All we hear these days is how bad everything is and that no one is making money and that it’s someone or something else’s fault. OK here’s a question - are there people selling something similar to yours? Are they selling a lot of it? If so then I’ll tell you why they are and you aren’t - because it’s your fault…
That’s a good thing - let me explain. If it’s not your fault then that means that your lack of sales is out of your control and you are a victim and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it.
On the other hand if it’s your fault then that means that it’s something you can fix if you are willing to study, learn and take action then you have a fighter’s chance to succeed. If you prefer the starving artist martyr mode then stop reading and go find someone’s shoulder to cry on.
So let’s think about this, if someone is out-selling you then they must be doing something you aren’t. Go on a hunt for clues because success always leaves clues. Study them, research them, dissect everything they do and figure out what they are doing that you aren’t but should.
I get the question all the time “What is the one thing that I should do to… get more sales, get my name out there, convert more visitors into buyers,…
There’s almost always no single silver bullet that will solve whatever ails you. The truth is that it’s a lot of little things that separate the winners from the losers. That’s why I say study everything you can even from people that are doing something different than you because the chances are that there is one thing you can borrow from them and make work in your own little niche. It’s a lot easier to innovate than invent.
So let’s go back to what I said before. I asked if there is someone doing something similar and and selling a lot. If there isn’t anyone doing well then maybe that should be a clue people don’t want what you all are making. Some will argue that if you’re passionate enough and do what you love you will succeed. I’m passionate about about hitting wineries in California but no one is ever going to pay to watch me do it. If you want to sell something you have to make what people want.
Know what a stress test is? They put you on a treadmill and they run you like a dog till you’re about to pass out and then they see how long it takes your heart to return to a normal state. Sounds kind of like business now that I think about it. Remember business is always going to have bumps but the quicker you can recover and figure out what you can fix the healthier your business will be.
Hey, here’s a change of pace - instead of rambling on with my opinion about something that ticks off half of my readers I want to share a cool freebie.
I recently ran across a cool service called PicMarkr which allows you to upload up to 5 images at a time and add a watermark without downloading any software.
Now if you don’t know what I mean by a watermark it could be your logo, shop name, website or a copyright notice added to your images. PicMarkr allows you to type the text to add to the image or you can upload a logo to be added. It also allows to to do some basic resizing of your pictures and pick the placement of the watermark.
If you use the photo service Flickr you can import your photos directly from Flickr to PicMarkr (don’t you love the bad spelling of web 2.0 sites) and add your watermarks to them.
Once you’ve made all of your choices go to the last step and download the watermarked image back to your computer. They make it so easy to do and best of all it’s free.
They also offer a Pro version of their software that offers even more options, here’s a video of it in action
People have been asking for quite a while if they could sell my Etsy Guide so I finally got off my duff and launched an affiliate program. You can now sell my Prosper on Etsy Guide and bonuses by just sending people to my site. The really juicy part is I will pay you $5 for every one you sell.
Signing up is easy - just go to the sign-up page and open an account. You will be given your own unique link. Each time you send a person to my site and they purchase my guide you earn a commission. If you have a blog you can add a link back to my sales page. You can add the link to any correspondence you send out.
There is nothing to manage on your part, nothing to make, nothing to ship, no customer service to deal with. Payments will be delivered directly to your PayPal account so you don’t even have to go to the bank to cash the check. It couldn’t be easier - could you use a few extra bucks?
I have people all the time ask me how they can get more traffic. If you look closely at this blog then you’re looking at a basic how-to. I don’t claim by any means to be a blogging expert, yet in the last month I’ve had 1,988 unique visits to my blog in the last 30 days and 4,165 individual page views.
How do you get people to read your blog - WRITE SOMETHING INTERESTING. Sometimes what I write is very tame but useful and sometimes when I write I know I’m going to tick-off a bunch of people. I’m OK with that because if you feel passionate about something you can’t worry about whether you’re going to offend someone. In all likelihood if you write anything interesting you will annoy someone. Are there people that will stop visiting my blog because they don’t like what I say - yes - but those that do come back with be more loyal because they know I don’t candy-coat anything.
I even leave up negative (not abusive) comments because leaving them up makes my blog more interesting. My last post Is Your Art a Business or Hobby? has generated a lot of comments. Most positive, some negative, but all interesting. I fueled the fire by posting on Twitter that my last post was generating some interesting debates. I originally wrote “interesting comments” but then I realized debate is a much more interesting word. In my post To Stand Out You Have to do Something Outstanding, well it holds true with blog post also. You can’t be interesting if you sit on the fences worrying about whether you will offend someone.
