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Explore YOUR Business

Reasses

This isn't what I was going to write about today.

But it's the first day of the new month.
And spring is coming.
And this morning I read Leonie's Guide to Wild Donkey Secret Productivity and Tara's Get Started + Fail post and well, I'm thinking about getting things done.

Or rather, how I get them done.

Leonie and Tara pretty much summed it up: when I have an idea, I ride it.
I work it.
I take all the creative energy and I just give in to that part of the cycle.
And (just as importantly!) when I'm done, I rest. I do nothing. I putter and sip tea and recover.

But the part that they both left out is that I am always always keeping track of every stray idea.
Writing down.
Listing, scratching, gently non-planning.
(More on this later this week)

And reassessing.

Every once in a while (like the beginning of a new month?) I go back through and reassess. What's a real idea and what waits for later? Did the donkey I rode in on get me where I want to be? Or do I want to go elsewhere?

What's the big picture?
(42)

So today, on this most lovely of new months, let's take a look at what 2011 has been so far:

What steps have you taken towards your Big Dream for this year?

What has improved?

What important thing have you forgotten about?

What is most exciting to you this very moment?

Feel free to answer in the comments or in your journal or on the Facebook page. I'll be sharing my answers in the coming week.

Just a little step…

The first thing I read this morning was this post about finding your passion from Tara Gentile and I can't get it out of my head.

I rarely think about the finding of passion, I spend most of my day helping you DO that passion (and doing it myself!) Trying stuff. Adjusting. And trying other stuff.

Here's a secret…

That's the answer to 80% of the questions I get asked in one-on-one sessions: Try it. And then adjust.
Will this marketing tool work for you? Try it!
Will your people like this? Try it!
Will you get into that show? Try it!

I don't know what will work for you.
YOU don't know what will work for you
But that doesn't mean you are doing anything wrong.
It means you're learning.
It means you're living.

But that vital first step is simple: Action.

One tiny step toward your dream.

You don't have to be ultra-productivity machine.
In fact, I recommend against it.

On small tiny little movement can get you there.

And for that, I love that Tara Gentile is teaching a class called The Art of Action.

Getting started can be hard

Even for me. Even for the smart people Tara's interviewing.
Especially when you add in the layer of ohmygoodness, this is my dream! ack!

Here's how I get started

I take classes, like Tara's to inspire action
I read and ponder, especially books like Lisa's Take That Nap.
I set my priorities and then get some gentle accountability for them (like we do in The Starship).

How do you get moving in the direction of your dreams?

Experimentations in Obsession

On a lovely Thursday afternoon, right in the home stretch of daily-yarn-postings (Month of Love), right after uploading all my class materials and emailing all the students, after plotting out blog posts for the next week… my site disappeared.
Both my sites disappeared.
No yarn, no class materials.

It was a technical thing with my server and lots of people suffered outages and there wasn't anything I, or my beloved web ninja could do to remedy anything.

At about 1pm on what was supposed to be a very productive Thursday, I had a choice.
I could obsess and plot and work and fret and email everyone.
Or I could let it go and live my life.

Obsessing is easier.

Obsessing is natural.
We want to fix it. NOW.
We want to rack our brain for every possible solution.
We want to put the fire out.
(And if we can't put this fire out, let's find ANOTHER fire to put out).

After choosing to get up from my computer and spend the day doing non-computery stuff, it was still easier to obsess.
To check my email.
To check my sites.
To rant on Twitter.

I saw the obsession and I decided to experiment.

The premise was simple (but SO difficult!):
What would happen if I did nothing.

If I didn't go out of my way explaining it to everyone…
If I didn't rant on Twitter…
If I totally ignored everything I *could* do online…

If I walked away?

Results of Experimentation

Here's what happened: I had a great day.
A great Thursday afternoon shipping orders, knitting and reading.
A great Friday running errands (groceries, bank, the stuff I usually make Jay do alone, I tagged along. We had fun!) and reading and writing for Wednesday's class.
A great Saturday helping my mom prepare to sell her shawl pins to a local salon, reading (an entire novel) and knitting.

And then, without my watchful obsession, my sites came back on Saturday night. I simply tweeted the students who had noticed (less than 1/4 of my students even realized they couldn't get to the class materials!) and went back to binding off my shawl.

Sunday, I made a list of the stuff I wanted to do…and promptly took a nap.
I woke up refreshed, ready to work.

Here I am, feeling like I had a three day vacation, ready to fill a wholesale order, launch a new knitalong, and teach an awesome class.

You have a choice.

This week, something's going to go wrong (Don't Panic! It's expected) and you'll have a choice.
Obsession? Or living?

Obsession is easier, and lord knows I slipped into it every day, but living is funner. More fulfilling, more re-filling.

Bake Sale Jitters: I don’t want to be annoying!

