Never Let Go of The Purse Strings...

I'm probably dating myself with this title.  But for you youngin's.... a direct translation  -

Always keep the power to determine how your money will be spent!

As I began immersing myself in all aspects of Rainbow, I saw several things crystal clear.

• There were too many staff traveling for the actual needs of the show.
• When a show is only two days, staff stay for an extra 1 or 2 days at the company's expense.
• Everyone had their own room.
• Fancy lunch and dinners are provided by the company with no real limitations on cost.
• Events were scheduled in some cities based on 'vacation opportunities' vs. actual opportunity to build a profitable competition.

I'm adding up all of the numbers... not on a spreadsheet because.... how could we possibly afford a laptop (something we actually needed to run the business more efficiently) when we are paying for extra flights and rooms? I mean I'm no rocket scientist but HELLO!  Am I the only one seeing this? 

SMDH

Do you see my frustration?  And I am literally on an island all alone.... I am NOT popular as I'm sure you can imagine.  And to add insult to injury, my mother was NOT a fan of my new found analysis and plan to improve operations because it was ruffling A LOT of feathers! And those with the ruffled feathers were quite savy and went to great lengths to discredit me for many many years.

So here I am, no experience, very little support, personal life a mess (ongoing struggle LOL - You can't be good at everything).  And I'm trying to figure out how to run a business.

Here's the tricky part, I am spending a good % of my time researching and putting together a strategy for improving operations and eliminating waste, but at the same time I am trying to figure out how to raise the top line (bring in more revenue).

~You can raise the top line faster than you can cut the bottom line ~

I truly didn't learn this importance of this concept until I joined my current mentor Mr. Rick Lands from Kids Artistic Revue in 2011 (story about that later).  And... In 2013 my Marketing Professor at UCI gave me incredible insight on this subject from a theory perspective.  

I had the right intuition and concept back in 2003-2004... however, raising the top line does not come naturally for me so I really had to get creative in growing the company.

I had ZERO confidence.  And in this VERY COMPETITIVE INDUSTRY that has some very strong players, who are masters at creating relationships with their clients.... I had to figure something out and quick.

I quickly began studying all of my competitors and began to dissect their operations on a piece of paper (kind of set up like a spreadsheet).  I would attend their events, I would study all of their promotional materials, dates, trends, types of customers they attracted, and tried to figure out WHY people were attracted their brand.  

Then I started to figure out Rainbow... what did Rainbow stand for? What was different about Rainbow?  What was better? What was worse? 

As I began to create and define Rainbow... I became more confident in picking up the phone to invite new clients to give us a try!  I was speaking to something near and dear to my heart!  Rainbow didn't have state of the art production... It didn't have very much razzle dazzle... but it did have ME who had a whole lot of integrity and who wanted to make a difference in the world!  I worked incredibly hard to make the Dance Teacher's life easier by accommodating all of their requests and answering all of their questions.  I worked hard to create all types of awards that would honor each and every dancer in a very personal way.  Rainbow was one of the first competitions to introduce verbal critiques on CD (I took a personal pay cut that year to pay for the new technology because it was important to provide this valuable resource to our customers).  

Oh those were the good old days.... when every morning I woke up HUNGRY because no meal was ever guaranteed.