Finding the right business advice can be a real challenge when you are starting out with your own handmade creations.
Motivation, Inspiration and Real Life Action to Build Your Creative Enterprise
Are you living the creative life - as a maker, creator, designer or artisan - and have you decided to step up your own production, your creation and your brand so that you can really make a go of it and grow?
And I have made coming up to $2million in sales - so I have experienced the whole spectrum of what can happen in small business and the highs and lows of selling online.
My own start in business was not very auspicious - I was working shifts and not really liking it -I actually HATED it everyday - BUT I told myself this is what people do when they become grown ups - they do something they hate everyday for the rest of their lives.... Then I thought to myself - that can't be right! So I went out and did some research and instead of renovating the house or getting a new kitchen (I have to thank my wife for her patience on this one) we bought a business.
Content Marketing for Find Handmade
Back then the business was completely different - it was a wholesale promtions supplier to clubs and hotels up and down the coast. So I was driving around delivering to clubs and meeting with marketing managers and doing accounts and stuff... And then the GFC hit and it was pretty much over. The whole segment of the industry virtually closed down - smoking bans and responsible gaming meant the clubs and hotels shrunk and my orders dried up.
So I had to think fast and reinvent the business. That's when we went online and so began my wonderful journey learning the real world of internet marketing, online shopping and e-commerce. It has been an amazing journey - I've gone from months where I barely made single sale to months where we do over $200k - in a single month! Being online also gives me the freedom to work from home - as I write this my 18 month old is bumbling around under my desk - my four year old is out on the deck and my seven year old is reading (I hope not on minecraft?) in her room. Working from home, selling products online and knowing I have the freedom and flexibility to pretty much work my own schedule.
That is what you can achieve - whether you want more freedom or more flexibility - it's there for you.
But le's get back to what this is all about. I've met many people through my years in business, and the most passionate and creative individuals all tend to have a brilliant start up concept and product just that they stall at the stage of going to the next step.
And too often the main reason they say they can't go any further is because they don't have any money. "I'll do it when I get some cash behind me" they all say, and resign themselves to struggling to with zero cashflow or near enough to zero. It doesn't have to be this way.
Being honest with your individual style does
not mean being set in one's ways with your actual products-- Susan moved
from jewellery to homewares to meet her transforming customer profile
as she moved away from online towards face to face at the markets.
After
cutting her teeth making small jewellery pieces with a view to online
selling and the realities of low cost shipping firmly in mind-- Susan
found she was drifting away from what she really wanted to create, and
also entering a saturated market (jewellery) filled with highly
competitive, established products.
So she reset her goals and
instead of making small easy to ship items, Susan moved more in to
homewares and cups, plates and bowls. Selling less items but at higher
prices means Susan is maximizing increased turnover, and also actually
making more money for the amount of time spent working. A definite win
both ways.
The Little Red
As Kristy has hung around at markets her merchandise offering has changed to meet what customers are asking for. In the eight months she has steered The Little Red, Kristy began offering for sale cloth and fabric earrings, using brilliantly colored examples of fabric sourced from all over the place to make impressive earrings. But as any market-goer will inform you, the jewellery industry is well and truly drenched with competitiveness and it was a sideline of timber products that have sparked a great deal of interest.
"Lots of other stallholders have access to these great fabrics so there was that challenge-- but also the wood items were selling well and we were getting so much encouragement from customers that it sort of naturally pulled us that way.".
The Little Red timber is sourced by Dan and together they find the patterns and shapes from all over the internet-- this is a nonstop search to find the new patterns and styles as the existing patterns become aged and customers are always wanting "new" and "different" designs. Experiments with different stains and colors and effects also add other dimensions and variety to the products.
Art of Happiness. "If you are in it, you are in it, no matter how
much you try, or cover up or pretend it just won't work." There is a
real "of course" moment immediately, as though genuine authenticity and
passionate originality can not be mastered, or copied or faked. You are
either in or you are not. It is quite intimidating to apply this to my
current project, or my own life. Very confronting and almost begs
introspection and that cruel reflection "do I really belong here?" And I
quietly sit back as Sofan continues, sharing her observations and
revealing that she is in the final stages of having the book she is
writing finished and expecting publication later in 2014.
I look
around and see the busy venture of stallholders and shoppers walking
past with bags hanging from their arms, full of handmade products. Yes, I
think I belong here. I do belong here. Sofan goes on to explain her
philosophy on why markets and stallholders are in revival. People are
tired of the disconnect between overseas production of goods and the
shopping center model of meaningless consumption once it gets here.
The
move to handmade growth is built upon the idea "if you are a genuine
creative producer it shines through, and it will be valued for a long
time" instead of consume-throw-away-repeat. By producing your own
product people appreciate and value it more than just another piece of
plastic and this is what people at the markets are seeking-- a
connection to permanence and lasting value instead of cheap disposable
nothingness.
Floral and Spot.
Raylee has just moved into bricks and mortar retail industry-- opening an outlet as part of a handmade collective in a building once occupied by that bastion of bourgeois David Jones. And belonging of a pop-up shop scene alongside other handmade artisans selling jewellery and handmade soap is a great way to establish a more permanent brand presence. Its as though handmade is entwined with the resurgence of main street retail and is an organic fit for projects like Renew Australia re-activating empty spaces in town.
