Blog Revival

I let too much time pass.  Then I almost forgot about it.  Then I added some new "things to do" to my To Do list and I really didn't have time.  It's been over a year since I blogged regularly and I still don't have the time, but I'm determined to try! 

I enjoy posting and interacting on Facebook.  (You can "like" my page here )  I'm trying to figure out Pinterest--it's very cool, but still a little complicated from a "marketing" perspective.  I'm ashamed to admit I haven't sent out an email newsletter in far too long. 

There's just so much stuff involved in running a business these days.  And for me, all the online/social stuff is in addition to making my jewelry, filling online orders, and interacting with customers in my store!  Like I said, I'm determined to try to work it all in, to make a more effective schedule so that I don't run out of "day" before I run out of "things to do".  I'm starting with this blog.  Consider this the REVIVAL!

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Summer Schedule

The thing I love most about summertime is that I get to sleep in a little longer each morning, since I don't have to take my son to school. Not TOO much longer, because I do have to take him to the day camp he attends at his karate school, but long enough for it to feel indulgent. The downside of that lovely sleeping in is that I get to my store later in the morning, and have that much LESS time to get everything done that I need to before I open my doors. Like this, for instance. I'm blogging, and it's already time to be opening my store. I did list some new items in my Etsy shop, but I still have to update my Facebook Fan Page. I did take care of my eBay sales and made a new listing there, but I haven't written the bill payments that need to go with the mailman today.

Adjusting to my summer schedule will require a bit more focus than I am sometimes inclined to have. Today is only the first day. I'm not totally displeased with my progress so far this morning. I'll go update my Facebook Fan Page, write the checks to pay the bills, and then get to work on the gigantic pile of special orders on my clipboard! Since my doors are now open, there's the possibility that customers might walk in, but being in business to sell to the public is what makes all those other things even necessary, right? So if I have to get up from my desk to take care of a customer, that's a GOOD thing! The rest...I'll just keep muddling along!

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Online Venue #11 -- This Blog

A couple of months ago I started a little "series" about all the online venues I try to keep up with on a regular basis. This is the last one. This blog. I started it to keep my customers up-to-date on my jewelry and what's going on in my life. I've been in business a long time, and I've come to discover that people who buy handmade items like knowing a little bit about the artisan who creates the items. And creating a blog seemed like a good way to expose my jewelry to a new audience.

The benefit that I didn't anticipate showed itself as I made my way around the blogosphere trying to promote my blog. There are lots of other really cool blogs out there! Some business-related, some personal. Some informative, some thought-provoking. I've got quite a list of Favorites that I try to read at least a few times a week. So in a way, creating (and maintaining) this blog spawned a whole other "online venue" for me to keep up with.

No, there are not enough hours in the day to do everything I'd like. As I've written the posts for this series and examined each online activity, I've decided that I like and appreciate each of them in their own way. Each has its own merit, each has its own place in my overall business plan. So for now, I'm going to keep them all. It's not likely that the earth is going to slow its rotation enough to add any extra time to the day, so I'm just going to keep doing the best I can. After all, the way it is now, there's certainly never a dull moment in my life!

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Online Venue #10 -- Facebook

A few months ago I had three different friends send me invitations to Facebook. I knew what Facebook was, but it seemed like it was primarily for a younger crowd, with lots of games and applications that I wasn't sure I could get into. Personal computers came along after I was already out of school, so I've always felt like I was "behind the curve" when it came to learning and using all the stuff they can do.

Sure, I can run my business, send and receive emails, even do some pretty cool desktop publishing. But the "fun" stuff? Can I figure it out? Do I even have time to take advantage of it?

After some more nagging and encouraging by my friends, I did set up a Facebook account. I've even explored some of the features and taken a quiz or two. But I really DON'T have the time to delve into it very deeply. I will say that in addition to the friends who invited me, I've rediscovered a few old friends from high school that I can now touch base with from time to time, and that's kind of cool!

Right now, Facebook is strictly a social site for me. I haven't even posted any pictures of my jewelry, let alone tried to "market" it in any way. For one thing, Facebook frowns on using its site for strictly business promotions, plus I'm pretty sure all my Facebook Friends know what I do and could contact me directly if they needed anything. I've only managed to find time to get on Facebook once or twice a week, and at one point I didn't log on for over a month!

