How can I make my professional life less stressful? But don’t tell me to work less; that’s not going to happen.
OK, but maybe you can work smarter — and take a more benevolent view of stress. Reframe it as “happiness-neutral.” Sometimes stress is a cause of suffering, sometimes a sign of a challenge or importance, and sometimes it’s something that will make you stronger.
In her book, The Upside Of Stress, the psychologist Kelly McGonigal refers to a 2011 study of 30,000 Americans that linked high stress to a 43 percent increased risk of death, but — get this — only among those who already believed that stress is bad for your health. In another study, she cites, hotel housekeepers grew physically healthier when encouraged to think of their hard work as good exercise; those who saw it as arduous labor didn’t.
Stress is typically caused by things that seem out of your control. But often they are things you can control, if you’d just make a few psychological tweaks:
- Release the belief that you’re responsible for everyone and everything.
- Let go of perfectionism. As Swarthmore professor Barry Schwartz has written: “Good enough is almost always good enough.”
- Ask for and accept help from others.
- Create a list — that will give you a sense of control — but then ignore everything but the top five items.
- Learn some breathing exercises. It doesn’t have to be transcendental meditation — but it could be. Deep breathing is a natural tranquilizer for the nervous system.
- Start every day with something you’re good at. That will set you up for a positive day.
- Stop and do something nice for someone.
- Exercise.
- Go offline for big chunks of your day. Those slick social apps are intricately designed to spur emotional responses — usually negative ones like rage, overwhelm, and despair.
- Finally, join a choir. Singing in a group is proven to be one of the best stress relievers around.
How can a small studio establish wholesale accounts without spending a fortune?
It would be nice to think good design alone will give your design business wings, but there is really no alternative to hitting the pavement and setting up your stall wherever possible. Trade shows are the best way to get in front of the right audience, but as you’ve no doubt discovered, they require a significant investment — although not necessarily a Vegas-level commitment. There is a wide range of trade shows, each catering to specific markets in every corner of the country. With thorough research, you can identify the best fit for your product line. Keep in mind that you need to start doing your marketing well before the show by targeting the wholesale accounts you like with introductory emails and high-resolution images of your pieces. One word of warning: Be careful not to overextend yourself by trying to be in too many places at one time — or putting too much out on memo. Building a name takes time and patience.
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How long should it take for a broker to sell my store after it is listed?
Probably the best part of a year, says Mike Handelsman, general manager of BizBuySell, an online business-for-sale marketplace. “The selling time for the average properly priced business is between six and 12 months. The best brokers should be able to prepare and sell a listed jewelry store in six to eight months, excluding businesses with extenuating circumstances. If the sale of your store takes longer, make sure it is for a legitimate reason,” he says.
What’s the best approach to selling a customer who wants something you don’t have?
If you can’t give them what they want, tell them where they can get it — but try to sow some doubts first. This may well be an uphill battle if it’s a particular brand name item they’re after, but go ahead and ask what it was about the piece that they liked so much and offer to show them something similar. You never know, they may just fall in love with it. As a last resort, if you can’t provide it, tell them where they can get it, because that’s part of your job. “Everyone hates to walk somebody, but it’s the professional thing to do if you can’t turn it around,” says sales trainer Shane Decker.
We tried our hand at an in-store event, but the results were disappointing. I’m worried a second poor event will hurt our store’s reputation and staff morale.
There is a line of thought that there is nothing worse than first-time success, because you’ll never know why you succeeded. Ergo, failure is good — if you learn from it. “Many retailers create exciting in-store promotions, but they fail to get their staff behind the effort, or they fail to track the results by finding out what brought the customer in during the time period, or most importantly they didn’t fully execute on the promotion,” says James Porte of Porte Marketing. If you haven’t done it yet, sit down with your staff and review what was good (there must have been something), what didn’t work and how you could have improved the event. And then, definitely, give it another shot based on what you have learned.
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