tara, Author at Tara Swiger

tara

Questions, Answered

Before it starts, I wanted to answer some questions ya'll have asked me about it.

I can't make the call!

Totally ok! Everyone, whether they make the live call or not will get a recording of the call on Tuesday morning. If you buy the Fancy Pants Version, you'll also get a written summary of the entire call.

Will you hold this class again?

Probably not.
For one thing, it's less exciting the second time. Part of what I love about these live classes is the energy on the phone and the challenge of being prepared to answer everyone's questions. A second class just doesn't have that same appeal.

But I am likely to talk to pricing again. This class has triggered a lot of questions that are tangential to pricing:

How do I pay myself?
How do I organize my time?
Do you track your hours? How?

So, yes, I will be covering all these issues in a future class, or maybe a series of classes. I'm brainstorming/plotting a sort of bi-weekly class where we call in for a lesson, then go off and work on what learned about, followed by another call (or Twitter check-in) where we share what we learned. I'm thinking this sort of structure would allow us to really dive into all the tangential questions that come up. (If you're interested in that, shoot me an email, or leave a comment with your ideas)

Where did you learn about pricing?

Mostly, experience. 1 year in a scrapbook store, 2 years managing a paint-your-own pottery studio, 2 years in yarn shops (in all of these jobs I worked directly with the customers and hear their reactions to prices). 4 years of selling my handmade stuff and nearly a year of doing it as my family's main source of income.
The second source is conversations. Conversations at craft shows, at fiber festivals, over coffee and on Twitter. With crafters, shop owners, gallery owners and some very smart retired crafters.

But I've also read a looot. I have an extensive bibliography for the class. My students will receive it as a fancy PDF with an explanation of what I love from each resource.

But what about all of you who have more time than money? And want to read and sysnthesize and experiment? For you, I want to share the bibliography and I encourage you to do your own research and come to your own conclusions:

Books:

(linked to their IndieBound page, buy indie!)

The Boss of You
Handmade Marketplace
Crafting for Dollars

Online:

Etsy's series on the Art of Pricing.
Havi's The Art and Science of Pricing .

Any more questions about the class?

Leave them in the comments and I'll answer them until the class starts at 3p ET.

Hello! Welcome!

Today is the official birth day of this here site and I couldn't be happier to have you join me!

It's also MY birthday, so while I'm scarfing gluten-free chocolate chip cookies and drinking too much coffee and having ice cream on my pancakes (maybe even in that order), please poke around and tell me what you like.

I'm having a little online party too.

To join in, tweet me a link to a ridiculous birthday cake (it can be yours or anyone's) or (better yet!) email me a recording of you singing happy birthday (video or audio). If I get enough of these (say, more than 5), I'm going to edit them together and share them tomorrow, right here.

If you tweet or email me, I'll send you a super-secret link to Party Favors (free stuff!).

Have a lovely my-birthday and happy your-day!

Don't miss a single post, by getting them right in your inbox. Click here to make the magic happen.

Pricing Handmade Goodness

My last post, on the Power Of Pricing, got me thinking. I recieved the best feedback (both in the comments and via email) and what I’m noticing is that a lot of makers are having trouble figuring out HOW to find that Right Price.

Well, I think it's time we figure it out!

After listening and noticing and reading Twitter, Etsy forums and the email you've sent me, it seems many (most?) sellers-of-handmade-goodness are either doubting their business (the economy is bad!) or wondering “how in the heck can this pay my bills?”

And this is bumming me out.
Because it's not the economy. And it's not what you're making.

It’s what you are (or aren't) charging.

If your price isn't right, then it doesn't matter how much you sell, you won't make enough.
Enough to sustain you.
Enough to quit your job.
Enough to grow your business.

But pricing your handmade goods isn't alchemy.
It is totally figure-out-able with formulas and thinking and plotting.

But formulas and plotting aren't one-size-fits-all.
Everyone's handmade-thing has its own needs and costs.

With that in mind, I'm putting together a class that will cover the basics (math, formulas, strategies) and will answer your specific questions. Yep, 1 hour of class-like teaching, followed by a as-long-as-it-takes Q+A.

And if you can't make the live call? You can send in your questions via email or Twitter and I'll answer them on the call, then send you the mp3.
And if you're just NOT into audio? You can get a written summary, along with worksheets AND your questions answered during a live Twitter Q+A session.

But here's the thing! I'm doing this quick, because I want to donate $5 of ever registration to Havi's fun-brewing (she's building an in-person teaching space) and she needs to have a floor in that space by June 7th.

Oh, and to thank you, Havi's giving everyone a copy of her excellent Copywriting Magic class! (It's an mp3 recording, which I'll email to you!)

