You’ve been honing your craft for long enough to become highly skilled at it. Now, it has evolved into your dream job. You’re finally doing what you love and making money from it. Reaching this point has no doubt brought you tremendous satisfaction, but success also brings on great challenges. Growing your craft business is just beginning. How are you going to expand?
Deciding if You Need to Hire
As your craft business grows beyond its early stages, you should consider whether to hire employees or continue on your own. Perhaps your custom-made products can be produced by a trained team. On the other hand, you don’t want the quality to suffer. Since you’re the one with experience, you may decide to keep tight control of production. However, you might still benefit from hiring other workers to deal with paperwork and the website or handle marketing and shipping.
Determining a Location
In a custom craft business, location is important. Many craftspeople begin selling in booths at craft shows. Others sell through online stores. When your business grows, you’ll need to explore whether brick-and-mortar retail space is something you need. You may still work from home, but it’s worth considering whether you require something more to take your enterprise to the next level. If you’re not going to need a retail store, you’ll want to decide whether you need a real office or a mail forwarding service.
Balancing Your Life and Your Work
One of the hazards of being your own boss is that it’s sometimes hard to draw the line between work and everything else. Even though pouring yourself into your craft is what you do, it’s important to take time to relax and renew through other activities. At the same time, because you’re a small business owner, it’s important to find opportunities to network with others in your industry and your community. A local chamber of commerce or small business association may be a great place to start.
Branding and Expanding
Your custom crafts and key products speak for themselves, but as your business grows, be sure to give consideration to branding. What is your company’s unique voice, motivation, or niche? Marketing strategies will vary depending on the particulars of any given enterprise, yet solid branding is important in helping a company to make its mark.
Starting and running a craft business is a notable accomplishment. Taking your concept to the next level is both exciting and challenging. Continued growth will allow you to share the craft you love on a larger scale.
If you want to sell your crafts online, we can help! Learn more here about how we can help you to create an online storefront for your business.
