A while back I shared that I was going to be vulnerable and share some of the ups and downs of being a creative entrepreneur.
Being a creative entrepreneur really does involve a lot of ups and downs, pushing past fear and standing in vulnerability. It also involes noticing what works and letting go of what doesn’t.
Often when I try something new like a giveaway, a sale, a new genre of course, a new type of promotional style, it is about experimentation.
Noticing what types of techniques of marketing work for me and what doesn’t.
Noticing what types of things I offer people seemed excited by and what doesn’t work.
Todays post is about just that.
I want to share with you that I had a 2 for 1 sale in my Etsy shop in November and sold 1 set of prints. I wanted to share this with you because I know when I see what others are doing I assume they must be wildly successful at whatever they are offering. That just really isn’t the case for most of us. There are parts of my creative business that are thriving right now and other parts that are not.
Now, this isn’t a pity party. The sale was a bit of an experiment for me:
a) Because I had a lot of 5×5’s printed and ready to go
b) Because I wanted to see if I should keep my Etsy shop open.
My conclusion is that my Etsy shop isn’t an area of my business that has a lot of movement. It is pretty simple to manage once set up and doesn’t cost too much to run but at the same time my sales are pretty rare.
Now, before we go any further, I really encourage you not to take this as advice in the middle of launching something. Don’t give up just because it doesn’t feel like things are catching on.
Each and every time I launch a session of YAYOM I have a point where I feel like “this isn’t working, I should stop this. Not enough people will register”. Every time my friends, and I’ve been doing this for over a year now. There is always one week in the midst of registration that I want to give up. That is just standing with vulnerability.
Yet when you really have tried your best, kept going, pushed on, tried again and again.
Sometimes it is just time to let things go that don’t hold energy and focus on the things that do. Or to make room for new projects that haven’t even emerged yet.
I’ve been noticing this with other projects as well. I have had 2 new projects/products that I want to launch in 2012 and I’ve been brainstorming about one of them for a LONG time now and just can’t seem to make any forward motion with it. I so want to do create this project, but it just doesn’t seem to hold momentum for me right now.
Yet there is this other idea that simply took hold of me today and I got a massive amount of work done on it (it is almost ready to launch it and tell you all about it). Sometimes things hold energy and other times they don’t. So I’m going to set the first project on the back burner for now and go where the energy is. I’ve been trying for a year to make momentum on it and it just isn’t working for me right now.
Its about learning when to push through and keep trying and when to make room for a new creative awakening.
So, the decision I made is that I’m going to let go of my Etsy Shop. As of December 15th, I will be closing my shop. I do intend to sell prints again, but I feel like I need a renewed energy in it. Some different kind of print projects. As well, to be honest, I find selling prints on Etsy (and in person too) really tough. It may work for some people, but it has never been a thriving part of my creative work. So it is time to let it go.
“Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn’t work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.”
– Roger Von Oech