One of the brash realities of turning a hobby into a business is found in the amount of work that comes along with building your business, especially if you decide to grow it on a part-time basis. 

The idea is simple: You love your craft.... You're scary good at it.... You know you can do it for a living and be completely satiated with life.  Heck, maybe you can make some good money doing it right away. 

But along with that want, maybe you have kids running around at home, a significant other to take care of, and a demanding boss at the 9-to-5.  Even if life seems to compound itself on your seemingly overwhelmed little shoulders, you can do it all.  Even better, you can do it all very well, if you have a system and a plan.

When I started iram-inal designs in late 2006 with my sister, we were both working full-time jobs.  As I've said before in this blog, we bankrolled our business by investing a few hundred dollars on juried art festivals, which quickly turned in to thousands for further investment.  Although we thought we had the process down-pat (we found a wholesaler from whom to purchase supplies, we got a production schedule in line), we found that as our business continued to grow, everything changed.  Time became less available, money became tighter as we spread our inventory to more locations, and marketing became an important element in helping to establish our brand.

Unfortunately, the truth of the world is that you have to spend money to make money.  Along with that ideal, it's doubly important to remember that your time is your most valuable asset.  You must equate your value with the time you spend to hone and craft your product, including how you forge your brand to the public.  So, the question is, where is it most important to spend the all-mighty dollar in creating your business?

For our business, my sister and I immediately took the plunge and saw the value in investing in every publishing program we could.  Instead of immediately hiring an outside company to do our work for us, we instead familiarized ourselves with how to use them.  Frontpage, Photoshop, and Publisher became our new best friends, and in learning how to use their applications, saved us a lot of money in the long run.  Our website, brochures, flyers, and catalogs were initially - and still are - all created by us.  The bottom line: Knowledge is Power.  If we cannot find someone to do exactly what we want for our marketing (even in the future), we have the wherewithal to do it ourselves.  And that ability in itself is irreplaceable.  

It is true that as you continue to grow, and your time becomes even more limited, you must take a step away from doing everything for your business and entrust your marketing, website, and other important aspects of your business to field professionals.  But until you reach that point, purchasing programs like those named above is an investment and step I highly recommend.  For us, learning how to use these programs was a trial-by-fire process, but saved us tens of thousands of dollars up front.

As our business continues to rapidly grow, we are beginning to craft relationships with field professionals, such as graphic designers and web builders, so that when we're ready, we'll call on them to take away this portion of our existing duties.  In the end, until we get to that point, we feel safe and strong knowing that we are sisters who can do it for ourselves.

Until next time, creative people....

You make a product that everyone tells you is incredible.  You’ve diligently worked to perfect the design and production of your line over time, and you finally have it down.  Your friends and family tell you your product should be sold in Nordstrom’s, Barneys, and Saks, along with every trendy, local boutique around you.  After years of hearing how talented you are, you relent and finally take the step to make your hobby in into your profession: You create a website and get a PayPal account to accept online purchases, create a company logo that’s been dancing around in your head for years, purchase your business cards and brochures, and apply for your sales license with the State.  You’re finally, officially, a BUSINESS OWNER.

Now that you’re the master of your own domain, it’s important to push your product to the marketplace.  But first, we all must consider, sigh, that the times, they are a changin’.  By now, we’ve all felt the economic crunch of the “impending” recession, an event that has greatly impacted everyone in the art and craft world, from the crafter/artist, to the boutique and gallery owner.  People are struggling to keep the lights on in their stores, and enough money in their pockets to purchase supplies.

The Beehive became me and my sister's first retail location when we joined the Co-op last November.  With my sister living in St. Louis, I went at it alone, and carefully settled into our retail space as a Beehive featured designer.  There, I honed and perfected the style of the jewelry, saw what the customer liked and disliked, and – most importantly – took the time to ingest and digest every single piece of information I could garner from the fellow designers around me.

For the emerging artist, the Beehive serves a similar function as this Peer-to-Peer blog; it provides the artist with a support system that fosters creativity, and allows the emerging artist to become comfortable with all the elements of business in a small, comfortable, microcosmic setting that is representative of the larger, more scary marketplace that is retail and wholesale.  Like the Beehive, this Peer-to-Peer blog, written occasionally by my Beehive brethren and me, will provide you with the trials and travails, and successes and failures of what it is to be a small business owner in the world of arts and crafts.  You will hear me and my sister's stories of iram-inal designs, and the stories of other vendors, who are currently at all levels in their businesses.

So, getting back to basics: You have your product that you know will sell.  Our economy pretty much is in the dumper right now, on so many levels.  How does one – whether established in the marketplace, or just starting – proceed to get their wares out to the masses during this crunch?

