A 30 Day Blog Challenge - Day 1: 30 Opportunities for Sharing, Learning and Growth

by Debi Auger

I joined Natalie Sisson's Blog Challenge that she's holding this month to celebrate the launch of her book The Suitcase Entrepreneur that's getting rave reviews. It really is an AWESOME book - I was lucky to have an advanced copy to read and LOVED it!! So... this is 30 Days of Challenges and I hope you'll enjoy the journey with me here :) If you have a blog and want to participate in the challenge yourself, click here or on the link in the sidebar on the right and you can read all about it.

Here We Go...

Without further ado, because I'm already a bit behind, we're off on the challenge! Yay... I love challenges! 

Day 1 Challenge: "Write a post on why you started your blog, who you wanted to reach, what you wanted it to be all about. Then state why you joined this blog challenge and what you wanted to get out of it."

Why Did I Start This Blog?

I started this blog to get women artisans comfortable with the business part of business. In all honesty aWAEHQn dreams was a happy accident... a really over-the-top, awesome, happy accident. 

Artisans were coming to me with business questions and I enjoyed helping them. What I didn't think about initially was how often I was doing it... until my work on my other businesses wasn't getting done! That's because more and more people came... unbeknownst to me I was becoming "The Artisan's Business Coach." I was just happy when helping others with their businesses so I kept doing it. But of course free is not a business model so I eventually determined I either needed to cut waaaaaaay back on the time I spent coaching or make another business out of it. 

Around the same time, I suffered 2 extremely painful losses and was doing a lot of evaluating and soul-searching. During that process I watched a TED Talks video by Simon Sinek called "How Great Leaders Inspire Action" and it led me to my WHY. It was a powerful revelation when I saw the common thread connecting the past 30 YEARS of my life... that's how long I've been teaching, mentoring and coaching. So actually it was very logical that I was drawn to this and got so much satisfaction from it. 

Tears of absolute joy flowed and the decision was made then and there... another business it is... because coaching is deeply personally fulfilling for me.

Who Am I Trying to Reach?

I want to shorten the learning curve for women artisans who are ready to embrace entrepreneurship. 

I deal with life and business together because, when you're an entrepreneur, the two are inextricably intertwined. And, especially if you work from home, they collide daily.

I believe the world deserves to enjoy the amazing and beautiful creations of your talented mind and hands AND that you should be properly compensated for your skills and work.

I absolutely light up with joy when I'm able to help artisan business owners make breakthroughs and see results in their business and life!

I want you to create a lifestyle business that celebrates your talents, values and priorities and is the very essence of what success means to you... and yes, helping you figure that out is part of what I do!

I'm here to challenge you, show you options you don't even know you have, and show you how to play a MUCH bigger game than you think you can play. 

I want to impact lives. I've changed my life. I want to change your life. Hell, I want to change the world!!

Why Do the Challenge?

I joined this blog challenge because, well, I love a challenge... and I do want to change the world! I also joined so that I can write more often. I'm hoping through that writing, we can get to know each other better and I can inspire you to share and join in the conversations here... and to get lots of teachable moments in over the next 29 days so we can get on with all that life-changing stuff and get you where you deserve to be!

And, Over to You...

Whatd'ya think? Tell me.... what's YOUR why? Why do you do what you do? What's your inspiration? Comment below. I truly want to know :)

Much Success,

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I'm writing this post as part of Natalie Sisson's 30 Day Blog Challenge during which I'll follow the path she's laying with inspiration and challenges for daily blog posts. I hope you'll enjoy coming along on this journey and share your own in the comments every day. If you'd like to participate in the challenge on your own blog, just click one of the links here and you'll be taken to the page with all the details. Cheers!

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Having an Etsy Shop Does Not Equal Having a Business

by Debi Auger

Just because you have an Etsy Shop does not mean you have a business. As a matter of fact to prove my point, since I've probably ruffled at least a few feathers with that statement, let's do a quick assessment...

If Etsy shut down (or shut down your shop) tomorrow, what would you have? Where would your next sale come from?

Exactly. You don't have a business. Etsy does.

And I'm not here to show you how to succeed on Etsy. There are a million places, including Etsy, with plenty of tips for you.

I'm here to show you how to have a successful online business owned by YOU. No, having an Etsy Shop is NOT the same thing!

Quick and Easy for Beginners

There are many people who will tell you that you can easily start an online business by opening an Etsy shop. 

