Why blogs are best for artists and hand makers

A blog beats a website hands down for handmakers. Websites are often created and abandoned, for simple want of the skills to edit them. They get out of date so quickly, fail to showcase your latest work and become stale. Check around - most artisans' websites describes what they were up to 12 months or more ago.

Blogs truly democratize the web, because blogs make editing easy. With a blog, virtually anyone with basic computer skills can manage their own web presence. Free accounts like Blogger take a few minutes to set-up. A little IT assistance may be required if you want to deviate from the standard templates, but it's a one time job. Once you've got the template right, adding content and editing your blog is very straightforward.

Another benefit is that blogs are easier to promote on a small budget and with less time. You have tools like Technorati Profile to help. But, more than that, the whole concept of the blogosphere is on your side too. It's more difficult for big business to drown out the little folks with their big budgets. That's because blogs are all about promotion through interaction. Blogs are designed to illicit conversations (you should always turn the 'comments' facility on). Commenting on other people's blogs - relevant ones - and comments left at your blog help to get the word around about your blog and, more importantly, work. Your biggest challenge is to make your blog interesting.

Making it interesting comes easier with a blog too. Because blogs are not designed to be brochures. It is more naked than that. More warts and all. They are typified by an honesty that shuns hype and excessive garnish and gloss. Instead of spending hours trying to craft perfect advertising copy, you will soon find yourself 'keeping it real' and waxing lyrically, chatting or even ranting away to your heart's content. The point is, because the philosophy is to be yourself, producing the content is less fraught for most people. And, it's an ongoing process - your ability, style and speed will develop along with your blog.

So, ditch that latest project to revamp your website. Instead, get your web guy to fix up a blog template and hosting for you. Trust me, you won't regret it.

The business of hand-making

Hand-making may start a hobby and then become a dream. But, turning that dream into a business requires more than just drive and determination.

As good as this jewellery or handicraft is that you're producing, it won't sell itself. And, it might not be your best shot. Where you are now is not necessarily the best place to start your business. And, is where you're headed really the best route to success? It's better to accept that you sort of stumbled here. And, be brave enough to question where here is and where it's going.

It is one thing to sell a few bracelets to family and friends for pocket money. It's entirely another to make your living out of it. You'll run out of friendly buyers pretty quickly. Then you'll find yourself at the mercy of the market. A place where nobody knows you or your work. Here your biggest challenge is being noticed at all.

You may find that what your friends found interesting and unique, is not so unusual at all. In fact, you can guarantee it - almost. There's just so much choice and competition out there. How will your customers discern your genius from amongst all this other stuff?

Don't throw the towel in just yet though, because stand out you can. But to do it you will need to plan your hand-making business from the bottom-up - rather than starting in the middle somewhere with what you've got so far. It's time to hit rewind, back track and make some informed choices. These decisions will shape your business and decide its future.

This process is too important - not to mention large - to cover in a single post. So, next week, a step-by-step series of articles will begin, published roughly weekly. I'll give you my take on turning a successful hobby into a career. Why should you care what I think? Well, I've been lucky enough to witness a few hand-makers actually do it. And, as a retailer, I am constantly exposed to the vagaries of 'The Market' and troubled with understanding and profiting from them. Plus, unless you intend to sell solely direct, it will be people like me that you'll need to convince your business has a future.

I'm off to get my thoughts together, meanwhile keep up the good handiwork and don't forget to check back next week for the first installment!

Back to school for serious jewellery designers

Judging by the number of websites, articles and not to mention approaches we get at sister site pressies4princesses.co.uk, there seems to be no shortage of jewellery designing ambition out there. Trouble is, so many of these designers are doing the same thing: threading beads. Are all these people producing beaded jewellery because that's the best way to express their artistic talent? One has to ask whether it is pure coincidence that beaded is also the easiest technique to learn!

It seems pretty apparent that, while the ambition's definitely present in abundance, the will to make it happen is in rather shorter supply. And, that's a real shame because not having the necessary technical jewellery making skills will severely hamper your appeal and your business.



Choosing not to train in traditional jewellery making means you will forever be trapped in the most over-subscribed, price competitive portion of the market. An area where it is increasingly difficult to stand out and differentiate your work - there's just so much else available. Your beaded jewellery may be more beautiful and genuinely different, but keeping head and shoulders above the rising tide of dross will be a constant battle.



The world and his wife have started or are in the process of starting selling beaded jewellery. It's the same story over and again: "I started making for myself, but my friends liked my designs and asked me to make for them too. It spiralled from there". It's been written so often it has become a cliche. You will rarely read on to find out they got serious, quit their job and went back to school to learn the skills to make a real career out of it. Generally, these designers seem content to be hampered by their own lack of technical ability.

There are a few exceptions though - our own favourite jewellery designer Claire Wood being one of them. When her family and friends got excited about her simple beaded designs, she quit her career and went back to full-time education. She graduated with a first class honours degree in Jewellery Design three years later. Now, two years on her range of jewellery is the most popular we sell at sister site pressies'. And, with all the skills at her disposal, her style is developing and maturing into a simple but elegant geometric vernacular. This simply couldn't and wouldn't have happened without the trip 'back to school'.