To answer this question, I talked to several of my Beehive sisters to see if they’ve had to modify their approach to business in their effort to expand their brands. 

But before we get to them, let’s start with our (iram-inal's) approach to the marketplace.... From my conversations with other artists, I’ve learned that our grass-roots approach to getting boutiques and galleries has been a bit “unorthodox”, but it’s sure simple to us.  Here are the steps:

• I conduct in-depth market research on boutiques and galleries in the area where we want to sell our wares, both online and in-person. 
• I seek locations in relatively large cities.
• I make sure that the location has an online presence (a website or blog where customers may go), and has previously promoted their location to the public. 
• If all of those things check out, I’ll contact the store owner via email only, referencing our website, and attaching specific photos of one-of-a-kind pieces recently sold. 
• I attach the additional jpgs as a frame of reference of our breadth of work (we ain’t no one-trick pony, and I want the gallery/boutique owner to see that clearly).

For every eight-to-ten locations we contact, I normally hear back from two of them, on average.  From there, I will narrow those two locations down to the one we like the best, after an in-person visit.  I’ll place the locations I did not hear from in a rotation system, with a calendar reminder to contact them at a later date. 

The next step is the part where our approach becomes unusual to my arts-and-crafts makin’ brothers and sisters….  Because my sister and I realize that some of these businesses are struggling, I’ll approach them offering to sign a contract on a consignment basis, only.  This frees up any possibly-struggling business from having to make a commitment in purchasing my wares, and possibly losing out on their investment.  I always negotiate a relatively high percentage cut to our business (70% to artist, 30% to location), and negotiate to have a contract re-evaluation after a few months to turn the relationship to wholesale, if our product creates and provides a proven sales record in their store. 

Overall, we’ve had great success with this approach, expanding the locations that carry me and my sister’s designs from one in March of this year, to eleven more today.  We sell regularly in all of our locations – and extraordinarily well in a few -- and the owners are happy carrying our product. 

When I share this approach with more established vendors, the response always involves the same three things: 1) The look on their face is incredulous, 2) they tell me it’s too difficult to collect payment every month from consignment locations (of which we have not had any issues – knock on all of the wood in my vicinity), 3) and trade shows and wholesale markets are the only way to go.

But upon further inspection, it appears as though everyone, even trade-show veterans in the business, have had to modify their approach to selling their wares in additional stores.  I talked to Amy Leff, of Throwing Stars Jewelry, about her approach.  Like me, Amy is one of Beehive’s jewelry vendors.  Her line consists of sterling silver and gold-filled, hand-hammered metal pieces of wearable art that she designs and produces in her home studio.  In addition to the Beehive, Amy sells in several locations in and around Atlanta. 

   

I also talked to Arwen Fine of A. Fine Shirt, designer and creator of a limited edition apparel and one-of-a-kind screen-printed line made with vintage fabric overlays.  Arwen designs and makes all of the vintage overlay and screen-printing seen on her apparel in her studio in Atlanta, as well.

   

Amy and Arwen are both relatively new in pushing their products to the marketplace.  Unlike iram-inal, however, Amy has already tried trade shows as a venue to sell her jewelry, but also believes in the tried-and-true “pound-the-pavement” approach of stores she selects. 

For her approach, Amy will enter her target location wearing a piece of dynamic jewelry from her line, and attempt to engage the person in the store with conversation.  Normally, the person comments on the jewelry she is wearing.  If conversation is not naturally engaged, Amy will inquire to the salesperson about with whom she should speak about selling her jewelry.  Once she collects the information, she is duly-diligent about follow-up, follow-up, follow-up.  She’ll call and email until she hears back from the location.

Arwen has had much success making contacts at local boutiques during her work at art festivals, where she participates as a vendor.  She takes the opportunity at a one, or two, day fair to present that 1) she has a superior product to what’s out there on the market, and 2) shows she is a professional in charge of her own business.  She, like me, believes consignment is currently the best way to go, as it does not place any undue pressure on the storeowner.  Also, (as an extra-added bonus) with consignment, the designer still retains “ownership” of their product and can thereby maintain control of the way the products are displayed.

What about the veteran vendor’s approach?  Amor Owens, a 15-year veteran in the business, is the owner and designer of Beau Beaux , Inc., a high-end childrenswear line started in 2005.  Amor started her line at the Beehive Co-op, but has since expanded to owning her own showroom at the Atlanta Apparel Mart, and sells wholesale to retail locations.  She is currently in over 30 stores. 

  
Because of the rapid growth in her business, wholesale is currently one way to go for Amor, but she also is focusing on her retail opportunities, as well, which is why she carefully maintains her boutique space at the Beehive.&