Megan Auman of CraftMBA says “you’ve got to spend big money to make big money.”

“Having big goals for your business means you have to be willing to spend big money on your business.”

Go ahead. Go read the article. I’ll wait.

Do you have big goals for your business? Are you making big investments in your business?

Love this: Your Idea Sucks, Now Go Do It Anyway. Required reading.

Getting your idea perfect before you start your project probably won’t happen. That’s okay. Get started. It will work itself out as you work on it, not as you think on it.

Your website is like your photography. The good news is that it can always be better :) Small changes can create big results.

Check out Tara Gentile’s free ebook 7 Ways to Improve Your Website Today and get busy!

And if you’re ready to create a website you’re proud of, Tara’s Website Kick Start class starts soon! Six weeks to your own wordpress site.

I just completed a series of group coaching sessions with Tara and loved her big thinking and practical, actionable next steps. If you’ve been thinking of getting your website up, the time is now and Tara rocks teaching.

Why you create the things you create is the foundation of your success.

Are you so immersed in the making the thing that you make, that your business revolves around the what and not the why?

Building your business on what limits your choices. If that thing that you make no longer floats your boat or becomes obsolete, all your focus on what you make is lost.

Consider a candle maker who discovers she is allergic to some critical ingredients in her products. (I know nothing about making candles and I certainly don’t mean to suggest any candle ingredients are dangerous. Just bear with me here.) If her focus has been entirely on the candles, the what of her business, she’s in a tough spot. If it’s all about the candles, and the candles are gone, what’s left for the business?

What if she had found a deeper meaning than making candles for her business. Maybe she has a deeper meaning and just hasn’t thought about it. What if she had focused on the calming qualities of her candles? What if her vision for her business is to help people find calm in their busy, stressful days? Her transition to calming scented cachets or lotions would be much easier. Her buyers would see the consistency in her brand of creating calm.

As much as building brand consistency rocks, there’s more.

Building your business on why you do what you do does more than help your business be ready for changes in your products. Building your business on why creates a stronger connection with your buyer and this is the key to success.

As Simon Sinek says in his brilliant book, Start with Why: People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.

If that sounds a little lofty and not really practical for day to day sales, consider Sinek’s example. Compare these two possible marketing messages from Apple:

We make great computers.
They’re beautifully designed, simple to use and user-friendly.
Wanna buy one?

Or

Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently.
The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use and user-friendly.
And we happen to make great computers.
Wanna buy one?

Which one inspires loyalty? Which one cultivates raving fans?

Does your business have a vision? A why? Are you communicating your why to your buyers?

If this post rocks your world, would you please tweet it? xo

Image: WHY Gig Poster by Andy J Miller. Used with permission of the artist. Andy’s Etsy shop and website, Design Koma.

September flew by. The holiday sales season is upon us. Is your shop ready for the rush? Here’s 47 tips to get your holiday sales mojo brewing.

1. Update your banner. Does it reflect your current work?
2. Update your profile. Is it current? Is it interesting?
3. Check your avatar. Is it memorable?
4. Inventory and order shipping supplies.
5. Straighten up and organize your shipping area.
6. Freeze meals for later. Home cooked meals in the freezer will be gold on busy days later.
7. Schedule some time off. Mark your calendar.
8. Ask family and friends for help.
9. Consider hiring some help.
10. Update descriptions with gift suggestions: “perfect for the teachers on your list,” “fabulous for the person who loves to cook.”
11. Include a photograph of your packaging in your listings.
12. Buy Etsy search ads.
13. Offer gift certificates and offer fancy gift boxes for the gift cards for additional cost.
14. Offer returning customers a discount.
15. Plan what will happen to seasonal items after the holiday– put them on sale? De-activate the listings? Note in your calendar.
16. Re-photograph those things that you know could shine a little brighter with a new photograph.
17. Post your bling. Don’t be afraid to list your high-end items. (See Show Your Bling.)
18. List sets.
19. Type up responses to common questions to be ready to copy and paste into convos.
20. Set your location for Shop Local.
21. Label items “ready to ship.”
22. Post shipping cut-off deadlines.
23. Post your shipping times.
24. Put your important URLs in your email signature (website, blog, etsy shop, facebook).
25. Spruce up your “message to buyer” with calls to action to “like” your facebook page or join your email list.
26. Start an email list if you don’t have one. (Try Mailchimp.)
27. Ask buyers if they want to be added to your email list, include an incentive like a coupon or discount off their next purchase.
28. Work your mailing list. Plan your email campaign. Note it in your calendar.
29. Tag items with common price terms: “under $25,” “under $50.”
30. Update your blog or website so it looks fresh.
31. Offer gift wrapping. Don’t be afraid to charge a little more for this.
32. Offer to include a gift note.
33. Include testimonials in your descriptions or profile.
34. Plan your sales, note the dates and details in your calendar.
35. Start a facebook business page if you don’t have one.
36. Offer personalized or custom items.
37. Post your cut-off date for personalized or custom items.
38. Know your options for expedited shipping, offer extra fast shipping for additional cost.
39. Don’t forget your New Year’s item production, pitches, promotion. (Get the Wonder Thinking Marketing Calendar Workbook to help keep organized.)
40. Don’t forget your Valentine’s Day item production, pitches, promotion. (Get the Wonder Thinking Marketing Calendar Workbook and stay on top of seasonal themes.)
41. Update your titles and tags for relevancy.
42. Buy blog ads.
43. Re-photograph your products with seasonal themes (for example, reindeer with your soy candles, …).
44. Review your prices. Consider which products have a comfortable margin and focus on promoting those.
45. Create a coupon for your Etsy teammates so they can do some holiday shopping with you.
46. Keep an eye on your Etsy shop stats and revise your tags and titles as you see which keywords bring the most traffic to your shop.
47. Remind yourself what success means to you. In the rush of the holidays, it can be easy to loose sight of your goals and chase every opportunity and every sale. Know your margins. Know your goals.

