Shop Talk: Strategic Planning

This week - although a quiet one – has been full of some serious thought given to this blog, the shop, the website, ideas and goals. At the moment, the most this entire thing can be is a side project, a part-time gig. Sure, I’m one of the thousands of people out there that has an idea and dreams of opening my own business one day, and getting up every morning with the enthusiasm to create something amazing. Well, I’ve got the enthusiasm down, but time and resources are just as important I’m finding out. Here’s what’s cooking:

In the shop:
1. Posted 4 new items! 3 bookmarks and one hardcover notebook. While the quantity of products is getting larger, the timing is not. All 3 bookmarks were posted Monday, and the notebook today. I’m told spacing it out a little is a good way to go, for a wider range of exposure on the site over time. Even if it’s been a little while since I’ve posted something new, I’ll have to exercise some patience with updating.

2. I purchased a spot in the Paper Goods Showcase today to generate some more traffic across my page and see just how effective it is. At this point, I’ve gotten a couple more hits than I had before, but no more hearts or sales than I started the day with it seems. I’m also thinking about purchasing a Books & Zines Showcase spot sometime next week to run a similar test and perhaps point shoppers towards some of my other categories of creations.

3. Some serious organizing has been going down. Excel has gotten a workout making Supply cost sheets that factor in price, taxes, and shipping of all of the materials I buy. I’ve also set up similar sheets that track the cost of materials + fees & shipping prices to make sure I’m selling my items for enough in the shop to break even.

4. Planning for the next set of creations has begun. This includes feasible projects, materials, time frames, and quantities. OY!

At the blog:
1. A first draft of an Editorial Calendar has been made. Basically, a plan of what I’m going to write about, and when I’m going to write it. The idea is that it’ll help minimize that blogger’s block that I get from time to time and hopefully post more often about things that are actually relevant and interesting (to me anyway)!

2. The continuous search and brainstorm about an all-inclusive and beautiful site is underway. Today I spent an extraordinary amount of time seeing just exactly what squarespace.com had to offer. More on that later.

So, with all of that in mind, I’m picking up and heading down to Virginia for the weekend to paint some walls and tackle a couple of little projects at the parents’ house. Have a great weekend everyone!!!