Why You Should Be Salesy (And What That Actually Means)
Worried about coming across as salesy? Most makers are. Here’s what good selling actually looks like for a handmade business, and the kind of clear, low-pressure language that helps customers buy from you.
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...
How to handle customer complaints with grace
How you communicate with your customers is a vital part of your branding strategy and it’s so important that you get it right. When people reach out to you with a problem (or even a complaint), it’s an opportunity for you to improve your processes and make your...
Why Quality Photos are essential and how to improve yours
Nine times out of ten, when someone is frustrated that they aren’t selling as much as they’d like, product photography is the culprit. Online, product photography is absolutely essential. It’s all your customer has got to go on. And it’s not enough to simply SHOW...
How to save hours of work every week: the top business tools I couldn’t live without
Feeling completely overwhelmed and as if you can’t get anything done in your business? Spending so little time making that you actually forget you’re a maker, rather than a professional email answerer? As a solo business owner you can’t do it all. I usually say...
Does Packaging Really Matter?
As a tiny business you have a lot of things to focus on every day. Packaging is a great way to personalise and brand your work and give your customers a really great experience when they order from you online. Gift wrapping, enclosing some sweets, coloured...