A happy fall time Sabbath to you. I hope that you are enjoying some lovely fall color. God is such an amazing painter that He can take the sad remnants of this sinful world and transform it into a work of beauty. If He can take the dying leaves and turn them into an art piece, imagine how wonderful the new earth, where death will never be known, will look. Truly our hardest effort nor our grandest dream can even begin to come close to the land of glory that God is preparing for us.
Florida is not known for its fall color, but here is a dash of fall color that my family and I were able to enjoy one year on a bit of land that we were hoping we might one day call home.
May it be your aim to be part of God’s faithful flock and may this humble find the difference puzzle help you hide His word in your heart so that it may be a light unto your feet faithfully guiding you home.
If I were to write a poem right now the title would probably be discouragement. It would certainly sum up the mood of the day. Not only for me, but for my business as well.
Here we are, nearly a month into Quarter 4 and after weeks of pushing myself to the breaking, I made 3 whole sells on Etsy for $18 dollars. I know what you are thinking, how will I ever manage to spend so much money. A new car, a house, a vacation, or all of the above? Ha ha, it really is enough to take the wind right out of one’s sales.
I know that I have a way to go to develop really good designing skills, but even though I did not expect a rush on my products, I had hoped that at least 1 or 2 of my designs might get a couple of sales. I was sure that some, like my Turkey’s protesting Against Thanksgiving and insisting that you should play Sudoku instead was not only colorful but humorous as well.
Sadly, even though my Mother helped me to purchase a mockup to give it more appeal, it has gone over as well as bag of potatoes filled with bricks.
If that were not discouraging enough, in a few days we have to move from our temporary rental, and we still have to find a new place to move too. And between the holidays and the arrival of the winter birds there is a good chance that we could find ourselves on the street.
It is hard to believe that when we put our home on the market almost 1 year ago, there were multiple homes in our price range. Even more amazing, it is hard to believe that at the time, interest rates were low enough that we could get a house for $300,000 and it would have cost less per month than the house we were living in. Why at the time we put our house for sell, there was a 4/3 manufactured home on 3 acres for $180,000 that we were hoping to get once the house sold.
But fast forward a couple of months to when our house finally sold, and it was as if a vacuum had come along and sucked up every descent price home and then spit out a bunch of higher priced fixer uppers. Almost overnight anything that was descent disappeared from our price range or shot up in price along with the interest rates. Before we sold there were dozens of halfway descent places under $250,000 and even some under the 180,000 mark. Then our house sold and their were only a handful of fixer uppers remained. It has been six months since we sold our home and 4 since we had to move out into one temporary rental after another, and the market has become even bleaker. Now, with the our down payment dwindling and the competition for housing rising, it seems as if it will not be long before my mother, sister, and I shall soon be homeless.
As each day brings us closer and closer to this possibility, I find myself pondering the story of the Israelite and their years of wandering in the wilderness. From the day beginning, as we moved from our house to house with the remains of my beloved father and a few weeks later placed the remains of our sweet pup Happy by his side, I was reminded of how all through their wilderness wanderings they had carried the remains of Joseph.
Maybe you happened upon a video about how someone who opened an Etsy shop and a year later they had made over $60,000 in sales, how using Canva and Printify you could design t-shirts to sell on Etsy, or a video using Etsy as a side hustle to make extra cash, and you said to yourself, I would like to do that some day. Well if your are thinking about starting an Etsy shop, even casually thinking about starting one, I would recommend that you start building your media presence today.
You do not have to sit down and map out your business strategy or even know the name of your future shop. What matters is that you are starting the process of building a loyal audience who eventually some will also become loyal customers.
Just look at some of the homesteading channels like Arms Family Homestead and Lumnah Acres. Well neither of these channels has an Etsy shop, their path to success highlights the importance of building an audience as early as you can. Both of these channels started off by showcasing a portion of their daily life on the homestead. They made videos introducing us to their farm animals, showing them working in their garden, mowing their lawns, doing various building and repair projects, etc.
Eventually, as their audience grew, they would occasionally design a few hats, mugs, t-shirts, and sweaters that they sold to make some extra cash. But now that both channels have grown immensely, they have harnessed the power of having a big audience to create their own shops on much bigger scale. In the past couple of years, Arms Family Homestead transformed a portion of their barn into a work/storage area where they could store supplies so they could make and sell their own t-shirts, hats, etc that displayed some of their most beloved animals. Recently, Lumnah acres also set up their own website and began selling selling a handful of merch items such as a sticker, some pencils, and a couple of T-shirts along with their main draw, coffee. And thanks to the power of their 345,000 plus subscriber base, their 3 different brands of coffee debut was a success and quickly sold out multiple times. Because they had already built a loyal audience by the time that they opened their shops, it did not matter that there were only a few colors and items to chose from as their audience was excited to get a Rufus t-shirt or a bag of Lumnah coffee.
It is officially the beginning of quarter 4. It would be great if that meant that an instant switch would flip and sales would dramatically improve. Unfortunately that is not the case. If there will be a real pick up, it probably will not happen for a few more weeks. Hopefully, even though the sales are not to expect to reach full swing until November, this month will prove to be better than last months single sale.
Thankfully today I did make a sale, but it was only for $3. So only getting 1 sale would be a real kick in the budget under normal circumstances. But since this is my first real shot at making some meaningful q4 or quarter 4 sales, I have been putting every ounce of spare energy that I have into stream lining production so I can make and list as many items as possible. I figured if I could just cut down the time to create the listing pictures by 1/3, that would at least mean an extra 1-2 products a week, and on a really good week an extra 3-4.
If I can get an extra 5-10 sales over this time last year, the effort would stand a chance of paying for itself and maybe a few other items. But with each listing costing $0.20 each, I really need those extra sales to cover the cost. Twenty cents might not be much to some, but twenty cents here and another there can quickly add up to a couple of extra bucks. And when you have almost nothing, it does not take long to become a really big deal.
Besides worry about not being able to make enough sales to at least break even and maybe purchase a couple of small items to improve my shop for next year, I would also feel really discourages as I have put a whole lot of energy into this project. And I have been working extra hard to get as much done as I can before my health crashes. Even now the muscles of my head are getting so tight that I cannot relax them. I would love to be in bed, but my the extra work has brought back my queasy stomach so it is harder to get a good night sleep.
But all of it would be worth it if my shop would start to make that turn towards profitability. It does not have to make a big bump, even though I would love it if it did, but at least if it could make a big enough turn that where there was zero sales I made 3-4, where I made 1 I now got 4-6, and instead of 8 being my best month it was now 16-20 that would be some type of measurable improvement. One that would at least allow me to cover all my etsy fees including ads, and probably even 1 or 2 other expenses.
Yes I would like more, but even that small boost in sales would give some meaning to what I was doing, and some hope that after a much needed break, my next effort will take me closer to my first major goal of earning enough to cover all of my business expenses. And give me some hope that some day soon I might actually be able to earn enough to pay my bills and some occasional wants. And at least be able to hold up my head knowing that after years of struggling, I had finally reaped the reward of some time of measurable success.
If you are thinking about starting your own Etsy journey, click this link to get 40 free etsy listings. https://etsy.me/3MhfyfA
Click here, if you would like to check out my Etsy shop. Where you will find a variety of fun items such as this fall inspired puzzle of Turkey’s demanding Thanksgiving be switched to Happy Sudoku day.
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