Supplies for Sale
We've got a spare EZ-UP (express II) cover for sale, white, it's water resistant but not waterproof. Great for shade and for places where you only get a light rain. It leaks along the seams in a heavy rain.
Also a cash register, works but will need new ink/tape soon (it's light). It is missing one of the spring arm things that holds the money down, but the others are intact. We got it secondhand so we never had a manual.
If you're interested, let us know. They'll go on ebay soon and I'll put a link here.
Labels: display, small biz
On creating business credit
There's an interesting article in the NYTimes Small Business section about establishing business credit.
How to Improve Your Business’s Credit. It has a list of steps to take, none of which sound that hard, that will help your new business establish a credit rating. The basic steps are:
- Name and establish your business
- Get an EIN from the IRS
- Get a business phone number
- Open a business checking account
- (all of these steps so far make sense even if you never want credit)
- Take your business phone bill and checking account info to your local Staples *(or any local/small town merchant who knows you personally) and get a line of credit.
- Ta-da!
Labels: articles, small biz
Websites and Such
I was in the library today looking for something on marketing, and came across a book called The One Minute Millionaire. It is 377 pages long. I'm a fast reader and even I can't read 377 pages in one minute. Maybe I need to work on turning the pages faster, limber up my arm or something.
As a followup to my post
where to spend the (nonexistent) money, here's one on websites. A question many startup businesses ask is "should I have a website". Well, you need to think about why you'd have a website (to sell direct, to advertise another way of buying like phone or craft fairs, to solicit special orders, to be a gallery for retail stores to see your items, etc). Then you need to allocate your (nonexistent) cash to the various things you need to do, and decide if a website is something you can afford. Ours is hosted on the cheap, and that means I spend more time trying to make things work (my kingdom for a database) but right now my time is cheap compared to a full service hosting site. Maybe next year we'll have enough cash and my time will be better spent making more jewelry rather than fiddling with xml files, and we'll upgrade to a better server.
Related article:
Is Your Website a Money Maker or Money Pit?Labels: small biz
Where to spend the (nonexistent) money
I've found an interesting article
What Should My Business Buy When. We're in the process of growing, and we have two added factors (above those mentioned in the article):
1. We're in a seasonal business. Most of our sales are done in Nov and Dec for Holiday gifts. We may get a bump before Valentine's Day, and Mother's Day, and we sell a bunch of our lower priced stuff in the summer at the Farmer's Market, but the bulk of our sales are Holiday season.
2. We are able to finance the business personally, without really taking out loans. Our business is small enough that if one of us can loan it a thousand dollars through Christmas, it can make a big difference. A bank would require a longer history, interest payments, and a repayment schedule that might start before our big sales.
Anyway, the article is worth reading if you have (or plan to start) a small business.
Labels: small biz
Fashion Advice
I've just found Kathleen Fasanella's blog on fashion manufacturing,
Fashion-Incubator. By that I mean clothing, and not the retail end of it. Still it has a lot of useful info for us, and makes for great reading. Do not miss the comments, she's got a group of experienced, thoughful readers.
So I'm skipping over the posts on things like 'paper patterns, soft or hard' (what does that even mean?) but there's lots of useful info for us all in posts like "
How to get publicity":
If I were you, I would try to get as much local press as possible. Try to get local newspapers and publications to mention the fashion show to get better attendance. I would hire, or barter with, a photographer to take pictures of the show, and send those to local publications (along with a press kit) with the hopes that maybe it would fit in with a story they were running, or maybe they would be interested in doing a special piece on a local designer. In other words, crawl before you walk, walk before you run. If you're hand-making 42 pieces since January, you aren't even ready for the type of potential attention that editorial coverage from a publication like that could attract.
Another useful post is
Advertising 101: Part 1:
There is only one purpose for advertising, and that is to result in a sale. I’m painting it with a broad stroke, but realize this: Advertising is the vehicle in which you send your message to your customers.
It's a long post on advertising, and contains lots of useful info on what to analyze first and what the various terms mean (marketing vs PR vs advertising).
Labels: small biz
Website Redesign
We're on step one of the
website re-design, i.e. the design itself. Step two involves paring down the un-essential stuff (e.g. things we only make one or two of like the cards or fabric bowls or whatever) and taking those items in to the consignment store or putting them up on etsy. Step three involves taking pics of all the new jewelry and re-taking the bad pics of existing jewelry.
Here's the old site:
And the new one:
I think the product pages are looking pretty good, but the homepage needs some work. Also the links at the top of the page don't seem to be working. Hmmm...needs some further adjustment.
Labels: small biz
Thoughts to Ponder: Artists and Crafters could use a degree in consumer psychology
I'm reading "Crafts and Craft Shows: How to Make Money" by Philip Kadubec. I avoided this one for a while since the cover is cheaply done and cheesy, but the old saying about judging the book by it's cover still holds true. Anyway, it's a great book. Again, since we're on the high end of craft stuff and the low end of art, there are sections of this book that don't completely apply. He does have good advice about choosing shows and booth design.
