How much does it cost to become a Beachbody coach?

Since I signed up to be a Beachbody coach, I've been letting people know about it. By far, the number one question I get is: How much does it cost to be a Beachbody coach? A reasonable question. Here’s my answer:

SHORT ANSWER:

$39.99 and then $15.95 a month and that’s it!

LONG ANSWER:

You have two options when you sign up, which impact the cost:

Signing up as a coach for the 25% discount for yourself and your friends/family
Signing up as a coach to be a coach/build a business (and get the 25% discount too!)

Signing up to be a Beachbody coach costs $39.99. If you or your spouse are active military, the fee is waived!

The fee is also waived if you buy a challenge pack (which is a bundle of a full workout program, club access, and Shakeology).

After your first month as a coach, there is a monthly fee of $15.95 to maintain the websites Beachbody creates for you.

These are the sites:

Beachbody.com
BeachbodyCoach.com
Shakeology.com
UltimateReset.com

If you’re signing up to be a coach for that great 25% discount, these are your only fees. If you’re on a home delivery plan of Shakeology or something, your savings will negate the cost and then some.

If you’re signing up to be a coach so you can build your own business, whether just for some extra cash, or if you’re like me and want to make it your full-time income eventually, there is a bit more to consider, cost-wise.

Just like above you pay the $39.99 to register, the monthly $15.95 for your four websites. You could stop there and just sell programs and shakeology to customers and earn your 25% commission check each week.

OR

You can be what’s called an ACTIVE coach and be able to earn much more than just the 25%.

To be an Active Coach you must sell or purchase $55 worth of product each month. (Example: I am on home delivery of Shakeology so I am automatically always going to be active)

It’s hard for me to consider that a “cost” of being a coach, because it’s a product I’ll be using daily either way.

Further, for coaches who want to build their business up into something lucrative:

After you have reached Emerald status (meaning you have 2 active coaches under you) there is a $39.95 fee (per quarter) to be eligible for the Customer Lead Program where Beachbody GIVES you customers that have signed up online or through their millions of infomercials.

I hope that was clear. If not, feel free to ask me any questions.

If you’re interested in joining the Beachbody community, CLICK HERE for your free account and to have me as your coach!

If you want to join me as a Beachbody coach, CLICK HERE to apply.

Leading Teams

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Leading teams. These two words that have the power to excite or evoke fear in someone's heart.

Let's look at the word "lead." According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the various definitions include "to guide on a way especially by going in advance" or "to direct on a course or in a direction." Based on this, if we are business owners, we ARE leaders. It is our responsibility to guide and direct our team. The problem is that many aren't sure exactly how to lead a team, and it becomes a "trial and error" effort. This is counter-productive when we want to be focused on building a strong business. Becoming an effective leader of a team takes time, so lets explore 3 big keys that can be immediately implemented.

Be a Role Model. Your team is only going to move as fast as you do. It's up to you to set the pace and articulate the expectations. You never want to ask your team to do something that you aren't willing to do yourself.

Stay focused on the growth of your business and allow others to watch how you accomplish it. However I must say that you should never insist that someone runs his or her own business in a certain manner. While it's your job to be a role model, it's your team's job to decide whether or not your method is a good fit for them...and it may not be. Do NOT be offended if that's the case as we are all individuals.

As a role model, it's also important that you don't freely give away all of your knowledge acquired by your continued learning. Your knowledge is very valuable, but it's important that your team members put "skin in the game" if they are going to be successful in their own right.

Set boundaries.  Oh boy...I could write a book on this one area alone and fill it with mistakes that I've personally made and lessons that I've learned. Remember as you lead your team, you are also teaching them how to potentially lead theirs. Don't take this lightly. You have the ability to pass along great habits or habits that will leave them feeling as though they're in bondage. It is entirely possible to have a successful business and a successful life, but only if you set boundaries along with work hours.

You cannot and should not make yourself available to your team 24/7...regardless of what others teach. It's a sure-fire way to lead to burnout. Repeat after me: One-to-many. One-to-Many. ONE-TO-MANY! What does this model mean? It means that you no longer communicate with individuals via text or private email. It means that you no longer have an open-door policy for receiving phone calls.

