How to Increase Your Sales at Craft Shows (Expert Sales Tips from Experienced Craft Fair Vendors)

Want to learn how to sell more at craft fairs?

You've come to the right place to boost your craft show sales!

In this video & blog post, get expert advice from two seasoned veterans of the maker market scene: Nicole Stevenson and Mallory Whitfield.

Nicole Stevenson is the co-founder of Patchwork Show, which grew from a 25-vendor parking lot event to a multi-city phenomenon supporting thousands of creative businesses across nearly a dozen cities. She also founded Craftcation, the first business + craft conference of its kind in the U.S., and previously built Random Nicole, a six-figure clothing line featured in over 250 shops worldwide.

Mallory is the creator of Badass Creatives and author of How to Make Money at Craft Shows: Art Market and Craft Fair Tips & Tricks. She spent nearly a decade selling handmade products at craft shows.

Watch the video above, or keep reading below for our tips on how to increase your craft fair sales and make more money from your handmade products!

Tips for Selling More at Craft Shows

Here’s our tips for navigating the application process, getting on the jury's good side, and increasing your chances of success:

Create an Inviting Booth Experience

Your craft fair booth setup is your first opportunity to attract potential customers.

Nicole emphasizes the importance of creating ways to draw people into your booth and keep them engaged:

"One of the things that I love is having a little activity for kids or whoever's with people who the person is shopping... Some of our vendors I've seen them do a little coloring station, so they'll have like a little tiny table and kids chairs and you know just Xerox coloring pages and some crayons and that will keep the child engaged while the parent is shopping and that will increase your sales absolutely."

Another smart strategy Nicole suggests is using your less-than-perfect items strategically:

"I'll bring any of the stuff that I made that didn't work out very well, like my imperfects, I'll have those at the front to kind of draw people in. And it's also a great way to get rid of stuff that didn't work out."

Just because that handmade item might seem less-than-perfect in your eyes (we know how creatives often struggle with perfectionism!) - that doesn’t mean that it won’t sell, especially if priced appropriately!

Strategic Pricing and Promotions

Smart pricing strategies can significantly impact your sales. Nicole shares her experience with strategic pricing, using 2-for-1 deals as an example:

"I love two-fers. So, you know, whatever the thing is… when I was selling my t-shirts, I feel like it was $28 a shirt or two for $49. So it was a huge discount when you bought two and especially instead of saying like $56, I did $49."

Mallory confirms this strategy's effectiveness: "One of the things I sold was earrings and I would do... $12 per pair or two for $20. And I had a little sign about this 2-for-1 deal and those were some of my best sellers."

Whether it’s signage for pricing and promotions, or setting up your booth so that it invites people to shop and explore, the way you design and lay out your craft fair booth can make or break your sales. That’s why we also did a whole video dedicated to craft show display ideas:

Maximize Payment Options

Nicole emphasizes the importance of offering a wide range of payment options:

"Make sure that you accept multiple types of payment. So I know we all pay with cards, but have cash and have change. Have cash, have change, have cash, have change. And then accepting Venmo, PayPal, Apple Pay... all of that stuff is going to increase your sales."

Basically, you want to make it as easy as possible for craft fair customers to make a purchase from you!

Create Strategic Impulse Buy Opportunities

Many of the rules that apply to any type of retail environment also apply to craft show sales. As you’re shopping at your local grocery store or favorite brick & mortar boutique, pay attention to what they do to boost sales and consider how you might apply it to your craft show booth.

For example, Mallory shares her experience with impulse items:

"I carried other artists and makers products in addition to my own. One of the artists that I carried, they had really funny greeting cards and magnets with their work. And so the magnets were like $5, the greeting cards were like $4 at the time... the sales of these low-ticket items would often make my booth fee. And so then I got to really make extra money on all the other higher-priced stuff."

When selling at craft shows or art festivals, it can be helpful to have products at a wide range of price points, both inexpensive impulse buys as well as higher end products.

For a fine artist like a painter, for example, this might look like having magnets, greeting cards and prints of your work as low-ticket items that are at a price point accessible to many people. You would also have original artwork or paintings for sale at a much higher price point (potentially hundreds or thousands of dollars per painting).

Inventory Management Tips

One thing newbie craft show vendors often wonder about is, “how much inventory should I bring to a craft fair?”

Nicole offers a crucial rule of thumb for inventory:

"How much stuff should I have at a craft fair? I will say you should have at least 10 times what you hope to sell. So if you hope to sell a hundred dollars worth of stuff, you should have a thousand dollars worth of stuff with you at the craft show."

She adds: "I found that the more stock and variety I brought to a show... the better I would do. Once my stock got dwindled, so did my sales."

Proper inventory management is a crucial skill for any type of retail business, craft artisans included! To learn more about this topic, check out the interview Mallory did with craft business coach Gwen Bortner:

Pricing Your Products Properly

Nicole provides detailed insight into pricing strategy:

"I am a strong believer in a pricing formula... Looking at what are your materials costing you, do not forget to put everything in there. So if you make t-shirts and you screen print on them... what if you sew a tag on the back? And then you're like, okay, the cost of the tag, but what about the cost of the thread? And you're like, it's only like two cents. Well, guess what? That two cents adds up over time."

She emphasizes the importance of proper pricing: "Underpricing, it just hurts everybody. It hurts all of us. So don't underprice."

Custom Orders and Future Sales

Both craft show experts emphasize the importance of being flexible with custom orders. Nicole shares:

"I did tons of custom orders and I would have people pay half of it upfront at the show and then they paid the other half when they picked it up. Yeah, and that worked really well for me."

Talk to People and PRovide A Great Customer Experience

If you want to sell more at craft shows, you need to interact with customers. The art of selling means you need to talk to people and not just hide in a chair at the back of your booth.

Mallory notes that not everyone is naturally suited to selling:

"For some artists... Sometimes you have a big craft show and you might need a helper. There are some artists who have actually found that it is better to just straight-up hire a helper who is more of that extroverted customer service salesperson type if you are really just too shy."

Nicole agrees, adding: "I never had a time where that was not worth it, where it didn't increase the sales enough to at least pay for that, what I was paying that person."

Post-Show Sales Strategies

Both experts emphasize the importance of email marketing. Nicole advises:

"Collecting email addresses at shows if you're not doing that, you are missing out on a huge, huge opportunity. I'm also a big fan of giving them something for signing up for your email address, like having some type of an opt-in."

Learn more about email marketing for handmade businesses

Final Thoughts

Success at craft shows comes from a combination of thoughtful preparation, strategic pricing, and excellent customer service. As both Nicole and Mallory demonstrate through their extensive experience, even small changes in your approach can lead to significant increases in sales.

Remember that every show is a learning opportunity. Take notes on what works well and what doesn't, and continuously refine your approach based on your experiences. With time and practice, you'll develop a system that works best for your unique products and customer base.

Want to learn more about how to be successful at craft shows?

For more marketing & business tips for artists and handmade business owners, subscribe to Badass Creatives on YouTube, or check out other craft fair tips:

• 5+ Craft Show Must Haves (and then some!)

• How to Get Accepted to Juried Craft Shows (Tips from Craft Show Organizer Nicole Stevenson)

• Inventory Management for Creative Business Owners

Shopify SEO: Why Shopify Collections Are a SEO Super Power

Optimizing Shopify collection pages is an underrated secret for improving SEO on your Shopify store.

Collection pages are like virtual aisles that group related products together, making it easier for customers to find what they're looking for.

In this video, search engine optimization expert Kai Davis and I discuss how to use Shopify collections to drive more SEO traffic to your ecommerce store.

In our conversation, Kai Davis shares how to think about and optimize your Shopify collection pages to reach more of the right shoppers in Google search.

Kai Davis, founder of Double Your Ecommerce, is a seasoned expert in Shopify SEO and Growth Marketing. With over a decade of experience, he has helped over 100 Shopify merchants expand their businesses.

Takeaways

• Optimizing collection pages is a powerful strategy for improving SEO on Shopify stores.

• Collection pages act as virtual aisles that group related products together, making it easier for customers to find what they're looking for.

• To optimize Shopify collection pages, it's important to add a collection description, write a specific SEO title, and include a headline at the top of the page.

• Internal linking to collection pages from blog posts or other pages on the website can improve SEO.

• Google Search Console and Ahrefs are useful tools for tracking the performance of collection pages.

Why collections are a SEO super power for your Shopify store

(written by Kai Davis)

Almost every single store I work with isn’t creating enough collection pages.

Collection pages are a great way to get new, targeted landing pages ranking in Google.

I find that most of the time, stores see the highest amounts of revenue from search come through their collection pages. That means that the searchers who start their browsing journey on collection pages are often more valuable than customers who come in through blogs or product pages.

So why aren’t stores leveraging collections more effectively? Most of the time, they just aren’t thinking about them correctly.

How to think about collections

Collections can rank very well in Google for categorical terms, which are terms or phrases related to the products you sell.

That means collection pages are a great way to attract more search traffic to your site.

You want to rank your collection pages for category terms, for example:

• If you’re selling quilting supplies, these are terms like ‘notions’ or ‘quarter panels.’

• If you’re selling chocolate, these are terms like ‘chocolate truffles’ and ‘chocolate bonbons’

• If you’re selling greeting cards, these are terms like ‘mother’s day illustrated greeting cards’ or ‘illustrated graduation cards’

Your collections in your Shopify store are like aisles in a brick and mortar store. Each collection can target a specific topic — like an aisle carries specific merchandise. It’s easy to set it up so this one has your chocolate bonbons, this one has your chocolate truffles, and this one has your chocolate gifts.

The very special thing that people forget about collections is that you have very few constraints on them. You could set up three separate collections, each optimized for a different target keyword, and each with the same products.

Like three collections for:

• Chocolate truffles

• Chocolate bonbons

• Chocolate gifts

And each populate with the same products.

That’s a very effective way to take the same products and reach more customers searching in Google with them.

Here’s why this approach is okay:

• Different target keywords: “chocolate truffles,” “chocolate bonbons,” and “chocolate gifts” are distinct search terms that people use, even though the products might be very similar or even identical.

• Unique collection pages: you can create separate collection pages for each term, optimizing each page for its respective keyword. This helps capture search traffic from all sets of searchers.

To Google and your customers, you have a unique collection landing page optimized for each of these terms. That’s a great way to get a page ranking in Google and bring in more traffic.

