Podcast Episode 3: Tuesday Talks 2/23/21

Press play to listen to episode 3!

Inside this Episode

Below is a breakdown of each section in this episode. Feel free to skip ahead to the parts that interest you most. Each section has the timestamp beside it so you know exactly when the subject starts and ends.

Welcome [0:00- 1:20]

Questions

Can A blog be about more than crochet or should be about just one thing? [1:22- 5:19]

What would be good freebie ideas? [5:20- 8:38]

Tips for keeping on when your personal life has gone to pieces but you’ve got to keep the business going. [ 8:41- 13:26]

Is it better to have friends and family shop through Etsy or in person?[ 13:30- 14:17]

Should you have a PO Box when you have an Etsy shop? [14:18- 16:15]

Best way to choose a name when opening an Etsy store. [16:16- 20:25]

Is it a good idea to message a buyer and see if they got their purchase? [20:26- 21:05]

What brand of paper do you use to create your stickers? [21:06- 22:24]

Do you recommend your crochet account being a professional account on Instagram? [22:25- 24:12]

Most important advice for starting an Etsy store. [24:13-26:05]

How do you start an email list if you’re not planning on doing a blog? [26:06-26:29]

Should I do cute packaging for my products or be environmentally cautious? [26:30- 30:52]

What are your favorite, most popular items for spring? [30:53-31:31]

Do you have a pattern for a market bag tote? [31:32- 32:09]

How do I know my ideal audience? Is it more detailed than just “Crochet Lovers”? [32:10- 37:45]

Is it better to have a bunch of different products or stick to one thing like crochet hats? [37:46- 44:01]

Should we be charging more for multiple colors, if requested? [44:02- 46:27]

When will Crochet Boss Academy open to sign up and what will it cost? [46:28-48:35]

You can find the live replay of this Instagram live video on my IGTV!

Resources Mentioned

Sticker Mule $10 off

Youtube Email Series

Stamp Video on Taylor Lynn Crochet Blog

Bob Wilson 123 Youtube Bag Tutorial

Transcript

Hi Guys!! Welcome back to Tuesday Talks! I am super excited to be hanging out with you guys today, because I feel like it has been awhile even though it’s only been two weeks.

Lot’s of really AWESOME questions coming in this week. I am excited to go over those with you! Also fingers crossed when this is over I am able to save it to my feed, because two weeks ago when I did this- it didn’t save! It kept telling me unable to upload or something like that. So hopefully it will save this time. I see all those wonderful hearts and everyone joining. Welcome, welcome! I am so happy you are hanging out me tonight. Let me know where your coming from, and if you are crocheting while your listening to this or if your like adulting while your listening to this. I would love know what everyone is up to. I would love to be crocheting during these but I get really worked up answering your questions, and I talk a lot with my hands. I don’t think I would be able to focus on my crochet at all, because talking about business gets me really hyped up. It’s weird because I love it so much but I absolutely do 🙂

I am going to pull up questions from the little Q Box down below, if you have a questions while watching this- pop it in the Q box. I will be able to read it, pull it up on screen and answer it live here for everybody. So I am going to pull one really quick, and she says-

Can A blog be about more than crochet or should it be about just one thing?

Very good question. Your blog needs to be niche specific. If you are a crochet designer and you talk about all kinds of things that crocheters would need to know. Crochet patterns, yarn reviews, tool reviews, gift guides for crocheters, Valentine’s Day gifts for crocheters, crochet pattern round ups. It would all need to be very niche specific. The reason is, for Google and Pinterest to see you as an expert in your field. If your blog has a little bit of everything they are not going to show your stuff to nobody when they search you. So your not going to have a lot of search juice, which isn’t going to bring a lot of traffic your way.

I do know some peoples blogs have a few random things, and thats what they do and I’m not saying that you can’t, I’m just saying it’s much harder and you have to do a lot more of your own organic traffic that you drive yourself- through social media and your email list and things like that and your Pinterest. But it’s easier to get searches from Google if you have a niche specific blog.

