entrepreneurial woes

Starting your own business is no easy task...especially when you're not the one in control of every aspect. I'm experiencing issue after issue with my dear, small stationery business. I've been an entrepreneur my entire working life, teaching private music lessons in my own home as my first job. That quickly blossomed into a healthy and thriving home studio with over 20 fantastic students (yup, that's a full evening schedule for sure). But teaching privately, I had never come across these sort of issues. I only had to depend on one person, me, and I can always depend on myself.

I'm not sure what I find so conflicting with my stationery business. I find it hard to put forth loads of cash for memberships at private stationery wholesalers, also cash for business registration and tax numbers to receive these discounts. Equally hard is buying marked up stationery from suppliers who sell to the entire public. This is extremely serious money for a not-so-serious, but thoroughly dedicated small side-business.

I guess am aware that the real problem is money v.s. labour. Really, how much is fair to charge the clients? And how much is fair to charge for myself? For my time, which I take very seriously. I also take extreme pride in being a perfectionist. My clients will always get perfect, gorgeous invitations, every time. There is no doubt about it - but how are they to trust in me, their stationer and stranger? And how can I justify charging what I feel is fair for my labour, when they don't yet know the quality of product they will be receiving? Tricky indeed...

So I keep going back and forth on pricing. What it comes down to, is that I'm either not charging enough for the work I know I will put into the job, or I'm charging too much for some clients to afford. Unfortunately what's been happening is that I end up not charging nearly enough to make a reasonable profit for the work that I've done. Technically - no profit at all. I can't possibly feel good about making $150-$200 profit from a job that I will be investing at least 24 hours in. That works out to $8.00 an hour, less than minimum wage for an adult with a degree and mortgage payments. I make more than 5x that much teaching privately...

You see what I mean? Sometimes I wonder what I'm getting myself into, but I enjoy it SO much. Paper is a sick passion for me. I love the textures, the lustre, the weight of it. How it looks in combination with print and other papers. And envelopes!!! Don't get me started...I feel like I should be charging what couture stationery designers charge. I just don't have that experience (though my finished product begs to differ), and I'm not using fancy printing techniques.

So I'm stuck here, in 'cost' limbo. Is this really worth it? The hours I'm spending alone on just trying to figure this all out? Do all small business's start out this way? My first one sure didn't. It's super confusing...at the same time, even with all this pain, I still don't want to give it up. I feel like I will one day come to a solution...but I just don't see that path yet, not even close. *sigh* How frustrating...

Friends I am absolutely doing your wedding invitations. The whole point of all of this, comes down to me loving stationery and you. So doing them for you makes it worth my time alone. Besides...I know your hands will be full of paper cuts right along with me.