Recently I’ve noticed that there has been a lot of discouragement because of difficult times and low sales. Quite a few of the comments I read on social media are sharing the frustration of decreased sales.
I get it. Believe me.
In this episode I’m going to share some things you can do during a recession to help keep sales coming in.
You don’t have to be discouraged by times and seasons because those will always come into your life and they will eventually move on. What you do in those times is the exciting part.
What if I told you that you can have another source of income that you don’t even have to be awake for? You can have a recurring income without spending more hours making more things.
In this episode, I share what most of my online colleagues already know and implement in their own businesses. Every single one of these ideas will link to someone I know personally or has been recommended to me who has made it work.
Kind of like a train pulling out of the station, it takes a little time to get going. Once it does, it takes a LOT to stop it! The effort pays off in the end.
While I was recording I even thought of another one so you get an unintended bonus!
PS - We will be hosting a Crafty Biz Builders Summit on June 15th! A free online event with speakers all day covering different topics relating to online craft business. Be sure to register as space is limited.
PPS - I also realize that it is ASL not ALS!😄🙄
What if I told you that you can have another source of income that you don’t even have to be awake for? You can have a recurring income without spending more hours making more things.
In this episode, I share what most of my online colleagues already know and implement in their own businesses. Every single one of these ideas will link to someone I know personally or has been recommended to me who has made it work.
Kind of like a train pulling out of the station, it takes a little time to get going. Once it does, it takes a LOT to stop it! The effort pays off in the end.
While I was recording I even thought of another one so you get an unintended bonus!
PS - We will be hosting a Crafty Biz Builders Summit on June 15th! A free online event with speakers all day covering different topics relating to online craft business. Be sure to register as space is limited.
Remember going to the park when you were a kid and making friends was simple? Going to school for the first time and learning everyone's name or seeing their favorite toy because they brought it to show-and-tell?
Networking is honestly no different. It just has more dignified names but the technique is the same.
In this episode, I'm going to share one of my absolute favorite things to do...meet people. Introverts, stay with me because this will help you out! These are tips that are basic enough for a playground but get overthought as we get older. It's not as hard as we make it.
Hope you enjoy!
It’s no secret that I am a bigger fan of having your own real estate online but how can you do it and still stand out? I’m glad you asked!
Regardless of whether you are a wall-flower or enjoy being the center of attention, you need your PRODUCT to get noticed when you are selling online. Today I have five suggestions with a bonus on how to do that.
Now, like anything in business, this is not an overnight-I-made-six-figures type of episode. It takes work to create a business and patience to grow one online.
If you keep that in mind, what I’m about to share with you will make the process easier.
I also wanted to update you on an upcoming event. The Virtual Street Market will be hosting a Bootcamp on building an online craft business in February. On the 1st, 2nd & 3rd we will be showing you the ins and outs of running an online craft business so be sure to sign up for that at The Virtual Street Market.com and watch your email for more information.
As creative people, we tend to have this gift of seeing inspiration in so many things. We enjoy trying new hobbies or skills.
As a creative, this is probably what brought you to the point of operating an online craft business.
As a business owner, you now have the task of determining what is going to sell, not just what you enjoy making. If you are going to put the time and effort into it, you really need to do the same with your product.
Don’t throw spaghetti at the wall and hope it sticks - unless you have found an artistic market of selling spaghetti on a canvas or something like that. In which case go to town!
The rest of us, we need more thought.
Here are five tips to deciding what to sell in your shop, Hope you enjoy!
~Kam
Sign up for the Free Bootcamp Building an Online Craft Business
Happy new year, Creatives! I hope you had a Merry Christmas and a great start to your new year! I am so excited for the things planned for 2023 and want to share three of the top reasons with you. Also, if you don’t already get the emails for event updates (and you’re going to want to) just go to thevirtualstreetmarket.com.
1) This year is going to be about Craft Shows…but not like we’re used to! This year VSM will be hosting 3D Virtual Craft Shows for not only the handmade creative but also the small craft suppliers.