When I first started my blog in 2019, when I started hitting it hard. January of 2019 I was going to do, fitness, mompreneur life, kids crafts, crochet, and business. So there were like 5 things that I was going to do on my blog, because those are the things I am interested in. I was really interested in fitness back in January 2019 and eating healthy. I talk to you guys about those things here in my stories on a regular basis, because my stories are basically like a daily Vlog for me. I quickly stopped doing all of those things other than crochet, business things. So crochet patterns and business tips and things that crochet business owners would find helpful- that way I am seen as an expert in the eyes of Google. When people search things like “Crochet Business Tips” someone go search that and let me know what shows up, see if I show up at all. Hopefully I do, hopefully I show up if you search crochet business tips or if you search Google for crochet cactus pillow pattern. Google knows that I have a lot of crochet things on my blog, so my cactus pillow must be legit.

Same goes for if have a blog with your finished piece business. So my finished piece business is Wild Grace, I crochet things for Millennial girl moms. Millennial boho baby girl moms. I could have a blog that talks about things that boho baby girl moms would be interested in, spotlighting my products. Almost like 80% of my blog posts would be spotlighting my products, or like sneaking them in kind of. I might talk about cute easter outfits for baby girls and then show how cute my bitty boho bib looks with all these different outfits- things like that.

Or I might say Easter Baskets for first time Easter babies, Babies first Easter- what to put in your baby’s Easter Basket. This could be a blog post that I do, and crafty rainbow rattles and bitty boho bibs would be on that list of things you could put in your baby’s Easter Basket.

So if you do want to create a blog around your finished piece business you absolutely can do that! You just make it niche specific and then create content that you can pop in your products at all times because that’s your money maker at the beginning. Eventually you will make money off of just blogging, which would be really nice too if you enjoy writing. I do not, we just talked about this yesterday inside of Crochet Boss Academy. So if there are any Bosses hanging out that caught yesterday’s Monday Shop Talks you know I do not like to write I talk about it all the time.

Let’s move on to another question-

What would be good freebie ideas?

So this is a very good question, and I love it because it’s finished piece specific, which what I like to teach. I like to teach people how to sell their finished pieces.

My first tip would be make sure it’s ideal customer specific. You wouldn’t be giving pot leaf keychains to your conservative Christian modest mom, like that might make her very uncomfortable. So you want to keep your ideal customer in mind when your picking a freebie.

Bonus points if it’s something that can lead to another sale!

Something I have been doing in Wild Grace is the crafty loop earrings pattern, I turned it into a keychain. I just put a keychain finding in there instead of an earring finding and it’s super simple. If they ordered tobacco colored bitty boho bag, I am going to send a linen colored keychain to show them this what the linen in my shop looks like. I have 8 colors in Wild Grace that I use, and this is going to show them another one of the colors. I don’t know if will make the connection, but hopefully they will.

Hopefully when they are looking on my Instagram and see the different colors I have and they are like “Oh that is the color of my keychain. I love that! I need that in a hat.” That’s the plan.

I know my ideal customer is a mom so she’s probably got keys, right? So I give her a boho style keychain. It’s the fringe with the crafty loop earring style so it’s got fringe on it. Fringe is on my bitty boho bib and my bitty boho bags, so I know my ideal customer likes fringe-y boho style things. It’s with what she would like, but also ideally it would lead back to a return customer and she would want something in the second color because she got to actually see the color in person in her hands, feel it, look at it, compare it to the first color she bought. Compare it to the thing that’s in her closet that she wants to match, whatever. That’s why I gave crafty loop earring keychains as my freebie.

You can also do stickers. If your ideal customer has kids- kids love stickers, kids love candy. Every now and then I order from a company and they always send a Dum Dum sucker. They are VERY VERY cheap, and this comes in every package I order from them and Ava gets excited because she knows that’s for her. So if your ideal customer has kids, even if you don’t sell kid things- maybe you just sell home decor pieces for a woman who likes to decorate her home in farm house decor, and you know she’s got kids thats like elementary age, candy does the trick! They get excited, the kids get really excited about that and that makes the moms really happy. This is super cheap and you don’t have to make it which is really nice. Again stickers, kids love stickers.

I have also given out bow headbands for my ideal customer at Wild Grace. I just use a nylon headband and a little knit bow that I make with my tiny addi. Takes me about 10 minutes which isn’t ideal but it’s not too bad. And then I can pop those in there and see what kind of feedback I get, because I am thinking about adding them to my shop. So that’s something I do a little bit too here and there.

So hopefully that was helpful, very good question! Let me pop on another one.

