When my son was a toddler,  he joined me on the road for my unconventional furniture business and he frequently mimicked the behaviors he witnessed. One of his first full sentences was “thank you for your business”. Customers got a kick out of this tiny boy reaching out to shake hands in gratitude. It’s no coincidence that today he’s in demand while others in his field struggle to find work. He makes it a point to show appreciation.

Whether you sell your hand made work at craft fairs, wholesale to galleries or direct to consumers on a site like Etsy, one of the best ways to stand out in the minds of your customers is to let them know you are grateful for their patronage. If you sell in person at craft fairs, trunk shows or home parties, take a moment to write a quick thank you on each invoice. Then, follow it up later with a thank you note. (You do keep a mailing list of your customers, don’t you?) Make it personal. Mention something about the piece he bought and that you hope his daughter’s graduation party was fun or his wife was thrilled with the piece. Let your customers know you were listening and care about them. Even if you never meet your customers face-to-face,  include a handwritten thank you when you ship out the order.   If you sell wholesale to shops and galleries, include a thank you with your orders AND send a handwritten thank you a few weeks later. This may remind them that it’s time to re-order. Even if you put your work on consignment, be sure to drop a note to the gallery owner about how much you appreciate her showing your work and that you look forward to a long and mutually prosperous relationship.

Remember your customers are exchanging their hard-earned cash for something you made by hand so try to use either hand-made cards or at least something that reflects your artsy style. No Hallmark thank you cards. Maybe you can work a trade with a paper artist to design a custom thank you card for you in exchange for some of your work. Be sure to include your web url, email address and phone number on each card. Whatever you do, do not use one of those online thank you note services. Your work is made by hand, not on an assembly line so your thank you notes should reflect that. There is nothing personal about automation.

I’d love to hear how you are showing customers how much you appreciate their business. As always, you are invited to comment below.

Is selling your handmade work providing you with enough income or would you like to find additional income streams without having to produce and sell more pieces? If you’re like other crafts people I know, you probably would love to find some hidden cash to provide what my friend Barbara Winter calls “multiple profit centers”.
Regardless of what type of crafts you make, there’s easy profit hiding right under your nose (or in your studio.) These methods apply to almost any creative art form but let’s use jewelry as an example since many of you create hand made jewelry. You probably experience busy seasons in your business like Christmas, Valentines Day and Mother’s Day when you can barely keep up with demand for your jewelry. But what about summer when, unless you are in a tourist area, things probably slow down? Do you feel a cash crunch come July? How would you like to have a steady stream of income flowing in year round? It’s not only possible but super do-able.
Let’s say you do beadwork. What other ways can you turn your craft into cash besides selling your jewelry? Here are a few examples:
-Write down and diagram instructions for a piece or technique that’s unique to you or has been a hot-seller.
-Video-tape yourself creating the piece.
-Make up kits with all the supplies and components to make that piece.
-Bundle the instructions, video and supplies into a kit that you sell on your website. You might even create a kit-of-the-month club. Members can sign up to receive a new design with instructions and supplies each month.
-Ask your friends to host a make-and-take party where rather than selling your jewelry, attendees can make a piece of jewelry. They purchase the supplies and instructions from you. The party can also be a fundraiser for a charity, church or school group. Of course take the opportunity to promote your “membership” club and let the attendees know that you are available to do parties for them too.
-Have VIP days for someone who might want to have one-to-one time with you for private tutorials.
These are just a few examples of how you can leverage your knowledge to create additional income from your art. Check the blog often for more tips on finding the hidden cash in your craft.

I’d love to believe I’m not alone in frequently waiting until the eleventh hour to make or purchase the perfect gift. It’s not that I don’t think about it ahead of time.  It’s just that tomorrow is always here before I expect it. (that alone is a topic for a future post.) So, for those of you who haven’t yet crafted or purchased a gift for mom, or even if you have but haven’t wrapped or carded, let’s look at some ideas for giving mom a sustainable gift.

