Running a Small Business During a Worldwide Pandemic
Did you know there’s more than 5 million self-employed people here in the UK, contributing more than £305bn to the economy each year.
I never really imagined being self-employed, I definitely didn’t imagine owning and running multiple businesses: working primarily as a freelance writer and then having a side hustle. However, when I met my partner, Scott, our creative skills blended so brilliantly that we wanted to create something that was ours and ta-da, sometime two years later, along came loni was born.
I get asked often how we chose our name and honestly, I was just washing up one afternoon and we were struggling to think of a name for what we should call our little baby business. So, I started to think out loud and said ‘oh, something cute like along came loni could work’ and I turned to look at Scott and we could just feel it was right. Although there’s been a couple of occasions when we’ve been at markets when someone has read our sign and been like ‘who the hell is loni??’ and I’m like ‘it me, I am loni’. And I become literally the embodiment of the hands up lady emoji.
It’s definitely been an interesting learning process; selling on Etsy and online marketplaces as well as through markets and other shops, we have discovered quickly our individual strengths and weaknesses. We’ve also learnt that not all parts of running your own business are fun or interesting, and the things that you’re good at in real life or other parts of your career, often will fall by the wayside when it comes to your own business. We would love to one day have a lovely physical space with a little coffee shop part and local art on the walls etc, but this year in particular has shown us how difficult having a bricks and mortar shop can be!
It was important to us that our little business was as planet-happy as possible, this was particularly important for us as in stationery and greeting cards, there is so much waste and single-use elements. So, everything we do and make is as eco as it can be, from using recycled materials to re-using packing material.
This is the second year of running our little business and what a second year it has been! We kicked off the year being recognised as a Plastic-Free Business Champion by Surfers Against Sewage and also found out that we had been nominated for a Green Business of the Year Award, which we actually won in February! This year started off so exciting and promising and then… there was the big worldwide pandemic thing. It’s been a hard year, I won’t say it’s been harder or easier than anyone else’s, because we’ve all been lost-at-sea.
But it has been hard: we’ve lost two of our stockists due to financial losses from being closed for so long during the first lockdown, another two that would usually be moving through stock somewhat quickly haven’t contacted us in months for more stock, we haven’t had a market since February and the markets that we had booked in for November were obviously all cancelled, although we had limited optimism for them anyway – most of us are still staying home and not really browsing.
It’s not all been bad though; we’ve absolutely loved seeing an increase in cards sent to loved ones ‘just because’, and seeing a customer’s name that we recognise return for the second or third time is just honestly just the best feeling. We’re still so excited by every sale that we turn to each other and shout NEW ORDER! We’re up to 900 or so orders so far, there’s been a lot of excited shouting!
Along with finding a community on social media of makers and people with indie businesses, I’ve even made a friend through our little business. We had an order of a few of our lockdown message related cards and off they went. A few days later, the lady, let’s call her N, shared a photo of her cards in her Instagram stories and I gave her profile a bit of a stalk and discovered she was a copywriter too - we had a brief chat then. Over the past couple of months, we’ve actually progressed to voicenotes on Whatsapp and she’s become one of my most trusted sounding-boards.
There is no typical day for us, we average 3-4 orders a day (although up to 10-12 orders at the weekend) and on the whole, I’m the slightly less busy one out of the two of us, so I’m the one who is printing, packing and posting. A lot of love goes into our packaging, I handwrite a note and wrap our orders in tissue paper, sealed with our own stickers – all of which is compostable!
I think 2020 has taught us a lot about resilience, both in my personal life and in my little business. We thought that 2020 would be a great year for us, feeling like we had found our feet in our first year, but it really has been ‘unprecedented times’. So, we’ve pivoted, started to focus on our website again, started to build an email list and think outside of the box, using the quiet times to think about other products that we could make and testing them out.
Running an indie business for me is 50% feeling absolutely delighted that anyone would like and want the things we create, 45% being doubtful that we actually have a real business and 5% just absolutely winging it. But I would 100% do it all over again!
Follow Saloni on Instagram @alongcameloni
Click here for Saloni’s etsy shop
Written by Saloni Chamberlain
Hi, I'm Saloni, loni to most! A native Londoner, I've recently relocated with my partner and our two cats to sunny Weston-super-Mare, where we run an award-winning, planet-happy card & gift small business. Alongside this, I work as a freelance writer (everything from journalism to copywriting) and I think I'm generally quite funny!