How to optimize your collection pages

So, what should you focus on to optimize your collection pages? I wrote a guide on this and you can read the full thing for free at DoubleYourEcommerce.com — click the ‘Collection SEO’ link in the header or on the homepage, or check out the link below:

• SEO for Shopify Collections

In the meantime, here are the top things to optimize:

• Collection descriptions — This is the piece of content that shows on the collection page itself. It is very high impact for SEO and helps your customers orient themselves on the page. ~50-100 words will be impactful for your SEO.

• Collection SEO Title — This is the piece of content that you set way at the bottom of a collection page. It is very high impact for SEO.

• Collection Title (Page Headline) — This is the piece of content you set at the top of a collection page. It is impactful for SEO.

If you want your collection targeting a keyword — like Gourmet Chocolate Eclairs — you want to mention that keyword in each of those places. Mention it in the Collection Title, mention it in the SEO Title, and mention it in the collection description.

For every collection page you create, you want to make sure you’ve entered those three things. And if you’re optimizing your collection for a keyword, you want to make sure you’ve mentioned that keyword in each place.

How to monitor the performance of your collection pages

Once your newly optimized collection pages launch, you’ll want to track their success. Are they ranking for keywords? Are they not doing much? Here are a few ways to do that.

• Google Search Console. That’s free and a great tool you should be running. The performance report in Search Console will tell you the specific keywords that your pages are ranking for and the amount of impressions that keyword gets.

• Ahref’s Free Webmaster Plan. Ahrefs has a free versions of their suite of SEO tools available for your domain when you verify with Google Search Console. Very useful for tracking your performance or understanding which keywords you’re ranking for.

And there you have it. Collections are a great way to get more traffic. I hope you use this information to launch new collections for your store.

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Need help with your Shopify SEO strategy?

Check out Kai's Shopify SEO services at his website, DoubleYourEcommerce.com.

Want Mallory's help with your overall marketing strategy? Schedule a 1:1 consulting session or check out the Badass Creatives Marketing Accelerator.

You can also check out this playlist for more videos about SEO for artists and creatives.

Shopify SEO: 5 Step Ecommerce SEO Strategy for Beginners, with Kai Davis

Want to get more visitors and CUSTOMERS to your Shopify store?

In this video, search engine optimization expert Kai Davis is sharing his proven 5-step SEO strategy for Shopify ecommerce websites.

In our conversation, Kai Davis shares his recommendations for optimizing a Shopify site for search engines.

Kai Davis, founder of Double Your Ecommerce, is a seasoned expert in Shopify SEO and Growth Marketing. With over a decade of experience, he has helped over 100 Shopify merchants expand their businesses.

He emphasizes the importance of understanding your target audience and narrowing down the target market as much as possible. Kai suggests conducting keyword research using tools like Google Search Console, Keywords Everywhere, and Ahrefs.

We also talk about the importance of optimizing Shopify collection pages, targeting your homepage for a general search term and your brand name, and optimizing product pages with unique content and customer reviews.

Takeaways

• Understand your target audience and narrow down your target market as much as possible.

• Conduct keyword research using tools like Google Search Console, Keywords Everywhere, and Ahrefs.

• Optimize collection pages to target broad yet specific terms in the market.

• Target the homepage for a general term in the market and optimize it with relevant content.

• Prioritize product pages that have higher profit margins, high demand, or are ranking on the cusp for a keyword.

• Utilize customer reviews to add unique content and social proof to product pages.

• Consider incorporating video content, such as YouTube videos, into the SEO strategy.

Kai's general SEO strategy for an ecommerce (Shopify) website:

Step 1: Narrow down your audience

First, narrow down the part of your audience you’re focusing on as ideal customers in order to understand what they’re searching for.

Don’t worry about demographics for Shopify SEO. You’ll struggle to use info like “our best customers are women 35-65 with a second home” in SEO.

Instead, focus on understanding the problems your specific audience is experiencing that drive them to seek out solutions like yours.

For example, if you’re selling quilting supplies, it could be the desire to commemorate a family event or create a handmade gift. If you’re selling chocolate, it might be the desire to send a gift or an upcoming holiday as a purchasing nudge.

This kind of information helps you understand what your customers are searching for, how that aligns with your product, and what content to create.

Consider the difference in execution if you’re building collection pages for your products. If I tell you:

1. The person you want to reach is 35-60, female, loves travel, and owns two homes.

2. The person you want to reach is shopping for holiday-themed chocolate gift boxes for their relatives (e.g., father's day, mother's day)

The first gives you a vague idea of what keywords and terms to look into.

The second gives you a specific idea that aligns with a particular search intent: people looking for chocolate gift boxes for Father’s day.

Focusing on search intent rather than demographics ensures your SEO efforts are targeted and effective, aligning your content with what your audience is actively looking for.

Step 2: Keyword research

Focus on keywords that make sense for what your audience is searching for.

How can you identify which keywords to focus on? There are a few processes. I’m going to talk about processes first and then suggest tools, some free and some paid.

My favorite processes for keyword research:

1. Look at the keywords your pages are currently ranking for. Identify keyword opportunities to optimize pages or create new pages.

2. Look at keyword suggestions and ideas while searching. That helps you identify new (sometimes more specific) keywords to target.

3. Look at the keywords your competitors are ranking for, and get ideas on the content and keywords that make sense for your niche

When I do keyword research for my clients, I’m doing a combination of these three. The exact process differs based on my client’s strategy and their niche, audience, and products.

But often the process looks like:

• Jumping into the keyword data in a tool

• Searching around in Google as if I were part of my customers’ audience

• Identifying relevant + specific keywords with some amount of search volume

• Making an action plan of ‘optimize this page for this keyword in these ways’

How can you do this keyword research yourself? I’ll tell you the tools to use.

• Google Search Console - It’s free and a great tool you should be running. The performance report in Search Console will tell you the specific keywords that your pages are ranking for and the amount of impressions that keyword gets.

• Keywords Everywhere - This is a freemium Chrome extension (I pay $6/mo for it) that adds keyword search data to search results on sites like Google or Amazon. The search volume near the search box is very useful, and the topical and long-tail keywords suggestions are great when brainstorming for more specific keywords.

• Ahrefs’s new $29/mo plan - This is a more advanced paid product but pretty affordable. Ahrefs runs a site full of SEO tools, including a keyword research tool where you can enter a URL and see the keywords that URL is ranking for and the positions they’re in. Very useful for competitive research or understanding how a piece of your content or competitor’s content is ranking.

Keyword research is often about combining your knowledge of your audience with the big messy pile of keyword information and mixing them together until you start to see insights and ideas.

Step 3: Focus on Shopify collection pages

After narrowing down your target audience and doing some keyword research, then we'll turn to on-page SEO, or making edits to the content on our ecommerce website that will help impact our search rankings.

We'll start by ranking Shopify collection pages for relevant + specific category terms.

Almost every single store I work with isn’t creating enough collection pages. Collection pages are a great way to get new, targeted landing pages ranking in Google.

I find that most of the time, stores see the highest amounts of revenue from search come through their collection pages.

That means that the searchers who start their browsing journey on collection pages are often more valuable than customers who come in through blogs or product pages.

You want to rank your collection pages for category terms.

• If you’re selling quilting supplies, these are terms like ‘notions’ or ‘quarter panels.’

• If you’re selling chocolate, these are terms like ‘chocolate truffles’ and ‘chocolate bonbons’

• If you’re selling greeting cards, these are terms like ‘mother’s day illustrated greeting cards’ or ‘illustrated graduation cards’

You want to optimize your collection pages with a few very important pieces of content:

• A collection title (page headline). That’s the bit you enter at the top of the page:

• A collection description. That’s the bit you enter right under the headline. A 50-100 word description is incredibly impactful for your store’s SEO:

• An SEO title - This is the bit you enter way down at the bottom of the page in the ‘search engine listing’ section. An SEO title (also known as meta title) is very high impact for SEO. It’s what Google often displays in the search results:

For every collection page you create, you want to make sure you’ve entered those three things. And if you’re optimizing your collection for a keyword, you want to make sure you’ve mentioned that keyword in each place.

Step 4: Rank your homepage

Next, rank your homepage for a more general term for your market.

Homepages are often a powerful page on your site. Most of the time, people link to your homepage instead of a collection or product page. And Google sees your homepage as the doorway to the rest of your site.

Those factors combine to make your homepage an influential page for your SEO. One way to leverage that is to have your homepage target a general term for your market with the brand name also mentioned.

• If you’re a quilting store, maybe your homepage targets the term ‘quilting supplies - brand name’

• If you’re a chocolate store, maybe your homepage targets the term ‘chocolate gifts [location] - brand name’

• If you’re a greeting card store, maybe your homepage targets the term ‘illustrated greeting cards - brand name’

Targeting a general term is often more attainable with your homepage than other pages on your site. This approach helps capture a broad audience, driving an audience searching for that relevant + broader term to your homepage.

In Shopify, you can set your homepage’s SEO title on Online Store→ Preferences → Homepage Title:

Step 5: Rank your product pages

Finally, rank your product pages for niche product terms relevant to your ecommerce business.

Your product pages are where potential customers make their final purchasing decisions.

Your product pages do their job by targeting very niche, product-specific terms. That helps them rank when people are searching for exactly *that* product, which can attract highly relevant traffic that is more likely to convert.

• If you’re selling quilting supplies, you might have a collection targeting ‘quilting supplies and notions’ and a product in that collection targeting ‘Probe & Stabilizer Tool 4pc. Set’

• If you’re selling chocolate, a collection page might target ‘dark chocolate gift boxes’ and a product page might target ‘dark chocolate sea salt caramel gift box (20 pieces)’

• If you’re selling greeting cards, a collection page might target ‘university graduation celebration cards’ and a product might target ‘hand-painted university of Oregon graduation card with envelope’

In all cases, your collection page are targeting a broad-yet-specific term, and your product pages are targeting more niche and product-specific terms.

In all cases, you want to optimize your product pages with these details:

• An optimized product title and product description

• Unique content if you’re reselling products; don’t reuse the content from the manufacturer verbatum. Rewrite it in your own words.

• Attributes in your product title like size, weight, color, material, quantity, or fabric, depending on what you’re selling and what your audience cares about.

Oftentimes, product SEO can be overwhelming. You have lots of products! I recommend focusing, first, on optimizing priority products:

• Products that are higher profit margin for your store

• Products that are high demand by your customers

• Products that rank ‘on the cusp’ for a keyword in Google Search Console (~15 - 30th)

Those are the best opportunities to start with when prioritizing your Shopify SEO strategy.

And there you have it!

