Business Archives - Page 4 of 4

Spring Bada-Bing Recap

April 20, 2009 Kelly

Sara and I got back from Spring Bada-Bing late last night. All in all I’d say it was a good show! We’re a little exhausted, and things didn’t always go quite as smoothly as we’d planned, but we still had a good time and made some good sales.

We couldn’t have asked for a better organized show. First off, the venue was beautiful and perfect for an upscale craft show. Unloading in the morning was a breeze, there were plenty of volunteers who helped lug our stuff to our table. Tables were provided as part of the booth fee, along with two chairs, and it was nice not to have to worry about bringing them down with us.

There aren’t a lot of lunch options near the venue, Plant Zero, but the Richmond Craft Mafia organized an opt-in lunch for vendors. It was delicious, less than $10 for a sandwich/salad/drink, and delivered right to the booth. Not bad at all. This is the 4th year the craft mafia girls have put on the show, and it shows. If anything went wrong at the show I was totally unaware of it.

Attendance seemed a little lower than I was expecting, but I’m not sure how much of that is just my perception. It’s a nice big space and the walkways were pretty generous (way nicer than the alternative), so it takes a lot of people to really look full. The only downside of Plant Zero is that it doesn’t really have much built-in foot traffic since it’s tucked away on the south side, but there was a steady if light stream of customers. It seemed like the ratio of buyers to browsers was pretty high, a lot of the people who stopped by our table ended up buying something. I’m happy to say I don’t have any customer horror stories to report of terrible children or rude adults.

The million dollar question for any show is of course how much did you make versus the cost of the show. We did OK. Sara and I both had busy schedules leading up to the show so we weren’t quite as polished and prepared as we would have liked, and I think it affected sales a little. For us travelling from Philly and New York, it was a decent but not amazing show.

I’m getting pretty picky about my shows in my old age, and I’d definitely do Spring Bada-Bing again next year. But tie it into a mini-vacation in Richmond so I have a little more time to relax and don’t feel like I’m travelling down just for the show. And if you live close enough to Richmond you could do the show as a day trip it’s a no brainer, it’s totally worth the very reasonable booth fee.

Business, Crafting, Etsy

Quit My Day Job

April 1, 2009July 23, 2010 Kelly

Etsy has this series called Quit Your Day Job where they interview sellers who left the 9-5 world to craft full time. And yesterday they had a live Virtual Labs chat with one of the quitters.

As someone who has left the stable comfort of a regular paycheck I’m really interested in talking with other people who’ve taken the plunge about the challenges, surprises, etc. Unfortunately the Storque articles are kind of cut-and dry… I think geared towards newer sellers, so they don’t really give me what I’m looking for.

In light of that, here’s my interview. With myself. Because I’m narcissistic like that. Half of these are questions I find interesting, the other half are things everyone seems to ask.

What made you decide to go full-time with the crafting?

It was an accident. I quit my day job in November with the intent of finding another after the holidays and was selling Tinysaurs and other crafts to keep myself occupied. They got picked up by BoingBoing and suddenly I was so busy I had to recruit friends to help me pack and ship orders.

This is actually my second attempt to make a living doing craft shows and wholesale. When I got out of college I was selling jewelry at craft shows. My degree is in metalsmithing. For a number of reasons I wasn’t doing that well. When I got an opportunity to take a full-time job in New York I jumped at it, leaving my jewelry business behind. Which is why it’s a little surprising I’m back at it again; I swore up and down I was done with craft shows when I moved up here.

How do you keep up with demand?

Theoretically by being organized and working efficiently. Lets just say that organization is something I’m working on. Right now demand is at a point where I can get away with being a little scatterbrained, but I really need to sit down and work out a system for all this stuff. I do a lot of running back and forth, which is a time waster.

Are you worried about becoming too successful?

I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m worried. It’s something I keep an eye on, but I think I’m prepared to scale up if things hit the big time. I spent one day where I did nothing but make Tinysaurs, start to finish. I wanted to see how many I could crank out in a day. I use that as my baseline for when I’ll need to hire a part-time assistant to do some of the more menial stuff like folding instructions.

Do you think you’d have to raise your prices if you hired an assistant?

No, when I first set up my prices I made a spreadsheet with the cost of each product broken out. I estimated how much time I spend making each one and built a reasonable hourly rate ($15/hour for NYC) into the price of each Tinysaur. So if I ever have to hire anyone their cost is already built into the price, and in the meantime I’m getting to keep that hourly rate. So right now it’s sort of like I’m being double-paid. It’s nice.