Raylee has established for herself a workspace where she can actually do work on the production of her designs in the quiet moments between selling retail-- and it makes for great shop-theatre to see the dressmaker/designer hunched over her fabric, holding pins in her mouth. There's something reassuringly old school about watching an artisan at work and seeing pieces of fabric come to life as fashion.
Most weekends Raylee is selling dresses-- but she also has a brisk trade selling online-- with a facebook page busy with updates. In fact, Raylee uploads each item she creates to facebook so customers are able to flick through her catalogue and make a buying decision on the go. With the majority of her orders though spoken word, Floral and Spot simply sells itself with new customers asking "what are you wearing and where did you get it?".
Halo Soy Candles.
Halo Soy Candles use soy wax, which is a product of soya beans, as it has a better scent throw than traditional wax-- this means the wax holds the essential oil throughout the candle media and releases scent in a measured, sustained manner. Also, soy wax burns at a lower warmth than other waxes, so it is safer, and you can actually touch the melted wax without being burned. So you might see masseuses using soy wax in massage to impart aromatherapy scents.
Two of the most popular aromatic candles are the essential sleep blend, which was originally created for an aunt, and once presented to the market has taken off as a viable selling proposition. Another handmade scent is simply called love-- and has a distinct therapeutic value as interesting and relaxing.
Using aromatherapy blends has proven especially successful, as buyers see a clear benefit for themselves outside of the generic features of the soy wax itself. Findhandmade.com. au likes how highlighting the benefits for your customers works out as a sales tool-- and Halo Candles have clear descriptions which aromatherapy blend works for particular states.
Charlie Middleton
The Charlie Middleton line is simple, in the
absence of the bling embellishments of chasing seasonal trends, but
instead just presenting well developed handmade leather goods. Ben says
that using premium materials and methods is what people are choosing.
When it comes to getting meaningful feedback and having the ability to
test new products-- it is as much a challenge to know who to listen to--
as it is to succeed when you are on a good thing.
Ben operates
from his Bondi workshop weekdays and is out and about at markets most
weekends-- and his amount ofwork just keeps growing. Producing handmade
items like purses and tote bags requires time, and Ben's production
routine is a challenge-- some days he will sell multiple products in
different colors-- then not sell the same product line for a week or so.
The volatile nature of developing handmade products on an artisan scale
to meet the desires of retail sales is almost impossible to plan for.
The reality for many people I meet at
the markets and interview as stallholders for findhandmade.com.au is
that they are selling face to face at the markets and maybe getting a
trickle of sales through their facebook page.
No website, no overall marketing strategy, and a hit and miss approach to repeat customers or
out of area sales.
Now this is all fine to continue a
hand to mouth existence, but to really make an impact and generate
enough sales for you to spend less time going to and from markets and
give you the freedom to follow your passion – making your handmade
projects – you need to be selling online.
I am not about keeping secret knowledge so I can keep invoicing you –
my business model is for you to refer me on to your network and I gain
new business that way, not by keeping you a prisoner of your own
ignorance.
Plus, it’s just good karma to share the knowledge!
I’ve seen people like you sign up with
a corporate website development firm and watched as their business
faltered and withered under the burden of high price quotes for small
changes.
Or being told that an edit is not possible – and then the
business is stuck in limbo, with the business owner not wanting to pay
for website changes, and just leaving the site to go stale and perform
poorly.
My name is Brendan Murphy, welcome to Findhandmade.com.au I have been in small business since 2006, selling
gourmet food online in a very successful business, and now I am sharing
my online expertise and training with people I admire, connect with and
simply want to work with – handmade artisans.
The whole idea of handmade
is exactly what I am about. I want to work with passionate,
enthusiastic people backing themselves to build a business and a brand
online.
Detailed conversations with the handmade stallholders, #MarketsDirectory
There's so much to consider when you are weighing up becoming a stallholder with your own handmade artisan arts and crafts in Australia. We are out every weekend interviewing established existing stallholders and finding exactly what makes their story successful when so many others have tried in the past.
For regular updates and insider hints and tips on getting the best result for you online presence in the digital space as a stallholder, stay tuned and follow this blog.
It's exciting to announce our first bigcartel store for Find Handmade Australia - we are diversifying our presence across multiple formats to give the greatest end user satisfaction. We have seen the positive reviews for Big Cartel and love how they have a big cartel handmade section.
Almost every weekend I meet people at the markets with a stall and a website
who are not really getting full value from the website simply because it
is not optimised and working effectively as an online shop.
This means your site isn't easily found when people search Google.
This means your site is not getting traffic.
This means you may have lost momentum - or that you don't know what to do next.
Sure, you may have
ticked the box for an online shop, but it isn’t actually doing much for
you. DOES THIS SOUND LIKE YOU?
And you wouldn't dare ask the web guy to edit the site because all
that leads to is another $800 invoice. So you do nothing, and the
sites ages, and the missed opportunities stagnate and the whole project
stutters and stumbles to a halt.
That’s when you call me – I can get
you unstuck and things moving again! See what I do at find handmade and read about what |I offer at organic digital media agency.