If you are efficient and have mom’s gift wrapped and shipped, these ideas work birthdays and other occasions for green giving.

I’m sad when I see those piles of wrapping paper, boxes and ribbon that are part of most holidays, birthdays, bridal or baby showers, and disappointed that so few people even notice. I made a commitment last holiday season to only give something that had been recycled or could be recycled and to only use for wrapping material that is used or can be used.  There are of course lots of organic, recycled and earth friendly gifts on the market and there are some simple eco-conscious steps each of us can take in gift giving.

Those of us who love paper have difficulty sending e-cards and e-gift certificates, and some of our mother’s are not web savvy. My mom loves books and I used to send her gift certificates to a bookstore when she could get out and about. (she has started using the library now that they deliver, but she has to wait so long for new books.)  It’s difficult to get Mom to appreciate or understand recycling when she’s always associated “used” with “can’t afford new”  rather than earth-friendly. I’d considered giving my mom a Kindle both to cut down on paper waste and for the “instant gratification” factor of “get it now”. But the idea of teaching my eighty-three  year old mother to use a Kindle is daunting-she still struggles with voice-mail. So, I do still buy her books but ask her to pass them on to her freinds after she has read them. That way, I know they won’t end up in a landfill. I’ve started always including a handcrafted re-purposed bookmark. Last December, I noticed how many boxes of Kleenex we go through and found they were the perfect weight cardboard to make book marks. Now, when I stand at the recycle been at the post office, rather than dump all the catalogs I receive, I keep the ones that have cool patterns or graphics to make cards.

If you’ve already made or purchased a gift, consider making the wrapping part of the gift. Is there a scarf you have that your mom’s admired? Do you have a tea towel or apron that she’d enjoy? Wrap her gift with them.  Are there pieces of hand dyed silk or handmade paper that you haven’t used for a project? She’d appreciate  it more than commercial wrapping paper and could then use it for her own project is she’s crafty.

I’d love to hear about the earth- friendly crafts you’ve made for your mom or the eco-conscious way you’ve packaged her gift. Please post and share your green genius with all of us.

I just finished up a call with an entrepreneur who will be joining Barbara Winter and me in Las Vegas for the Obstacle Buster Mastermind and I’m thinking of all the things she can do to grow her jewelry business. She has a job demanding in the cosmetic industry and she says whenever she wears her jewelry to that job, people ask to see it and she sells it right out of the trunk of her car.

If you aren’t already doing so, wear your own art everywhere you go. Everywhere. And bring it with you everywhere. Obviously you can’t carry around display cases full of your work but if you make jewelry, it’s easy to take a dozen or so of your best selling styles and put them in a soft jewelry roll that you can pop in your bag. Then when someone comments that they like the piece you have on, tell them you have some with you that you can show. As soon as you bring it out, everyone crowds around looking at your work. All it takes is one person to purchase and it’s contagious. Always, always have your cards with contact info to hand out. If someone admires a piece, write the style name  or some identifiable memo on the card for them so that they can refer to it later.
Also carry a small notebook to jot down the person’s name, contact info and what they liked so that you can let them know when you have similar pieces. Ask permission to add people to your mailing list so that they will know when you have new designs or are doing shows.

Having your jewelry with you is also a great way to book home parties because if someone loves your work, they will want their friends to see it as well. You can make an arrangement with them that in exchange for hosting the party for you, they will get a discount on your jewelry or a complimentary piece as a hostess gift.

Particularly in the next couple of weeks, you’ll have lots of opportunity to sell your work to men who are at a loss for what to do for Valentines Day. Make sure you wear it and have samples with you everywhere.

Check out these other tips for selling jewelry for Valentines Day HERE

If you’re an idea generator like I am, you know that feeling of “I will never live long enough to bring all these ideas to fruition”. For those of us who have a constant flow of fresh ideas, we choose which to give our attention to first and don’t fret over those that may not be hatched for awhile. (and I’ll tell you a little secret. Sometimes I give my best ideas away to clients, because I don’t know when I’ll find time and I want to see them come to life. Each time, the muse gifts me with several more.)