That’s your general ecommerce SEO strategy for your Shopify store:

1. Narrow down your audience

2. Understand what they’re searching for

3. Optimize your collection pages for category terms

4. Optimize your homepage for a more general term in your niche

5. Optimize your products for ultra-specific product search terms

Beyond that? Make sure to revisit your SEO regularly. Check in on how your pages are ranking and growing every ~2-4 weeks at minimum.

Need help with your Shopify SEO strategy?

Check out Kai's Shopify SEO services at his website, DoubleYourEcommerce.com.

Want Mallory's help with your overall marketing strategy? Schedule a 1:1 consulting session or check out the Badass Creatives Marketing Accelerator.

You can also check out this playlist for more videos about SEO for artists and creatives.

How to Start a Craft Studio Business, with Christy Nelson

You wanna open an art or craft studio business, but wondering... how do I get started?

In this video I'm chatting with Christy Nelson, the owner of Makit Takit, a drop-in craft studio in Lincoln, Nebraska.

She's been running her craft studio business since 2016, and it's expanded to include craft classes & parties, an annual maker market, business mentoring & retreats, and a grown-up craft camp called Makit Together.

Christy shares insights on running a craft studio business, including the business model, revenue streams, and lessons learned. She emphasizes the importance of flexibility, market research, and understanding the financial costs involved.

Takeaways

• Running a craft studio business involves providing a service-based experience for customers to create crafts and selling related supplies.

• Revenue streams can include drop-in craft sessions, classes, camps, birthday parties, and retail sales.

• Lessons learned include the importance of flexibility, market research, and being open to different customer demographics.

• Consider the financial costs of payroll, rent, inventory, credit card processing fees, and marketing when planning a craft studio business.

• Franchising may limit creativity and freedom, so starting your own brand within the local community is recommended.

• Christy Nelson offers business mentoring for entrepreneurs interested in starting a craft studio business.

Christy is the creative business owner of Makit Takit, a drop-in craft studio in Lincoln, Nebraska.

A true boss, Christy enjoys the strategic business planning as much as making things. This has led to her expanding her business to include a mobile pop-up splatter unit, a yearly maker market, business mentoring/retreats, and a grown-up craft camp called Makit Together.

She loves to travel, drink Diet Dr. Pepper, and go to therapy. She has a husband, two grown children, and her mom is her biggest fan.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

Mallory

You have been running a craft studio business for a number of years now. I would love to first off kind of talk about like what that business looks like for somebody who may love making crafts, love teaching crafts, but is not sure like what the actual business entails.

Can kind of talk us through the craft studio business model and kind of how you got started with this?

Christy Nelson

Sure, there are a lot of different ways that you can run a craft studio. I'm going to talk about the way I do it and maybe give a few examples of some others that I know of.

My studio is basically run as a drop-in craft studio. So we have all the tools and supplies for people to come in. So it's a service-based but also product because they are coming in and making a product.

Mallory

Yeah, so it sounds like you're making money in a couple of different ways, right? You're making money from people paying you for art classes and from selling the supplies for the classes.

Christy Nelson

Yes. Well, they can come in and pick a project and we have everything for them to make that project. They pay me for basically that service and all of the things included. So it's just a way for people to come in, have a little fun, make something, and we can help them do that.

In my studio, we also do classes, camps, birthday parties. You know, there are a lot of different revenue streams that you kind of need to have for a business like this.

We added retail after the pandemic. That was something that we hadn't really been into before. But now that's a really big part of our revenue now. So that was a nice little pivot. But most craft studios have some component of either instruction, education, and some sort of way to create.

Some people do strictly "come in and we're making this specific thing today." Or some are a little more open-ended but mine we have set projects. They change over time but everybody knows that you're gonna find some things to paint, you're gonna find some things to do with yarn, you're gonna find button art, you're gonna find metal stamping, wood burning. We have our specific things that we do, so everybody knows that they're gonna be able to find something to make.

Mallory

How did you get started in this business and how long have you been doing this business? If people are thinking about this as a potential career path, what should they expect from your experience?

Christy Nelson

Right. Okay, so I started this business in 2016. So I'm in my eighth year going on nine.

Basically, it was something that I had been thinking about for a very long time. And I had been close to opening something similar in 2010 with a business partner and my business partner ended up moving and I wasn't in a position to do it on my own at that time. I had young children and it was just not a great time for me to be opening a business. So in 2016, I had just turned 40 and I was like, you know, if I'm going to do this, I just need to do this. And so I did.

In the past, I had been a craft blogger. So I was kind of in that industry a little bit. I had been to the trade shows. I had been working with brands and doing some of those kind of collaborations and things with their products and supplies. I just had access to all of these tools and maybe it wasn't like my jam to do something but I wanted people to be able to come in and experience a whole lot of different types of crafting or arting or whatever however you want to say it. I wanted them to be able to experience all those things so then they can decide you know like... "do I really want to get into metal stamping? Or did I just want to make one thing?"

Because I think a lot of us, especially, I'm very neuro-spicy. So when you get to that stage where you're just collecting and collecting all these crafts, is that really sustainable? Do I really need $100 worth of whatever to make this one Pinterest project?

So that was kind of like my impetus for starting the store. I was like, I want people to be able to come in. They don't have to buy a $20 pack of whatever. They can get one thing from us to make their project and be successful and be happy. And then if they want to invest in becoming a master metal stamper or whatever, then they can do that.

I wanted to give people this entry into hobbies, an entry into crafts, and trying to find out what they love. So that's what I did.

Mallory

Yeah, that's awesome. So what are some of the lessons that you learned the hard way through starting this business or maybe mistakes that you made? Or I also know that you do some mentoring for other people who are starting these types of businesses. So maybe you've seen other people make mistakes that you had sort of worn against.

Christy Nelson

Some of the biggest mistakes I made... Well, at the beginning, I think I should have started maybe a little smaller.

I also made mistakes where (this is somewhat embarrassing now because my business is based so much on children), but I didn't allow children. When I first opened, I was like "ages 10 and up only." And now my biggest, my biggest customers, like the age range is like eight to 12. They love my store.

But the good thing with a craft studio is you can pivot. Like I wasn't locked into a lot of things. Like my store was such that I could change out projects. I could bring in different instructors. So that was something that I learned early on that you have to be really flexible and see what the market will bear.

I realized really quickly that grownups don't typically invest in themselves in taking classes or just general enjoyment, which I think is a mistake (that I'm trying to remedy), but I realized that the adults were more likely to invest in their children. And so I was losing out on a huge market by not opening up the age ranges.

And at first I was just scared because I was like, I don't want little kids in here with scissors and whatever, all of my tools and just messing everything... But it turns out that the adults are just as bad about ruining tools and things than children. So anyway, that was one of my early mistakes early on was just not opening myself up to more customers.

Another thing was I probably got into a lease too soon.

Mallory

When you're advising people who want to start one of these craft studio businesses, I know that you are very strategic and like me, I love to think about big picture business plan, stuff like that. What do you advise in that regard with somebody just at the very beginning idea stages of this?

Christy Nelson

I have what I call a business plan bootcamp and we talk about just all of the strategy that needs to be involved with starting a business.

A lot of the people who would like to start a business like this are usually very creative and might not have the best business sense. And you can learn business just like you can learn creativity.

So I just like to make sure that the people who want to do something like this understand that it is very much a business and you're not just going to sit around and make things all day, which, you know, if you're getting into this business for that, I don't recommend it.

Usually in this business plan boot camp or just even strategy sessions that I hold with people who are interested in opening creative studios like this, I like to discuss the parts that aren't so fun.

You need to do market research. Can your community even handle a business like this? Are there enough people who are interested? Do you have competition?

I like to let people know that it is a business first and foremost, even though it's a really fun business to be in.

Mallory

You mentioned wishing that you had started a little smaller or maybe not jumping into a lease as soon. This is something that years ago, I was advising a friend of mine who was opening up a brick and store (and now they have it) but early on I was like, "Can you find ways to test this? Doing little pop-ups at relevant local events and partnering with other local organizations and people who will become your customers and sort of building it up that way?"

Christy Nelson

Yeah, so you want to kind of build that social proof or make yourself be an expert in the community.

A brick and mortar does provide that level of, you know, supposed expertise to people. It kind of gives you some credibility that you might not have if you're just like at a vendor fair and trying to get people to do stuff or whatever.

There is that benefit from a brick and mortar, but I don't think the cost of the lease makes up for that benefit at first. So building up a customer base is always great and getting some fans, know, letting people know that you're going to do this so that you do want to grow and you do want to be bigger.

I sometimes suggest to people that, why don't they start a mobile party business? If you're gonna have craft parties, why don't you take it to them first before them coming to you? If you're gonna host some workshops, why don't you find a venue and host a few workshops to see if it's even something that you like to do? You know?

Figure out how you're gonna accept your payments, figure out how you're going to deal with buying your supplies.

Before you jump in and do this, know, whole hog, whatever, test the waters and make sure it's something that you really wanna do because once you sign that lease, you are in.

It's really hard to get out of that lease, and you want to make sure that you are doing something that you love and knowing that there's a lot more involved than just helping people make things.

Mallory

Maybe we could dive in a little bit more to some of the rough financials or the startup costs that people need to be considering when they're putting together these business plans for this type of craft store business.

Christy Nelson

Yeah, so costs. The main costs for me right now are payroll and rent.

And I know when you're first starting, you might not be considering payroll, because you'll do a lot of the stuff on your own. But if you want to get to any place where you have any time for yourself or you want to grow your business, that's something that you need to consider.

And so when I'm doing my business plans with other people, I always tell them include people.

Include some people because if you can't run your business, you need to pay someone to do it. If something happens to you, if you need you know anything (a sick day, a vacation...), so I always include that in because a lot of people are like, "Well I don't need to pay myself right away or whatever..."

Pay yourself, pay yourself, and plan on paying at least one to two other people.

Include that in your plan and try and figure out how many revenue streams you need to be able to do that.

So payroll costs, that's going to vary depending on where you live. It's probably like a third of your total operating costs. Same thing with rent is going to be about a third of your operating costs.

And then the rest... You've got inventory, you have all the extra things that you have to pay for, like you have to pay your credit card processing fees, you have to pay your website, you have to pay any professional organizations that you're in, or like, there's just, there's a lot.

I'll just put it this way. When I started my business, I had, I think, $30,000 up for it, which is very low, actually for most people to start a business. But that's what I had right then. And I was like, OK, I'm going to use this to start whatever. And then month by month, I would invest whatever from our income to add to that.

I would say when all was said and done, I was probably $100,000 in that first year getting established of just like constant investment into my business to the point where now, you know, it sustains itself and I don't have to do that constant investment anymore. So that's nice.

But yeah, you do need like a little chunk of change to make sure that you can get things going and you also need to take into account that those first few months are slow. They're slow.

