How to Run Your Handmade Business Like a Boss (Even If You’re Doing It All Yourself)
You've heard "work on your business, not just in it" but what does that actually mean? Here's a practical monthly routine for makers: four areas to review and specific questions to ask.
How to manage your handmade business in a recession
This year there has been not one, but two shocking election results that have resulted in the world stock markets moving sharply downwards. These shocks have caused people to be very concerned about the economy and, in some cases, fearful for the future. You might be one of those people or you might not. This post is not about politics. It does not matter if those people fearful for the future are right or wrong. It does not matter if their predictions become reality or not.
Why you want your customers to say NO.
One of the best pieces of business advice I ever got was to get my customers to say no more quickly and more often.
Don’t worry, I was really dubious too. I mean, don’t we want our customers to say yes? Yes to buying our products, yes to joining our mailing list, yes to following us on social media, yes to telling all of their friends about us. No really isn’t the outcome that we’re looking for.
Writing Terms and Conditions for your Stockists.
There are so many challenges involved in running a handmade business and for many of them, we can’t really see them coming or know what kind of impact they’ll have on our business. Banking crises, Global Financial Meltdown, Brexit, Inflation, Consumer Confidence....
If you’re waiting to be discovered, try this in the meantime.
I’m willing to bet that, whether you’ve been selling what you make for years or for just a very short period of time, at one point you landed a magazine feature, or you bought some advertising, or you got accepted into a gallery, or your product got tweeted or...
What to do when everything sucks!
In business we have good months and bad months, good years and bad years. It usually, but not always, comes down to sales and whether we are selling as much work as we’d like to, or not. When we’re first getting started (and even after a few years’ experience),...
How Multitasking is Costing You Time and Money
As one person businesses (for the most part), we makers have to ensure that we are making the most of the time we have available for our businesses. Whether you’re working on your business a few hours a week or full time, your time is the most valuable resource you...
Should you do Sale or Return?
Start a conversation about Sale or Return (or Consignment as it is know elsewhere in the world) amongst a group of makers and you’re likely to get some pretty strongly worded responses. Sale or Return definitely gets a bad rap and there’s no question that it’s not...
Three Ways You’re Wasting Your Time on Facebook
You’re probably wasting a lot of time on Facebook. And, no, I don’t mean by watching cute animal videos and scrolling through your frenemies’ photostream. Who really does that anyway? *ahem* If you’re doing any of these three things you’re wasting time with your...
Why you ABSOLUTELY must have a mailing list
I bang on about this all the time but, seriously, having a mailing list is the single best thing you can do for your business, right now, TODAY. Sometimes creating a business around the things that you make can seem completely overwhelming. It can seem really...
Are you suffering from Psych-Yourself-Out-itis?
I am a longtime sufferer of Psych-Yourself-Out-Itis. What is Psych-Yourself-Out-itis? I’m so glad you asked. Picture the scene. It’s January. You’re full of fire and excitement about all of your new goals for the year. This is the year it’s all going to happen....