Knitting For Profit

Archive for April, 2009

Top 7 Tips To Beat Procrastination

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

For many people, the biggest challenge of knitting for profit success is not lack of money or experience or ideas – it’s procrastination! So here’s 7 top tips to help you beat procrastination and start living your dream sooner…

Tip #1 – Write a list of what needs to be done each day, then cross things off as you finish them. This will give you a great sense of achievement and help keep you motivated and enthusiastic

Tip #2 – Prioritise your tasks and focus on the ones that are most important for getting your business off the ground and making money. There’s a difference between being busy and being productive – you can fiddle around doing low priority things but it won’t get you any closer to your dreams of a knitting business

Tip #3 – Put the things that need to be done right in front of you. This way you just won’t be able to avoid doing what needs to be done. And do the things you really don’t want to first – then they are out of the way and you can enjoy the rest of the day – yay!

Tip #4 – Focus on doing and finishing, not perfection. You have to get over the idea that things need to be just right, sometimes a slightly less than perfect job is better than none at all (especially in the online world where things don’t have to look perfect to be effective). This tip applies more to "running the business" kind of tasks than your actual knitting – I am certainly not suggesting you try to sell unfinished or bad quality products!

Tip #4 – Write down your goals for the future and a plan of how you’re going to get there. Again this doesn’t have to be perfect and it’s not set in stone, but it will give you a good overall picture of where you are going and what you need to do to get there.

Tip #5 – Get help from mentors and advisors. Don’t be shy about asking for help and advice from people you admire and respect, they can probably give you ideas that will save you time and help you through tough times. And don’t be closed minded about management and personal development books and courses, you could discover an idea or breakthrough that could be worth thousands of dollars to you (not to mention make your life easier and happier!)

Tip #6 – Learn to say no and mean it. It’s easy to get caught doing useless tasks or engaging in idle chat when you can’t say no. When you work for yourself, you are wasting your own time and money when you accept tasks that don’t take you closer to YOUR dreams. Keep socialising and unproductive tasks for your leisure time, not your working time.

Tip #7 – Stay positive and avoid worrying. Psychologists have proven that worrying uses up huge amounts of energy, and worrying never solved any problems. If you find yourself anxious, write down everything that is on your mind and then write out the tasks you need to do to solve the problems – just doing that process will relieve stress enormously. Try changing your state by talking to someone who inspires you, or reading a book that encourages you, or by doing some guided meditation. Working on yourself and your positive attitude is the most valuable thing you can do – not only for your knitting business but for your whole life too!

Tags: business plan, home business, knitting business, procrastination, small business, work from home
Posted in Home Business Tips | 3 Comments »

A Quick Lesson In Speed Knitting

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

If you want to make money knitting, then being able to knit faster not only means you can get more done in a shorter space of time, it also means you are being paid more per hour of work – so it’s worth taking some tips from the worlds fastest knitter!

Miriam Tegels is in the Guiness Book of World Records for completing an amazing 118 stitches in one minute!

KnitPicks has released this video with tips from Miriam for increasing the speed of your knitting, and it’s really fascinating to watch her in action. Miriam knits in the continental style for competition, but her tips are still useful even if you knit in other styles.

To really get your needles burning, Miriam suggests:

• Don’t tense up – make sure you shoulders are relaxed

• Keep all your movements small, your hands should move as little as possible

• Keep your left index finger low, almost in line with the needle

• Drape yarn over your left index finger and down through the middle and ring fingers of your left hand. Keep tension by clamping down on the yarn with these fingers

• If you want to compete, practice continental style on size 8 needles with DK weight yarn, once you can knit more than 200 stitches in 3 minutes you’re ready!

If you’re not interested in competing, stick to your preferred style and just keep practicing! When you are knitting for profit it’s well worth the effort to increase your speed and productivity.

Another way to speed up your knitting is to choose projects that are simple and fast to knit. There are some good books available that specialise in fast projects, and remember to have a look at Ruth’s projects which are designed to be fast and easy too.

Tags: knitting, knitting for profit, speed knitting, teach knitting
Posted in Knitting Resources | No Comments »

Top 5 Tips For Selling Knitting At Craft Shows

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

Craft Shows are a great way to get a lot of people to see you and your knitting business in a short space of time. Plus there is the potential to make a lot of money too! But competition at large craft show events can be intense, so you need to know how to maximise your time and exposure to make the best of your investment.

I have displayed at many large shows, and have paid a lot of attention to which stands get the most customers. This is a great way to learn what works, and get innovative ideas for your craft show booth.

Here are 5 ways you can ensure that you get the most for the time, effort and money you invest into a craft show booth…

Tip #1 – First Impressions Are Everything!

