Are you a people pleaser? Do you hate saying no to your customers? Do you hate saying no to anyone? I think a lot of makers, especially those in the first few years of business, find it really hard to set boundaries with customers.
When you’re starting a brand new business as an artist, crafter or designer-maker you are going to have to make a LOT of decisions, often about things you don’t have any direct experience of. It feels like every decision is make or break. You’re also really aware that you really don’t know what you’re doing and maybe you’ll make a terrible mistake that will kill off your business before it even gets started.
What if I said that the majority of the problems and difficulties you are facing in your handmade or art business at this moment in time are all linked? What if I said that they are the result of one small error? What if I said that none of them could even start to get fixed before you correct this error? It’s an error that all of us are making every single day. It’s an error that’s completely understandable and completely human and yet completely toxic to your business.
I’ve got strong opinions about Black Friday.
Actually I’ve got strong opinions about publicly complaining about Black Friday.
Black Friday is a relatively new phenomenon here in the UK and each year there seems to be more and more polarisation around the event and more and more Anti Black Friday blog and social media posts from makers. To be clear, I don’t believe that anyone should ever feel obliged to discount their products.
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.