And you're spending all this time and money just trying to get people to know about you. So having a good marketing plan, a good marketing budget, like all of those things are so important.

I would say collect as much money as you can, but also make sure that when you're doing your planning, you know the things that you're gonna do to bring in revenue and that those will sustain you.

Mallory

Yeah, yeah. I'd also like to talk a little bit about franchise models versus completely creating your art or craft studio from scratch. Because I know that's a question that you've gotten a lot, right?

Thinking about all of these numbers and all of these logistics and business planning, there are, within lots of different industries, franchises, we often think about fast food restaurants like McDonald's. Right? That's a common known franchise, but there are franchise craft and art studios and sometimes people might think like, that would be so much easier. What do you recommend when people are sort of toying with that idea?

Christy Nelson

I definitely have opinions about this and like, it is definitely an opinion and you should make your own decisions about this.

For me, franchising this type of business... I don't like it.

I think that if someone is creative and wants to have this kind of business, then you don't want to be held back by a franchise.

The franchise can help you put systems and things in place, which I think are helpful. You do need those things and I can help you with that. But I think that the money it costs to have a franchise is better put into setting yourself up for success as a craft studio owner than going into this franchise model, which can tend to be quite a money drain, but you don't have as much freedom to pivot or freedom to do more of what you want. Those are my opinions on franchising.

Mallory

Yeah, well that makes so much sense to me and I've never explored a franchise model because I think like you pointed out, I think for most multi-passionate creative people like artists, makers, crafters... the joy is in the doing it our way and being creative and figuring it out and if you're just taking somebody's like, here's the box of what you're supposed to do. There's not as much fun in that and if you're not having fun in some way running your own business, you're gonna burn out.

Christy Nelson

Right. I just think that for the creative art space or studio space or whatever, a franchise model, I don't know, it just takes a little bit of the soul out of it.

A lot of people come to me and want to open a Makit Takit in other places. And I'm like, "No, open your own thing and I can help you make it yours."

If you need help with coming up with some sort of base plan to get your ducks in a row, so to speak... Like, I can help a lot with systems and finding suppliers and things like that.

But I don't need to recreate Makit Takit. Like, Makit Takit is me. I created Makit Takit and you create something else.

I have helped some other craft studio owners and I call them my sister stores. We're not affiliated in any way other than I will always have their back and I will always help them do what they need.

I think that you just need to have faith in yourself and you don't need this extra... I don't want to call it a burden because for some people franchises are freedom from doing that stuff.

But for me personally, for a creative studio, I would say just do it. Do it yourself.

Mallory

Yeah, I think too, with such a like physical location based business that really is a part of the local community. I think that's another aspect too. Like you're in Nebraska, I'm thinking I'm located in New Orleans, Louisiana, and I grew up on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and region to region... there's such different, you know, vibes and things that people are interested in.

But also by creating your own brand within your community, you can partner with that community and create a sort of third home for people, like a sense of place in a way that if you're taking a franchise, you can't really do that. It's like the locally owned coffee shop versus the Starbucks, right?

Christy Nelson

Exactly. Yeah, I think there is and there's such a pull for people to support local right now. And I think that's great. Like I want people to support their local mom and pop shops.

And I think with Millennials and Gen Z, they're to that point where they're like, yeah, we don't need another Walmart, we don't need another Olive Garden. They want to support the people in their community who are doing great things.

Mallory

Well, cool. I feel like we've covered so much good information and this is such a personalized experience... We talked about that it's really good to partner with trusted experts and people who have done it before.

If people are interested in exploring this business and want to get mentoring from you and your advice, where can they go to learn more about working with you?

Christy Nelson

My website MakitTogether.com. I have all of my business mentoring on there.

Mallory

Thank you so much, Christy.

CONNECT WITH Christy Nelson

• Christy's craft studio: Makit Takit

• Business mentoring for creatives: Makit Together

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How to Achieve Your Creative Goals Within 90 Days

You have BIG creative goals, right? You want to achieve them, but maybe you're struggling to make progress?

Well, you're in the right place, because in this video I'm chatting with my friend & productivity expert Monique Malcolm about how to achieve your creative goals within 90 days.

In this video, we'll discuss how to break down a BIG goal into tiny actions and smaller, more manageable chunks so that you can reach your goals faster! We cover:

• why to focus on a 90 day timeframe

• example of launching a podcast in 90 days

• project management for creatives

• our thoughts about choosing the right project management and productivity software & tools for your needs

Monique Malcolm is a seasoned productivity expert, writer, and the founder of Take Tiny Action.

She is dedicated to helping people achieve their goals in a sustainable way.

Monique’s approach involves taking small and consistent steps over time, which allows people to achieve their ambitions while maintaining a healthy, balanced, and fulfilling lifestyle. She lives in Florida with her husband and son. When she’s not working, she loves soaking up the sun at the beach or hopping onto her bike for a spin class.

Monique was also a guest on Episode 29 of the Badass Creatives podcast, talking about setting goals and taking action.

Takeaways

• Setting 90-day goals can make long-term planning more manageable and allow for consistent progress.

• Big projects can be broken down into 90-day segments to make them more achievable.

• Examples of projects that can be completed in 90 days include writing a book, launching a podcast, or starting a new business venture.

• Managing projects and tasks as a multi-passionate creative requires finding a system that works best for your individual needs and preferences.

• The hierarchy of goals, projects, tasks, and tiny actions can help in effectively planning and executing projects.

• Choosing the right productivity software depends on how you process information and prefer to organize tasks.

• Avoid overcomplicating productivity by focusing on taking action and avoiding excessive tweaking of productivity tools.

• To work with Monique and learn more about her approach to productivity, visit her website at TakeTinyAction.com.

Video Transcript:

Mallory

Hello Monique! Thanks for joining me and talking all about how to achieve your creative goals within 90 days!

Monique Malcolm

90 days, 90 days. That is my number.

Mallory

Yeah! So why focus on a 90 day timeframe? Why is 90 days such a helpful number for achieving creative goals, and breaking it down into something that feels actionable and doable?

Monique Malcolm

Well, I like to think about 90 day goals because planning for the entire year is really hard.

I know that in the past you've probably heard people say like, "What is your 10-year plan? What's your five-year plan? What is your three-year plan?"

I'm going to be honest. I can't tell you what my plan is sometimes by the end of the week. So how am I going to plan a goal that is supposed to be five years out? And then, today, the person I am right now has to figure out that plan? It's a lot.

90 days for most people is more manageable, especially since we tend to operate on quarters. People understand quarters and how that all works. So it's a really good time to be consistent, see some progress, and then make adjustment if you don't really see any progress.

I think anything longer than that is probably too long for most people. Anything shorter than that, it's probably not enough time to really have like data and progress to measure against, to see like is the thing you're doing really working?

Mallory

So what's an example of like a really big project that you could break down to 90 days?

For example, I know that you wrote a book, right? Don't Let Fear Have All The Fun: and other advice for making bold moves even if you're afraid

And I know I've written a couple of books. They're tiny little things that I've written. But writing a book, no matter whether it's tiny or like the great American novel is a huge project, right? So did you write this in 90 days or did you break this down into like, mini projects that were 90 days each?

Monique Malcolm

Oh, so that is a spicy question. So technically, it took longer than 90 days to write that book. But I also spent a lot of time procrastinating with writer's block. So if I had to be honest, I think I wrote the majority of that book probably in the last six weeks because I was just running out of time. I really needed to get it done. So I think that I could make the argument that it was done in 90 days over the course of like,

I think it was eight months that I wrote it, which is kind of terrible. I spent a lot of time procrastinating. But I have heard people say that like, they could write a book in 90 days. And I honestly think for my next book, I don't know, I feel like 90 days might still be too tight for me, but I think I definitely could get it done in five to six months, just because I understand the process now and I would be better about it, even though writing.

Second, third, fourth books, it still sucks. But I would be, I kind of know how to manage that. But going back to your original question about like a project that can be done in 90 days, you could do a book in 90 days. If you say wanted to write like a 40,000 word book and you committed to like for two hours or an hour and a half every day, I'm just gonna write. I think that's totally possible to get that done.

If I could think about a project that people would do in 90 days, I think like, realistic, you could launch a podcast and like, you could launch the podcast. It's not gonna take you 90 days, but you could like have a 90 day project for your podcast where you planned it, you launched it, and you started getting data. And that would be realistic for 90 days.

Mallory

Yeah, and well, because that's something you're super experienced with, right? Like you've had a couple of different podcasts.

So launching, you mentioned like launching the podcast would be 90 days. So then would there maybe be like a second podcast project that's like another 90 days after that initial launch? Like, how do you kind of like use 90 days more than once?

Monique Malcolm

Yeah, so for something like a podcast, I wouldn't even, I teach people how to launch a podcast in 30 days. It just kind of depends on how quickly you want to go. I think 30 to 60 days is realistic for a lot of people and like their time constraints. That if you took 60 days, that last 30 days would be like getting out there and then gathering some data.

So figuring out like, how do you want to promote this show and how you want to... get more downloads and stuff and kind of tracking that over that first 30 days. But if you wanted to, let's say 90 days later, continue on with that podcast process, then I think a lot of things could be repeated.

So in that 90 days, like the second round of 90 days, you're going to be one focused on tracking data over 90 days because you want to know like, what am I doing that's working?

So you might want to pick one marketing platform to use and go all in on that and try to test some different things out, whether it's I want this to be on Instagram or I want to share snippets on TikTok or I want to write threads that are related to my show. You would do that over a 90-day period.

That doesn't mean that you have to do it every day, but you would decide how often am I going to be posting these snippets from my show in this platform and then tracking that. As far as the content creation, well, great. Are you a weekly show? Yay.

Do you want to try to batch all your, all 12 episodes for that quarter in maybe a week or two? Maybe you want to have one content week at the beginning of every month where you do all your shows for the month and then you kind of let that go. You get to determine the timeline for that. But if I had a podcast project that I was like trying to track every 90 days, like the thing that I was doing, that would be how I would break it down. Like when do I want the shows to get done? And um, whatever data that I want to track. So whether it's downloads or how I'm marketing, getting guests, that kind of thing.

Mallory

Yeah, so say that you're, well, I know we both are like super like multi-passionate creative people, right? And especially if we are working by ourselves, don't have like a big team, right?

Can you talk about how you manage projects and like how you might recommend that people like us try to like self-manage projects like this, especially over the course of like a little bit of a longer period, like 90 days and kind of keep track of all of those moving parts?

Monique Malcolm

Yes, so I have this hierarchy in my mind of like how goals translate into projects.

