March 18, 2012

Today was a crafting day. I also worked a bit on my next design project. I have to get them in by the end of the week. A few phone calls, one from the person I am designing for to discuss the project, and one from my cousin to arrange visiting my sick cousin. I understand he has a terminal illness, but is feeling very well considering. Terminal doesn't mean the same thing it used to. Many people with terminal illness can live longer than those without. As I've said before, my son who we were told would not live to adulthood, has outlived many of his friends.

I was reading this wonderful post on Handmadeology about Offline Marketing for Online Businesses. I can't even begin to tell you how much Handmadeology has helped me put together my approach to promoting my business. It's almost as if they are reading my mind and know the next stem in my progress. Are you watching me Tim?

Speaking of watching me. I've noticed that certain places like Groupon, Facebook, Vitacost and of course eBay and Amazon, seem to know what I'm browsing and coincidentally send me ads in key places. I even get ads on Google or AOL that relate to emails I get. I'm not sure I really like being spied on like that.  I suppose one day I'll have to invest in software that block spying, because my freeware doesn't seem to be doing the trick.

Back to Handmadeology. The post is about cross promotion and using shops or other venues to get your product seen. I hadn't considered this before. It's about not just taking your wares to a shop and dropping it off to sell, but also offering a service to your shop. For instance, I have a fairly large following on Twitter. I suppose I should grow that following locally too. But I could promote the business that I might sell at too. I could promote myself to local papers and say that my product is available at .... cross promoting them as well.  It's just brilliant.

I know you would like to think that your product alone is what would sell you, but we live in the real world.  Remember that Our past president couldn't pronounce the simplest of words and got all D's in school. It's not all about the product, a lot of it is the packaging.

I also think that I need to be using this information in my everyday life. Even in my design business. I need to sell myself. I've been working on my design portfolio website, and haven't even made a front page yet. I finally  realized what it is I need to do to promote myself. High End design at Low manufacturing cost.  Brilliant epiphany.

March 8, 2012

I have a plan, I work hard at it, and it works. Now that's a rare thing. I am a fairly organized person. I make spreadsheets of everything. Well not everything, but if I have comparisons to make I do. I'll make cost spreadsheets, accounting spreadsheets, product dimension spreadsheets, etc. I have a spreadsheet on all of my flowers and their cut sizes so I make them all pretty similar. So a 3 flower necklace has the chain type, and each flower size and color.

I recently made spreadsheets on the new product with time and cost so I could analyze the dollar per hour of each. I did that to see if wholesaling was a viable option and it was. Nice to know. I know most crafters don't really do that. Most just see the money coming in and don't realize what is going on until they do taxes at the end of the year. I know a lot are loosing money instead of making a profit. If they took the time to do a cost analysis, they could see which items make more and focus on those. Of course you have to sell them too.

So the plan is working, really. So far this month I had a bulk sale in my flower shop (the first at this shop) and I sold 7 product designs. This month I increased my income by just under $400, and the designs have the potential of making much more money in the future, with commission. I am so very pleased. And that is for March alone. The month isn't even half over. I have more design commissions in March that will bring income in April.

I was hoping that my plan would work, but it's really amazing how well it has. I have blogged more, designed a nice website, redesigned my blog, made updates on linked in, and made more Facebook and Twitter posts. I've also posted a few items on Pinterest, but not sure I really want to go there. I might be removing most of my boards and only posting things I am sure people want reposted. I love Pinterest, but the thought of getting sued scares me.  

February 16, 2012

Sometimes I hate that I have the kind of mind that can calculate how much profit I make on an item and how many I have to sell to make X amount of dollars. But in so many ways it's better, because this way I can see which of my items are best to offer wholesale.

I first have to calculate the cost of materials for each item. Then I have to calculate the time to make each to figure out what my dollar per hour rate is.

So I took my profit and divided by how much time to make the (necklace, brooch, etc) then multiply by 60 (minutes in an hour) that way I can see how much profit per hour.

In order to make 30,000 a year off broaches, I would have to sell nearly 7000 of them a year and work 65 hours a week crafting and packaging. That is at a 50% off wholesale. My profit and $ per hour on my venue are great if I could sell anything. Wholesale could be a viable option if I can sell at a bit higher price and pick up speed on my production. Nice to know there are variables.

Let see, if I made 10 pieces a day at an average of $8 profit each wholesale. That's $80 a day or for 5 days $400 a week, or $20,800. That's manageable, but not a lot of money. OK, I just figured that I can live on that. And it would be about 3000 pieces a year or 50 a week. Working only 5 days a week too. The publicity might even increase shop sales at which I make a much larger profit.

If I could place 20 pieces in 150 stores across the country that's manageable. I think I could make more than that and find more stores. It's a big country.

I suppose I'm not factoring everything. I did round up cost a lot, and I didn't include time for promotion and customer contact. But I also think that wholesale sales of less expensive items can lead to sales of more expensive items.

I can also sell at craft shows, but I need low cost items that I can sell pretty reasonably. I think a simple tie headband with single flower would sell well. They can also be worn on neck.

One of the things I found interesting, and I only did the calculation for 4 different items, was that although some had a much higher profit, $ per hour was less on them. I'm going to go over a few more items tomorrow and make some decisions. With the spread sheet I'm making, I can actually see if new items will be worth offering at all.

I'll post how I came to my results on Cinders Says so others can see how they're doing if they want to. Sometimes though, if you have another income, and you're doing this for fun, I think it's best not to go into it this deep and be blissfully unaware.  

February 15, 2012

Today was wasted running my daughter to the Dr for her sinus infection and grocery shopping. By the time I got back and got everything put away and everyone settled down, It was pretty late. We are all feeling pretty bad, so it's hard to get anything done.

I know this is crazy to talk about here, because I want to talk business related thing, but I guess when you look at it, everything you do relates to how you run your business, and the product you make, so here goes.

I shop at an international discount grocer, because we don't have too much money at this time, and their prices are half to one third of the other stores. Selection is not great, but we can feed 5 people for about $250 a month. Beat that! They had packages of Red Velvet cake mix on sale for $.99, after Valentine's Day clearance, so I HAD to buy 2.

Why did I have to buy them? Because I have never had Red Velvet cake in my life. I have eaten trilobite looking sea creatures in China, but never Red Velvet cake. We made it last night and although I can't smell or taste much, it was OK. By that I meant that I really don't like cake. So with a super moist cake and cream cheese frosting, it didn't really taste too much like cake. It was OK.

Now I can say I've had Red Velvet cake. I'll have to try homemade sometime too.

I started calculating profit of my flowers. I have to calculate time and profit to see what I would make on each version. I'll start with brooches and one and two flower necklaces. I should have some results tomorrow. I hope it will be worth my time to wholesale.