So if you are accustomed to the one-to-one model, how do you transition away from it? It's actually rather simple. When you need to communicate with your team, you do it in a Facebook group. When someone has a question and emails you, you graciously tell them to post it in your Facebook group so everyone can benefit from the answer. When you have something that you need to talk about, utilize a video or have a group call that you record. If people aren't used to this method, they may not be happy at first, but I promise that they will adapt if you are consistent with your boundaries.

Be careful not to manage.  There is a difference between leading and managing. To lead is to have followers. To manage means that you have subordinates who do what they are told and you check up on them. You want to groom powerful leaders who can help change peoples lives, all while building their business and ultimately yours! Telling people what to do is not inspirational and creates dependency. I consider it the adult equivalent to breast-feeding. Instead give them the tools and point them to the resources, but allow people to be individuals and make their own decisions. Allow them to make mistakes and figure things out. A great book on this very subject is Failing Forward by John C. Maxwell. I definitely recommend it.

In short, by holding yourself to your own standards and expectations of others, you will become a great leader. By being a role model, setting boundaries, and not managing others, you'll find freedom in leading. Ultimately your leadership will result in others going on to lead as well. Trust me when I say, there is nothing more satisfying than birthing a leader and watching that person go on to birth their own.

Article originally posted here. Copyright 2014.

How to Become More Productive

Ever feel like you’re just not getting enough done?

Do you know how many days a week you’re actually productive?

About three.

People work an average of 45 hours a week; they consider about 17 of those hours to be unproductive (U.S.: 45 hours a week; 16 hours are considered unproductive).

We could all be accomplishing a lot more — but then again, none of us wants to be a workaholic, either.

It’d be great to get tons done and have work-life balance. But how do we do that? I decided to get some answers.

Below are six tips offered by Tim Ferriss, author of the international bestseller The 4-Hour Work Week. (Tim's blog)

Below are six tips Tim offered, the science behind why they work, and insights from the most productive people around.

 

1. Manage Your Mood
 

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Most productivity systems act like we’re robots – they forget the enormous power of feelings.

If you start the day calm it’s easy to get the right things done and focus.

But when we wake up and the fray is already upon us — phone ringing, emails coming in, fire alarms going off — you spend the whole day reacting.

This means you’re not in the driver’s seat working on your priorities; you’re responding to what gets thrown at you, important or not.

Here’s Tim:

I try to have the first 80 to 90 minutes of my day vary as little as possible. I think that a routine is necessary to feel in control and nonreactive, which reduces anxiety. It therefore makes you more productive.

Research shows how you start the day has an enormous effect on productivity, and you procrastinate more when you’re in a bad mood.

Studies demonstrate happiness increases productivity and makes you more successful.

As Shawn Achor describes in his book The Happiness Advantage:

Doctors put in a positive mood before making a diagnosis show almost three times more intelligence and creativity than doctors in a neutral state, and they make accurate diagnoses 19% faster. Optimistic salespeople outsell their pessimistic counterparts by 56%. Students primed to feel happy before taking math achievement tests far outperform their neutral peers. It turns out that our brains are literally hardwired to perform at their best not when they are negative or even neutral, but when they are positive.

So think a little less about managing the work and a little more about managing your moods.

So what’s the first step to managing your mood after you wake up?

 

2. Don’t Check Email In The Morning

 

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To some people this is utter heresy. Many can’t imagine not waking up and immediately checking email or social-media feeds.

Why is checking email in the morning a cardinal sin? You’re setting yourself up to react.

An email comes in and suddenly you’re giving your best hours to someone else’s goals, not yours.

You’re not planning your day and prioritizing; you’re letting your objectives be hijacked by whoever randomly decides to enter your inbox.

Here’s Tim:

Whenever possible, do not check email for the first hour or two of the day. It’s difficult for some people to imagine. “How can I do that? I need to check email to get the information I need to work on my most important one or two to-dos?”

You would be surprised how often that is not the case. You might need to get into your email to finish 100% of your most important to-dos. But can you get 90% done before you go into Gmail and have your rat brain explode with freak-out, dopamine excitement and cortisol panic? Yes.

