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Unwind Recap

This past weekend a number of wonderful coincidences coalesced into the amazing experience of teaching at Unwind Retreat, 20160430_7695in Blowing Rock, NC.  Friday morning Mr. Turtle and I packed up the car and made our way (leisurely) to Blowing Rock.  We took back roads, ate at a hole-in-the-wall barbeque place (much to Michael’s delight), and pulled into the hotel around 4 in the afternoon.

The trip was not made without nervousness.  I had scheduled the retreat long before we knew that Little Turtle was coming.  One of my first questions to my Midwife was her feeling about us traveling 4-ish weeks before due date: was it feasible, smart, and physically okay?  About a month later I contacted the organizers of Unwind, asking if it’d be OK if I brought Michael with me, and informing them about the situation.  But really, there wasn’t much that we could do – as first-time parents, we had no clue how I’d handle the ending of pregnancy – if I’d have the energy or ability.  But I SO wanted to teach at Unwind – the retreat had an excellent reputation, the location was supposed to be amazing, and I love working with students.

So we made it work.  I prepped as much as I could beforehand.  Michael was coming to take many of the stressors off of me – I could focus on teaching, and not worrying about getting my materials from car to hotel room to classroom.  Having him drive would take much of the physical pressure off.

The weekend itself was amazing.  There’s that moment when you enter a large group of people you don’t know, where you get nervous.  But then I remembered why I love events like this – I may not know every person there, but we had something in common: a deep and abiding love of yarn.  Where the question “What are you working on?” always has an interesting answer.  Where everyone had a “knitting story.”

Nancy and Sue, the organizers of Unwind do an amazing job making the weekend feel intimate and open.  Events are booked with room to “breathe.”  There’s a two-hour break for lunch, another break after the last classes before dinner.  Everyone, even the instructors, have one period where they aren’t teaching/taking a class.  It allows people the time and space to truly Unwind – be that hanging out on the porch knitting, going shopping in town, or taking a nap.

While there are many highlights from the weekend, I thought I’d share just one:

20160430_7707

On Saturday night, Michael and I got to set up a table after dinner to show off projects being done at the classes, sell kits, and give people a sneak peek at some upcoming patterns.  I got to show off a giant replica of my logo that my mother and sister sewed for Little Turtle.

Life Updates

 

Feeling Unwell

Feeling Unwell

This last month has been a slew of busy – Mr. Turtle and I moved into the new house, and immediately launched into a countdown culminating with this weekend.

 

Three weekends ago we were in Cleveland visiting good friends for a last hello/hurrah before Tiny Turtle arrives.

Two weekends ago we had a full house – 7 adults and one infant over for my baby shower.  It was a lovely, wonderful, fun filled time, and I have pictures to share!

And this last weekend was my birthday weekend, where we planned on heading to the farm to go strawberry picking and have a relaxing weekend.  Instead, Mr. Turtle and I contracted a plague and spent the entire weekend prostrate and miserable.  It was the type of the miserable where reading was too much effort, and the only thing to do was drink apple-juice and hover between dozing and sleep.

Today I’m thankful to be among the living.  I’m working my way through a mountain of laundry, dishes, and detritus that accumulated over the weekend.  I’m looking at my schedule for this week to choose what can wait and what really must be put first.  I’m allowing myself to take things a little gingerly, and reminding myself it’s perfectly

okay to do so.

Maternity and Parental Leave III: Informing your Customers

As I mentioned in the last post in what has now become far more of a series than I had imagined, having a well crafted and working plan internally for your business is only half the challenge.  In order to maintain the trust and loyalty of your customers, preparing them for any changes in your business operations is key to ensuring this joyous time is as stress-free as possible for both the new parents and the business owner.

Balloon LogoDepending on your business model, this notification, and how you change your own operations, can vary significantly.  For a retail shop, it could very well be that the day-to-day operations for the casual customers are unaffected.  Perhaps it’s only those specialty orders or specific classes that will take a bit longer to fill or offer.  Alternatively, for a single-performer organization like Tinking Turtle, there are significant changes we needed to let our client base know about.  Specifically, for Classes & Instruction, Jennifer would be unavailable for either contract teaching or private lessons for a period of several months, and for our Finishing and Repair Services, we have already closed project intake and started a waiting list.

In order to ensure sufficient lead time for notification, we believed in  spreading the message about our new schedule and/or services early.  We’ve found that our customers- especially those who are repeat visitors and with whom we have an established relationship – are extremely willing to work with you to adapt to your “new normal”.  Having a child is an exciting time in almost everyone’s life, and framing the communication to reflect this can breed a great amount of good will among everyone your business interacts with.

