I am embarrassed to admit that while I help others realize their authentic livelihood, I feel like a bit of a fraud. I have not been completely transparent with my readers. I feel like a hypocrite because I emphasize publicly that living an ideal livelihood means letting the world see your vulnerabilities and yet I keep a secret for fear of being seen as weak.
You only know my secret if you’ve been to the movies, the post office, bank, or airport with me and noticed that I am on the floor pretending to tie my shoes (even if they are flip flops) or you’ve had to hold my place in line while I pace around. Maybe we’ve met at a networking event and one minute I am sanding there chatting with you, the next I am on the floor. You see, while I maintain this image of the vibrant, active entrepreneur, when I stand still for a while, I faint. There. I got it out and you probably haven’t clicked away and decided never to read my blog again.
So why do I keep this essential fact so closely guarded as if it a strike against my character? I don’t know. But I do know that it takes a lot of energy to act healthy and if I were to simply tell you that I need to interrupt you and sit down, you would have my complete attention because I wouldn’t be distracted standing there worrying about fainting.
This fainting is only a symptom of a pretty complex issue that I won’t get into here but it does interfere with my work and social life. There are times when I have to cancel appointments or disappear from cyberspace because I am unwell. When friends and regular followers don’t see my posts or “tweets” they wonder why I have suddenly gone silent. I realize now that they probably think I have gone out of business or just lost interest.
Please believe me, that is not the case. I love my work but there are times when I have had to isolate and rest. During those periods, my mind still spins with business ideas for you and I am anxious to feel better and share them. Meanwhile, please accept my apologies for disappearing without explanation. Don’t be afraid to show your vulnerabilities. That’s part of discovering your authentic livelihood.
Do you waste energy protecting an image of strength? Are there issues that you are being less than authentic about? How can letting go of that control and being open about your vulnerabilities free you up to be more present in your business and you life? As always, you are invited to share your insights and comments.
You’d think I’d be used to it by now but it’s a weekly surprise to me to see tweets declaring “Thank God it’s Friday”. I assume most of the people I follow are either self employed or aspiring entrepreneurs and it makes me wonder how satisfied and successful they are or will be if they view “work” as something to get through, something to do for 5 days and then celebrate a break for two.
I want to believe that the people who spend their week aiming for the weekend are still in jobs they are strategically striving to escape, that they see the weekend as a time to focus on building the bridge to their entrepreneurial dreams. I know many of those I follow are writers and artists who are working to create a livelihood that will eventually lead away from the day job. It makes sense that they would look forward to the weekend as time to hone their craft, create product and make concrete plans to work at what they love. My surprise, though, comes from those I know are already self employed who still see their “work” life as Monday through Friday. Maybe it’s the result of years of conditioning in the same way that I still, three decades after finishing school, view September as the beginning of a new year.
I wonder, though, how likely is someone who sees their business as a chore to be gotten to the end of and escaped for two days to have long term success? Now, I don’t expect every entrepreneur to be a workaholic. I recognize that my tendency, even on vacation, to view everything as a business opportunity is viewed by friends and family as obsessive. It does seem though that someone who still views their life in segments of work time and play time has not found their ideal livelihood.
What about you? Are you still operating in office mentality? Do you view your work life as separate from your leisure time? Is this out of habit or do you look forward to the weekend as a time to escape your career and try not to think about your business? Or do you find yourself so excited and enthusiastic about your livelihood that you don’t even realize when it’s time to stop and prepare a meal? Do you get so engrossed in your work that you have to set an alarm to remind you to pick up the kids or walk the dog?
If you have found your ideal livelihood, most likely you find it so satisfying that you have no sense of separation between work and life. Do you think I’m idealistic? Ask someone who is making a living doing what they were born to do. They will tell you that they do feed the kids and walk the dog. They do spend time with friends and enjoy leisure activities. But Friday is just another day.
What about you? Have you found your ideal livelihood?
This summer, I’ve heard from crafters who are trying to sell handmade at mainstream gift shows alongside imported bargains.
