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It’s ok

It's safe to say that I am more excited about the Holiday Sanity program (and all you creative smart people who are joining me) than I am about actually doing the planning. Which is why I invited you to keep me (and each other)accountable. This afternoon is where it all starts, but before we get going, I just needed a little reminder:

With all this talk of holiday planning, it may overwhelm you.
I know it does me.
I finally filled out my own mini-guide (yeah, I shared it with you just to convince MYSELF to do it!) and then all I wanted to do was nap.

And so today, it seems important to know: you don't have to do everything.
You don't have to be perfectly planned.
Or have life balance.
Or know what's going on.
It's ok, just as you are.

Whether you have a family, or an illness, or just stress.
Staying on top of it all, seeming perfect, having your stuff together.
That's not the goal.

The goal (or at least, my goal) is to notice.
To interact with the stuff that comes up, instead of ignoring it and hoping it all works out.
To get help when I need it.
To rely on my community.

This is just a friendly reminder that wherever you are, with your business, with your holiday planning, with your life is exactly where you're supposed to be.
And I'm so glad that you're there. And here.

(If you do have life-stuff that makes you worry you can't run a biz, check out tomorrow's class with Kirsty Hall, about working Within Limits)

Last Classes of 2010

I was going to make this announcement in December, and then I realized,

Oh, if I don't say it now, it'd be too late!

I'm not teaching many public classes in 2011.
For the last 4 months, I've taught at least 2 hours of brand-new material, in the form of teleclasses, every month.
And it has been awesome.
But as I strive to bring you more helpfullness in your quest of crafting a business, I need to focus more on answering your questions and less on selling you classes.

I will be teaching a lot more private classes, which will be free to people in my private programs (which aren't open yet, but you can sign up here and be one of the first to find out about them when they open).

Which means Holiday Sanity + Within Limits will be the last publicly-available classes for quite a long time.
That's why I'm bringing it up now, because if I waited until December I'd have to be all

“I'm teaching very few public classes, and oh, by the way, you missed the chance to take my last classes”.

So, for now, I'm just going to say that: Holiday Sanity + Within Limits are the last public classes I'm teaching for at least another 2 months.

If you're not interested in those classes, don't worry!

You can get weekly tips for working on your CraftyBiz (for free!) with the SparklePointer + I'll always be here, sharing everything I learn in my own crafty business, every week.

Planning for money

This is the second in an ongoing series about planning (your business and your life!) for the holidays. If you want to keep your Holiday Sanity this year, join a group of crafters + artists in our accountability fun.

One of the vital parts of keeping your business thriving during this busy season is to plan for money-making.
A lot of holiday-money-talk revolves around budgeting, but an equally important part is planning to keep making money, even when the holidays throw your schedule into the blender.

Of course, the holidays are often a time of increased sales for some businesses (mine included), so you'll want to plan for keeping things stable and/or increasing your sales.

There are several puzzle pieces that can fit together to make a financially healthy holiday

Offer something new for the holidays
Make it easy for your people to buy gifts
Keep income stable through the holidays
Maintain (and improve) your marketing

Offer something new

Can you do something holiday-themed in your shop?
Can you offer them in a new way or a new place?
I do this with a line of Christmas-y yarns, red + green + gold with jingle bells or sparkley stuff and a few yarn-themed ornaments.
I bring these yarns to Urban Craft Uprising (where they sell out, every year), which is a new venue (new compared to other months).

Make it easy to be a gift

The simplest way to do this is to offer gift certificates or gift baskets.
Your past customers can both GIVE them to their friends and REQUEST them from their loved ones.

Make it easy for your people to ASK for your thing as a gift. Last year I sent a special email that was actually addressed to husbands. The top of the email said, “Want to be SURE to get yarn for Christmas, forward this to your family!”.
Make it easy for your people to GIVE your thing as a gift.
You could write gift guides (answer the question: What kind of person would this be perfect for?), make it even easier (gift wrapping? last minute help?)
Last year I kept selling gift certificates until the very last minute (Christmas Eve), for people who would print the cards from home.

Know what you need to make each month.

Even if you don't do ANYthing different for the holidays, you'll want to keep everything from falling apart. Whether your business is your full-time income or not, it'll be helpful to have a real, number goal in mind.

