I have been trying all morning to create a post about the struggle of trying to build an Etsy shop while dealing with poor health and a slumping economy. There is so much I could say now that I have passed the 1st year mark with my shop about the importance of listening to old adage of if it is not broke don’t fix it, the importance of listening your body and knowing when to give your body the rest it needs, accepting that not everyone will be an overnight success, and more.
But today my brain is just to tired to focus. As much as I would love to write an article saying that if you just think positive there is delay or disaster that will stress you. But that is not true.
Like it or not there are days that you will wake up and say to yourself, what am I doing? Why am I even trying when nothing I do work? And you will be tempted to give up. And strangely enough, some of those days might come the day after you make a sale.
Sure there are going to be many great days when your mind will be full of hopes and dreams. Dreams that are bolstered by the remission of your symptoms and encouraged by a few sales. Like a well designed roller-coaster, there will be a period of steady climb with only a few mild dips that are perfect for lulling you into a false sense of confidence before a blind turn reveals a stomach shattering dip.
With a new high of 8 sales, July was one of those months. Finally after months of getting only with 1 sale and only 3 months where I got 2 or 3 sales, my slow but steady work was starting to paying off. With a few sales now behind me, and more than a hundred and fifty listings, my business was on the cusp of taking off as each new listing, sale, and the occasional review only adding to the growing momentum. With each sale I was calculating the conversion ratio to estimate what my sales would look like if I got x amount of visits and how may visits it would take to pass the next mile marker of 10 sales per month.
After such an exciting month I was eager to see the progress that August would bring. Now that I had close to 160 listings, 30 sales, and 2 reviews, surely I was set to see my biggest month ever with 9, 10, or even 11 plus sales. And from the amount of traffic, which was 4 times the amount of my normal traffic, it seemed like that hope was going to become a reality. Day by day I eagerly looked at my inbox hoping to receive a message from Etsy letting me know that this massive (at least for me), influx of traffic had converted into sales. Morning after morning I woke up filled with hope, eager to see how much money I had made overnight, only to be met with disappointment.
After a month of block buster for me sales, followed by a spectacular for my shop wave of visitors, I ended the month with a grand total of 3 sales. Oh sure, it was better than the 1 sale a month average I had maintained the previous year. But considering that I had gone from 20 listings to 164, it was not much of a thrill. In some ways it even felt like a bucket of ice cold water on a bitter cold day being poured over my head, as I looked at how low my conversion rate had fallen. And I was left to wonder how much further it would sink before it finally took a turn for the better.
For more than a year I had worked a little bit every day to create Bible packs
logic puzzles
word games
coloring pages
mazes,
and more.
And I had even started designing POD items like shirts
and tumblers.
Working as hard and as long as my body would allow. Working until the pain and nausea said that I needed to close my laptop and rest. Working until anemia and even a mini stroke left me no choice but to take some time off. Working as a way to cope with the uncertainty of having to move out of my house and temporarily rent one place after another hoping that we will find something before our money runs out. And working to keep back the tears after losing my Father, Grandmother, and my little dog and constant companion Happy.
I had given it my 100%. And while I knew that due to health, my 100% did not compare to the 100% of the healthy Etsy You Tube experts I was listening too, it seemed like with a sudden quadrupling of visitors, my months of effort should have resulted in more than 3 sales. Why my first month I only had 40 visits and got a sale, surely now that I had close to 500 I should have gotten at least 9 or 10 sales, and maybe even 15 or 16 sales.
Suddenly I found myself at the hidden drop of the Etsy roller coaster. Bit by Bit, one sale at a time I had slowly made the climb during the month of July, and hope inspired by the sudden influx of views during August had kept me afloat. But now, with that month’s books closed, and no new sales in sight, the coaster had made a quick twist, and it was time for a nerve testing free fall.
To say that I am discouraged would probably be a bit of an understatement. Over the past few months I have lost the security of a steady home, my puppy companion, had a mini stroke that severely reduced the use of my right leg, watched helplessly as the stress brought my mother to tears, and have had the added worry that my sister my be developing seizures. The blow had been blunted just a bit with the hope that my shop was finally taking off, and with a bit more work, it would not be long before I 8 had turned to 15 or 16, than 20, 30, 50, 100, 300, and more sales a month. And finally I would see my dreams of earning my own living and being able to help my family become a reality.
Like a ton of bricks that August number tore a deep hole in my humble sail boat that threatened to tip it over. What was I wasting my limited energy? Why was I not content to sit back and sleep my way to homelessness? With my health slipping away, with my loved ones dying one by one, why was I not enjoying what little time under an air-conditioned roof that I had? Why is it, knowing full well that my body is my biggest enemy, did I insist on being the stubborn frog giving itself a concussion against a brick wall, when it could just turn around and hop a few feet to the pond and spend the rest of the day lazily hanging out on a log?
Maybe my extended family is right, I am only fooling myself. The books that I sell on KDP and my Etsy shop are a waste of time and I should be content to live on SSI for as long as I am granted the privilege. And should hope and try for nothing more.
Those unseen twist with their hundred foot plus falls are had to take. As your body hits that pool of ice cold water that instantly freezes your enthusiasm, hopes, and energy giving power to all the negative voices in your life, it is so tempting to press the I give up button. To say I surrender. You were right, I am nothing but a foolish, daydreaming failure, who no matter how hard she tries, will never make a success of her life.
But the test of a man or women is not how well they float along the river of success, but how well they handle the waterfalls of delay and soul sucking whirlpools of unexpected disaster. There is no courage required to get up each morning and stare down the monthly account of a store that is thriving. There is no inner grit required to pour your heart in soul hoping for a return if you already are assured that you have all the money and tools needed to succeed, and your only fear is waking up one morning and finding that you have to make the choice between getting the yacht or the Rolls Royce.
The test is having to get up when your feet feel like they are being sucked in by quicksand and one wrong move will send you sailing down the side of a massive cliff. The test comes when you know that this narrow, log strewn road is the road that God has chosen for you to travel, and right next to it is the wide, green carpeted road littered with gold bars and an eager crowd beckoning you take of your hearts desire.
Right now I know that this is the road God wants me on. He has provided many of the tools I need on sale, so that I saved hundreds of dollars, and even provided some tools for free. Why He has allowed so many delays, u-turns, pitfalls, fallen logs, washed out roads, and the like to slow me down, I do no know.
I am sure that there is a lesson that He is seeking to teach me. Perhaps all of these seeming delays and discouraging set backs is an effort to subdue my heart, to soften my character, and perhaps prepare me for a task or work that in my current state I am not yet prepared to do. So until I know that God is transitioning me from one task to another, I will do all in my power to hold on, and trust that He will help me to endure this wild roller coaster ride until it finally comes in for a safe landing in the harbor of eternal success.
And if you desire, by His grace, leaning on His strong arms, you to can find the strength to survive the ups and downs of the roller coaster of your life. So that when He comes, He will declare well done, come and enter in and enjoy the reward that I have prepared for my faithful servants.
Click here, if you would like to check out my Etsy shop.
And if you are thinking about starting your own Etsy journey, click this link to get 40 free etsy listings. https://etsy.me/3MhfyfA
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