What peeves you off as a customer?

Spelling errors. Crappy coupons. Slow customer service.

What are your customer peeves?

Everyone has them. We're all consumers (unless we're hermits with self-sustaining farms, to whom, if they exist, I say: power to you!), so we've all had less-than-sterling customer experiences. And while some people use their peeves to get goodies out of big corporations (dear, dear book store customers who complain when special-ordered books can't arrive next-day...), the rest of us, we nurture our secret annoyances, share them with select family and friends, maybe write a blog post or two — or tweet — about it, and just try to avoid putting ourselves in a place where we have to deal with that crap.

For myself, I have a few mini-peeves that don't really count — things that I notice, but that don't make me avoid doing business with a person, place or thing again. You know. Typos on product packaging. Useless, placeholder Web sites with nowhere to click and not even a pretty picture to look at. Offering an e-mail link but never answering my (admittedly usually non-imperative) e-mails.

And then there are the Real Peeves. Things that make me avoid a business — things that inspire me to complain about that business when people mention it in my presence. Like treating your employees badly. Blatantly caring more about sales numbers than about customer satisfaction. Using cheap, non-sustainable, toxic or unhealthy materials just because it increases the immediate profit margin. Acting friendly to lure customers to your site, but then hitting them with promotional pitches as soon as they get there. Using gimmicks that follow the latest trend, without actually believing in the values behind the trend (e.g., selling products labeled "organic" just because they're popular, or using pop-culture words or names just because it will garner more search engine hits). Wasting people's time and devaluing their business by inviting everyone to your party (i.e., Web site, shop, whatever) just to increase visits, and then catering mostly to a select group of customers that could easily have been targeted in the original advertising.

Basically, I'm willing to forgive unintentional human flaw. (Nobody's perfect!) Heck, I welcome the occasional minor human flaw in a business, as long as it isn't unethical. Seeing the flaws keeps the business looking like it's run by humans. A business can even earn bonus points with me by noticing a flaw or mistake and fixing it — that shows goodwill and a desire to make improvements, and if it's based on customer feedback, all the better. If a business is willing to learn from mistakes and take real action toward positive change, they get points, and enough points translates to my support and/or my business. Simple and positive. :D (And it even holds true for big mistakes.)

But I am so NOT willing to forgive purposeful disrespect of humans or resources. I hate it when people and businesses behave selfishly, not out of fear or ignorance, but purely for personal benefit, and I especially hate it when they think they can be fake and fool people into trusting them anyway. Ugh. That's an easy way to lose me as a customer and gain me as an outspoken detractor.

...You aren't me, though, and now I'm curious. Since everyone's different, I'm sure you have different peeves than I do. I'd love to hear your snark — so tell me, if you will! I'm not talking lawsuit material here — those are stories for another campfire ;) — although if you have a juicy story about a major mishap that you needed to haul out the lawyers for, and you're just dying to share it — have at! Otherwise, burn a few brain bytes and share: What annoying business practices make you avoid giving a business your money?

To those who are about to comment, thanks for speaking out. Together we can make the business world a less annoying place. ;)

Survey: What do you want to know about other crafty businesses?

Dreaming up new things, I am. New things for you guys (all two of you ;)), and for the crafty/businessy community at large.

I want to start a new interview column here at the blog.

Inspired by Erin's post about not fitting the "Etsy mold," and by the cries of other Etsians who worry that they'll never make the front page because they're not the right style, I want to feature non-moldy* Etsy sellers (and if there are crafty business owners out there who aren't on Etsy and need more exposure, well, I just might feature them, too ;)).

So what I want to know is, what do YOU want to know? If you could ask any question of crafty business owners, what would you ask?

Leave a comment on this post and let me know your burning questions about crafty businesses. Your unasked, unanswered questions just might make it into the interviews.

*Not that mold is bad. Mold is necessary for cheese, and who doesn't like cheese? (HUSH, cheese naysayers!)