Oh my gosh this is another good one!

Tips for keeping on when your personal life has gone to pieces but you’ve got to keep the business going

I can feel this very hard. I struggle with some mental health things, and my brand is very positive and high energy. Somedays I am NOT feeling it, and what helps me and I am not kidding. I say this a lot but I have actually been implementing it every single day recently.

2000’s Pop Music! I play 2000’s pop music when I am feeling overwhelmed or stressed and I play it REALLY loud! I tell my Google to play 2000’s pop music, I turn it up to like 90% sometimes 100% and I just dance up here in my room by myself to some Spice Girls (well that’s 90’s) but to some Rihanna usually a lot of Rihanna. A little bit of Avril Lavigne, sometimes we get like Simple Plan things going- I love it! It really helps, it really truly helps. I ordered the wrong supplements off of Amazon and they came in today, and I was angry and I pouted because I am a little pouter and it’s what I do. But then I came up here and turned on my music while I crocheted a little bit and it made me feel better. Then I was like over it and I ordered the right supplements.

It helps to just block everything else for a moment and dance to your favorite genre of music.

Another thing, if you are a spiritual person diving into if you are a Christian (I don’t know what else to say for other religions because I am a Christian, that’s all that I know. I know a little bit of other stuff but not enough to give good examples.) But for me as a Christian diving into my Bible can really help me. Following and looking up some of my favorite Christian mentors on social media and seeing what they are doing in their stories, filling myself up with positive influences. Positive people, listening to previous sermons from my church, especially ones that are my favorite. They really got my gears turning, you know what I mean? That helps me a lot!

Then also just taking a little bit of a mindset break. Again this is coming from a Christian stand point. We are only here temporarily, our home is in heaven with Jesus. So I can think about that- Ashley these supplements do not matter, because when I die and I am going to heaven. Like nothing else matters, so that can kinda help too if you are a faith based person in a Christian religion. That’s something that I do that helps me. Gabe and I do it all the time together because we will get stressed about the tiny home or selling this home or work or something like that we will be like listen- this is temporary. Our home is in heaven. Everything is working out exactly to his plan for his glory. And that really does help us, I know it sounds super cheesy. I am not trying to cheesy, I am being genuine and transparent with you guys. It really helps us calm down when we are getting a little bit overwhelmed and stressed.

I am giving myself chill bumps because I don’t normally talk this open about my faith. I want to, I don’t not on purpose, I guess it makes me a little bit antsy. But I am a very faithful person and so is Gabe and that’s something we do that helps.

So I hope some of these were some good tips for you. I know it’s hard especially with this crazy season we are in right now with COVID, and ice, and ALL the stuff so I hope that helps.

Also drinking water ( I know it’s so cliché) it really does help. Your body can function properly when you drink water and as women our hormones effect so much of us- it’s like are we getting the right supplements, are we getting the right nutrients, minerals, water? All these things can effect our hormones. Are we eating properly, like the right time throughout the day? If you don’t eat, like skip a meal (this is my last tangent I promise) but if you skip a meal, your body goes into starve mode and aka stress! Your hormones are like Oh Gosh we’re starving we gotta stress the body out, start eating what we got and send out stress signals so she will get food in her body. That doesn’t always translate to I need to put food in my body that can translate into shoot I got the wrong supplements and now I am angry and I want to flip over furniture because I skipped a meal and my hormones are freaking out.

I am learning a lot about hormones and energy and gut health and all these things and all of it can effect our mindset tremendously, so that’s another thing too. If you are wanting to dive into a big ol rabbit hole of fun, Google that- that would be a good one for ya.

Oh one more-

Is it better to have friends and family shop through Etsy or in person?

It’s better to have them shop through Etsy.

1: It’s going to make your number of sales go up which leads to social proof.

2: They can leave a review. So every time you get a 5 star review it helps you show up in search results more. It also helps in social proof.

3: It’s going to help you stay organized because you are going to have their address if you need to ship it to them or it’s going to be easy for them to pay you. They’re not going to have to do- do you have change for a $20 or can I write you a check? Then you have to go deposit the check, none of that. It’s just easier for everybody if you can do it through Etsy. Helps you stay organized and also helps you with your taxes at the end of the year to know exactly how much money you made. If you funneled everything through Etsy, highly suggest always using Etsy.

