📥 Free Download: The Mad Hatter’s Guide: The Proven Strategy to Drive More Visitors to Your Etsy Shop or Website with Blogging
Click here to grab the free guide! 🚀
🎓 Free Workshop: Discover How Blogging Can Drive More Traffic to Your Handmade Business
Sign up for the free class here!
Topic: Taking Risks in Business—How a $30,000 Bet Changed My Life
Welcome back to The Marketing and Heart Podcast! Today, we’re diving into risk-taking—the kind of leap that makes you wonder if you’re on the edge of a breakthrough or a total misstep. I’m sharing one of the biggest risks I’ve ever taken in my jewelry business, The Wicked Griffin, and the lessons that came with it. If you’re feeling stuck or are on the fence about a big decision, this one’s for you.
Let’s go back to when my business was thriving but wearing me down. Orders were nonstop, and every piece was hand-made from morning to night. Even when I was pregnant, I kept up this cycle, pushing myself past exhaustion.
I’ll never forget one particular night: eight months pregnant, hunched over my workbench at 8 p.m., trying to saw through a thick piece of silver with hours of work still ahead. I was grateful my business was doing well, but I was also breaking under the pressure. That night, I told myself that something had to give.
That’s when I decided to invest in a laser engraver—a $30,000 purchase, straight from my profits. I didn’t take out a loan or have a backup plan. It was just me, my business, and a huge leap of faith. I was terrified, but I knew this change was necessary if I wanted to keep my business and sanity intact.
When the engraver finally arrived, it felt like a weight had been lifted. I wasn’t spending endless hours on each piece anymore, and I finally had time to breathe. That single decision allowed me to rearrange my workflow and made my business sustainable.
Looking back, it was a life-changing decision. But that risk, scary as it was, taught me something crucial: to grow, you have to be willing to take a leap.
Of course, not every risk pans out. I’ve had my share of misses, too. I once bought a $4,000 Glowforge that now just gathers dust in a spare room—a great idea that never took off. But that’s the reality of taking risks.
Each decision, whether it works out or not, teaches something valuable. The key is to learn from each one and keep moving forward.
So, here’s where I want to turn this back to you. Think about the risks you’re holding back from right now. Is there a decision you’ve been hesitating over because you’re unsure how it’ll turn out?
Maybe it’s an investment in a new tool or exploring a new marketing strategy. Whatever it is, ask yourself: What’s the best that could happen if this pays off? Then think about what you would need in place to take that step with confidence.
📥 Free Download: The Mad Hatter’s Guide: The Proven Strategy to Drive More Visitors to Your Etsy Shop or Website with Blogging
Click here to grab the free guide! 🚀
🎓 Free Workshop: Discover How Blogging Can Drive More Traffic to Your Handmade Business
Sign up for the free class here!
Topic: Taking Risks in Business—How a $30,000 Bet Changed My Life
Welcome back to The Marketing and Heart Podcast! Today, we’re diving into risk-taking—the kind of leap that makes you wonder if you’re on the edge of a breakthrough or a total misstep. I’m sharing one of the biggest risks I’ve ever taken in my jewelry business, The Wicked Griffin, and the lessons that came with it. If you’re feeling stuck or are on the fence about a big decision, this one’s for you.
Let’s go back to when my business was thriving but wearing me down. Orders were nonstop, and every piece was hand-made from morning to night. Even when I was pregnant, I kept up this cycle, pushing myself past exhaustion.
I’ll never forget one particular night: eight months pregnant, hunched over my workbench at 8 p.m., trying to saw through a thick piece of silver with hours of work still ahead. I was grateful my business was doing well, but I was also breaking under the pressure. That night, I told myself that something had to give.
That’s when I decided to invest in a laser engraver—a $30,000 purchase, straight from my profits. I didn’t take out a loan or have a backup plan. It was just me, my business, and a huge leap of faith. I was terrified, but I knew this change was necessary if I wanted to keep my business and sanity intact.
When the engraver finally arrived, it felt like a weight had been lifted. I wasn’t spending endless hours on each piece anymore, and I finally had time to breathe. That single decision allowed me to rearrange my workflow and made my business sustainable.
Looking back, it was a life-changing decision. But that risk, scary as it was, taught me something crucial: to grow, you have to be willing to take a leap.
Of course, not every risk pans out. I’ve had my share of misses, too. I once bought a $4,000 Glowforge that now just gathers dust in a spare room—a great idea that never took off. But that’s the reality of taking risks.
Each decision, whether it works out or not, teaches something valuable. The key is to learn from each one and keep moving forward.
So, here’s where I want to turn this back to you. Think about the risks you’re holding back from right now. Is there a decision you’ve been hesitating over because you’re unsure how it’ll turn out?
Maybe it’s an investment in a new tool or exploring a new marketing strategy. Whatever it is, ask yourself: What’s the best that could happen if this pays off? Then think about what you would need in place to take that step with confidence.
📥 Free Download: The Mad Hatter’s Guide: The Proven Strategy to Drive More Visitors to Your Etsy Shop or Website with Blogging
Click here to grab the free guide! 🚀
🎓 Free Workshop: Discover How to Ethically Use BuzzFeed’s Traffic Strategy for Your Handmade Business
Sign up for the free workshop here!
In this episode of The Marketing and Heart Podcast, we’re addressing the limiting belief that your products need to be perfect before you can sell them. We’ll break down how perfectionism is holding you back from reaching your audience, how customers are craving handmade authenticity in a world full of mass-produced items, and I’ll share my personal story of how letting go of perfectionism transformed my own business.
Welcome back to The Marketing and Heart Podcast! Today, we’re going to dive into a topic that hits home for a lot of handmade business owners: the idea that your products need to be perfect before you can sell them.
I’ve been there—when I first started making jewelry, I was obsessed with perfecting every little detail. It felt like if my products weren’t just right, there was no way I could put them out into the world. But what I didn’t realize at the time was that my perfectionism was actually holding me back.
If you’ve ever stopped yourself from launching a product because it wasn’t exactly how you imagined, or you’ve delayed a collection because it wasn’t “perfect,” then this episode is for you. We're going to break down why perfectionism is not just hurting your business, but also robbing your potential customers of the joy your products could bring into their lives.
Let me share a bit of my own story here because I know this struggle all too well. I’ve been running The Wicked Griffin since 2011, and I went full-time with my business in 2016. Before I opened up shop, I had been perfecting my craft as a jeweler for years. And the funny thing is, the thing that was really holding me back wasn’t my skill level or my designs—it was my own perfectionism.
I started making jewelry because I wanted to create pieces that I couldn’t find anywhere else. I thought, "If I can’t find it, I’ll just make it." That’s what led me to open my Etsy shop. I spent years refining my craft, and I was so focused on every tiny detail being absolutely perfect before I was willing to sell anything.
And here’s the thing I had to learn over time: Your business isn’t for you. That was a hard lesson to learn because, as artists, we put so much of ourselves into our work. But at some point, I realized that once you decide to turn your hobby into a business, you have to make a mindset shift.
It’s not about you anymore. Your business is for your customers. Yes, you play a major role in creating those products, and of course, you want to love wh