Crafter/Makers Dilema

The Crafters/Makers Dilemma

    Most entrepreneurs have experienced that moment of complete insanity (often referred to as an entrepreneurial seizure), which ultimately led to the creation of their business. This sequence of events typically begins with a friend or family member admiring something that you have created and asking if they could pay for you to make one for them. From that moment on, we are hooked and the process of trying to take our passion from a hobby to a business is in full swing.
    As we come down from the high of our first couple of sales, the reality that running a business is far more difficult than just sharing our passion with family and friends. We quickly learn that in order for our business to succeed we need to constantly be trying to connect with our next set of buyers. We start to attend craft shows and begin to try to figure out how to create our own website and online store. Before we know it, more of our time is going into marketing our creations than into making them . It becomes difficult for us to find the time to market our products and continue to create them.
   We finally hit that realization that something has to give. There are just not enough hours in the day for us to complete all the tasks required to run our growing business. For most of us, the most logical idea is to start paying someone to help us market our stuff. For many of us this is not an option as the costs are too substantial for our current level of sales. For far too many businesses this is where the dream ends.

   The good news for crafters is that an unusually large number of us will actually succeed at taking our businesses from a hobby to a business which allows us to leave our current full time jobs. If we look at the statistics, about 20% of businesses that are started will successfully get to a point where the owner can operate the business as their sole means of earning an income. Of the 80% that are unsuccessful at making this transition, the large majority give up because they feel they are unable to overcome the barriers that all businesses face.

   Since we started Makers Move Manitoba, we have had the incredible opportunity to not only meet many crafters and makers, but also many successful business people from different industries. What we have learned is that the majority of the companies who are successfully generating sales online are employing the services of website and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) specialists at an average cost of $3,000 per month. For most crafters , the profit margins do not allow us the luxury to employ those types of services, until now.

    We are far stronger if we stand together than if we attempt to go it alone. With this in mind, my business partner Mandy Johnson and I have started exploring whether it might be possible to leverage the size and strength of our maker community in an attempt to allow all of us to take advantage of services that we likely could not afford on our own.

   Over the next few months, we hope to see the fruits of these efforts as we plan to unveil a number of resources for our members that will allow all of us to act like the big boys while sharing the costs so that we can all prosper and grow our businesses. Our goal is to help turn the table in our favor and see if we can’t improve the odds of success for the many talented makers and creators who are part of our community.

Stay tuned as we unveil affordable resources that will result in some incredible success stories from the members of the Makers Move Community!


Cheers to your success…..

  

We offer a variety opportunities for makers/growers to grow their businesses.

 Our RESOURCE page is a great place to start.

 A great way to boost views to your site or page is by signing up to have your work FEATURED by us (click on link).

Also be sure to follow us on

Instagram @makersmovemanitoba

Twitter @MakersMoveMb

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We promise to always strive to provide a variety of the very best resources available to aid your business to reach its full potential.

As we continue along on our mission to grow the Makers Move Manitoba community and continue to create a series of resources that help all of you grow your businesses, you can help us by continuing to share your successes, failures, struggles and fears with us. Your stories can be used not only to inspire other members of the community, but also to provide us with the information necessary to help us build/acquire the resources that will provide the greatest impact to our entire community.

To our CONSUMERS

We promise to always strive to connect you to Manitoba's very best artisans, hand-makers, crafters and farmers in an effort to help provide you an opportunity to "support local" and keep your hard earned money at work in our communities. With out you our makers wouldn't have a business. We thank you for your support. 
 Did you know that if each of us spent $100 a year on local businesses instead of chain stores, it would put an extra $3 Million back into our economy and create thousands more jobs every year.