Happy New Year !! May it be joyfull & creative, full of love among your loved ones !!
I hardly worked at all for 2 weeks, not even touching my hooks (and that doesn’t happen often) but it now feels good to get back to work. During the last months of 2014 I tried to focus on making my business grow in a sustainable way, ie a way that feeds my family. It’s no big news that actually making a living from designing crochet patterns is no easy task. But I still want to believe it is possible.
Thus I tried to stop and think. Read blogs dealing with creative micro-businesses. And realised one thing: seing my patterns published in magazines or books and being somewhat “famous” especially on Ravelry is NOT going to feed my family (being the sole bread-earner at this time, it’s a big concern for me). YET if I’m being honest, there are many crochet designers out there who are doing well with their patterns but not on Ravelry. I need to think outside the box and focus on making it work. Which means marketing. Not in a bad way, but just finding ways to spread the word and let the world know how fabulous my patterns are 😉
I did a lot of reading. I did a lot of thinking. I did a lot of experimenting. And the results started to come, which is already SO very encouraging. I feel like I’m finally going in the right direction.
So in 2015 I want to keep focusing on taking my business more seriously.
– Focus on what works ( = crochet garments in my case) for my business and keep the other fun stuff for my personal enjoyment. Because that’s ok too. 🙂
– Get organised. Make a weekly planning to keep some days dedicated to blogging / social media and other long-term thinking.
– Take time to explore new crochet techniques.
– Blog on a regular basis, for instance with a “designing monday”, “Wip wednesday”, or “technique thursday”. Not all of those every week but that should help..
– Take time to share more with the crochet community who shares my passion through my (fast growing, yay !!!) Facebook page.
– And more generally, take my business seriously. Which I always did. But I’ll try and add new things. I like very much Stacey Trock‘s approach for instance. Good food for thought.
How about you ? Any resolutions for the New Year, business-related or not ?
Hello Sylvie, catching up on your blog. I’m a bit behind I know! Here’s someone whose creative business sense inspires me … http://alisaburke.blogspot.co.nz/. She’s an artist, but I think many of her business ideas will transfer well to you. She’s got a really good series of videos on blogging.
Thanks Renée !! Certainly will have a look at it 😀