How To Start a Online Stationery Business in 2021 | The Necessary Steps from Fear to Launching

all right so you're ready to create your first planner maybe your notebook maybe t-shirts maybe i don't know mugs um maybe you're interested in doing stickers whatever the case may be this video is going to be for you because i really wanted to take some time to sit down and really walk you through the process of how to get started and the very first thing i want to say is it may come as a shock maybe not but the very first step has nothing to do with the products themselves and so if you are interested in learning a little bit more about how to start your very own stationery business stay tuned hey guys welcome back to my channel my name is tatiana and i'm the owner of the stationery muse and i love to inspire women to go for what they want in their lives with entrepreneurship being very very high on my list i'm so passionate about women starting businesses and so in today's video i'm going to be talking all about my build framework which was created for my group coaching program the inspire blueprint that is my program where i work with women to start their own creative product based businesses specifically stationery but i do work with some other different types of entrepreneurs as well and i'm just excited to teach you guys this framework because i think it's really going to help you get a hold on what are some of the first steps and just the necessary things that you need to do in order to start your stationery business so i'm just going to dive right in because i want to make sure that we can get everything covered and do it within somewhat of a timely manner and so the build framework is essentially a framework that is very similar to that of a house and so if you think about this business that you want to start as a home okay and really think about all of the different parts that go into creating a house you got the foundation you got all of the fixtures and the framing and all those different things and so i want you to think about your business as such and so if we were to put the roof on the house before we actually had opportunity to build a foundation that would be a problem and so the very first part of the build framework which is an acronym so each letter within the word is going to have a breakdown of this process is to become an entrepreneur and when i think of the word become i really think of it in a sense of mindset i really think of it in a sense of really letting go of those strongholds on you that have stopped you in the past when i'm talking about mindset first of all i'm talking about getting fear out of the way eliminating the fear that is holding you back because sometimes it's just a matter of oh my gosh but what if i do so well and then i don't know how to keep up with the dollar what if i fail maybe you've done something in the past and you are scared to try again because it didn't go well and if you guys have heard my story i had many situations where i thought things were going to work one way and they didn't and so i understand the whole just the feeling of feeling like you failed feeling like you're not enough and i think that it really attributes to just fear and fear to me can look so different it can come in so many different forms doubt is another really big one where you know maybe you just kind of based off of your track record within your own mind i'm sure other people around you may believe that you can do it but it really doesn't matter until you believe that you can do it and so really it's a place to address those things that hold you back that are deep down inside that every time you get ready to go do something and then you stop and so if you haven't checked out my free fair model for goals training make sure you check that out because that's really going to help you to overcome all of those mindset issues that you may be facing and this also gives you opportunity to realize too when you're thinking about mindset of comparison because when you get ready to start a business it's so easy to look around at what everyone else is already doing but as i say so many times you never know the person that you're seeing they might be on step z within their process and you're on step a you have no idea what happened with all those other letters in between you have no idea of the setbacks that they faced or the challenges you just you don't know and so it's so easy for us to assume based off of what we see and so this is a great opportunity to kind of just cut all of that out cut out the negativity and really just focus on the positive things focus on the reasons as to why you want to start this business in the first place and this is also a really great time to start kind of figuring out what are the different things i actually have a whole video on this as well of how you can actually get your business like legit and set up but really start to research you know what are the things within your state that are needed to get an llc or to get the entity that you want do you need a business license every state has different things so you want to make sure that you check into that and you can start researching that within this phase of becoming an entrepreneur i've said this before and even in that video that i mentioned that you don't have to wait until you get to a certain point you should already be treating it like it's a business and kind of moving forward as such so definitely make sure that you watch that video if you want to learn a little bit more about how to actually set up your business um entity and just some of the first things that you want to do as far as kind of more of like official getting official for your business i think it's also important to just kind of note and again i'm just kind of really giving a general idea of the build framework so of course if you're