Your Cart is Empty
The side hustle is the real deal. Building and running Rollick while working a 9-5 job has been pretty dang exhausting and has challenged me with how to find balance. Some days, I’d love to just hide away in my cave and work all day and all night to make these dreams of mine come true (see photo below for cave-dwelling). But I also feel such a strong need to be a good wife, a good dog-mom, a good friend, and to maintain some health and sanity.
Prioritizing and scheduling my time has been critical for me to try to maintainsome kind of balance. Eric and I still have date nights, Wilma still gets her walks (luckily she only likes short ones haha), I still frequent a happy hour or 2, and I still make it to the gym. With the free time I DO have, I try to be as mindful and productive as possible by scheduling out what I’m going to work on so that I don’t waste time just scrolling through Instagram (though, let’s be clear...that definitely still happens…).
I have been extremely lucky through the building of Rollick to have incredible support from my family and friends. No one has ever said “You can’t do it” or discouraged me from moving forward (at least to my face).
Some people have just completely blown me away with their encouragement, orders, and involvement with Rollick, and I am seriously indebted to them forever for giving me the confidence to keep on truckin’. People I haven’t talked to inyears have reached out, which has really just been the most humbling experience, and I really hope to pass on that support and outreach to other small biz owners going forward.
On the other hand, there have also been those people who know me, know Rollick, and could really give a rat’s ass about it. At first this really got to me, but I’ve learned over these last 6 months that THAT'S OKAY! I’m not for everyone, Rollick’s not for everyone, and that just makes my love and connection to those that I AM for, that much stronger.
I knew this was the case when going into a new ecommerce business, but I have definitely seen it first hand over the last 6 months. The initial launch of Rollick was thrilling and super successful based on my current network of like-minded lady friends. But once that initial excitement wore off, let’s just say that January saw some crickets.
We are all inundated with so many messages and ads nowadays that our attention spans are literally that of goldfish (...I definitely think Nemo has me beat…). That’s why I’ve found it is SO important to be constantly reminding people that you exist and keep things new and relevant. I’ve done my best to keep up with social media, email campaigns, and by venturing into the world of pop-up shops, but there is definitely a lot more work to be done to get Rollick out to the masses.
This one has been reeeally hard for me. As a compulsive planner/learner(/perfectionist?) I am constantly drawn to informational blog posts, courses, podcasts, etc, etc, etc. There is SO much information out there, which, don’t get me wrong, is AMAZING (see Point #5). BUT, there comes a time when you need to stop leaning about Instagram strategy and start Instragramming. Or stop taking courses on how to craft the perfect email, and just write a damn email!
There will always be a better way to do everything I’m doing, but I’ve learned that after a certain point, I need to stop consuming information, and to start creating, implementing, and testing to see how to make things work for me and Rollick.
This is a mantra from one of my favorite lady bosses, Marie Forleo, and one that has really given me the confidence, patience, and courage to keep pushing forward.
When I first had the idea for Rollick, it seemed like an unbelievably daunting endeavor. How do I build a website? Where do I get product? How do I ship things out? And oh by the way...will anyone even buy anything?? The answer to the last question isn’t on Google, but basically everything else is. I decided that by just taking little steps every day, eventually I would have something that resembled a business...and that’s exactly what I ended up with!
This is also my mantra for when it seems like everything has gone to shit. When USPS loses a package - it’s figureoutable (making it right with the customer is really all that matters). When I can’t make something work on my website interface - it’s figureoutable (there’s live chat, forums, and developers out there who know way more than me). When I haven’t seen a sale in a few days - it’s figureoutable (run a promo, run an ad, send an email to my loyal subscribers, reminding them that I exist). Ultimately, it’s taught me that in confusion or crisis, really all I need to do is take a deep breath, don’t panic, and pause to think about what the best next move is.
Although I’ve had to bid adieu to my lazy Sunday Netflix binges, creating and working on Rollick has been one of the best things I’ve ever done. It’s given me motivation, reignited my passion for fashion, and I have learned SO much - both skills-wise and new things about myself.
If you would have asked me 5 years ago if I wanted to start my own business, my answer would have been a resounding “HELLLLLLLL NAW”. I’ve never been much of a risk taker and typically care WAY too much about what other people think about me. I’m not exactly sure what changed over the last year, but I started caring less about others’ opinions and I finally had the courage to do ME. Rollick has given me the opportunity to express myself, connect with AH-MAZING women, and has pushed me to be my most creative self.
In the grand scheme of a business, 6 months is basically nothing. I hope 6 years from now I can come back and have a totally new perspective on life and business, and that Rollick is still alive and kickin’. Until then, I’ll be over here Googling and crafting puns :).