From a section on loss leaders (an item priced at or below cost to draw people in, like cheap milk at a convienience store):
"As with everything else in the crafts business, there is an exception. An artist friend of ours, who worked in oils, taught me this. In front of his booth he always had a very large painting that he priced at $5,000. That may seem like an unusual price for a loss leader, but in this case the goal was different. He knew, just as well as I, that virtually no one goes to a craft show to buy a $5,000 painting. If they are going to spend that much money, they'll go to a reputable, established art galler. He never did sell that painting at a craft show, but he sure sold a lot of small paintings and prints. Customers looked at and admired the $5,000 painting; somehow the price established his credentials as an artist. Then they thought they were getting a bargin on anything that they did purchase. "
We've noticed that our most expensive piece never sells as well are our second most expensive piece. And you do have to choose what to bring based on your market...at the farmer's market we bring some of our less expensive stuff, while we're taking all the good stuff to Boston.
Labels: small biz
Book Report: How to Survive and Prosper as an Artist
I think it's about time for a book report. Today's book is: How to Survive and Prosper as an Artist: Selling Yourself Without Selling Your Soul by Caroll Michels.
This book is very oriented towards visual artists, especially those who intend to make a career out of selling art. Therefore, for us as crafty/jewelry people who are planning on staying part-time for about the next five years, some of the advice isn't all that relevant. However there are a lot of interesting things in the book, and a lot that will be useful to us now and in the future.
She talks about pricing your work (always a hard thing when you're starting out, and sometimes for longer than that), dealing with dealers, presentation and marketing and generating income. Her main point is that the business side of art is important, and the talking points boil down to:
Don't let a dealer take advantage of you: She gives helpful tips for dealing with dealers, which can also be applied to consignment stores. She outlines what is normal in an artist-dealer relationship, which is helpful for new people in the field who might not know what to expect. Without artists making art, art dealers would have nothing to sell...so don't let dealers walk all over you.
Don't assume you need another job on the side to support yourself: Pricing and marketing can help your art bring in enough to support you. There are other other options including illustration, book cover design, fabric design, graphic design, licensing art, printmaking, etc. She discusses the pros and cons of teaching art while launching an art career, and what to look for when choosing a second job outside the art world.
Don't ignore marketing: Don't assume the gallery is going to do the marketing correctly. Plan out your promotion, advertising and publicity, following the enclosed timeline.
The second half of the book is a listing of resources (books, software, websites, organizations, etc) that is pretty useful and can give you an idea of what is out there and what to look for even if the exact group she lists doesn't work out for you.
How can you dislike a book with chapter titles like "10. Rationalization, Paranoia, Competition, and Rejection"?
Labels: small biz
Opportunity Knocks
We've have some exciting developments leading to exciting upcoming events. First and largest in the excitement/terror department, we've been accepted into the
Christmas Festival in Boston. 350 vendors, 31,000 attendees last year. Now we just need to figure out how much stuff to make and take. The worst thing that could happen is to run out of stuff, and the second worst is to take home 600 unsold necklaces, since we don't move inventory all that fast (hopefully that will be changing).
Second development is the brand new co-operative gallery that we're a part of has opened, and during the opening night reception EP sold both of her pieces in the show! EK and I each have one piece (neither sold yet, though I'm not sure we expected them to...). This gallery (
CMAA) has had their lottery for exhibitors for the rest of the year (4-8 person group shows), and EP and I are part of the September group show, and EK is part of the October show. For directions/hours see
this post.
Third development is the upcoming opening of a consignment craft shop in our collective hometown, Enfield NH. This is good for us (we've been asked to provide some things) and also for the town. The town is quite small and the main street shopping area has been pretty empty for years. A new bakery has opened up recently, a couple other business have moved into that building, and now this shop opening up next door approx August 5th. It's all moving forward nicely and the town is doing better.
Last but not least, we are heading into the opening of our yearly Farmer's Market. June 28th is the first market, so I need to get my act together and make sure I'm free Wed afternoons. Of course we bought a nice, new, spiffy EZ-UP that doesn't fit into my tiny car. So, either I have to buy a new vehicle large enough to hold it before June 28 (I think I have $2.63 that I found behind all the couch cushions, but other than that no money) or I have to start borrowing other people's cars. EK lives nearby but her car is, if anything, smaller than mine. It feels really odd at my age to call up my dad and ask to borrow the car...
So all-in-all, this is going to be a year with a lot of opportunity. I guess I had assumed I'd be further along with the house (and maybe have all the repairs done and it on the market by this summer) before things started getting this hectic.
Labels: small biz