A designer who hand knits stunning wearable art asked me recently if I thought she should show at one of the large apparel marts. Several metal smiths have consulted with me after having dreadful results at wholesale gift shows.
I do recommend attending mainstream gift shows, more for research than as a vendor. (see: “Why you should visit Wholesale Craft and Gift Shows” post of 5-25). The price points of goods handcrafted in the US or Canada is likely to be prohibitive to the majority of buyers at a venue that is primarily imports. You’ll find a much more discriminating, educated buyer at the Buyer’s Market of American Craft (known in the industry as the Rosen Show in reference to founder Wendy Rosen) or at the American Crafts Council Shows. Retailers attending those shows expect to pay significantly higher wholesale prices for handmade and have the clientele to support those prices.
Again, I do suggest you attend the mainstream gift or apparel shows but as a buyer not an exhibitor. Do your research and then apply to the higher end shows where your work is valued.
If you are exhibiting at these shows, please do share with other readers how it is going for you and which shows have been most receptive to your work.
Social Entrepreneurship through Design-Parsons
Several readers have asked about this so here is a course description. Hope they focus on the private sector.
Description: The course offers a close look at the theory and practice of social entrepreneurship in the private, public and non-profit sectors. Areas of social innovation as diverse as business, environment, education, human services, and government will be explored. Some topics of discussion will include social enterprise, cause-related marketing; venture philanthropy and social return on investment. Students will gain practical knowledge of how to identify potential social venture opportunities; develop skills and competencies for creating,
developing and implementing social entrepreneurship ideas; and examine ways of measuring the success and value of social entrepreneurial activity
Hideaki Matsui designed a product to raise awareness for a specific social issue for his Social Entrepreneurship Through Design class at Parsons. He took on Cambodian landmine removal as his cause. He designed an all-natural soap in the shape of landmines that would both help heighten people’s awareness of the crisis and raise funds for the removal of landmines. The sales of the soap would help fund landmine removal.
I found this article from a June 9th Media global post fascinating for a couple of reasons. It is a perfect example of philanthropy being run like a business rather than a charity. I also found it exciting that Parson’s has a class titled “Social Entrepreneurship Through Design”.
read full article here
If you are feeling overwhelmed by everything you hear you should be doing to market your craft, you aren’t alone. Most of us need a map before we start out on a journey we’ve never taken before.
So, take a deep breath and know that if you just start somewhere, take one simple step today, you’re on your way. Wait, don’t decide to start fresh Monday. I know that trick. I’ve done it. I’ve never thought of my workweek as Monday through Friday because being self employed, I don’t follow anyone’s scheduled. I work when it’s best for me and my family. But, even if you take the weekend off, you’ll be able to relax knowing you’ve taken that first step.
Today’s assignment: choose your very best piece. Something that hasn’t been out in the marketplace yet. Now, photograph it. OK. I know you might consider that two steps. If you’re really feeling ambitious, upload it to your photo program and save it. So, three easy steps. (if you really must be a stickler about the one step a day, choose the piece today, photograph it tomorrow and upload on Sunday. Those are very tiny steps.)
So, Monday morning you are ready to take a BIG baby step on your craft marketing plan.
I’m not calling this a BIG step because it’s difficult. It isn’t. It’s simple and just so obvious but is a big step because it will make a huge difference in getting your sales rolling again.
Send this digital image of your best piece to your list of past buyers or those who have visited your booth at shows, come to your home open studio or just expressed interest in your work. (You DO keep a list, don’t you?) If you don’t have a data base of past customers, send the image to all your friends and family. You aren’t selling anything. You are simply reminding them that you are a talented crafts person. If you have already made prints or reproductions of your work, mention it. If you are in an exhibition, mention it. If you haven’t ever taken your work out of your home studio-mention it. Be open and honest about your newness and people will want to support you. Ask them to share it with their friends. A great way to get people to notice your work and pass it on is to include a quote or some kind of meaningful sentiment or story. Nothing too long, just something to make them smile or stop and think. Something that makes them nod in agreement and want to pass on to friends.
So, by Monday you will have taken your four first steps. Simple steps that will get you rolling on the the next steps.