Should you have a PO Box when you have an Etsy shop?

I highly suggest it. Not just for Etsy, but also for your email. If you are building an email list, which I highly suggest that you do! You don’t need, but you have to give your address at the bottom of every single email. If you look at any of the emails that you get from me, at the very bottom it has my PO box. If I didn’t have a PO box it would have my personal address, and that goes out to 6 thousand people like three times a week. So then on Etsy your return address would be your personal address. Like there are crazy people out there. I believe for the most part that people are not crazy, but there are random crazy people out there and I don’t want them to have my address. If they are angry that they didn’t get their beanie in time, and they are having a bad day and they want to take it out on me and they come to my home. Like I’ve never heard of that happening, but it’s not impossible. Especially in 2021. I suggest it, it’s like I can’t remember how much I pay- I think it’s $65 a year maybe, for my PO box. I mean it’s a tax write off- it should be a tax write off. I am NOT a tax professional, so don’t take that as solid advise. Ask the tax guy. But it should be a tax write off.

I know it’s scary to spend money when you’re not making as much at the moment, so maybe once you start getting sales regularly look into getting a PO box. So your return address isn’t going out all over the world- could be scary.

Kat says PO box is less than $40 every 3 months for the smallest one, 4X5. I have no idea what size my PO box is, I didn’t know they came in sizes. I didn’t know the prices varied with the sizes. That’s new information to me. I’ve had my PO box for like 3 years and I had no idea.

Best way to choose a name when opening an Etsy store

I answered this question 2 weeks ago, and it disappeared. So I am glad this got asked again, so I can answer again and hopefully it will stay on my feed this time and other people can find it when they need to know this answer.

First things first, do not over think it!

I did that really really bad- I am still doing that for my LLC. Because I wanted to make it something vague, but I think I am just going to go with A Crafty Concept and call it a day. Then everything else will be under that, like Crochet Boss Academy and Wild Grace and all that stuff will be under A Crafty Concept “Doing Business As” -it’s all techy techy. But don’t over think it! It is not the end all be all, like it’s not as high of a thing as we hold it up to being. That’s the first thing, a mind shift as to not overthink it.

Second thing, you want it to be easy to say, easy to read and easy to spell. If it’s not easy of these 3 things it gonna be hard for you to get the word out. If you say A Crafty Concept with “K’s” instead of “C’s” that’s not going to be easy for them to remember. They’re gonna be like “what was her name? Oh yeah A Crafty Concept” and they are gonna type it in the way it’s spelled traditionally and they’re not going to find me- because I used “K’s” instead of “C’s”. So using funky spelling, using numbers instead of letters- it’s cool and I get where you’re coming from but it’s not good for search engine optimization. So like when people Google you, or search for you on Pinterest or anything like that, it’s not good for search engine optimization. It’s not good for human beings, it’s not easy for us to remember things like that. So you could potentially loose lots and lots of sales and growth because the happy customer couldn’t refer you to a friend or talk about you on social media because she couldn’t remember the name of your business.

So easy to spell, say, and read you’ll be golden. You want it to be easy to say because when you’re talking about your business you don’t want to be tripping up over your words. A Crafty Concept is not super easy to say. “Concept” can be a little bit difficult, I am so used to saying it- it’s been a few years now but it’s not the easiest thing in the world to say.

Wild Grace is easy to say, easy to spell, easy to read- good to go! So that’s another thing you can do when you’re thinking about it.

Also you want to be able to get the exact phrasing across all platforms that are important to you. Domain, Etsy, and Instagram are the three that come to my mind immediately. You want to be able to get your business name “A Crafty Concept” on Instagram @acraftyconcept, acraftyconcept.com for the domain, Etsy you want the shop to be A Crafty Concept.

Wild Grace is not that way, my Instagram Wild Grace is a little different than my Etsy Wild Grace. That is not ideal but that’s just how it worked out, and I gotta do the best I can with it. But ideally if you can choose a name that is unique enough like A Crafty Concept, I never had any trouble getting that URL or that @. Like when I got Tik Tok, A Crafty Concept wasn’t taken. It was easy for me to get A Crafty Concept. All of my socials for A Crafty Concept is just “@acraftyconcept” . Youtube.com/acraftyconcept. Pinterest.com/acraftyconcept. (Which actually right now, my Pinterest got suspended, so I’m not getting Pinterest right now. Since today and yesterday, I got an email out to them- trying not to panic. We’ll see how that goes. They deactivated my account for I have no idea why, so we will see. Fingers crossed that, that works out and I don’t loose my 4 million monthly views that I was getting on Pinterest.)

