Explore YOUR Business

You deserve to be paid, no matter what you need

One thing that comes up every time I talked about money-making with a group of women is “need” and who needs what and how much and how this impacts their work. This is a loaded, emotionally-charged issue, but it's time we talk about this openly and without shame.

The simple fact is:

Some makers need to make money from their craft in order to pay the bills + some makers do not need this money to pay the bills.

I think of this as the Spectrum of Money Need. There are some of us on the far side of MUST make this money to pay the bills. If you're single or if you're the main “breadwinner”in the family – your business, no matter how much you love it, has to support you financially. On the far other end are those who have another income that pays all of their bills (this might be a day job or a partner's income). Most business owners are somewhere in the middle. (Perhaps you have a part-time job, or your creative work brings in 35% or 70% of your needs.)

Everyone, no matter their need, deserves to be paid for the work of their hands.

This is why I created Pay Yourself and this is the reason students across the spectrum love it – makers are ready to start valuing their work.

This is a common rallying cry around the craft community, but it usually get stuck in the “people should charge more” debate. I take it a step further. It is not your buyer's job to be sure you're paid fairly. It's not the community's job to set a standard of fair prices.

It's your job. It's your responsibility to price your work competently, to know your expenses, to be aware of your Break Even Point. It's your responsibility to not only know these numbers, but to make smart decisions informed by them. It's your responsibility to keep paying attention to what your business and customers are telling you. And it's your responsibility to stay open to change.

No matter what you need in terms of income – you have this responsibility if you want to build a sustainable, satisfying business*. No matter what you need, you have no more (or less) right to be paid fairly, and no more (or less) responsibility to make that happen.
There are differences – where you are on the Spectrum of Money Needs will impact what you struggle with. Makers who don't feel a pressing “need” for the money often feel weird about charging for their work, or making decisions based on the numbers. Makers who desperately need the money so that they can continue to eat often feel overwhelmed and frustrated. They want to know exactly what to do to make it all work out. (Triple the stress if you have other people counting on you to feed them as well.)

You see, your hesitations and fears are normal. You are not alone. You are not more or less deserving than the crafter next to you.

No matter where you are in this spectrum – you deserve to be paid.

Your work is worth the effort. Your gifts are worth the work you'll do to find the profitability. Only by truly believing this, and taking on the responsibility for your own business, will you find your way to what you want. (And remember – you get to define success for yourself.)
While you're at it, while you're working on believing in your own worth, take a moment to accept the worth of everyone else. Let's stop debating who has a “real” business and let's stop trying to figure out who is making “real” money. You just don't know. You don't know how hard anyone else works or their own issues with self-worth. You don't know, so stop using it as a yardstick (or excuse) for your own goals.

If you're ready to get real about your own numbers + take responsibility for making money, check out Pay Yourself – it's now a self-paced e-course and for this week only it's on sale – $20 off. If you're ready to value your work and get paid, this class will help you find the profitability and improve on it.

*Don't care about making money on your craft? That's ok! Check out: Is it a business or a hobby?

3 lessons for a website redesign

Welcome! Come right in and make yourself comfy!

I'm so so happy to introduce you to my redesigned site! It's been an amazing (and overwhelming) experience and I've learned SO much.
(If you're reading this via email, click through to see my brand new site!)

The changes represent a massive visual re-branding, created + implemented by Jessika Hepburn. Well, it can hardly be considered a “re”-branding, since I didn't have visual branding to begin with.
And this brings us to the lessons I learned:

Just because you have a website doesn't mean you have a visual brand.
A website designer is not the same as a visual branding specialist. (Although some do awesome visual branding, you should be clear up front on what you're looking for.) You see, a website designer will design your website – give you a cool template, and maybe make a few buttons for you. But they're not looking at the entire visual identify of your business. And for many of you graphic designers + artists – that's perfect, because you are skilled at creating your own visual identity.
But I am not. I can use Photoshop and I know what I like, but that doesn't mean I can illustrate or even come up with the ideas of what will communicate what I want to communicate. As Jessika said when we started this process: Your voice is SO clear in your words, you just need your visuals to match it.
Although there was also a change to my website's layout, the focus was on creating a cohesive visual presence, that matched with my words + my work, so that as soon as you land here, you can get it.
You are responsible for knowing what you want. But often someone else can spot your sparkle better than you can.
Whether you're working with a designer, an exploration guide, or a hairstylist – you have to know what it is you want. You need to be clear on what you do, who you serve, and how you want them to feel. So your first step is to get crystal clear on that (which is what the first 2 chapters of my book help you do.)
But then, once you're really in it, sometimes you can't see what makes you so special – that special blend of happiness and delight that you bring into your customer's life. This is where working with a professional is so important – they can see what you do well + how that's different from what other people do + how to communicate that. (This assumes you're working with someone who really *gets* you.)I hope that what I really wanted out of the redesign (for you to feel comfortable and happy and encouraged) + what Jessika spotted in my work (silliness + boldness + adventure) comes across in what you see on the page. (I think it does!)
Prioritize what you want your reader to do.
Even though I literally wrote the book on this (Chapter 4), it was still super hard. This is where knowing your customer's path comes in.* I've learned that the path most customers take is –>read blog + like it –> subscribe to email lessons –> buy book or class –> join Starship (once inside the Starship, we work together one-on-one). This leads to the best, most productive relationships, with the biggest transformations in their business, so it's my job to make that path clear + easy.

*I'll be teaching a brand-new class about this next month!

How can you make your Customer Path even easier?

Now that you know what went on behind the scenes, here's what actually changed:

I have a home page! It'll help you navigate to whatever you need.
I have a shop! Finally, all of my classes, guides, books, and adventures are in one spot. (And I have a cart! So you can buy more than one thing at a time without checking out multiple times! Magic!)
A brand-new page for new readers. If you're not sure where to start, this page will introduce you to what you can find (and where!)
Check out the new footer – no matter what page you land on, you've got a chance to meet me (hi!) + learn a bit about being an explorer.
Stars, smiling planets, and pink! Jessika did a glorious job designing my new logo (up top!) and adorable illustrations for my products.

The smiling planet is my fave. Isn't it adorable?!

A note for subscribers

If you subscribe to the blog via email, you don't have to do a thing, you'll still get the messages same as always.
If you use an RSS reader, you'll have to update it to link to taraswiger.com/blog/feed.
If you only get the weekly message but you'd like to get the blog posts too, you can always edit your subscription by heading here, putting in your info and “update subscription”

And that's it!
Do you have any questions about the process or the new site?

PS. Jessika isn't just a designer, she's also a genius community-builder + supporter. If you'd like to meet more of our community + get away from it all, check out her Maker's Retreat.

Choose resilience

For the last year, I've had the same project on my to do list – my next book. Last April, I made it my Destination (the bigger goal you're working towards in a map) for the quarter. I made VERY little progress on it. I was disappointed, but I learned: I have a lot going on that I'm not willing to put aside to give this my 100% attention. (I'm equally excited about this book and my online and in-person workshops.)

So I adjusted. I got more specific. In Q4, I set the goal to just finish the outline. Well, that didn't really work out, but I DID work on it every week and got a lot clearer on what I'm really writing.

In 2014, I decided it would be one of my big goals for the year: I'm going to write and self-publish this book sometime during the year. (It's also alongside my goasl to teach at least 4 workshops around the country (1 down!), and to create one completely new digital class (coming soon!), and overhaul Pay Yourself (done!) and to continue to add content to the Solo Mission.)

I looked back at what I'd already done, and what else I had going on and I decided that I would be satisfied if I wrote on it every weekday. That went great through February, but when Pay Yourself got crazy, it went out the window.

Now we're at the beginning of a new quarter and I've got two options:

I can be bummed that this project I'm totally in love with hasn't gone farther. I can recognize that my life is too busy for this project. I can give up on it, or put it aside, or let myself fall out of love with it by judging its progress too harshly.
Or. I can look deeply at what's gone well so far. When did I write the best bits? What could use expanding? I can review what specifically led me to put it down. How can I protect against that? I can learn the lessons of this book – what does it need from me?

