I see this question a lot: what should I do first? The shop owner then lists off a series of things that are more exciting to do, like starting a website, ordering business cards, coming up with a banner, maybe getting some professional photos taken… but none of those are really going to get your business off to a good…
Five things to STOP doing in your small business
The most valuable asset anyone has is time, yet I see many business owners spending their time on things that really don’t help them. It’s easy to do. There are so many aspects to deal with that sometimes we focus on things that are not important to the business but are easy to do or make us feel better. Unfortunately,…
Hold on to your Hat, Changes are Coming!!
You won’t believe the changes that are about to happen. They could change everything about your business. No, I don’t mean any of the announcements that people have been talking about so much lately. I just mean that changes happen rapidly in any business, and you need to be prepared for it. You could read this again in a year,…
Choosing Great Service
I’ve heard it said that you can’t control the things that happen to you in life, you can only control how you react to it. Customer service is how your business reacts to what happens to it. Something goes wrong, either for you or for the customer, and now you have to react. Maybe a customer forgot about an anniversary…
Put Yourself in Their Shoes
For just a second, forget about your business and think about how YOU use social media: How many Facebook Groups do you belong to? How many Facebook Pages do you follow? How many Instagram feeds are you SO into that you turned on Notifications for them? How many email newsletters did you sign up for? If you’re like most people:…
10 Ways to Work On Your Business, Not In It
Most creative people start a handmade business because they are creative and want to MAKE something.They probably don’t start a business because they love running a business. The problem is that those are the exact tasks that make a business grow. As hard as it might sound, you should spend as much time (or more) each week making your business…
The Handmade Gardener
The worst part of gardening (and working with vinyl) is weeding. As frustrating as it is, sometimes you have to go through and pull out all the things that don’t really belong next to your beautiful flowers. It seems like you have to do it on a regular basis to keep everything looking neat and clean. Your shop is the…
Hunting and farming
There are really two ways that you can go about getting orders: sales and marketing. Sales is a lot like hunting: you gear up and go looking for something and you expect to come home with one. If not you might not eat. Marketing is more like farming: you plant seeds, you nurture and care for them, and you expect…
All Feedback is Good Feedback
Did you ever get a 1-Star review and you just felt annoyed and dejected, thinking the person hates you and must be evil and just didn’t know how to read the description before she kicked a puppy? It happens to all of us. But here’s the thing: you needed that review. Something wasn’t working, and this person told you about…
It’s not you, it’s me
Did you ever make a product you were so proud of and loved so much that you showed it to everyone you knew and couldn’t wait to photograph it and get it listed? Then you get it listed, get all the perfect keywords on it…. and nothing happens? It gets 1 or 2 views a day (on a good day),…