Selling Broken Arrow three weeks before my Russellville event was awesome because I could focus on my event and not worry about what was or wasn't happening in Oklahoma. HOWEVER, I made 3 big errors before we ever started! 1) I ordered the big postcards (double cost), 2) I forgot to put my phone number on those 7000 cards, and 3) I put the incorrect address on the cards. AND THEN as we were checking in the first consignors I realized I forgot to order shopping bags. I only had about 500 in storage! After the sale I was short checks by 110!
I overcame the shopping bags by ordering from a quick delivery company and getting them in on Monday in time to not ever really run out. I also handwrote the last 110 checks, and was thankful I had all the small checks to write!
If that wasn't enough to put me under, another source of stress was the fact that Suddenlink really put us off about getting our phone lines in and they FINALLY installed them at 12:30 on Pre-Sale day. We coudn't have taken any credit cards without them...it was a potentially HUGE issue that was resolved 30 minutes after my first group came in and were up and running by the time they wanted to check out. (Whew!)
We had right at 40,000 items and around 420 consignors. Despite my amateur mistakes and lack of good organizing, it was a wonderful event! I'm so thankful Richard was in town all but a day and a half of my event. He can take care of so many things for me, run errands and give me a peace when he's at the store. My leaders were awesome and I have some of the most wonderful and loyal volunteers ever. I'm thankful for how God works at our events and that I was able to handle the stress this event much better than last season. God provided a real sense of peace even in the midst of chaos and planning mistakes.
No comments:
Post a Comment