Journaling Your Small Business
As I sorted through some of my mother’s collection of memorabilia, I came across lists and letters and account summaries of her years operating a small country general store on the edge of our farm property.
Image:sxc.hu
My dad and a friend built it and the friend managed the business. When he had a heart attack, Mother (a former school teacher, who had no storekeeping experience) decided she would operate it. So during my last year of high school and my college years, I spend weekends and vacations working at the store and on the farm my father owned.
Mother didn’t make a fortune. In fact, she generally lost money because she was so kindhearted and trusting. However, she did affect her customers’ lives because so many wrote me after she died, telling me how much she meant to them.
I need to find time to compile her notes and snippets of information, along with photos, into a journal or scrapbook, chronicling her years as a country storekeeper. This would be an interesting item to have for our family heritage.
Why not journal your business? Start where your are, then write down the beginnings as you recall them. If you’re just starting a small business, keep a daily log. It doesn’t have to be much, but will be a good business information journal and something of interest to family in years to come.
4 Comments
What a terrific idea. With blogs such as they are it is so easy to do it electronically but I suspect, families will appreciate it more if it is one’s own handwriting. Great thought.
Hi Tom,
Thanks for stopping by and giving your input. I’m afraid so much is going to get lost, in a way, with everything electronic. However, as one person pointed out at a memory writing class I taught, at least by writing it down, sending e-mails, recording in some way will help preserve family history and business history.
If you have a business and can record in some way it’s history, it will be of interest to someone in the family in years to come.
[...] had positive reactions to my post about Journaling Your Small Business, in other words writing down the story of your business, day to day events, business news, etc. [...]
[...] had positive reactions to my post about Journaling Your Small Business, in other words writing down the story of your business, day to day events, business news, etc. [...]