Want more details about the class? Click right here

Have questions? Leave them in the comments.

The Power of Pricing

Last weekend, I did a really fabulous local craft show (the Lavender Festival) and once again, I learned the power of having the right price. I spent two full days meeting lovely knitters, crocheters, and wanna-be-crafters. I noticed them pick up my yarns, check out the price tag and I watched their reaction. This is maybe the hardest part of selling in person: watching and hearing reactions. Will they be negative? Positive? Indifferent? This tension can throw a normally-sane business-gal into a tizzy. It can cast doubts on all the math you did to figure out that price.

Because your price is not just a number. It represents value.

The value you place on your work and skill and passion. And the value your customers place on what they hold in their hands.

What I’ve learned through 4 years of selling my yarn in person is that the right number on the price tag is just the first step.

The clincher is how I feel about that number.

Do I apologize for it? Do I hem and haw? Do I trip myself up trying to explain that it’s ohmygoodness it’s made by hand from local wool and really rare and and and

Or am I confident? Am I proud of my work?
Do I truly believe I deserve to make what I put on its price tag?

My confidence my belief in my work is communicated to the customer and allows them to feel accept the price. My comfort with being paid for my skill and time, gives them comfort as they reach for their wallet.

This comfort may not come naturally, but it can be learned. And if you’re going to sell (online or in person), it’s vital that you learn it.

The combination of the Right Price (one that pays you fairly and reflects the quality of the work) and the Right Person (someone who loves your work and is happy to pay for it) turns the sale into an easy, fun experience for everyone.

Oh, and at the festival this weekend? I heard not a single word about prices. Every Right Person snatched up what they wanted and whipped out their wallet with glee. I had a great time, they had a great time and we all ended up with what we needed.

Is that the experience you have selling your work? If not, why do you think that is?

PS. Not sure what your Right Price is? Wish you just had a simple formula and some ideas for becoming comfortable with it? Learn how to figure it out in Pricing 101, a bonus class in Pay Yourself.

My first published article!

Just got my copy of Inside Crochet in the mail.

And flipped to page 66.

And there. Is. My byline.

Even better: there's a whole 4 page spread of my article.

And my pictures.

The article is, as the title says, all about finding local fiber farms (or, if you're British, Fibre Farms). I wrote about my experiences and gave some suggestions for finding farms local to you.

Inside Crochet is a British magazine (and it's been available there for a few weeks, I think), but you can find it in the States at your local yarn store or at Barnes + Noble (my spies tell me that it should be in by May 10th).

Let me know if you read it!

Clarity, now.

Last week, I made a change: I turned my bricks+mortar yarn shop into a mobile, traveling yarn road show.

Before I made the decision, it felt huge.
And so important.
Important to me.
Important to my family.
Important to my customers.

I struggled with it, internally, before I could tell anyone else.
It wasn't the decision that was hard to make (that was actually super simple), it was the telling. The making public.

I was, well, afraid of the reaction.
Would they be disappointed? mad? annoyed?

And through all this wondering, I realized:

None of that matters.

While I certainly value my community, their (whoever they are) reaction can't make the decision.

It is my business, my life and my decision.
I can't let other's (percieved) opinions decide.
I have to decide.

I know what is best for my business, for my community, for my personal work of making handmade, eco-friendly yarn, for my life.

But, before I could announce it, I had to get really (really!) clear with the why and the how. I had to know that it was right. I had to be strong in my decision.

Once I got there, it wasn't so hard to announce it.
So I made the announcement.

And I was shocked.
Everyone is happy.

My family.
My community.
My customers.

Why the big difference between what I thought the reaction would be and what it actually was?

Because I came to it from a place of certainty and peace, I can pass that along.

The after-school special lesson?
If I choose love.
If I choose honesty.
If I choose openness. With myself. With others.

If I do that, I can share it.
Love, honesty, openness, peace.

Getting tangled in the but what will they think, keeps us all tangled together.
Clarity in my work can bring clarity to my community.

Whew!

Something very odd went very wrong with my website this week.
Something about Domain Name Servers pointing to the wrong thing. My host (HostDime) had superquick customer service that helped me fix it, but it took another 48 hours to “resolve”, so even though you may have been able to see it, I got nothing but a sad 401 message for a few days.

The timing couldn't have been worse, as I just announced a BIG decision (and change) with my yarn shop, A Novel Yarn. I had hoped to talk more about that decision here, in this space, this whole week.

I worried that the decision, coupled with my broken website would look…wrong. Like something was wrong. Like I was absent. Like I had just left.

And then, I realized (again and again).
What's a big deal to me and in my business is not a big deal to my customers. Or my friends.

