Pattern Shift

#79 - Behind the Filter: The Reality of Creative Entrepreneurship, a Roadmap to Navigate Challenges

March 15, 2024 Saskia de Feijter Season 4 Episode 79
#79 - Behind the Filter: The Reality of Creative Entrepreneurship, a Roadmap to Navigate Challenges
Pattern Shift
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Pattern Shift
#79 - Behind the Filter: The Reality of Creative Entrepreneurship, a Roadmap to Navigate Challenges
Mar 15, 2024 Season 4 Episode 79
Saskia de Feijter

Send me a Text Message.

I wanted to do an episode about Etsy and if it is worth starting your own website, when I went to Threads to do a callout for craft business that have ideas about this, I saw a post by a printmaker. This post inspired my episode. Sometimes you don't know where to start and the business roadmap is completely unclear. I hope that I can make it a bit more simple with this basic roadmap. 

I was moved and frustrated by the ever-returning struggles of small creative businesses. So in this episode, I'll guide you through the fundamental steps of building your own business in a simple and straightforward manner. While these steps may seem basic, they provide a solid foundation for anyone embarking on their entrepreneurial journey. My aim is to boost your confidence and highlight areas where you may need further education or information.

FULL SHOW-NOTES WITH TAKEAWAYS

patternshift.fm 

GET MAILS HERE!


BEST QUOTE FROM THE EPISODE

"Knowing your needs, values, and goals is the foundation of building your business."


LINKS

#76 - Unraveling your business identity - pt 1. Your Identity

#77 - Unraveling your Business Identity pt 2. Your Customer’s Identity

the printmaker that inspired this episode: 

Rachel Snowdon https://www.rachelsnowdon.com/

Use my Flodesk 50% off DISCOUNT CODE (affiliate link)

DOWNLOAD the Core Focus Compass

If you want to build or grow your business in textile crafts, why don't you join our online community for a small, monthly contribution of only 10 euros, which is $10 ish. You get to hang out, learn from and share your business. And your craft journey with all the lovely people there, support the podcast at the same time and you get everything wrapped into one loving package. I would love to welcome you there.

Go to Patternshift.fm and click

Support the Show.

☆☆☆

SUPPORT THE SHOW

If you appreciate the free content and the work we put into this podcast, consider showing your support in a way that feels right to you. This could be by sharing episodes with friends, signing up for our newsletter, or making a small monthly contribution through clicking the Support the show link, or -when you are listening via Apple podcast- click the subscription button and get monthly bonus episodes. Your support keeps the podcast going and aligns with the values we share. Thank you for being a part of this movement!

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  • super easy with two clicks and anonymous for those that use the apple app. Monthly or yearly. One amount. 4,-

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Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Send me a Text Message.

I wanted to do an episode about Etsy and if it is worth starting your own website, when I went to Threads to do a callout for craft business that have ideas about this, I saw a post by a printmaker. This post inspired my episode. Sometimes you don't know where to start and the business roadmap is completely unclear. I hope that I can make it a bit more simple with this basic roadmap. 

I was moved and frustrated by the ever-returning struggles of small creative businesses. So in this episode, I'll guide you through the fundamental steps of building your own business in a simple and straightforward manner. While these steps may seem basic, they provide a solid foundation for anyone embarking on their entrepreneurial journey. My aim is to boost your confidence and highlight areas where you may need further education or information.

FULL SHOW-NOTES WITH TAKEAWAYS

patternshift.fm 

GET MAILS HERE!


BEST QUOTE FROM THE EPISODE

"Knowing your needs, values, and goals is the foundation of building your business."


LINKS

#76 - Unraveling your business identity - pt 1. Your Identity

#77 - Unraveling your Business Identity pt 2. Your Customer’s Identity

the printmaker that inspired this episode: 

Rachel Snowdon https://www.rachelsnowdon.com/

Use my Flodesk 50% off DISCOUNT CODE (affiliate link)

DOWNLOAD the Core Focus Compass

If you want to build or grow your business in textile crafts, why don't you join our online community for a small, monthly contribution of only 10 euros, which is $10 ish. You get to hang out, learn from and share your business. And your craft journey with all the lovely people there, support the podcast at the same time and you get everything wrapped into one loving package. I would love to welcome you there.

Go to Patternshift.fm and click

Support the Show.