Once you have a number in mind, you can break this down into when/how that money needs to come in. (Ex. If you're doing your christmas shopping at the beginning of December, it might be nice to have a little cushion for that).
After having soft deadlines for when you want the money, you can break that into individual products (if that makes sense for what you make). If you don't already have that many things in your shop, when you will you make them? How many per day or per week?

Improve that marketing.

I had all sorts of things to say about this, but then I read Diane's fabulous post about marketing during these marketing-drenched times, and I realized she said it all. So go read that. And do exactly what she says!

Putting it all together

Ok, so we have ideas for new products, production planned, marketing planned and now, how the heck do we have TIME for it?

The final step is to fit it all together.

For that, I made a little booklet that will walk you through the steps of making sure everything fits on your calendar, along with a handdrawn planning calendars and lists.
You can download it for completely free, right here (right click…save as…).

Plan a Sane Holiday mini-guide

And if you need some gentle accountability and little help focusing? Join us for Holiday Sanity.

How do you do it?

Is this how you plan for the holidays? If not, are you going to try it?
Tell me in the comments.

Experimentation: Do I have to keep doing what I’ve been doing?

I've sold my yarn, online, for over 4 years.

When I started, Etsy was the easiest way to get started. I didn't have to know any html, all I had to do was take pictures, write a description and there it was. Available.

And as the years passed, this method worked great.

As I focused more on making it my full-time income, I made myself a little schedule. I'd make yarn all week, photograph it on Saturday mornings, edit them by Sunday and list a yarn a day for the rest of the week.

I kept this schedule for…years. Up until this summer.

I didn't have enough yarn to keep listing. I was getting big wholesale orders and sending it off to yarn shops. I was preparing for craft shows and wanted to bring enough ( I was afraid of it selling online before I got to the show!)

Suddenly, no matter how much yarn I made, I felt bad that I wasn't offering more online.

And when I packaged packages, I was rushed. Throw in a card, slap a label and get it out the door, so I can go back to yarn-making, writing and teaching. To keep from getting behind on sending out orders, I made a schedule for this too. Packing Day was once a week (Wednesdays) and I'd print all labels, package all orders and go to the Post Office. Soon I was corralling my husband into doing most of the shipping.

And I was in the throes of this slapdash packaging one day, when I realized: I dread this day. I dread all the admin here.

So I sat down with my journal and asked,

Why?

What about it don't I like?
I don't like that I feel guilty. Guilty that I should be making these packages prettier. Guilty that I'm not giving it my best. Guilty that I should be better.

What could make me feel better at this?

If I did it less often. If I could do a whole month's worth at once.
If I didn't feel so behind.
If I didn't worry that I should have saved this yarn for a shop or a show or something.

What would that look like?

If my yarn-selling could be anything, as unprobably as it may seem, what would it look like?

And there it was, all at once, the solution:
I would offer yarn only once a month.
For one week.
At the end of that week, I'd pack it all up and send it out.
The unsold yarn would also get packed up, either to a shop or for the next show.
And then I'd get back to spinning, three weeks of full-on spinning with no photography, no labeling, no shop-maintaining.

But that's scary

I was immediately beset with monsters.
This is the most ridiculous idea ever!
You're always saying you should make it easy to give you money! This makes it hard!
People won't buy it!
Customers will be disappointed!
Everyone will think you're a slacker!

So I talked to the monsters.

And I talked to my supporters.
My friends. My family. My mindmelders (like, a mastermind group that channels Spock).

And we (my monsters and I) decided it would be ok to try it as an experiment.

Only an experiment.

My online shop closed 3 weeks ago as the first part of the experiment.
The second part of the experiment starts today, the one-week-only Yarn Party.

We'll see.

I have no idea (yet) if this was a fantastic or a ridiculous idea.
Either way, I promise to report back.

Until then…

Let's talk about other ways we could experiment.
What things do you dislike doing? Is there a way to stop doing it?
Share your thoughts in the comments.

Danielle is crafting a (whitehot) business

This is the fourth in a series of interviews with smart people who are crafting a business. Part friendly chat, part case-study, all helpfulness!
If you know someone I should interview (even you!) let me know.