But you want to try and get the exact phasing across all platforms! Again it’s not a be all end all, I couldn’t do it with Wild Grace but if you’re choosing between two names and one of them has all of the platforms available, I would choose that one. Just something to think about.

Is it a good idea to message a buyer and see if they got their purchase?

I don’t see why not, especially if it’s on Etsy. I would make all of my Etsy customer conversations through Etsy.com you can have proof that you talked about it with them.

If you feel like it says delivered and you just want to double check- Go for it! Don’t be discouraged if they don’t reply, because they might be like, got their thing and then they don’t get on Etsy for awhile, no big deal. I don’t think there is any reason why you shouldn’t, I don’t think it’s against Etsy guidelines to reach out to them to make sure they got their thing.

What brand of paper do you use to create your stickers?

I don’t! I don’t create my stickers, I get them printed professionally from Sticker Mule. I have a $10 off code and get them printed off professionally! I HIGHLY recommend it! The quality is unbelievable. They are even dishwasher safe! I’ve put them all on my pattern book that I use on a regular basis and I’ve got stickers from all kinds of companies. Stickers I’ve actually printed myself- a bunch of other ones have come off or started to peel up. My Sticker Mule ones do NOT move, even if I needed to peel them up, I don’t know if I could. I think I started to once and it just wasn’t coming off and I was like forget it, I’m not going to mess it up. So highly recommend it, especially if you want to sell them. That way you are sending quality products to your people. You can send stickers as a letter instead as a package, so the shipping is just 55 cents! Not bad!

Do you recommend your crochet account being a professional account on Instagram?

I personally do. Jasmin Star does not recommend (well she doesn’t not recommend it) but she didn’t make hers a business account. Like forever, hers is a personal account technically. But she doesn’t get analytics or I can’t remember if it’s the swipe up feature that might just be for business, I don’t know. But you don’t get analytics if you don’t have a business account, and analytics can be really helpful to see how your posts are doing, other than just how many likes you got. You can see like what time of day is best day to post, you can see when you got and lost followers (I don’t pay attention to that, because it stresses me out.) You can see if your hashtags are doing well, you can see where your engagement is coming from. So I highly suggest it, just so you can get the analytics. There are probably other benefits to having a business Instagram vs. a personal Instagram.

The business Instagram does NOT get music, cool music- like music you would know, or I know. Guess it depends on where you are. Because of copyright infringement, so I can’t do Justin Bieber on my social media, like on my stories because I have a business account. But I can do it on ACC in real life because that is a personal account.

I like business or creator, I think creator has a lot of the same things that business. Kat is saying you do not get “swipe up” or analytics if you do not have a business account.

Most important advice for starting an Etsy store

Find your niche and find your ideal customer. Serve her well, and stay in your niche.

Don’t try and sell all of the things to all of the people in all of the colors in all of the sizes.

Find your ideal customer and figure out what niche you are going to stay in to serve her really well. That will help you build a long term business, that will help you pull your ideal customer in like a magnet and you won’t have to worry about over saturation- which I don’t think exists. You will build a foundation that will last the test of time basically.

Those are my two tips- find your ideal customer and niche down as soon as possible.

My next one would be- build an email list! I know we are all about team social, but an email list is unbelievably important.

My friend Sam is a local entrepreneur friend. She has a business where I got bootylicous leggings from her shop called “The White Stitch” here in town. Her Instagram got hacked, they changed her password, they started messaging all her contacts that was in her DM’s, and she could no longer get on. She had over 6,000 followers, and lost them all in the blink of an eye. Could not get them back, had to restart from scratch, now she has 1,300 followers and she has been working her butt off to get those 1,300 followers and she didn’t have an email list! So she couldn’t send everyone on her email list like “hey this is my new social media”. It would have been a lot faster to get her people back if she had an email list to email them. It’s very important you guys, it’s unbelievably important to have an email list. I can’t say it enough. So that would be my third thing.