Business success with the Blonde Chicken

Tara at Blonde Chicken Boutique did a teleconference today for crafty small-business owners, in which she talks about how she quit her day job, how she organizes her business and finances, where she got her experience, the rise of Blonde Chicken Boutique, branding her business, designing a product line, books and software that help her run things smoothly, friendly marketing ... and tons of other stuff. Seriously valuable information for people who own their own crafty business or who are considering starting one, straight from someone who's grown her own successful crafty business from scratch.

You can still go download the recording for free ... Why not? It's full of sensible advice and, you know. It's free. ;)

Help us win a grant, and you could win $250!

(Possible) money for everybody this holiday season! ;)

Here's the deal: Help us win a $5,000 small business grant, and you could win a $250 Visa gift card. Is that cool, or what?

The rules for the "Love a Local Business Holiday Challenge" are so:

1. Nominate a small business for the grant. (Okay, you don't have to nominate us — you can nominate any business you like! We'd like it if you help us out, but we won't be mad if you don't. ;))
2. E-mail the business with a link to the Love a Local Business contest page and let them know you nominated them — and don't forget to CC Intuit on the e-mail.
3. You'll get a confirmation message from Intuit letting you know you're entered.

Pretty easy! So head on over to Intuit and make your nomination! If you do help us out, search for Star and Crossbones in Palm Harbor, FL. We won't show up on the Google map since we don't have a physical store (...yet?), but we're in there!

The Holiday Challenge ends on December 31, so you might as well go over right now while you're thinking about it, right? ;)

The Moody Crafter Gets Out Her Problem-Solving Brain

Artists and other creative types are notorious for being moody. (Okay, so humans in general can be moody, but creative people seem to get the stereotype, for some reason … Probably because they honestly express their feelings in their art or craft. Don’t you love it when honesty kinda backfires? ;)) A couple of people on a mailing list mentioned how crafting can be both their source of positivity — when they do it — and their source of frustration and a reason to get depressed, when they don’t create.

One person said the only way she can escape the cycle is to just work on something, after which her enthusiasm returns and she wants to work on everything!

Me, I tend to get down on myself when I stop creating for a few days, but it doesn’t really start nagging at me until I see other business owners creating and selling their awesome stuff successfully. Then I start to question the value of my own contribution. Why am I even trying to sell my crafts when I can’t even make myself do them consistently? There are plenty of other people out there to fill the public appetite for fun, creative and beautiful things. (Good thing I don’t think this all the time — I would never have bothered even trying to sell my stuff.)

Like my fellow mailing list member, I can only get out of this unproductive cycle by getting off my butt and forcing myself to work on things — although sometimes I don’t start to feel better until I’ve worked my way through several projects. That to-do list doesn’t get any smaller while I’m whinging to myself, after all. ;)

And breaking the cycle is more complicated now that business is involved. Crafting isn’t purely for personal satisfaction any more; it’s also part of my livelihood. (I think this way even though crafting isn’t currently supporting me financially, because I need to take it seriously enough to have it support me someday.)

When I was just crafting for myself, the moodiness could be cured like this:

Negative feelings: Why aren’t you crafting, you slacker?
Me: Look — I am crafting! ::waves knitting needles with partial sweater attached:: I vanquish you, so shut up already!
NF: Noooooooo! ::poof::

But now that I have a business to run, it goes more like this:

Negative feelings: Why aren’t you crafting, you slacker?
Me: Look, I am! Shut up already!
NF: That’s not for selling. That’s someone else’s pattern!
Me: Yeah, but it’s practice!
NF: Why don’t you practice knitting your own patterns?
Me: I will! Once I finish writing one.
NF: See? You can’t even finish that!
Me: DUDE, that takes time. I only have a certain amount of time, and right now I’m trying to be productive by practicing. Okay? Leave me alone!
NF: Excuses, excuses. Excuses won’t get you through THAT! ::points to long to-do list::
Me: Ugh. Now I feel like I should be doing something else. I don’t even want to finish this sweater, now. It’ll take so long, and I have SO MUCH TO DO!!!

