Weekly-ish notes on navigating big change

How to Get There

What's your biggest craftybiz question?

What do you feel is the biggest thing standing between you and your independence?

For most of my adult life, I thought it was knowledge.
I thought if I knew more, read more, studied more…I could craft the life I wanted.

And I brought that to you, to what we do together…I thought the thing you were missing was knowledge.

So I taught classes and built a Starship.

But then everything shifted. After about a month in the Starship, I realized that everyone  wasn't really asking “How Do I Do This?”

They were asking,

What do I do next?
How do I get there?

Now, it's easy to answer those questions with definite I-know-what's-right answer. I can say, You do this, then this and this. I can answer with my smarts.

But doesn't address the heart of the question.
It makes you dependent on The Person With The Answers.

YOU have the answers.

You know the things to do to build a successful business.

(and if you really are new to the whole business thing, the Starship is full of classes that teach you the basics)

What you really want to know is “How do I take what I know and turn it into what I want?”

When I realized this is the real question, I knew I don't want to give you another pile of smarts; I want to help you unfold what you know.
I want to help you compose your OWN map to your independence.

I want you to take everything you've learned
and turn into a path to walk.

And so I looked at my business: what really turned all that knowledge into independence?
It was a process: taking the knowledge, focusing on one endpoint and then breaking it down into it's parts.
Turning all that into something that would hold my attention until I got to the endpoint.

I took that process and I created a Map-Making Guide.

The guide will help you unearth all that you already know.
It will help you plan it out in a smart way.
And it will help you create something visual and visible that will keep your path in your mind, even when you get distracted.

You can get the Map-Making Guide right here.

What is keeping YOU from crafting your independence?
Knowledge? Or knowing how to apply that knowledge?

 

————

A huge thanks to two Cadets who helped make this Map-Making Guide possible:

Amy Crook illustrated a lovely stone map, princess, dragon and other map-tastic goodies.

Lori-Ann Claerhout was editor extrodinaire. She helped me clarify, simplify, and spell right.

Getting accountability and support

Yesterday I wrote a guest post for Handmade Success about how important accountability is for your business. You can read the whole post here.

Today, I want to share my recent noticings about  accountability.

The last two months, I've been part of giant experiment in accountability and what it will do for brand-new craft businesses.

The Starship.

Let's face it, it's been over 5 years since I first started my craftybiz.
It's hard to remember all the hard parts of starting up. It's even hard to remember the challenges of the 2-years-into-it (first craft shows, first wholesale orders).

The Starship and all the sweet, vulnerable sharings of the Cadets* there has reminded me.

*Cadets is what we call members, no matter how advanced their business is. Once you complete the Map-Making Guide, you become an Ensign, and after each class you earn another pip + new title. It's really goofy.
There are no red shirts.

Through them, I can see how bewildering creating an online presence can be.
Through them, I can see how easy it is to doubt yourself.
Through them, I'm learning to go deeper, to communicate clearly, to hold back and watch the daring things they'll do for themselves.

But more than anything, I'm learning how important a community of peers, cheerleaders, and clear-headed advisers can be.

Working one-on-one is transformational, but can be short-lived. It relies on you to make the transformation.

Working with a group is a slower transformation, but you're gently held throughout the process.
You're encouraged and reminded and held accountable.
It's sustainable.
It soaks in deep.

And it's vitally important for the success of your business.

In my Handmade Success post I say:

It's hard to prioritize connecting when (online at least) it looks so much like time-wasting.

Our need for accountability, to stand around the (real or virtual) water cooler and talk about what's going on is deeply human and can't be ignored.
If you have a hard time putting in the time when you think of it as self-care (and I understand that!), then think of it as a business investment.
Study after study shows that the more connected we are, the greater our success will be.

 

The Cadets who take part in the Communication Station (forums) or the weekly check-ins make far more progress than anyone else in any other form I've worked in (classes, coaching, etc).

It's not just supportive and sweet, it makes real change.

Now, this isn't really about the Starship and its wonderfulness.

