Handmade business got you stressed? The 3 most common causes + how to deal with them

when i work with makers i get to see all the stages of their progress from hobby to starting a shop to growing and marketing their business and so i also get to see the impact that each stage has on the makers mindset and on their life in general and something i hear makers and sellers say quite often is it used to be fun now it's stressful and let's face it when you turn your hobby into a business it can get stressful so what can you do when running your shop stops being fun and starts being stressful instead let's dive in bonjour my name is dev and i'm the founder of deset deco a membership community for makers and handmade shop owners just like your fabulous self you can learn more about our community visit hq via the link below this video but for now let's jump straight into today's conversation starting my handmade business was fun but now it's stressful the first piece of advice i give to makers is to step back and take a moment to breathe i know i'm sounding a little bit like your yoga instructor right now but i really mean it relax your shoulders take a deep breath and breathe some of that stress out because you cannot figure out the cause of your stress when you're stressed let's face it it's easy to know that you feel stressed or know that your business is stressing you out and making you feel all sorts of overwhelmed and when this happens it's human nature to say ah i'm so overwhelmed but we just keep trying we want to get things done hoping that if we catch up or we become more efficient somehow we're going to feel less stressed and less overwhelmed and all will be great but what you really need to do is take a moment to ask yourself what is stressful what's the reason stress is there then use that information to work towards an actual solution i like to call this my problem diagnosis solution approach what's that it means that before you can come up with solutions you need to diagnose the issues causing the problem and start from there then you can start to get to the bottom of why you're having this problem determine what things are actually stressful what's the reason that stress is there in the first place once you've done that it's much easier to come up with a plan to alleviate some of that stress to make this easier to understand let's walk through the three specific issues i hear about the most when i work with makers and shop owners that often occurs of this it was fun but now it's stressful feeling the first is financial stress the second is overwhelm and the third is when the vision you had for your business and the reality don't quite match so the problem is that you're feeling stressed and the first thing you need to do is find the issue behind the stress let's start with the first issue you're feeling financial stress when you make things for a hobby it's all about the pure joy of making there is no pressure you can just enjoy the process and celebrate the results but when you make that switch from hobie to business your goals change you have expenses that you need to cover and while before making a bit of a profit was a bonus and you really were just doing it for fun now making a profit is a top priority you need to make money that's financial pressure in a nutshell so if the problem is stress and the cause of the stress for you is financial pressure what's the solution the key here is not putting all your financial eggs into the one new business basket if you're just getting started if you plan to go full time with your business at some stage you want to build a buffer of savings and see sales coming in before you give up your other sources of income so one keep a secondary source of income by this i mean don't quit your day job or if you don't have a job right now find outside revenue streams that will bring in consistent income while you're building your business build a buffer and wait until you see consistent sales coming in before you consider quitting your job to sell your products full time and second is whether you're planning your new business right now or you're in the thick of studying and growing your shop reassess expectations and determine how long it will take to make money it's important to set realistic expectations because unrealistic expectations cause unnecessary stress i have a video called how long would it take to get sales from your handmade or etsy shop that will help you figure this out i'll include the link to it below this video so that you can watch it after you finish watching this one so the overall plan to lower the stress is to remove that financial pressure as much as possible when you do this you are letting yourself have more room to experiment and learn without a time bomb ticking above your head now let's talk about the cause of stress number two overwhelm overwhelm is something that seems to set in once you get your business up and running and it's a very normal and very common issue that i see with sellers coming out of the dream and start stages and getting into the growth stage of the maker's run map let me take a moment here and explain quickly what the makers roadmap is for those of you who might not be tested hq members and not know what i'm talking about right now the makers run wrap is a four step system i created to guide you from starting to growing a successful handmade business it lays up the four stages of building a handmade business in the right order so you know what to do when to do it and how to do it there's four stages to the roadmap the first is dream this is when you're dreaming up your business you're thinking of what you want to sell and how you want to sell it and you're developing a business plan the second is start in this stage you get out of planning mode and you dive into doing mode in order to launch your shop and product collections by the end of this stage you have everything in place to start getting traffic in sales from your shop the third stage is grow this is pretty much the marketing stage it's time to focus on bringing qualified traffic to your shop marketing your products and most importantly getting some sales and finally the fourth stage is scale once traffic is coming in steadily to your site and you're getting consistent sales you are ready to add more traffic and sales channel to your marketing strategy scale up and expand your business okay back to our overwhelm issue why am i sharing the different makers roadmap stages with you how is this related well because when you're in the dream and start stages at the beginning it's really nice and easy because it's linear right you're doing one thing at a time first you decide on what you're going to sell then you create it then you're going to take pictures write a product description add it to your shop etc etc everything happens in a linear manner finish one thing then do the next and it's easy in that way you have an action plan you go through it and that's that but when you move to the growth stage which is marketing suddenly it feels like you need to be everywhere at once you're managing orders and customers and your different sales platform maybe you're on instagram and on pinterest and you're trying to do email marketing as well and suddenly it feels like a lot it feels like everything is happening at once and it can be very stressful and overwhelming so if the problem is stress and it goes by this newly discovered overwhelm what's the solution my first tip is always do less and follow the journal or joy of missing out philosophy i cannot emphasize this enough so many times i see makers trying to do way too much or trying to be on all the social media platforms they're on etsy or they have their own website they're on pinterest and facebook and instagram and they're trying to do the best they can on all those different platforms but that's like physically impossible there's not enough time in the day for it it causes stress and overwhelm and eventually you will run yourself into a wall that's why i tell the makers i work with to practice jomo the joy of missing