Find out what I found to work for me and why I now I'm able to work from home!
One of the best ways to create a small home business in my opinion is to open an online shop. You may be thinking that I’m throwing around common knowledge but I’m telling you where I’ve found my own success in creating my very own small home business. It’s not as simple as opening an online shop of amazing products and waiting for customers to line up and buy buy buy. There’s a lot involved. In fact I’ve failed at this more times than found success. I do know it is possible as long as you have all your ducks in a row and you’re willing to put in the man hours to make it work. This is why finding what you “LOVE” is the key to any successful business venture. I will tell you the two small home businesses that I’ve found myself successful at are both things that I absolutely LOVE and are completely passionate about.
It can’t be said enough, no successful small home business comes easy. There is no magic potion that can be purchased to give you overnight success with little or no effort. So don’t be scammed. The reason why people can believe in a no fail, no work, making money scheme is because they WANT to believe it’s true. Who doesn’t? I’d love to be able to kickback and just watch money roll in without lifting a finger. Ha it sounds more like winning the lottery to me…because it is!
That isn’t to say being able to work from home doesn’t have its perks. Of course it’s nice to be able to work at the convenience of my home. I don’t have to get ready in the morning to go anywhere, heck if I so choose I can work in my PJ’s as long as the kids don’t have school. ;) I’m able to most times work at my leisure…or when my children allow time to. Huge benefit to being a night owl is that I’m able to pick up my computer or my jewelry at any point and do some work in the late into the night when everyone else is sleeping.
A great place to start with any business is to start small and dream big!
Starting small and online is smart; why because there is a lot less to lose if your business venture ends up being a flop or if you end up finding out it’s not something you end up wanting to do. Think about it this way…you have no grand expenditures of a building other than the use of your home and you get to stay home and work! It’s smart and yet another perk of a small home business venture, less costs and overhead. Making it afforable and cost effective to be able to start up with little costs for you.
I think the best success stories happen when I hear or read of a person doing a side hobby that they love to do to find out there’s a real demand out there for what they are creating. It’s these stories that inspired me to follow through with what I envision for myself. I knew it was possible and was determined to find my way. I knew my strengths, my talents and I knew I had the means of making it a reality. Step by step I worked up to where I am today…happily making money from home doing what I love by creating beautiful hand crafted jewelry. Fun part for me is that it’s a leap from what I was already doing from home…Web Development & Graphic Design. Know what I’m about to share isn’t to sell you anything but simply share with you my success.
It all started for me 2 years ago when I started up my very own small home business online by opening an Etsy Shop. I remember reading time and time again success story after success story of artists and crafters using Etsy to turn what they create and love into full time home based careers. I knew it could be achieved but never dreamed that it would be what it is for me today!
I guess I should back up and tell you some about my background. Prior to this I was a stay-home mother of my first child at the time and a part time freelance web developer. I wasn’t always busy and being that I was an artist at heart I wanted something to full fill my inner artist. I did so by crafting. Come to find out I discovered Etsy…long after it was well known to the World Wide Web. I find it funny as to where I first started my business from thinking I was going to make cutesy hair bows to a now full line of custom and personalized hand crafted jewelry.
In the beginning I spent hours learning how to create different hair bows and flower bows and cute girly clips. I remember my first sale and how EXCITED and thrilled I was that someone wanted to purchase something I created! As much excitement I got from this and as much fun as I had learning this trade, I quickly learned as I opened my shop for Lil Miss Katie’s, that there was already a huge over saturated market of handmade girly bows and clips. I had invested some money in hair clips and ribbon supplies but it wasn’t a big enough investment to break the bank by any means, which is where my theory of starting small and go big fits well. It also worked out that I had a little girl so creating bows was fun and perfect for me to use her as my subject.
Learning the trade I quickly saw how time consuming each bow was to make and how cheaply bows were being sold for…it wasn’t cost effective for me to the more I got involved with this and started to really crunch numbers I saw it wasn’t profitable for me to continue this venture. I almost became Etsy obsessed in that I would spend hours investing time looking up what sold, what was popular and what seemed to be profitable. I saw that there was a huge market for jewelry but a much better chance of making money. It was here I started to dabble in my first tutorials of wire forming, jewelry making techniques of making earrings, bracelets and hand stamped custom pieces. I fell in love! It became my job to learn this brand new craft of jewelry making…although never once considered it work because of how much I enjoyed it.
