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Run Little Mouse, Run!

Filed Under: Business Musings

Me with members of the Women President’s Organization
Morgane commented on the Brand Spankin’ New Items post:

I was thinking that if i had to manage my own company, the first thing that would scare me would be managing my time.
Anne-Marie, i would love to know what a day or even a week at BB look like?
I know i am curious! )
Thanks for sharing your passion with us.

I’ve had variants of this question before and requests for the Bramble Berry story. It feels odd to talk about myself as though I am doing something extraordinary or special. But, then I look at the statistics and realize that with the help of my team, we are doing something cool. We’ve beaten the odds (knock on wood) and are among the (sadly low percentage of) 3% of women-owned businesses in the nation grossing over $1 million dollars. (Can I hear a ‘Woot Woot!‘?). So, if my experiences will help you reach the next pinnacle in your success, I want to help.


Speaking at the Admistrative Professional’s Day in Bellingham


My days vary greatly. Some days start at 4:30 a.m. when I leave the house for what I (gritted-teeth) lovingly refer to as my ‘Seattle Days.’ Those days end around 10 p.m. when I make it back home, both excited about what I learned, forward looking and frankly, exhausted. The Bellingham -Seattle – Bellingham commute can take up to 6 hours with traffic and usually clocks in around 5 hours. Thankfully, there’s Audible Books on Tape for the traffic crawl. Other days are in the office, loaded to the gills with email, soapmaking, phone calls, interviews, meetings and customer service tasks. Just publishing my daily schedule would probably be useless for you – but explaining my thought process behind how I plan my schedule might be helpful.
I plan my month using PlanPlusOnline software by Franklin Covey. I split my month up by percentages.
  • 15% Planning
  • 10% Executive Education & Learning
  • 40% Implementing Big Rocks & Doing General Management ‘stuff’
  • 25% Blog Projects & Writing, SoapQueen.TV & Social Media
  • 10% Travel* (for press stuff, speaking engagements or education)
  • The extra 10% – Working Out/Eating Healthy
  • The extra 10% – Friends & Family

*in difficult months, travel can account to up to 50% and the perfectly planned month goes out the window!


There isn’t enough time in the day/month to do everything so my days start early and end late. That’s the only way I can fit it all in and, it’s the extra 20% that really makes a difference to how I feel about my schedule. If I am working out, eating right and spending time with family on a weekly basis, a 12 hour workday seems easy.No matter where I am or what I’m doing, I’m always hooked into my iPhone (and before that, my Treo).Last month, my cell phone used up 298,440 MB of data, I sent 910 text messages and received 843 text messages (and that doesn’t include Twitter). I check my email first thing in the morning and emails are the last thing I look at before going to sleep. It’s not pretty. It’s not romantic. And it’s not what my husband would prefer – but that’s what it takes for me to run my small business. You have to get up earlier, stay up later and work smarter than everybody else.I can count the number of movies on *one hand* that I’ve watched in the last decade without a laptop sitting on my lap. And, even with all of that, I love my life and feel lucky and blessed every day.

Bellingham Mastermindmind Group


I’ll spend a few posts over the next few weeks explaining the various categories, what they mean and why I devote time to them.

Executive Education includes:
Business Book Club
Conventions (Soap Guild, Sales & Business Specific ones)
Reading self-improvement & business books on my own time
Subscriptions to: Inc, Fast Company, Fortune, Fortune Small Business, The Economist, Success Magazine, Money

What this does to my schedule: 2-3 days in Seattle for learning events and roundtable business discussions with the Entrepreneur’s Organization, Women Business Owners and Women President’s Organization, two evenings a month (thankfully in Bellingham!) for the Mastermind Group business discussions and Business Book Club and some local business events sporadically in the evenings. I read in the mornings before work, carry magazines with me everywhere for downtime and have trained myself to read in the car (as a passenger, not the driver!).

Why I devote this much time to things that don’t directly make me money: When I started Bramble Berry, I had an undergraduate degree in psychology and criminal justice. I went back to school and received my Masters in Business Administration 4 years ago and don’t want the learning to stop. Every day, I run into things I haven’t done before, challenges that seem to appear out of nowhere and paths that make no sense. Having a strong base of knowledge and other peoples’ experience to draw from helps to make me a better leader and make decisions that not only benefit Bramble Berry but ensure that there is a business for decades to come.

Business doesn’t come ‘naturally’ to anyone. Certain God-given abilities give people an edge (example: being able to sell anything to anyone) but financial literacy, appropriate human resources skills, marketing strategy, operations – all of that needs to be taught.

With the CEO of Ford, Alan Mulally at a *free* event I heard him speak at

What if you don’t have the money to do tons of executive education?Get creative! Classes at the community college, attend evening (free or close to free) lectures, start a Business Book Club, start a Mastermind Group and explore these ideas with other people and go to the library monthly to read the business magazinesUltimately, how you schedule your day is up to you and what works for me won’t necessarily work for you. The next post I do will be about the 10% Planning that I spend my month on – what the planning looks like and why it’s important to do.Please ask questions – leave comments – I want this to be a helpful series for you and I can only make it helpful through your feedback.

The best soap supplies on the internet are found at Bramble Berry. Click here to browse Bramble Berry.

 

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22 Comments

  1. Anne-Marie, what a wealth of valuable information! Thank you so much for sharing. I'd love to hear more about your Business Book Club!

  2. great series of posts! Organization in any form is something I have to really fight for – first in my head and then making it real in my life and business. I love all the help and ideas I can get!

    The photo of you and Alan Mulally made me smile, I have met him before as well – his college roommate is a very good friend and mentor of mine here in KS! Small world!