Bake Sale Jitters is a regularish look at the stuff that keep our business from being as much fun as a bake sale. If you have something that's giving YOU the jitters, let me know.

Along with fear of rejection (we'll get to that tomorrow!), the biggest thing y'all tell me about Sharing Your Thing is that you don't want to be annoying.

And of course you don't! Who does?
(Other than 10 year old boys. They seem to thrive on annoying. If you doubt it, lemme send you one of my little brothers.)

First, acknowledgment.

Being annoying is one of the least pleasant things ever.

(I was a very talkative 12 year old. I know this feeling-annoying-thing intimately.)

And being surrounded, as we are, by annoying marketing, it's sometimes hard to see how we can share our thing without grossing people out.

Even after all this time, I still have little moments of Oh no! What if that's totally annoying?

(Top Secret: I just had that feeling, right before sending my tweet about how Tuesday is the last day to sign up for my Bake Sale Fun class. That's when I decided I should write this.)

It doesn't have to be annoying

First, remember this: Sharing a message isn't, on its own, annoying.
It's the way you share it.

Just think of the friend who calls to tell you that gas is $.20 cheaper down the street. She shared a message. Was it annoying?

Now, if that same message was tweeted 20 times in an hour by the gas station, you'd be annoyed.

But sometimes it is

Let's figure out what annoys YOU about marketing*, especially as we see it on Twitter, Facebook and via email.

*Marketing (in this context) = the sharing of a message that the sender hopes will lead to action (sale, info, etc) .

This is what annoys me:

Unwanted
Interrupts the conversation
Repetitive

Your list of Annoying Things may be totally different. It'll help if you make up a little list right now and keep it in mind.

Go on, make your list, I'll wait.

Ok, now. This? The above list? Is NOT the only way to share your message.

Be unannoying

One of the easiest ways is to pretend that it's Opposite Day.

If you were one of the slimy people sending a message on Opposite Day, what would your message look like?

Mine would be:

Wanted
Timely
Interesting
Connect-y (meaning it deepens our already existing connection)

Notice that the first thing on the list is Wanted.

This is HUGE.

If people WANT the thing you're selling, than they will be THRILLED to hear about it. They are waiting to hear about it. They are on the edge of their seats excited.

So if you only ever talk to those people, in a way that respects them and your own human-ness (don't act like a robot or sales-machine), you won't even come close to annoying.

Take your own list and flip it.

What would your Opposite Day super-awesome messages look like?

I know! We so totally just scratched the surface here. We'll talk more about the specifics (where and how) to share your thing in a non-annoying way in the new course. Registration closes tomorrow.

Bake Sale Jitters: But I don’t want to put ME out there!

Bake Sale Jitters is a regularish look at the stuff that keep our business from being as much fun as a bake sale.

The foundation of Bake Sale Marketing is that it (all of your promotion + sharing + stuff) is coming from you: from your passions, your joy, your essence. It's not icky because it's not manipulative. You aren't faking your excitement and you're truly making + sharing your thing because it is awesome.

But this focus on you-ness can be uncomfortable.

As one of my clients recently said about her writing,

“I'm afraid to make it sound like me…because what if the people get to know me?”

This may be, a little bit, about fear of rejection (which will talk about later in the week), but I think it's also an issue of safety.

What if you're uncomfortable having YOU out there?

First, acknowledgment.

This IS hard. And scary.
It is so much bigger than just our business. It's our relationship to ourselves, others, the world.

Also, please know: It's not just you, lots of crafty artistic types worry about this.

And reassurances.

You don't have to do anything that feels uncomfortable.
Really.
We can find a way to craft a delightful and passionate business that feels safe.

Some ideas:

Create an alter-ego.
I started with an alter-ego, because I was much to shy to share my yarn with the world.
Yours could just be a nom de plume or it could be an entire character.
This isn't inauthentic, as long as it's still you behind it all.
Keep it a well-kept secret.
Whether from your mother or your co-workers, you do NOT have to tell your real-life people about your thing.
Keep your blog password protected when you get started, if it will make it easier to write. Lock your tweets. Don't friend people on Facebook.
Remember that it will be harder for people to find out about your thing if you keep it a secret, but that doesn't mean you have to jump out of the shadows before you're ready.
Be hard to get.
For us crafters, our thing is already limited; we can only craft so many things in a given day. Play with that hard-to-get-ness by highlighting + promoting this fact.

Maybe you only offer things once a month.
Maybe you only sell at select venues.
To make this work, find a place you are VERY comfortable and work on making it a sustainable venue.
Set boundaries.
Guess what? YOU get to the be the person who decides how much of your youness gets shared.
Maybe it's just your favorite color on the background of your website. People don't have to know that's why it's there, you can just do it.
Maybe you make a line of pins inspired by a beach. You don't have to share every memory of that beach, or even when you went there, or even that you went there. Just share the part that feels good.