You have the same choice.

It's time to review the last quarter and everyone inside the Starship and Solo Mission is busy looking back and making new maps. (I'll be sharing the review worksheet for free here, if you want to play along.) They are finding bits they are proud of and bits they wish were different. Between all of us, there's a big list of things that didn't get done. There is a big list of mistakes.

If you find a big list of things you didn't do: You are not alone. This is a normal part of growing, expanding, and trying new things. So the question isn't “Why didn't I succeed?!”, it's “What now?”

Pay attention!

This is an important moment. This is where you find out what kind of business, success, and life you're going to have. It is this disappointment (and how you choose to handle it) that determines whether you have a business or a hobby.
If you're committed to your dream, your business, and what you want, you bounce back. You become resilient.
The reality is, everyone falls short. Everyone misses the mark. The difference between success and failure is what you do next. Do you give up or scale down your vision? Or do you make a new plan?

Make your choice. Choose resilience.

How I learned from my customers to create something new

The Starship closes for the quarter, today. If you want to join, do that here.

In April 2011, I sent a message to 10 of my most-committed students and I told them about this idea I had. There wasn't a name (they helped me name it), there wasn't a big plan. I wasn't even sure I wanted to do it for more than a year. There was just a seed of an idea, based on what I had learned from my own students.

They wanted to support each other.

At the end of each class I taught, I'd have a Q+A time where student's could ask me questions. After class, I'd get a few emails: “I really wanted to tell the question-asker THIS about my own business.” So I added chat rooms to my classes. But these felt temporary and the smarts that students shared was soon lost. The solution: a forum, where the shared smartness is searchable.

They wanted to feel less alone.

The regular refrain of my class chat? “It's so nice to know I'm not alone.” Even today, after three years of weekly live chats, someone always expresses this, every week. And you know, I feel the same way. It's lovely to be surrounded by people with the same goals, the same trials, and the same hope.

They were ready to commit.

At the heart of my new, nameless idea was commitment. If you joined, you'd be in for a year. Your participation could be ANYthing for the year, there's absolutely no guilt and no expectation. I felt that this commitment to working together on their business, for a calendar year would be the impetus for real change. Instead of taking classes and here and there and just jumping around, you could really dig in and focus on one area, or one goal.

Over the last three years, I've had push back about the year-long commitment (you should make it shorter! More people would join!), but shortening your commitment changes the nature of the relationship. Instead of feeling safe, you'd feel adrift. You'd always be deciding if it was “worth it”…and if you're busy evaluating your experience, you aren't really living it.

Why do I only open it for 10 days, once a quarter?
Because we're all in this together. When new people are drifting in all the time, they might come in during the middle of something (a class, a series) or they might not get my full attention. But when everyone new comes in at once, everyone, new and old, makes their own map at the beginning of the quarter. We're all starting at the exact same place (wherever we are in our own business path). So we go through the agony of choosing, the strain of dedication, the everydayness of continuing to work towards it, together.

From these three tenets (supporting each other, feeling not-alone, committing), has sprung everything else – the weekly chats, the 1:1 sessions, the forum, the classes. I actually write all of my new classes based on what the Starship member needs. (And it turns out my classes are better than ever..and better attended.) This quarter I'm creating a class about your customer path — all of your marketing that leads your customer closer to you.

Throughout the last three years, Captains have inspired me, challenged me, and shaped the Starship into what it is. They've named it, created the culture, and requested the classes.

If you'd like to get the new class for free, and your ready for support + commitment, join us!

PS. It really does close at 4pm today. So don't dally!

Can you really craft the business you want?

When you start making your work and selling it, you wonder if it's going to go anywhere. But you start. And you build. And then…you still wonder if it's going to anywhere. If it's going to be any of the things you dreamed it could be.

Business is daily. Ownership is a constant process of making, tweaking, experimenting and reassessing.
So you get dragged down. You get disappointed. Your doubts bubble up.
Instead of just wondering, now you're downright doubting.

