More Than WE Know

 

(click on this picture to enlarge - see Sarah’s “blurred hands” hard at work!)

One of the challenges of building a new business is getting noticed in a crowded marketplace. You want to put all of your energy into creating your products and learning the ins and outs of business, but instead you seem to spend all of your time trying to market and sell.

One short-cut to increased exposure is to leverage an online marketplace like etsy.com.

Etsy is a site with a large web presence that draws potential customers seeking unusual, one of a kind, hand-crafted goods.

When Sarah Natividad wanted to expand her business, Curious Workmanship, she immediately saw the advantage of setting up a shop on etsy.

Sarah was able to augment her in-person sales and the sales from her own website, with her “online store at etsy.” She leveraged their drawing power and their target market. She also benefited from networking in the community of artisans who sell their goods on etsy.

By leveraging etsy, Sarah has been able to expand her business into wholesale and outsource some development to contractors. This has freed Sarah up to focus on strategic planning, design and financial management.

Here is her story.

Sarah, tell me about your business.

Curious Workmanship is a home-based business. I make and sell hand-crocheted baby booties and other items for retail and wholesale.

What is your best holiday item?

Definitely the booties! Sneaker booties and cowboy booties accounted for 45% of my sales last holiday season.

What inspired or motivated you to start your business?

I was getting sick of my “day job” and I’ve been wanting to quit doing it for the last few years. At my “day job” there isn’t always work, and when there is work you have to commit to it before you see the schedule, and it lasts for months at a time with no flexibility whatsoever to the schedule.

I wanted to have work that I could do from home that I wouldn’t have to quit for half a year every time I needed to go through a round of doctor visits or potty-train a difficult child.

What keeps you motivated?

I really enjoy having a business; I need no external motivation. Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve had a little business selling stuff I made. I sold little crocheted motifs and needlepoint bunnies to my friends when I was a kid.

I also am motivated by seeing the effect my business has on my kids. My daughter copied her mom and not only had a profitable little business selling sachets, she hired other neighborhood kids as salespeople.

She drives a hard bargain at allowance time!

How did you fund your business?

I started my business with a tiny plastic bin full of dishcloths made from leftover yarn, which I sold at the local farmer’s market under a canopy I borrowed from my dad. I just kept snowballing the profits back into the business.

My husband and I had financial problems that wouldn’t allow us to get any sort of credit, so I did it the old-fashioned way. Whenever I got extra work, I put that money into the business too.

Now Curious Workmanship can put on a full 10′x10′ expo or market booth, and the business has its own credit card with a small credit limit. But I still sell at the farmer’smarket sometimes, just to see my old friends and customers.

Who is your target market?

Surprisingly enough, it’s women around the age of 45. You’d think with baby items I’d be targeting moms of small babies, but they’re mostly scraping to get by. It’s Grandma who spoils the child with fancy booties, especially their first grandkids.

What percentage of your business is online? What is your ideal?

At the moment, pretty much all of it is online. I haven’t been able to do as many shows as I’d like to, because of my kids’ needs. For this year it’s been 80% online, 20% shows. I’d like it to be more like 70%/30%. I just haven’t been able to get away as often as I’d like.

Where do you get most of your customers?

Etsy has been the best advertising I’ve had. At the moment I get most of my wholesale and retail customers through Etsy. This summer, when I had my website down for revamping, I sold online exclusively through Etsy, because it got me many more sales than my website.

What is the biggest challenge you faced and how did you overcome it?

In 2005 we moved about 2 hours’ drive away from where we lived when I started Curious Workmanship. We moved for my husband’s job.

It gave me easier access to a bigger market, but at the same time it reduced the amount of time I had available to sell to that market, and I had to re-learn what worked in my area. I just had to work through the pain and the losses I incurred trying out new craft shows to see which ones worked for me.

I joined a local business networking group, and just kept my ear to the ground to find opportunities to sell.

What was the best unexpected thing that happened to you?

I started making booties again. I say “again” because I used to make and sell them when I was in high school, but I stopped when I went to college. I sold them to my mom’s friends in those pre-internet days, in pretty much the same format I sell them now (as a boxed gift, attractively presented).

I brought them back to my product line a little over a year ago to try to cross-sell my hand-dyed onesies. Booties quickly took over my life. By October I had my entire production capacity booked through April for wholesale orders. I got so sick of making the same old booties over and over. Now I have contractors making booties for the wholesale orders, so that I can have time to be creative again.

What do you wish you had known when you started?

Microsoft Excel. I’ve learned a heck of a lot of Excel since I started my business. Also PHP. I still haven’t had time to learn any PHP, and I could sure use some knowledge of it for maintaining my website.

Do you have kids? Do you work at home?

I have four kids: a girl age 10, and boys ages 7, 3, and 1. Two have Asperger’s Syndrome and two have food allergies. They are very challenging, but they are all great kids and I love them dearly. They help with the orders sometimes and fight over who gets to carry the outgoing packages. My daughter crochets the ties for the soap holders.

What is the biggest challenge of being a work-at-home mom?

Keeping my kids from unpacking my orders while I’m packing them, or dropping food or toys into the boxes. They also really, really like my yarn ball winder, so I can only wind yarn balls when the younger ones are sleeping.

They’re also very fond of dumping bins of yarn balls, just for the joy of seeing them roll across the floor. I can’t complain about that though, because I’ve often gotten a product idea from seeing various colors of yarn balls randomly sitting next to each other.

How have your kids helped you be a better entrepreneur?

My kids definitely keep me on my toes. They make entrepreneurship a relaxing escape! Their enthusiasm for my products inspires me. They absolutely adore the things I make for them.

How has being an entrepreneur helped you be a better mom?

It gives me the flexibility to work around my kids’ needs. If they get sick at school or need me to cook a special meal for them or need to be put on the potty every 10 minutes, I can make time to do that as an entrepreneur, whereas with my “day job” I can’t.

What advice do you have for other Women Entrepreneurs, or Entrepreneur-wannabe’s?

Do The Math. Don’t be afraid of the M-word, and don’t shy away from “crass” calculations of profit! Calculate your costs and profits, and include your labor as a cost.

Don’t sell yourself short because you’re “just a _____” or “only a _____” (fill in the blank with whatever it is you are– housewife, uneducated, female, crafter, etc.)

To see more of Sarah’s booties and lots more clever creations, visit Curious Workmanship.

To get my special report on 7 Steps to Sustainable Success for Women Entrepreneurs -> Click Here.

If you have a business that sells gifts online and would like to be profiled on More Than WE Know this holiday season, please contact me at Liz (at) Morethanweknow (dot) com.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!