial success and freedom will follow.  You just need to enjoy what you do and hopefully what you do makes other happy.

[mpmpmp22]

Love this and definitely agree! Great to hear 🙂 

[DestinyMay57]

https://modern-makes.square.site/s/stories/what-does-success-mean-or-look-like-to-you-3

see my website for full post but: 

Happy Thursday Beautiful people ,

To be honest this is a complicated question because by default I want to associate my success with profits. Am I making money? And do customers like what I’m doing? But then on the other hand I want to consider time. For me, if I’m doing better than yesterday, last week, last month or last year, I’m successful!

When I began my shop I felt like I was not doing good enough. I often found myself looking at other peoples success and wondering what I was doing wrong. No one tells us about how difficult being a shop owner is. So after reflecting on that I decided to be easy on myself. Yes, success can be measured in money, but I will say this if you make one sale more than yesterday or one more visit than yesterday or one more request for information, you are growing and overtime you will look back and see where you began to where you are now will take you one step closer to whatever goal you set moving forward.

I look forward to hearing from you. What does success mean or look like to you?

[MudFire_D]

Success used to look like a second location for me - but with Daphne's health scare last year - success looks like being part of our business hands-on again instead of working from a hospital. A near death experience for my wife - with sepsis and subsequent surgery after being stricken with full body paralysis (Guillain-Barre) provides quite a perspective shift. We've been excited to be hands on again and are looking into expanding our current location, buying our building, and having some construction projects here instead. We just paid our promissory note for the business 🎆👊💎😃 which means that there is now additional profit each month to put toward those projects. We've been able to re-roof our building, and put profit into our savings every month for the past several years which is light years beyond my first business which was running at a break neck / break even pace every month and constantly required cash infusion from me.

[mpmpmp22]

Sorry to hear about your wife's health scare and hope that she is feeling better! Health is wealth indeed.

[JUYBoutique20]

Sorry about your wife's health scare...situations like that are definitely eye opening and puts things into perspective. 

[tranguyen]

Sending you and Daphne lots of love Deanna ❤️ 

[Hailey]

SO PROUD OF YOU AND DAPHNE! Running a business that is so community-focused while battling life-threatening and altering events is a big load to carry. You have been vulnerable in the Community and I hope you feel supported in return. You are an inspiration to many for endless reasons 💗 Congratulations and good luck with what the future holds 

[isabelle]

@MudFire_D so happy to hear that things are looking up for Daphne's health and the business. A re-roofing and ability to have some savings is a great way to look at things. 

We're so proud to have you as a member of the Super Seller program and love the updates you've been able to provide throughout the last year regarding Daphne's health. We're here for ya!!! Keep truckin. 

[JUYBoutique20]

Success to me is being happy doing what I love.  I'm living a dream of mine and I'm so thankful.

[JK_Fiber_Art]

Sales & Profit, the rest is a no brainer .....

jk

[DLRosenberg]

Right now I would consider myself successful. For me it's about being able to pay bills, put money away for retirement, have some semblance of time freedom (although I work ridiculous hours) and not really having to answer to anyone.

[sophiemarievint]

Hi,

Currently success will be finishing setting up my own website (few parts left to complete) and getting my first customer. I can't wait. Success is everychanging for me based on where I am and where I want to go. 

[CareyJo]

For me, it's a level achieved.  Both financially and quantitatively.  Seeing our business increase while giving us security, is it for me.  I used to be more focused on goals.  I've been self-employed over 35 years and was in direct sales for a very long time, many moons ago.  I measured everything by the increments I achieved.  As I've gotten older and business has changed, security and increasing the whole of the business is by far a better measurement.  Back then all that mattered was that I was climbing and serving more people, getting better.  Yes, I did it for income, but the personal achievement and the recognitions were huge to me then.  We don't get recognition now and the only way to level up is to see our client base grow.

[LukeNieuw]

That is a great question. 

So many ways I've defined it over the years. Right now, I would say success to me is being able to push through the uncomfortable things. Getting to points where you start to question things and even wanting to quit but you keep moving forward. It tests your drive and persistence. If you keep moving forward when believe in what you're doing and you're in the proverbial $ hit, You're succeeding.

[Bronze_Palms]

Love this questions - success has really transformed for me over the years.

When I started the business, all I wanted was to make $100k. I worked myself to exhaustion to do it, hired people to help me and decided their success was my success. As I have developed a product line, have staff, and are 70% service-based, creating more opportunities for my team has really been was shapes my success.

On the floor, more opportunities means upselling scheduled clients, moving new clients over to newer artists. At the higher level, it means carving out what the path to management would be (roles, responsibilities).