In any business, it is always easier to bring back existing customers than to attract new ones. Obviously, you want to do both but if you have an existing buyer/collector list, cherish them. They are your most valuable assets. Send them “love notes” of customer appreciation regularly. Your art is a piece of you. You aren’t selling hardware. This is a relationship and if your buyers feel you see them as friends, they’ll be loyal to you. They will show your art to their friends and your list of collectors will grow.
See how much you’ve accomplished even though you didn’t know where to start?
Assuming you’ve followed the baby steps so far, today you are going to make a vital move. If you don’t have a data base of your mailing list, or even have a mailing list, today you will start one. This is everyone you know. Everyone. Remember, you aren’t selling to your friends and family. You are sharing your art with them. (If your work is wearable or home decorative, see other blog entries for tips on getting your work seen and download the free tips in the upper right to give you more great ideas.) If you are like the rest of us, you probably have scraps of paper and business cards all over with names of people you’ve met. Most of us toss them because we have forgotten why we picked them up. But, each of those people might know someone who could become your best customer or the connection to many great collectors. Maybe someone’ sister has a gallery or uncle is a decorator to the very wealthy. You won’t be imposing by sending them a beautiful image with a brief greeting or sentiment online. Think of it as a gift. Because it is.
Even if your list has only twenty names right now, use a contact management program such as Constant Contact. You can start out with their free trial, it’s simple, user friendly and you will have your list automated to start.
This should be day six. Now you have a list, you have an image and you are going to order some postcards. Use a site like modernpostcards.com to order one thousand postcards of your favorite piece that you photographed on day one. You can have the same quote or sentiment that you used for your email printed on the postcards. These are very inexpensive marketing tools which you will use both as mailers and handouts. Include a special offer or invitation to a home exhibit or trunk show. (more on this in other blog posts and tips at right.) Also have your domain address (url) printed on them. YOU DON’T HAVE A DOMAIN NAME OR WEBSITE? NO PROBLEM. YOU WILL BY TOMORROW. At least you’ll have a domain name and landing page.
Day seven, if you haven’t purchased your domain name, do that now. Go to a site like bluehost.com and buy your own name. Even if you have a business name and already have a web site, for ten dollars a year, buy your own name. If you already have a site under a different name, you needn’t change that, just re-direct the url with your own name to the site. This takes three minutes and is important because people are more likely to remember and search for you under your own name than a business name.
In the first week, with one small step a day, you have a great start on your art marketing program. If you need help implementing any of the above steps, be sure to email me at the contact above and I will point you in the direction of someone who can get you on your way to a successful craft marketing campaign. Keep checking back for lots more tips on where to go from here and remember to go up to the right hand of this site and get your free gift of “13 Quick, Easy, Low-cost or NO-cost Ways to Turn your Craft into Cash NOW!”
See how much you’ve accomplished in one week with just baby steps? And to think you didn’t know where to begin.
Today’s guest blogger is Barbara Winter of http://www.joyfullyjobless.com
Today my sister Margaret is headed to the garment district in Los Angeles on a field trip for her business. I know she’ll return with all sorts of treasures that will take on a new life in one of her hair ornaments.
Yesterday she participated in a bridal show, introducing brides to her Over the Top Fascinators. Since starting her business earlier this year, Margaret has acquired feathers, jewels, fabrics and combs of all shapes and sizes. She’s also acquired two rescue dogs that need a lot of attention. Happily, she can combine both in her living room.
A few days ago, she and I were having one of our frequent Skype chats (where she often shows me the latest creations she’s working on) and for some reason the conversation turned to the subject of resumes and cover letters. Margaret suddenly looked thoughtful and said, “I’d be working on my resume right now if I hadn’t found the feather.”
“If I Hadn’t Found the Feather could be the title of your autobiography,” I joked. She laughed, too, but is quite aware that this happy enterprise has made a huge difference in her life. Her perpetual enthusiasm is downright contagious.