Which probably makes me sound like a neurotic freak, but, uh … ::points to artist stereotype:: I’m supposed to be! ;P

Anyway, theoretically, owning my own craft business is supposed to free me from being weighed down by other people’s negativity, not give me an excuse to feel negative about myself. ;) Since the endless to-do list is a reality that can’t be instantly vanquished, though, I have to add another weapon to my arsenal to make the negative vibes shut up.

Solution: Write down the crap I can’t deal with right away, along with suggested ways to handle said crap once I get to it on the list.

Example:

Whiny problem: I’m not producing enough every day to stay visible on Etsy/with customers.
Quickly brainstormed ideas that might help:

• Reward myself for making items and listing them
• Set up a regular schedule of brainstorming and production
• Use a theme or themes for regular inspiration
• Spend more time making crazy items that I love, but that I don’t necessarily know if anyone else will love (this will at least make me produce! And people will probably like it more than I feel they will)

Then I might take the brainstorms and expand them into a series of steps to follow, to keep myself in line — or really, to keep myself from starting to work on something and then going, “Wait, I lost my train of thought/inspiration. What do I do next?” and wandering off. ;)

Potential solution #1 (The Disciplined Solution):

1. Get a notebook and designate it the production notebook.
2. In the notebook, list items that can be made in under an hour; put stars beside the ones that sound like the most fun to make.
3. Gather the materials for these items where I can easily find them, but where they won’t be in the way; place production notebook in the same place.
4. Every day, make one item off the list, in addition to anything else I might be working on for the business. This can happen at any point if I’m inspired, or if I’m not inspired by a designated time in the day, then at that time, I will sit down and make something off the list.
5. Write down the materials, colors, and at least two other descriptive words (.e.g, “bright,” “elegant”) that describe each item in my production notebook right away.
6. Reward myself by letting myself read for 15 minutes for each small item I’ve created that day.
7. Every two days, gather what I’ve made so far, and photograph it — if I can’t get outside to photograph, I can still photograph against my mini-white-backdrop.
8. List anything made so far. Use the notes in the production notebook to write item descriptions; spend no more than 15 minutes writing each description (to keep from getting stuck writing and rewriting so much I get tired of it).

If I start to feel twitchy about the first solution I come up with, well, I can come up with another!

Potential solution #2 (The Crazy Artist Solution):

• Designate a production notebook, as above.
• Every day, as soon as I wake up, write down the most fun thing I can think of that I can make in under an hour with the materials immediately on hand. (If there are a lot of things immediately on hand and confusion starts to set in, grab four random items and use those.)
• Write down the items being used in the production notebook.
• Set a timer for one hour and make something before the timer goes off.
• Immediately write down three descriptive words inspired by the item.
• Immediately after this, photograph the item and write a blog post about it, even if the post is one paragraph long with one photo.
• If one is available, look at the item I produced this way yesterday. Decide if I want to put it into the Etsy shop. If so, list it. If not, no worries; the blog post about it will help keep me visible at least in my customers’ eyes (and will also prove to me that I’m producing and brainstorming).

Then I can use either one of those strategies, or another one I think of later, to try to keep myself producing and visible — and even before I start using the solutions, that problem can stop bothering me and making me feel negative, because now I feel equipped to defeat the evil problem.

I can also use the brainstorm-and-expand technique to set up a plan for dealing with anything: a disorganized craft room, not knowing what products to focus on making, etc. Every problem will need a different solution, but that’s good, in a way — doing the planning forces me to think and be creative.

Which is usually a reinforcing cycle of its own, but in a positive way. ;D

Sooooo … For you intrepid souls who are still with me, what do YOU do to beat down the negative feelings? Not everybody is like me, and I’m sure there are tons of other ways to deal with feeling depressed and uncreative. Go on, share already!

The holidays are coming! (plus, shopping for shoppers)

Star and Crossbones has booked two more craft shows in St. Petersburg (the captain's hometown and birthplace, doncha know): Art Attack on November 21, right before Thanksgiving, and the ARTPool art/craft/vintage show on December 19 — right before Christmas. That sounds like it should be exciting...