What seem disasterous to me and in my business barely registers for you (if you even notice at all).

What ~~seems like~~ IS a gigantic decision to me is just mildly interesting for the “public”.

And this is good to remember, for the future:

It's probably not ALWAYS going to be a big deal
It's probably not disastrous
It is probably not going to rock their world as much as it rocks yours.

Or, the Twitter version (which I tweeted as a self-reminder during the decision-making:

Unless you have the nuclear launch codes, this will probably NOT result in DOOM doom DOOM!

Not on a Monday

Today isn't Monday.

Oh, sure, you are reading this on a Monday. But I am not writing it on Monday.

Because I don't work Mondays.
Ever.
Really.

Why?

Because everyone needs to rest.

And not just a midday nap (although I'm a fan!).

A real, totally clear, totally un-eventful day of rest.
Without expectations or appointments or changing out of pjs.

Why?

Remember my theory of the Cycle of Creativity? Our creativity needs a fallow period, in order to, well, continue to be creative.

But so does our…everything. Our body, our mind, our spirit, our energy.

Everything. Needs. A. Break.

The fallow periods of the creative cycle always force me to take a creative break.
But I've learned that if I wait for my body/mind/energy to force me to take a break, it's too late. Usually I get the flu or a sinus infection or just an overarching listlessness.

But it's more serious than that.
If I don't take a break, my work suffers.
I go slowly.
I get distracted.
I make mistakes (not easy to do with yarn-making, but tragic in bookkeeping!)

Taking a day off, really, truly off, means that I return to my work on Tuesday with a freshness. Usually a few new yarn ideas, a new blog post and the energy to spin, photograph, or (heaven forbid) spreadsheet all day long.

Why a whole day?

Well, I was raised (and still practice) honoring the Sabbath.
The Sabbath meant, for us, Sunday. We'd head to church, go home for lunch, do the dishes and then lounge.
Reading, napping, crafting were mandatory.

My fondest childhood memories are of Sunday afternoons spent at the park. Eating take-out on a quilt, playing frisbee, walking the trails, laying in sunlit patches with my book held up to block the sun from my eyes.

And just because I'm an adult with 2 businesses, some co-owned sheep, and a pile of dishes doesn't mean I need to give up that time of rest and lounge-y-ness.

In fact, all those keep-me-busy to-do-list items proves that I need the sabbath more than ever.

Why Monday?

A Novel Yarn is open Tuesday – Saturday. Sometimes, on Sundays, Jay has to work and while he works (after church), I head to the coffeeshop and catch up on computer-work. Monday is the only day of the week we can both take off.

Even when he does have Sundays off, I end up working or we make plans with the family to hang out at the farm or run some errands (which is hard to do in a town that closes down on Sundays). In other words, Sunday never ends up being a day where I can lay around in my pjs if I wanted to.

And pj-wearing is a mandatory part of my Official Day Off.

Why so strict?

I used to let my day off be determined by what was going on that week. If we could lay around for part of Sunday, I'd count that and get back to work on Monday.

But, oh. That does not work. I ended up doing a little work every day and feeling like I was getting nothing done.

It's much easier to honor my day off if I set up clear boundaries around it.

No work email, no shipping, no work photography, no work writing, no work spinning, no answering questions or moderating comments or applying to craft shows. No bookkeeping or checkbook balancing or bill-paying.

None.

What's left, with good, strong boundaries, is a big open field to run around in.
I can go exploring.
Or sip tea on my porch.
Or watch movies.
Or lay in bed.
Or meet a friend for coffee.
Or lay on a blanket in a sunny spot and read with the book held aloft to block the sun from my eyes.

What would you do on your day off?

In which I confess…

Lean in a little closer.
I have a secret to share.

Don't tell anyone, but I have a super-hero alter-ego. You know her as the Blonde Chicken.

And no, she doesn't fight for chicken rights (although we are both vegetarians).
And she doesn't dress like a chicken (because that would be ridiculous).
She's the Blonde Chicken for a totally adorable reason (if you don't know the story, go read it here), that hasa nothing to do with chickens (and only circumstantially with being blonde).

Even if you don't know it, you've already met her.
Well, you've met her if you thought you were talking to me, at a craft show or at TNNA, or on Twitter or on Etsy or anywhere that has anything to do with yarn.
(If you ran into me at the grocery store, then yeah, it was just me)

What?

For the past, oh, 4 years she's been running the show.

The Blonde Chicken started by approaching a local yarn shop (in Dayton, OH) and offering to dye some custom colors (I was busy managing a paint-your-own-pottery studio at the time). Then she photographed more yarn and put it on Etsy.

