It Is Hard to Be in Business with a Friend!
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I just wrote the words “Kim Webb was a tremendous help in taking the story of Princess Bubble from an email Susan originally sent out to her friends to a beautifully published book. Her friendship is extraordinary and priceless to Susan! But, sometimes it is hard to be best friends and business partners so Susan has bought Kim’s interest in Bubble Gum Press and will always be grateful to Kim for her love and passion for the message of Princess Bubble!” on our site www.PrincessBubble.com
As I was writing those words, I was grieving the loss of my business partner. But, I know I still have the dearest friend anyone in the world could ever ask for!
It is just HARD to be business partners and friends. Here is a little of our story in case this can help anyone else and probably mainly to vent my grief since I am not really telling this story to the one I tell everything to—my best friend/ex-business partner.
I wrote the story of Princess Bubble and Kim thought the story was missing and needed to be told to the world. Having always been the most attention deficit person in the world, I said, “Join me so it will get done!” What I did not realize about myself was I am the Queen of Attention Retention when I have a passion. I guess up until Princess Bubble I never really worked on anything that I thought could change, empower, encourage people/girls the way I feel about the message of Princess Bubble. Having a passion that burns like a wildfire makes you excited every minute of everyday to work on something this powerful.
Kim, also passionate about the message, became the ADD one in our partnership, which is totally unexpected because she is brilliantly focused and taught herself Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian!
My background prepared me more for this project. My family has always owned a retail/wholesale business and I started buying for our store as a tween. I majored in public relations and understood the value of the media.
We both made a million mistakes along the way and knew absolutely nothing about publishing, so we have been blessed beyond measure. But, I saw early some of Kim’s mistakes in the few areas I knew something about. Then this weird control freak person came out in me that had been hiding under a blanket of apathy my whole life. I had learned to sell/promote my family’s wholesale line as a child; therefore, I assumed that ANYONE would know the basics I knew! Turns out they don’t.
Then the miracle of all miracles happen! We were asked to be on the Today Show! But, Kim said she only had limited availability. Limited availability! We are unknown, self-published authors. In my mind, if I was getting married that day I would have canceled the wedding to be on the show! Plus, my father had just suddenly died and I was crushed beyond measure. The good news of the Today Show was this fantastic thing I could focus on through my tears and pain.
The show was kind enough to work with us and we appeared in a segment with Ann Curry. But, ever since then our business relationship has been strained with our different views of work and commitment.
Thank God we have a friendship that is sibling-like in nature; where, despite the fights, you adore the person so much that I can fight, fight, fight and then say, “Whatcha wanna do tonight?”
Our new personal story reads, “Once upon a time there were two princesses. The two princesses realized their kingdom was crumbling with both of them ruling. But, they knew as friends they would live ‘Happily Ever After’ forever