It's about community and finding yours.
It's about asking (and allowing) others to hold you accountable.

How can you get started on that today?

 

PS. You can get that community anywhere online (and there are some good tips here), but if you're looking for something a bit more craftybiz focused, check out the Starship.

 

 

 

Declare Your Independence

I quit my dayjob.
2 years ago today.

I consider this, July 1st, to be my personal Independence Day and I wanted to celebrate with you a free gift.

YOU

You have been the best part of the last 2 years.
Getting to know you on Twitter, meeting you for a coffee, exploring your craftybiz world with you…it's by FAR the highlight of the whole experience.

And because YOU are my favorite thing, I don't just want to reflect on MY independence, I want to help you claim your own independence.

(note: independence has nothing to do with self-employment and everything to do with choosing what you want)

As I've been reflecting on what this Independence has meant in my own business, I recognize that it is not just about the fun stuff. There have been some low lows.

This last year, Independence has also  been marked by a movement towards greater honesty.
Instead of only sharing the highs (I'm in books! I'm in magazines! I have fun!), I've made a conscious effort to share the lows…because that's the only way I know to be independent: to be completely honest that this isn't all fun + ease.

We (you + I) don't just focus on how to be successful, we get real about the hard bits, the challenging times and the downright overwhelming moments in running a crafty business.

Because that (honesty, clear eyes, full hearts) is how you claim your independence.

Because Independence isn't a one-time deal.

You don't just claim it and then possess it.
You have to daily declare it.
You have to build a life that supports it.
You have to own it, in every situation.

 

Independence = Commitment + Permission + Hope

I talked about commitment in last year's Independence Day video, so today I want to share Permission + Hope.

Permission

It's already yours. You are independent. You can be independent. You don't have to earn it, you don't have to try to deserve it.

You already do.

Hope

The most inspiring, hope-filled resource I have is my support network. My friends, mentors, Starship-ers, and encouragers.

They give me daily hope + giggles, so I turned to them for YOU.
I asked them to share their own Declarations of Independence in the hope that it would inspire you to stake your claim.

You can download the collection of  Declarations of Independence right here.

(nope, no need to sign up for anything!)

Feel free to share it wherever you like, however you want.

Wishing you Independence and community in the coming year!

 

Everything is Everything

Let's start with some tunes (hit play while you read!)

This has been a weird month.

Launching the Starship.
Turning 29.
Getting knocked out for a whole work week by the flu.
Going out of town for a week (family stuff!), with only my phone for internet access.

And instead of jumping into my work (my love!) every chance I get, I find myself reading, writing, painting.
I keep burying myself in painting books, rock autobiographies and artist blogs.
I'm taking an online painting class.
I'm listening to podcasts (This American Life, Creative Living).

What I'm not doing is writing about business or planning a class or making endless yards of yarn.
For the first time in….2 years?!

It's not just part of the creative cycle (because I'm doing lots of creative work, it's just not my usual)…it's a total shift in focus.

Yesterday, it really freaked me out.

What's going on? Did I lose the CraftyBiz love?
But I still sat down with a painterly book and just decided to trust myself.
If what I'm craving is paint + words, it must be what I need.

And sure enough, at 1am last night (this morning?) I wasn't sleeping, I was up planning a big Thank You gift (for you!) and my next craftybiz project. I was overflowing with ideas. I was back in the saddle.

As I pondered the shift this morning (as I poured over my new favorite artist's site), I realized: Everything is Everything.

Painting, writing, crafting businesses, making yarn: it's all the same. It's all creativity. Everything needs space and time (and health!) and patience and well-refilling.

Or as Havi says, There is no biggification without destuckification.

I can't build my own business (or help you with yours!) unless I work though my stuff. Whether that's family stuff, writing stuff, getting inspired stuff or just painting my little heart out….everything is everything.
It all comes back to build a stronger business, to create more inspired help for your biz.

What do you need right now?
What's asking for your attention (even if it's not what you're “supposed” to do?) Is it possible that indulging might be just what your business needs?