Research shows email:
1.Stresses you out.
2.Can turn you into a jerk.
3.Can be more addictive than alcohol and tobacco.
4.And checking email frequently is the equivalent of dropping your IQ 10 points.

Is this really how you want to start your day?

Great, so you know what not to do. But a bigger question looms: What should you be doing?

 

3. Before You Try To Do It Faster, Ask Whether It Should Be Done At All

 

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Everyone asks, “Why is it so impossible to get everything done?” But the answer is stunningly easy:

You’re doing too many things.

Want to be more productive? Don’t ask how to make something more efficient until after you’ve asked “Do I need to do this at all?”

Here’s Tim:

Doing something well does not make it important. I think this is one of the most common problems with a lot of time-management or productivity advice; they focus on how to do things quickly. The vast majority of things that people do quickly should not be done at all.

It’s funny that we complain we have so little time and then we prioritize like time is endless. Instead, do what is important … and not much else.

But is this true in the real world?

Research shows CEOs don’t get more done by blindly working more hours, they get more done when they follow careful plans:

Preliminary analysis from CEOs in India found that a firm’s sales increased as the CEO worked more hours. But more intriguingly, the correlation between CEO time use and output was driven entirely by hours spent in planned activities. Planning doesn’t have to mean that the hours are spent in meetings, though meetings with employees were correlated with higher sales; it’s just that CEO time is a limited and valuable resource, and planning how it should be allocated increases the chances that it’s spent in productive ways.

OK, you’ve cleared the decks. Your head is serene, you’ve gotten the email monkey off your back and you know what you need to do.

Now we have to face one of the biggest problems of the modern era: How do you sit still and focus?

 

4. Focus Is Nothing More Than Eliminating Distractions

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Ed Hallowell, former professor at Harvard Medical School and bestselling author of Driven to Distraction, says we have “culturally generated ADD.”

Has modern life permanently damaged our attention spans?

No. What you do have is more tantalizing, easily accessible, shiny things available to you 24/7 than any human being has ever had.

The answer is to lock yourself somewhere to make all the flashing, buzzing distractions go away.

Here’s Tim:

Focus is a function, first and foremost, of limiting the number of options you give yourself for procrastinating… I think that focus is thought of as this magical ability. It’s not a magical ability. It’s put yourself in a padded room, with the problem that you need to work on, and shut the door. That’s it. The degree to which you can replicate that, and systematize it, is the extent to which you will have focus.

What’s the best way to sum up the research? How about this: Distractions make you stupid.

And a flood of studies shows that the easiest and most powerful way to change your behavior is to change your environment.

Top CEOs are interrupted every 20 minutes. How do they get anything done?

By working from home in the morning for 90 minutes where no one can bother them:

They found that not one of the twelve executives was ever able to work uninterruptedly more than twenty minutes at a time—at least not in the office. Only at home was there some chance of concentration. And the only one of the twelve who did not make important, long-range decisions “off the cuff,” and sandwiched in between unimportant but long telephone calls and “crisis” problems, was the executive who worked at home every morning for an hour and a half before coming to the office.

I know what some of you are thinking: I have other responsibilities. Meetings. My boss needs me. My spouse calls. I can’t just hide.

This is why you need a system.

 

5. Have A Personal System

 

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I’ve spoken to a few insanely productive people. You know what none of them said?

“I don’t know how I get stuff done. I just wing it and hope for the best.”

Not one. Your routines can be formal and scientific or personal and idiosyncratic — but either way, productive people have a routine.

Here’s Tim:

Defining routines and systems is more effective than relying on self-discipline. I think self-discipline is overrated.

Allowing yourself the option to do what you have not decided to do is disempowering and asking for failure. I encourage people to develop routines so that their decision-making is only applied to the most creative aspects of their work, or wherever their unique talent happens to lie.

Great systems work because they make things automatic, and don’t tax your very limited supply of willpower.

What do we see when we systematically study the great geniuses of all time? Almost all had personal routines that worked for them.

(“Give and Take” author Adam Grant consistently writes in the mornings while Tim always writes at night.)