☆☆☆

SUPPORT THE SHOW

If you appreciate the free content and the work we put into this podcast, consider showing your support in a way that feels right to you. This could be by sharing episodes with friends, signing up for our newsletter, or making a small monthly contribution through clicking the Support the show link, or -when you are listening via Apple podcast- click the subscription button and get monthly bonus episodes. Your support keeps the podcast going and aligns with the values we share. Thank you for being a part of this movement!

Apple Podcast subscription

  • super easy with two clicks and anonymous for those that use the apple app. Monthly or yearly. One amount. 4,-

Buzzsprout (my podcast platform) subscription

  • one click, fill out your bank details. Monthly. Choose your amount from 3,- and up. Leave your name and get a shoutout (if you want).


JOIN THE WAITING LIST

for the March cohort of the Ja, Wol Business Program!

☞ GET BI-WEEKLY ACTIONABLE BUSINESS TIPS AND INSIGHTS & EPISODE UPDATES ☜...

Speaker 1:

Do you wonder why businesses like yours seem to be super successful and why are you then struggling? Why are you working so hard for scraps and feeling like you're a failure a lot of the time? Only yesterday I read this on threads In the last six weeks I've made 23 pounds for my printmaking. It's not enough to realistically allow me to continue this journey, but I'm determined to fight this out until the end of the year and then see what happens. So this is a gentle reminder that, despite the number of likes, comments, followers or experience as an artist, it doesn't always equal sales. At surface level, it might seem like I'm doing well, but there's a whole lot of anxiety and failure buried much deeper. Should you keep your creative business going while you're struggling? How can you resurface from a dip or worse?

Speaker 1:

Hi, my name is Saskia the Fighter and this is Pattern Shift. Are you running a textile craft business or dreaming of starting one? Whether you are trying to make a living or something extra on the side, turning from crafter to business owner can be a steep learning curve. It doesn't have to be With 16 years of experience in running small businesses in textile crafts and a drive to build a solid alternative to fast fashion. My mission is to provide you with no bullshit, actionable exercises and strategies in a language that makes sense to you, that you can implement right away so you can organize, build and grow your business. So don't burn out before you get started. Build a solid base with the help of Pattern Shift podcast and the Yavor community and its programs. So in this episode we'll go through the feeling of failure you can get while you run your creative business. By the end of the show I'll hopefully you'll feel less alone in your struggles and feel inspired to find out what steps you can take to go forward with your business and feel more confidence around trying some strategies. But before we start, please don't forget to sign up for the Pattern Shift updates on email and the Yavor Business Circle, creative business tips and insights. You can do this via the show notes. Go ahead, do it now and sign up while you're listening. It takes just a minute and it is helpful to you and helpful to me.

Speaker 1:

So now let's get into today's episode. I will not name the maker that shared the thread post that I just read. I don't want to make this too much about them. I will, however, link to their website in my show notes so you can discover their amazing work there. I've been considering an episode about Etsy and the challenges faced by small, creative businesses trying to make a living. Recently I've heard several people expressing frustration with Etsy and complaining and thinking about whether it would be better to have their own websites. So I wanted to explore some ideas and I put this message on threads to ask for people's experiences. But then I saw this message from this struggling artist and I was just struck by it. I felt compelled to do something and it's basically the whole reason why I do this work in the first place.

Speaker 1:

I'm not talking about Etsy today, but I do have this question open for another episode. I love to get voice memos, voice notes. You can do that on your phone and email them to me, or you can go to any of my show note pages and there's a button where you can leave a message. They will all end up with me and I will be able to talk about them, answer any of your questions and help you out. Alternatively, you can just send me an email with a written question, which is great as well. So any frustrations you might have, any questions you might have around having an Etsy website versus your own website. Please get them to me so that I can make an episode about it. Thank you.

Speaker 1:

So when this artist posted her message, it went viral. People started giving them advice on what to do, and I felt compelled to do the same thing. But I also know how frustrating it can be when you're feeling low and people around you are saying you should do this or maybe try this, and that might feel like they're saying you should have done this or maybe you should have tried this, and you feel you're not doing enough. You should have made different decisions, and you feel awful enough as it is. So it's well meant to give your advice, but sometimes it just makes things even more sad, and so I decided not to react on the post but make an episode, and hopefully that helps someone.