Today I’m talking to Danielle of WhiteHotTruth. While her business isn't crafty in the make-a-craft-sense, it is entirely handmade, built from scratch and filled to the brim her brightly shining Daneille-ness.
I was delighted to ask Danielle a few questions after devouring her Fire Starter Sessions book. That book (and the thinking and scribbling it provoked) directly led to this site and my favoritist, love-filled part of my own business.

You combine the visual + the verbal beautifully in your notecards and in your truisms: how did you develop your sense of design?

It gets down to this: strip it down. I haven't always been a champion of simplicity, but I got there, because I got clear that it's all about the message, baby. And judging from your next question (I peeked ahead) you get that too!

Your eye, your style, the layout of everything from notecards to FireStarter Sessions to your website all reflect and highlight the meaning, the message.
And at the same time, it reinforces your brand. Do you think of it as branding? Or something else?

Whenever someone asks me about ‘how I built my brand' I giggle inside. So, nope, I don't think of it as branding…but it is. Confusing? My quick definition of a brand is a persona. Some personas are manufactured for appeal, some personas are a reflection of someone's authentic self. The latter is more sustainable, and fun.

I've got a message, and I focus on being straightforward about it…usually in Helvetica and black & white.

The exercise I found most powerful in the FireStarter Sessions was figuring out what I wanted to feel and then work on bringing those feelings into my work in whatever way I can. It sparks all sorts of crazy ideas and new directions.

How did you discover this method of decision-making?

So glad that worked for you because it's the focus of my next book. It's been a long journey to finally getting to the heart of it: that everything we do is in order the generate a desired feeling. The short answer about how I got there: take years of faking it to make it, too many new age self help books, a heaping does of passion, meditation, and consistent courage, et voila! Conclusion: the best life strategy is to get clear on exactly how you want to feel and set about creating those feelings in every area of your life. Feels…good.

What do you want to feel more of right now?

I always want to feel more innovative, affluent, connected, and…divinely feminine.

You recently wrote that doing what you say your going to do is the secret to success.

How do you make sure you aren't promising things you can't do? How do you set boundaries to respect your capacity?

I say ‘no, thank you' about 80% of the time. I work with some A+ people, so I can focus on what I do best. I pay attention to when I feel inspired, or heavy – and I try not to let heavy get on my to do list. Inspiration is a very simple, but powerful formula.

Thanks Danielle!

If you enjoyed this interview, let Danielle know! She’s @daniellelaporte on Twitter.

My favorite bits of Danielle-wisdom:

“Strip it down.”
“Inspiration is a very simple, but powerful formula.”

What could you strip down today?

A cushion for the meh

I've been thinking a lot about craft shows and picking a good one and the inevitable meh show. It can be so disappointing when things don't go as well as you like and it so easy to slip into self-doubt. To keep myself from spiraling too far into the meh, I'm compiling a list of things to remind/encourage myself next time.

What's a meh show?

Any show that doesn't thrill you.

Maybe your expectations were high (and unmet).
Maybe your location wasn't great.
Maybe there were too many people selling the same thing.
Maybe the crowd wasn't in the mood to shop.

It seems like there's not a lot you can do.

And it's easy to see all the ways you can't turn the show around.
You can't change your place, you can't get rid of the competition and you can't convince an unbuying public to want to buy.

So what can you do?

You can institute an insurance policy. A few small things that will make sure the meh doesn't turn into a total waste of time.

Here's what I do:

Pick carefully. Think about what your Right People are looking for…will they be likely to find it at this show? Will they even hear about the show?

Invite your people. Tell them in your newsletter, on Twitter, on your blog. Email them personally. Offer them something (free gift, % off) when the show up and mention they heard about the show from you.

Collect new people. Other vendors, curious lookers, shoppers, non-shoppers. An email list is the simplest way to do this, but you can use anything that both helps you collect the information and then put it to use later. (I go into detail on the whole post-show-sales subject in this class, if you'd like to know more.)

Stay open to other opportunities. Selling your thing is great, but it's not the only benefit of the show. You may make contacts in the media (leading to a future profile or writing opportunity?). You may meet shop owners (wholesale opportunity?). You will definitely meet other vendors (collaboration opportunity?).