How do you market and promote yourself?

So far it’s all been word-of-mouth and a few careful targets. I send links to blogs periodically and look for places where it would fit in. I mailed a few samples to some smaller magazines. For craft shows I have some samples I give out as promos. Not just business cards, but actual tiny samples of a dinosaur skull. Some products lend themselves better to sampling than others, but I think if you can come up with a good one it’s vastly more valuable than just a business card with your URL.

So if you’re not buying ads all over the place, what’s the secret to your success?

Having a unique and interesting product. Tinysaur himself does 90% of the work for me. If you’re having trouble getting a good groove going with your business, take a step back and look at your product. Do an Etsy search for it… how many of the results are almost identical to what you make? What would make your product stand out from those? Sometimes it can be as simple as taking engaging photographs. Sometimes you just need to move on and come up with a new design. Maybe even take the time to learn a new technique to put you ahead of the curve.

Good products take time to develop, the first thing you decide to make/sell probably won’t be a showstopper. But you get feedback from people, revise, see what the market’s into, and try again. Focusing on your marketing before you develop a good product is like putting fancy wheels on a car with a dud engine. You gotta get the basics down before you can polish.

The other bonus to continually working on your products is that new products bring repeat customers. And repeat customers tell their friends. And everyone lives happily ever after.

How much time per week do you spend on your business?

Most of it, but I try not to let it interfere with my personal life too much. The week before a craft show I probably work 10-12 hours a day, but most of the time I’m Tinysauring it up for a normal 8 hours. Taking a break, relaxing, and playing video games is important to keep up the will to wake up in the morning and do it all over again. At a day job you usually have a hostile boss, and you’re motivated by wanting to avoid his/her wrath. But self-employed it’s just you. You’ve got to motivate yourself.

Do you have any other sources of income besides your business?

Yes, I have a part-time work-at-home job which I was really lucky to score. It’s flexible enough that it’s not a huge strain on my Tinysaur time, and gives me the peace of mind to have my rent covered no matter what happens to my business. It’s not a huge chunk of money, literally just enough to cover rent, but it’s nice to have one income stream that’s consistent. Even if Tinysaur gets huge I’ll probably keep it, it’s a nice job.

Is there anything you’ve had to sacrifice to start your business?

There are things I’ve given up, and changes in my lifestyle, but I wouldn’t go so far as calling them sacrifices. I don’t buy new clothes on a monthly basis anymore, and I go to the bar a lot less (which is probably a good thing), but those have been pretty easy to adjust to. And in return I get to spend more time with my friends and boyfriend, do my shopping during the week when the stores are quieter, sleep in when I’ve been out too late, and generally lead a much less stressful life. I still stress out sometimes, because I am a worrier, and there are definitely many times when I’m not sure I can actually do this. But between those moments of self-doubt I’m really happy.

What are your plans for the near future?

Plans? I’m supposed to have plans? Uh..

Seriously though, I do have some tricks up my sleeve. A friend of mine is going to work with me to get Tinysaur in some local stores, so I’m working on getting all my wholesale stuff ready and organized (line sheets, catalogs, etc). So far I have my stuff in a couple places but I’m looking for world domination!

I’m doing a few craft shows this season, but not really making that my main focus. I’ve still kind of sworn them off, I’m just not outgoing enough to really get into enjoying them. And I have some exciting press features coming up, which will hopefully lead to more wholesale, more press, etc.

Lastly I’m getting ready to launch my own website with it’s own shopping cart so I can have more hands-on control of my brand. It’s a lot of work, but I’m pretty stoked about it all.

Business, Crafting, lased

Packaging Evolution

March 31, 2009March 30, 2009 Kelly

My packaging has been through a number of iterations since the first Tinysaur was shipped.

The first was an “Oh no I need packaging” sort of thing, where I haphazardly went to Duane Reade to pick up the least boring paper I could find – which turned out to be construction paper.

I ran the construction paper through a laser printer (as in toner, not coherent light) to throw the word “Tinysaur” on the outside, and then cut the envelope shape out on the laser cutter. I didn’t really have a decent method for registration (lining up the print with the cutting) so it took a while. And folding the little envelopes turned out to be a pain.

After having to recruit friends to help me fold tiny envelopes during the holiday rush, and running out of construction paper, I got a little smarter. I started using bags with staple-tags, much easier to cut. Now they look almost respectable.

