I've been running my handmade business for over a decade and I have helped a lot
of other people build their own businesses.
I have seen that there are four distinct stages of handmade business for
different income or sales levels that are quite different from each other.
In this video,
I'm going to break those down and explain to you what you need to do at each of
those different levels so you can start leveling up.
Hi, my name is may and I help makers,
artists and designers make a consistent income from selling their handmade
products online.
So the very first stage is where I've seen people spend the most time in.
This is the stage where you're trying to get to your first $1,000 if you've been
following me for a while,
you might know that one of the things I like to say is that the hardest sale or
the hardest thing for every handmade business owner is making that very first
sale to a total stranger.
That is the ultimate validation that your product has demand in the market.
When someone who doesn't owe you anything,
likes what you do so much that they are willing to give you their hard earned
money in exchange for that awesome thing you make. Now at this point,
what makes it so challenging is you're most likely in a position where you've
never run a business before so you don't even know how all of this stuff works.
Not to mention you're most likely fairly new at monetizing your craft,
so you may not be new at making whatever it is you do,
whether that's jewelry design or painting or crocheting or sewing bags.
Maybe you've done that for decades,
but what you're probably new to is how to sell those things you make.
There's a slight but very important shift you have to make.
You have to go from making things you want to make to making things that other
people want to buy.
This is what a lot of people struggle with and it's what I struggled with when I
first started.
I might have a passion for making purple frost cupcakes,
but no one wanted that. This shift can take you a while,
maybe even years to become comfortable with,
and that's why that first $1,000 will feel like the most difficult to get.
Then the next hardest thing is finding more of that first person who's bought
from you so you can keep making more sales.
Most likely that first customer came totally by surprise and you're not sure how
to replicate that,
but this is why it's so important at the beginning to talk to your few
customers, to ask them questions like, why they bought your product,
who did they buy it for? What was the one thing that made them actually buy?
You can just email your customers after they've purchased.
You'll be surprised that many people are happy to share that information with
you. Now with that information,
you now know what you need to do to tweak your product or your business so you
can attract more of that person to buy from you. In this first stage,
you're still figuring out your product and your customer.
The second stage is getting to your first $10,000 at this point between 1000 and
$10,000 you're probably in that position where you're trying to figure out,
okay, how do I get in front of more customers?
Because you're pretty clear about what your product is and who your customer is.
The marketing side of things start to become more of your focus. Instead,
you'll do some craft shows, events, farmer's markets.
You might even set up an Etsy shop. Get more serious with social media.
You might sign up for business courses.
I have a really in depth program called A Sale a Day business system.
It has a ton of success stories. If you're interested to learn more,
click on the link in the description to attend our free online workshop first
that then talks about that course. But I digress. In the second stage,
you're probably feeling like you have no idea what you're doing and you might
end up trying all the things at once.
You're going to dabble in everything,
but what happens is none of the things you are doing is really moving the needle
that much. You've heard it before, right? Jack of all trades,
master of none.
You're spreading yourself too thin and you're probably not doing any one thing
right enough that it gets you great results and so you get no results or
mediocre results.
But with enough craft shows and maybe you get in the radar of a few local
boutiques, you make a few sales on Etsy and in your online shop,
definitely do a holiday craft show.
You can definitely and pretty easily make it to that $10,000 Mark.
Even if it feels like you're flailing around, walking around in the dark,
not knowing what you're doing. Enter the third stage.
This is the sales level between $10,000 and $100,000 now,
I know that sounds like a huge range,
but honestly I've seen that whether you're at $30,000 or $80,000 you're doing
more or less the same thing in that range, but just at a larger scale.
What I've seen becomes the focus during the stage is you're getting more
strategic about where to focus your time.
So in stage two you tried all the things right?
In stage three you are picking and choosing just the things that have already
gotten you great results and then you're doing more of that.
You've stopped doing all the craft shows that are not profitable.
In stage two you've spend a bit of time trying a lot of different shows out,
right? In stage three you know which ones are good for you,
so that in itself helps save you time.
You're not spending all your time doing live events anymore at this point.
You've probably also got some momentum doing wholesale,
so you also scale that up and try to reach out to more brick and mortar stores
and what I've seen can really help you get to your first 100,000 is with getting
your products in the media.
I have a great video that talks about how you can do that.
If you want to learn how I got to my first five figure month of sales ever
because I got featured on a popular website over the holidays and then I got to
my first $80,000 in sales again for that for one year.
Also because I had a media mention that year and I got to my first multiple six
figure sales year because I got my products on a TV show.
No other form of organic marketing I know can have this kind of impact on your
business and as long as you keep showing up for your business and you don't
regress to previous stages,
you will continue to grow because every year you're building equity into your
business. With all the promotional and marketing efforts that you've been doing,
every craft show you do is at least a few dozen,
if not hundreds of people who are made aware of your existence.
A first time wholesale buyer becomes a repeat customer. The next year.
Your media mentions live a long time so you'll still have people buying from you
because they saw you in a magazine like two years ago.
All the things you're doing will start to build upon itself,
so it's natural to see growth year after year. That's what happened to me.
That first $10,000 was so hard to do and I felt like I didn't know what I was
doing. I didn't have a plan or a strategy and I was in learning mode,
but I was still able to get to 10 K anyway,
but then the next year after that I got to 30,000 and the year after that 80,000
it might feel like a big jump,
but honestly there was not much different between those two numbers.
Finally, the fourth stage is when you get to multiple six figures.
This is where things start to look quite different because this stage is all
about automation systems and using your money to make money for you and that's
with doing paid advertising.
One thing you have to be aware of is that if you're the only person of making
your products and shipping orders,
that you have a maximum capacity for that. I mean,
how many products can you make in one day?
How many orders can you ship in a week? Eventually, if you want to keep growing,
you have to realize that hiring help will become a part of your business.
That could be hiring production or shipping help or hiring someone to do
customer service for you or to do some online marketing tasks.
This is the stage where you know you can no longer run your business all by
yourself. I mean,
I think it is still quite possible to run your business alone, right?
Until you get to that 100,000 Mark,
but it's going to be really difficult unless maybe you're in the print on demand
space or you sell wall art or stationary or greeting cards. We're making.
The products don't actually take up that much of your time,
but if you're truly handcrafting your products,
then you'll actually want to start to hire help when you're in stage three
because when you wait until you're in stage four you're going to be too busy to
interview, hire and train anyone,
but definitely in stage four you should probably already be having a team to
help you run your business.
What's interesting is I started doing paid advertising when I started seeing my
business income stopped being so directly tied to my effort and it makes sense,
right? As you build your team,
your capacity for making products and fulfilling orders becomes greater.
You're no longer needed to put in one hour to make X amount of dollars.
In fact,
you're now in a CEO position where your hourly income rate far exceeds what you
were making before in the previous stages.
Once I got to that point where I could remove myself from my business because so
much of it was automated,
I started putting the money I was making from my business into paid ads so I
could have that money make money for me.
Paid ads is a lot like automating and scaling sales and marketing.
I'm no longer relying on wholesale or craft shows or organic social media to
help me make sales.
I am no longer relying on wholesale or craft shows or organic social media to
help me make sales,
but I'm still able to make multiple six figures in sales because of Facebook
ads. If you enjoyed this video,
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