What tips would you add to the list? Leave a comment!

Was this list helpful? Like Wonder Thinking on facebook!

Who’s thinking about Valentine’s Day in December? Who’s thinking about Christmas in June? If you have an retail business, planning ahead is critical.

Success means putting your seasonal products in front of buyers before the holiday, when it’s time for them to buy; it means pitching your products to magazines and blogs when they are ready to hear your message.

Consider your Valentine products.

What if you want to pitch your Valentine products to print magazines? When do you need to start thinking about that?

What about blogs? When should you craft your pitch and let bloggers know about your Valentine goodies?

What about your mailing list? And facebook? When should you post your Valentine products?

And then there’s your production time to consider. How long does it take you to conceive, create, photograph and get your Valentine product ready to pitch or post online in your shop? Add that time to your planning.

And that’s just one holiday!

Getting your message out at the right time means planning ahead and that is what this marketing calendar workbook will help you do. Get started now!

The Wonder Thinking Marketing Calendar Workbook. 30 pages with action items and seasonal themes each month to target your marketing and boost your sales. All for just $12.

What gets measured, gets managed. –Words of wisdom from an influential business thinker, Peter Drucker.

Things that get measured, get our attention. What gets measured in your business? What gets a guess?

You probably calculate your costs and your time. What’s not getting your attention?

Do you run ads? Are you measuring their effects?

Do you have a mailing list? (Say yes!) Are you emailing your subscribers regularly? Are you evaluating the effects of your mailings?

Do you measure and plan your new product launches? For some great tips, check out Jess Van Den’s post on Scoutie Girl: 10 Steps for a Successful Handmade Product Launch.

Are you counting your failures? If you’re not failing every now and then, you’re not pushing yourself hard enough.

What else could you be measuring? Leave a comment and tell us.

Some tools for measuring, recording, documenting:

- Outright online accounting.

- Google Analytics.

- Evernote for capturing all sorts of notes.

- Etsy Fee Calculator.

- Open Office open source office productivity software.

My friends ask me how to sell photography on Etsy all the time. So I’m spilling it here.

What is the first step in selling your photography prints on Etsy? Define your focus. Narrow your collection. Pick a theme.

When many people start selling photography prints online they make a huge mistake– they try to cast a wide net. They try to please a wide audience. They try to have something that will appeal to everybody.

It’s natural to think that appealing to a wide audience would mean more buyers, but it just doesn’t work like that.

If you have a few macro shots of flowers, some nice beach images, several old barns in rural landscapes and you open your shop with a diverse collection, you may make a nice impression with people browsing your shop. Nice, not memorable. Even if the images are lovely by themselves, the mix often robs them of their individual appeal. Together they are less.

You are much better off to offer a tight, distinctive, curated set of images that rocks some people’s socks off than try to cover your bases with something for everybody.

Pick a theme within your existing images and develop it into 24 or more images to open your shop. If your orchid macros are to die for, go with that. Leave the rustic barns for later.

A tight set of images isn’t necessarily defined by subject. Some photographers manage powerful visual cohesion with a variety of subjects. It’s just easier to develop a tight set of photographs with a narrow subject.

Some people will love your orchids. They will tell their friends on Facebook. They will blog about your work and pin your photos on Pinterest. They will be your people, your buyers.

Remember when Amazon sold only books? They got known as the place online to buy books. Simple. Memorable. Later they added small kitchen appliances, pipe wrenches, and music. They didn’t start out trying to build a reputation as the place to buy anything and everything online.

Take a look at your photographs. Pick a theme.

What do you think? Am I brilliant? Full of bologna? Leave a comment. Tweet this post.

Looking for more traffic to your Etsy shop? Are you working seasonal merchandising trends?

Following seasonal trends and adjusting my products’ titles and tags has made a huge impact on my Etsy traffic and sales.

My seasonal merchandising “aha” moment came last September. I logged on the Etsy and saw a front page filled with Halloween items. Many of my photographs are mostly blue with birds and telephone lines. How on earth was I supposed to get any attention to my shop with the Halloween craze in full force?

The answer: fresh eyes. I needed to look at my photographs with fresh eyes and seasonal merchandising trends in mind.

Start with color.

Pantone’s color forecast for Fall 2011 includes: bamboo yellow, emberglow coral, honeysuckle pink, phlox and orchid purples, cedar green, deep teal, coffee and nougat browns, and quarry.

Etsy’s September merchandising desk report also mentions: turquoise, rustic fall colors, jade greens and mustards.

Are any of your products teal? Nougat brown? Mustard yellow? Update their tags. Treasury makers will be searching for these colors. Getting your teal items into treasuries gets eyes on your shop and starts the traffic snowball.

What do you want in your website? Is your website all that you want it to be?

Creating a website is hard work. I get it.

There are a lot of little (and big) things to get right…

Technical: Which host should you choose? What should you look for in a host? Why should you use wordpress rather than another platform?

Functional and Aesthetic: What are your options for styling your site? How does page design affect your website goals?

Content: What should your “about” page say? What are the important pages you should include?

I have a technical degree; I’ve worked in information technology (as a programmer, system administrator, database administrator) for 15+ years. Even with a solid technical background, I find putting together websites no minor task. It’s not rocket science, but it is a lot of pieces to put together.

It’s easy to put your website on the back burner.

Your website is the foundation of your online business. Stop putting it off. Create a website you are proud of, this fall. Tara Gentile, editor of Scoutie Girl, will walk you through every step of the way. Tara’s Website Kick Start ecourse starts soon and your new website could be ready (done!) in six weeks.

Just get it done already.