Thursday, August 28, 2008

The Times They Are A'Changing


          The unknown is a frightening thing. In spite of the fact that humans are an amazingly adaptable species we still get very hung up on the uncertainty of what's around the bend. Some people never get over their fear of making changes in their lives, but if you can push yourself out of your comfort zone you may very well learn that you are capable of a lot more than you expected. Running a successful business has a lot to do with change. Are you willing to take calculated risks? How well are you able to adapt your business strategy in an ever-changing marketplace? 
         
 Two of the original founders of Etsy, the main site on which I sell my handcrafted jewelry have just announced they will be leaving. This abrupt and surprising news brought with it much speculation and doomsaying about the future of Etsy as a company. I guess this really isn't a big surprise because a lot of people depend on Etsy's continued success for their own financial livelihood, and any time any sort of change has occured, it's been met with resistance and claims that yes, the sky is in fact falling. 
       

  I don't think Etsy is going anywhere but up. Growing a business is an evolution, and change can be a scary thing. I'm sad that Chris and Haim are leaving, because they're obviously leaders... but they may have outgrown their jobs now that Etsy is growing and maybe they have found new opportunities to really shine and challenge themselves. 
 

Friday, August 22, 2008

717 Butterflies... and counting


Every time I put a new item in my shop, I get butterflies in my stomach. Every time I sell something I get butterflies in my stomach. It's been over a year now and it still happens to me. 

Saturday, August 16, 2008

The Lean Mean Crafting Machine


Keeping diligent and detailed accounting is one of the best and smartest things you can do for your small business. This is something I learned the hard way, but it's 100% true and could even save your business.


When I first started Damselle, I knew I would need to keep records and file my taxes properly and do some math blah blah..... but I'm the artistic type. I knew from doing some rough figures that my profit should be about 75% of my total sales and shoot... My work is so fabulous and I'm so determined......of course it's going to be great!

So I took that ball and ran with it. And didn't look back for a couple months. I knew it was going to be tough going at first anyways. My husband was pushing me to start making spreadsheets with detailed information, but... I'm the artistic type. Math is not fun for me. Yes, I'm totally capable and I understand the numbers once I bother to look at them... but looking at them might show me that everything was going horribly wrong and my business was not viable after all.

So finally, after cleaning every wooden molding in the house, polishing the record player, and searching for every other thinly veiled distraction from my task, I sat down and spent many hours looking up the information and creating the spreadsheets. The first thing I noticed was that once I entered in all my expenses...jewelry supplies, shipping, site fees, advertising, office supplies... I was actually making about 50% profit and not 75%. That is a pretty big difference and was completely disheartening. I would need to be doing much higher volume for those numbers to be acceptable.

Then I started looking harder. I noticed fairly quickly that I was spending too much money on supplies compared to what I was using up. Granted, I wanted to have some stockpiled for holidays etc. but looking at my supply, I was a veritable dragon sitting on a horde. I also noticed that the amount I was spending on advertising was too high compared to how much money I was bringing in. The ads were effective, but increasing the spending on said ads hadn't really increased sales as much as I had anticipated. There. I had my first action plan right in front of me.

You can't make good business decisions if you don't really know what's going on. I try to do my accounting once a week to every two weeks at the minimum to give my self a little business meeting, see where I'm at, what needs attention... can I buy those new beads I wanted to try this week or am I cutting it too close? How are my shipping costs? Am I losing money on wrapping and tape? Do I need to tweak my pricing? Are my custom orders priced well? How can I lower the cost of shipping and office supplies?

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Custom Order Mania




        I have been doing a *lot* of custom jewelry recently. It's been pretty exciting, and it really challenges my creativity and makes me grow and try new things, some of which I explore in more ways through my regular jewelry line. Custom work is also much harder and time intensive. I'm fortunate in that I work very quickly, but there are a lot of decisions and waiting for e-mails back and forth, and waiting for supplies to arrive. In the last few days, I have been taking a new custom client almost every other day. I'm able to get it done so far, but soon I'm going to have to start asking myself how much is too much, for my workload and for my stress level. I think I need to charge more. I'm not desperate for sales anymore and clearly my prices are very attractive. I've never had anyone balk at them. I may need to raise them a bit to make sure it is lucrative for me as well as my client. 