interested in the full deep dive of everything make sure you click the link down below to get on the waitlist so that you can be part of the next group of women that are going to be a part of this when it relaunches again in the spring and so the other part of what i was going to say is that within this whole becoming an entrepreneur thing i am so big on making sure that you have one thing that you are focusing on i feel like i have so many videos on these different topics so i'm going to be linking them in the cards for you guys but it's so important to address what is that one thing that it is that you want to do because if you are trying to not only first of all become an entrepreneur you're figuring out your mindset you're trying to learn all these new systems and processes and things that you want to do and then on top of that you're trying to juggle 20 new types of products it's just not realistic and so i always suggest with anybody that i work with to pick one thing so whether you just want to work on stickers whether you just want to create notebooks maybe you want to do a planner maybe you want to do a subscription box whatever that may be don't feel like you have to do all of the things right now you will have time and the hope is that honestly your business will do so well that you will have time to roll those things out over the years right so you don't want to feel that way when i first started the stationary muse all i had was a5 planner inserts and i got really good with that and then i started to add on to all of the different things that you guys see that i offer now but it really took time to really get comfortable with one thing allow myself to learn that and then start to add on more and i promise you it may seem kind of crazy in the beginning because like oh but i have so many ideas and things i want to do but when you are in the midst of trying to figure it all out the least amount of the least amount that you can put on your plate the better and i know when i say the word stationary i think sometimes it's like okay well what exactly what type of stationery business do i want to start right because there's cars there's wedding and there's wedding stationery there's kind of like this whole planner world of stationery and stickers and things like that you can get into so many different areas within stationery and you don't have to feel like just because you're doing stationery you have to do cards i feel like i kind of was in that for a moment where i felt like oh i have to have cards because i'm called the stationary muse but stationary is paper products right and so that can look very different and to me i'm kind of in more of the organizational stationery world but there's so many other types and so you really want to figure out when you're figuring out that one product also kind of think of what type of stationary business do i want to be and even beyond that as you grow the stationery muse is more than just paper products i have mugs i have tumblers sweatshirts t-shirts so you don't have to feel like you're boxed into this one thing and you can be other types of stationery i know so many amazing businesses out there that do planners and they have cards and stickers and apparel and all of that and so just keep in mind that i'm not trying to keep you to just be in this box and just have this one product forever but and know that the sky is the limit there's so much that you can do as you grow but just in this moment pick that one thing okay so the next part of the build framework is the you and that is to uncover your purpose and so i did a whole series on my channel um called the frank i did a whole series on my channel and it was all about business foundation so make sure you check out that little mini playlist it really is where you're going to answer the who what and the why of your business and i think it's so important i'm sure you have her you need to know who you are you need to know who you're selling to you need to know who your target audience is and this is really addressing who is that one customer so we have our one product that we talked about right so who is your one customer who is that person that is really going to speak to the brand that you are building and so that is so important to find out you want to create that ideal customer persona and really tell their story you know um address exactly what are the different things that makes this person really want to come and shop with you what are the things that you offer and most importantly what void are you feeling in the market of so much saturation i feel like nowadays so many markets are saturated but what really still works and why so many people can still start a business today and be successful is because they bring different things to the table they bring their unique edge and so it's just a matter of kind of looking around and seeing what makes you unique and so as you do that you'll start to uncover your purpose and within that also part of that uniqueness is what is your story right what are those things that really gives you that unique edge and how can you use that to your advantage to help to sell to your audience and really pull them in draw them in and make them want to shop with you over and over as you do different releases and launches this is what you want to do and so the more that you can uncover your purpose and really get a hold on what exactly it is you want to do you will be so happy that you did because it's almost it's almost like if we go back to the house example it's again it's like okay you're trying to create the product and all of these different things but you haven't yet really set the foundation of the house so it's very important not to skip this step it's really important to know who you are targeting why you're targeting them so once you have gotten your mind set together and then