No dieting! No exercising!
Just take our magic pill once a day and the pounds will slip away while you eat on the couch!
Lose 20 pounds a week for just $29.99
Now really, who would believe something like that? Everyone knows that if you want to lose weight you have to change your eating habits, eat less, exercise more and be patient. It takes time and effort to lose weight.
There are no magic pills. We're too smart to believe in that.
Yet for some reason, our smarts seem to disappear when it comes to running our micro business. I had a phone call this week from "Amy" who has been attempting to get her business going for a couple of years now. The problem for Amy is that she keeps looking for the magic pills.
Amy was super excited because she was applying to a very large craft show with a great reputation. She was all in a tizzy because the show is in 7 months and she didn't know how she'd find the time to make all the inventory she needed. One of her favourite pieces is a large necklace that she sells for $195. She wanted to know how many I thought she should make, 80 or 100? I'm still laughing. For someone whose best show was $1000 in sales, thinking that she'd sell almost $20,000 of this one necklace in a weekend was beyond stupid. But it's the magic pill effect. She thought that just because she was in one of the best shows her sales would magically appear.
Just being in a show won't bring in sales.
Just having an online store won't bring in sales.
Just getting your work into a store won't bring in sales.
Just having a Facebook page, twitter account, pinterst board won't bring in sales.
If you want to bring in sales then you need to:
Constantly marketing your work
Build up a customer list
Send out your newsletter
Improve your work, always make new products, answer customer questions, blog regularly, take better and better product photos, post those photos online in pinterest, flickr and instagram,
facebook (and not to the same people all the time)
define your customers so you know where to find them
Keep your business records organized
Wait, those things are work! Yes, yes they are. Just as there are no magic pills for dieting there are no magic formulas for success in your business.
No e-course, no show, no web designer can magically bring you success. All of these things are great IF you are willing to put the work into them.
The only way to success is to take small steps constantly. All those little things will add up over time. You have to do the work.
So, rather than trolling the internet looking for new supplies, or a course on how to blog, ask yourself this, what could I do in the next 15 minutes that will move my business forward?
(image from livelifehappy.com)
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