How do you start to develop your own personal system? Apply some 80-20 thinking:
1.What handful of activities are responsible for the disproportionate number of your successes?
2.What handful of activities absolutely crater your productivity?
3.Rearrange your schedule to do more of No. 1 and to eliminate No. 2 as much as possible.

So you’re all set to wake up tomorrow with a system and not be reactive. How do you make sure you follow through on this tomorrow? It’s simple.

 

6. Define Your Goals The Night Before

 

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Wake up knowing what is important before the day’s pseudo-emergencies come barging into your life and your inbox screams new commands.

Here’s Tim:

Define your one or two most important to-dos before dinner, the day before.

Best-selling author Dan Pink gives similar advice:

Establish a closing ritual. Know when to stop working. Try to end each workday the same way, too. Straighten up your desk. Back up your computer. Make a list of what you need to do tomorrow.

Research says you’re more likely to follow through if you’re specific and if you write your goals down.

Studies show this has a secondary benefit: writing down what you need to do tomorrow relieves anxiety and helps you enjoy your evening.

So how does this all come together?

 

Summing Up

Here are Tim’s 6 tips:
1.Manage Your Mood
2.Don’t Check Email in The Morning
3.Before You Try To Do It Faster, Ask Whether It Should Be Done At All
4.Focus Is Nothing More Than Eliminating Distractions
5.Have A Personal System
6.Define Your Goals The Night Before

The word “productivity” sounds like we’re talking about machines. But the funny thing is that much of being truly good with time is about feelings.

How should you strive to feel when working? Busy, but not rushed. Research shows this is when people are happiest.

Once you are more productive, you’ll have a lot more hours to fill. So why not use them to make others and yourself happier?

This article originally appeared here. Copyright 2014

Farewell to Google Reader... What now?

Google Reader is going away in July. GASP!

Don't worry. If you read this and other blogs through Google Reader or GFC (Google Friend Connect) you have plenty of other options. Here they are!

1. Follow through Bloglovin' 

Many blog lovers already use this platform to follow their favorite blogs. I get an email every morning of all the blog posts that were posted since the day before - it's awesome!!! It is ridiculously easy to add your subscriptions too - BONUS!

Set up an account and import blogs HERE.

Follow Trees.Hides. HERE. 

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2. Follow through Feedly

Feedly is claiming to have a way to seamlessly import your blogs when Reader goes away so that you won't even notice the transition. If you sign up for a Feedly account now and start using it everything should transfer without any fuss. 

Get Feedly HERE. 

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3. Subscribe by Email

If you're like me and read a ton of blogs, this is NOT the option for you. My inbox would be a nightmare. If you only follow a few favorites, then this is a good option. Just head over to the right sidebar near the top of the blog under "Subscribe" and on the link 'via email'.

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4. Follow with Facebook

Most blogs have a Facebook page that they use to interact with readers and promote posts. Most of my posts that I post here on my blog is available on my Facebook page minutes after I post it. If you are active on Facebook just "like" all the blogs you follow and you can click on the links to read the posts.

****I don't recommend following by Twitter alone. It's easier to miss important posts there. ****

Business Direction :: Destash

I mentioned about a month ago (in this post) that I am planning to let the listings of my paper shop expire in 2013. I have already deactivated all my made-to-order listings, and I have now added my stamp sets as destash. So if you're a stamper, please take a look!

There is a section for wood mounted stamp sets and a section for unmounted stamp sets.

There are a lot of family and friends who are very surprised at my decision to do this. But this will help me organize my space and my time better. For those of you who know, paper crafting is quite time-consuming, and since I'm working a full-time job, the made-to-order purchases (the majority of my business with the paper shop) took up almost my entire Saturday morning/afternoon! I don't want that time taken away from me like that. My family and housework (crazy, eh?) are more important to me.

Besides, the more organized you are, the better you can work, right? Well, that's the way it is for me.

And with this decision comes some extra time I crave to design and create new projects (which is what you'll see a lot more in 2013)!!

2013 Business Goals

2012 was the first full year in business for The Orange Windmill.

This year, there is going to be a much stronger focus on growing my business.