you've actually taken a moment to figure out the who what and why of your business and all of those important things then we can get to the fun stuff we can get to the products which i'm sure is what you guys are really like okay i want to hear about how do i create my first product it's so exciting i do want to quickly do a quick plug so at the time that i'm filming this video there is actually a clubhouse room that i'm going to be hosting on wednesday january 6th and it is going to be taking place at 3 p.m eastern time so if you happen to see this video before then and you're on clubhouse come join me i'm going to be talking about product creation specifically paper products and going to be sharing my six p's of product creation so that's going to be really fun but really quickly to just kind of explain to you guys this is a very important part of the process the eye and build is ideas to reality and your ideas all of the different things you have in your head all of that inspiration maybe you've been saving you've been seeing everybody else's notebooks you've been seeing everybody else's shirt companies but now you're ready to dive in and try it yourself and so when you think about all those ideas do that brain dump get it all out of your mind and really think what is something that i can realistically launch within the next 90 days and 90 days to me really gives you an opportunity to kind of push yourself not rush but really push yourself to actually make this thing happen because a lot of times what will happen is we will continue to research ourselves to death to the point where we'll look up and a whole year has gone by and we haven't even started yet we still got our load notebook full of our notes and things that we took but we have yet to take any action and so 90 days really gives you enough time to get the information you need and realistically launch your first product now is it going to be something where it's like this huge planner launch where you're working with the company overseas and it takes several months to go back and forth and get samples and things like that in order to make it happen and then who even knows how long it'll take to get shipped no but if you're thinking about opening up a sticker shop you can definitely within 90 days get everything that you need for your sticker shop create some of your first products take pictures and all of that stuff and then actually make it happen and so when you are in the process of creating a product it's really important to research your product research the market what are people already doing within that market how much are they charging right um what are some of the different places that you will need in order to make this thing happen so you know like where are you going to get your stuff where are you going to order your different items and things like your paper and all that stuff i love online labels especially if you're using the sticker company represent the sticker company example online labels is a great place most businesses use it but there's so many others i swear by amazon you guys i don't sleep on amazon majority of the stuff that i purchase for my business in some way shape or form amazon is involved and that is just the honest truth um i get asked all the time what are different places that i work with as far as like manufacturers and different resources and it's so hard to answer everybody's question and so what i decided to do was to put it in a guide for you guys it's called the creatives toolbox which i'm so excited about i've actually had it for a little while but i've been consistently adding to it so it's a growing guide that will give you all of my vendors that i use manufacturers also in addition to that just the different podcasts i like books like it's just all everything that will maybe take you like months to research all in one place so if you're interested in kind of getting all of that just basic information of who do i even get to help me with this thing what tool do i need for this definitely check out the creative's toolbox link down below and you can pick that up because it's going to be just such a imperative part of just the beginning part of your business it'll give you all of those just kind of like gray area questions of what you need to actually get started like what manufacturer and things like that so make sure you check it out um but once you kind of figure out what product you are going to actually create again think about all those different steps so once you know who's involved like what tools you need what manufacturer you're going to be using and different things like that then it's time to really get into that creation phase and when you think about creating your product are you going to create it are you more like me are you going to do it more kind of like handmade or are you going to work with a company that does it for you that's always a really big question and it's something that you definitely want to figure out because for example i am doing handmade planners over here y'all it takes a lot of work it takes a lot of patience and it's something that i actually value and i love i did my research i went online i did some trial and error and i figured out how to create this planner by hand to make it work but on the flip side that's more of my time it's more labor on my part versus if maybe i worked with a company overseas or even a company here in the united states where yes they would definitely be able to help me i wouldn't have to do anything as far as like the physical making of the product um but there's different things that come with that and so one of the reasons why i ended up doing it myself just to kind of give you guys a little bit of an insight is because when i looked overseas first of all the stationary muse is really big on just customization and making things your own