Insanely specific marketing advice

This is dedicated to the girls on the Facebook page who asked for a bit o help breaking down the “Do Some Marketing” on their To Do List.

 

What do you do when you know you should do “marketing” but you don't know what that is?

Get specific

What does your business need right now?

Better connection with your people?
More traffic of the right people?
More repeat business?

If your answer was “more sales!” you're not being specific enough.

Where do you want those sales to come from?
People who already follow you on Twitter or Facebook?
Brand new people?
Past customers?

Hint: Almost every craft business can benefit MORE (quickly and with better results) from getting in touch with past customers.

But because I promised specific help, let's look at how to get in touch with past customers.

IF that's what your business needs next, you can do it under 2 hours:

  1. Set up an email newsletter list (but give it a spiffier name than “newsletter”…is it a love letter? a diatribe? a missive of magnificence? call it that!). I like MailChimp.
  2. Set up your welcome message and include something interesting in your “confirm” email (that's the message they get when they confirm their subscription)…a coupon, free shipping, access to a special just-for-them product.
  3. Email your past 5 customers (one by one! don't spam them!) and ask them something about what they bought (be specific!).
    Tell them you want to thank them for their support so you're putting together a sneak peek behind-the-scenes bi-weekly (or monthly, or random) email and they'll get (fill in the blank) for signing up.
    Include a direct link to the sign-up page for your newsletter (Mailchimp makes this automagically, look for it under “forms” for your list).
  4. Create a draft of an email that you are going to send to EVERY new customer. In it, tell them when their item will ship and how you'll send it. Thank them! Then tell them that you've created a missive of magnificence just for past customers and they'll get  (fill in the blank) as a thank you. Send this email to every customer, as soon as you receive their order.
  5. As often as you've promised, send a sweet message thanking your people, asking for their input and sharing something secretly delightful about your business (a gorgeous inspiration photo, something that triggered your latest epiphany). Make it friendly, useful or inspiring, and relevant to what you make.

Remember!

This will only work if it's suited to your business and your people. Before you move forward with ANY to-do on your marketing list, make sure that it will bring you closer to your overall goal…don't just do it because someone tells you it will work.

Want more specific yet personalize-able help for navigating your marketing space? Check out the Starship, where we have a whole class on making a non-sucky newsletters.

 

I fell overboard..

I built a beautiful Starship.
I was in love with it and excited and could not wait to tell everyone about it.

I had grand plans for a fabulous online-birthday party for myself. I was going to announce a really great gift (for you!) and then spend all the next week writing about what the Starship is like on the inside.

And then I fell off the edge of my world.

I took 2 days off for my birthday (fun! yay!) and then I got ridiculously sick.
Flu-sick. Fever-sick. Can't-get-out-of-bed sick.

For over a week.

And the worst part was: I had no energy. No will.
I had NO desire to write, to help, to celebrate the Starship.
No desire to do anything.

And I'm still not back yet.

I'm still stuffy and fluffy-headed.
Still sleepy and foggy.

I still don't have my excitement back.
I know it's part of the cycle.
I remember that.
The Starship help me remembers that.

But I miss it.
I miss being excited about the Starship.
I miss feeling like myself.

I just wanted to crawl out of my nest of blankets and tell you that if you fell overboard, or if you're tired, or if you're just not excited right now: It's ok.

Give yourself a break.
Rest, drink water, take your time.

It will come back.
And when it does, I'll see you here.

 

 

PS. I am feeling well enough (and the stirrings of excitement) about our FIRST call in the Starship, Wednesday at 3pm EST.
In case you missed the excitements over the Starship, you may want to beam up before the call.

Why I’m giving it all away

The Starship has taken longer to come together than anything I've ever done.

I did it intentionally (got the idea in April, but waited to make it public until June) because I wanted to give it space to grow and see what it would become.

(take the name for example…it was originally a Bounce House. Which is fun, but a Starship is SO MUCH better!)

The side effect of all this extra time is that I got all kinds of feedback on it. Slowly, from people I trusted.