Because our stakeholder base is fairly varied, we utilized a multi-tiered approach to ensure everyone was informed.  You can never (or almost never) reach every possible individual with whom you interact, so identifying the individuals you need to contact into “buckets” and then tailoring a communication out to each bucket would be a good first step.  For us that consisted of the following:

  • A pair of Blog Posts and an email notification out to our mailing list to notify individuals of the exciting news and potential changes.
  • Updating on our website service pages as early as possible to socialize the new schedule of offerings with individuals
  • Direct Outreach via email or phone call to our key vendor partners including publishers, LYS’s, and Fair, Festival, and Retreat contacts informing them of the changes

Additionally, we’ve tried to be as transparent as possible both through subsequent blog posts (like this series) and in our followup conversations responding to inquiries to keep everyone appraised of our future plans.

This brings everything full circle to where we are today; at this point plans are in place, customers are informed, and now it’s a matter of routine upkeep of the plan until the happy day arrives!

Have any questions about aspects of maternity or parental leave that I haven’t touched on?  Want to see anything more in-depth?  Leave me a note in the comments and maybe it can be the focus of a future installment in this series!

~ Mr. Turtle

 

 

Maternity and Parental Leave II: Crafting a Leave Policy

Last week I took a first stab at exploring how the arrival of Little Turtle impacts our business, and some of the thoughts we have to ensure both the continued success of Tinking Turtle as well as our own personal well-being through a maternity leave policy.

Balloon LogoAs mentioned before, while a policy or leave of any kind isn’t a federal requirement for most LYS’s and other fiberarts business there are many benefits. These can be realized by taking leave herself as well as providing a leave policy for employees.  Some suggested benefits as compiled by the Small Business Administration (which calls providing this type of leave a “smart option” for small businesses) include: positive morale for the for the perspective parent and increased loyalty of all employees. The International Labour Organization goes further in a broad horizontal review of leave policies, and finds that providing a comprehensive and flexible level of leave across all ranges of organizations can lead to positive outcomes including improved worker performance, productivity, and satisfaction.

Implementation of a leave policy can vary differently whether or not you are a retail shop owner, or a provider of fiber arts services with a work-from-home schedule.  According to allBusiness.com, one of the ways small business benefit by being exempt from federal regulations is the ability to tailor broader policies to meet the individual needs of the company’s employees.  With the rise in teleworking, there can be a “tiered” approach to a policy, both as the child’s birth date approaches as well as for employees returning to work after leave.  The only caveat here is that whatever policy is established, it needs to be applied consistently and fairly across all levels of employees. This ensures there is no risk of an employee filing a discrimination lawsuit due to favoritism.  Having such a policy documented and provided to all employees (in a handbook or welcome packet) for businesses with multiple employees is a good way to ensure everyone is aware of the policy and is treated fairly.

Tinking Turtle maternity leave policy

Here’s our maternity leave schedule and policy!

When you have a single employee or are self employed (as in our situation), how to develop a policy means being comfortable with the business closing, taking a break, or going on vacation for a period of time.  With multiple employees, managing the business can be a bit easier, however it very well may mean reduced hours or services depending on the size of the business and the role of the employee, manager, or owner taking leave.

When we began contemplating a maternity leave policy, with Jennifer the sole revenue generating employee, we knew it would involve a period of time where Tinking Turtle would need to suspend most business operations.  While there are some basic administrative tasks that I can perform, I doubt I could stand up to the quality for designing or finishing that our customers expect!

After reviewing the economics in our annual budget for how much time we wanted to provide Jennifer, we developed a policy and schedule that afforded us the balance to allow for personal time with our new arrival as well as not lose business direction and momentum.  For Tinking Turtle, this came to be a gradual reduction of duties preceding the due date, and then a stair-stepped approach with both taking leave immediately after Little Turtle’s birth and then gradually returning to a “new normal” after our determined leave time.

Once we set this policy for ourselves, our next tasks were to communicate this out to our customers and our business partners.  I’ll write more on this aspect in my next post, as keeping everyone who interacts with your business in the loop is key to implementing a successful maternity or paternity leave policy for a small fiberarts business.

~ Mr. Turtle

Exciting News for Tinking Turtle

Balloon LogoI’ve started this blog post more times than I can count.  I’ve tried for profound, silly, and serious.  I’ve tried imitating other people who have come before, and nothing quite has hit the mark.  So I’m just going to share.

Coming in May 2016, Mr. Turtle and I will be expecting a little turtle.  Yesterday, Michael and I headed to have our first ultrasound, where we found out we’re having a baby girl.  I haven’t even quite wrapped my mind around the gender yet!  Needless to say, Michael, myself, and both sides of our family our terribly excited.

For the last few weeks, we’ve been calling the baby “the Kiwi.”  While we’re in the final rounds of picking out a name, we probably won’t be sharing it until the baby’s born.  We like to keep some things a surprise!  So until then, feel free to call the baby the Kiwi with me.  Who knows, stranger nicknames have happened.

Come May there’ll be a bunch of new changes as we adjust to having a new member of the family.  On Saturday I’ll explain what that’ll mean for Tinking Turtle as a business, and how that will affect you, the customer!

I’m also now accepting suggestions for baby clothes and accessories to knit or crochet.  Priority being things that are practical, and that the baby will be able to wear more than three times.  Is there a particular pattern you love?  Share it with me in the comments!