My business week v. 28

It is a short working week also this week when I was still on Gotland on Monday and last Friday I turned 25 so then I took time off and indulged in a long weekend too :)

I do not take a holiday this summer so you have to take the opportunity to take a few small days here and there instead! Leisure and getting other impressions are at least as important to get creative. At work you are productive and graze on your checklist - but the motivation and most new ideas you collect outside of work ♥

But it has still been very eventful working days Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I can promise that :)

Relocation on g!
In March, I wrote in the post My business week v.11 that we would stir in the pot - then I could not go into exact details but I thought it might be fun to feedback to it now so you know what it was I was talking about then :)

1. The biggest was the restructuring financially (which I have already told about in this post) between the companies that run Creative Makeup - which now from 1 July is completely under the same roof not only practically but also financially. It's a horse job during the move and there are still small threads to fish up before everything is completely in place, but it makes it so much easier in the long run!

2. The second thing I will tell you now - it is that we will change premises and move the salon! No not to Spain;) but a better location but about the same location in Uppsala. We have recently been looking for vacant premises and sent lots of expressions of interest to various brokers and compared prices here and there. We have also looked at one before but it did not feel spotless, it was sickly cheap for that situation but you do not want to go down to standard either.

We have not decided anything for 100% but we have actually found a venue that has a hit on almost all parts so it is likely that we will hit on it! In any case, our goal is to terminate our current contract before the end of July! Because we have a 9-month notice period, so we have to cancel it now if we are to avoid another summer here.

Reason for moving:
Old premises and poor conditions: Vårt nuvarande kontrakt är väldigt dåligt, vi har typ ett “rivningskontrakt” och står för exakt allt själva och trots att den är så fin utåt så är den väldigt gammal och vi har jättemycket problem med värme och ventilation på sommaren och på vintern har vi tvärtom superkallt istället – vilket påverkar både oss och kunderna väldigt negativt. Det är även problem med varmvatten (t.ex. om man tvättar många sminkborstar på en gång) och det blir strömavbrott om vi använder flera kontaktuttag samtidigt. Detta var “bra” i början för det gjorde att vi enbart behövde skriva kontrakt på 1 år (det är ju alltid en risk att binda upp sig i början innan man fått igång allt) och dessutom fick vi billigare hyra per kvadratmeter eftersom vi hyr den i “befintligt skick”, så även fast den är svindyr eftersom den är totalt 367 kvm stor så skulle den ha varit for expensive if there had been better conditions.

Staffing in store: Dessutom vill vi komma bort lite från “butikskänslan” och satsa mer på behandlingar. Vi kommer ju fortsätta sälja produkter och ha webshopen som vanligt såklart men som vi har det nu så har vi absolut inte råd att anställa en person som är i kassan/receptionen på heltid och nu går det åt mycket tid och energi till att “vakta kassan”. Och den produktförsäljningen vi har i butik är ändå till 90% i samband med behandling, dom som kommer in och bara handlar produkter är absolut inte en av våra stora intäkter.

Economy: Then it is also an economic issue, we do not want to go down in standard, but since we do not necessarily need a visible store with large shop windows, you get directly down a little in price of just that. Then if we have a better planned room, we do not need as much space as we have now either, there are so many unnecessary square meters in the room we have now and you pay rent per square meter. The room we have our eyes on now is more expensive per square meter but is only 203 sqm large so it will be about 22,000 SEK a month and then we have much better conditions as well. A lot of money per year that you can spend on other good things :)

So summa summarum: Before next summer we will have moved but nothing has been decided and signed yet. But the process is in full swing regardless of whether it will be the room we are looking at now or if something else will appear. It will be a big project, but the financial structuring and relocation will make everything so much easier once everything is done!

Here we sit and go through the floor plan after we were looking at the interesting room last Thursday! How we ev. could plan all treatment rooms etc :) So fun!

Annual meeting & financial statements
Last June we have financial statements in the company and our financial year (corporate year) is over - now we start from 0 again and tick upwards on a new ball :)

Therefore, we had an annual meeting where we went through the goal picture that we set a year ago that had a deadline now! We compiled all metrics and got an overview of how we have developed.

So there has been a lot of planning for this this week, to make diagrams of all the numbers and put together a powerpoint presentation. I think it's very fun actually :)

And so we got the accounting reports for the whole year as well, there are always small adjustments before the financial statements are finished, but as it looks, even By Her AB plus, albeit very little hehe (By Her AB has not had all the income for the whole salon without type half). That By Her AB goes plus (or type plus minus zero) feels kind of hallelujah-good because we really did not think so! We have good sales but have sickly high wage costs (and other costs) and have gone minus almost every month. Meen it is the final number that counts;)

We do not need to have lots of profit either, last year we went plus but then Miska and I had not taken out almost any salary at all (we did not even have to pay tax because it was under 18,000 kroner haha). But now we have taken out a similar salary as the employees have and yet it has merged - so only it feels like a huge profit!

I take advantage of all the time I can - here I am sitting in the car on the way to work and planning the meeting!