Speaker 1:

So when you come off art school or any creative education or you just start your business from zero, you probably didn't get taught business skills because that's not your thing. In fact, you're probably on the opposite end of things that interest you. Business skills are yucky and gross and complicated and you much rather spend your time creating things, and lots of people like you think that they will sell itself, and I know that's a short way of saying it and it's not fully true, but the reality is that posting your products online is probably not going to be enough to be seen by your audience, and there's some more things you can do to be visible and to sell your products. Selling is a craft in itself and just looking at it from that angle, feeling more connected to the craft of selling that could really help. Feeling more connected to sharing your stuff. So you give something to somebody and you get something back. It's not a huge big deal On one hand. On the other hand, it does require some skill and some practice.

Speaker 1:

We don't get thoughts that in our education, so we leave school, art school or whatever you do, and then it's up to you. You go online where your people hang out, and you start posting on the social media platform of choice, which is a great beginning, but often not enough. There's some things that you need to know to develop your business. So I'm going to talk you through the basic steps that you need to know when you build your own business. Very simple, very basic, something that might even feel too simple to some people, but that's what we'll do in this episode. I'm doing this in this way today so that you feel more confident in what your next step could be and where you might lack some education or information. So hopefully, when you listen to this episode, you will get some insights where you need to go next, what you can put some time and effort into next, things that you might not have thought of because you didn't get those basic steps before you started with your business.

Speaker 1:

It is meant for anybody, and everybody that is starting, have not yet started or is feeling overwhelmed by how things are going and they're wondering what am I missing? What should I be doing? Basically, I'm always referring to the swamp. If you're in the swamp, what I'm doing with this episode is I'm grabbing a big branch and I'm holding it over you so that you have something to hold on to. That's what this episode is about, and I tend to get philosophical and wordy. That's just my style. So I actually had to put this extra bit of information in to make it more clear, because I was just. I get into it and then I forget to make clear what I'm talking about. So this is an extra edited part to make clear what we're doing today.

Speaker 1:

So visibility is crucial, but the internet can feel quite overwhelming. Now, when I discovered this print artist through threads and through her posts, her kind of cry for help the story went on a little bit. They got visibility from this post. I went to their website, but only later in the process did I see that I couldn't buy from the Netherlands and, because I'm tenacious, say the least, I went to the FAQ section. I noticed that they in fact do not send to Europe, but the Etsy shop was able to send to Europe. So here we go. That's irony for you. I was investigating the negativity around Etsy and I ended up buying from a struggling artist through their Etsy account rather than their website. Hey, this is interesting. We can learn from this.

Speaker 1:

So coming back to the message they send success means different things to different people. It's about finding out what works for you and your values. What success is for one person is not the same thing as it is for another person. How you can define your success for your small business, your small creative business, is the drive behind how you do your work. When is it a success? What do you need it to be? These are very important questions to ask yourself and to actually really write down and have some time to figure out what it is that you want to do with your business. Is it going to be your full income, part income? Is it going to help you to sustain your hobby? Are you making the money so that you can, in fact, keep practicing your hobby, or is it something extra? So I read through the reactions to this post and someone recommended a business book to this printmaker, but they replied that they couldn't afford it and highlighting the financial challenges that they were experiencing and that many artists and crafters experience in running their business.

Speaker 1:

In the last decade or so, people have become much more aware of struggling small businesses and how the uniqueness of small businesses is disappearing because of larger high street brands, and so there is definitely a large group of people that would rather buy from small businesses than from big brands. Me myself, I really choose to support small businesses like this printmaker. This is why I offer ideas, inspiration, thoughts and practical steps through my podcast, and originally, when I started to make this podcast, I hesitated to share the how to do things. I was just going to say and talk about what to do and then have people pay for the how to do it and I was afraid that I might end up losing potential clients because I was giving everything away for free. But seeing the struggles of the small, creative businesses around me has really prompted me to be more transparent and share a little bit more of the knowledge that I have freely.

Speaker 1:

This podcast is here so I can share with those that can't afford programs in a way that's slower, less personal, but it's still offering you things that can help you. And when you are ready to do deeper dives and do the actual work because it does need accountability, I've seen, and it does need a little bit of a community to get you through some parts of it when you're ready to do that, I'm here with my program so you can always move on from the podcast to do some deeper work. And in between there is the community at a very low monthly cost where you can talk to other business owners and hang out with them and figure out things as a community, as a group, and you don't have to be alone and struggle alone. In fact, we've now just started a new series for the program and already two weeks in. Things are happening and there's insights and it's amazing and you don't actually have to be fully in the program to get that kind of result. It can be in the wider community for that lower amount and still get a lot from it, meaning that you have to be more proactive and you have to show up more, because otherwise I do a lot of that work for you. I help you to connect and to do these things, and then it goes a little bit more naturally. So that's the difference. I'm just putting that in there.