When I speak with people who have lots of ideas, I suggest they jot down some notes and keep them in a file. Once they’re recorded, the anxiety over possibly forgetting them subsides. The mind is then free to focus on one idea at a time and the file is always there when you are ready for it.

What about the ideas that you thought were brilliant when you stashed them away but when you have time, you never revisit them? Why are you neglecting them? Is it fear of failure?

If you’re risk adverse, let me ask you this. Which is scarier to you? Trying and failing or the regret of never having tried? I’m sure you can guess which frightens me. Regret, for sure. I take risks because I am more afraid of regret than failure. (and for the record, I have no regrets.)

It wasn’t until recently that I realized there are people who fear success. Some worry about having to live up to others’ expectations of them if they succeed. For some, it’s uncomfortable to be in the spotlight. Well, contrary to popular thought, I know that a private person can be successful without having to show up on Oprah.

Another excuse I hear for leaving a good idea by the wayside is the fear that someone will steal your idea.  Of course it’s possible that someone will copy your great idea, manufacture it cheaply in China and it will outsell your original. But you know what? You can’t do anything with your great idea if you never take it out of the closet.

Fear is definitely an obstacle to bringing ideas to life but the most common reason people give for not moving forward on their dreams is overwhelm. When I speak with artist and aspiring entrepreneurs about what’s been holding them back, they most frequently site overwhelm with not knowing what to do first. They just have no idea where to begin so they freeze and do nothing. One of the best ways to overcome that overwhelm is to get a clear vision of the whole project and then break it down into actionable small steps.

For some guidance on how to lay out the big picture of your dream so that you can figure out where to start, scroll down to the January 13, 2012 post titled  “Are you limiting your dream to the size of your desktop?”.

What’s happening with YOUR neglected ideas? If you’re ready to put it on the table and give it the attention your great idea deserves, check out what Barbara Winter , best selling author of “Making a Living without a Job” and I are doing to help a small group of aspiring entrepreneurs break through the barriers and start their dream businesses NOW. HERE’S the SCOOP

Do you have an idea that you keep putting  off until “someday”, feeling that the time isn’t right, you aren’t sure how to go about it or if it would make money? I have lots of these that sit on the back burner. Some, I pull out, recognize that it isn’t the ideal time and I pop back in the “later” file.  Others, I revisit, evaluate and determine that the profit potential isn’t enough to spend time on or that my passion for the project has dwindled. Then there are ideas that just won’t stop coming back to me. Even when I am immersed in another project, they continually pop up and beg for my attention. I call those “boomerang” ideas. Barbara Winter calls them “neglected ideas”.

If you have an idea, however vague, that keeps popping back up no matter how deep  you bury it, it’s probably worth your time to finally take it seriously.

While I never make a major business decision without weighing it intellectually with facts and figures, I am a true believer in tuning into the subconscious. When an idea returns even after I have dismissed it, I know it’s time to give it serious consideration.

Because boomerang ideas can be pesky for a reason, Barbara Winter and I have planned something we’ve never done before. We’ve reserved a suite in Las Vegas to sit down with a select group of artists and aspiring entrepreneurs and bring those neglected ideas to what I call the “possibility circle”. That means you put your concept out there and we all put our “problem solver” hats on to bust through the obstacles and create a viable business.

This won’t be a lecture and it isn’t for you if you are looking for a “what do I want to do when I grow up” seminar. It will be a hands-on, hats-on how-to-make-it happen NOW workshop. If you’ve been sitting on an idea that won’t leave you alone until you do it, if you are ready to roll up your sleeves, dig in to the details and bring it to life, click HERE to learn more about how you can be part of this powerful mastermind. And if you do it NOW, you’re still in time for a pre-workshop phone consult with me. Here’s how you can join the circle.