But they were still not quite ready for a retail-side display… which I realized when I was talking to a purchaser for a chain of museum shops. Oops.

Which brings me to my current matchbook-style packaging. It takes a little more energy than the staple-tag, but feels nice and solid, and gives me plenty of room for marketing copy (uh… about that…).

Next on my packaging to-dos is to redesign the instruction sheets, which I’ve been putting off for a while. Ugh.

Business

Not Yo Momma’s Craft Fair

March 29, 2009March 29, 2009 Kelly

I spent Saturday vending at Not Yo Momma’s Craf t Fair, and event held at LITM, a bar in Jersey City. It was my first show by myself in two years, and also the organizers’ first craft fair.

The show was interesting, to say the least. Traffic was good and we ended up staying an extra hour because there were still lots of people around, although during that hour the crowd pretty clearly shifted from people who want to shop to people who want to drink. Overall the crowd wasn’t very spendy, people were balking at a friend’s prices for her prints… all of which were sub-$10. Surprising for a place where the average drink price is $9.

Sales-wise I did pretty well, and hit my target of 10x the booth fee. I nearly sold out of the Tinysaur Deluxe Kits, which was surprising, although I only brought ~10 of them. The checkout setup was a little clumsy… buyers had to get a sales slip, take it to the bar, pay, then bring it back to get their goods. It was a little aggravating to have to explain the somewhat complicated system to each customer, but it worked OK so I guess I can’t complain. Still, I would rather just have everyone pay me in cash. Much simpler.

Overall I’d say it was a success, and a nice practice for Spring Bada-Bing in Richmond next month. I mostly remembered how to sell people things, and got an idea of what was working / what wasn’t.

Business

Free

March 27, 2009March 25, 2009 Kelly

This week’s topic at weeklyblogpost is ‘free.’ I usually am not a fan of writing prompts because they give me flashbacks to grade school, but somehow I’m ok with the ambiguous one-word topics.

Lately I’ve been trying to calculate the cost of free. Specifically in the stuff I give out to promote my business, Tinysaur.

A lot of craft shows give out swag bags full of goodies to the first n number of shoppers, and in theory it’s a way to get some “free” advertising. Free as in you didn’t have to pay anyone else for the placement, but it still costs you the time/materials to make the promos.

I’m sending out samples rather than promos. There’s a big difference between the two, and I think it’s an important one that’s often overlooked.

Promos are little slips of something with your contact information on it. Business cards, buttons, magnets, etc. They don’t really do anything, and frankly I’m not convinced that sending them out carte-blanche is really worth the effort. All those things are pretty cheap, comparatively, but they’re not free. You still have to design/print/ship them, and most of them will end up going straight into the trash.

Save your promos for people who are already interested. Add them to your outgoing orders, give them out at craft shows, but don’t think that throwing them in a gift bag with 100 other promos is going to get you much “free advertising.”

Samples are a different beast entirely. Samples are just that: a sample of your product. Something that gives people a real idea of what it is you make, and why they might want to buy it. It took me a while to come up with a decent idea for a sample. They need to be cheap enough that you can affort free, but nice enough that someone will want to look at them.

For two upcoming shows, Not Yo Momma’s Craft Fair and Spring Bada-Bing, I’m sending dinosaur skulls. Little sample packs of just the Tinysaur head, pulled from T-Rex and Triceratops. I figure it’s just enough for people to see how small the peices are, punch them out, etc, but still leave them wanting more.

The samples are pretty cheap, but there are still some real costs associated with them. I have to pay per-minute for laser time, and while the plastic bags / tags are *practically* free on a per-promo basis, the time it takes to assemble it all adds up. Sure, I don’t have to front any cash for it, but it’s time I could be doing something else, either for my business or for myself.

I think it’s important not to mix up “free” and “worthless.” If you’re giving things out, make sure they’re things with some value to them. Information people want, things people can try out, something that will actually get looked at before heading to the recycle bin.

Business, Crafting

Spelling Fail

March 26, 2009March 25, 2009 Kelly

Here’s a short reminder in why you should have someone else proofread your marketing copy. Because after staring at the design for hours, you’re probably going to miss things. Important things. Large things.

Like the fact that you’ve misspelled the word “Butterfly” on all your packaging. Note that the yellow “actual size” sticker version (with the typo) is the 2nd generation of this packaging… the first had a green sticker. Meaning I managed to print off two batches of these typographically challenged babies before Chris said to me, “you know, butterfly is spelled wrong.”

I’m glad my boyfriend can read, even if I can’t.