When I moved to Tennessee and got a desk job, she was NOT detered.
She took the yarn to an art gallery and did a spining demonstration during an Art Walk (the nerve!).
She's the one that applies to craft shows (and then has the guts to actually GO and talk to STRANGERS) and twitters and heck, lots of the time she writes what you find on this here website.

Why?

The Blonde Chicken is strong and brave and silly and passionate about eye-popping brights and socially-responsible fiber.

And when I first ventured online, as a dreamy girl with a teeny tiny business idea, I was too shy. Too shy to post on a forum. To shy to blog. To shy to tweet.

I know you wouldn't believe it if you've met me at a craft show, but I am painfully shy.
Turn bright red and stutter-kind-of-shy. Painful!
I put off applying to craft shows because I could not imagine the horror of talking to people. real! live! people!

So I called upon Blonde Chicken. She jumped in with both feet; making friends, snapping pictures, writing, dyeing, spinning.

Everything that seems too too. Too overwhelming. Too scary. Too out-there.

All those things, the Blonde Chicken does.
With silly music blaring and dye pots bubbling and chat a-chattering, we do it together.

That's just weird.

Yeah, I know.

But the thing is…it's helpful.

Helpful to not feel like I have to put myself out there.
Helpful to ease my way into it.
Helpful to remember that somewhere in me is the ability to do epic stuff.

I've been thinking a lot about the role of the Blonde Chicken in my business because now that I have a real, in-person yarn shop and teach real, in-person classes, a lot more people are meeting me. Tara.

And I realized that, in the beginning, I needed Blonde Chicken. Needed her to go out and biggify the us and the yarn.

But now, thanks to growing with Blonde Chicken, I'm not so shy. I'm not so afraid to say “Hi, I'm Tara, I make yarn.”

I'm tempted to end this with a sappy “If you're nervous about biggifying…find your inner super-hero”, but, well, that's too sappy.
Instead, I just want to say, in the words of a multi-national corporation I don't even buy from: Just Do It.

Find the thing (Victoria-shmoria can help with that) and do the thing.
Put yourself out there, share your thing, be brave.
And if you just ca not imagine doing any of that, make up an alter-ego.

It'll be fun.
And weird.
I promise.

PS. Ha! I'm not the only one! The super-smart Maryann has an (imaginary) assistant, Tina! Love the hair, Tina!

The Cycle of Creativity

I have a theory:
Creativity is cyclical.

In my own work/life/business, I have these crazy full-of-ideas periods, followed by amazing get-stuff-done periods, followed by…today.
Stuckness, tiredness, I-don't-wanna-ness.

The cycle affects individual ideas (let's make a Learn to Knit kit!) and my general, day-to-day creativity.

It starts with an idea, then a flow of ideas, then I get in the flow of making the ideas happen. This revving-up is my favorite part of the cycle. I would live here if I could.
I would camp here and do nothing but generate ideas and journal and plan all day long.
But then I get anxious to DO, to implement.

At the apex of the cycle is not just the flow of ideas, but the production, the work, the actual doing. In other words, creating.

But after that apex, as the projects continue to roll forward and the rush of ideas turns into a rush of details, sometime in the midst of doing, I slow.

And soon, the slowing is the overwhelming characteristic. No longer creating the thing, I'm either brunching (introducing the thing to the world) or I'm slowing down in the middle of the thing.

Following the slowing, comes the fallow period.

Despite being raised in the agricutural heartland, playing in cornfields, my days measured by the height of the corn: I haven't recognize or respect the fallow period until recently.

What does fallow even mean?

cultivated land that is not seeded for one or more growing seasons
undeveloped but potentially useful

I tried to ignore it.

Who wants to be “not seeded”?
Who wants “undeveloped”?

I tried to go right from the slowing, back to the doing.

But something in me resisted.
The ideas dried.
The inner pushpushpush halted.

I thought about napping.
I read for hours.
I baked, cleaned, strolled.

Before I recognized that this is a stage in the cycle, I kept pushing.
Pushing to get ideas.
Pushing to work on projects.
Pushing to work work work.
Pushing to get out of the un-doing and back to the doing.

But pushing got me nowhere.

Inexplicably, inexorably, unequivically the ideas came back.
First, just a trickle, then a stream and then a rush and I am back.
Back to doing, to planning, to creating.

Whether I push or not, my creativity cycled.
And, as Teresa said on Twitter today:

When you stop pushing it creates a vacuum that will fill back up with better ideas than you'd been pushing for!

When I recognize the fallow period, when I respect it, when I rest in it, I create a blank space, a well that is soon filled with ideas and energy.

Today, this week, I'm in a bit of a fallow period.
But it's ok, it's just part of the cycle.

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