Schedule something fun. Plan to meet-up with the locals. Visit the tourist destinations (even if that just means cupcakes + yarn). Stay the night with a friend. Eat new food.

And despite all this…

It sucks when things don't go well. And you may doubt yourself, doubt your thing and doubt the whole doing a craft show thing.

And that's ok.

You totally don't need to see the positive, or keep your chin up, or learn from your mistakes, or any of those other encouraging things people will say.

Go on. Look at the meh. Accept the meh. Maybe pout or sleep or write a blog post about the meh.

In the meantime, I'm here to gently remind you that the meh isn't all there is.
That there will life and sales and awesome shows after the meh.

In the comments

Putting our thing out there, into the big world can be scary. In the comments we don't give advice or “you should…”; we give encouragement and share our own experiences. I wrote this post for future-me but if it helped you, I'd love to know.

Good Shtuff: Craft Show Smartness Edition

Good Shtuff is a weekly(ish) snippet of the stuff I’m reading, listening to or watching.

I leave tomorrow for NYC and I am in all-craft-show-prep all-the-time mode, so this week the Good Shtuff is all craft-show related.

How I prepare

I was going to link to some other people's helpful stuff, but then I remember I did that in this post. Not only does it link out, it's also a great description of what I do to get ready.

Shocking

I wrote this after my first craft show and I think it's most clearly expresses how much I love doing them: 5 1/2 Shocking Facts about Craft Shows. My favorite line: “Being friendly is exhausting, but being passionate is exhilarating.”

Do I make any money?

The short answer: yes. The long answer (and how it all breaks down) is here.

But it IS a lot of work

I get real about the pain of craft shows in this post. Painful, yes. Awesome, totally. As I say, “I do craft shows because it’s the one place, the one situation in which being a full-time yarnie feels good, normal, accepted. The people get me. ”

But if you wanna do it

I compiled everything I've ever learned about succeeding at craft shows, with a heavy focus on getting post-show sales in this class. It's one of my most popular and the great news is: you can take it any time.

What have you been reading and writing this week?

Share it in the comments!

Listastic: Craft Show Prep

I had high hopes of writing insightful posts this week about my process of getting ready for a craft show (2 days till NYC!).

But, alas, I'm knee-deep in preparations and my brain is barely functioning beyond single syllabic phrases, such as SPIN, PRINT, and What?

I had to have spell check fix the word preparations, so yeah, it's dire.

But I know that if I wait until after the show, I'll forget everything that goes into it, so I want to write something now.

So, lists. I am surrounded by lists and maybe lists provide the clearest view into the method and/or madness.

Or maybe I just need to go make another list.

Master List

This is the list that has absolutely EVERY thing that has to be done before I go. Things like driving Jay to pick up the truck he's borrowing while I'm out of town with our only car, baking gluten-free bread (so I can pack myself sammiches for the trip), shipping out the BCB orders, labeling everything, picking the last of the blueberries, etc.

(I just noticed that “paint toenails” is on this list. This is not mere vanity, I always end up taking off my shoes to spin in front of customers….and end up with three year olds saying “Your polish is messed up”. True story.)

The Master List also has a list of everything I need to gather and put in the car, it has a list of the food I want to pack, it has a list of the things I'll need money for.
The master list also has a list for Jay (things like: print X of these labels, clean car, find the screws to go with those shelves), which I assure you thrills him.

Did I mention Jay is not a list-maker? When you consider my deep and abiding love for lists, it's amazing we've lasted nearly 10 years. Shocking, really.

Daily List

I make one of these around 2 weeks out (but this becomes Super Serious by the last week).

Every day has a list of the things I need to do. In theory, everything from the Master List finds a place on the daily lists. This is the ONLY way I make sure everything from the Master List actually gets done.

When, like yesterday, half of the stuff doesn't get done, it gets moved over to the next day. In theory, I won't end up with everything on the last day…

List of Smartnesses

This is the list of what I read a few weeks before I start getting ready. It gets me in the right mind to do what I gotta do. It's a combination of “remember this” and “think about this” and “what a good idea!” stuff.

Check back in tomorrow for the full List of Smartnesses (with links to everything!)