So a lot of times when people think about goals, I feel like there's a lot of focus on the setting of the goals. So like, I'm gonna do this thing and it's gonna be actionable. I'm gonna get it done by X date and that's great, but that doesn't actually help you get that thing done. It just gives you like a container for like when it needs to fit into.

For a goal, you set your goal, and then you turn that goal into a project or maybe several projects. It's gonna depend on what the goal is.

So if we're going back to the podcast example, the goal of launching a podcast within 90 days, great, that's the goal. There's a bunch of projects in that. You need to plan out your show basics. So what is the podcast gonna be about? That could be one project. So just figuring out.

What am I going to talk about? How often am I going to be publishing? Am I going to have guests? What is the vibe of my show? That's a project.

Then you might have creating your podcast branding. So that could be a different project. You need to think about cover art. Do you want to have intro music? Do you want to, like, how do you want to have templates that you use that are branded for social media so that when they show up, people know, like, this is my, this is so-and-so's podcast. That could be a separate project.

If you have guests, coming up with a process for booking guests and making sure that that's seamless, that could be a project. Actually recording the audio, that's a project.

So you go from goals to your projects, and then from your projects, you go down one more level to tasks.

So what are the tasks within that project?

So again, if your project at this moment was like coming up with podcast branding. So the task might be getting photos done if you wanna be on the cover of your show. You're gonna have a project for like actually designing the square.

Your task might be designing templates for sharing on social media. These are all tasks. But a lot of people stop there at the task.

I think those are still too large.

I go down one more level to the “tiny actions” because those are like the individual pieces in that task.

So an example I love to give to people when it comes to podcasting is, when somebody tells me I'm going to record a podcast, I always ask them, what do you mean? Do you mean that you have already planned out the episode, it's been outlined, everything's ready to go, and you're gonna hit record?

And you're just going to literally only record and be done? Or does recording that podcast mean you need to outline the points that you want to do? You need to write your script. You need to, I don't know, come up with pictures for your episode. Do you need to then sit down and record, and then you're going to edit it, and then you're going to upload it? Because those are two different things. And one of those... is a task and the other one is a tiny action.

The tiny action is saying, I'm gonna record the podcast and it's literally only you sitting down to record the podcast. That's the tiny action.

The other thing was a task list of things that you wanted to do.

And this is why people get frustrated and feel like they don't have enough time because they're not really clear on, did I need to do a task, like a series of things, or did I just have like one solo action that I need to take in this moment? So...

That's the hierarchy for me. It's like, what if the overall goal, turning that goal into a project or a series of projects if I need them, breaking that project down into tasks.

So what things do I need to do to move this project forward? And then from those tasks, breaking them down into even smaller steps that I can check off, you know, outlining the podcast show, writing my script, recording the episode, editing, those are all smaller actions. So that's how I look at it.

Mallory

Yeah. So, okay. Speaking of spicy topics, so, because I know whenever the topic of like tasks and project management and all this stuff comes up, people, especially multi-passionate creatives, especially like… I know you have ADHD, for example, right? And I, some of the people I work with also have ADHD. And I know for those of us that are, you know, have a lot of big ideas, there's always this question of...

What software should I use to manage all my tasks, right? Like what's the best productivity software?

Monique Malcolm

I don't have a definitive answer to that because I believe that you should answer that question by thinking about how do you need to process information.

I have used pretty much every project management software under the sun.

I think that you should think about how does your brain process information?

So for me, I'm very visual and I need to plan in a certain way and then I need to put it into a digital format and I need it to look a certain way for it to be useful to me. Otherwise, it's just gonna be a list of stuff in the digital cloud that I'm not gonna use.

So I like to plan on paper first. It sounds redundant. People are like, you're wasting so much time. But I literally cannot plan directly into my computer. My brain won't let me do it.

I have to write things by hand to process on paper. So I have a lot of post-it notes of different sizes so that I can break down ideas. So I have post-it notes of a specific size that I like to use for planning projects and getting out all those tasks.

Usually once I get the tasks, I don't necessarily mind taking tiny actions and putting those directly into the computer, because a lot of times I usually know what that is.

But the big ideas of like how things need to move, dates and stuff, I like to do that all on paper and then put it in the computer and then kind of move things around if I need to.

But as far as project management systems go, you have a lot of options. Are you a person who likes things to look, to live and list? If you do, pretty much every project management to-do list app has a list view. I love things to be in the Kanban view because I like to see processes flow through.

So if I'm doing like podcasting stuff, I like to have a Kanban board. You have these columns and you move that task through the board. So I like to see it go from like idea to planned to outlined to record, to edit. I like to see that flow. And especially if I'm doing multiple episodes at one time that might be in various stages or I might have somebody helping me with things.

It's really helpful for me to look at the computer and be like, okay, great, this is an edit right now. It needs to go over to upload and then that will be done.

But that might not be how you plan.

So the most important question that you need to ask yourself is outside of like, what is the best software to use? You need to ask yourself, how do I need to receive and process this information?

Is it enough that you just see it as a list? Then great.

If you're a person who just likes to have like a list with giant tasks and you just know to do the tiny actions, that's great.

I like to see not only my task. I love to see the sub tasks. I love to check off those things. It that makes me feel like I'm progressing.

Some people can just have a task that says like record episode with Mallory and like they know what to do and they'll do it. I'm not that person. I needed to be like: “Record episode with Mallory.” So what parts of this am I responsible for? Okay, so I need to come up with some topics. I need to have some questions. Like I need that checklist of things to keep myself on track.

Mallory

For a lot of those tasks and tiny actions, I tend to prefer a list view and have like subtasks and sort of like list it out.

And I use a lot of digital tools because I like to add visual things like emojis to kind of cue my brain quickly about like what the thing is related to. And so that I can capture those ideas on my phone, right? Cause I'm like constantly coming up with ideas. So I need a way to capture them so that they're not like rattling around in my brain.

But like you were saying about the Kanban and like those like column views, I actually do a sort of analog paper version of that for my YouTube videos.

I have a big poster on my bulletin board over here and I use Post-its for like, so there's a Post-it for each individual video topic and I kind of move them where it's like, okay, I'm scripting this one, this is the next one I wanna record, I'm recording this one, I'm editing this one, and then this one is like post-production stuff, right? So yeah, it's figuring out what works best for you.

Monique Malcolm

And you hit the nail on the head with saying things will change over time.

That's another reason why I don't like to give people a blanket answer of you should do this. I'll tell people what I use.

At this moment, I'm using a combination of Post-it notes, ClickUp, and Notion. And neither of the digital tools am I loving right now.

So I actually am thinking about just going back to paper for the moment, because there's just times during the year where writing things by hand just is faster and it's more effective for me.

And then there's times of the year where maybe there are a lot of moving parts. Like right now, I don't feel like I have so many moving parts that I couldn't just manage it on paper. But there are times where I have deadlines and I have like things that I'm trying to make sure that I stay on top of. I wanna put all of that into a digital system so I can be reminded and I know what's going on.

But like you, I love having an analog Kanban board. I actually have a whiteboard on my closet door. And every so often, I feel like at least once a year, I draw up a Kanban board on there and I just do everything with Post-It notes because I don't know, for whatever reason, like the digital systems, they create a lot of noise.

And I think that's kind of like the quiet secret of productivity people and productivity apps.

And I even see it, I hang out on Reddit sometimes. I feel like there's a lot of quiet snark on Reddit boards and like the Notion forums and the ClickUp forums about how like all these productivity tools are just… we're just tweaking them. We're just tweaking them more and more instead of actually getting in there, planning what we need, using them for what we need.

We just get in there and we just play around with them and tweak them and make more features. And so I feel that. I feel that from time to time, I live in that space. And so when I find myself there, I'm like, all right, well, you need to go back to paper because this is not working.

Mallory

Yeah, because at some point that stuff can just become another form of procrastination and can prevent you from actually achieving those goals, right? You actually have to take the “tiny actions.”

Monique Malcolm

Pretty much, because I mean, at the end of the day, we have all these productivity apps because we have this idea that we could be doing more and we could be more organized and really out of our own way if we had this app to make things easier, to recall the information, to remind us of the thing.

But I feel like there's a scale, right? There's a point where it does that, and then there's a point where it tips, and it's like, it's not doing that.

That's my complaint with Notion. I feel like somebody's gonna be mad in the comments about this. And the thing is, I get it. Notion can be so aesthetic and so beautiful, but man, can you really tip the scale into this was really helpful to this is taking so much time.

Mallory

Yeah. Well, so I know that you work directly with a lot of creatives to help them achieve their goals and help them figure out how to like be productive in a way that works best for them, right?

Can you tell people how they can get in touch with you, how they can work with you, all that good stuff?

Monique Malcolm

Yeah, so if you like my brand of productivity, snark, you can find me on my website at TakeTinyAction.com.

It's super simple to find. It's spelled exactly like it sounds. No weird spellings of punctuation. And you can find more details about me and what I do there.

If you are interested in having somebody that's gonna help you like actually get things done and help you make time and space for that, then I'm your girl because I want to help you do things. And I don't want to have you sitting on endless calls with me talking about what you're going to do. I actually want you to do it.

Mallory

Awesome. Well, I so appreciate you doing this and being here with us, Monique. Thank you so much.

Monique Malcolm

Thank you for having me.

Connect with Monique Malcolm

• Website: Take Tiny Action

• Monique’s book: Don't Let Fear Have All The Fun: and other advice for making bold moves even if you're afraid

• Monique’s YouTube: @TakeTinyAction

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Inventory Management for Creative Business Owners

Do you want to increase profits and bring down costs in your creative business?

In this video, I'm chatting with MY business coach, Gwen Bortner, all about how effective inventory management can help bring down your expenses & boost your profits:

In this conversation, we'll cover:

• how to figure out if you have too much inventory (your inventory turnover ratio)

• inventory management best practices including Open to Buy for retail shops

• the pros & cons of wholesale vs consignment for makers & independent retail shops

• whether it's better to do pre-made or custom order products as a maker or artist

Gwen Bortner is the founder of the business operations advisory firm, Everyday Effectiveness.

Gwen has a background in the craft industry, with years of experience as a professional knitwear designer & knitting teacher.

She helps visionaries scale their businesses to seven figures and beyond without the stress and overwhelm of trying to do it all on their own. Her approach comes from the belief that personal and professional success looks different for everyone, and most business owners waste time and energy trying to conform to outside expectations and definitions of success.

Video Transcript:

Mallory

Hi, Gwen, and thanks for joining me to talk about, I know, I think this is one of your favorite topics, inventory management and how that can be used to increase profits and reduce cost and expenses, right?