Could this work?
Does this work?
How in the heck will I know what works?

You are not alone.
Everyone doubts. Everyone feels totally lost.

Doubting is not a sign that you're not going to make it. It's an indication that you're doing something worthwhile.

Let me be clear: You can have the business you really want.

There are two parts to this:
1. YOU CAN DO IT.
2. It can be what YOU want (not what others have or think you should have).

**1. You can do it.**

Seriously. Amy's doing it. Ana's doing it. Katie's doing it.
You can do it. (You don't have to be exceptional.)

No, it's not easy.
No, even though they've reached the goals they set a year ago…they're not done. They're not content. They're setting new goals and working just as hard as ever.
As long as you clearly define what “it” is for you (the kind of business you want), as long as you take responsibility, as long as you commit to doing the hard work consistently and strategically: You can do it.

Will it be awesome?
Yes.
Will it be everything you imagined?
Probably not.
Will you change your mind once you get “it”?
Probably. (Definitely.)

**2. It can be what you want.**

You can build exactly what you want – whether that's quitting your job, or filling your savings account, or going out to eat more often. Whether you wanna wholesale, do craft shows, or never leave your house. Your business can look any way you want. You don't have to follow anyone else's rules and you don't have to achieve certain markers of success.

The thing is, this is the ONLY way to do “it”. This is the ONLY way to have a business you love.
Define what you want.
Pursue it.
Review what's working.
And repeat.

You are not alone.

Even when you doubt, even when you succeed, even when you change your mind completely (hey, it happens). There are other makers, writers, and designers who are going through it. If you'd like to get together with them, talk about it, celebrate with them and generally feel less alone and less overwhelmed, The Starship is now open.

In the Starship, you'll be guided to define exactly what YOU want in your business. You'll create a plan (with our help!) to get there. You'll review and experiment and build on what's working. All with some one-on-one help from me, and the encouragement and insights from over 3 dozen other gals who have been there. You'll quash those doubts and know what to do and if it's worth it.
You can join here.

Social Media for Makers: a Primer

I resist writing about using social media, because I find that many (most?) new business crafters get totally distracted trying to get it “right”. So before I go any further, let me totally clear: It is MUCH more important for you to make your product and make it available for sale, with clear compelling descriptions and photographs.

Get really good at doing that, consistently, before you worry about other tools. Seriously.

That said, I get asked about Instagram, Pinterest or (to a lesser degree) Twitter in every Flight Plan Session, by established business owners. Over the last year, I've written up answers to the most-asked questions, so today I'm going to collect it all in one place.

1. Know why.

If you're going to use social media for “business” purposes (and not just chatting with your internet friends), make sure it aligns with your overall goals and your you-filled brand. I go into detail on how to do this in my book, along with how to experiment with different tools to find one that works for you.

2. Make it a part of your Customer Path.

“This pathway of connection includes absolutely every way you interact with people who may or may not be your right people – your blog, email newsletter, social media, guest posts, sales pages, and (once they cross over into Right People territory and pay for something), your connection pathway continues through your products, classes, clubs, retreats.”

Read about creating this path here.

3. Instagram for Winning Friends and Influencing Buyers.

“The magic of Instagram is that it feels personal. It allows you a peek into my world, through my eyes. Instead of approximating the beauty (or quirkiness) of what I’m looking at with words, I can quickly show you.”

Today I've got a post on how to use Instagram in your business, over at Sarah Von Bargen's site.
You can read the whole thing here.

4. Do something with all your Pinterest followers.

In reply to a question I received, I put together four ideas (via video!) on using your Pinterest account. You can watch it here.

Remember: You might not need social media.

“Social media is not the solution to your business problem.

It is not going to quickly improve anything (in fact, it’s going to take time to build an audience, time that might be better spent on building a community of buyers.)”

You can read the rest of this post here.

Got a social media question? Ask it in the comments and I'll answer!

When getting great press disappoints you

A few weeks ago two amazing things happened: One Starship Captain was featured in a big national magazine and another Captain was interviewed on a HUGE blog.