Here are my 2013 goals:

1. Gain five more wholesale accounts.

2. Buy paper in bulk(er).

3. Purchase shipping supplies in bulk.

4. Organize my work space better.

5. Build a landing page for my website.

It is my plan to have all of these things done by the end of 2013.

What are your business goals?

Tips for sponsoring blogs

So you have a shop or blog. And you want to get the more views and sales, right? A great way to do this is to get your ad (or button) on other blogs. But how do you know which blogs to choose? This is what I do:

1. Have some ad buttons prepared. Take a look at the blog's sponsor page and find out the size ad they require, then make or revise your ad to the specified size. Seeing blogs with ad spots that are stretched to fit the necessary size never looks good. Trust me, that makes everyone's lives easier.

2. Look for blogs that fit in with your branding. If you have a fashion blog, you might not get as many views from putting your ad on a DIY blog; you'd be better off putting your ad on, say, a lifestyle blog. Or if you're selling photography, you'll want to advertise on an art blog. Chances are, you might be already following a blog you want to advertise on. I know that of all the blogs I have ever advertised on, I was already following and knew something about the blog and the author of said blog.

3. Look beyond the amount of followers. I have learned to look at the number of pageviews in a month, as opposed to the amount of followers it has. Just because a blog has many followers, it doesn't mean that each of those followers are reading that blog.

4. Look for the sponsor location. There have been a few blogs that I was interested in putting my ad up for a month. But when I looked for their sponsors, they were all the way at the bottom of the sidebar. If I'm going to sponsor a blog, I want my ad to be at least within the length of a usual blog post.

5. Look for what the ad spot includes. Some ad spots offer little extra things like extra tweets or pins throughout the month, or an individual feature of your shop, or an intro post. All these little extras sometimes are what make having the sponsor spot worth it.

6. Google Analytics. If you don't have your blog or shop set up with Google Analytics yet, DO IT! It's a great way to see where your clicks are coming from, how long they stayed on your site, if they browsed through other pages on your site after seeing your initial page, etc. It's a great place to gather information and to find out which blogs are the best to advertise on.

I hope these tips help you decide on which blogs might be a good fit for advertising on! If you have any more tips that I, please add them in the comments!

How are you getting ready for the holiday rush of sales?

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I'm not sure about you, but the holiday rush of customer inquiries and sales are forefront in my mind right now. And I've received more than a few messages and emails about what I did last year and what I'm planning on doing this year. So here's what I'm doing to get myself ready:

Inventory

I'm setting a goal for myself to make at least one new item everyday.

Now, I know that's tough for a lot of you, and I understand! There are so many days where I'm just too busy with everything else once I get home from my day job. So I plan ahead, and on my lunch breaks at work, you will most likely find me binding a new journal.

I had also spent the last few months brainstorming new product lines for the coming winter. I have launched them all, and you can find them in my Etsy shop.

Packaging

My packaging is fairly simple, as my earlier post has explained.

The kraft paper I use is recycled. At my work, when we receive our order for printer cartridges, the company we order from puts this awesome kraft paper in the box to fill in the empty space. And I gotta tell you, that's awesome for me; I think I have enough to last through to the end of next year! However, I don't know how busy this holiday season is going to be for me, so I'm going to be collecting all I can. And, of course, I'm also stocking up on the bubble envelopes I use to ship out my products.

Upgrade Options

There are a few upgrades I'm planning on offering this year:

Shipping

Each separate size of my journals are all approximately the same weight. So I figure out the expedited shipping for Canadian, US and International shipping, and I make a separate listing in my Etsy shop for the extra expedited shipping cost. Now, I know it's normally against Etsy TOU to create a listing for that, but during the holiday season, they do allow this for sellers.

Note: Since Etsy sellers get charged a % of the listings they sell through the listing price, I put the listing price at $0.21 (which is the minimum), and the shipping to the amount for each country in the shipping section; so I can save on the amount that Etsy would charge me otherwise - it's also the correct way to offer a shipping upgrade.

Holiday Gift Wrapping

I offered this last year, and it was very well received - so many people would like that effort to be made by someone other than themselves, and I am more than happy to do that for them for a nominal fee. As you can see, my packaging is not all that elaborate, so I charge only $2.00 for the gift wrap. Again, during the holiday season, Etsy allows their sellers to offer this as a separate listing for their shoppers.