Like many wonderful enterprises, this one seemed almost accidental. Last fall, Margaret’s daughter had a friend who was getting married. Alexis, the bride, asked Margaret to make a fascinator for her to wear at the wedding. I’m not sure if Margaret knew much about fascinators at the time (I was oblivious until she introduced me), but she found the experience so delightful that she bought a few feathers, some veiling and began creating a few more. Then she had some new ideas and turned those into hair ornaments. Suddenly, she was headed in a new direction.
Margaret’s daughter Gretchen shared her enthusiasm and offered to build a Web site for her. Gretchen rounded up some friends and a photographer and scheduled a photo shoot. In its brief lifetime, Over the Top Fascinators has had disappointments and detours, but Margaret’s passion has moved it right past those interruptions.
Watching my youngest sister evolve as an entrepreneur got me thinking about tiny Bhutan, a small country in the Himalayas. Bhutan is an unlikely place for the birth of an international trend, yet its policy of determining success based on Gross National Happiness has gotten the attention of leaders from around the world. The term was coined by Bhutan’s King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, when he ascended the throne in 1972. GNH defines prosperity based on spiritual well-being and environmental responsibility rather than consumption.
Imagine that…building prosperity that takes into account personal happiness and well-being. And to think it could start with finding the feather.
Barbara shares ideas and inspiration with other creative entrepreneurs through her blog Buon Viaggio, her long-running print newsletter Winning Ways and Joyfully Jobless News ezine. In addition, Barbara conducts seminars and retreats across the country and internationally. Since it first appeared in 1993, her book Making a Living Without a Jobhas been a handbook for thousands of people. An updated edition makes its appearance on September 1, 2009.
Margaret Winter’s stunning designs may be viewed at http://overthetopfascinators.com
A theme seems to have emerged among my entrepreneurial “peeps” recently about creativity, creative blocks and self expression. Some of my favorite bloggers, Sandy Dempsey (thedreamingcafe.com) and Ken Robert (Mildlycreative.com) have posted on the topic recently. This got me thinking about the art classes I’ve taught and attended over the years, the “creative” writing instruction our children are exposed to and how so much of it stifles our expressive flow.
As a fine arts and art education major, I was immersed in theory and technique. While developing those skills was necessary in order to implement the images dancing around in my head, a focus on “getting it right” got in the way of getting the feeling down. As my work moved towards precision, it moved away from expression, became stiff and too cerebral. In other words, I spent too much studio time in my head instead of my heart. For me, the process of painting became joyless when I began judging my work on outcome.
I realize that classic elements and theory in visual art, music, dance or writing are vital aspects of a solid education in the arts. I cringe when I read grammatical errors in literature. But how do we balance the mastery of the details with letting the creative light flow from our inner source?
I recall a conflict with the director of the preschool where I first “taught art” in my early twenties. I used my alloted art instruction time to expose the children to elements of design, showing them how a squiggly line gives a different feel than a straight line and how muddy colors put them in a different mood than bright or pastel colors. I helped them observe how objects further away were less vibrant and smaller than those in the foreground. Pretty complex concepts for a preschooler, yet they appeared to grasp the basics because we made it fun. I showed them the color wheel and then let them “play” with mixing colors. Some of the exercises were eatable. Ketchup and mustard make orange. Add mayonnaise and you get peach or what we in those days so socially inappropriately referred to as “skin tone.”
When introducing the kids to the works of different masters, I tried to make it fun and relevant for them. We had a Jackson Pollack morning when the kids squirted different colored icing all over white sheet cakes and then got to eat their “paintings.”
None of this went over well with the director who said she understood the purpose but wanted to please the parents who didn’t understand why their kids weren’t coming home with identical turkey crafts at Thanksgiving or gingerbread men at Christmas. We butted heads, I stuck to my guns and knew I needed to be self employed soon.
Fast forward three decades and I missed the creative process. I’d let it go, I believed, in the interest of earning a living selling other artists work. The truth was, I had stopped creating because when I tried to “do it right” it lost it’s joy for me. I enrolled in creative workshops with descriptions like “Intuitive Water Color” and “Painting from the Soul”. The first day or so in these classes, I was able to get out of my head and connect more with my heart. the expression flowed and it was joyful. Imagines were forming on the paper, bypassing my head. I swear some of them emerged from deep in my bones, almost as if my DNA knew things I couldn’t possibly know.
