How-To

From a thread of conversation over at Twitter. Thanks, tweeter friends!

Craft business tip (1): Always carry your business cards with you.

Craft business tip (2): Wear your craft jewelry wherever you go.

Craft business tip (1+2=3): Wear your jewelry and hand out your business cards. It’s amazing how many people have told me about someone approaching them asking “Where did you get that great jewelry? Oh my gosh, you made it??” The next step from there is obvious: snag a new customer.

Craft business tip (3+1=4): Make a t-shirt that artfully invites, “Ask me about my jewelry!” How about a button too?

Ask me about my etsy store!

It works.

Share a story about “conversation starters” that led to sales–leave a comment!

Sometimes the craft business tips I share come from a lot of people’s hard work & experience…

Today I want to talk about the few, the proud, the lucky winners. And what winning can do for your business.

Earlier today I noticed someone’s item on Etsy that was already familiar to me.* Know why? Because it had been one of the really great, and memorable, winners in a Rings & Things design contest. It’s been awarded other prizes too, so we’re talking about a proven, multiple winner. I knew all that already.

The remarkable thing to me today, though, was the price on this item. I’ll just estimate that it’s now going for five times what it would otherwise sell for. As a jewelry artisan, you know that your creations are legitimately worth money. Entering them into competitions and being independently judged as high-quality jewelry backs up that claim.

I’m very proud of the jewelry artist whose winning creation I’m talking about. Assuming you’re going to sell that superb jewelry item that you made, it’s wise to set its price to reflect your reputation. Good move!

We all know you can’t sell every one of your items at a high price. But it says a lot about your status as a serious jewelry artisan, if you have some “high-end” items.

Think about what designs you can come up with, create, and enter into design contests. Besides the prizes available in these contests, and the sheer glory of winning, you may find yourself recouping your investment of materials and labor many times over.

And that can grow your business!

* I’ve kept the artist’s name and the title of the piece anonymous. They’re tangential to my point!

Have your sales benefited after you’ve won a design contest? Share your story in a comment!

Looking at the new Wedding / Bridal / Prom section that we’re building in our Design Gallery, I learned a technique…

Strand enhancers can grow your business. For a second, I thought this might mean “necklace extenders“, which are amazingly useful findings themselves.

But no, strand enhancers are yet a different way of offering extra value to your jewelry customers. They instantly make any necklace into a “Y” necklace, as @wendytgibson put it on Twitter. See one detached, and one in action, in this “Always a Bridesmaid” necklace design:

The “Always a Bridesmaid” design from Rings & Things

For this necklace, designer Cindy made the “pearl enhancer” with a #39-541-11 9x15mm oval no-trigger lobster clasp, in sterling silver. Have a custom wedding order? You can make clip-on strand enhancers with colors that match the bridesmaids’ dresses!

You can take this idea to craft fairs and jewelry shops too! Offer necklace-buying customers a matching strand enhancer for a little sales bump. They let the customer multi-purpose her necklace, choosing the style she wants. And they’re easy to make — so you could even offer to “build to order”. As @CreationsWHeart (also on Twitter) pointed out, “I can see how you could come up w/ a ton of designs whether it’s on a chain or beaded necklace! How fun!”

PS: A little extra design trick is to use seed beads in a pearl necklace like the one seen here. They’re easy, affordable spacers and they take far less time than knotting the cord!

Want to suggest more necklace design tricks and tips? Share them in a comment below. You’ll be entered in our drawing!

Everyone says you should have a blog in order to get noticed! You want to grow your craft business, but there’s not enough time in the day. What to do? Team-blog!

Collaborative artisan blogs like Collective Creatives rock my world. Many hands make light work, so the individual artists have more time for creating.

Multi-author blogs like this also make great reading! You get a steady supply of fresh perspectives, and nobody burns out from constantly having to write something interesting. With the pool of writers involved, the blog gets updated often, so readers find it a lively place to visit.

(A different solution to lightening the load of blogging is to have periodic guest bloggers. That approach might sound better if you want to keep control over your own blog. But then you’ll have to keep track of articles that have been promised to you, so the job of managing the blog just gets bigger.)

The Collective Creatives blog I mentioned has about a dozen members, and I assume all of them are able to log right in and post a piece by themselves. Any “co-editor” like this should also be able to edit any posts or comments that need sprucing up. So, all of the blog duties can be shared.

Art Bead Scene is another group blog that seems to always be lively, with five editors contributing on a regular basis. Each has her own strengths, including a specialization in a particular kind of beadmaking. When you set up your team blog, think about what each potential member can bring to the experience. Will each of you be responsible for posting on a different day of the week? Or take care of whole weeks, in rotation?

The Blogging Queen wrote a good post on the question, Should you join a team blog? She does a great job of bringing up the main questions involved:

• What will be the common theme (idea) of the blog?
• How will you achieve a common “voice” or tone?
• Will a team blog be beneficial to your own craft business? Put some thought into choosing your co-editors!

Have experiences with team blogs? Questions about how they work? Want to recommend a favorite one? Leave a comment below!

April giveaway: “DIY Display Ideas”:
* You enter by leaving comments under the March 31 giveaway announcement
* At the end of April, 2 winners will receive coveted Rings & Things goodie packs!
*So read the blog regularly to see if you won!