Sales

You may have heard about this tiny little sale called "Black Friday Cyber Monday" sale. It's only the biggest sale that is nationwide in the US (we don't really celebrate it here in Canada - we reserve the big sale for Boxing Day - the day after Christmas). It goes from the Friday after Thanksgiving until the Sunday - all weekend long. Now, some have only the Black Friday sale, but we online sellers could certainly benefit from having the weekend-long sale.

This is the time where I reserve my biggest sale of the year - 20% off anything in my shop. And I put it EVERYWHERE:

shop banner

shop announcement

at the beginning of each listing (craftopolis is great for editing all your listings at once)

on my Facebook page

on my Twitter page

on my blog - this year, I'm going to do it in some of my blog posts too!

in my monthly newsletter

EVERYWHERE!

And instead of a coupon code, I'll be using "BETSI", which is an online program that is linked to your Etsy shop (like craftopolis is). From there you can change a bunch of things on your listings - this year I'm going to lower the price of the listings by 20%, so that the new Etsy buyers (I get a lot of them) aren't confused with coupon codes. I want to make it as easy for them as I possibly can.

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So that's what I'm doing this year to get ready for the holiday rush of sales. If there is something that you are doing differently, please let me know, and I might just adopt some of your ideas. I want to be as efficient as possible this year, since I'm also working a full-time day job.

What to Do When Inspiration has Left the Building.

Here's what I do:

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Take a relaxing bath.

With candles.

And soft music.

And my face done up perfectly.

Bliss.

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Get a pedicure.

Beautiful feet = inspiration!

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Get a massage.

Obviously, this is just a list of things I like to do to relax. And being relaxed means I can think clearly, and inspiration comes to me in waves when I'm relaxed.

Think about it. When you're stressed and have too much on your mind, that's when your brain gets clogged with all the information in it, and it doesn't let inspiration come in. So when you relax (via the ideas above), your brain gets unclogged and allows the inspiration to flow freely.

It works for me!

Emotional Distance: How to Avoid Getting Too Upset in Business

This was posted in the forums on Etsy today, and I really liked it, so I thought I would post it here too. It was posted by NeatThings.

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For some of us, maintaining emotional distance from our business dealings comes naturally. For others, it can be more of a struggle. Especially when our confidence is challenged by negative feedback, an unhappy customer, critical friends and family, and the mistakes we all inevitably make.

Removing emotion from business requires one core element: Confidence. Absolute confidence in our work, our decisions, and our ability to solve any problem that tries to topple us. Particularly if you’re new to running your own business, confidence may be hard to come by. It’s hard to be sure of yourself with any new venture, especially if you don’t seek new adventures for yourself very often.

But, there’s hope. The next time you get a negative or neutral feedback and get angry, the next time a customer gives you the wrong shipping address then wants a refund, the next time someone asks with visible disbelief, “That’s your job?”, reach into the following toolkit and you might find what you need to avoid getting and staying upset.

1. Don’t let others define your worth.

For a lot of us, sales = confidence. When we get a sale, we’re elated. When we don’t get a sale for weeks, we’re depressed. When someone compliments our work, we’re thrilled. When someone criticizes it, we’re crushed. Such an erratic emotional landscape places far too much value on the opinions of others and not nearly enough on our own opinion of ourselves. If you absolutely know you’re doing what’s right for you, nobody can to change your opinion of yourself.

2. Realize you’re going to screw up.

Let’s get one thing straight. I screw up. A lot. I’ve sent the wrong items to people. I’ve shipped packages before the customer paid. I’ve sold items I didn’t have in stock. But I know getting upset about these mistakes is the path to failure. Instead, when I screw up, I fix it for the customer then fix it for all customers. The next time you screw something up, because you will, don’t let it become a ding to your self esteem. Solve it, learn, and carry on. 

3. Focus on solutions, not fault.

People often share stories of customers who gave the wrong address, who unrightfully left negative feedback, who send rude emails. I’m not concerned with who screwed up so much as I am with solving the problem at hand. And all problems with my business and my customers are mine and mine alone to solve – whoever’s fault I think it is. Don’t let blame trap you in emotional enmeshment. Take responsibility for everything in your business and you might avoid that emotional landmine. 

