“The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.”
-Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Today is our 5-Year Anniversary. It’s our 5th Birthday. Whatever you call it, it’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that 5 years ago TODAY I sat down at this very same desk (it was my grandfathers’), this very same laptop (probably need to think about an upgrade) and spent the day launching my website.
What a 5 years it has been.
Last Thursday, the one week eve (is that a thing?!), of our 5 year anniversary, I attended the Real Estate Staging Association (RESA) Indianapolis Chapter annual kick-off meeting. As I sat there speaking with so many new faces excited about beginning their journey into owning their own staging business, I remembered back when I was in their shoes. And, because we are in the business of design, those shoes were pretty darn stylish.
I remember calling all the established home staging firms at that time, leaving messages (because no one answered the phone), about how I was interested in talking about the industry, local market, etc. because I was interested in perhaps starting a home staging firm.
Not one return phone call.
Come on, seriously?! I was in advertising which is notorious for being a shark filled industry but at least we all SPOKE with each other and networked.
That’s why in 2017 I decided Indianapolis needed a local chapter. So, seeing this chapter begin its third year with so many new people asking questions and GETTING ANSWERS made me immensely happy.
The landscape of the staging industry in Indianapolis is changing….for the better.
The other thing that I noticed was the underlying concern of not wanting to make mistakes. Although I completely understand the concern I will also say that, if you own a business, you have to get over that. The truth is you are going to mess up constantly. That’s not a bad thing, as long as you learn from the mistakes and re-adjust course quickly. That’s where the true litmus test comes in.
Failing isn’t negative, as long as you fail forward.
I have EPICALLY failed over the past 5 years. However, what was formed in my ‘failures’ was so much better than my original plan.
For the most part.
When I started Elephant in the Room on this day 5 years ago I had a vision:
I was going to spend half of my days in my beautiful office, wrapped in a cashmere throw, with perfect lighting, soft music and the soft scent of a candle to ‘inspire’ me as I put together beautiful designs for bungalows, like the one my brother and I just staged and sold in record time.
My Reality?
I’m in my office only a few hours a week. More often than I care to count over the past 3 months, I’ve been in horrible weather loading and unloading trucks so everyone (myself included) could get home safely. I’ve fallen so many times I have a permanent bruise on my right hip and a perpetual sore throat.
My office? It’s far from magazine-worthy. Currently, it’s an explosion of paper piles getting ready to sort to send to my accountant. My cashmere throw needs a roller to get the dog hair off of it, I don’t even bother with a candle because I’ll be gone before the scent permeates the room.
Flips? I wish! My brother & I are now landlords.
My vision of when I wasn’t in my magazine-worthy office, I would be in client’s homes doing consultations. I definitely didn’t want a warehouse - too much needless overhead. Yep, no warehouse.
Became….
I now have two warehouses - I’m two years into a warehouse in Indianapolis and just converted a warehouse in North Central Indiana that my Dad & Brother owned as part of their business to make it work for mine. A work in progress. We do almost exclusively vacant stagings in homes much larger than bungalows.
I had a vision of providing earth-shattering insights about color and design which I would feature on my blog: House Trained.
Um, yeah…
House Trained is now a series of design and staging workshops for Homeowners and Realtors where 100% of the proceeds are donated to Happy Labs, a 501(c)3 organization, dedicated to health and wellness of Labrador Retrievers.
I blog when I feel I have something to say and, if you’ve been following me, realize it has NOTHING to do with design or staging.
Definitely…I would have series of strategic advertising campaigns that would be flawlessly executed because that’s my background, right?
Swing and a miss…..
I did design a strategic ad campaign which I launched in Oct. 2015 and Feb. 2016 to get me in prime position for spring market….which it did. However, I spent that spring market “officing” out of ICU at St. Vincent Hospital trying to balance a rapid influx of new clients (hey! my marketing worked!), my dad’s declining health , and getting up to speed rapidly on legal matters ,involving my Dad, that were still in motion, even though he was not.
So. Many. Decisions.
Life continued like that inside the ICU for over 6 weeks, until, one day, it didn’t.
So. Many. More. Decisions.
I’ve eluded in past posts that my business and personal life have always been at odds with each other. Like a universal flow chart as one was on the upswing the other was spiraling downward.
#Balance.
As Brittany and I were working on the 5 year anniversary logo my thoughts kept going back to sitting with Dad at St. Vincent Heart Hospital in January of 2015, a month prior to our launch. He helped me choose the logo for this business from the ones Brittany had designed from my cryptic description of “I need an elephant that’s not an obvious elephant but more of an outline of an elephant. I don’t want it to be an obvious African or Indian Elephant but more of a Universal Elephant. I’d like the color to be a tone between blue and gray so a deeper light blue.”
Luckily, Brittany and I work very well together and have done so since about 2011. Naturally, she nailed it in 3 designs.
I remember Dad resting in his hospital bed, shaking his head and laughing and then saying “What you just said made no sense. You’re lucky you two understand each other because nobody else does.”
#Bittersweet
Looking back, I feel like that moment was the beginning of the end. A turning point - the birth of my business and the beginning of the end of his life. A process for both.
Every time I look at our logo or my gold elephant tray (a Christmas gift from Dad in 2015, the last Christmas he was with us) I could be sad or I can look at it as his last earthly gift to me - the gift of guidance in getting my business off the ground, imparting wisdom, and a lifetime of unconditional love and support that not only he gave me but also my mother, brother, friends and family gave me that makes it ok to fail, as long as I fail forward.
I choose to believe the latter.
Best. Decision. Ever.