Most everybody said something like

This is a splendid offer, Tara. Starship! And I love the way you express the goodness on this page. Yummy-yum, my friend.

or

OMG. I love the idea of a Starship.

Insanely fabulous.

And well, that was pretty awesome.

But a few people (even my students!) said something like

Whoa! That's a lot of stuff! Are you sure you want to give access to EVERYTHING you're going to create this year?

WHY?

I never for a minute wavered (the Starship just felt SO GOOD)..but I did wonder: why am I doing this?

I've spent the last few weeks writing and thinking and talking about it: why in the world did I built a Starship?

Intense, yet fleeting

A live class is deliciously intense, focused burst of attention on your business. It's a moment of alignment between intention and action.
Everything comes together. BAM!

And I love being a part of that.

But I am not a one night stand.

I'm in it, here with you, for the long haul.

I needed our interaction, our relationship to take place in a way that reflected that.

Your passion for your craft isn't a one night stand either.

Those moments of clarity are sublime.
But your business is more than a few moments.

It's every day.
It's choosing to align your intention with your actions every day.
It's choosing movement.
It's choosing life.
It's choosing to go on an adventure…a continuing mission…a trek.

That trek, that commitment, needs the appropriate space and an every once-in-a-while class isn't the right space.

A starship is just the right size for a trek.

You have time to move in, space to stretch your legs, a holodeck to relax in (yes, we do have a holodeck), continuing missions and new flight logs to keep you focused and on track.

So that's it, that's the reason: I've putting everything I've made in the last year, every thing I WILL make in Starship because I want you to fall in love with your craftybiz and spend the rest of your life with it.
I want some of your last thoughts about your biz to be, “I have been and always will be, your friend”

 

(Ok, I just threw that last sentence in there because I am ALWAYS looking for an excuse to say that. Best movie line ever! I cry every time! )

Welcome to Your World

Your business isn’t a thing on your to do list.
And it’s not a job.
It’s not a system (although it has systems) or a struggle.

Your business is a world.
A full-formed, bursting with adventure universe.

That world comes into being the moment you made the decision, the moment you committed to creating it.
Every item you’ve crafted, every sale you’ve made has shaped your world.
Even though you are the one building it, you still need to explore it.

While you weren’t looking, it grew residents (your right people, your encouragers). It developed a currency (based on your pricing) and it developed a culture with customs, traditions and language.

It’s a lovely place, really.

It’s filled with your beautifully crafted items, your people, your money.
Have you explored it lately?
Plumbed it’s depths to see what else you can create for it?
To see how you can better serve the people (thus growing the population and the treasury)?

If you’d like to explore deeper, create your own maps and guidebooks, I invite you aboard the Starship.

To celebrate this site’s one year anniversary, I’m throwing a  launching brunch for the Starship.

I’m cracking champagne over the bow, I’m making pancakes in the replicator.

You can join me in the Starship, of course, but you can also celebrate with me in the comments, on Twitter, and in the SparklePointers.

Let’s craft your independence.

(If you're reading via email or reader, click through to see the changes!)

One year ago, I guided this site into the world.
I wrote a mini-festo, embracing my unapologetically wonky nature.

18 months ago, I began teaching classes for craftybizes.
I didn't plan on doing more than one, but as my inbox filled up with questions, I thought, there's got to be a better way to share the answers. So I taught a class and was hooked.

I was soon annoying my yarn-buying people by talking to the biz-class-buying people, so I split the craftybiz stuff from the yarn stuff.

And I had no idea what I was doing.

I had a vague feeling that I might teach more classes.
I thought we might explore some non-yarn stuff.

I didn't know I was crafting a community.
I didn't know I was leading an adventure.

In the last year, you've taught me LOTS (more on that, Friday).
And together, we built something so beautiful I can't look directly at it without going blind (from the tears).

To reflect those changes and acknowledge that we are each, together, crafting our independence, I've changed the site name and my twitter handle (yep, I'm @taraswiger now, because it's time to stop hiding behind my alter ego).