But then, something weird happened. Their sales didn't increase. So they both asked the same question: What happened? Did I do something wrong?

I wrote the following inside the Starship to answer their questions, but I bet this applies to you too! (Got your own question you want answered? The Starship opens again next Wednesday. Sign up here to find out!)

If you've been featured in blogs, magazines, or newspapers, I want to reassure you that it is really normal to not see many, if any, tangible results from your feature.

However, be encouraged that this has done something for your biz. Even if the reader never clicks through to your site, she has now heard of you – from a source she trusts! – and when she comes across you again (by googling, seeing your ads, seeing you mentioned on social media) she'll be that much more likely to remember you, trust you, and stick around to see what you do!

Over time (like, years) this kind of attention does build up. I get emails now from people who read about me (a super-short paragraph) in the 2009 NYT bestseller Crush It. Even better, people who read a guest post I wrote over a year ago are just now becoming paying customers.
(That may be how you got here!)

But you might be wondering WHY being featured in national media or on a popular blog doesn't do more?

There are a few reasons, and it has nothing to do with you!

1. The reader is reading, not buying.

Think about the reader, in the moment she comes across your feature. Is she thinking “I need to buy a {thing you sell}?” Probably not. She's in passive-reading mode. While she might click through, she's not in the frame of mind to buy right-this-second. She's in consume-media mode, not make-decision mode.
This is not your fault. This is not the blog's fault. This is not a problem, this is just the truth.
Think about it from your own experience. How often do you sit down to read blogs and end up buying something? Probably not very often, unless you are reading because you want to buy something (you're researching or trying to find something specific) or because you're already on their customer path.

2. Remember the Customer Path.

It usually goes like this:

Person finds you.
She gets to know you.
She thinks about the purchase.
She buys.

Getting press put more people on the first part of the path – she finds you! She might not stick around (or look you up, if it's a print magazine) to get to know you, but if she does, there's that tricky step #3 where she thinks about it before buying.

This is why it's vital to have something for her to do OTHER than buy. She could follow you on Twitter (not too effective since she's unlikely to see any particular tweet in her stream), she could like you on Facebook (again not too effective), she could subscribe to your blog (a good option if she's an avid blog reader and keeps up with her feeds!) or she could sign up to get emails. Ya'll know this is my MOST FAVORITE, because she doesn't have to do anything to be gently reminded (by your clever, interesting emails) that you exist and that she wanted to loop back to check your stuff out.

3. The reader doesn't yet have a connection to you.

Now, you might have the most fabulous email sign-up form ever, that's super effective (something I'm still working on!) and one of two things will happen:

The reader won't sign up. Why? Because she's just not right for you. She's not compelled by what she's reading, or she's just not ready to make that commitment yet. That's ok! Remember – she came because she's a fan of something else. She didn't start her day looking for what you do, she just clicked around and landed here. So she's not who you're spending your marketing energy seeking out, she's just an internet traveler. The best you can do to grab her is to do your best to make your site:
–easy to navigate + take action on
–interesting, compelling, and useful to your Right Person
The reader will sign up! Celebrations!
But even now, she doesn't have a huge connection to you. She likely found you, liked what she saw and signed up to remember that she liked you.

So what can you do to bring her closer?

Send her fabulously useful, entertaining or interesting emails. You know I love a good autoresponder for this, to make sure you connect with every person in the same way (instead of her just getting whatever the newest thing your writing is, she'll get your foundational material!)
Talk to her! Send her a note thanking her for signing up and asking her if she has any questions.

Even if you do all that, I've found that people who join my list after I have a big feature or guest post tend to be the least engaged. They're more likely to unsubscribe quickly or to just never open the emails. This is totally ok. This is either a person who isn't into what you're doing or signs up for a bunch of stuff and never reads it.

Despite all of the above, I still find writing guest posts and being interviewed to be an effective way to build my audience.

There are things you can do to make press work for you, and I'm sharing them in this week's Explorer Email. But as you seek out press (or not), I want you to keep your expectations grounded.