The coolest thing about creating safety is that you don't have to sit down and plan it out.
You can, if that helps, but you can also bake it right in.
As you write a description, add what feels right.
As you tweet, decide to write what makes you feel safe.

You never have to share more than you want, but I encourage you to think of some things that you would be comfortable sharing.
Knowing what parts of your you-ness you want to share will give you a starting point as we work on drenching your business with joy + you-ness.

PS. I really need to put this PS on everything I ever write, ever: everything I know about putting-your-thing-out-there and acknowledging-the-scary, I learned from Havi. Specifically her Blogging Therapy series.
Well, that and life and trial and lots of error.

When your Thing is a Bake Sale

(you know, your thing, the thing you make and want to sell)

It's easy to talk about.
It's FUN to talk about.

You can't help but give out tasty samples.
You can't help but snack on the goodness yourself.

You are SO proud of what you've made.

You tell everyone + don't worry that you might be annoying.
You don't even think about rejection, connection, buzzwords; you're just in the flow of being excited about your thing.

New ways of telling people come easily.
Maybe it's not easy to do the work, but the idea, the energy the whole process flows.

Your thing is darn tasty and you can not keep it to yourself.
You know the people who want a taste of it and you're ready to share it with them.

That's when your thing and your business is a bake sale.

Joy.
Ease.
Flow

The truth is, your business, your thing isn't always a bake sale.
Sometimes you feel stuck or stuttery or shy.
You lose the fun, the joy, the ohmygoodness, youmusttasteTHIS immediacy of sharing it.

I'm actually in that shy+stuck place now and have been for the last few weeks.

So I'm going back to the basics.
The foundation of making my thing easy to talk about (by me and my fans).
The system of making sure the word is spreading even when I'm not spreading it (fancypants call this a marketing plan).
Reconnecting to the fun, to the bake-sale-joy of sharing my handmade goodness.

I'm doing it personally and I'm sharing my system in the new class:

Because this share-your-thing thing isn't just for newbies.
Yeah, figuring this stuff out is ultra-important when you first get started.
But it's ALSO helpful once you've been going and feel stuck or tired or suddenly shy.

I'll be talking about the in-the-soft stuff (the be-ok-with-doing-it stuff) here on the blog and the in-the-hard stuff (do-this-next steps to actually DO it) in the class.

No matter what part of the journey you join me for, I'd love to know what your stuff-that-keeps-you-from-DOING-it, questions and fears are. Please share your concerns or ask your questions privately here or by leaving a comment below.

What is keeping you from sharing your thing?

You know, your thing.

The thing that makes you happy and smiley and think oh my goodness, if I could do this for money….ooooh!

Your thing lights you up.
Your thing bubbles up out of you at parties and coffeshops and anytime it can.

But even though you love it. And you would love to sell it.

You're just not selling enough of it.
Enough to warrant all this time.
Enought to warrant your full-on obsession.
Enough to reach your goals.

Your goals might be: paying one bill with your earnings, getting national media coverage, accepted to your first craft show, quitting your dayjob.

Here's what I know:

The problem is NOT your thing.
The problem is NOT you.

The problem is that people do not know about your thing.

And that can be fixed.
You can share your thing with people!
And then they will know!
And there will be much rejoicing!

Except…you know that already.
And you're still not sharing it.
Or you are, but it's not working.

You worry you seem spammy.
You hate feeling the rejection.
You just don't know how to get the right people to know, without being gross.

Right?

How do I know?

Because I've been there. In fact, I'm there a LOT of the time. Yes, still.

And I know because you told me. I asked and you said that you were afraid of rejection and overwhelmed with all you've been told you “should” do.

It just sucks the joy right out of it doesn't it?

Well, I'm on a mission to bring the fun, the excitement, the wooo back into the process of sharing your thing.

I'm starting with the upcoming class: Secrets of Bake Sale Fun: Marketing that's Sticky, Not Icky.

In it we'll start with the basics of sharing your thing with joy and glee and then we'll build a personalized plan for reaching out and bringing the right people in.

It starts in just a week and you can read more about it here.

And if the class isn't for you?
I still completely adore you and we'll be talking a lot more about bringing joy back into your thing right here on the blog.

Finding our place in this space

Who knew the world contained this variety of duct tapes?

I've been thinking a lot about community.
And culture.
And what makes a space a space.

Havi talks (brilliantly) about culture.
And Diane has been talking about (financial) sustainability in our crafty world.

And the range of answers in her comments has me wondering: what is our online, bloggy, crafty world?

There are craft bloggers and podcasters (like Diane) that don't sell what they craft.
There are crafters who don't blog or podcast but want to sell what they craft.
And crafters who sell what they make, but don't blog or Twitter or even get online.

And then there's me.