Target image and self-propelled salon
Som sagt så hade vår målbild deadline 30 juni. Målbilden är alltså inte konkreta mål så som “så här många miljoner ska vi omsätta” utan mer en bild av hur vi vill att företaget ska se ut, rent visuellt. Vår målbild handlade mycket om vårt mediaflöde (t.ex. med beauty guides-uppbyggnad i webshopen och kampanjbilder som byts ut varje månad, event m.m) men också mycket om personalens utveckling och ansvarsområden. Alla dessa punkter är checkade (wihoo!) förutom en punkt där vi inte kunde sticka under stolen med att vi faktiskt har en bit kvar – vi har kommit långt men vi var lite väl naiva när vi satte 1 års deadline på den.

The point that we have a bit left on is that the salon should be self-sustaining both practically and financially even without me, Miska and Annika in place. It's not about us not ska be left without a company that only hangs on a few people becomes very insecure. Before, there were very practical things that only me and Miska could, e.g. the webshop, when a customer wants to pay in installments, what to do if the internet stops working, order both products and consumables and all that. So if we had become ill, it would have created quite big problems, and we could not take time off either.

The same thing was with Annika, but financially - that we received enough for the rent each month was basically only thanks to her income.

We've done a real bang job with all this! Taught work tasks and different areas of responsibility, has an apprenticeship plan and pricing strategy, expands with treatments and invests more in teeth whitening and soon also fibroblast and microneedling and much more.

Men vi har en liten bit kvar att gå vilket delvis är en “riktig” deadline nu eftersom Annika på riktigt försvinner i januari när hon får sin bebis :) Så då måste ekonomin hålla ändå! Och sen flytten löser ju saker både ekonomiskt och praktiskt också.

So we are incredibly happy with all the work we have done in just one year and that we at the same time has increased so incredibly much in the way of customers! Wow! Now we look ahead and have a very eventful year ahead of us.

Here you see some statistics I showed at the meeting, on this one you see our occupancy rate (ie how much % of working time we have bookings) and how it has increased in 2 years. Crazy! The lowest figure was 35% and the highest figure is 97% - and that is the average for all employees. Awesome, right? :)

Why?
At the meeting we also talked a bit about why we do things. Why is it good when the company is doing a lot plus financially? What difference does it make for those who are employed?

There are many answers to that - apart from the essential parts such as that they do not have a workplace if things are going very badly for the company;) there is so much you can develop if you have money to move around! Of course you need a buffer for security, but other than that, the money makes no difference when it is high on the bank :)

What if we could all go to Milan, for example? That fair that Annika and I were at. God so fun and inspiring! And there are lots of things that are both fun and edifying for the company that we could do!

Vi bjöd på jordgubbar och smoothie och avslutade årsmötet med att säga “gott nytt år!” haha, för det blir lite som nyår för oss :)

Huge addition of inspiration and motivation!
I feel life in me! It is such a nice summer, I have had days off and I have also turned one and then got a trip to Spain as a birthday present from Miska! All this has really kicked off daydreams-Helena and I have such enormous inspiration for the future now :)

Miska sang me up in the morning with helium balloons, breakfast in bed and a package that contained this funny picture haha and a map of southern Spain as well as the documents that he booked a flight, hotel for 2 nights and a rental car!

Den 10 sep åker vi till södra Spanien och hyr bil i hela 16 dagar (!) och ska bo på olika platser i hela södra Spanien! Såå kul! Miska har bokat de 2 första nätterna och på kvällen på min födelsedag sen så tog vi ett varsitt glas bubbel och bokade två hotell till – ett som är i ett gammal sten-slott typ och ett som är i lilla staden Júzcar som kallas “smurfstaden” för att alla hus är blåa :) Så mysigt! Ni som varit i södra Spanien för gärna komma med tips!!

We've checked approximately what we want to see on the road (but will be very spontaneous on the spot) e.g. shall we stay in Gaucin where my dream house is located (costs 30 million but you have to dream haha!) so in addition to the trip itself will be super wonderful, I will also dream away in future plans! You know that we want to move to Spain (or another warm Spanish-speaking country) in the future! :)

Jag och Miska är så roliga på den punkten – ibland svävar vi bort så mycket i drömmarna att vi glömmer bort att vi inte har kommit dit än. Efter att vi bokade hotellen så tog vi ett bad och pratade om hur vi ska sköta salongen när den dagen kommer att vi bor i Spanien. När salongen på riktigt är självgående så kommer ju det mesta av vårt jobb kunna göras på distans och vi kan ju vara med på möten via Skype! Och så blev jag plötsligt rädd (på riktigt) att alla kommer tänka “why do Helena and Miska get paid by the company, it's WE who do all the work! Why should they have a piece of the cake, they just sit and ice cream in the sun!And then I realize that we are still sitting in our old bathtub which is so rusty that it is taped with silver tape on the edges and the bathroom fan in the ceiling sounds bad because someone removed the tweezers which must sit as a support on the side for the wings on the fan should not hit the edge haha.

Lite som när vi för 2,5 år sedan precis hade startar salongen och hade superstora problem både ekonomiskt och praktiskt och sen gick vi ut och åt på restaurang och pratade om “hur kul det skulle vara att investera i mindre företag”.

We are disturbed but in a good way you can say;)

There are really no words for how much I like this little filure :) Here he is sitting next to me when I put on make-up one morning a week (this makeup in the making) and drank coffee and talked shit ♥

Long post today but I was in such a typing mood so it just rattled on the keyboard haha! Now I will continue to enjoy the weekend and look forward to the next work week!

Hugs are! :)