Are you an avid sewist or crafter looking to turn your hobby into a business? Do you dream of making money from your passion and becoming an entrepreneur? Well, you’re in luck, because we’ve got some tips and tricks to help you get started on the road to success.
Successful Sewing Business: Key Factors
Determination
Determination is the key to success in any business venture. If you want to make money sewing or crafting, you need to be fully committed to your ideas and yourself. You must be willing to put in the time and effort required to turn your passion into a profitable business.
Skip to the Generic Learning Section “The Who” if you are not interested in either selling as an affiliate or creating something as a affiliate offer owner.
How to Start an Online Sewing Related Business: Hire Affiliates to Sell Your Stuff
One way to start an online business is to sell your sewing knowledge, service or products online and have other people sell your product for you. Advertising costs are high and require persistant, knowledgable specialists in each area of advertising. There are many ways of advertising, but 70% of the time the product owner doesn’t have the knowledge to advertise their own stuff, so they have 1000s of trained affiliates do it for them.
The product owner has a product, usually digital, and finds a platform for that information to live. When the product is complete, the product owner opens up an account with a reputable affiliate payment platform like Clickbank and the post their product in a marketplace. Amazon also offers this service as well. You will also need an email service provider to talk between the two systems and produce autoresponders and log in information, etc.
Be the Affiliate and Sell Someone's Product to Your Audience
OR, you could be the affiliate. You would learn one or two ways of advertising, either social media, Google or Bing Ads or on your website or blogsite. You may already have a sewing audience.. even better! You would simply find an appropropriate product on the Marketplace listing and send the link to the offer ,to your existing audience. The key is how to grow that list using an ESP or Email Service Provider like MailChimp.
You’ll need to keep the contacts and build a list to make the advertising costs break even. If you do not create an opt-in page to glean the emails, you run the risk of losing or only breaking even if you do get a sale from the product sale. You will do better to retain the emails so that you can continue to offer the audience valuable sewing information AND continue to send them sales offers.
There are so many directions you can go with this and I will cover this in other articles on affiliate marketing specifically. You need an existing audience to send that link to. That is where the difficult and complicated part of it starts.. with advertising to get that list. You can also opt to do direct ads on social media, but you will not gain an audience, unless you have an opt-in audience.
Where to Learn More
I learned all of this from Russell Brunson at ClickFunnels at a Bootcamp in April/May 2020 and it is how my business is built. The ClickFunnels platform is made primarily for selling via a sales funnel, instead of a static website where you either A) have to hire advertising anyway, or B) Hope for organic traffic over time and through huge learning curves.
It is not any more difficult than opening up an online storefront, in that online stores STILL have to bring traffic to their store with advertising.
Using and learning a sales funnel platform like ClickFunnels, you can create the product on their platform and hire affiliates who specialize in sales funnel advertising.
Have I interested you in knowing more about this?
If so, you can write me at support@sewingpatternsecrets.com and I can tell you more myself, or you can check out Russell Brunson and his products and offers for yourself. I recommend the Bootcamp, if they still offer it. His team has put together what you might call an overview of the process. You have daily and weekly action items to learn the idea of it and what it will take to accomplish what you want. It is not for the faint of heart. I warn you now. And you can not get this done in a month either. But, I know you will learn so much, you might just change the course of your career and life forever! I did! See more on ClickFunnels with Russell Brunson.
Alot of what you read below was taught to me either in Bootcamp, or through experience. I’m happy to share it with you, but I highly suggest reading Russell’s Books, Traffic Secrets and Dot.com Secrets (The Package) or Dot.com Secrets (Just the Book) as well.
Small Steps
If you’re not used to seeing things through to completion, try starting with smaller, less time-consuming projects. This will help you build momentum and gain confidence in your abilities. As you complete more projects, you’ll begin to see the success rate and gain the experience necessary to take on larger projects.
The Who
There are four essential “Whos” you need to consider when starting your own sewing or crafting business, or any business really.
WHO #1: You, your ideas, your dedication, and knowledge. As mentioned earlier, determination is key to success. You need to be fully vested in your ideas and yourself. That doesn’t mean you can’t change your ideas and improve them. It just means you never give up.