Gwen Bortner - Everyday Effectiveness

Yes, I am a weirdo. I actually love inventory. I love talking about inventory. And I am so glad that you invited me to be with you and to talk about this topic. Because it is kind of, it's a weird passion for me. And it's also something that doesn't get talked a lot about because it's kind of confusing. And almost every time I talk to somebody about it, they're like, well, no one's ever said that. No one's ever told me that.

Why is no one talking about this? So I love any opportunity. So thank you for inviting me. I really appreciate it.

Mallory

Yeah, so what are some of the common mistakes that people have when it comes to inventory? Like, is it possible to have too much inventory?

Gwen Bortner - Everyday Effectiveness

So the answer to that, almost always, is yes. For years I was a business teacher through the National Needlearts Association. And anytime someone would come up to me and they'd say, so I'm having a little trouble and I'm not sure, I'm not quite sure where to start. And I would say, you have too much inventory. And they're like, but I haven't even told you how much inventory you have. And it's like, yeah, that's almost always the...

The first issue is you have too much inventory. Anytime people don't have too much inventory, they have nothing to talk to me about because their businesses are super profitable, they're running really well. So it really is, the answer is probably yes. If you're feeling like you're not super profitable, you probably have too much inventory. And any client I've ever worked with, when we get their inventory to a correct level, they're automatically making more profit. And it's so counterintuitive, and they're always shocked, even though they trust me, they know I'm right, I've got plenty of case studies, that it's still like, I don't get it, I'm making so much more money, and I don't have as much inventory. So yeah, so the very... Short answer to that long blathering I did was, yes, it is easily possible to have too much inventory.

Mallory

So when we're talking about inventory, is it, and maybe it's both, is it like the finished products that we're selling? Is it the materials that are going into those products for like, you know, you spoke about working with needle arts and I know you have a background in knitting. So is it like craft supplies and the materials that are going into those finished goods too?

Gwen Bortner - Everyday Effectiveness

Well, you know, and so to be completely honest, most of the people I work with are in the retail side. So they're selling a finished product. But I also have a number of clients who were doing small business manufacturing, which may be a little beyond where a lot of your audience is more in the maker category. But really, they're doing small business manufacturing as well. And what I find is it's a mix of both. Right?

It's a mix of having too much finished product and either having too much of some raw materials and not enough of others, but it's really about the right sizing of it. So it's not as much about too much or too little, it's really about, are you right sizing your inventory, whether it's the raw goods piece of it that you're using to create, you know, whatever your product is that you're creating, or is it the finished product sitting on the shelves based on, you know, what your model looks like, so.

Mallory

So how do you figure out what the right size is then?

Gwen Bortner - Everyday Effectiveness

So this is truer for finished product than for raw material. So let me just be clear on that. So we're going to start with finished product because it's an easier piece.

Generally, for anybody in the kind of maker space, we fall into what is called specialty retail, that we're selling something out. And I say retail, it can also be wholesale, but it's still that same space.

The guideline is you want to be having somewhere between two and six turns of your inventory per year. Now we're starting to get into jargon and people, I'm sure there's at least someone that's listening to this whose eyes just roll to the back of their head. And so we're going to take it down, we're going to make it really simple.

So a turn, an inventory turn is the theoretical number of times that your total inventory value gets sold in a year. I'm going to keep it really simple numbers for a moment.

So like if you've got a thousand dollars of inventory sitting on your shelves, in whatever theoretical shelves you have, and that's kind of the average that you're doing most of the time, that means that you should be selling two thousand dollars of that inventory a year. That would be two turns. If you were selling 6,000 that would be six turns, right? Because it's 1,000 times six, right? 1,000 times two.

And so the way to figure out what is the right level is to work that number backwards. To say what are your average sales per year. So picking a number just another number out of random. Let's say your average annual sales is ten thousand dollars.

For specialty sales, particularly in the maker market, really if you can get to two or three, you're usually doing really well. This is particularly in the retail side of it. But somewhere between two, two and four is where you really wanna be shooting for. If you can start getting above four, you're often having to make too much or spend too much on shipping and there's other downfalls, but somewhere in there.

So you're gonna take your total sales for a year, and you're going to divide it by whatever turn number you want.

So if we take 10,000 and we say we want four turns, we're going to take 10,000 and divide it by four. That means that your average inventory value that's sitting on your shelf should be 2,500 at any point in time. Does that make sense? Was it simple enough? Do you think? And this is not the super accurate way to do inventory turns, but it's the relatively easy, I can do the math in my head. I don't have to spend hours, you know, gathering numbers to try and figure out, you know, what I'm doing way to, you know, and if you're getting close to that, then you're in good shape.

Mallory

Yeah, it kind of the turns thing kind of reminds me of like within restaurants...

For example, I was at a pizza restaurant last week and on a busy Friday night with my best friend. And we were sitting at the table and the waitress kind of forgot about us towards the end. And like, I was fine. We were having a good time. But they weren't able to turn that table. I'm pretty sure there were people waiting outside that if they were able to get us checked out and out of there, they could be making more money on next guests.

Gwen Bortner - Everyday Effectiveness

Yes. That is exactly the same concept and where the table is an inventory in a restaurant because only one group of people can be sitting at it at a time, it's the exact same thing.

Every dollar of inventory sitting on your shelf is exactly that. It's like a dollar that's sitting there and how many times can you sell it to make more money? Right? And you're sitting there as a dollar, as a cost, but your value of it is $2, because that's what you're gonna sell it for if you're doing just a kind of standard keystone market. And so how many times can you do that in a year?

I will tell you in the retail world, in the craft market, and this is typically more brick and mortar, but it also applies to online businesses. What I typically find when people do the numbers is it's usually one or less.

that when they start working with me, they're only getting one or less than one turn per year. And it's like, yeah, you need to cut your inventory in half. Which of course is a very scary thing. Because most people believe more inventory creates more sales, but that's not actually a true statement.

Mallory

Yeah, and when you're talking about retail, specifically with like independent boutiques and things like that, there's something called open to buy, right? This is related to what you're talking about?

Gwen Bortner - Everyday Effectiveness

Yes. So the open to buy is a way to help manage how much money you're actually spending on inventory. Because almost everybody that's in any sort of maker environment is in it because they love the thing. There is no like just hardcore business person that says, I wanna open a yarn shop because it's gonna make me lots of money.

That is not the way this works. We all know that, right? That is just not how this is. We love knitting, we love yarn, or we love woodworking, and we love the process of building something. Doesn't matter what it is. It's all about the passion and the excitement for it. And so we get excited about the products, and if we don't have a way to manage how much we're spending, it's really easy to spend a lot of money on stuff because...

It's fun. We love it. It's exciting. It's all those things, right?

So the open to buy is a way to manage that. And the idea is however much money got for the product that you just sold. And I'm going to use a simple keystone situation, right? So we sell the product retail for 10. It cost us five to bring it in. You know, like I said, oversimplifying, but we're, you know, so we can keep the numbers in our head, right?

So if we're selling a product for 10, but it's costing us five, if we sell $100 of that product, that meant that we probably spent $50 of cost on it, right? And so the idea is you then now have $50 to replace that product, not 100, right? You have 50.

Now, if you're needing to decrease your inventory, which most people are, what I encourage you to do is not say, I've got $50 to replace, but you only do a smaller percentage of it. Okay?

So for instance, if your cost of goods is 50%, which is our example there, right? 50% of 100 is, well, 50. Maybe you say, I'm only going to allocate 45% to replacing inventory. And so over time, you start decreasing it gently without doing a big sale where you're losing money. It happens over time, way less painful. And you're not seeing this huge change in your business model so aggressively that it becomes problematic.

If you need to do it a little more, a little bit faster, then maybe we say we only take 40% of our cost to put toward open to buy. But the way I find that's the easiest way to do it is to set up a separate account, a completely separate checking account, bank account, savings account, whatever you want. Generally, I'd recommend some sort of checking account where money can come in and out pretty easily. Every time that you're making a sale, either daily or once a week or whatever, you look at your total sales and you say: "We sold X amount," and so we're going to move X percentage over to this account.

It doesn't mean I get to spend it every day. I need to know how much money is in here. But by putting it in a separate account, it makes it so much easier to track and say, "Oh, I've got $40 I can spend." And then when you spend it, you're still going through that same process, like I said, daily or weekly, whatever actually makes sense.

Mallory

Okay, so we've talked about, okay, so inventory management for retail shops and inventory management for like makers and artists who are possibly creating products for those independent retail shops.

I'm curious, I have another video about how to get started selling to those boutique retail shops as an artist, right? And I know, you know, there's different ways that that's often handled, especially in small independent stores.

There's wholesale, which is kind of a lot of what we've been talking about, but there's also consignment. And I'm curious from both a maker artist perspective and a retail shop perspective, maybe you could kind of talk through some of the pros and cons of that as it relates to inventory management.

Gwen Bortner - Everyday Effectiveness

So there's pros and cons on both sides, which I love that you're aware of. A lot of people are just like, oh, you've got to do this. And it's like, no, they're different answers for different people, right?

So as the maker, getting your product into the retail shop, it's technically better for you most of the time if you can have them buy it wholesale.

Now here's the downside, typically wholesale, they're gonna pay you less than if they're doing it consignment. But the thing is, when it's sold, it's sold. It's never coming back. It's their problem, as it were, to make sure that it gets sold at that point.

And so a lot of folks shy away from wholesale because it's like, but I make more in consignment. But you may or may not make more depending if or if not it sells, right?

So there's an upside to doing the wholesale. The downside is exactly that. Typically, where wholesale, and I'm using really generic numbers, and I'm not saying this is what has to be, but typically wholesale is 50% of what expected retail is, where consignment can run to 60% or 70% of what retail is. So the maker is making more, but it could sit for two or three or four months before it sells. And when it's sitting in their shop, it's not sitting anywhere else to be sold. So there's only a narrow place.

Now, if you find a shop where your product is turning really consistently, then consignment might be a better option. Almost like it's going wholesale, but you're actually making more money, you know, in the process.

The reason a retail shop likes consignment is because they don't have the obligation to pay you until they've actually made their money, right? So that's, you know, that's, that's the advantage for them. The reason that they like to buy wholesale is because generally the cost is less.

So there's pros and cons in both sides. And I think you have to look at each situation case by case.