and so automatically i felt like i couldn't really offer the experience i wanted as far as customization because well i couldn't really get like different designs like one design had to be like 500 or a thousand and i just kind of felt like okay first of all that's a lot of planners especially it's my first time i'm not 100 sure i might want to make changes and things and so i decided to take the more handmade approach i worked with a local printer here in new mexico in the albuquerque area and what i have found is that even though it still does cost me quite a bit to source all of the materials and different things like that it really allows me to make a change on the fly without feeling like i have all this crazy amount of inventory already made that i have to now sell through so it allows me to really sell like a small amount see how that goes and then re-release it and so that's really been helpful for me and so when you're thinking about like okay should i make this myself should i work with somebody it really just comes down to of course finances what makes the most sense financially but also are you willing to do it because once you get that sale it's exciting but then you have to also deliver on your end as well to make it happen so always look at it on that flip side like handmade doing things yourself can be very like glamorizing looking and things but it does require a lot of work and patience so i just want to throw that out there but it's a very important question to ask and the stationery muse has a nice mix of both i have some items that i do drop shipping with i have items that i make here like my stickers for example the planner the planner is kind of like i work with the company to do the inside pages and then i make the covers and bind them all together so it's really like you can have a lot of different things that happen as your business grows again start with that one thing but when you're thinking of that first product i really just want you to think of okay do like this sounds cool and all but do i really want to make this myself and i know that's what i'm big on on this channel but it's still a really important question to ask and so also part of this stage within the build framework as well is okay are you going to sell on etsy are you going to sell on shopify are you going to have a wordpress site wix um there's so many different options out there and i literally just named like a handful of them um so you really want to address where do you want to sell things on i 100 recommend having a website as an e-commerce business i know that some people will say oh i just have a paypal account or people can just cash at me i promise you that just the level of professionalism in itself is enough to want to invest in a website but also just to have your own home because if you rely on social media and things like that social media changes so much that i would never want you to rely solely on that for your business and for all of your sales and things to come from that i know we got facebook shop instagram shop and all that stuff which are great features to have but that needs to be in addition to you having your own place so my highest suggestion that i always say to people when they ask me like what should i sell on i love etsy i'm actually gonna be reopening an etsy shop soon myself because it's nice to have like multiple diff like it's nice to have just different places where people can shop with you of course but also etsy is just one of those great platforms where you just get natural traffic i was on etsy for about three years and what i really loved about it was that even if i didn't show up on social media or a video or something like that i would get random sales and i'm not saying that it doesn't mean you don't ever have to promote you don't have a show for yourself you want to still do that but i find that with etsy people can just be randomly searching something and if your product is tagged properly and you have everything listed the right way you can come up in that search and so you might be that person that they decide to shop with you know so i really do always suggest etsy as a first place to start and then you can gradually move away from it but there are so many amazing and successful businesses that just stay on etsy as well so that's my suggestion i know everybody has their things to say about it and fees and all of that and you know if you're feeling a certain way definitely share your comment down below but um i love etsy and that's what i always suggest it's just a great natural place to just kind of get traffic when you don't really have a following just yet and then you can build from there so the next part of the build model is the l and that is to launch with confidence i did a whole webinar on this and what's really cool about launching is it's one of my favorite things to do honestly i love being in launch phases and i love the whole just kind of beginning part of it i actually have a whole just kind of breakdown of how to launch i have to share that with you guys in another video but the main thing to note in this part is that your lodge should not be one day it shouldn't be a situation of where like okay all of a sudden you make this social media page then two days later you put up this logo that you have and then the next day there's a picture of the product hey y'all it's for sale no no no no okay this is an opportunity for you to really get in touch with your audience it's a chance for you to build a relationship and to really educate them on what you're doing and who you are nowadays if you are a solopreneur people need to know who you are as well it's just kind of part of this day and age that we're in they want to know the behind the scenes they want to know about you and most importantly tying back to your story right the whole reason of why you are