2) I will be providing a free Branding Bootcamp on January 18th giving you a walk-through of what you need to do and have set up in your online business.
3) Two options to be involved in a Crafting Community.
So that’s some of the things rolling out for VSM this year! Let me know what some of your plans and goals are and if you need an accountability partner!
Have a great week, creative people! Go light your world!
~Kam
With a private community created on Circle.so and Facebook we are able to keep out trolls and control the environment.
A quote from a pastor by the name of Chuck Swindoll is “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” I couldn’t agree more. We all know the negative results of 2020 but this episode is the origin story of something amazing that came out of it. It is Jenasa’s Prudhomme’s response to her 10%.
In the last 3 years, my next guest built a business and wrote a book called “Faith Based Entrepreneurship”. A beginners guide to the online business world and she is even sponsoring this whole episode. I will be including the links to all of her stuff in the show notes on The Virtual Street Market website.
Jenasa is not only a business owner and author, but also a newlywed, mom of two young boys, has built a following on social media, as well as a YouTube channel AND created a podcast. Did I mention that she also has a devotional coming out in the new year!
She has boundless energy and is just another example of how someone grew out of the life that was happening.
I hope you enjoy the chat.
Ok so we can't add to the hours that we are given daily but we can learn how to use them more efficiently. Until this conversation, I thought I had to create a to-do list and whatever didn't get done just transferred to the next day.
Not even close!
We can actually train ourselves to schedule our days realistically while still having the flexibility to have a distraction here or there. Even the way we think of distractions can be changed to a positive view! Who knew?!
My guest for this episode is Elise Enriquez who has been a "Productivity Coach" for over a decade. She has some great tips on how to focus our time mindset, feed our energy and work more effectively.
I hope you get as much out of this episode as I did!
When we get consumed by the creation of our crafts but don't take the time to create a "brand" - it can be confusing to buyers. When everything is cohesive and recognizable, it's easier to attract those buyers and even easier for them to tell others about us.
We are no longer limited by location or word-of-mouth advertising. There are so many opportunities to tap into online.
In this episode, I break down the easy process of creating a business with a niche so that we can be excited to share our online shop with anyone.
Take-a ways from this episode -
Links & Tools from the episode
With a private community created on Circle.so we are able to keep out trolls and control the environment. Sign up today for a 14 day trial of the Maker’s Space Community when you go to thevirtualstreetmarket.com.
Welcome into episode 06 of the maker’s space my friends. I hope you have had a good week. I have had a good week with not great things happening. I have been able to get some things done but then had issues with a broken furnace and other stuff. Ultimately, we just live in a broken world and it can be a challenge. We have to do things to get or stay positive.
Trying to get positive has not been a normal issue for me until the last few years. I have mentioned, previously, that we adopted a sibling group a few years ago and they all have their struggles but then 2020 came along and magnified those struggles. When you are just getting used to a new “normal” and then that normal is suddenly taken away, there is only so much free time you can have. Routine is stability for so many, including our children. Without it, they came unglued.
I joke about being a unicorn farting glitter because I have always been optimistic. I had believed that things will always work out somehow. What I discovered in the last few years was that my positive outlook could not prepare me for adopting three children with HUGE trauma issues. We were ill equipped and quickly became overwhelmed. It took a toll on me mentally and I had to relearn how to be positive again. All while building an online business.
Here are the things I do to keep positive when negative tries to creep in. Hope it encourages you.
00:00 - Introduction
05:19 - Do crafts
09:49 - Avoid the news
10:46 - Avoid negative people
12:57 - Go outside
13:54 - Get exercise
17:37 - Do a random act of kindness
20:09 - Drink something warm
22:23 - Prayer or quiet time
23:17 - Positive confession
24:53 - Good friends
27:42 - Be silly
29:10 - Eat good food
30:01 - Final thought
With a private community created on Circle.so we are able to keep out trolls and control the environment. Sign up today for a 14 day trial of the Maker’s Space Community when you go to thevirtualstreetmarket.com.