How do you start an email list if you’re not planning on doing a blog?

You don’t have to have a blog to have an email list. I have a 3 part series on Youtube all about email list. A beginner, basics, first thing you need to know on youtube.

Should I do cute packaging for my products or be environmentally cautious?

That is going to depend on who your ideal customer is. One of my Crochet Boss Academy members her ideal customer is extremely eco-conscious. That’s who they are, they compost, they live waste free, they’re vegan. They are very Earth conscious. If she put a lot of one time use paper products in her packaging she would turn her off to her brand. If you sold all eco-friendly things and your ideal customer is super eco-friendly and they live that lifestyle and then you put the packing slip, a handwritten thank you note, and all these things that they would just throw away- or like tissue paper and stickers, that’s going to turn them off. They are not going to like that.

If you sell amigurumi, I am assuming your ideal customer is not necessarily environmentally friendly. If you sold soap savers, a farmers market tote, crafty facial rounds, reusable swifer mats- if you sold all things like that, that would make me think your ideal customer is an eco-friendly, eco-minded person. But amigurumi is toys, so you could be selling book buddies, baby shower gifts, birthday gifts. So you are selling toys for kids, most likely. I know some people have amigurumi that is more like the nerdy/ geeky side and they sell to adults which is really cool. I don’t think for your brand that it is that important. The fact that YOU are eco-friendly and you want to share that with you people and say “Hey I am eco-friendly, and that’s why when you get a package from us this is what it looks like.”

You could go above and beyond and get reusable sacks to put your amigurumi in. I use organza bags, but you can use monks cloth or a little canvas tote that the kids can use to put blocks or something in. So yes it protects your amigurumi piece while it’s in the mail but you can also stamp your logo on it, Taylor has a video tutorial for that, from Taylor Lynn Crochet. Then you can tell them the reason I packed this way is I am eco-friendly, I do not send packaging slips so save the emails that you get. (The automatic email you get from Etsy is like a digital packing slip.) I don’t do business cards but I am going to send you something digitally.

You could put a QR Code sticker on the outside of your package and they could scan it and it can go to your Instagram or any link of your choosing. You could do something like that if you wanted to, so it’s just the one sticker instead of business cards. I feel like that would be more eco-friendly, I don’t know I might be wrong. I am not as eco-conscious as I would like to be.

If it’s an important to you, you can pull that into your brand if you want to and it will let people get to know you better. It will let them see you as a human being. Also if your customer are eco-conscious as well, that’s going to help you build a relationship with them because they are going to feel emotionally engaged. They are going to be like “Oh my gosh, she’s just like me, that’s so cool.” You can start talking about it through out your business on a regular basis and make that apart of your brand if you wanted to.

What are your favorite, most popular items for spring?

I want to start off by saying- whatever your ideal customer is into in spring, would be what your favorite items are.

But I like- crafty facial rounds, hanging plant holders, home decor baskets, farmer market totes, I like earrings. I also like those in the summer time. Home decor pillows, little throw pillows, cactus pillows seem to do well in the spring. That’s all that’s coming to the top of my head right now.

Do you have a pattern for a market bag tote?

Actually I do not. But if you look up Bob Wilson 123 on Youtube, she has the cutest crochet bag pattern. It’s made with a big giant square I think, it’s free and it’s awesome. She does the whole thing step by step.

How do I know my ideal audience? Is it more detailed than just “Crochet Lovers”?

It would depend on if you are a crochet designer or if you sell finished pieces. My advise would be a little bit different based on what part of your business.

You know your ideal audience by serving them well. What I tell my bosses inside Crochet Boss Academy (these are all people who sell finished pieces). When we start to find who our ideal customer is we say okay there are a couple ways we can do this. She could be exactly like you, or a version of you either past or future. Start there, and you can look at your products- your favorite things to make and say how can I make these three things to serve one person OR look at your person and say what three things could I make this person that would serve her really well.

So if you have a mom (I like to do “If, Then’s” it’s kinda like a web graph) so IF you know your ideal customer is a boy mom, she’s got 3 kids and they are all boys. That’s what you know- she’s in her 40’s. What can you guess? IF you know these things, what’s a good assumption about her? So IF she’s got 3 boys, THEN she’s probably really super busy. IF she has 3 boys, THEN they are all probably in sports. That could be a good guess- you are totally making this up.