Even though it sounds like common sense, it’s worth remembering that many customers are going to decide whether or not to come and look at what you have to offer based on their first impression of the stand as a whole. If you can catch their eye with something interesting, you are going to be getting more traffic to your stall, and traffic means business!

There are some little inexpensive tricks you can use to make your booth stand out (and you can do this for small markets and fairs too).

• Choose a colour and theme for your booth that suits your knit or crochet products. For example, if you produce knitted baby items, decorate as you would a babies room. Add props like a crib if they will fit (a dolls pram or crib is small enough to fit on a table and will attract attention), and use colours like pink, baby blue, light purple and light green. If you’re niche is organic and natural yarns, then add props like a potted plant, cardboard trees and a green and brown theme.

• Props are great! They attract attention and are excellent conversation starters. I have used mannequins, stuffed toys, plants, cardboard cut-outs, a model house, and even a racing car game (some of these were not for a craft show obviously!)

• Your main display table should be covered in a clean and ironed cloth (don’t laugh, I have seen some surprisingly scruffy looking displays in my time), of a colour that compliments or highlights the colours of your products. If your knitted products are mostly white, don’t use a white table covering, or your products will be lost in a sea of white.

• If you have been to the craft show event before, think about what colours everyone else tends to use, and choose a different one so you stand out. Make sure you pay attention to these things when you are at a craft show. Try to get time to look around at everyone else’s displays and make notes!

• Place boxes underneath the table cloth to give your display height and texture.

• Remember to decorate the walls of your booth, drape them with cloth or examples of your work. This adds height and depth to your display.

• If you are offered overhead lights for the booth, use them! They will make your stand brighter and more noticible – good light is one of the things that really isn’t worth skimping out on.

Tip #2 – Make It Easy For People To See, Touch And Try On Your Knitted Products.

Again this may sound simple, but if people can’t easily see and feel things, they will be less inclined to buy. The following ideas are straight from retail research about the way people shop and buy. All the large retailers use little tricks to get us to buy (like putting sweets at the checkout counter, or placing items they want to boost sales of in the front right hand side of the store because that’s where people tend to go first…)

• If you have racks of knitwear, make sure people can get easy access to them without having to squeeze past tables or boxes. Admittedly it can be very difficult to achieve this when you only have a space that is 3 metres square, but you need to get a bit creative with how you lay things out so people can get to your products. Try placing tables in a U-shape inside your booth so they can come right in and reach everything. Corner booths are good for stalls that have racks, so people can wander through them more easily.

• If you are selling knitted or crocheted clothing of any kind (even scarves and beanies), make sure you have a mirror that people can see themselves in.

• Try not to make people bend over to reach your products – if you have shelves, only use the ones that are at about hip height and above. When people have to bend over, they bump into other people and make everyone uncomfortable.

• Remember, you don’t have to display everything all at once! Don’t make your stand too cluttered or it will become confusing. Select a range, and if someone wants a different colour or size, you can get it out for them.

Tip #3 – Invite People In.

If you make eye contact with people and invite them in to your display, you’ll get much more traffic than if you stand mute and just hope they’ll come your way. I was always completely exhausted after a show because I spent the whole time talking and interacting with people. But it meant that we made good sales, and introduced as many people as possible to our business.

Tip #4 – Run A Competition.

This was by far the best way I found to excite interest in my stall, as well as get the names and addresses of lots of people who were interested in my products.

You’ll need to check with the event organiser and possibly register for a competition licence (check if there are local government regulations, the licence is usually easy and cheap to get), but it’s well worth the effort!

I usually gave away $50 to $100 worth of my products in a lucky draw – which was a small price for the extra traffic and interest in my stall. It’s a great, easy way to invite people in by asking if they would like to go in the competition. And after the show I would follow up with an email to say hello and remind them of my website.

Tip #5 – Brochures and Knitting Business Cards.

Vital for exposure and follow-up sales so make sure you have plenty on hand – and not just for customers, but for networking opportunities too! Craft fairs are a great place for meeting people who can help you and your knitting business. Retailers who want to stock your products, other crafters who you may want to work with, suppliers and wholesalers who can reduce your costs. So make sure you have professional business cards that clearly state your name, niche and contact details – see my post on Knitting Business Cards for more information.

I hope these tips will help you get the most out of your craft show investment, and also help if you have a stall at smaller craft fairs and local markets. If you have any other tips or ideas that you have found worked well at craft shows, please leave a comment for everyone below!

Tags: craft show booth, craft show event, craft shows, knitting business, sell knitting, selling knitting
Posted in Make Money Knitting | 2 Comments »

How To Build Your Knitting Website – For Free!

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009

The Internet can provide knitterpreneurs with a fantastic opportunity to find customers from all over the world. So how do you start your knitting business niche website, process payments and get your customers to find it – all for FREE?

