We had another great Business Intensive this month with Tanya Reeder from Wilderness Tribe and Sarah Dudgeon from The Art of Your Success.
Lots of great stuff was talked through in this Call so listen in for more.
Leanne asked:I can’t make the call tonight but I was hoping that during the Q & A section that Jess could discuss advertising on Facebook. I asked a little while ago in The Circle if it works to send people directly to my Etsy store and I would like a few more details on Facebook advertising in general
Below are all the links I mentioned in the call, and that we shared in the chat:
I got the chance to chat to two wonderful business owners in the Business Intensive call this month, Stephanie from Phylogeny and Greg from Bottles & Bits.
We had a problem with our usual chat software so we decided to host the chat in the FB group page and it was really successful. Thanks to this happy accident, I have decided that we will do our future BI Call chats in Facebook.
We had a few questions from the group during the call and from a previous conversation about copycats.
Lindsey asked: “When everyone talks about “telling their story” do you mean talking about how you actually started and all about me, me, me? Or kind of about my brand story and what my brand means?”
Below are all the links I mentioned in the call, and that we shared in the chat:
We also had a few additional questions from the Circle:
Sarah asked: “I was wondering how all you Thrivers deal with holidays? It’s been ages since I’ve taken time off, but have a week soon (yay!) when I wont be able to make & ship items while I’m away. I know Etsy has ‘vacation’ mode. I also have my own site. Ideally I’d like people to still place orders while I’m away, but just be aware that I’ll process them when I’m back. Previously I’ve added text to my items explaining this. How do you all deal with this?”
Rebecca asked: “I’d be interested in how people handle their inventory/stock across different platforms. I have held off listing stuff in my Etsy shop for a while because I am saving up everything I can make for the upcoming Handmade Market in Canberra. I would also like to be listing on MadeIt perhaps. I imagine listing the same item in two shops isn’t wise and if I take all my inventory to the market, what do I do about the things I’ve already listed on Etsy? Does that make sense? I make things in duplicate but they are usually not exactly the same. The print on the fabric might be different for example. My Etsy shop isn’t exactly booming at the moment but I am hopeful that day will come! Thanks Jess!
Sarah asked: “How to find out where else our ideal customer is shopping/browsing so we can understand their needs a bit better. Thanks Jess”
Greg asked: “In episode 3 of the podcasts I was really inspired by the talk about sending personal messages to your customers upon an order and also when the item ships. So two questions…1. Do you send these messages via Etsy convo or just use thier email. #2 would it be possible to see some peoples examples of what they send?”
Below are all the links I mentioned in the call, and that we shared in the chat:
Wow, what a great first call! I had 2 awesome Business Intensives with Ashlee and Reshma, and I know there is a LOT of really useful info for everyone that came out of those intensives.
You all asked some great questions in the Q&A session too, such as:
Jenny – How do you reward customers that buy lots?
Georgie – On Etsy, do you show up earlier on the search pages if you have more sales / feedback etc.? I’m improving on my tags but still don’t show up sometimes until page infinity!
Annaig – Is having a pop up to get people to sign up to your emailing list a good thing or bad? I can’t decide wether they annoy me or if they are a great tool…
Bri – I’m really concerned about copyright and I notice that a lot of people’s Etsy shops are featuring copyrighted images from Pixar or Disney. Can we have some information or a session about copyright?
Maria – Jess do you think it’s important for handmade business owners to have a blog?
Ashlee – On my website I have a shop tab that directs people to my etsy shop. Do you think it’s important to have a shopping cart on my website or is it okay to redirect to my etsy shop?
Jenny – Just heard your comment about sales (as in, running sales) – can you comment a little more on that?
Below are all the links I mentioned in the call, and that we shared in the chat:
Jess’s comment on population: Canadian population: 35.16 million – US population: 318.9 million – UK population: 64.1 million
Kath: My advice for wholesaling to a business is to email first with images, your website and prices. After a few weeks, follow up with a phone call (first asking that it’s a good time to chat) or arrange a time via phone or email to pop in and chat about your products. createandthrive.com/courses/how-to-sell-more-at-markets-and-shows