Years ago, when I lived in Missouri, there was an art studio that had lots of maker things. And I used to make a little bit of jewelry and a few things that she had on consignment. It wasn't my primary business. It wasn't the primary thing. So it didn't matter to me if it sat there for two or three months before it sold. So it wasn't a big deal. But like 90 plus percent of her product was all consignment. But it allowed her to bring in lots of different artists and be moving things around and have lots of variety, which, in fact, actually made the shop more interesting to people and potentially brought in more customers.

So there's a lot of reason for the various business models and why you might choose one over another. But you really want to look at it with the full picture in mind and not just look at one narrow element of it.

Mallory

Yeah, I think it's so important to understand like the goals and the pros and cons of both because I had one of my members of the Badass Creatives Marketing Accelerator was dealing with a consignment situation where the shop, you know, wasn't turning over her inventory very fast and then they stopped communicating with her and she could have used that inventory for craft shows that she was doing, you know, and eventually she was able to like go get it all back. But it's so important to like understand your own goals when going into that situation.

Gwen Bortner - Everyday Effectiveness

Well, and having an agreement that you both understand ahead of time. So to say, you know, if a product doesn't move in... (I'm making this up. I mean, it can be whatever agreement you want.) But, you know, if a product hasn't moved in three months, you will ship it back at, you know, whatever cost or, you know, whatever the thing is because you may know it's like, well, then it's just the wrong product for this particular shop. Right?

Especially when we're talking about maker, you know, items, because a lot of times they're all pretty,

a fair bit of uniqueness and it's like, hmm, somehow this particular thing doesn't work well in this shop, but this other thing does and allows you to make the switches, right?

Mallory

Yeah. Okay, then one final question related to maker businesses and artists.

I've heard this come up where people wonder, should we be selling pre-made items? Should we be like creating a bunch of inventory upfront? Or should I do custom made, made to order? Like is there one that's better? (Again, it depends, but...)

Gwen Bortner - Everyday Effectiveness

Well, and it's back to what is the overall goal, right?

So the value of making product ahead of time is often you can do it a little more assembly line-like, right? And they're similar in there. And you can do them a little bit faster because it's repetitive. And so therefore, your time investment and their for-profit margin may be a little bit...The time investment is less, so your profit margin is a little bit higher. And if you know it's something that people are buying consistently, then there's also the upside of that, right? That you've always got product that people are looking for.

On the other hand, doing made to order allows you to not invest time and money in product that just sits and never sells. And so there's some upside there. And often you can charge a little bit more for that made to order because it really is, it is customized to the person that they're potentially buying it for. Because they're picking their color, they're picking whatever details that come into it. So there could be an advantage there.

But the downside is, what if you get 100 made to orders all at the exact same time? Because you probably can't fill them in the time frame that you normally want to do. So it's a little bit of looking at both and seeing where does this particular piece fit in, and also how generic the piece is.

So knitting was my primary craft. I would never do knitting stuff as pre-made because there's way too many choices in details and specifics. But the little wire-wrapped base jewelry that I was doing was fine because it was like, you know, a neck is pretty much a neck. You know, earrings are pretty much earrings. They're going to fit most people. They either like them or they don't. You know, it doesn't have quite the same level of chance of working or not working.

So I think that also plays into it. And really... what is your overall business model? What are you looking to do long term?

If you're looking to really build this as a full-time business long term, handmade is probably not unless you're charging really high prices for it so that you can really make it a viable business, which I've seen people do.

Or if you're looking for a longer term business otherwise, you're probably looking about how can I outsource it? How can I do this so it's repeatable? And that typically is more of a pre-made option.

But go back to what is it that you're looking to get out of the business to help really drive that answer.

Mallory

Absolutely. Yeah, it's so important to be in alignment and clear about your own goals and your own business values.

And if somebody needs help with that... (because you're actually my business coach right now and you're amazing and you're so great at like systems and operations and things like inventory management and figuring out how to get in there and like increase your profits and decrease your expenses.) So how can people get in touch with you and find out about how to work with you?

Gwen Bortner - Everyday Effectiveness

So the best way is to jump to my website, which is EverydayEffectiveness.com.

Or people can just reach out via email at Gwen at EverydayEffectiveness.com and say, oh my gosh, I heard you on Mallory's show, and I've got questions.

And I'm always happy to hop on a quick call and figure out, is it the right time to work with me or not? And if there's a quick question, sometimes I can just do that right then and there and help you move on. I've done that more than once as well. And I'm happy to help if I possibly can.

Mallory

Awesome, thanks so much, Gwen.

Gwen Bortner - Everyday Effectiveness

You're welcome. Thanks for having me.

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Website Planning for Creative Businesses: 5 Questions to Answer BEFORE Building Your Site!

Whether you’re planning a new website, a website move or a website redesign, OR you're still stuck at trying to figure out “What website platform should I use??” ... There’s a few questions you should consider & answer for yourself BEFORE you ever talk to a web designer or developer or go too far down the rabbit hole of researching website platforms.

This is ESPECIALLY true if you’re an artist, maker or multi-passionate creative solopreneur and you're doing almost ALL OF THE BUSINESS THINGS yourself!

In this video, I cover the 5 questions you should be asking yourself and getting clarity on BEFORE building or redesigning your website.

This is based on more than a decade of experience working with TONS of artists, creatives & small business owners, both in my full-time day jobs in digital marketing and through my own program, the Badass Creatives Marketing Accelerator.

Ready? Let’s get right to it:

#1: What do you want your website to DO for you?

It's important to understand what you want your website to actually be able to do for you. Especially if you're considering moving to a new website platform this is going to be really important.

Do you want to sell physical or digital products on your website? Is e-commerce your primary focus?

If you’re building a website primarily for selling your handmade products or artwork online, you’ll probably want to go with a platform that is designed specifically for ecommerce, like Shopify or BigCommerce.

Or maybe you want to sell a few things, but you're not going to have hundreds of different products. Maybe you mostly want to use your website as a portfolio site. In that case, Shopify could still work but maybe you could get away with something like Squarespace or Wix.

Is one of the goals for your website to book classes or sell tickets to craft workshops that you're teaching? If so, you'll need to make sure that whatever website platform you're choosing will integrate with whatever tools you'll use to sell tickets, book classes, or schedule calls with you.

Whatever your goals are, it's important to get really clear on what you're trying to accomplish with your website BEFORE you start the process of building it or choosing a website platform.

#2: Is there specific software you need your website to integrate with, or features you need it to have?

Are there specific features or specific software that you need your website to integrate with and play nice with?

As a multi-passionate creative maybe you're using something like Printful or other print on demand tools to sell your original artwork or designs on t-shirts, stickers or mugs. In that case, you're going to want to make sure that whatever software you choose to build your website with plays nicely and integrates seamlessly with Printful or whichever print on demand tools you're using.

Do you already use an email marketing platform like ConvertKit, Mailchimp, Mailerlite or Klaviyo? If so, evaluate how easily the website platforms you're considering will work with your email marketing platform.

There are so many great email marketing tools out there, and some of them integrate more seamlessly than others with different website platforms.

Here's something to consider in general when it comes to connecting your website platform with other pieces of software:

Even if there aren't direct integrations built in, you can often use a tool called Zapier which is basically like digital duct tape.

Even if there's not a direct connection between a tool like Printful or Klaviyo and your website platform, Zapier can function like duct tape between two pieces of software to "zap" information from one platform to the other. Zapier can help your your website play nice with other tools.

That said, it's basically digital duct tape, so if you start building a whole house or your whole website out of nothing but duct tape - it may get a little wobbly.

So I recommend focusing on what are the most important things that you need to make sure work really well and really reliably in your business? Prioritize those to make sure that the things that are MOST important to your business will work really well and that there aren't big risks of having everything fall apart.

#3: How tech-y are you? And who will be responsible for updating your website?

Will you be the primary person responsible for editing & upkeep of your website?

If not, who will take care of updating and maintaining your website, and how tech savvy are they?

A lot of the multi-passionate creative small business owners that I work with want to be able to manage, edit and update their websites themselves. But what if you're not super tech savvy, or you just don't want to worry about learning a bunch of new tech stuff?

In that case, I really recommend thinking this through very carefully ahead of time so that you know that you'll be able to manage the website platform that you're using.

This is also why I recommend thinking about this stuff before you ever talk to a web designer or web developer.

Back when I used to work in a digital marketing agency I would see this all the time:

Clients would come in and they had already hired a web designer or web developer who had built them a custom website on WordPress.

(Which can be great by the way - there's nothing wrong with WordPress, it's just that for non-techy people, WordPress can be a lot of techy stuff to manage, and can feel overwhelming for some creative small business owners.)

What’s better? Self-hosted websites like WordPress vs Hosted websites like Squarespace or Shopify?

Here's an analogy that I like to use to explain the differences between something like WordPress which is a completely self-hosted website platform versus something like Shopify, Squarespace or Wix which is a hosted platform.

A self-hosted platform like WordPress is sort of like if you own a home and a hosted platform such as Squarespace, Wix or Shopify (where everything's kind of taken care of for you behind the scenes) is more like renting an apartment.

Much like with owning a home or renting an apartment, it's not that one is necessarily better than the other. It's just that they're different for different people, and they serve different needs.

I actually prefer to rent my apartment, and I also now prefer to use hosted websites for myself. (Even though I spent many years running a WordPress website!)

With a self-hosted WordPress website, you'll have to:

• find & pay for hosting

• install the WordPress software

• update any plugins

• make sure the WordPress software stays updated

• make sure everything is safe & secure behind the scenes

Cyber security is especially important when it comes to Wordpress. (I learned this one the hard way, many years ago!)

But on the other hand, WordPress is super customizable and that's one of the reason that so many web designers and developers love it.

I've used WordPress for a lot of projects over the years, it is really powerful super customizable. It's a lot like owning a house, right? If you own a house you can knock down walls, you can put up a swing set in the backyard, you can paint the walls, you can make all sorts of changes.

But when the plumbing breaks, when the toilet backs up, when the dishwasher fails.... you have to fix all of those things or call someone to take care of it for you if you can't fix it yourself.

Running a self-hosted website like WordPress or similar can be a lot like owning a house. There's pros and cons to it.

On the other hand, with a hosted platform like Shopify for e-commerce or Squarespace or Wix, you won't have quite as much customization freedom, but you also don't have to worry about all of the back-end software updates and security updates. All of that stuff is usually taken care of for you.

For most creative solopreneurs and micro small business owners, I generally recommend finding a hosted website platform.

If you are focused on e-commerce, Shopify can be a really great choice. BigCommerce is another good option.

If you only need more of a portfolio type of site and you don't plan to offer hundreds of products for sale, you could use something like Squarespace or Wix .

I recommend if you're going to be the one editing things and maintaining your website yourself, test drive it before you decide if possible.