How about you? Have you found this to be true?

PS. The above photo is from my feature in Crafty Magazine, in the June/July 2013 issue. It was a 4 page spread with an interview and photos and an illustrated headshot…and due to a printing error 2 of the pages are just completely missing. So even though it was a huge honor to be asked, the actual article makes little sense with a big gaping hole in the middle. (I'm not sure if the printing error is the reason, but this is the only issue that I can't find at any bookstore.)

How to increase customer interaction {Free Worksheet}

There's no denying that customer interaction – having real conversations with my customers (or potential customers) and using what I learn about what they need – is the cornerstone of my business. So when Abby asked Stacey and I to join her in writing about customer interaction, I was delighted! Be sure to scroll down for your free worksheet and to find the links to the rest of the posts in the series.

No matter what business you're in or where you're at, you probably wish you had more engagement – more blog comments, more email subscribers, more sales.

This what everyone wants!
Sadly, there's no one-size-fits-all solution. This is an iterative process and it will likely change as your business changes. It's unlikely that exactly what works for me will work for you.
But you can, through experimentation, discover what works for you and adapt it as you change.

1. Identify the purpose it serves.

One of my personal pet peeves is when makers judge the health of their business by their blog comments. The two things have nothing to do with each other. Social media makes it easy for us to measure metrics that don't matter. So instead of being distracted by numbers that don't matter, start (as always) with what you want:

Do you want to get feedback on a prototype?
Do you want to discover their favorite color?
Do you need help naming your newest project?
Do you need to get to know them and their needs better so you can improve your offerings?

2. Make it all about them.

Now that you know what you want, translate it into the benefit for your people. If they take your survey or reply to your email or share your tweet…what's in it for them? Now, you don't have to give an actual physical product – you only have to explain that their feedback really matters. For example, perhaps I'll take your survey, because you let me know it will affect the kind of products you create. Perhaps I share your tweet, because it helps me serve my own audience.
If interacting with you is useful, entertaining or interesting, it'll be an easy decision.

3. Make it easy for them.

You can make it easy in two ways:

–Make a clear ask. Be crystal clear in what action you'd like them to take, don't just hope that they'll guess at it. (We talked more about this in Abby's podcast.)

– Go where they are. I like sending emails and asking for replies because I know my people are already in their inbox. Very few people hang around all day on blogs, or comment on many blogs, so that's not easy for them. If you're people are on Facebook, ask them to interact with you there. If they're on Twitter, ask them questions.

And this goes the other way – if you serve a local audience that's not on social media, don't try to engage there. Invite them into your shop for a free tasting, offer classes, or go where they are and chat with them there.

Remember: it's normal for this to take a while to figure out! Give every new experiment a while to work out before you decide if it's working or n

Make your own plan for customer engagement.

I created a free worksheet to help you start improving your customer interaction today. Download the Customer Interaction Worksheet by clicking here and saving it to your computer.

Learn more

For more strategies on increasing customer engagement, read the other posts in this series by Abby and by Stacey.

Important announcement!

Pay Yourself closes TONIGHT. Sign up here before 9pm tonight, Friday, 2/21.

Why selling more might be a bad thing

This is one of the trickiest things to grasp, but one of the easiest things to fix, in most of the crafty businesses I work with:

Selling more products doesn't necessarily equal making more money.

I think most of you know this, somewhere … but it's so counter-intuitive to how the rest of our monetary world works. At a job, if you work more hours, you make more money. At the store, if you buy more products, you spend more money. But in your small biz, it's possible that having more sales does not create an increase in profit.
And while you know that, have you done the math to really work it out? Have you figured out what your break-even point is – and if you're close to it? Not just for a usual month in your business, but for each craft show and wholesale order?

I'm guessing … not, because I know I didn't when I first started my business. Heck, I even quit my day job and did shows around the country before I really figured out all the ins and outs of my profit margin.