             Also exciting: Some of my jewelry has been blogged on WeddingBee.com and as soon as I was notified, I sold two pieces to a customer who referenced their site. Yay!! (I may also be doing some custom work for the bride-to-be who posted my necklace on WeddingBee.)

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Designing for Myself: The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes


  Since I started my jewelry design business a little over a year ago, money and time have been tight. I don't design jewelry I wouldn't wear, and mostly, I'm absolutely in love with my designs. But I'm running a business in order to support myself and I can't really keep very much of it for my own use.  In the last few months I've made a couple repeat necklaces for myself.. from items that I am able to produce over and over, but the lovely, one of a kind pieces incorporating vintage treasures are all sold away. I can't afford to keep them in spite of the fact that they are really special to me. I always feel a pang when I sell these pieces.

  Last night, however... I made a one of a kind necklace from a vintage pansy brooch and lovely yellow beads. It was very beautiful.. and very *me*... my favorite color.. casual enough to wear every day, but still in my vintage formal style. I showed it to my husband and he agreed that it was perfectly my style and that it was a shame I could only create one necklace. As I started writing the description of the necklace for my shop... talking about how the necklace would look great with so many things... trying to decide how much I was willing to sell it for. 
Then I reached over with the mouse and deleted the listing for the necklace. This one is mine and I'm going to look fabulous. 

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Killing Two Birds with One Stone: Audiobooks


 I love my job. It's my dream job and if I have to work for a living, I can't think of anything I'd rather do. That being said, right now my job dominates my existence in a major way and gives me little down time. Also, I get really fidgety when I have to sit at my desk for long periods of time making my craft. I constantly think to myself... "Okay, just this one strand and then I'm going to check my e-mail. Or my Etsy account. Or get a glass of water.... or peer out the window.... or sing a little song to my goldfish....and *then* I'm going to get right back to work! " I probably take a break every half hour or so and my fidgeting really cuts into my productivity. I was able to get away with it during the slow summer months of vacations and barbecue holidays but now my shop is really picking up again, I have several custom clients at once right now, and customers are abandoning the cheeky bright colors of spring and summer for more sultry, rich autumn tones. 

   I have not read a book in at least 6 months. I was ashamedly lamenting this to a close friend of mine over a glass of wine. I live in a house with over 4,000 books. In my home, we display our books proudly as the family wealth. I may not have read a book in almost a year. My friend suggested I get books on CD from the library or download them from one of the many online sites created just for this purpose. It seemed like a good idea, but I would definitely not have ever followed through except that he burned some of his personal favorites onto a disc and handed it to me to take home. 


   Okay, books on cd are *awesome!* The first one I listened to was Hitchhiker's Guide as read by Douglas Adams. It was really cool to hear the author infusing the character's voices with the personality that he had originally imagined for them. I was able to sit at my desk and be extremely productive, while the time sped by in a breeze. Problem solved! I'll be going to the library later this week to check out audiobooks later this week!

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Death, Introspection, Self Actualization, A Cow


I haven't posted for about a week due to a tragic freak accident in my family involving a motorcycle and a black cow crossing a dark country road. This event, and the necessary and appropriate emotions and time spent with family left me with a lot of things I felt I needed to spend some time with.

When someone dies, people take stock of what they have left. If I died today... what would I regret? Am I happy.. and is that enough? How do you measure a life? I feel a strong sense of my own mortality, and get very introspective. In this specific instance, I made some macabre cow jokes with my husband to self-medicate against the senselessness of the absurd world we live in. Inappropriate, I know. We do what we can to get by. Humans are a very adaptable species. 
At this point in my life I feel pretty ok with who I am and where I'm going. After all, it was only a little over a year ago that I found out I was losing my job and in the midst of the panic and self-doubt I realized I had wasted some years of my life and was not living my life on my terms. 
It was then that I began to redefine my values and accept that I would need to take more risks in order to do what I love. Now my goal is to stabilize and grow my own business to a level at which my husband is able to be liberated from his demanding job with long hours so that we can spend more time together and have the freedom to choose our own path. 
I know we rarely get to choose our demise... but I'd be okay with a shocking, abrupt, and completely unpredicted death by cow. It's senseless and bizarre, but no one is to blame. It's just... one of those things, and maybe.... in a few years, my death would be immortalized in family toasts. The cow was unharmed.