WHO #2: The person who helps you. You cannot do it all on your own. For me, I couldn’t move forward without my husband’s complete support. You must have someone on your side, a partner, friend, or family member who will never give up on you.
WHO #3: For me, God is essential. A true sounding board and support system. It’s important to mention and recognize the role God plays in my life.
WHO #4: Who #4 is actually, the “how” being answered. When you get stuck with “how,” immediately change your question to “who knows this answer?” Google and AI are your free “who’s” waiting with an answer to help you move forward faster. As an entrepreneur, expect to use search engines constantly. There is basically no one above you to teach you everything you need to know, like if you are working for a small business or corporation.
DON’T REINVENT THE WHEEL: It is highly likely that someone has already created what you are attempting to create, and has gone through the same struggles that you are experiencing. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, seek out those who have already paved the way before you. When you are stuck on the “how” of something, shift your focus to “who” knows the answer. This is where “Who #4” comes in – they are the person or resource that can provide you with the necessary knowledge and guidance to move forward. Fortunately, with tools like Google and AI, finding your “who” has never been easier or more accessible. These resources are waiting to help you succeed and move forward faster. Udemy and YouTube are the top ways I search for help.
WHO YOU HANG OUT WITH: It is important to meet other entrepreneurs of your same passion and knowledge level or better. If you want to move forward and up in growth, hang with other people of the same trajectory. This doesn’t mean you lose your friends, it simply means be with like kinds. People who encourage your growth, have their own growth of some kind, and have positive attitudes a good amount of the time.
Assess Time Spent
I constantly have to weigh how much time is spent on things. Is this activity bringing value or worth to my business, life, or relationships? I am reminded of, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
Life is too short, be careful not to waste too much time on things that do not bring you toward your goals. Whether they are goals toward your family relationships, or whatever you deem important. Always be aware.
Where to Sew and Craft
The “where” for sewing and crafting is varied and changeable. As long as you know where you will do the sewing and crafting, you can move forward in deciding where to sell or teach as you progress.
When to Build a Successful Side Gig in Sewing and Crafting
Starting a side gig in sewing and crafting can be a fun and fulfilling way to earn some extra income. However, it’s important to understand that success doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time, effort, and patience to build a business.
How long will it take? Whatever length of time you think it will take, double it! It’s not easy to be an entrepreneur.
Just DO IT!
For a small side gig in sewing and crafting, it’s essential to keep your supplies inexpensive. Look for small local craft shops to get the word out and just get your toe in the water. Immediately start getting the word out in the community. Call local community education centers and see if you can teach a basic class. It will bring in a little bit of income, but it will build your confidence enormously.
What is Your Niche?
Knowing your niche is essential to the next step.. Selling. Selling has got to be your ultimate goal, or you might as well never start trying to make a business,. After you’ve sourced a few supplies and dipped your toe in the water, questions to ask yourself: Do I want to sell items that need to be shipped, or digital items? Do I already have a niche? Do I even know what a niche is?
You need to know what a niche is and what your niche is. Start investigating and evaluating what it is you love to create and follow that. Otherwise, you’ll never build the momentum to move forward. Loving the creation process will help to balance things out when they get hard with selling and business matters.
Another reason for knowing your niche is finding a place to sell it. You will need to know which niches sell best and where. This is especially important for selling online.
Once you know what your niche is, then you can research where to find your audience.
Research Your Target Audience
When you know what that niche is, let’s say that you love sewing or knitting small baby crafts, set up a list of the things you might like to create. Now you’ve got to research the actual need for it before you ever begin creating them! Life is not like the movie “Field of Dreams”, build it and they will come. Nope, business is NOT like that. You need to know that the creations are actually in demand, and if the whole idea is cost effective.
The Who, what, where, and when all start over again. Who is my target audience, what do they want, where are they? And How (or who) can show me how to do it?
Building a successful side gig in sewing and crafting takes time, effort, and patience. Start small, find your niche, and research your target audience. And remember, when you get stuck, change your question to “who knows this answer?” and use Google and AI as your free resources to help you move forward.
In our next post, we will delve deeper into these target audiences and compare today’s top crafting platforms for selling. Also, we will be writing about which platforms, and the need for professional help like tax accountants etc .
> See our blog on becoming a seamstress
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