By Valerie X Armstrong
When I was a young wife and mother, I did many
things to contribute financially to the household...I worked part time jobs of
various kinds along with helping my husband in his business...I sold real
estate, worked retail, managed a tanning salon, cleaned offices, bought and sold antiques for profit ,
did party catering for friends and family, baby sat, did ironing for others, sold exercise
equipment door to door, tutored kids and adults and tried to start my own
clothing design company.
The idea to start the clothing
company was a good one. I had design that was original and a hit with the plus
sized community. Being plus sized at the time, myself, worked out well. I
advertised my creations with a hand drawn, hand written ad in the back of a plus
sized magazine called BBW (Big Beautiful Woman). It was a popular magazine and
the first of it's kind created especially for the plus size market. All the
models were plus sized beauties and the articles were great. My little ad got
quite a lot of interest and questions, but not a lot of sales from
individuals...I did, much to my surprise, get several large orders from dress
shops all over the country. I was just making these outfits by myself in my
dining room with my little portable sewing machine. I could make one in a
couple of hours, but the orders were so large that I was spending every waking
moment on them and still couldn't keep up with the orders. My sewing machine
started to malfunction. I knew I needed help...The customers I had already
served wanted more and sent repeat orders...I was trying to find help and get a
loan to get professional equipment. I knew nothing of business. I had just
expected to have a few individuals send orders and I could handle that, but I
was inundated with orders....BIG orders. This was before the internet and I
tried to research starting a business, but I wasn't too savvy at that point and
had no formal business plan. I went to the Small business Administration and
bank after bank trying to get a loan to rent space and buy equipment and hire
help, but was turned down repeatedly...Some even smiled condescendingly and
patted me on the head.. Eventually, I ran out of steam and had to give it up.
My success did me in. It made me sick having to turn down orders...I gave it my
best shot though. It's so much easier when you have money and backing to make a
successful business...Having a famous last name doesn't hurt,
either.