If I had a new mini-festo, for this next part of the journey, it would say this:

There isn't a right answer.
This is all a big adventure.
By engaging with the adventure, by exploring your own world, you are crafting independence.

We'll be talking more about this in the coming days, but one of the easiest way I'm shifting the focus is with the banners.

The banners will rotate, but I thought you might like to see them all at once, along with a bit about each photo (yep, I took 'em all).

This picture was taken for the Happy Hat pattern, but I love the clear trail in front of me.
Obviously I didn't take this one, Jay did.

This is Mt. Ranier, as snapped through my airplane window.
I love the feeling of possibility I always get in an airplane.

The most bittersweet of all the images, this is a picture out the front door of my former home. The one I moved into on my first day of self-employment, the one that was burglarized three times, the one I had to move out of suddenly and painfully.

Taken from the train from Seattle to Portland, I'm pretty sure this is right outside of Portland. This was the first leg of a loooong train ride all the way to San Diego…one of the most adventurous (aka: hard) trips I've taken.

This is a snippet from my journal…a letter I wrote to you. It says, “I have hope. Clean, unfettered, feathery hope. For you.”

This path curves around my favorite blueberry farm, in the mountains.

nyc skyline banner

The Manhattan skyline, as seen as I drove from Brooklyn to Queens for the Bust Craftacular last September. The day before I got up early to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge because I heard the view was gorgeous. Surprise! the fog was so thick I couldn't see my hand in front of me, let alone the skyline!
But as I drove to the show the next morning, I finally got it. The view was amazing, even if I did have to watch the stop + go traffic while clicking my phone camera. Safety first!

And that's it for memories of adventures, but it's just the beginning of a fun week.

To celebrate this site’s one year anniversary, I’m throwing a  launching brunch for the Starship.

I’m cracking champagne over the bow, I’m making pancakes in the replicator.

You can join me in the Starship (tomorrow!), but you can also celebrate with me in the comments, on Twitter, and in the SparklePointers.

Tomorrow, I'll invite you to the brunch; Thursday I’ll explain WHY I’m giving everything I made in the last year away for less than ½ priced; and  Friday (my birthday!) I’m throwing a little birthday party with an awesome gift for you.

I’m so bad…

Do you ever say that to yourself?

When you know you should be doing one thing, but instead do another?
When you know what to do to move your business forward and just don't do it?
When you feel guilty for not doing better?

In our recent Starship chat, “I'm so bad” jumped out at me.  I heard it (in some form or another) from everyone.
From hard-working, thriving mavens.
From successful, I can't fulfill demand crafters.
From just getting started, don't know where to go next adventurers.

I thought (and said): You're doing what you can. This takes time and you're on the path. You might not be there yet, but you ARE taking steps to get you there.

And then, out of town visiting my mother-in-law for her birthday this weekend, I had a seizure of panic on Sunday morning. I turned to my husband and said, “If I was only working harder, I wouldn't feel so bad about taking this weekend off. If only I got more done last week! Ugh, I just feel awful!”

Jay, wonder-hub that he is, said, “You couldn't do anymore. What you're doing is enough. And you know it. You know that longer hours and more work doesn't lead to better work or more sales. It just wears you out.”

He was convincing and I was calmed, but I got to wondering, where does this come from?

Is there some gold standard of productivity, some level of business that we're all striving for? If so, where in the heck did it come from?

More importantly,  how did it insinuate itself into my relaxed, experiment-rich, journey of a business?

I find there's a tension (for some of us) between wanting to thrive, to grow, to move AND wanting to keep a Sabbath, to respect the cycle, to grow organically.

We worry that we're not doing, being, pushing enough while also knowing we need naps, floor stretches, and novel-reading.

We embrace the tenets of self-care and rejuvination when we're tired and burnt out, but rush back to pushing and judging when we're short on cash.

Clearly, an experiment is order.

But what?

What would help YOU remember that by going slow, taking time, taking naps you are refilling the well, not shirking your duty?

Share your thoughts in the comments and we'll build an experiment together.

1 83 84 85 86 87 108