Hello, I'm back after so long 🥰!
Girls, the last blog was ages ago, I know, I've been running around like a headless chicken and, since I only have Sundays off, sometimes I don't have time to write ✍️.
This weekend is packed with important dates: the 14th, Valentine's Day, the day my husband also asked me to be his girlfriend, it will always be special 😇. It's also Carnival weekend and it's been a year since my president Jorge Nuno Pinto da Costa, president of presidents, passed away! A lot happening in just one weekend, I know, so I decided to add more spice and came here to write my blog 🥰.
The last few weeks have been strange with everything that's happened in our country, it was horrible to see those images of people completely desperate and devastated, without homes, without water, without electricity 😞. I feel lucky, yes! Here, thank God, everything is fine and that's when we value what we have... It's hard, sometimes, to focus with so much happening around. Yesterday I said: today I'm going to spend time with my boyfriend, today I'm not staying after hours to make a video, today I just want to be at home. Sometimes I feel like I'm working on autopilot: now I'm going to the warehouse, now I'm in the store, later I'm going to see a collection, tomorrow Cash Imperial, Friday I'm doing the Valentine's Day display, Saturday I'm leaving content, blah blah blah... Yesterday I didn't feel like it and I didn't do it... Today I'm here doing another type of content that I love: this blog! Lying in bed on a Sunday afternoon, what a luxury!!
By no means am I complaining, especially because I love my job and I love what I do, and lately, I've been receiving so much affection and unexpected visits to the store just to meet me and see my store, it makes me super proud!
I have a thousand and one ideas in my head, I'm in a transition phase, I'm eager to put my project into practice. I don't want to be an influencer, but I want to influence each one of you with my suggestions, tips, and my story. I love creating new, different things, I like to communicate, I love the camera more and more, I would spend the whole day live or making videos, it's really what fulfills me most professionally right now. I've passed the phase of being a shopkeeper, being in the store 6 days a week prevents me from dreaming, do you understand me?
It was almost 19 years working always in the same business model until a pandemic came that opened doors to the world 🗺️, we became better known as a store and now I want a personal brand.
Now that you know me, that you know my store, I want to make myself known not just for selling clothes, I want you to know Carla who went to study my area better to be able to provide an excellent service to all who trust me or identify with me...
The store is my safe haven, my reference, where you can see live all the looks I show. The store brings confidence to those who buy remotely, the store is the shop window and the mirror of who I am, but being a full-time shopkeeper no longer gives me pleasure, it took me a while to learn that I have to delegate, it took me a while to learn that I have to trust again, but as a Virgo that I am and very perfectionist in my work, it was difficult for me to do that. I always trusted with suspicion, afraid that my clients who frequented the store for many years would not be treated as I always treated them, and for that reason, it was very difficult for me to leave the store in someone else's care again, as happened for years.
If I want to evolve, I have to trust and form a winning team again, and that's what I'm trying to do, a team that gives me the freedom to fly, produce, create, innovate. By being more creative, the wheel starts to turn, by making good content I reach more of you and automatically more of you want to know the store and everything works without being a hostage to the store, but the store being the complement of the digital, do you understand? Can you grasp that?
Let's wait for the next chapters 😂
At the beginning of the year, I immediately made the biggest decision of all: to close the store every morning, except on Saturdays. It was very strange in the first month, now I feel comfortable and it was a huge relief. Those who benefited were those customers who can only go there in the morning, they end up getting VIP treatment unintentionally, they book with me and I attend with the door closed, just them and me, or if I'm not there, just them and the employee, without interruptions. Brutal, isn't it? Because of an emergency plan due to lack of staff, we ended up with excellent service, really nothing is by chance and the Universe puts everything in place at the right time!
We continue to evolve slowly, but we are evolving, and I feel that with each passing day I am closer to my dream!
I continue without great expectations with people, but with a huge expectation in my innovative and winning potential. There are days when I'm down, there are others when I feel on top of the world, the most important thing is not to give up and you can be sure I won't!
Eager to tell and show you everything that's happening behind the scenes, I think I'll be able to do it soon, there's so much love involved, so many tears, so many, many emotions together, difficult to describe, I just tell you it has the WOW factor!
Thank you for this little bit to all of you who take a little time to read what I write ♥️
Thank you to all of you who give me the necessary strength to never give up, thank you from ❤️
By the way, visit our website, the new collection is wonderful www.carlavalente.pt
I remind you that tomorrow the physical store is open from 2 pm to 7 pm and we close on Carnival Tuesday 🎭🎭🎭
Visit us!
A huge kiss to your hearts 💕
With love
Carla Valente
