So You Want to be a Creative Entrepreneur

She Made Ordinary Things Extraordinary by thedreamygiraffe

I recently found out that one of my favorite crafty ladies, Vickie Howell, has an amazing blog and website! While snooping around I found where she had done a free podcast series called CRL.

CRL with Vickie Howell is a podcast for those creative types.  Each pop-culture-infused episode brings you an in-depth interview with a celebrity or Craft/Fashion-genre expert, an informative segment we like to call T3 (Tips, Tricks & Trends) and lastly, Vickie’s ramblings about her random experiences as professional knitter and crafty lady.

I’m having a blast listening to these interviews but I wanted to share one in particular that focuses on how to use your creativeness to bring home the crafty bacon with Jennifer Perkins! I won’t go into everything they discuss but I wanted to give you some of the highlights if you’re thinking about or getting ready to step into the scary/fun world of being a creative entrepreneur!

• “Etsy is a built-in wonderland of easiness for you!” – I love this quote from Jennifer because it’s so true! With Etsy and other sites like it there’s no excuse not to sell your awesome products to eager buyers! They take a very small percentage of each sale but this is a remarkably versatile way to promote yourself as well as sell your products!

• Don’t expect to make your first million a month after you open your Etsy shop. Sure, you could be one of the fortunate ones who gets a celebrity to latch onto your awesome home made neck ties or original art pendants but lets be real here for a minute. Yes it will be hard, yes you will have to be persistent but if this is your dream and your love then all that waiting and work will be worth it!

• There are tons of ways to promote yourself for free! Art cards, business cards and your website are great ways to promote your work but places like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and Flickr are amazing places to start promoting for nothing but the time you put into them!

• Connect with your potential buyers. Bringing your personality into your blog, your products and your communications in general will give your buyers a better sense of who you are and why they should buy from you instead of some other not-as-good-as-you Creative!

• Just do it!! Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there. If you have an awesome idea, go out and share it with the world! No one is holding you back except for you.