Speaker 1:

So, going back to my story, when you cannot afford business books or mentors or coaches, there's a lot of information out there, but it's very overwhelming. Where do you start? What people do you follow, what YouTube videos do you see, what freebies do you download and what email lists will you follow? There's a lot there, and when I explain to people what I do, they usually say well, that's very niche. It is very niche, but it makes it a lot easier for people to find their person because there's not a lot of people that will help small businesses in the slow fashion and creative textile, craft, needle craft industry to grow their business or to build a solid base for their business. There's not a lot of people there, so that makes it easier to find me. So if you do not have a budget to do some work around how to move your business forward, have things to try, what strategies? What's the next thing to do? Then listen to this podcast. It'll help.

Speaker 1:

But to start off, let's finish this episode first. What I want to do is I want to go through some very basic steps that I don't think are talked about often enough, because either people think that they should already know it or the people that share their knowledge feel like it's too simple. And I'm not too proud. I will go to super simple and I will explain it like I explained it to a five-year-old, because sometimes that's what you need. You don't want to know how long it took for me to understand the difference between your mission and your vision. These are things that if you don't learn them, you don't know them. It's simple as that, and I'm here so that you can have that information. And if it's something that is super simple for you, great, then you can now go and do something else and go craft, and that's wonderful.

Speaker 1:

I had an idea that came up and then I lost it again, which happens a lot. That's why I try to prepare these kinds of episodes because when I do them from the top of my head, they're either super, very much very creative, slash, chaotic. But sometimes I get an idea. I don't want to put it in. What was I talking about? I wish I could rewind. I could at the end, but not now. Ps also, I'm recording this a day before it goes live, which is crazy. But they're doing some construction two houses over and it feels like they're doing it in my house. So fingers crossed that we won't get any drilling, otherwise I have to pause. So I have to keep going with this. Perhaps I'll get back to the idea, perhaps I won't. I don't. Let's go to my notes. So what's very interesting is that when I was preparing this episode, I felt like I needed to have this step by step journey to share with you. What is it that you actually do or need to have in place when you run your business? What is that knowledge that you might not have but that you need in order to solidify your business or grow it, or both, preferably both. And then it came to me. This is basically the chapter list of the program that I'm doing.

Speaker 1:

Yesterday, I was feeling overwhelmed by things. I was feeling very tired, I was working at a fair helping a friend Hi Lisette, and Lisette of Schaap-Eindracht free advertisement here. It was wonderful, but I'm not used to it anymore. So I was totally beat. I was so tired and I know now that I need a day to myself to come back from that and that day didn't do it. There was lots of things happening and then other things were happening, and a whole week went by when I didn't sleep well and it was just one thing on top of the other, and what happens to me is that I will not really function, and one way for me to get out of that is to start decluttering or organizing, because that, for some reason, really calms my brain and, in the process, gives me new ideas and it's just very comforting to me. So I started organizing my files on my computer. I'm learning how to use Pinterest for my business in a more productive way than I have done so far, and even in that, in making my boards, I fell back to the chapters of my program, and it basically is this journey. They are a roadmap.

Speaker 1:

Today I would like to offer you a very simple roadmap of some topics that are worth investigating and so that you have at least a start and from there you can build your knowledge around running your small, creative craft business. So let's go back to what I was saying before. Defining success for you is one of the first things that is important to discover. So try to answer this question. I feel my business is successful when, or a successful business for me is, and take some time to think about it. Write it out, go for a walk, come back, journal some more. Talk to a friend. Really investigate what it means for you to have a successful business, and how does that make you feel if you close your eyes and you had this magic wand and you could say this is what it looks like for me to have that business. Then really visualize what your day would look like, what your weeks would look like, what the goals for you would be once you get there. Is there something even bigger that you can dream of, but in touch with what it means for you to do what you love in the format of a business rather than having a hobby? All right, so that's one. Redefine what success is, figuring out what your goals are. Then, if you know what that looks like, then you can start to work back from that.

