WaltzWorks University
My series of courses to help you learn the skills necessary to take your business to the next level (with many more coming soon!)
Reading your Etsy Stats Part 1: Terminology
Etsy gives you a dashboard full of statistics to help you understand what is going on with your shop. The thing to keep in mind is that they only give you raw data. It’s up to you to analyze it to know what it actually says. The most important thing to remember is that business
The More Effective Way to Pick a Target Customer
I was talking about this in my group the other day. It seemed to surprise people, so I wanted to dig into it a little deeper. There are two ways to go about selecting a target customer: (1) Make a bunch of items, see what sells, stalk the people who buy from you, and guess
Business-athalon
You often hear the expression, “It’s a marathon, not a sprint.” When we’re talking about running a business, the difference is way more than that. Business requires you to excel in several unrelated activities. It’s more like a triathlon, which requires different skill and equipment to swim, bike, and then run…. but business has a
The Customer Journey: The Difference between Successful and Failing Business
Your business has a relationship with your customer. It might currently be “two strangers” or it could be a deep and mutually helpful bond. But there is a relationship and constantly improving it is critical to your business’ success. It’s important that you understand the process a person does through as they change a total
One Step at a Time
There are so many tasks to do in a business, it’s hard to know which one to do next. You see all kinds of articles telling you which advertising platform to use or which eCommerce host is the best… but to a new business it’s kind of like talking to a brand new triathlete about
Keeping up with the Joneses
Get Your News Delivered to You Did you ever meet someone who just always seems to know what’s going on? They know about new product announcements, what company just got bought out, which website just announced new features, and which new books are worth getting. You’ve already got enough going on, so how could you
The Business Bridge: Building a Successful Business
Sometimes it’s really hard to know where to start or what to work on when you don’t have a good idea of how a business functions and how customers interact with it. This isn’t just about SEO or whether your photo background is white or gray or picking the right logo… it’s a much bigger
The Handmade Business Dilemma
There’s a reason that you struggle with running a business as a handmade seller : you are both the manufacturer and the retailer. You are basically running two different businesses at the same time: a small factory and a small online store. As a result, you need to worry about things like raw material costs, material
Pricing for Profit
This question comes up a lot, in many forms: How much should I charge? How do my prices look? Am I charging enough/too much? It’s something handmade seller struggle with a lot. It’s understandable, there are tons of factors to consider. Most handmade sellers, especially ones doing it for a hobby, are just worried about
The Feast/Famine Cycle
I first experienced this when I was in my early 20’s. The small architecture company I worked for (8 people) had a huge project that would keep us all busy for the next year. About half-way through, I asked my boss what was next. He didn’t know… there was no effort to get something else.