We may also be attending another Daytona Beach event on December 5, if we can get the logistics right (i.e., if Brian's family in the area have finished remodeling their bathrooms so we have a free place to stay).

The event we did over the weekend, at the antique flea market, was a bit silly for us, really ... which I thought it probably would be, from the way things were the last time. But it rained on and off all day during the last one, so I thought I'd give it a second try. But it looks like my feelings were right: The people who shop antique flea markets (or at least, the people who shop at that antique flea market) don't seem to be the same people who look for quality handmade items, which points up the importance of finding craft shows and events that fit your products — it's like the need to advertise to the correct audience. Meaning it doesn't matter how great your stuff is if you're marketing to the wrong people. (People who only read literary poetry aren't going to buy Harry Potter, no matter how many times they see the gimongous display at the bookstore.)

And if you don't find your market, you could make the mistake of thinking your products aren't marketable or good enough. From reading along on mailing lists as people try to find good shows, I gather it takes trial and error and word of mouth — or luck, lacking those two things — to find your audience, so for those of you out there trying to find your niche, keep trying. I certainly don't intend on giving up until I've given it a good run.

And hey, I got a nice bamboo barrette-thing out of it, from the other artist who had a table at the event:



I also got a lopsided tan, from sitting in one direction all day ... but them's the breaks when you dare to sit outside in Florida.

Crafting the craft show

Every craft booth needs a banner. We're hoping to do a few shows this holiday season, and there's one coming up that's got a "green" theme, in the eco-friendly/sustainable sense. The application form suggested that crafters make their banner or shop sign out of recycled materials to show off their creativity, so since we don't have a banner yet, I thought I'd take their suggestion. A photo from today's bannercrafting:


The letters are cut out of an old towel that we dyed purple in the washer. There's also a big yellow towel-fabric ampersand that will go on the final banner, and all the towel cutouts will be stuck to a background cut out of a linen tablecloth we got from the thrift store. Our actual tablecloth came from the thrift store, too, and if the tablecloth turns out not to cover the tables completely, we have some white thrifted bed-sheet on standby. Recycley enough?

Time management is important

There's a nice blog post on Avlor's Imprints that talks about how people with small businesses can use and track their time better. One of the most important ideas I think some budding small-business owners don't always remember is that their time is valuable. And since a small-business owner's hourly rate is literally set by the amount of work they do in an hour, efficiency is extremely relevant.

That's one of the ideas that drove me to quit my office job. Because at an office job? HA! Efficiency just means you work harder than the people around you, care more, and burn out faster. You don't get paid more to work harder. At least, that's my experience; I'm sure there are office jobs out there that aren't like that. If only I had had one of them. ;)

I wasn't the only one who had trouble using my time efficiently at that company, either. Some people just work fast. Those people officially still had to work exactly 40 hours a week. When there's a limited range of things you're allowed to do, that just means that you either break the rules and do things you aren't tasked to do, or you learn to work more slowly.

If I meant that in a Zen, "slow down the mad rush, learn to relax, and find a natural pace" sort of way, working more slowly would actually be good. But when it's more "read grammar blogs for three hours straight every day and call it job research, then when you run out of blogs, train your brain to work more slowly and don't dare come up with better uses of your time, at risk of getting impatient and fiddly and sneaking non-work activities that could get you in trouble" — that's the opposite of good. That's slowing down your natural pace to force yourself into someone else's schedule.

And that's not a good use of my life. Hey, even if I were to get reincarnated, I still have a limited amount of time in this life, and that means every minute has immediate personal value.

Thankfully, as a small-business owner, efficiency is a positive skill. It's useful to finish faster than expected, then come up with something else that needs to be done in the "bonus" time. Being ahead of schedule means I can actually stay ahead — no getting ahead, then waiting for co-workers to catch up so the project can proceed. No getting ahead and then feeling pressured to take on other people's jobs to get the entire project ahead of schedule. As a small-business owner, all the jobs are already mine, and I'm happy to do them.