Just over a week ago, both my friend Beth and my friend Kay "tagged" me with a little note called "25 Random Things About Me". It sounded like fun to participate (and it was fun), but it took me a week to even think of 25 things! In fact, my first thought when I saw it was "am I even that interesting?" But I managed to finish it, and posted it yesterday. I'll share it with you here:

1. I’m adopted.
2. I hate being cold. And anything below 65 degrees is COLD!
3. This is my 25th year in business. I established Contemporary Concepts on April 14, 1984.
4. I love good landscape photography.
5. I got my first grey hair at 23. My hair color has been out of a bottle ever since!
6. I’ve always had a powerful attraction to the number 8.
7. I’m very right-brained, and I think in three dimensions (hence my innate ability to create beautiful pieces of jewelry…? But don‘t ask me to draw anything more complicated than a stick figure.)
8. It makes me crazy to see advertisements or billboards (or anything else, really) with words misspelled. Get a dictionary, people…and PROOFREAD!
9. My favorite author is Orson Scott Card. He sucks me into a book so deep that I absolutely CANNOT put it down until I’m finished reading it. I’ll also read anything by Roger Zelazny or Michael Crichton.
10. My favorite colors are green, purple, and yellow, in that order. Any combination thereof is also highly appealing.
11. When I was younger, I wished I had been born a brunette with brown eyes. And that I was taller and thinner. In the last several years, though, I have come to terms with all my “imperfections”…yes, ALL of them!
12. Sometimes I wish I had finished my college degree.
13. I’ve never had a broken bone.
14. I really hate being wet. I’m not a big fan of swimming, and when I shower I always dry off immediately.
15. My son Ricky was conceived through in vitro fertilization, and I gave birth at the ripe old age of 40! No morning sickness, I only gained 16 pounds, and my labor was about 5-½ hours from start to finish. An awesome experience!
16. The downside of being pregnant at 40 was that everything that was going to sag, droop, spread, or otherwise go to hell in a hand basket as I got older, did so…quickly and irreversibly! Consequently I now wear bifocal contact lenses and my feet are a full size bigger than they used to be. (I’ll let you take a wild guess at what sagged and drooped!)
17. Ricky was over a year old before I realized that diaper packages come with a perforated side that you can easily rip open. Now there was a “duh!” moment!
18. It blows my mind that I’m going to turn 50 this year! Inside my head I still feel about 28. Only maybe a little wiser!
19. I am mesmerized by moving water: ocean waves, small creeks, even my washing machine and jewelry tumbler. But I especially love waterfalls. (Have you ever seen pictures or video of the Iguazu Falls in South America? Breathtaking!)
20. I love penguins and giraffes.
21. I have a tattoo of a seahorse on my right ankle.
22. My favorite flowers are yellow roses.
23. I love the smell of pine needles (like Christmastime!) and orange blossoms.
24. When I was younger I enjoyed traveling. At one point or another in my life I’ve visited 36 of the 50 United States. Nowadays I’m the consummate homebody--there’s no place I’d rather be than home.
25. My husband is nearly 10 years younger than I am. Grab ‘em young and train ‘em right, I always say!

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Not Enough Hours in the Day

Wow. Here it's been a whole week since I last posted. I certainly didn't mean for that to happen. I almost don't understand how it happens, either. Every morning as I'm getting ready for work, my mind is going over things that could very well be turned into blog posts. Something I heard on the news catches my attention. Something my husband or son did was amusing. Old friends and crazy antics of the past cross my mind. And yet, by the time I actually GET to work, all those lovely ideas have flown right out of my head.

I unlock the door, I feed the fish, I turn on the lights and the computer. I sit down, check my bank balance (never enough $$, by the way), log in to my Etsy account and/or my Ruby Lane account and/or my website, fiddle with some uploading and downloading. I make my Entrecard drops and package up any orders that need to be mailed. Then I'm ready to open the doors to customers.

Some days I have lots of customers walk in and I don't have the opportunity to do much else besides wait on them. Some days, not so many customers, and I can make inventory or work on special orders. If the weather cooperates, I can photograph some new jewelry pieces to put up on one or more of my online selling venues. I read some blogs, answer emails, check my social networking sites. Once in awhile I move the inventory around in my store a bit. The same old stuff looks fresh when it's in a new place!

Often, that's it. That's the end of my day. That's all the hours I have to devote to the endless "to-do" list that is the stuff of being self-employed. I didn't get my email newsletter written. I didn't finish all the special orders I wanted to do. I didn't get the supplies ordered that I really meant to do yesterday. And I didn't post in my blog.

Ah, well, there's always tomorrow....

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Online Venue #8 -- Entrecard

As I look back over my last few posts, I realize I skipped #8 in my list of online-things-that-take-up-my-time. Not that I'm doing them in any particular order, I just skipped using the #8. Things like that make me crazy, so I'm "backtracking".