So if she is busy all the time she probably needs coffee right? Because she’s running around like a mad lady trying to go to all of her son’s sports things so she probably drinks a lot of coffee. So that makes me think- coffee cozies, she would like that. Especially makes me think sports themed colored coffee cozies.

Think of common sports team colors, and you can say I am going to sell these coffee cozies- say the team colors your doing are blue and orange- you’re going to sell coffee cozies in a 3 pack. You are going to get a blue one, an orange one, and a blue and orange striped one. I am selling them to you in a 3 pack because I know that you are busy. This way you can have one in your car, one in your purse and one in your home.

You are serving her really well by creating a product line that is going to raise her quality of life. That’s what you want to do!

Look at who YOU could serve well based off of who you are as a person. I have already talked about how I am a Christian so I could not serve another religion very well. It would be very ignorant of me to serve a religion that I know zero about. To say that my ideal customer is this, this, and this and oh she is this religion which is not Christianity which is what I am, I know nothing about this religion so that would make no sense for me to try and server her and I probably wouldn’t do a very good job at it.

But you make her up, pull things out of thin air and then write down on a piece of paper and do some If- thens.

If you are a crochet designer it would be a little bit different. I am a crochet designer, so my ideal customer sells her finished pieces. So I design things that can be made very quickly, use easy to get ahold of materials, simple stitches. Nothing too dramatic or delicate or intricate. Things that I think could serve different ideal customers, like crafty facial rounds would serve people who wear makeup. Or women who struggle to wipe makeup off before bed, like you have to use soap too but the least case is to get the makeup off of there. Things like that is what I design, but Toni from TL Yarn Crafts she designs these gorgeous intricate fingering weight shawls- she makes long term projects. Her ideal customer is different then my ideal customer. My ideal customer is very similar to Teresa from Debrosse , all of her patterns would be things that you guys could sell in your shops and make fairly easily. But Toni of TL Yarn Crafts her stuff is totally different, and there are other designers too who have stuff that is very intricate or uses expensive fancy yarn- which I think is awesome. I’m not saying it’s bad, it’s just different ideal customers. You want to serve them really really well with your content, whoever they are!

Is it better to have a bunch of different products or stick to one thing like crochet hats?

You want to have a decent product line. I mean you could sell just hats- most of us won’t.

For most of us it’s really hard to niche down because we want to make all of the things, with all the colors, for all the people. What I have done for Wild Grace is I found my ideal customer is a millennial boho girl mom, and I’ve create products around her. I got my bitty boho bibs, my crafty rainbow rattles, my mama and mini hats, and my bitty boho bags. That’s all I got right now, I got four products- I also have “Hello Rainbow” hats, in the same style as my mama and mini hat, but it’s just one for the baby, not a set for mama and mini. They come with poms and they are made on my knitting machine. So I got the four products that I sell right now, but I could add bow headbands- the nylon ones or the ear warmer style with the bow on top. That would be really cute. I could also add my pillows, like crafty cactus pillow, crafty rainbow pillow, crafty pencil pillow, crafty pineapple pillow. I could add any or all of those, and make them nursery decor pieces. I could market the pencil pillows as a back to school photo prop, which is exactly how I use them. So I could add more things to my shop, but I am going to keep it niched down. It’s all going to be things I can serve my baby girl boho mom and serve her really well. I’m not going to add sports themed beanies to my Wild Grace shop, because that doesn’t serve my lady well. My lady might be a sports fan, but when she shops at Wild Grace or when she’s on my Instagram- she’s not coming for sports things. That’s not my brand, that’s not what she’s coming for when she’s hanging out with me online.

So it would be weird I feel like if I started selling the swifer pads, because boho style swifer pads would be weird because nobody ever sees those. I don’t think those would be really on brand for me. I could do the crafty facial rounds, because she’s a mom and she wears makeup. My lady definitely wears makeup, my lady never leaves the house without makeup on. She cares very much about what other people think, and appearances. So crafty facial rounds would serve her really well, it just doesn’t connect with the mom component and I am trying to make everything in my shop speak more to the baby girls themselves- but I could throw in “these are some things for you mom” and talk to her specifically in the listing. I could say “Hey mama, I know your busy and you’re running around all day long. Let me help you with your skin care routine and give you an easy way to take off your makeup before you apply your cleanser.”