out when you follow jomo you learn that focusing on just one or two key platforms and doing those platforms really well will bring you much better results than trying to be all over the place which is not efficient in terms of marketing and results like it can't work next i want you to develop systems so as i talked about at the beginning of your business everything you do is linear you can make a handy checklist with things like take product photo write product description for that product and then upload that product to my shop for example then you just work your way through it and it feels nice and you can stay on schedule but now that you're in the growth stage and focusing on marketing things aren't linear anymore they become cyclical you have to do pinterest maybe every week every month instagram maybe every day maybe some stuff some every week every month and so it it just feels overwhelming because you feel like every day you have a million things to do and when that happens you have to go from a to-do-list approach to creating systems for your cyclical activities you're going to create systems for your instagram strategy you're going to create systems for your pinterest strategy your email marketing strategy all these things so that they are organized now i know some of you are not liking hearing the word system but truthfully all the system is is a plan for when you will do something each week each month each quarter and what you will do having systems in place is the one and only way to grow your handmade business successfully and it will save you a ton of time so that you have time for fun and creative things the things that actually bring you joy i have a video called the reality of growing a successful handmade business that helps you decide which to do's needs systems and as examples to help you create your own i'll put the link for it in the results section down below if you want to watch it after this one now cause of stress number three something else that can happen is realizing that what you wanted your business to look like and how you envision it fitting into your life doesn't match with what it actually looks like in real life when you first get excited about an idea you follow through and implement it because that's just what creative and entrepreneurial people do right you see what other sellers that are successful or maybe doing and you're inspired by that and you want to do that for your business but all this excitement means that you might not spend a lot of time thinking about what it means for you long term or how it's going to fit in with your life or maybe you do but once you start the business it doesn't fit into your life the way you thought it would so let's look at a few examples here example one imagine that you paint watercolor illustrations and your entire marketing strategy revolves around launching a new original collection every month your business model is built on original art and you've built a personal brand as an artist on for example instagram and that was really fun for a couple of years but now you're starting to feel creatively drained and a little stressed each month you might feel pressured to create and it's removing the love that you had for your art plus you're realizing that it's not sustainable long term because what if you want three months to go on a holiday does that mean that you skip three collection and you sacrifice three months of income another example of that vision not quite matching the reality is imagine if you became very successful selling large home decor pieces like say woven or knitted wall hanging large one right custom one they're very time consuming to make as they're literally a piece of art and for that reason they are expensive so in terms of the numbers your business works you have a good profit margin and in fact if you sell you know five to seven a month you're golden and you're making a really nice wage for yourself you're happy with that there's no need or pressure to have a huge number of sales each month this business model has been working great but what you didn't maybe consider is that when an order comes in you certainly have to make room to create that time-consuming item time that you didn't necessarily plan for that week so you can't push it out because that person is waiting for the item to be shipped and so you're super stressed every time an order come in and you're working very late at night and if you get three orders in one week it's panic maybe you didn't have kids before and it was fine but in the last couple of years you've grown your family so you have even less time flexibility and so this business model isn't really working for you anymore if that happens you might start wondering if it would be easier to have smaller items getting sold more regularly rather than those big custom items or maybe a mix of both now if you recognize yourself in one of these examples or you might not but you might start thinking about how your business fits into your life and thinking yeah actually there are some gaps there it's not exactly the way i need it to be for it to work for me and not the other way around if that it's the case and you're like what have i done what have i built i've built a business that doesn't work for me here's what i want you to remember you built it you can distract it and rebuild it differently it's normal for a business to grow and change and you can absolutely deconstruct what you've built and rebuilt it differently if there is stress caused by how your business is working right now it's time to think about how you can change that to reduce that stress and make it work better for you of course you need to do this in a way that still brings the money it is a business and you need to be making a profit i know you need to make a consistent wage and my goal with anyone i work with is to help them make consistent income with their shop but it's also important that you do it in a way that works for you and fits well within your life there is no one way to make this work you need to find yours every maker and every business is different you don't have to copy what you see other successful sellers do they have a completely different set of circumstances in their life that you might not have and vice versa so you always want to filter ideas by asking how would that fit inside of my life go back to basics and ask yourself what are my goals maybe some have changed or you've realized new ones based on what hasn't been working for you in your current business model what do i have available in terms of time and flexibility then reverse engineer how your business can fit around those constraints and start pivoting and shifting your business model so that it works better for you so all the things we've talked about here implementing systems to make your life easier matching your business model with your life and your lifestyle reinventing how you do things and finding what works for you these are what we love to help our members do inside visit hq we have all the courses you need plus supportive coaching calls and accountability calls that help keep you on track so if you feel you'd benefit from some support and guidance as you work out what works for you join us at this hq and let us help you get your business off the ground or take it to the next level i'll put the link below to learn more and to join the membership thanks for watching make sure to check the links below and until next time

Channel: Deborah Engelmajer

Views: 984

Keywords: craft business stress, craft business tips, crafting business, etsy business, etsy business overwhelm, etsy business stress, etsy business tips, etsy seller, etsy shop stress, etsy shop success, etsy strategies, handmade business overwhelm, handmade business stress, handmade business tips, tizzit, handmade business, craft business, how to start an online business, start a handmade business, creative business tips, how to be successful on etsy, online business tips

Id: uDcc222Pc4s

Length: 14min 50sec (890 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 05 2021