4. Don’t assume.

Especially if you are vulnerable to the opinions of others, something might happen that seems terrible but is actually innocuous. Someone with negative buyer feedback places an order with you so you cancel the sale. You report a reseller who’s actually an efficient home business. Assumptions like these come from an emotional, fearful place rather than a logical one. Before you leap to assume to worst, consider all possibilities and likely outcomes. You might just logic yourself out of making a big mistake.

5. Get out of your own head.

Your customer doesn’t care about you, he cares about himself. He doesn’t give a flying pony about your feedback score, your feelings, or the fact that you are living in a cardboard box behind a 7-11. Accepting this fact might help you maintain a level of emotional distance. If a customer is upset for any reason, focus on him, his needs, and what you can reasonably do to solve them. Worry less about what he thinks of you and more about what he wants from you.

6. Hang around people who share your values.

If you’re spending time with people whose business philosophy conflicts deeply with your own (and you’re vulnerable to their opinions), you might be putting yourself in a position of emotional attachment. Stop it. Find like-minded people. You’ll know you have when talking to them about business spawns new ideas and makes you feel like you know what you’re doing. You might find them in Meetup groups, on forums, or in friends and family. Stop wasting your time with those who don’t share your ideals.

7. Avoid catastrophizing.

Some folks worry about negative feedback. They think one ding is going to catapult them into a mile-deep pit of fiery despair. Their business will fail, their family will go hungry, everyone will laugh at them, and for the rest of their lives they’ll be defined by suckassness failurism. If you find yourself heading toward that launchpad of shame, stop. Distract yourself. Call a friend to talk you back from the ledge. Solve the worse-case scenario in your mind. Realize that emotional, irrational fears drive those worries and the outcomes you’re imagining are unlikely.


*****

Three Steps to Creative Branding

Here is an interesting article from Andrea Fuentes Designs. Andrea attended one of the "Hello Etsy" conferences, where there was collective crafting (jealous!) and workshops.

You can go here to read her entire blog post. If you don't want to read the entire article, here is a summary:

Reflect - Make it about you. Answer these questions:
Why are you doing this?
What do you stand for?
Who do you want to stand with?
What do you project?
Who are you?
Why are you unique?
What is your essence?
Is it real?
Refine - Run with it.
Repeat - Be consistent. Drive your brand through everything.

These are things I know I have to work on. For example, my answer to the question "Who are you"? is "a housewife and stay at home mom." I should get cracking on these answers!

Eight Strange Ways of Doing Business

I saw this list on the Etsy forums one day. I forgot what it was called, so I can't link back to it, sorry. It was a list of how this person approached business that I found interesting.

1. If I don't know what to do, I do nothing.

I stole this philosophy from Taoism. Taoists have a practice called "wu wei", which means "do nothing". This practice of "non-action" essentially means that by doing nothing, you achieve everything. You're better aligned with the nature of things. It's similar to "going with the flow". By practicing wu wei, you'll live with a sense of alertness in inaction that leads you to always know what to do when facing any situation. 

I practice this not just in business, but in life. If I'm confused or unsure about what action to take, I do nothing.


2. I trust my instincts. 

Nobody in the forums has the answers about how you should run your business. Nor does your family, your psychiatrist, your dog, or any experts you find online. Only you have the answers.

By all means, though, use family and friends along with the forums and the experts for ideas and suggestions. But use them to give you ideas, not answers. Brainstorming, but never solutions. Never hang your hat on anything anyone else says if it doesn't feel exactly, perfectly, and flawlessly right to you. 

And if you don't know how to tap into your own gut and trust your instincts, see point number one and study the Tao Te Ching.


3. I do the math.

When I opened my jewelry store in April of 2008 (yes, this exact website used to sell jewelry -- see my first sales), I priced things based on what I thought people would be willing to pay. Within about four days, however (without any prompting from anyone but myself), I realized that I needed to create a worksheet to account for all of my materials costs, overhead, and other expenses. I started operating under a formula very early in the game.

