Plan B Is Always Plan A

I know people always love the stories behind the names (well, I do), so I will try to give you a glimpse of how it all started.

For me, greeting cards were meant to get something out of my system. With enough retail experience to know that lacking design credentials and technical knowledge would give very limited legs to my venture I set plan A to go to the Ladder Club (I mentioned this Club back in one of my posts), so I would get design help, then do a trade show and put it all to bed. That plan massively failed as I’ve later learnt that the Ladder Club doesn’t actually help with design critique and was fully booked up when I did my query. So, I did that first trade show (Top Drawer) anyway, which surprisingly turned out brilliant. I had to quickly come up with plan B, which I am still working on. My husband keeps me sane and helps a lot with admin, IT and at trade shows. He passes expert opinion on new designs, so when he doesn’t like something I know it’ll sell well. 

Nowadays, I learn a lot about design from You Tube videos, reading online magazines like Moyo, from fellow publishers in the greeting card industry, the Ladder Club and spend reasonable time on visual platforms like Instagram and Pinterest

My designs style has changed over the years and this year I am hitting the spot with what is closer to me. I have some contemporary birds with metallic, which proves to be very popular with buyers.

I keep the best bits from my previous life as a Business Mentor at The Prince’s Trust and occasionally have meetings/invited talks with entrepreneurs at the Peter Jones Enterprise Academy at Leicester College. I say/fool to myself that all this keeps me young.

Last but not least, cheers to plan B. It often turns out to be plan A.

Hope this inspires you to go on and make your plan B a very successful one.

Best Wishes,