Tips & Talk 53 – Fleeting Moments – A Way to Spice Up Your Maker Biz

Hi there.

It's Sue.

And thanks for joining me for tips and talk day.

These are bite-sized topics that I pull from community questions and

things that I'm observing in the world of handmade small business.

If you'd like to submit a topic,

DME over on Instagram at gift biz unwrapped,

just now I was planning out what I wanted to talk

about today.

And my husband came in to say goodbye.

He's off to his morning Starbucks session and I'm working from

home. I complimented him on his yellow ski jacket.

One of my favorites,

any joked around that,

we have a whole eight degrees here right now.

What he meant is that we should be happy because we're

past this Arctic blast from last week,

that led to me saying how much I'm looking forward to

the spring and being able to take my workout on the

porch. Instead of here in this spare sitting room that I've

turned into the office,

don't get me wrong.

This room is nice and quaint.

I can burn candles.

I have a couch to lie on if I want to

read and not be sitting at my desk here,

but after a long winter,

it's getting repetitive and I'm ready for some fresh air birds

chirping and all the outside sense to accompany me while I

work on my gift biz tasks.

Actually that porch is one of my favorite happy places to

go to.

It's a ways off yet,

but it will be so wonderful when it finally arrives.

So I said to my husband,

this is so much better though,

than having the same weather all year round.

We'll appreciate the warmth and sunshine so much more since it's

not a regular thing to which my husband replied Suzy,

that's so deep.

Then he smiled and he went on his way.

I reflected on our conversation a little longer and realized that

I add a lot of variety to our lives.

I have two sets of everyday dinner where to match the

seasons it's Fiesta,

where if you're familiar with that in the fall and the

winter, I use red like a Alavi green color,

burnt orange and yellow.

And in the spring and summer,

I pull out Navy blue,

light blue,

kind of like a light lime green.

And again,

of course,

yellow in October,

I start making my chili and in the summer it's good

Spotto. I'm sure you do the same type of thing to

some degree.

Maybe not as crazy as me as my mind went back

to deciding on the podcast topic.

I realized this was the perfect one,

the value of a fleeting moment,

or in this case season and how it's a way to

create anticipation and desire.

You can consciously this into your business to instead of having

everything the same month after month,

except of course for holiday designs,

but that's obvious why not strategically create fleeting moments into your

business. You can do this by creating limited collections,

seasonal sense and colors.

One of a kind designs products only available at craft shows.

Current customer only offerings.

You get the idea.

Here's the benefit of this for you.

It gives you something new to talk about in your marketing.

It builds demand because the availability is limited to a certain

quantity or timeframe.

If a customer puts off buying,

they may miss out.

It adds interest to your product line.

When people come to your website,

they aren't then seeing the same thing over and over again.

This helps with SEO too,

by the way,

it allows you to take advantage of limited elements that might

be available,

that you couldn't add to your standard line.

Like maybe you find 20 really interestingly shaped vessels for your

candles, but you can only buy them once.

It also gives you a stage to test out new ideas,

to see if they resonate.

If not,

no problem.

You've tried it out and it's going away anyway.

And you haven't invested a lot of time and money.

If it's a hit,

you can add it into another limited time promotion or add

it into your standard line.

So something new to talk about,

building demand,

adding interest,

taking advantage of special things that you find that you could

integrate into your product and giving you a stage to test

that all sounds pretty good to me.

This also solves a big problem.

I hear often from you,

how do I get customers to come back and buy from

me again?

If they already have several pairs of your earrings,

and now you introduce matching bracelets,

or if their candle stack is solid,

but a new Mulberry tea scent is a one and done

offer. That may be the motivation for a new sale from

somebody who already loves your products,

but wasn't in the market for more yet.

There are definitely advantages to consistency in your business,

having all your best sellers in stock and being reliable with

timely shipping and such,

but adding in fleeting moments could be just the thing you

need to spice up your business and get those sales rolling

in faster.

That's a wrap.

I'm a get to the point kind of girl.

And this is what you can expect from these quick midweek

sessions. Now it's your turn go out and fulfill that of

yours. Share your handmade products with us.