Step Away From the Cake

 Today is the Artisan Treasures show in Surprise. This show is a bit of a risk for a couple of reasons. First, it's all the way in Surprise - that's almost an hour away. So it's quite a distance to travel with all the stuff. Second, it's a huge show. Huge. This could be good or bad and there is no way to tell until we do it. It could be good because there will be 1,000s of people there. It's after Thanksgiving, people are really ready to focus on Christmas and they are ready to spend money. So it really could turn out to be a great show. It could be bad because there are hundreds of vendors and it is possible to get lost in all those choice. So, I'm hoping for the best. I would very much like to make a decent amount of money today, like $2,000. That would make me very, very happy. But we shall see.  A lot of the buying has to do with me. I don't make small talk well. I just don't. And convincing people to buy things is not my strong suit. So I need to su...

 So yesterday I had a little bit of a meltdown over all this stuff. Starting/running a small business is no joke. It takes a lot of work and if you want to be successful, it takes even more. And yesterday I just kind of hit overload and needed to vent for a while. I did that. And then I got down to work. Thankfully Hubby was gone all day golfing, so I could dig out my fair stuff and work on it. I photographed almost everything I have (I didn't photo all the earrings, there are just too many of them). I then spent time editing the photos so they looked cool. Then I got a bunch posted on my website, but there is still more to post. While doing that I organized all my show containers so I know where everything is. Doing that all made me feel a whole lot better. What I really need to do though is figure out a way to make all this fit in my week. I can schedule posts ahead of time, but I need to set time aside to do that scheduling. I need to interact with the people who do interact on ...

 That's how I'm feeling in terms of my business. It has been almost a year since I started this little venture and it's not going well. I haven't made any real money. I've sold some things but only at craft fairs. I can't seem to get my store going in terms of sales. My email list is completely barren and I feel stuck. I have some ideas and I have some things I want to do, but I feel paralyzed to do anything. I feel like I'm being pulled in 1,000 different directions and I don't know what is the best thing to focus on at this moment. I have today. I have all day today to work on things and I can't seem to get started in any one direction. I hate this feeling. Time to work some things out.  First, I need to decide what I want. I want to have a store front that is making some money. I want to sell things over the internet and have it be a little profitable. So what do I need to do to make that happen?  I need to use the power of social media to leverag...