HAPPY FOUR YEAR'S IN BUSINESS
If you're interested in our Four Year Birthday Party Celebration - here is my speech notes:
Thank you for coming. It's incredible to see you all here and to think that we have reached four years in business. We have been through so many ups and downs to think that we have landed here makes me so emotional, proud, and honestly unsure for what steps are next.
The past few months I have been really thinking about what I want out of this business and what that practically looks like in my day to day life going forward in the future.
How big do I want this business to get? What would my ideal schedule look like? Is what I’m doing even making me happy? Are my employees happy? What changes should I and could I make? Like realllllyyy thinking through this whole thing in the long term looking at it from several perspectives and re-evaluating where we are and where I want to be.
As I thought through all of these aspects of my business and what I enjoy and what I might want things to look like.. I kept coming back to the question of whether I do truly enjoy having a brick and mortar.
This idea of whether we should continue serving the community this way has been running through my head since I had my son back in December. It takes so much extra effort, time, expenses, and payroll to even operate this side of the business. Is this worth it and is this something that I want long term for myself, my family, and my employees?
Having a physical location was my original dream and when I started this business in 2019 but I was able to experience what being solely online looked like from June 2019 to October 2021 because our business was so new and the opportunity for the right space had not come up yet. So now that I have experienced BOTH sides of the business for a time I am truly trying to work through what the next steps should be and if I want to keep operating both.
At the same time that I have been trying to sort through and organize some things in my head the last few months, I haven’t been able to be back physically in store much since having Caleb, but this week I was given the opportunity to be back here by myself and serve the ladies who came through the door.
And it truly just hit me on my drive home from working that shift.
THAT is what makes my soul come alive. BEING with people. LOVING people in the here and now face to face. I just sat there and took in the deep conversations I was able to have that day with customers and truly marvel at the role we play in their lives. We have created a space for joy just as much as we have created a space that can handle hard conversations and authenticity.
It may seem silly and yes we just sell clothes - but truly if you spend a day here you will realize we are SO much more than that.
We have cried with customers. Celebrated engagements, job promotions, new relationships, and new life stages. We sit with customers who feel totally unseen and not worthy. We help them lift their heads and put on something new that gives them a little bit of a boost on a bad day.
After four whole years and everything that we have done… THIS is what I’m most proud of.
This space. The physical space to host and love on and be with people. The space my team has also helped to create and loves and cares for our people just as much as I do.
I am so thankful that I got the opportunity to be with you all again and I hope to continue to create and cultivate a space that is safe and fun and real for the women in this community.
I truly feel like in this season we are RIGHT where we are supposed to be, here physically present with you all in a world that keeps moving more and more online and away from true community.
Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for keeping this business going the last four years. It would not be possible without you and without my amazing team.
So let’s raise a glass to year FIVE and all that it might have in store!