I've been with Entrecard for a few months now. It's sort of a virtual business card exchange, where people with blogs who belong to Entrecard visit each other and "drop" their avatar/widget on those blogs. It exposes other people to your blog when they reciprocate the "drop", and it exposes you to various blogs as you surf around and visit the other Entrecard members. You earn credits for each "drop" you make on someone else's blog. You also earn credits when people purchase Entrecard advertising on your blog. These credits add up and you can purchase advertising on other people's blogs. Theoretically, people who visit the blogs where you've advertised will then click on your avatar and find YOUR blog. Builds traffic to your blog. A cool idea, but pretty time-consuming.

The most "drops" you can make in one day is 300. I don't know why that particular number was chosen, but for me it hasn't made a difference because I've never been able to drop more than about 150. And that's on a day when I have pretty much nothing else to do! On a typical "dropping" session, I manage to visit between 50 and 100 blogs, and that takes me better than an hour and a half. I see some advertisements for "300 Drops in Less Than 5 Minutes", but I've never explored that option. I can't imagine how fast your internet connection would need to be to "drop" on 300 blogs in 5 minutes. I can only assume it's a "shortcut" of some kind. And I enjoy actually visiting the blogs I "drop" on. I've found some really interesting blogs this way. I invite you to check out some of my favorites:

TeresaSez http://teresasez.blogspot.com

Margie and Edna's Basement http://margieandednasbasement.blogspot.com

The Junk Drawer http://www.junkdrawerblog.com

DnD Corner http://www.dndcorner.com

Crock Pot Meals http://crockpotmeals.myreviewguide.com

I have more, but you can see just from this short list that there is a WIDE variety of reading material out there!

I like being a part of Entrecard, but it sure does contribute to my Spread Too Thin? problem (see post below). Perhaps I should take my laptop home every night and "drop" while I'm sitting around watching TV...?

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Online Venue #9 -- Artfire

Artfire is a relatively new site for selling handmade stuff. It's still in Beta, in fact. But so far it seems like the people running it really want to make it a success. The listing form is only one page, and your item appears on the front page for a little while as "newly listed", which is pretty cool. I check yesterday, and the ring I added stayed on the front page for just under half an hour before it was pushed off by more recently listed items. Not bad. Of course, I realize that as more artisans discover and join Artfire, the listings will increase in frequency and the time on the front page may fall to mere minutes (or seconds...?).

I've had my shop on Artfire for about 2 months now. Haven't sold anything yet, but I also haven't paid as much attention to it as I could have. There was a period of nearly a month when I didn't list anything new. It's hard to be found if you're not really "there"! I've vowed to myself to try to list at least one new item there every day. And I'd like to purchase an item or two, to start building my "karma" points (feedback). But to be honest, I haven't taken much time to try to figure out how to buy things. Every online selling site has it's own format for searching and purchasing, some easier than others. I'm sure Artfire wants its members and their items to be found! I understand that they plan a marketing push to make the general public aware of their existence, but it's likely that that won't be happening until they do a full launch of the site.

For now, I'm happy to be in on the ground floor of a venue that appears to be willing to give their merchants what they need to sell successfully. The fact that I am in on the ground floor also gives me the benefit of paying only $7 per month for life. Can't beat that price with a stick! This offer is apparently for the first 5000 artisans who sign up, and there are still (as of today) around 3000 spots still available. Artfire will inevitably grow and change, but this is one venue I plan to be with for a long time. I figure the more places people can "discover" my jewelry, the better it is for me!

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Online Venue #7 -- Flickr

I joined the photo-sharing site Flickr, maybe 5 or 6 months ago. At first I was very gung-ho, posting new pictures frequently and signing up for lots of photo groups. And therein lies what became the problem. So many photo groups! So many gorgeous photos! It's very easy to lose track of time while clicking around Flickr. (If you want to see some really cool pictures, you have to check out the Infrared Landscapes group!)

I know a few people--sellers on Etsy--who use Flickr successfully as a marketing tool. I guess they post their pictures and make it very clear that the items are for sale, so people contact them to make purchases. I haven't personally looked at their Flickr photostreams, but I do know that technically it's not allowed to put prices or contact information on the Flickr photos themselves. You can put a link in your Profile, which I have done. But so far I haven't had any sales that can be directly attributed to my Flickr pictures. I do think this is a promising tool, though. This is one place I will continue to explore the marketing possibilities. AND enjoy all the beautiful pictures!

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Online Venue #4 -- Etsy

I really didn't intend to take so much time off after Christmas, it just sort of happened. But now I'm relaxed and refreshed and back at it!