I know in episode 4 I said we were going to start getting into some crafty parts of the business but I had such a great time interviewing Jonathan Wall of The Build Hub that I didn’t want to wait to share it. Jonathan is a wealth of knowledge with 20 years in digital marketing.
He is a web designer who has recently launched a course specific to those building an online business.
With modules like “Building Your Audience”, “Pricing” and “Map Your Customer Journey” I didn’t want you to miss the opportunity to jump on this course. It is still in the beginning stages so the price is amazing but it won’t stay that way for long. With everything going on in a mom’s life, we realize that building the business yourself may not be in the cards. That’s ok too. We will link resources available that can help you with creating and marketing your shop.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this chat with Jonathan as he shares some great tips to getting your stuff seen!
Timestamp Outline
00:00 - Introduction
05:47 - Different marketing styles
10:26 - Jonathan's course
11:12 - Changes in Social Media
12:10 - Views on niching
14:15 - Being on all platforms
16:33 - Consistency is key
18:06 - Use your smart phone
19:22 - Make a clear path
21:21 - Utilizing what's there
23:15 - Create your own site
26:40 - Builder views
28:51 - What is SEO
32:37 - How niche helps
39:00 - Lead magnets
41:30 - Automated journey
43:35 - Community for accountability
50:24 - Should you dropship
With a private community created on Circle.so we are able to keep out trolls and control the environment. Sign up today for a 14 day trial of the Maker’s Space Community when you go to thevirtualstreetmarket.com.
After asking one of our youngest kids how mom’s could keep their children occupied while they worked, I decided to bring Isaiah on the podcast. From his perspective, we should sugar them up and have them play video games.
As much joy as he brings to my life and this particular episode, I have added some ACTUAL ideas that worked when I was raising him and his brothers. Well…mostly. Truth be told there were times when I just handed them off to Dad when he got home from work and then I drove to Hobby Lobby.
But here are 14 things I came up with to try. Hope they help!
Hope you have a great week!
This episode Sponsored by The Virtual Street Market.
After an opportunity presented itself during 2020, our family took a repurposed trailer and started networking. We moved to a completely rural area but within no time, we were famous for the shaved ice coming out of the bright colored, old Forester RV.
In sales and marketing, the blue-prints are the same, it's just the environment that changes. So whether you are selling hand crafted jewelry from an online store or shaved ice out of a repurposed trailer, I hope our experience encourages you in YOUR business!
With all of the amazing platforms available to online sellers, two stand out above the crowd. But which one is the better place to house a craft shop? I take a deeper dive into Shopify and WooCommerce to determine which is the better choice.
Do you have a favorite? Let me know if you are already in a platform and what you like or don't like about it!
I even share a thought that may surprise you!
This episode is sponsored by The Virtual Street Market where we are helping crafters build a successful online business by providing a community and resources to support in the journey.
With a private community created on Circle.so we are able to keep out trolls and control the environment. Sign up today for a 14 day trial of the Maker’s Space Community when you go to thevirtualstreetmarket.com.
Lately, I have come to realize that there are so many amazing people with six and seven figure businesses and listening to their podcasts I began to wonder what I was doing wrong. When I stopped to answer a text from a teacher or confirm an appointment email before going back to the podcast, it dawned on me... everyone I am listening to either -
None of these are bad but definitely not where I am.
I kept beating myself up thinking I need a new way to manage time or I need to get up earlier to get it all done. But I’m exhausted!
Knowing that I’m probably not the only one who is trying to run their household AND a business, I wanted to tell other mom’s, I see you.
I believe in you.
I’m here for you.
If I asked you right now, what is one of your biggest dreams? I’ll bet you have an answer.
Even if it's been knocked down from circumstances, the most important thing is that I don't want you to give up on your dreams just because you have a family. Here are - 8 tips on how to protect your dreams