During my first year I sold in 6 month now what I sell in a week’s time. Most people would have given up at this point. It happened that this was still to me a side hobby and there was no pressure for me to make it my business only a dream and will to make it that successful. My primary source of income was still my freelance work as a web developer.
Key points to my success in having a small home business…I kept myself inspired and never gave up. I kept reading Etsy success stories. I knew it was a tangible dream and it was my passion for what I was creating and love for what I was doing that kept me going. I kept creating new items and upgrading my quality of materials I was using and learning newer and better techniques. I taught myself what I need to know to keep up with what people were seeking out. Over time I found the pieces that would sell and I remained with the idea that my pieces were to be high quality and custom personalized unique pieces. As time progressed and my pieces evolved I figured out what really sold and knew what people were willing to spend and what was a fair and reasonable price also keeping items at price range where anyone could afford my jewelry.
So where am I today? Once having my second child and adjusting to my life around a newborn and finding both my business starting to really take off especially my jewelry I had to come to a deciding point in my life. It was very hard for me to do but I had decided to give up my passion for freelancing web development to take on my jewelry as being my career choice. Know this was extremely difficult for me to do because I had spent the past 15 years of my life creating sites and past several years building up freelance business by being able to work from home. The one thing that did make it easier for me was that even though I was giving up all my cliental I knew I would be continually putting my skills at work with the business sites I currently had for my jewelry and would be maintaining all the ones I had created in the past.
I now have one of my dearest friends hired on to assemble and ship out all my orders. I still personally stamp each of my pieces but I’ve grown enough to be able to have someone work with me from the base of my home. I’m personally making less but I know it was a critical spot for me to be able to succeed…as my business grows I need to be able to keep up otherwise my business would fail quicker than it took to grow. I still have big plans and ideas constantly running in my mind of the next stage I’d like to take my Lil Miss Katie’s Jewelry. My biggest struggle now is the balance of family life, a very demanding infant and success of working hours. There are so many more aspects to my business now that I never had to worry about before. Accounting & book keeping for one, Payroll, a lot more customer service with conversations and emailing, website and online shop maintenance & marketing which I know I need to be more proactive in.
Some of the main Highlights to this article are that starting a small home business is very possible. It doesn’t happen overnight so I would never suggest quitting a day job to start up an idea that you want to run with. Best situations to this would be is if you have time to commit to a side job. Think of this as a part time job to your current employment situation. Make sure it something you can be passionate at and love so it’s not work but something you are enjoy doing and creating along the way. Know that starting off it will you’ll only really be making enough to cover your costs and expenses but be thrilled in that fact. I know I was ecstatic. I placed my goals in realistic stages. I was first happy to cover my expense then basic goals for the month then weeks. As I progress I was excited over every milestone I overcame. Starting off making only dollars off my first sale…to then having a sale a week to having a couple of sales a week to then making an average of a $100 buck a month to a couple and then on and on but being very excited to seeing the results as they came.
I highly recommend if you are looking to sell a unique crafted item to consider Etsy! If you’re into antiques and collecting vintage items you can even sell and create a shop there. One remarkable fact about me using Etsy as oppose to me creating an online shop of my own through my website is that all this time on Etsy I have never once had to pay for any form of Advertising. Etsy already has millions of targeted buyers that by everyday on their site every day and all you need to know is how to tap into that source and sell to who is already going there to buy. As oppose to creating an online website that you’ll either need to learn how to create yourself or hire someone on to do. On top of that you will not have people visiting or finding your online shop unless you pay for people to view it through paid advertising either online or through printed sources of marketing. Then there’s the factor of making your shop SEO for search engines which is an entire different topic to get into. But for now know this; Etsy is extremely cheap in comparison to any other alternative of a start up business…costing you only 20 cent per listing that you post and then about 3% per transaction…well 6% when you include the payment plug-in of how to accept an online payment. I do plan on going into more details of opening an Etsy Shop or an Online Store and the positives and negatives of both. In my opinion I believe there is a place to have both.
For now…start small but dream BIG. You don’t want to go out the gate failing before you even start. As always feel free to shoot me a line with any questions if you’re unable to find an article topic to cover your question on. Wishing you a bright and successful future ahead!
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