That is, if I can get my brain working at full speed again, so I can fit a comfortably crazy amount of work into a short period of time. ;) Send good vibes for my brainpower, 'kay?

In a buying mood

So this may not be the best time to buy, as I just left my office job and could very well be living off savings in a few weeks, but as fate will have it, people keep posting used stuff on Ravelry that just happens to be exactly what I've wanted for years. One way to interpret this would be that something is trying to tempt me to spend all my money so that I fall on my face and have to get another "normal" job to pay the bills.

Another way to take this is that the universe is conveniently providing me with a way to equip my fiber arts studio while I actually have the money.

Equip it, then, I shall.

On the way to me this week is the loom I suspected I'd want when I heard about it, wanted more when I saw it, and have continued to want as I researched it: The Kromski Harp. The gigantic one. 32" weaving width, I dream of thee ... and just imagine the ridiculousness of double-weaving a 64" width! I could weave a ball gown on this thing. If it's compatible with my little half-Asian 5'maybe1" body.

Then there are the used spool rack and blending hackle up for sale. The first is mine unless something goes wrong — cackle; as far as the second, I haven't decided yet. There's a woodworker on Etsy who makes lovely blending hackles that come with clamps and everything, and I do feel the need to encourage people who make lovely things to keep making them. Hmm.

Oops — as I type about buying stuff, my Phat Fiber box has arrived. (What? Me? In a buying mood?) This is my first Phat Fiber box, so I got a mixed box of spinning fiber and yarn:



There are even more yarn and fiber on the way from Blonde Chicken Boutique — and more to come after that as I stock up on recycled yarn for upcoming holiday craft shows.

And now I'm up against one of those things you hear small business owners talk about. It would be extremely satisfying to sit here and continue to abstractly ponder fiber and to browse the endless acquirable fiber stash of the Internets while planning product lines, but I have two dozen other things to do. I need to buy a vendor tent for the aforementioned craft shows. I need to order more business cards, and maybe some postcards or stickers. I need to create more product, and (oy!) do Web site design homework for my online class, which will lead to my building the new starncrossbones.com. A ton of things to do, and I just want to play with fluffies and take photos.

The alternate temptation is to absolutely refuse to let myself even consider playing with fluffies and taking photos, which would be multiply counterproductive; I need to be creative and happy at the same time as I get all my work done. Even the crap I don't want to do right now, that needs to be done right now.

Remember, me: This is still better than sitting in a box and unwillingly trying very hard to think like someone other than yourself for eight hours. (Willingly trying for hours to think like someone other than yourself is called "writing," which I will also be doing sometime soon. But that's a tangent for another day. ;))

Random polymer clay

ObPersonalBlether: Poor Brian got shot down this morning, as he called it. He's looking for a new job, and our friend Paul works at a tool company where there's a job opening. He made it sound like an easy in, so we went by to drop off a resume before work this morning ... where they made him fill out an application because they don't take resumes, then interviewed him immediately, apparently with the attitude that he was wasting their time because there were three other more experienced applicants in line for the position. On top of that, the interviewer made Brian late for work at his current job, which I find absolutely idiotic. That sort of behavior is completely inappropriate in someone holding a management position. If I had known the man was in the process of not only making Brian late, but also making Brian feel bad for no good reason, I would have hunted them down in the building and interrupted the interview to insist that Brian not be late. Just goes to show I should feel free to break rules and be crazy; if he's not going to get that job anyway, why should Brian waste his time with someone who thinks he has better things to do?

Grr. Anyway. ;) It'd be nice if I could make Brian feel better without making myself feel worse (and I mean both of those things generally, as in, he ought to feel better in general without my feeling worse in general, 'cause what's the use in that?), and one way to do that would be by bringing in more income with things that I already like doing. Must come up with a good craftiness business plan.

The requisite photos for today are of a) a heart I made for a Valentine's swap, and b) some extra goodies I made while I was playing with clay, namely a heart for me (that's the one with the curl on one side, sans beadies), plus two beads with beads in them. ;)



And the backs of the hearts: