My biggest advice for starting a handmade business

Surprisingly, one of the questions I get asked about most often has absolutely nothing to do with hand embroidery.  Instead, I get asked what my biggest piece of advice is for someone just starting out in their handmade business.

It's a good question.  But the answer is not glamorous or quick.  CONSISTENCY - that's my answer.  The reaction I get to this is mixed.  But that does not change my answer... hear me out.

When I first started, my stitches were amateur, my products were sporatically made and my social media was crickets.  But each morning, I got up, grabbed a cup of coffee and got to work.  EVERY SINGLE DAY. I just kept showing up, kept stitching, kept sharing my work, and slowly but surely I built my artistic style, my branding and my audience.

You can't show up once a week and think that you are going to "make it" within a few months.  You have to do the work each and every day, whether you feel like it or not.  But here is a trick that very few mention.... when you show up everyday, you eventually start feeling more motivated and you get more creative ideas and you are present enough that you start meeting people that are just as excited about your work as you are. 

And here is some tough love for you... if you do not show up on a regular basis for your business, then you do not have a business.  You have a hobby.  There's nothing wrong with hobbies.  BUT you can not have business expectations with the workload of a hobby.

So consider this an experiment... show up to your business, serve your customers, and cross at least one thing off your to-do list every single weekday.  Create goals for yourself each month.  And after a year, I promise you will be amazed at how far you have come.