There are so many ways to create a presence on the web these days it can all get a bit confusing – do you start a blog? a website? an e-commerce site? a craft-mall store? an E-bay store? And then how do you get people to find you – on search engines? From advertising or promotions? Through links and recommendations? Is your head spinning yet??

Don’t worry! In this article I’m going to show you how to decide what sort of site you’ll need for your knitting business, and where to find the resources to build it easily, and for FREE. But the first thing you need to do before jumping in and starting your site is to sit down and do a bit of planning – this will save you a lot of time and headache!

The first step is to decide what you want your knitting website to achieve. Think about the following questions:

• Do you just want an online catalogue so people can get more information about you and your products? (Like an electronic business card)
• Or have you found a knitting niche that you want to become well known in?
• Do you want to be able to make sales online? Can your products be shipped around the country or worldwide?
• Is your goal to get people to find you online? Do you want lots of traffic to your knitting website? Do you want to be found through search engines?
• Or are you going to be mainly promoting your knitted products or services in the real world (like at markets and fairs or in stores etc)?
• Do you want to keep in regular contact with your customers? Do you have lots of good information about knitting or crochet that you can share with them?
• How much time do you want to spend on this project? Do you want to ‘set and forget’ or are you willing to make a long term commitment to updating it?

Following are the three main types of knitting website you can create, and depending on your answers to the above questions, you’ll find that one will stand out as the most suitable for your knitting business.

A Static Knitting Website – often used as an online catalogue, these websites are called “static” because their content does not tend to change. They are designed to give people information about you and your knitting business and products, and they are the easiest site to set up and maintain because once you’ve got all your information and pictures there, you don’t need to do anything but get people to visit it!

Many static sites rely on off-line promotion for their traffic, in other words, they are great to list on your business card or in advertising so people can go and find out more information and see your complete range of knitting online.

You can create a great static knitting website for free on services like weebly.com. I created a sample site there today and it was really quick and easy, and looks great. Have a look at http://gentletouchknits.weebly.com to see what’s possible in about half an hour! This site was completely free as it is hosted on weebly, there is also the option to register a domain name and host it yourself (but this means you will need to set up a hosting account – which is easy and cheap, but not free!)

The main disadvantage of static sites is that search engines seem to prefer “dynamic” sites like blogs, whose content is regularly updated. This means that your static site may be more difficult to get listed high in search engine results, and if thats the main way you want to get traffic, then perhaps a blog is a better option.

A Knitting Blog – like the one you are reading! A blog is a website that is regularly updated with “posts”, rather than static pages with information and product listings. It can be a great interactive way to keep in contact with your customers, and also a good way to get listed quickly and prominently in the search engines.

There are lots of places where you can start a free blog, the two I have used are blogger.com (which is owned by Google, and some say is faster to get listed and ranked because of this), and wordpress.com, and if you’re looking for convenience you can also create a blog through weebly.com. All are easy to use and quick to get started.

Blogs can be very personal and friendly, and will help you create an ongoing relationship with your customers. They are also a good way to dominate a niche market. But you do need to keep them up to date, so in that sense they are an ongoing commitment where a static site requires less maintenance.

A Knitting Shopping Site – This is similar to a static site, with listings of your knitted products, photos and descriptions, but it is also able to take orders and process payments.

There are a couple of ways you can do this. The fastest, easiest way is to set up a shop front through one of the online craft malls like etsy.com (I will do a whole post about craft malls and which are the best value, so look out for that one very soon!).

These are great because there is already lots of people searching on there for handmade products, so you’ll probably get some good instant traffic. These services usually charge a listing fee or a monthly access fee, as well as a percentage commission on every sale, so they’re not free. And most of the time you won’t really own your own site, so you might be limited in design or layout, and with some your store won’t get listed in search engines.

The other option is to add a shopping cart to your already existing static website. There are services like romancart.com or paypal.com which provide you with order buttons to place next to your knitting items for sale. Payments are then processed by secure servers. These two services are free to set up, but they do charge a small percentage commission per sale.

Now, you don’t need to limit yourself to just one of these types of site. Many people start by building a static site, then adding a shopping cart, then adding a blog. By doing this you get the benefit of all three models – and this is of course a long term plan.

If you are new to the online world, just start by going to a site like weebly.com or blogger.com and have a play around. You can’t break anything, and the best way to learn is by having a go – you’ll have your knitting business up online before you know it!

Let me know how you go with these sites in a comment below, or if you have found any other good free services for creating websites, blogs or shopping carts that other knitters may find useful, please share your experiences with us!
 

Tags: knitterpreneur, knitting blog, knitting business, knitting business website, knitting niche, knitting online, knitting website
Posted in Knitting Websites | 6 Comments »