Thoughts

Taking Your Craft Business From Pocket Money to Full-Time Job

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Many people today make a little extra cash from their hobbies. People make money selling things like jewelry, clothing, home-ware, and other products online. Some selling on websites devoted to their craft. Others with an e-commerce store on their blogs. Some sell on social media, and other people make money with their crafts using online marketplaces like Etsy. Many use a variety of different platforms to maximize sales. But while these people might make a little cash from something that they love, few even consider taking it full-time. 

To take your craft business from a little pocket money to a full-time income takes time, commitment, and often, passion. It doesn’t always work out, but it is certainly possible. More people than ever before are managing to turn their hobbies into full-time careers. If you feel ready to take the leap, here are some of the things that you might want to do. 

Make Sure There’s a Market for Your Products

Do people want to buy your products? Selling the occasional product to a friend isn’t the same as selling enough to support yourself financially and make your business worthwhile. Take your time to do some market research, and look at your direct competition to make sure it’s worth your time and effort. 

Improve Your Skills

If you want to sell to the broader public, you need to be good. You certainly don’t want to be issuing refunds because of a lack of quality. So, get practicing. Improve your skills, learn how to save time, and even take a course if you think that it will help. 

Create a Marketing Plan

If there’s one thing that any business needs, it’s customers. You might start out selling to friends and family, but soon you’ll need to reach a wider audience. Take some time to create a marketing plan. Digital and social media can be useful, starting a blog might help too, but it’s still a good idea to spend some time advertising offline. 

Get More Space

If you currently make the occasional product in your home office or on the sofa while you watch TV, it might work well while things are small scale. But, if you want to grow, you might need more supplies, more equipment, and more space to work. You might even need server space from one of these providers. Think about what you need. Could you still work from a home office or workshop? Do you need a warehouse or other storage space? Would outsourcing production be an option?

Get Some Help

Increased demand, and more work with things like advertising and admin, might mean that you can’t do it all on your own without neglecting quality and levels of service. 

Hiring help can be useful. But, think about what kind of help you need or want. You could outsource tasks like social media marketing to freelancers, or take on an assistant to help with packaging. 

Invest

If you want to make more money from your business, you need to accept that you might need to spend more money on your business. Invest where you need to and take some risks.

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