In the beginning.....

...I wanted to open a luxury yarn shop when I retired from my consulting career.  Then the economy crashed and I found myself in a "forced retirement" - read: no work, no income.  Crap.  Then I came into some money when my father died (thank you, Daddy) and decided that since I had not worked in a year, it was time to do something different.  So with my husband's blessings (he is a saint) I decided to proceed with the yarn shop.

First, I started researching wholesalers of the lines I thought I want to include.  There were some surprises - some of the minimum orders are - shall we say? - unrealistic.  Some were very reasonable.  Some, like Skacel, have fabulous "set ups" of their needles for first time yarn shops.  Sweet.

And then I found Joanne Cole, the local rep for Brown Sheep.  This woman is a wealth of good advice and common sense.  She recommended I contact TNNA and purchase the booklet Starting Out Right.  This is quite possibly the best $25 I have spent so far.  And also quite possibly the scariest $25 I have spent so far.  The book provides a mountain of information that I might otherwise have spent many days or even weeks trying to find.  It covers topics I expected it to cover, and there were a few surprises.  It covers topics I did not expect, and mama llama!!! there were some surprises there!  The bottom line is that if anyone out there is considering opening any kind of needlework shop BUY THIS BOOK!  Thank you, Joanne.  There are cookies in your future.

So this morning, I started out at 5:30 AM by going to resource links found in Appendix A of the book, until I found comprehensible advice on writing both a business plan and a marketing plan.  Then I started writing these plans.  And that I will discuss further later....