The cows are lying down and other signs to watch for...

My mother and aunt were quite superstitious. So I grew up hearing warnings that it was bad luck, for example, to spill salt and when you did, you had to toss some over your left shoulder.    When you gave someone a wallet, you put a penny in it for good luck, or putting shoes on a table was bad luck, and so on.

But my aunt’s favourite was that when the cows were lying down, it was going to rain.  Now this one, may have some semblance of truth to it, and I thought of her the other day when I drove past our field and noticed that all our cows were lying down, and sure enough, later it did rain.

So what are the signs that you need to look out for in terms of your business. My mother would tell you that itchy palms meant money. Hearsay is that if it is your left hand, the money was going out, whereas if it’s your right palm, it was coming to you.  So is this a sign that your business may be about to take a nose dive or more positively, just take off?

Certainly tracking your numbers is the obvious first way to predict what may be going to happen, yet many business owners don’t. 

Studying your figures and where you make the most money is one way to tell you which program/product/service to pursue further, and those where, when you do the math cost you a lot to provide and are slow to sell, are perhaps the ones to drop.

And it is something you need to do on a regular basis, not just once in a while, because things change and what was popular one month, may not be three months down the road.  Everything has its season.

There are other signs around us too that are indicators of how business will be.  When it is a tight economy and people are scared about the future, there’s less funds available to spend on what may be considered luxuries.  This may be the time to introduce lower-priced items or services or to bundle your offering.

When you see local retail businesses close down, you have to wonder what is happening?  Have the landlords put the rent up? Have property taxes gone sky-rocketing?  If you own a store and those around you are literally closing up shop, you need to pay attention.  When there’s empty spaces around you, people have fewer reasons to come shop in your area.   

Another sign to pay attention to, is what your gut is telling you.  Too often as women we ignore our instincts, and yet, when we reflect back about doubts we may have had, we find we were right.  So pay attention to your intuition. 

None of us has a crystal ball about what the future holds, but often there are signs to watch for, we just have to pay attention.

As for our cows, I am watching them carefully as then I will know when to bring my umbrella with me. 

Sometimes life on the wild side, isn’t so wild.

This summer I decided to “invest” in a local community farming program, through which each week I would collect my box of goodies from the local farmer’s market.

I wanted to support this young farmer, Nathan, and treat our family to truly fresh vegetables.  When I collect the box I am always faced with some new vegetable or a friend from the past that I haven’t cooked in a long time – like eggplants.

It’s meant that our meals have become more varied as I experiment with my new produce.  It also means that I’ve taken a few risks, and stepped outside my comfort zone, food-wise.  Take the purple beans.

They were a deep purple and I could visualize them looking so colourful and pretty on the plate, and wondered if they would taste the same as their cousins, green beans.

Guess what, they turn green when they are cooked. Who knew?

It was quite disappointing really – back to the same old, but for the four minutes while they cooked, I thought I’d taken a step on the wild side.

It makes me think of when we step outside our comfort zone within our business and take that small risk, to find out that after all, it was no big deal.  That’s when you wonder why on earth you spent so long debating the issue, when in reality it didn’t make that much of a difference, except maybe in your mind, because you’d conquered another fear.

All of which leads me to think that playing it safe is over-rated and taking a risk is the way to go. After all, you might find, like my purple beans, that in fact it’s all the same, except you’ve crossed a line.  A line that takes you one step closer to realizing your goals.

You know you are getting old when....

 

Along with 500 other women bloggers (and three brave men), I attended the Blissdom Canada conference last weekend. 

Having blogged for seven years now and turned my blogs into my book, Day by Day, I thought it would be fun to learn what I should have been doing.

I think it would be safe to say that I was the oldest woman there, spying only one other silver-haired blogger in a sea of young faces.  And if I wasn’t convinced of my status, it was quickly reaffirmed for me by the Kraft online tool we had to complete in order to get a goodie bag.

Keen to sample the products, I lined up with others to fill out the form online.  Naturally they wanted lots of information, including date of birth, and that is where I came undone.   

My year of birth wasn’t listed, the options didn’t go that far.  So I did what any honourable woman would do, I lied.   

I am now six years younger.  I joked about it all with a young girl next to me and she was quick to tell me that her grandparents were tech savvy and how silly of Kraft not to realize that.   So I am now feeling six years older!

As for the fancy dress party and karaoke on the Saturday night, I gave that a miss.  After all, as a “senior” it was way past my bedtime.