At this moment I am not sure if I consider the old adage of never count your chickens before they hatch to be wiser than I thought or more frustrating than I can ever imagine. Because since I started my journey on KDP and Etsy, I have found it to be both. On the one hand it has repeatedly proven itself to be true, which has become a source of intense frustration.
Month after month it has felt like there is some unseen rule that stated that with only a couple of exceptions, my shop could only get 1 sale a month. For my first year, except for 1 month where I got no sales, 1 month where I got 3, and another where I got 6 the rule did not deviate. So far for my second year that number has been bumped up to a mind boggling 3 sales.
And like last year, there was a thrilling month where the numbers suddenly spiked and I got 8 budget saving sales. I remember how excited I was that month as for a short time I got a sale every 3 1/2 days. For a few weeks I was able to open my laptop with a sense of eager expectation. Every time I got a sale I would pull out my calculator and crunched the numbers to determine how many visits I would need before I would get a sale with that new conversion rate and how much I might earn after Etsy fees if I got x amount of visitors a month divided by the number of visits needed to translate into a sale with my current conversion rate.
Yes, it was a bad thing to do, it went against every rule I had set for myself. But after the first 3 or 4 sales, I began to dream what I would do with so many sales. I let myself imagine how this sudden boost in sales would slowly but steadily snowball from making enough sales to cover Etsy listing fees, then adds, then an etsy Seo aid like Everbee and Erank, to a program that let me sell custom products like Hello Custom, then the paid version of Canva, etc until I not only could pay for my business expenses, but all my other expenses and a few wants as well.
Oh how hard it was when the next month came and I got more views than I had ever gotten, yet my sales plummeted back to the seemingly newly set in stone 3 sales a month. What a bitter pill it was to realize, that even though I had told myself that I would never allow myself to do so, I had counted my eggs before they hatched, and as usual, it was a big fat zero.
That month I promised myself I would not let it happen again. But then came all the videos talking about Q4 and all the holiday sales that come with it. Last year, had not been very amazing. I only had a handful of digital download puzzles. I think that at the peak of Q4 or quarter 4 I had a total of 40 or 50 listings so it was not a big surprise that q4 went by with only a small bump of 2 extra sales.
But after watching all those videos, and realizing that this year I had added a variety of POD items such as puzzles, t-shirts, and mugs, I began to feel very excited. While my digital download puzzles and coloring pages had appealed to those who were traveling or looking for some project to keep their young holiday guest busy, there had been nothing that would appeal to someone looking for the perfect gift to give a loved one or a friend.
But this year was different. Thanks to the addition of POD items like puzzles and mugs, I now had a growing collection of gift-able items. And after watching hours of videos of people talking about how they would make more in Q4 than any other time of the year, sometimes making in those 3 months as much as they had made all year long, I was overflowing with excitement. Because I had worked slowly and steadily throughout the year, my collection of 40 or 50 items had more than doubled.
Not only that, during one of sleepless nights I had spent about an hour creating some designs that would make some cute puzzles, and after watching some videos I had some ideas for some simple to make t-shirt designs that could also be used to make sweatshirts, mugs, and more. Combine that with some templates I had created to save me time for creating listing photos, I knew that with a bit of a push, just a couple of extra hours a week, I stood a real chance of getting that number to 200 listings.
For those who are healthy, a couple of extra hours for someone who is not even putting in part time each week, might sound very underwhelming. But for someone who is dealing with chronic migraines, fibromylagia, chronic anemia, and other health issues those 2 extra hours can have the power to trigger some very debilitating flare ups that can bring me to the point of tears.
But after watching all of those videos my head was filled with images of little dollar sign chicks clucking in my bank account which would make all the extra pain worthwhile. Surely a few days or even a few weeks of barely being able to lift my throbbing head off of the sofa, and wishing that I could soak in a tub of muscle rub to sooth my screaming muscles would be worth it I could be positioned to earn in 3 months as much and even more than I had all year long.
Despite knowing better thanks to a long history of striving hard to get no where, wisdom went out the window, and I pushed and pushed as hard as I could. With each passing day I could feel the pain growing. With each passing day it was becoming harder and harder to relax the muscles of my forehead. Little by little I was noticing that my eyes were becoming more sensitive to the light, and my need for daily migraine medicine and some muscle rub was becoming the norm.
Still, the dream was so real that I was willing to push through the pain until I could not push any more. Even though I knew it was foolishness to count my chickens before the hatched I was busy making a mental list of the next set of tools that I needed to improve my little business and trying to determine which one I needed to get first.
For a whole month I worked as hard as I could. By the time Q4 arrived I was ready to break. But by the time it came, I had reached my goal of having 200 listings. Any listing that I was able to put up over the next few weeks would just be like putting a coat of delicious icing on my chocolate cake. Now all I had to do was set up a few sales, some Etsy ads, and improve a few listings and then the excitement would begin, or so the counting the unhatched chickens me hoped.
Day after day I eagerly checked and rechecked my email and my stats bar to see if I had made a sale to no avail. All to quickly October and the first month of quarter 4 came and went with the same, unchangeable 3 sales. And once more I was reminded that as frustrating as it may be, and no matter how hard I wish that it could be difference, there is a reason that old adage about counting eggs before they are hatched has managed to withstand the test of time.
And while their is more financial danger in literally and spending the money before the eggs are hatched, the emotional version has its dangers to. As the last day of October rolled around and the reality that November was here and all of my hard work had not managed to garner me even 1 extra sale yet, my heart sank. Discouragement like a blustering hurricane stormed over my head for several hours as I realized that even though I had given it my 100%, it probably was not going to be enough to turn the tide and make my little store profitable. In spite of my best efforts, success was still proving to be an elusive golden egg whose chicken I could never seem to find.
Even though I had created some lofty dreams for the sea of dollar laden chicks that I had hoped would soon hatch, the perfect Q4 spike might still prove to be an as yet unreachable dream. And the much needed snowball of sales improving ranking which leads to more sales, was still a dream or two away.
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. There you will find a growing collection of coloring pages, logic puzzles, and word games to challenge your brain.
As well as a growing collection of puzzle inspired print on demand items such as this brand new cozy puzzle season sweatshirt for men and women.
reflectionsaboutlifedotcom 