It's easy to skip this because it's easy to sucked into the simplicity of what a zillion articles tell us: more sales = better. When that (more sales) becomes your goal, it's easy to forget all about profit margins and expenses and do whatever it takes to sell more products. You make shipping free, you discount heavily, you throw in extras and specials and fanciness. And you sell a big pile of products – but you don't have any money.

This frustration, from successful sellers, is something I've been hearing for the last three years. But honestly, I resisted doing anything more than having deep (somewhat uncomfortable) conversations in the Starship. Because I'm not accountant. and I don't like math. And I still haven't figured out how to pay my estimated quarterly taxes in a way that doesn't leave me with a big tax bill at the end of the year (because I do make a profit, which means I do owe taxes!).

But the more I've talked about this over the last year, with online and traditional crafters, the more I've come to realize that this is exactly why I need to talk about it. Because if I – math-avoiding, mistake-making, bold explorer – figured it out but I don't talk about it, we might just keep going on thinking that more sales = better, and that only math-geniuses, accountants and non-creatives have to do the work of finding out what makes their business profitable.

And that's dis-empowering and discouraging. If I figured it out, then you can too.

We – artists, writers, makers, and designers – we deserve to live comfortably with our work. We are capable and smart and can figure this out, if only we know where to start.

So that's what we're going to do in Pay Yourself. We're going to find your numbers: the profit of each product and the profit/expense of your entire business. And then we'll use those numbers to make good decisions in the future.

In the last year of teaching this class online and in person, I've seen this material transform businesses. From a full-time artist who changed the galleries she works with to a yarn-maker who shifted her focus, to a maker who cut back on craft shows in order to do more wholesaling (and found more profit). I was convinced by their successes to offer this live online again and to make it even better – to reshoot all the videos, update the worksheets, and offer it in a self-paced e-course.

The class is now available as a self-paced e-course – every lesson will be delivered to you, when you're ready for it. You can read more about the class and register for it here: https://taraswiger.com/product/pay/.

How to have a profitable business, Step 1

When I quit my dayjob to make yarn full-time, I had worked for months towards an income goal. But then, life fell apart. In one month, my car caught fire, my husband lost his (only-part-time-anyhow) job, and my house was broken into (yep, everything electronic was stolen. Thank goodness they didn't know how valuable my little wooden spinning wheel is!)

Since that inauspicious start, my creativity has been my ticket to paying bills, traveling the country, going to movies and generally living life. In the beginning, I didn't know what to do except: SCRAMBLE. And, to be honest, sometimes it's still a scramble.

But I make it work.
I take my family to a hotel + fancy dinner + the Chocolate Lounge for Mom's birthday. I take a week off to be in San Diego after teaching at TNNA. I get stuck overnight in an airport and can afford to get a hotel room at the last minute. I drive 3 hours and get a hotel to visit my husband's grandpa before he dies, then the next week for the funeral…then the next week for Thanksgiving.

These aren't glamorous rolling-in-the-dough stories. But this is real life.
I'm a 31-year-old married French major who likes to watch movies in a sofa cinema and can't bear “office casual”.
I bring home the puppy chow from my ideas and my words and my hands.

And in the nearly 5 years of doing this full-time, I've learned how do it, and do it with some ease.

And so, I think long and hard before I answer a question like the one Laura asked: “How do you create the income of your dreams when creating the products by hand?”

The answer is GINORMOUS.

But it's also kinda small: Profit.

Everything you sell, every project you work on, and every opportunity you jump on must be profitable for your overall business to be profitable.

But doing that! It involves…math, my dear friends.
And it involves bold honesty. We tend to avoid the things we're not-so-comfortable with, so I created a class that walks you through all of it. From individual product profit-testing, to the things that keep your whole business paying you. It's the systems I use (and that I've helped other crafters in the Starship use) to launch new products, find new income streams, and pay the bills.

In the meantime, I can begin to answer Laura's question, with the very first step of profitability: Knowing your numbers.

Watch the below video to learn about your numbers and what they teach you:

(I made this video last year. Pay Yourself has newer, better quality videos – watch a sample here.)

Once you know your numbers, it's time to learn from them + to Pay Yourself.

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