My fourth online venue is Etsy, a lovely collection of all types of handmade items plus vintage goodies and some great supplies. I've had my shop on Etsy since May of 2007, and my sales there are pretty decent. I make sales of more higher-priced items primarily from my regular website, but I make more frequent sales on Etsy. The fee structure is a little more "friendly" than Ruby Lane, and I can control to an extent how much I spend with Etsy by how often I list new items or relist older ones to move them to the "front of the line".

Etsy is also the online venue on which I spend the most amount of time. Photographing multiple views of each item, editing the photos, and listing is just one part of the Etsy experience. I also spend time browsing around adding things to my Favorites, and I check in with the forums at least once a day. If there's a hot topic that I'm interested in, it may be a couple of hours just reading all the responses! All-in-all, I'd guess I spend about 10 or 12 hours a week on Etsy-related activities. I guess it's a good thing that all my online marketing and sales efforts don't take that much time each--I'd never sleep!

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Online Venue #3 -- Ruby Lane

It was March 2003 when I joined Ruby Lane. It's a lovely, well-run site for selling Antiques, Collectibles, and Artisan works. From a buyer's perspective, the quality of items for sale is good, the integration to paying with PayPal is seamless, and you can find lots of really cool stuff. As a seller, there are lots of "rules", but objectively I have to admit it makes for a really nice site. The fees are high, too, but you get a lot for your money. The search feature works well, the customer service department is responsive, and they spend a lot advertising the site to a highly-targeted market. So I stay, even though I pretty much just broke even between fees versus sales this year. In fairness, I have to admit that I didn't "work it" as well as I should have this past year. Which goes back to my Spread Too Thin? post a few days back.

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Online Venue #1--my website

My first, most important, and longest-running online presence is my own website. First established back in 1995, it was originally merely a bunch of pictures and prices. A virtual catalog, if you will. The pictures were terrible--it was way before I had a digital camera, and even after I took several shots of the same item, after they were developed I had to choose the "least bad". And often the "least bad" was still pretty bad! I had no clue about staging, lighting, composition, or any of the things that made for an attractive picture. But it was cool that I was online! I felt like a total business-grownup!

I scrapped that website in 2001 and hired my most excellent webmaster Eve to design something new and fresh, and definitely more user-friendly. The new site was launched in February of 2002, and is the one I still use today, with updates just about every month and modifications as often as we decide they're needed. For instance, the photography...(that darn photography, it's definitely an ongoing learning experience!). Over the last year and a half, I've been reshooting all the pictures and Eve has been upgrading the layout. Bigger, brighter, clearer pictures--if you poke around the website you can tell which pages have been done and which haven't! And you'll also discover some of Eve's cool touches--for instance, try the rollover of the stone/bead names and you'll see a picture of that color stone pop up!

Although I personally don't "maintain" the site, I do shoot all the photography, write the text, and make the decisions (or at least most of them) about what to do next and how it should look. I send everything to Eve and she does the maintenance. I am one client among many, so sometimes she gets to it quickly and sometimes I'm the "last in line". And why don't I bitch about this, you ask? Because Eve and I have been friends since junior high (and that was many, MANY years ago). Because no one else could possibly do the "perfect" job for me that she does. Not only have we known each other for more than 35 years (so she knows me well!), at one point in the late '80's she moved to Florida and made jewelry with me for a couple of years. She has always been a phenomenal artist--drawing, painting, crafting--so she was a natural with the jewelry design. She knows how the jewelry is made, what it's made of, the techniques involved, and how best to "showcase" it. What other web designer could boast that? After she left Florida and went back to Albuquerque, she went to school for graphic design and started her web design business. So because we've known each other personally for so many years, because I know what a talented artist she is, and she knows how the jewelry works, it's the perfect symbiotic relationship! And my final reason for not bitching about being "last in line"? Because that's often about when she gets a payment check from me!

As this was to be a summary of one of the online venues over which I spread myself, I will close by estimating that my website takes about 4 or 5 hours a week of my time. And because it is the main window through which the world can see me and my jewelry, it's definitely a worthwhile investment of time!

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Spread Too Thin?

Man, I feel guilty when I let so much time go by between posts! I have to wonder if I'm not spread too thin. The powers-that-be in online marketing make you think that if you're not "everywhere" on the Internet, then you're nowhere. I am currently trying to maintain my presence on about 10 or 11 online venues, and I have to say that NOT ONCE have I gotten to all of them in a single day. Is that bad? Or is it okay to do a few of them one day, alternating with the others on the next day? Seems to me that it keeps things "fresh" if I alternate. Or should I look at it like if I don't do all of them every day, I'm not maximizing their full potential? I can drive myself crazy trying to figure it out!

Maybe I'll spend the next 10 days blogging about each one in turn. At least that will give me something to post about!

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