Would-be entrepreneur Emma March was furious when an accountant told her that her plans to open a retail store weren't financially feasible. But after the disappointment wore off, March, 27, realized she could start the clothing boutique she'd envisioned without a storefront.
"[My husband and I] were talking about how to proceed after the shock of someone telling me it would be impossible, and we came up with a mobile concept," March says. Thus, Gracie J's boutique was born.
As March learned, setbacks are an inevitable part of owning a business. Whether it's difficulty securing a business loan or learning to deal with a downturn in the economy, dips in the road can appear frequently in the life of your business. But smart entrepreneurs understand how to turn these setbacks into learning experiences--once the initial shock wears off, it's time to start brainstorming solutions.
March's willingness to rethink the issue from another angle led to a creative and cost-efficient breakthrough. She now uses her apartment in Arlington, Massachusetts, as her home base, selling clothing and accessories from emerging designers at private parties and events. Customers can host shopping parties in their homes, and March brings the merchandise to them so party-goers can purchase and take home the clothes that day.
"[It gives] a busy professional woman the time and luxury of shopping out of her home," says March.
Having worked in retail before she created Gracie J's, March estimates that the mobile concept has saved her business nearly $90,000 so far. "With insurance, employees' salaries, maintenance and utilities, even a small-scale shop costs about $10,000 month in upkeep," March says.
Overhead costs for Gracie J's are much lower, which has helped the business survive even as shoppers cut back on such luxury items as new clothing or entertaining. "I see these great shops going out of business [after six or seven years]," says March "and it's so sad. I would have hated that happening to me."
Laughing Her Way to Success
Pegine Echevarria has experienced the economy's ups and downs before. Echevarria started Team Pegine, a motivational speaking and consulting company, in 1996. Five years later, on September 10, 2001, her business was booming. She'd published a book on mentoring three years earlier, and since then, her agent had been bringing in a steady flow of speaking engagements. It felt like she'd "made it."
By September 13, all of Echevarria's bookings had been canceled. As Echevarria explains, "There were no conferences because there were no flights, and then people didn't want to travel because of fear."
Echevarria, now 52, started working on charity projects around Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but she missed the creative voice she'd had when she gave motivational speeches. So she signed up for a Saturday morning comedy class and found herself performing at an open mike night the following Monday.
Petrified about her first stand-up appearance, Echevarria says she "was really, really surprised because they loved it! So then I started going back and became one of the regulars."
As Echevarria continued performing, past clients and colleagues often showed up in the audience. "They were coming up saying, 'I didn't know you did funny stuff,' " remembers Echevarria. She accepted an invitation to join the Jacksonville Comedy Troupe, and pretty soon, she became known as the motivational speaker with keen comic timing.
Echevarria says her stand-up routines "gave me a unique selling point and differentiated me from other people, enabling people who'd booked in the past to give me a second look."
Thanks to her unique blend of leadership and laughter, organizations, including the U.S. Navy and JPMorgan Chase & Co., have hired Echevarria to speak to their employees and servicepeople. She's also working on a new book, Laughing Your Way to Success, which she expects to be released at the end of 2009.
Her experiences in stand-up have taught Echevarria to make humor a key part of her business and to stay positive. "Somewhere, in some industry, business is booming," she says. "My job is to find those opportunities."
Changing With the Market
Sometimes, even small-scale events can make a huge dent in your business. That's what Kiirstin Daniel, 26, and Jacqueline Staph, 25, experienced when the November 2007 writer's strike brought businesses in Hollywood, California, to a screeching halt. The pair's company, Redpig Gifts, provides film studios and other companies in the entertainment industry with unique luxury gifts for such events as holidays, awards shows and wrap parties.
The business started off with a bang. Just a few months after the company's founding in April of 2007, the pair had established relationships with several studios and could count on holiday gifting to carry it all year, according to Daniel.
"But the second that [word of] the strike was murmured, it's like the entire electricity of the town was shut off. The rug was pulled out from underneath us."
With the holidays right around the corner, Daniel and Staph couldn't afford to miss out on holiday gift opportunities. "At first, Kiirstin and I panicked," Staph says. "But then we realized that our business model applied just as well to non-entertainment industry companies."
To keep the profits flowing, the fast-on-their-feet pair quickly reached out to law firms, real estate companies and other "gift giving" industries.
"They were absolutely interested because, ultimately, we make their job easier," says Staph. "We [gave them an alternative] to the typical gift basket."
RedPig returned to working with the entertainment industry once the strike endeds. But with the possibility of an actor's strike in the future, Redpig's principals are glad to have a more diverse client base. "The entertainment industry taught both of us to become chameleons," Daniel says. "We've really re-thought how we're approaching [the business] and our price points. We like the challenge."
Susan Johnston is a Boston-based freelance writer who covers entrepreneurship and career issues. Her work has appeared in publications including The Boston Globe, Self and Young Money.