PS. If this random rambling isn't at all helpful, be comforted by the fact that I thought long and hard (and in multi-syllabic sentences!) when I taught my Rock the Craft Show class.
As the holiday craft show season approaches, it's becoming a bit of resource for crafters and I'm hearing great things from everyone who is using the checklists.

Rob + Sam are crafting a (photography) business

This is the third in a series of interviews with smart people who are crafting a business. Part friendly chat, part case-study, all helpfulness!
If you know someone I should interview (even you!) let me know.

Today I'm talking to my friend Rob, who has the dubious honor of being the first of these interviewees that I knew pre-Blonde Chicken Boutique. In the 6 years I've known him, he married the gorgeous Sam (who I taught to knit!), made an adorable baby (see below) + grew a photographry business.

How'd you get started in photography?

I have liked photography as far back as I can remember. I always like learning a new skill, even if I don't pursue it beyond learning the basics, and both my grandfathers were amateur photographers.

My father is a bit of a photographer, and so when my sister was old enough to start learning photography she took his camera. And he eventually bought a newer, slightly nicer camera. Once I was old enough to start really experimenting with photography I took over that camera. No doubt, in a few years my son will have his eyes on my camera.

For me, it was the first form of art where what I produced matched or approached what I had imagined. My drawings, and later my prints and sculptures, rarely end how I hoped when I started.

What led you to start the business?

I never planned on photography as business.

Photographers become known for their style and themes, and I had a hard time imagining my path to success would be a nationwide fame for documenting my parents' back yard.

My mother is a ceramic artist, and we went to a lot of craft shows. In my mind, craft show photography and gallery photography were my two choices.
Service photography, I hadn't thought about. Later I would consider
journalism, portraiture, studio, and event photography, but that all
came after my first professional work.

How it really began…

One day, I go over to my friend Westen's house. Right after I arrive,
I overhear her mother say,

“It's ok, Rob will take care of it.”
“Hey Westen, what am I going to take care of?”
“Rob, you might be a little annoyed.”
“Why don't you tell me while I make a sandwich.”

A delicious sandwichis very calming, so I started making a sandwich.

“You're going to be my wedding photographer.”
“Westen… there are normally steps, like, ‘Hey Rob, guess what, I'm
engaged' and then maybe a ‘Hey Rob, can you do my wedding photography?' and so I feel like me overhearing you already telling people I'm the photographer is kind of doing it wrong.”
“But that's not what I did. So now you're my photographer.”
“Okay then.”

And from then on I was a professional wedding photographer.

How has your business changed through the years?

What's changed the most, and continues to change, is the amount of not-photography that my wife and I do as part of the business.

We had a very unique business model for our location when we started. Sam
was my just girlfriend at the time of the first wedding, but I realized I was in over my head, and needed a partner to help me through. So we always shoot a wedding with two photographers. Not a photographer and an assistant, but two full photographers.

And does that make you different from most wedding photographers?

When we moved to Madison, what made us unique in Dayton (2 photographers) made us part of a regular subset of wedding photographers: husband and wife teams. So
as I started to realize how much more competition we had, I wondered
what would make us stand out now.

What makes us stand out from photographers in the sames groups? It's our experience, and how we share it with the customer. As we learn from each wedding, we are able to share with our customers what we've learned about making the day go smoothly.

We share so much information with our customers, starting right at our
first meeting. We make sure that we're the right fit for the customer. As much as we would like everyone to hire us, we have a specific service we offer, and it's not right for everyone. It's better to make sure you really are the customer's ideal, than to have a large base of unsatisfied customers.

We start fishing out what the customers' are looking for, and giving back to them a sense of how we will be able to meet their needs. There's a balance that every artist who offers a service has to strike, between flexibility and sticking to who you are. There are services we will never offer, because that's not who we are, and there services we will do by request only.

Right away we make ourselves clear on who we are, and what we can do for you. But then we start asking questions about the plan for the whole of the day, and that's when we really start sharing our non-photography part of the business. Often our questions are met with “I don't know” and “We haven't talked about that” or “I didn't even know that happened.”

Sam and I have coached couples through cutting the cake. We've trained ushers. We've been the phone line from the girls getting ready to the guys getting ready. I often teach the guys how cuff-links work. For eight hours, we work with the couple, we work with the videographer, we work with the mc, we work with the officiant. We become part of the day. And that knowledge and involvement, grows a little with every wedding.

