Business Tips?!?!?!?

Quickie no-pic post today, I've got bunches of important stuff to finish this week. I just wanted to pose the question to all of you starting your own crafty businesses out there. Do all of your family and friends tell you how to run your business too? It's been really surprising to me, when I tell people that I'm starting a business; just how many of them have something to say about how I have to run my business. That's not to say I don't appreciate the advice, but it seems as if every single person I tell (who's not in the crafty blog-o-sphere,) thinks that I need some advice about my business. I should make big-ticket items to pump up the profit, I have to pitch to stores to make the sales, and for the most part - that sales equal success. I don't think that I'd want a wholesale order for 200 tsumami kanzashi flower snaps tomorrow. It'd be overwhelming and exhausting, because my products are so time & labor intensive to produce.

That's not to say I don't want to make more sales; far from it, actually. But what's important to me is what I get out of the experience, because I've already learned in my short life that money doesn't equal happiness. I want to feel satisfied with myself, and I just don't think running my business anybody else's way is right for me, right now. I don't know if it will stay this way forever, but right now I'm defining my own success. I guess I just wish that was easier for other people to see and understand. I've often felt like people derive their own interpretations and perspective on things, and that can sometimes alienate and isolate people (i.e. me.)

I wonder why people focus on what I'm doing wrong with my business, instead of the things that are more positive. I know it's tough to sell on the internet, I'm no dummy after all! LOL I also know a brand new kind of product coupled with being a brand new seller means I have the odds stacked against me. But I know I'm in it for the long haul, and that whatever it takes and wherever it takes me, I'll be there. Fighting my own fight, because that's what makes me feel like I'm being truest to myself, and those goals I've set myself on. (Wow, that sounded like Rocky climbing those damn stairs!!!) My highest goal is simply quality, across the board - I want to produce a quality product, sell it with a quality experience, and enjoy a quality of experience for myself within making and selling. I know it's a lofty goal, but to me that's more important than selling hundreds of dollars of product, or even having hundreds of sales. I want to get something out of it too; not just work my poor fingers to the bone for other people's enjoyment.

Any thoughts on starting your own crafty business? Please feel free to share, here or you can email me at - Crafty NOSPACE Ginger AT gmail DOT com.