    Take care!

  3. thank you for giving us an inside look into your business life AM. you are so very inspiring to many of us….i really do look up to you as a business mentor- you always have such good advice/ideas! i so look forward to reading you blog everyday…its all good:)

  4. I think it is great that you continue to learn and grow. Life is all about learning and growing. You are definitely an inspiration AM!

  5. Hi Liana,

    I give myself goals for the day – and then fit everything in around it.

    It's based on this excerpt from '7 Habits of Highly Effective People'"

    A philosophy professor stood before his class and had some items in front of him. When class began, wordlessly he picked up a large empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks, rocks about 2" in diameter.

    He then asked the students if the jar was full? They agreed that it was. So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles, of course, rolled into the open areas between the rocks. The students laughed.

    The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled everything else. "Now," said the professor, "I want you to recognize that this is your life." "The rocks are the important things – your family, your partner, your health – anything that is so important to you that if were lost, you would be nearly destroyed. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, and your car. The sand is everything else. The small stuff."

    "If you put the sand into the jar first, there is no room for the pebbles, and the rocks. The same goes for your life. If you spend all your energy and time on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your wife out dancing. There will always be time to go to work, clean the house, give a dinner party and fix the disposal."

    "Take care of the rocks first – the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."

    Following this principle helps a lot. But life does happen – people call in sick, a big opportunity happens etc… so I'd say that 80% of my days go mostly according to plan. The rest of the 20%, I look up at the end of the day and wonder where the time went. =))

    Morgane, I sleep between 6 and 7 hours of sleep a night. During Bramble Berry's start up years, I slept a bit less but genetically, I seem to do okay on 6-7 hours of sleep during the week. I am pretty beat by the time the weekend rolls around though.

  6. Hello Anne-Marie, I was wondering how many hours of sleep do you get per night?? I know that i am not good to do anything if i don't get at least 7 hours of sleep. I know it sounds like i am a baby, hahaha!!

  7. Wow, it is very impressive! Thank you for putting numbers and hours on what it takes to be successful! It is a very tough schedule… Please tell more about how do you stay on track with your time, do you set timer for each individual task? I can plan, but it's hard to stick to the schedule. Every task seem to take longer that expected.
    Liana.

  8. oh my gosh.
    i love glassybaby

    i have contacted them several times to see if I could carry their wonderful little babies in my line,

    maybe one day when i get my own website up to par they will say yes.

  9. PS – Yes, I am in bed with my laptop answering this and yes, I did just walk in 20 minutes ago from another Seattle Day – this time with the Women President's Organization learning from Leigh Rhodes, the founder of Glassybaby.com

  10. FooBerry, No caffeine, no coffee. I've been 'off' of it for a few months and the first month was BRUTAL but now my baseline energy is back and I don't miss it. I do misss green tea though.

    I'll definitely take some time to put the Bramble Berry story to paper but to answer your question, no, I didn't know I wanted to be an entrepreneur but looking back, I had small businesses throughout highschool and college so in hindsight, it makes perfect sense.

    I'm glad you're all enjoying the post. It inspires me to dig deep and be as authentic as I can about the rest of my schedule so you all get some takeaways for your businesses.

  12. this was really helpfull for me!…could you share something about your marketing strategy ?

  13. i love reading that!! that is one of the most helpful posts that i have seen, to be able to look at you in your daily life, to know what you have done to get to this point, i love it! your just like all of us that read your blog everyday! LOL desire passion and knowledge is all we have to have!!!

    cant wait to read the next blog post annemarie!!

  16. How did this all begin for you? I know you used to sell at fairs etc. but did you always know you wanted your own business?

    I don't know how you do those long days. I'm sure coffee helps. Thanks for sharing.

  17. Thank you for taking the time to post this. Some people I know-like my parents-could benefit from this.
    Woot! Go, Anne-Marie!

  18. oh my gosh i love the banner too.

    last week i spent a frustrating 45+ minutes on CS3 trying to put snowflakes on my blog, shops, etc. all in vain.

    your banner is drop dead darling!

  19. it's not pretty
    it's not sexy
    it's not what my husband would prefer.

    thank you for sharing!

    we've always wondered what a day in your life looked like.

    sometimes you look tired, and our hearts go out to you! like the time you did the Etsy lab and the web cam had you live for 10+ minutes while you were waiting. I could tell that day you were whooped and you gave it all you had to input into all of our lives and we appreciate it so.

    being women, it is not easy to continually work when sometimes our bodies and our hearts cry out for another reality. with the fluctuations of our hormones, the seasons, and our families, the stress causes our lives to be even more demanding than men's. it is just a reality.

    you asked for questions: what is Big Rock mean?

    hugs! xxoooo

  20. Thank you so much Anne-Marie for taking the time to share with us all those great infos in your already BUSY schedule!
    I am impressed how you handle it and looking forward for the rest of the series!
    Be strong and keep on running little mousse!

  21. Oh *gack* never mind! I knew as soon as I asked you, I'd find it. After searching both your blog, and TeachSoap, I remembered to check your Soap Queen TV channel on YouTube. Duh. LOL! Found the episode…I'm soooo excited!

  22. I know I've said it before, but I'll keep saying it: you are so very inspirational, Anne-Marie! Thanks for being you and sharing your secrets! 🙂

    p.s. I'm not having luck searching for this, but I could have sworn you posted photos on how to make PJ Soaps' Bivalve seashell soap. I'm embarrassed to say that I'm finally attempting to tackle it. I have the booklet already with the directions, but I'm a pictures gal. Can you tell me where I can find this tutorial, if it was posted (or maybe I'm dreaming). Thanks!