So, if you find a potential jewellery designing career opening up before you - cliche style - don't opt for the easy option. That is the cliche. Instead of leaping into beaded jewellery, imagine what you could do with real handmaking skills - and go get them!

How handmakers should approach retailers

We get approaches from handmakers all the time over at pressies4princesses. Usually by email - it's the quickest, lowest commitment and most face saving method. Just bang off an email and hope for a response, right? If you get nothing back, well hey, at least you didn't have the embarrasment of actually having to speak to someone!

Of course, with a constant trickle of these emails rolling in day after day, few get much attention. We try to check them all out and respond - unless it's obvious we were just one name on a mass emailing.

Most of the approaches are not tailored. Many start in the same sorry way - something along the lines of: "I started making jewellery as a hobby and my family and friends said I should start a business. I was wondering whether you would be interested in stocking it." Hardly persuasive is it. Why would a retailer want to stock this range? So your family and friends have somewhere to buy it?

You've just got to try harder. Stop talking about what's in it for you - a lovely little jewellery business. Instead, tell the retailer what's in it for them. You can't expect them to be motivated by the notion of you getting what you want.

So what does a retailer want? What buttons should you be pushing in your approach? Unsurprisingly, money - or more specifically profit - is pretty much top of the list. So get your trade and retail prices in there straight off, alongside the (decent quality - keeping trying 'til you get it right) photographs of your samples. That way the buyer can say, "Yes, like the style. Yes, retail price is realistic. Yes, trade price allows sufficient margin". And, can therefore say yes to your call to action (read on).

OK, so if we're talking pricing, we need to cover a couple of issues:

1. Don't price too low - this stuff is supposed to be special
2. Allow at least 100% mark-up or 50% gross profit margin
3. Don't forget to allow for VAT.

The retailer is interested in their selling price less 17.5%, because that first 17.5% goes straight to Inland Revenue. This is the net price and that amount should be approximately double your trade price. That's the norm on luxury goods. For more, on prices read these posts: Handmade Jewellery at a Price and Nice Gems Shame About The Prices.

One last thing about pricing. If you do have your own website, for goodness sake make sure your retail prices match those you are proposing. Time and again we go to handmakers personal sites and see that they are selling the item for half what they are suggesting we do. Well, firstly, no retailer wants to be undercut by a supplier - it makes us look like rip off merchants. And, secondly, selling at lower prices basically says that you don't believe that the retail prices you are proposing are realistic.

Asides from profit, retailers like exclusivity. They want to have something different. Something all their competitors don't have. They are, after all, trying to differentiate themselves in a crowded marketplace too. They'll be more interested to hear that you are approaching just a few select retailers, than that you are hitting everyone and anyone and it's going to be everywhere by next Spring.

Don't forget to tell the retailer how you intend to do business. Minimum order quantities/ value, delivery lead times, payment terms, etc. Just in a short summary paragraph. Something like: "Minimum order £250. Delivery within 14 days. First order pro forma, then 30 days credit..." This will show them that have really thought this thing through, which is always encouraging.

Last of all, give them a call to action. Don't bother asking for an order. This is unlikely to happen. Any self-respecting buyer will want to see the merchandise in the flesh first. Offer to send samples by express mail instead.

The day after you send your email, telephone the company. Try to get hold of the buyer and draw their attention to your mail, in case they missed it. If that was the case, offer to send it again. Have a 1 minute sales pitch covering all the above on the tip of your tongue. Be prepared to deliver it at an opportune moment to ensure you email is read.

Once you've sent the email and made the call, you should pretty much leave it at that for the time being. Don't pester the buyer. The ball is in their court to respond. Give them a week or two before following up with another email. Do not plague them with phone calls.

Leap on positive responses immediately. Get those samples out next day using a next business day service like Royal Mail Special Delivery. The sooner you get your products to the buyer, the sooner you can close the deal...but that's another subject!

How few - the economics of handmaking

Be careful what you wish for. Not frequently quoted as the most crucial thing to bear in mind when starting a business but, trust me, it is.

You see handmaking businesses often start out as a dream - a dream of independence, excitement, creativity - and yet, can so easily end up in drudgery. And, unfortunately, the path to peonage is planned from the outset.

Artisans are typically lured into starting their own businesses through the love of their craft. Often the craft came first. Next came the dream of making a living out of doing this thing they love. They can scarcely imagine there might come a day when they would rather do anything than make another one of those flippin' necklaces.

Sadly, for many that day will come. And, sooner than they think. It oftens comes early because that's the way they did the maths.

It is tempting when you're writing a business plan to think about what's feasible. Like: how many bracelets can I make a day? OK, multiply that by the margin and that is my profit per day, right? Well, er yes. You cannot fault this maths. But, rarely is it grounded in reality.

The targets are often unattainably high. Even when they are not, they are just as likely undesirably high. They require a constant slavish effort to meet them. An effort that doesn't allow time for all the other stuff that must be done to run and grow a business. So, guess what? Yep, you end up doing all that stuff in your spare time.

Of course, the trouble is 'how many' is not really the economics of handmaking. You should be working out how few. How few can I make to achieve my monetary targets? Make fewer of a higher quality, a more inspired design (you'll have more time to design -- if you're not making the whole time) and a more exclusive range to realise your dreams. That way, you are less likely to wind up a slave to your own business plan.