• Is setting up an Etsy shop easy? Yes, it is. I won't dispute that. 
• Is it a bad idea? No, not at all. I'm not telling you to shut down your shop and run for the hills.
• Is it a bad idea to only have an Etsy Shop? YES!! YES!! YES!!

I'm here to tell you that an Etsy shop, in and of itself, does not a business make. 

If you're serious about having an online business, the most important thing you need to do is own your traffic. If you don't own your traffic, you're risking your entire "business" on another company's every change and whim. 

With an Etsy shop, essentially you're working for Etsy while your own "business" fails to build up any equity. You're dependent on them. 

Etsy opened it's virtual doors in 2005. If you've been with them since around that time, you've seen and quite likely felt, the results of Etsy's evolution into what it is today. As it becomes flooded with resellers, actual handcraft artisans like yourself are having a much harder time getting their items seen. It's almost impossible to stay on the first page of results for more than a few seconds. And sellers' sales volumes are decreasing... rapidly.

Spend Your Time and Effort Building YOUR Business, Not Theirs

Whether you have your own website or an Etsy Shop, you still need to promote and market your business and drive traffic to it YOURSELF. So, since you still need to do all the work to drive business, shouldn't you drive it to a website whose traffic YOU own?

There are many successful shops on Etsy, but every single one of them drives their own traffic. They bring people to their shop. Anyone with a shop who doesn't do anything to promote their business and drive people to it is not going to be successful on Etsy or anywhere else.

With all the options available to you today, there's no reason for you to rely on Etsy alone (or at all). You can get a hosted e-commerce site for a very reasonable monthly fee. You don't need to pay to renew items and you don't need to pay a percentage of each sale to them. You make the rules.

Distractions

Another problem with Etsy... when you do drive traffic to Etsy, you're also giving your customer the opportunity to get distracted by other sellers' products! You're driving traffic to the site as a whole. There's nothing you can do to prevent others from catching the attention of the customer you just worked so hard to get into your shop.

No Longer Dedicated to Handmade, But Dedicated to Their Investors

"Etsy sees eBay and Amazon as it's two biggest competitors" and neither of those sites are dedicated to handmade. That should tell you something right there.

Chad Dickerson, Etsy CEO, wants tens of millions of sellers using the site (compared to the current 800,000). What's that going to mean for YOU... for YOUR traffic??

Investors have poured $92 million into Etsy and they need to satisfy those investors. So they're looking to grow, in part, by opening Etsy to sellers whose goods are NOT handmade. 

So much for "Your place to buy and sell all things handmade." Oh yeah, in case you haven't noticed, that's gone...

Etsy Home Page 2 May 2006

Etsy Home Page 2 November 2008

Etsy Home Page 14 July 2012

Etsy Home Page 3 March 2013 (just so you know it's not a fluke ;)

But they are selling Etsy ads to help those who are willing to pay to keep their products in the top spot of search results. How nice of them to help you out like that. Sound familiar? That's the kind of things that happen when a company has investors to please (hello Facebook).

Don't believe me, watch this video and you can hear it all straight from the CEO's mouth...

Wow, huh? Feeling sold out yet?

It's ok, scoop your jaw up off your keyboard and continue reading. You'll feel the panic subside. And let me give you a nice virtual (((hug)))

Want a Better Solution?

Look, honestly, Etsy is a nice, cheap way to get started in business and it has done great things for many people. It's also a great tool to have in your toolbox, but if you're serious about having a business, it shouldn't be anything more than that.

Are you ready to have more than just an Etsy shop? Are you ready to have a real business? 

Registration is now open for my Create Your Artisan Business Success Plan. 

It's a 7 week, 6 module, information packed online program designed to get you confidence and clarity about your online business as you work through putting all the plans in place that you need to succeed.

You can find out more at http:// www.CreateYourArtisanBusinessSuccessPlan.com

I'd also like to invite you to a webinar I'm hosting via Livestream this Wednesday, March 20th at 8pm EDT called "7 Critical Mistakes Artisans Make When Starting an Online Business" during which I'll talk to you about those mistakes and how to avoid them; while also giving you an idea what results you'll get from the program. 

Watch the aWAEHQn dreams Facebook page for the invitation link. Make sure you like the page and add it to your newsfeed so you don't miss it!)

Hope to see you there!

Much Success,

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