Speaker 1:

Now I'm not going to tell you what success is, I'm just going to go and use financial success as an example. What does it mean for you to have an income? How much money would you need on a monthly basis? How much money would you be thrilled about, how much money would you be ecstatic about? Find that difference, find that sweet spot of enough Great, magical and feel what that means for you. So when we go back to the enough, then we can start thinking really practically.

Speaker 1:

So first you do all this deep work about your needs, your values, what's success, what are your goals. All that kind of work goes deep and is about you as a person and what makes you content to aesthetic or happy. I think happy is a complicated word because sometimes we think that we always have to be happy all the time, which isn't realistic in my opinion. But like the scale of happiness, that's what I'm talking about Knowing that, knowing the kind of product or service let's say that you're a craft teacher or you do upholstery how much of that do you need to do to get to that financial goal at the end of the month? Of course that is without cost and without the rent of your studio without the cost of your material. And remember, I'm talking in very basic terms here, so you might be going duh, duh and that is okay. I'm still gonna go ahead with this because some people dream of doing this work and they don't know about this stuff yet. So I'm gonna stay on this kind of level today. But if I would take a beginner's lesson in knitting, I would most certainly learn new things. So I would say, just stay here and perhaps you'll pick something up that you didn't know. You never know. So then figure out what the costs are of making your thing, offering your thing, and know what is left for you as a profit. Now, this is quite detailed work and it's sometimes so hard to know. So if you cannot do it really specifically because your business is now too big or you're unorganized or things that are all over the place, go with your gut feelings so that you have something to work with. Just make it very practical.

Speaker 1:

I have to sell at least five sweaters to be able to make a living per month, and that is when you know how much you charge for a sweater and when you know how much you want to have at the end. So there's different variables going on there. Variables, variables they vary in the way that you pronounce them. So these are moving elements. Right, when you sell a lot of cheap items, you can make the same amount of money from selling a few more expensive items. That makes sense. This is where you decide that what is a fair price, what makes sense? If you think about your pricing in terms of income, in terms of your goal, what would then the price be? And don't think about your clients, don't think about your followers. You will probably say they'll never pay this amount of money, and that's okay.

Speaker 1:

In this exercise, you just want to figure out what, realistically, what kind of work you really have to do to get that kind of an income. How much time will it cost? Can you really put in that amount of time and that is also a little bit of the work around your boundaries, your values. How much time can you realistically work Keeping yourself and your loved ones happy and healthy? This is so important. If you don't think about this, you will burn out.

Speaker 1:

It will take a while, but in the end, if you work too much, it is not a sustainable situation. On the other hand, also realistically, sometimes you have to double down. Sometimes you have to really work hard for a while to get something done, to get something moving. That's okay, that's part of it, but it has to be balanced. So, with these moving parts, how much time do I have? What is the cost of my products, or multiple products? What is the amount of products I have to produce? Or how many people do I have to teach, at what hourly rate, to be able to get this income?

Speaker 1:

Then sit with that for a while. Does it feel completely undoable and overwhelming? Or do you think, well, this sounds doable. It will take some time, but it sounds doable. From that you can make your decisions around. Will I just burn all my bridges behind me and start doing this work right now, with the expectation of having an income the next month, or gradually build it next to another job that you have? And how much time do you have to do that? Be realistic, I think a lot of the time. We just start, and I also have to say that's how I did it and that was my motto for a long time, and it still is. I'm very much a starter, trying things out as I go, but it depends on your situation. Do you need to get your income from somewhere else, then going full on might not be the way to go. So you have to be honest to yourself, and that's one of the hardest things to do. All right, so we talked about some inner work and some practical calculations. Then the next thing that you do is when you decide, okay, this is something that seems like it's hard work, which is okay, it is going to be hard work, that's realistic, but it seems like I want to give it a go.

Speaker 1:

Then think about how you are unique, how you are different. How is your product or your service different from the other people? And if I use myself as an example, I am quite direct. I am Dutch, so it's half Dutch, half Belgian. So it's in my DNA to be direct, it's in my culture. But as a person, I'm also quite direct. I don't like to be around the bush. I don't like small talk. I just like to tell it like it is. This is me and this is typical about me, and one of my clients has once said something along the lines as your gentle, coercion brings me back every time and helps me to do the work. So what I'm saying is you will probably attract a certain group of people and maybe not another group of people, which is fine. That is how we diversify ourselves. Is that a word? That is how we stand out by being our unique selves, by showing up as ourselves, and this is what I did episodes on three episodes ago about your being yourself and showing up as yourself. So this is important figuring out how you are different from the rest, especially how is your product different from the rest, and then linking that to building a brand that communicates that.