I starting blogging (oh Diaryland!) 10 years ago (and no, you can't read what I wrote then) and have been writing something online ever since.
But it's not really humor.
It's not really tutorials.
It's not really essays on the craft world.
It's not really…anything.

Over at Blonde Chicken Boutique, I write about my yarn. How I make it, what inspires it, what to do with it.

Here, I talk about having a crafty business. What that's like, what I've learned, how you might do it.

I'm part of the community, but I'm not interacting in the same way.
And this works for me.
It's built a business and friendships and allowed me to do what I really adore (talking to other crafty business-lovers).

But is that allowed?

Several of my newest clients are brand-new to the whole online-craft-world and they're wondering if they should do it all: blog, tweet, podcast, sell their craft.

My answer is always the same: do what suits you.

If you like writing (as I do), write.
If you like photography, Flickr.
I you like getting to know strangers with similar interests, tweet.

I'm not sure where I fit into the greater craft blog world and that's ok.
It's ok if you don't know where you are either.
And it's really ok if you don't blog or tweet or sell your thing.

You are welcome here all the same.

(Remember, there are no secret handshakes.)

Finding what works for you is the first step to making sure you spend your time on doing what WORKS for you.
What brings clients.
What fulfills your needs.
What makes your business hum with fun and profit.

I'm working on a class that will answer your specific questions on using social media (blogs, twitter, etc) to sell your thing (it's not quite ready to announce yet, but you can sneak a peek here), but before I announce it, I just wanted to remember:

It's ok to be where you are. It's ok to NOT use social media.
It's ok to use it however you've been using it.

Really. You can't do it wrong.

The only thing that's wrong?

If it isn't working for you.
If you're not getting what you want and need.
If it's wasting your time and frustrating you.

And that's what my class will be about: ignoring the shoulds and finding what works for you, in a non-icky, totally full-of-ease way.

I'm curious: what do you know works for you?

Right People and communities: some quick thoughts

This photo has nothing to do with anything, I just thought you should know that it really IS this snowy.

In our CraftyBiz Kitchen chat this week, someone asked a gorgeous question:

How do I get involved in my community if they're not online?

This is brilliant, because most everything that I talk about in the Right People class, assumes you're reaching a community online.
But you might not be.

If you're selling online, then the community you build will be online.
(Of course you can have an in-person community to, but it's much easier to just link to your shop online than in the middle of a conversation)

If that community is NOT already online, then you should probably pursue different methods of distribution: wholesaling or consigning to shops or craft shows or something else.

The method of your distribution (how the people get your thing) will determine the community you join and build.

If you open a yarn shop, hold knitting nights, classes and attend the knitting groups that already exist.
If you sell to retail locations, become a part of their community: attend wholesale shows, take them out to lunch, talk to them.
If you sell locally, meet your customers where they are: classes, community centers, book clubs, golf courses.

The one caveat: if you sell crafty things, you will NOT find your Right People at a crafting group. If they make the craft, they probably won't buy the craft, right?

In other words?
Go where your people are.
And then talk to them.
Be uniquely, crazily, obsessively you….
And that's it.

Everything I've ever said about Right People will be applicable to any community of people, if you first get really clear on who they are and where they are.

And when you start thinking about building the community (not just getting involved in what that already exists), read this great post by Tara (uh, not me!) on the 3 pillars of community building.

Where's your community of Right People?

Should you do free?

Should I give away free patterns or products or services or tutorials?

This is a question many people (those who have been steeped in the crafty community but yet to open a crafty business) ask me.

My answer is different for everybody, but this great post and Free + Sustainability + Community by Diane at CraftyPod reminded me that I've wanted to talk about it for a while.

The short answer:

Free is fine. But what do you hope to accomplish with Free?

Is there another way to reach that goal, one that's more sustainable for you and that sets up the right relationship between you and your people?

(Right Relationship = the relationship you hope to have with them long-term. For my yarny people, it's a yarn-buying relationship. For my craftybiz people, it's a more personal relationship: we work together to craft their businesses.)

The long answer

Free is fine.

But before you start giving stuff away, think about your Right People, think about your Right Relationship.

How can you build that sustainably over time?

What can you give them that will build the Right Relationship?

Realize this: if you give it away now, you won't be able to charge for it later.

When free is great:

When it's a prize for getting the interaction of your Right People (ex. 50% off when I spin a yarn that you suggested).
When it's in exchange for information you need (ex. a survey, or a sign-up to your list).
When it's building the relationship through building your expertise, your cleverness or whatever it is that highlights your YOUNESS.
When it's a taste of your awesomeness (ex. I send mini-skeins (5 yards) to regular customers if they want to try a new yarn) that entices them to pay for the full awesomeness.

When does free work for your CraftyBiz?

PS. We'll be talking a LOT more about baking Right Relationships in the Starship.

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