What has changed about the way you look at your craft, now that it's also a business?

Photography really appeals to me, not in spite of being a business,
but because of being a business.

I am able to earn part of my living capturing moments.

Especially with weddings, Sam and I are able to share scenes from a day to audiences who have personal connection to the images. The bride and groom get to see what the other was up before the ceremony. Family get to see pictures of three or four generations of relatives all interacting. Invited guests who were unable to attend can watch the story of the day. We, as photographers, effect how the day will be remembered in the years to come, and that's an amazing feeling.

Isn't that delightful?

You can find more about Rob + Sam (along with even more of their gorgeous photos at their website or hang out with them on their Facebook page.

My favorite bits of Rob-wisdom:

“There's a balance that every artist who offers a service has to strike, between flexibility and sticking to who you are. There are services we will never offer, because that's not who we are.”
“It's better to make sure you are their ideal, than to have a large base of unsatisfied customers.”
“A delicious sandwich is very calming.”

You see? It's all about Right People!

Finding your People starts with paying attention to what you do + don't want to do and making sure you don't take on any clients that expect something else from you.

How do YOU make sure you are working with only your Right People?
Tell us in the comments!

But do I HAVE to have a newsletter?

No.

There, that was easy, right?

A conversation I'm always having.

Seriously. In nearly every IdeaStorming session, we have the following conversation.
It's a good thing that so many people ask these questions because then I realize, “Hey! A lot of people have these questions!” and then I can answer y'all all at once. Nice!

Why a newsletter?

The conversation usually starts after I say (this is after we've talked about the whole make-it-easy-for-people-to-give-you-money thing) something like,

“The next step is letting people know about your thing.

It's easiest if you can let interested people know, on a regular basis. Sometimes this is a newsletter.”

Why is this easiest?

Why is it easier to talk to interested people on a regular basis than to reach people via advertising, guest posts or other marketing?

I have so many reasons I'm making a list:

If the person signed themselves up to hear about your thing, you know they want to hear about your thing. It may sound obvious, but this is all the difference between feeling like a spammy mcspamerson and feeling delightful. (This is called Permission Marketing)
Convincing new people to like your thing is a lot harder than convincing already-in-love-with-you people.
It's much easier to get a date with your husband than with the Abercrombie model.
When you contact interested people on a regular basis and you provide useful, interesting content (not just sales messages), you build trust and affection.
Your Right People want to hear about your thing. They want to buy it. When you tell them about it, they are happy.
If you doubt this, think about your favorite store. Are you ever sad when they send you something useful or interesting? (Oh, Anthropology catalog, how I love you.)
Hearing from you on a regular basis, reminds your Right People that you exist. This is a good thing.
Have you ever clicked around a website, fell in love, swore you'd come back and then promptly forgot the name of it? Yeah, that happens to everyone! Giving that new person something to do (that is lower risk than buying something) makes sure they remember you later.

But can't I do this without a newsletter?

Absolutely!

You can do it with your blog or with your Twitter stream or with letters. Each of these has there downside (people may not keep up with blogs, your tweets may get lost in a busy stream, letters are time-consuming), but they all work.

If you can not bear the thought of sending emails to your interested people on a regular basis, then don't!

Really.

Nothing will crash or burn or explode. Really.

They why are you always recommending it?

Because newsletters work for me.
They reach the people I want to reach and they build relationships, establish trust, and, yes, turn into sales. With startling regularity.

But it's all about experimentation

You won't know unless you try.
The good news is: it's really low-risk to try.
If you don't like it, you can stop at any time.

If you think newsletters may work for you (or you'd like to try that sales with startling regularity thing) check out my 2 new classes.

In the first one, we'll cover the hows of writing/sending/making sales with your newsletter, the how-to-make-it-delightful part.
In the second class, I turn to expert Wendy Cholbi to walk us through the setting up of newsletter software.
(A lot of people have asked about newsletter software. It is SO MUCH easier than just using your regular email and helps you ensure you don't hit spam boxes. I'll be talking more about this tomorrow).

What are YOUR questions?

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