How were your holiday sales? Hopefully, you did a great business and are still going strong but for many artists, sales are slow in January. It doesn’t have to be that way. Here is one simple thing that will guarantee you increase your revenue and have a good winter and spring.

Have you noticed that when women shop, they are often verbal about what they like. This can be used to their advantage and yours when it comes to making more sales. Whether you show at craft fairs, home parties in shops or online, you absolutely are missing the boat and a big chunk of cash if you do not keep an active wish list. (If you sell online, you MUST add this to your website.) If you sell in-person, here is what I did.

I had cards made that were double size. One half was my regular business card and the other half said “Hint, hint: I found exactly what I want at (my gallery or booth name). Then I had a blank line where I filled in the item description that I would recognize. I had them with a pen in several locations throughout my displays and I kept my own file with index cards under the person’s name with their wish list items. The women could then bring their “hint” card home to their husband, boyfriend, friend or family member. When it was time to look for a gift, the men could then call (or come in if you have a permanent location) and ask what was on his wife’s wish list. Everyone is happy. The guy is satisfied that he picked something she will love. The woman is happy that she got what she wanted instead of some random choice of his which she may or may not like and YOU got the sale. A win-win, right?

For more tips on How to Sell Jewelry to Men click HERE

Most of us have diverse aspects of our daily lives which can lead to distraction and  fragmented thinking.  Whether it’s the need to juggle family, business and household or working on several related projects simultaneously, multi-tasking often breeds mediocrity.

Because I have a couple of different businesses, I am frequently bouncing between websites and blog posts and twitter accounts. Part of the challenge is the constant generation of ideas whirling in my brain faster than I can get them all down. So, I switch over to another page or file and record the thought. I get things accomplished but I know I could do better if I focused on one task at a time.

Every year I pick a word and for 2012, my word is FOCUS. I’ve not decided exactly how I will apply this to my work day but I have a few ideas. I may choose to work strictly on one business on certain days. If I am doing a project for Inspired Livelihood and something comes up for Craft Biz Blog, I’ll possibly just pretend that Craft Biz Coach is out of the office today and she will get back with you tomorrow. I’ll keep my Inspired Livelihood hat on all day. And then how do I handle areas of overlap in my businesses? Maybe I’ll divide my day spending morning on one biz and afternoon on the other.

As an artist, you may work on crafts that require diverse processes. Do you design Monday, fabricate Tuesday, solder Wednesday, market Thursday and pack and ship Friday? Do you throw pots in the morning, glaze others in the afternoon while others are firing? What happens when you get a burst of creative energy on a day that’s designated a marketing day? How do you organize your tasks so that you maintain sharp focus while continuing to be open to flow of inspiration?

My friend Barbara Winter has some great tips on 3 Ways to Sharpen your Focus HERE

(this post was originally written for Valentine’s Day but the same idea works well for any holiday that men have gifts to buy for women.)

Most men won’t even shop for  presents until tomorrow and if you make handmade jewelry, you should exploit those procrastinators. It’s not too late to set up a last minute trunk shows at a men’s hair salon,  health club or even a pub where men hang out. If you have the chutzpa (or ambition) to walk into any male-trafficked locale tomorrow with a trunk of your gorgeous wares, you have a captive audience of guys who will see you as their savior because they don’t have to hit the mall and guess what she might like. You may offer to give the proprietor a percentage, a donation to his favorite charity or better yet a free piece for the woman in his life, but you may find they are happy to just let you hang out because the excitement may generate more traffic and business for the venue as well. Do you have any idea how many men would love to have your help in choosing a piece of hand crafted jewelry for their wives or girlfriends rather than have to scour shops trying to figure out what girls want?  After a successful sale, you’ll have an open invitation to return for Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. See the December post on how to sell handmade jewelry to men. Or, go to the right of this page to get 13 Free Tips on Turning Your Crafts into CAsh Now.