Been Awhile...

Wow, did the last two weeks really fly by this fast???

I guess so...

Here are a few key events:

We have had several highly successfull Photoshop classes in the studio. I really enjoy teaching, and it forces me to expand my own knowledge in Photoshop. I love having the digital projector! The kids love it for watching movies 14' wide on Saturday mornings when they are at the shop with us.

The Photography Group continues to have great meetings, and great participation. We are currently showing work by the group for our gallery exhibition. If I remember, I'll bring a camera and post some photos of the shop with the artwork up.

Tracy is hosting an Arts/Craft fair on Friday December 7. It will start in the morning and last all day. She has lots of artists participating, and I honestly don't know how she is going to fit everyone in... I need to break down my studio strobes/stands, backgrounds, etc and store them before Friday.

I have organized the Photoshop and Photography groups through www.meetup.com and it has been a great mechanism for publicity and organization for the group events. Tracy is going to start a meetup group for artists and begin having biweekly drawing groups here at the shop. The arts community in Colorado Springs is very disjointed and not organized. If Tracy makes an effort to organize an event that caters to artists, I think it will take off like my groups have.

Jeff Caylor is playing live again this Friday! It will be his third live show here at Nemo's, and we are really looking forward to it. Check out www.jeffcaylor.com for the latest news on his CD release. It is quickly accumulating lots of awards and recognition as one of the best indie album releases of 2007! By the way, Jeff was born and raised in Anderson, Indiana, which is my hometown!

OK, now for the bad news... We have proven over and over again that our location absolutely dies around holidays. We don't just suffer on the given holiday, but the entire week is typically slower than ususal. Well, we are finding that November sales were off our trend by about $1800. That is not a huge drop, but it does hurt since December is our first month at our full budget. Writing a check for $2800 in rent was painful... With slower holiday sales, we are operating under the break even point, which means we are burning capital dollars. We are prepared for that, but I don't like seeing it. Nemo's has performed above expectations right from the start, and revenue growth outpaced our expense growth (with negotiated step increases in rent over time). I looked at some of the numbers, and from April 07 to Oct 07 was very good to us. During that time, we paid ourselves $6500, and we spent an additional $8000 on new equipment, both for the cafe and for the studio. To perform $14,500 above your break even point during the first six months of operation is stunning! Finding ourselves a little below break even now is tough to swallow given our track record up until the holidays hit.

OK, so what are we going to do about it?
1. We are not going to stress about it during December. We have a proven track record of slower than normal sales around any holidays. We expect December to be in the red, and we are just going to get through December without any stress or anxiety.

2. Once January hits, we are going to aggressively tackle some inexpensive marketing. We are having 120" x 36" banners hung on the front and the back of the building. Our signage is not great, and we don't want to invest in signage since the property owner intends to upgrade the building facade soon. I am working on a flier and will send it to a print press to have 10,000 copies made. To this point, we have only reached the large buildings within walking distance of us. There are another 14,500 employees within a one mile radius of us. Some of the industries close to us that we have not marketed to:

Olympic Training Center
Memorial Hospital (largest hospital in the city)
Regional Building Department
El Paso County Health Department
Printers Parkway is innundated with medical complexes, way too many to count (1000's of people)
Memorial Hospital Admin Building (800 people)
Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind (huge campus right up the street)
The Gazette (Colorado Springs only newspaper, a very large complex, lots of employees)
I could go on and on... There is an enormous unreached market out there just 5 minutes from our front door by car.

Tracy is going to aggressively pursue the catering to Premiere Global and Time Warner in the Chidlaw building directly behind us.

Tracy is flirting with the idea of closing at 6:00pm instead of 8:00pm. Over the last two months, we have paid more in labor dollars to operate those hours than we have brought in in sales revenue. The challenge I see there are the groups we have scheduled to use the studio for events at night. If Tracy goes this route, I will come to the shop at 6:00 and stay for the events. We have solid bookings for every Tuesday for the indefinite future. The photography and photoshop groups meet at times when I am here to participate anyway. I will be able to stay at the shop and take care of things by myself during those times when it is necessary. That will allow us to continue to pull in the revenues generated by the groups, but cut labor costs to exactly Zero dollars!

What is the advantage? Well, Tracy can take those labor hours and dedicate that budget money to implement the catering to Premiere and Time Warner. We were considering hiring another daytime person to facilitate the catering. Closing sooner and pulling that labor to earlier in the day will give us the opportunity to use those labor dollars in an endeavor that should have much higher revenue returns than our slow 6:00 to 8:00pm timeslot.

OK, that is enough for now... It is after 10:00pm and I'm still at the shop.

Oh great, the power just went out. I saw a bright flash of light and heard an explosion from the transformer about a block down the street.
I looked outside and there are no city lights for as far as the eye can see. No buildings, no street lights, no traffic lights, nothing...
I've got to post this and shut down the computers (they are on battery backups).

Looks like I may be sleeping here tonight. I will have to stay until the power comes on to insure all of the refrigeration and other large loads do not trip any circuit breakers when everything comes back on at once...

Good night,
JD