Speaker 1:

As I was saying before, I'm now doing some work around Pinterest and I had the choice between working with two different teachers coaches, and one of them was in the UK, one of them was in the US. One of them had a very bubbly, colorful, fun personality and her website was very colorful and fun. The other one was much more like Instagram aesthetic tone down colors, more basic outfits. She actually is like a known name and her program had a lower price. I, however, still went with the other person because it took me some time. I really had to think it through because I'm still investing in this business, which is also part of building a business investing and then growing. I still chose the higher price because I connected to this person a lot more. I felt like I could learn more from this person than from the other person, because I know I learn from connection through connection with other people.

Speaker 1:

I'm not a lurker. If I'm in your community, you'll know that I'm there. I secretly lurk in one or two communities. Don't tell anyone, but once I'm invested, you'll see me. I need to be around people that are like me in order to feel safe and to be able to be open, to share and to learn. I ended up choosing this person. This is actually a great example of what I'm talking about. This is how it works. You will connect to one person and you won't connect as much to the other person. This is how you stand out in the crowd.

Speaker 1:

So that means that you have to do this work of figuring out who you are and how you're different, and it's not always easy, but it is essential. And what you should not do is just picking a vibe that you like online from one of the other businesses like yours and following and basically copying them. That could be part of the process. It can be part of the process to collect different things that you love from different brands and then building that into your own thing. Building a brand that is visually and communicatively an extension of yourself is such an important part, and there is a bunch of work to do there, but just knowing this will help you to look at things differently and start collecting some things that you feel like. This is truly me. I love this and I don't love this. I want to see behind the scenes things from other makers, but I don't want to show my work studio or figuring out who are you in your business and who's your business in the world. Okay, so that is all about branding.

Speaker 1:

Then, with that information, you have to build a presence, and if you're a local business, that's a little bit different than an online presence, but most businesses these days have an online presence, whether they're local business or not. If you're a hairdresser a local hairdresser you will probably also have an Instagram account or of some sorts. What I mean by establishing a solid online presence is the next thing that you do with the knowledge of who you are as a brand making sure that all the elements of what makes your brand are visible wherever you have a presence, whether that is your email autograph, your social media bio, your, the pictures that you use for your online avatars. Don't forget that it is very important to recognize that social media is limited and that. I cannot say it often enough and to myself I sound like a broken record, but there's a chance that you might not have heard me say it before Recognize that social media is rented land and that when the Zuckerberg unit that you rented from decides that it needs to be different, then there's nothing you can do, and for some people, that means years and years of building a brand can be evaporated in no time. Beware of that and use your time to build your solid brand on your own website and build your own email list. You should be in charge, not the moguls, so that's important when you communicate authentically and transparently. Be yourself. So that goes back to this whole idea of finding out who you are as a brand, as a person.

Speaker 1:

Go back to episode, if I'm correct, 76 and 77, they go a little bit deeper into this topic. Another important step, and it might come before or during, and some of these steps are not consecutive. I need to look this up. Yes, consecutive. This is what happens to me. I go and look up a word that is apparently somewhere in my brain and then I don't remember what I was saying. Something consecutive, oh yeah. So some of the steps are not consecutive, they can morph around each other a little bit. So, when it comes to pricing, I talked about this right at the beginning.

Speaker 1:

When it comes to pricing, it is so important to have fair prices, and that is not fair to your customer and client alone. It's fair for you, especially in the beginning of your business. Remember what they say on an airplane give yourself the oxygen first and then the rest. This is my belief. It might not be a popular belief, because I think we all want to support each other and we all want to offer our products to everyone, but sometimes the fact is that what you offer has to get a fair price for you to be able to keep running your business. And so at that moment in your business when you don't have the means to do a sale, or do not for sales anyway, if you don't need to put something on sale, just don't you need that money. I should do an episode on that as well.