unique and why they want to shop with you you want to continuously pull that in and so you need to be doing a launch that is a lot longer than a couple days a lot longer than a week i would really be shooting for a month or longer and that is because it just gives you enough opportunity to really educate your audience again to really give them the inside view kind of like the fly on the wall type of thing of what you have going on and watching you as you grow this business or you start this thing you create this product a great example of this is the lead up to me launching my planner i shared the process from the beginning of when i just thought it was an idea to me actually making it and purchasing everything and stuff coming in i shared that process you guys followed me along with that and that is all part of my launch strategy it was all part of me priming my audience so that they were aware of okay she's working on something oh that looks cute i want it and so i really encourage you to do that as well and your launch strategy can be filled with video social media posts giveaways tons of different things but the point is make it longer than just a brief amount of time the more the longer you do it the better because you really want to educate your audience but again within that 90 days i want to keep you know remember remind you of that because you don't want to put it off too long again to the point of where they're like okay well she's clearly not ever going to release this thing so i guess that's just it and also within that launch period definitely think about creating well not even think about definitely do create an email list and create a way for people to get pulled to your email list create an opt-in i actually have a video all about email opt-ins as well that i will link up in the cards for you this is an opportunity for you to get your email list to start growing before you even make a sale and this will be warm leads people that you know that are interested in what you have to offer so definitely make sure that you put that in your launch strategy as well and so the last part is the d which is to develop and grow so once you do finally launch one thing that i think a lot of times people forget is like there's a whole business still going on you still have to maintain things you need to have good customer service you need to stay organized you need to know what's coming up next whether that's in the next quarter the next year the next three years whatever it may be and so it's important to really kind of sit down and identify okay how do i want to be organized in my business i love project management systems i currently am using click up and i really love that i've used trello for a long time as well it's something that allows for me to digitally connect with my stuff as well as my business planner i'm a huge paper planner so it's very important for me to be able to write things down but then i also need alarms and stuff to remind me of what's happening and that i can change things quickly and so i have a little bit of a hybrid system over here of how i keep track of everything but it's important for you to address exactly how it is that you want to stay organized i love google drive for all things like spreadsheets and stuff that way you can keep up with your inventory you can keep up with the costs of things and just really get a feel for like the different areas so you know finance um inventory just operations in general and that is a way to make sure that your business is never catching you by surprise you always know what's going on because you are creating these systems and these processes and you're setting yourself up for success so at the end of the year for example you're not sitting down like okay i don't know how much money i spent on this which is something that i'm trying to get better at finances it's kind of like my very not it's finances is not my strong suit and so that's something that i'm really working on in this current season of my business is really trying to get a hold on my finances make sure that i'm doing everything properly as far as expenses are concerned making sure i'm paying myself all of that stuff is important and so the earlier you can do it and start to create these systems the better don't wait for well oh i'll wait until i reach this amount of followers or oh i'll wait until this do it now and that whole thing about followers in itself followers does not equal the amount of success that your business has it has nothing to do with the amount of sales the income none of that so never feel like just because you have just a handful of followers or whatever it is that that equates to anything because i promise you it really really doesn't so i really hope that this video was helpful for you the main thing that i wanted you to take away from this is that everything has a process and it has an order to things and so even though you may be excited and you're ready to dive in and create that first thing it's really important to sit down and address some of those really crucial steps within the build framework so if you guys have any questions about anything definitely them down below and i'll see you guys in the next video bye

Channel: Tatiana Muse

Views: 35,220

Rating: 4.9554567 out of 5

Keywords: stationery shop, sticker shop, the stationery muse, how to start a stationery business, how to start an online business, stationery business ideas, business advice for beginners, business advice motivation, where to get stationery printed, tatiana muse, how to start a business, entrepreneur motivation, business tips, mompreneur ideas, entrepreneur tips, how to start a sticker shop, how to start a stationery business at home, how to start a small stationery business

Id: 9cUQzm9Pw0c

Length: 25min 11sec (1511 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 05 2021