Right because I know my ideal customer probably has fancy cleanser. She’s pretty fancy, my ideal customer for Wild Grace.

You want your product line to be niche specific, on brand, and serve your one person really well. You don’t want too many color options. I have one beanie style in my shop. I don’t say “this is the double knit beanie, this is just the double brim beanie, this is the crochet beanie, this is the other crochet beanie.” I am NOT giving her too many options.

The less amount of options you can give per product the better. So like I said I have 8 colors, that I stick to for my Wild Grace things, and I have one beanie style. You limit things, I have one rainbow rattle. I could have the crafty rainbow rattle and then another persons design of rainbow rattle and say “if you don’t like this one, maybe you will like this one better.” That is not good, it sounds like it would be good but it’s really not.

Your customer wants you to be the curator of your product line. So you do all the thinking, so she doesn’t have to!

You find the best products to offer her, that will serve her well that she will like the most. You do all the heavy lifting so she doesn’t have to think about it. That’s what I was doing going through my colors. I was choosing between Yarn Bee Soft and Sleek tobacco or I love this yarn Sun Gold which I call mustard. They are so similar, but also different. I was like maybe she would like both, I am going to add both to my shop! I was trying to figure out, should I do both or should I do one or the other, and then I thought okay the tobacco one is more boho. The mustard is more bright and sunny and the tobacco is more boho. I am not even going to give her the option for the mustard.

If she asks me “Do you have one that is more of a mustard color?” I can choose to do that or not. But if I gave her both options that’s going to put her in choice paralysis, like which one is going to look better with my outfit for my daughter? Then she is not going to be able to make the decision, so I made the decision for her- and chose the color that I think she would like better.

If you did sell just hats, you sold Claire bun beanies and Claire pom beanies and that was it- if you sell just 1 thing, you can sell MORE colors. But if you sell multiple things pick a color line up for your products.

I hope that was helpful and not overwhelming!

Should we be charging more for multiple colors, if requested?

If you are doing something custom- So in my shop I have the 8 colors, and someone says “hey can you mix those colors and give me a striped bib of all the colors?” I could say yes I can do that. It’s a custom order so it is a $5 fee for custom things.

Or if they come to me and say “Hey I see you have all these pretty colors, would you have a neon pink? I would like a neon pink for my daughters birthday.” I would say yeah I can do that, but there is a $5 fee a custom product- because this isn’t yarn that I have in stock. I’m gonna have to go find the perfect yarn to make this product with.

You have that option where you can do that. In A Crafty Concept when I sold Claire bun beanies, they could get a child size or adult size and they were the same price. The only difference was for the child size I used a smaller sized hook. It is less yarn because it’s a smaller hat, but I charged the same because I didn’t want someone to say “Oh I’m an adult but I could probably get away with wearing the child size.” So they order the one that’s $5 cheaper and then it not fit. So if the prices are the same they are going to get the one they think might fit vs. the cheaper one. That was my thinking. So I don’t charge every size a different price. I try not to do that. I try to make it more of a blanket price, but totally up to you.

You can make a custom listing and say they want this listing with the $5 fee. In direct messages in Etsy, if they message you saying hey I want this in stripped, you say yeah I can do that- it’s going to be a $5 fee. When they say yeah that’s perfect that’s exactly what I want. There is a button you can hit that says “Make this a custom order” and you build the order right there within the messages. It will send that person a notification that says “hey your order is ready for purchase” and they can purchase it straight from there and it never goes live in your shop! It doesn’t cost the .20 cent listing fee UNTIL they purchase it, so if they decide to back out you don’t get charged that .20 cent listing fee- like you would if you made the custom listing yourself in your shop.

When will Crochet Boss Academy open to sign up and what will it cost?

Big news coming on that soon! I know originally last year I said it was going to be ever March, but that is not the case. I will announce it very very soon! I am going to wait until I have all my words prepared so there is as little confusion as possible.

Spoiler alert it will not open up again until 2022, but I have big plans. It’s good I promise!!

Thank you for hanging out! I really really appreciate you spending time with me. I hope you got a lot of good information. Took some notes, got some creative juices for your business.

If you have any questions, shoot me an email at [email protected]

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