Speaker 1:

I think the only way that you can do tiered pricing is when the lower price is going to be enough for you as a starting business, you need to take care of yourself first. We can do a lot to help the world when we have a solid, running business. You can also have as part of your goal say that I want to make enough money so I can donate 10% or whatever kind percent to some specific cause or to offering scholarships for your courses, all that kind of thing. But make it part of the realistic plan of building your business. If you want to work from your values, you cannot do that if your business is not going to be there in the future. So you will still be a good person and you can still help people within your means right. Otherwise and this is going to be a little bit, I'm just going to say it otherwise we will be an industry that is creating products at a low price to help other creators be able to afford those products at a low price and we keep our whole industry.

Speaker 1:

It's complicated to talk about this, but it's just not healthy for the industry and as a business you are a business. As a private person, that's a different thing. So try to figure out how your values can have a healthy and honest existed in your business. I hope you know what I'm meeting by that. So here's an example. What I do is I have a button for PayPal in my community that people can click and my community can donate to build a scholarship for somebody to come in, because my business cannot afford to give scholarships at this moment, and this is. I think this makes sense to do this as a community, because lots of different people can give small amounts and I think this works.

Speaker 1:

So think about all of this and what's important to you, but first of all, focus on your business to become more solid and become more reliable and invest in your knowledge, whether that is by buying programs and courses or spending more time to find free information online, because that is probably what happens. You either pay money to get to the core fast, which I did now with the Pinterest information, because I can definitely learn about professional use of Pinterest as a business. I can do that by going through the whole Pinterest websites frequently, ask questions and watching 7,000 videos on YouTube and then filtering out what makes sense to me, because different people have different opinions, but I want to support you with the things that I already know, so that takes time. So if I want to learn how to grow my business on Pinterest. I have decided to spend some money on that so that that gives a faster return, hopefully most probably giving me more clients, so that then I can earn back that investment. But this is where I am in my business right now.

Speaker 1:

My point is that I'm still growing, still investing. I'm investing a lot of time, some money, and slowly it's coming back, but it takes time. So that is also very important for you to know that taking all these steps and getting information it takes time, especially if you have to do it on the side, if you have another job. It's really helpful to be realistic and I want to end this whole step-by-step basic roadmap of building your business. I want to end it with just this idea of that you're not alone.

Speaker 1:

There's a lot of people like you that are struggling, that feel embarrassed to ask for help, that feel confused whether what to do next, where to start, what is you don't know what you don't know. You're just basically watching all the other businesses from the outside and copying what they're doing, which is a great way to start, but if you really want to stand out and find the people that love you and that love what you do, then there's some work there to be done. So hopefully I've been able to help you to at least get some steps clear in your head, some things that you didn't realize before, that need work, and from there you can hopefully find your way to get more information on that and do some more work on that and, with the help of deeper inner work and some practical information about the craft of selling, the craft of branding and marketing, and looking at it from a different viewpoint, just seeing it as offering what you can share with the world and crafting your business. Hopefully that helps. Thanks so much for listening. Get in touch with me. You can get free guidance from me.

Speaker 1:

All you have to do is send me an email or send me a voice note by clicking the button on the I keep forgetting the words on the show notes page. That's it. Hard words, show notes. Actually, there are two words. So, yeah, find me, get in touch with me, ask me anything you want to know.

Speaker 1:

I hope, by explaining this in a very simple way, that you don't feel shy about asking a question because you think that you should know this. I know you should not. Most of you have no idea what it means to run a business. Once you're especially I mean, when you're just starting there you have to figure out how it works from somewhere. Just come to me, I'll tell you, and I will definitely not have an opinion on the fact that you don't know something, because I didn't, and it took me a few years to figure things out and now I can help you so much faster than you don't have to do all the work that I did. That's why I'm doing this stuff now here for you. So please contact me because I got nothing else to do.

Speaker 1:

Okay, bye, oh, I have an outro. Here's the outro. If you appreciate the free content and the work that I put into this podcast, consider showing your support in a way that feels right to you. This could be by sharing episodes with friends, signing up for the newsletter or making a small monthly contribution through clicking the support the show link in the show notes. And when you're listening via Apple podcast, click the subscription button and get monthly bonus episodes. Your support keeps the podcast going and aligns with the values we share. You'll find all the details in the show notes. Thank you so much for being a part of this movement and remember every stitch counts as we work together and create a pattern shift for you, your business, the crafters and the fashion industry. Goodbye.

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