Then came the “sharing” and suddenly I was judging my art. In one workshop, the facilitator, a psychologist, had us “act out” our paintings. When I returned to the act of painting after that, the flow was blocked. I knew I’d have to dramatize what I painted and again became attached to outcome. Once I knew what came out of my hand would be analyzed, I froze.
When my son, Todd, was young, he loved to write. His work had a fresh, open tone. Then an adult in his life began correcting his grammar and punctuation mid stream and he gradually stopped writing for pleasure. He also loved to go to the piano and just “play” as opposed to reading music. Then, lessons meant practice and correction and while he played well once he understood theory, he no longer “composed.”
We’ve all known kids who after their first ballet lessons were discouraged from continuing because they lacked grace and poise. I think about how different the experience would have been if the same child had been put in a room without mirrors and encouraged to just “feel” the music and move freely without attachment to appearance.
I recognize that if someone is planning a career in the arts, it’s vital to master technique but what about all of us who were either discouraged because we weren’t “naturals” or eliminated ourselves from the creative game because we judged our outward appearance?
Looking back over my teaching and learning experiences, I am convinced we should all spend more time finger painting, drumming on pots and pans and dancing blindfolded.
What are your creative blocks? What puts you in the flow? When was the last time you made mud pies or painted with your toes?
The two most common complaints I hear from crafters trying to make a living at their art are:
They can’t possibly produce enough work by hand to make a living and they can’t compete with the imports and knockoffs. My feeling on the issue of copie-cats is that you aren’t competing with knockoffs. You either market to the discriminating collector who values handmade and is willing to pay you for the time or you license and get paid for someone to mass produce your designs.
There is another option though, and it answers the “must have more meaning” criteria that so many of us feel is integral to inspired livelihood. Rather than struggle to produce enough product to make a living or seek a licensing agreement to have your work mass produced overseas, what if you were to find a group of people who are either stay at home moms who love crafts and want to do something to keep busy and make a little spending money without leaving their children OR find a group of people in an underdeveloped country who have no industry, training or marketable skills? Either way, train those people to make your craft according to your designs and techniques, furnish them with the supplies and outsource. If you love to travel, you can tie in a third element . You’ll be visiting a different culture to source and train the crafters (joyful and deductible), you’ll be bringing satisfying gainful employment to people in need and you’ll have enough handmade inventory to make a living.
Are you already outsourcing your work to stay at home crafters either in your community or around the world? Feel free to comment. We’d all love to hear what you’re doing or what you’d like to be doing to make your craft more meaningful and profitable.
July 9th,2009
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As we in the US celebrate Independence Day weekend, we see patriotism everywhere: flags proudly flying,red, white and blue clothing, jewelry, picnic ware, even dogs dressed up in little Uncle Sam hats. The general buying public may not notice this but those of us whose mission it is to support handmade in America would be hard pressed to find any Americana made on our soil. Those sequin-studded red, white and blue t-shirts with the patriotic sayings, purchased at Walmart: made in China. Do you know where your American flag was made? I’ve not been able to locate one made in the US.
Equally disturbing was my observation last week driving through the southwest. All along the interstate I saw signs and banners for Native American crafts.” I’ve long admired the American Indian crafts, particularly the textiles and basketry. So, imagine my disappointment when I stopped at some road side stand and found that all the “native american craft” displayed in the shops was actually made in China.
So, what does this have to do with you? As a crafter, your primary goal in marketing should be stressing not only the handmade aspect but the fact that your work is made in America. People want to be patriotic: they just don’t notice. The average consumer does not read labels and has no idea she is buying an imported “American” flag or “native american” jewelry made in China or India. Right now more than any time since the second world war, Americans want to do something to make a difference in our economy and our country’s future. It’s your job to educate the consumer and help them to feel good about buying work that is made by American hands. It will make a positive difference in your sales and in the consciousness of the American buyer. Speak up. be proud to be an American craftsperson.