And now, whenever I think about running an ad or doing a promotion or buying a piece of equipment, I still always do the math. If the $150 ad isn't going to bring me $300 in business over x period, I don't run it. If the new equipment won't allow me to reduce annual costs by the price of it (or allow me to produce at least twice as much in half the time), I don't buy it.

Trust your instincts, but do the math first.


4. I test everything.

If you're not sure whether or not something will work, test it. Make two listings - one with and one without a single variation -- and see which one gets the most views or sales. Then test another single variation, and another. And promote, talk about, and post about each item exactly the same.

You can ask the forums for their thoughts – and I almost always do and get some great ideas. But since nobody really knows anything (see below), your best bet is to test your ideas, measure the results, and roll with whatever works.


5. I believe nobody knows anything.

I'm a big fan of William Goldman. He's the writer behind "The Princess Bride", "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", and the original "Stepford Wives" screenplays along with a zillion other books and screenplays that few people under the age of 45 have ever heard of. In his neo-classic book, "Adventures in the Screen Trade", he ultimately concludes that nobody knows anything about Hollywood. The same goes for just about everything.

So when you don't have the answers, ask the forums, ask your mom, consult with your husband. Hell, you can even hire a consultant to tell you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and who to do it with. But don't expect anyone to give you the magical answers for yours. Nobody knows, for sure, how to turn your $800 business into an $8,000 or even an $8,000,000 business. 

I don't care how much experience someone has. I don't care how many sales someone has. I don't care how many venues their products are on, how many people have complimented them, how many hairs they have on their head. I don't care how many Fortune 100 corporations they've been CEO of. Nobody knows anything about how to make your business (or theirs, frankly) succeed.

You can make a lot of intelligent guesses, but a lot of your seemingly stupid decisions can result in a sales explosion. There are no tricks, no secrets, and no magic formulas. Because nobody really knows anything.


6. I avoid paranoia.

"I think this buyer wants to copy me." 

"This person is from Mozambique. Do you think they're trying to steal from me?"

"My customer said the package never arrived, but what if they're lying?"

Paranoia. The belief that people are out to get you. I'd bet that 99.99% of the paranoia we read about on these forums is wholly unfounded. And I believe this because we're all just tiny little people in a great big world and why would anyone pick one of us out of the pack, decide we're somehow vulnerable, and launch his attack?

I blame the media for this. Over the last 30 years, we've heard and read so much about child abductions and hoaxes against old folks that some of us probably believe the bad guys are everywhere.

I firmly believe nobody is out to get me. First of all, my stuff's just not that exceptional or worthy of theft. Secondly, believing that will interfere with my ability to give the heightened level of customer service I demand from my business. So I assume the best, and if I take a random loss once in a while, them's the breaks.


7. I don't invent sales barriers.

"Should I put a minimum on credit card orders?"

"Should I include trash bags in my shop along with the unusual sized garbage cans I sell?"

"Should I offer returns?"

No. Yes. Yes. It's that simple. Anything you do that makes it more difficult for any customer to make a purchase from you and feed your children is guaranteed to limit your income. 

If you don't mind the risks involved by making it more difficult for customers to spend money on your products, by all means create more rules. Invent limitations. But if you want to create a customer oriented organization that puts moving product ahead of emotional worries, needs and desires, remove any barrier to doing business with you. Get rid of anything that would make any person who likes your products think twice about paying you for them.


8. I do not have an Etsy business.

Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful that Etsy was here when I was ready to open a store. The low cost of entry, striking design, and flexibility made it a very appealing project. But at this point, I do not have an Etsy store. An Etsy store is a part of my business.

I feel the frame of reference is an important distinction. By deciding that my business isn't Etsy, I almost never get upset about what Etsy does to our stores. Etsy's been an enormous help in growing the business, but as a classic commitment-phobe, I never want to put all my eggs in a single basket.

Etsy is a tool, as is QuickBooks, my glorious computer, my desk, and my library. Getting mad at these things for not going into that round hole is an exercise in futility.

Isn't it interesting? I love seeing ideas and thoughts on how to do business, since I don't really know what I'm doing, business-wise. I hope this helps you, too.