A lot of these website builder platforms have free trials, so get in there and see what feels comfortable for you.

If you're the one maintaining your website, that's what matters. You need to feel comfortable going in there and editing things.

Now, the exception is if you have someone very close to you like a live-in partner, spouse or roommate who is super knowledgeable about all things WordPress or some other platform, go for it!

One of my students in the Badass Creatives Marketing Accelerator is in this situation. She has her ecommerce website built on WordPress with WooCommerce, but she has somebody who's very close to her who can make sure that all that stuff on the back end is taken care of for her.

#4: What content & information will you put on your website?

You don’t need to know or have EVERYTHING ready before you start talking to web designers, but it’s good to have a general idea of the content & messaging you’ll want to include, plus the types of visual branding & images you might want on your website.

It helps to start thinking about this as early as possible because this can be one of the most time consuming aspects of building a new website or redesigning a website.

A good web designer or web development agency can usually work with you on this to develop these ideas, but the more clear you can be about what content and visual imagery you'll need, the better.

Many web design agencies can pair you with a copywriter or photographer to create the content (this usually costs extra though) — but most often, it’s on YOU to provide this content.

If you're considering working with a web designer or agency, two that I highly recommend who specialize in Shopify ecommerce sites for artists and creative product-based businesses are:

• Ecommerce Arcade

• Aeolidia

#5: What pages or areas will be most important on your website for your visitors / customers to get to?

Much like thinking about what written content and imagery you'll want for your website, it's helpful to start thinking as early as possible about what pages or areas of your site you'll want your website visitors to navigate to.

This will also help make things so much smoother and faster if you can have some idea of the kind of information and content you want on your website, as well as the main pages and areas of your site that you want to have.

Even if you're building a website yourself with a platform like Shopify or Squarespace it's really helpful to consider:

What parts of your website are the most important for people to get to?

When professional web designers and developers start thinking about this and planning what will be included in the top navigation, footer navigation, or primary pages of a website, they'll often create something called a wireframe.

One way that I like to approach this for myself, especially when I'm designing my own websites, is to draw a wireframe with paper.

I find it helpful to step away from the computer where things can get a little overwhelming sometimes. Using pencil & paper can help you to really focus on questions like: What is the most important information that I want somebody to see if they land on my homepage?

I'm a very visual person, as a multi-passionate creative. So I like to grab a piece of paper, preferabily a long, legal sized piece of paper (to kind of mimic the longer flow of a web page) and just sketch out a basic idea of what you want to include.

Here in this video, you can see my example of where I mocked up a basic wireframe.

Here's a great Website Wireframe Beginner's Guide via HubSpot.

If you’re stuck, you can also look at other websites for inspiration & ideas.

Looking at the websites of direct competitors or similar creatives is great, but I also recommend looking for other types of artists or companies who might be similar in size or have similar values as you but they sell completely different types of products or work in a different creative medium.

What questions do you have about planning your website?

I could nerd out all day about website planning, website design, search engine optimization and digital marketing for multi-passionate creatives, but I'd love to hear from YOU:

What questions do you have about planning your website?

Drop them in the comments below this video.

If you want to dive even deeper, check out the Badass Creatives Marketing Accelerator, a mentorship program specially designed for creative, product-based business owners.

I also offer a limited number of 1-on-1 coaching, consulting & strategy sessions for creative business owners.

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Etsy or Shopify: Which Is Best for Artists & Handmade Businesses?

Etsy or Shopify? If you're just getting started selling your artwork or handmade products online, you might be wondering which of these ecommerce platforms is right for your handmade business?

Well, there are definitely pros and cons to both. And you don't necessarily have to choose: many artists and makers use both Shopify AND Etsy, for different reasons.

In this video and the post below, learn more about the benefits and drawbacks of Shopify vs Etsy. I'll help you weigh the options to decide what solution is right for YOUR creative business.

Okay, so first let's talk about Etsy.

Etsy has been around since about 2005. I actually started my first handmade business about a year before Etsy launched. In those pre-Etsy days, it was really difficult to figure out how to sell your products online. It was so complicated!

When Etsy first launched, it was really exciting for the handmade community. I actually entered and won 3rd place in Etsy's upcycling contest in 2007. They bought my FEMA blue tarp dress and had it on display in Etsy Labs in Brooklyn for their opening night celebration, which was so exciting!

But a lot has changed since then. When Etsy first started, it was really easy to launch a shop, get some traffic, make sales and build a following.

But now the competition is stiff. It's grown into this huge online marketplace, which has both its pros and cons. When Etsy first started, the focus was purely on handmade products and vintage goods. But as it's grown, they've added more offerings: things like craft supplies and digital downloads. And while those options are great in some ways, they also dilute the focus from handmade crafts.

As Etsy has grown, so have the fees. In addition to the transaction fees and credit card fees that you're going to have to pay on almost any ecommerce platform, Etsy also has listing fees. Every time you list a product on Etsy, you have to pay a fee.

Here's some pros of selling on Etsy:

It's an established marketplace, and it's been around for a while. It's got built in traffic, which could meet some potential sales for you. And it's trustworthy among consumers. When people think of buying handmade online, they think of Etsy.

Etsy is also easy to use and to get started with. If you've never sold anything online before, Etsy really can be a good place to start and test the waters of ecommerce.

It's also low risk and low commitment if you're just getting started. If you're not sure if you want to have a handmade business or if you're just thinking about selling some things online and want to see how it goes first, Etsy is great for that. With Etsy, you don't have to commit to long term things like website hosting and domain names.

There's also a lot of community and camaraderie when it comes to selling on Etsy. In addition to resources that they provide, like the Etsy Seller Handbook, there's also forums and teams so you can get advice and help from other Etsy sellers.

But there's cons to selling on Etsy:

Remember those fees that I mentioned earlier? They seem to just keep rising. In fact, in April 2022 many Etsy sellers went on strike to protest those continually rising fees.

And look, no matter where you sell online, you're gonna have to deal with some sort of fees. Those are just a cost of doing business. If you want to take credit card transactions as a small business, the credit card processing companies are going to charge a fee. It's just that those fees might be different depending on what platforms you use.

Competition is another big con of selling on Etsy. While it's great that it's this huge marketplace which can bring you traffic, you're also competing directly with all your competitors.

When people shop on Etsy, they don't really think of shopping with your specific brand and your specific store. The thing that they go away from the experience remembering is that they bought a thing on Etsy.

When you sell on Etsy, you have limited control over how you can differentiate yourself from all of that competition.

You don't really have a lot of control when it comes to branding. Yeah, you can upload a banner image and a shop icon and you can change your shop's name. But at the end of the day, your shop looks like an Etsy shop. It doesn't look like your unique storefront online.

That limited control extends to all sorts of aspects of Etsy. They could change their policies about what's allowed to be sold on Etsy, meaning that your shop could potentially be removed without much warning.

Your customers on Etsy aren't really yours. Etsy is designed so that you can't easily collect your own customer's contact information. You can't easily collect their email addresses so that you can stay in touch with your customers and continue to build your relationship with your own customers.

At the end of the day, if something happens and Etsy makes a big change, you could be screwed.

Now let's talk about some of the pros of selling on Shopify:

When you sell on Shopify or other ecommerce platforms like BigCommerce or WooCommerce, you have control.

You get to decide what works best for your business and your customers. You'll be able to totally customize the branding of your online shop so you can make your shop feel uniquely yours. Your online customer's experience will feel just as familiar as if they've shopped with you at a craft fair or in-person event.

Shopify also offers some great marketing and search engine optimization tools to help you promote your shop to customers.

You can set up things like abandoned cart emails, do text messaging directly to your customers, or even connect your shop directly to Pinterest so that you can do shoppable pins.

Shopify is also built to scale, and it can accommodate all sorts of ecommerce businesses. So whether you have dreams of growing your handmade business to a large scale, or you want to open a brick and mortar store and integrate it with a point of sale system, or if you want to sell wholesale, Shopify can handle it.

Okay, but what about cons?

Now of course, there are some cons to selling on Shopify. No platform is perfect for everyone or every situation.

With Shopify or any ecommerce platform, you are responsible for marketing your handmade business.

There's not some magic traffic fairy that's just going to bring the customers through your virtual doors.

But here's the thing:

You should be building a marketing strategy for your business no matter what platform you sell on. If you're running a handmade business, part of being a business owner is having a marketing strategy.

With Shopify, there can also be more of a learning curve than with something like Etsy.

You can customize it to your heart's content, of course. But if you've never set up a website before, or if you don't consider yourself a very technical person, it could potentially feel overwhelming. You may end up wanting to hire somebody to help you set it up exactly like you want it.

And with Shopify, while it is super customizable, some of those extra bells and whistles may come via apps and integrations that could have additional fees. Those costs could vary.

Shopify is, like I said, built to scale. It works for so many different types of businesses. You have to figure out what features are really critical for your business and what those costs would end up being.

Etsy or Shopify, what's right for your handmade business?

Okay. So Etsy or Shopify, what's right for your handmade business?

The answer is...

You don't necessarily have to pick and choose. You could use both. It's perfectly fine to do so.

Etsy is a great place to start if you're just getting started with your craft business. I just don't recommend that you solely rely on Etsy for the long term.

And when it comes to building your ecommerce website outside of Etsy, you don't have to choose Shopify, if it doesn't feel right for you. There are other options. BigCommerce and WooCommerce are a couple of popular Shopify competitors.

That said, I + most of the ecommerce experts that I know do recommend Shopify for the majority of ecommerce businesses.

Aeolidia's Etsy vs Shopify Fee Calculator

Speaking of ecommerce experts, one of my favorite Shopify experts is a company called Aeolidia.

(In full disclosure, I used to work on their team, but I've been a fan of theirs for years. They've been around for nearly two decades, and I'm pretty sure they pre-date Etsy.)

Aeolidia has built Shopify websites for a lot of really successful artists, makers and handmade businesses including Lisa Congdon.

Aeolidia has a great free to use Etsy vs Shopify Fee Calculator on their website, which I highly recommend checking out if you're trying to decide which platform makes the most sense for your handmade business:

Etsy? Shopify? Which is right for your craft business?

So, based on everything here, which option do you feel is right for your handmade business? Etsy? Shopify? Both? Another option entirely?

If you're struggling to figure out all the tech stuff when it comes to marketing your handmade business, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and let me know which topics you'd like me to cover in a future blog post or video.

You might also be interested in my program, the Badass Creatives Marketing Accelerator, where I help simplify things like ecommerce and search engine optimization and we dive deep into how to market your handmade products.