Business vs. Life Plans

As I settle down after the morning of business organization meetings and get into my already settled in Tuesday and Thursday Pastry Cart routine with Santine, I reflect again on my priorities for the day. 1. Make scones 2. Prep food for tea house 3. Get the tea house ready for guests the list ends up being a mile long. Wait - I tell myself. I haven't even factored in my family priorities yet. Oh my goodness...I have not even begun my day and yet, I am not sure how I am going to accomplish all that needs done. Okay - business plans are for the business. Life plans are both? Maybe life plans can be compared to umbrella insurance coverages. They encompass many plans with the intention that it is unforeseen. But, it's planned.... humm? Anyways, keeping with my sales goal I prioritize my day accordingly and cut out what cannot be done today. It may be a small list of things but its better than a mile long one that is close to impossible. Family life is hectic enough. The many family needs are endless and I am not sure what kind of plan I have for dinner.
In any case - as a team Santine and I have picked up a couple of new businesses to sell pastries to in the morning and we felt great about the response. We normally spend about an hour or so doing this, these two mornings. We are definitely doing well. It looks like we are going to have to figure out a way to divide and conquer as we start to do more and more. These trips are fun. And we are definitely getting the hang of it. ~Jamie

Well, it's Tuesday, Sept. 22nd. Before I can focus on the Pastry Cart, I have to focus on my kids first. Just to get them out of the house by 7.30 am is a job in itself. To be on top of weekly activities, I have to process my week already in my head when driving to school. Somehow, every week I think we have a pretty low week and by Tuesday the whole week is swamped. This week we have Doctors and Psychical therapy appointments, several play dates after school, guitar- and piano lessons, Curriculum night for the four boys, Growth group training at church, a scentsy party at the neighbors, getting a dress for Nynke's homecoming dance, serving time in church and practicing and playing in the worship band on Sunday. Pfffffffffff................luckily I did 'Hot by 6' cook group with friends last weeks, so my dinners are ready to go until the end of October.

Talking about balancing life....... And then now I have to think about the business planning for this week. I baked for a couple of hours yesterday, so I have my pastries ready for the Pastry Cart. I have to send an e-mail to two coffee shops to promote my pumpkin muffins, they turned out to be so tasty. I tried for days to find the right ingredients for the perfect muffin. They sent back an e-mail that same day with a order for 2 dozen of muffins. I needed the extra orders this week, after spending almost $60 for ingredients (ouch). Some items like butter were more expensive this week. This week with the Pastry Cart we were able to sell quit some pastries. The nice thing about it is that we are selling our pastries for retail price, which is more than selling it for whole sale prices. With those extras, I had a little bit of profit. Jamie told me I should advertise with dessert trays with a variety of bite size pastries. Businesses could order those trays for business meetings, training days, or staff meetings. So this weekend we will put that extra service on my website. You can check it out on http://derooverbakery.com/Dessert-Trays.php. And then for the next Pastry Cart, I will bring some flyers with that information for the local businesses. Jamie has a good eye for marketing, what helps me so much while developing my business. I really enjoy doing the Pastry Cart. It gives me the opportunity to get out of the house, and meet new people and learning to sell my pastries. We even have a new friend at the police station. He hunted us down in Sherwood on our day off from the Pastry Cart, to get a couple of chocolate chip cookies. He will leave money at the police station every Tuesday an Thursday for a couple of those cookies :) ~Santine