Smoothing the Rough Edges (Takeaways from 2022)

Starting and growing an artisan business is like making a handcrafted gift box. It begins with raw beauty, the right tools, and a careful selection of pieces. The process then shifts to refining and removing the excess, making solid connections, and a proper fit. Finally, you identify and smooth the rough edges before continuing. The end goal is something you’re proud to share.

Each year, we review the business in the same light, to discuss rough spots and how to smooth the process. We reflect, fine-tune and celebrate success. Every year brings opportunities and challenges, and 2022 didn’t disappoint. Here’s what we learned and what’s next.

Boundaries

You might remember we kicked off 2022 intending to bring more ease into the business, as shared in our blog, At Ease, Please. And Other Lessons Learned. We held to our intention of creating more calm - a worthy goal. We took family time off in the summer, enjoyed date nights, and set deadlines for accepting orders during the holiday season. We remind ourselves that we are in charge of our schedule. Stepping away shouldn’t be celebrated as so much of an accomplishment but infused into business as normal, healthy, and expected.

The Social Media Tsunami

A recent LinkedIn report confirms what we’ve felt for a long time. What started as simple image posting has evolved into an entire department of specialized talent required to meet the demands of changing algorithms, the quest for visibility, and the appetite for new social content. Like us, every business owner has to determine their commitment to social media based on their team, budget, goals (and sanity). Keeping a laser focus on adding value is our best action plan which includes consistency and more videos - a trend that will continue. (No, we are not on Tik Tok.) The challenge is to remain vigilant and stick to the plan, yet flexible enough to adapt when needed.

New Additions

As planned, we added a new business section to the website, called BizCreatv. The goal is to speak to women, at or near the empty-nester stage, to spark their content and creative business passions. Let’s Go, Ladies! We also added a new line of serving and cutting boards to our Marketplace. Both have been very well received :) More to come.

And Then, the Unexpected

What wasn’t planned were the family medical and health issues that occurred in the Fall. We know many of you are experiencing the “sandwich generation” right along with us and are involved in the health care of parents and other loved ones. For this reason, we decided to slow the rollout of some content and push projects into 2023. It’s a reminder that planning for unexpected turns is necessary as life happens.

An Audacious 2023

Looking ahead, we’re excited to add bold new opportunities in 2023 without adding more hours - all while staying grounded in our commitment to “ease.” How’s that for lofty goals? Here’s to an audacious 2023! We’ll continue to share what’s next and celebrate with you as our artisan gifts arrive in the homes and havens of customers around the globe. #cheers!

Feisty at Five

In July, we passed the five-year mark in our business. It's a milestone for the company and as a husband and wife founder team. Looking back on photographs and our weekly emails (This month marks #114 emails, plus the blogs.) reminds us to be proud of the progress. When you're knee-deep in all the things, you forget how much has been accomplished. The list of future goals is long, so we don't spend much time looking behind us. We'll make an exception today and take a moment to share photos from our first year compared to today. Here are three lessons learned, a testament to how things change over time.

1. Partner preferences.

If your significant other, with whom you are in business, tells you they don't want to be involved in “X” (finances, operations, marketing, sales, business), believe them. Don't spin your wheels trying to use your superior persuasion skills only to be frustrated. Take that energy and find an alternative; do it yourself, hire help, ask a colleague, move forward. If your partner changes their mind, great; if they don't, you've already found a solution. For those of us who are more stubborn or persistent :) this lesson took a while to learn.

2. Pause before you proceed.

As designers of handcrafted wood pieces, we like to create new pieces each year to add to our selection. We listen to our clients, look at the Marketplace, consider the trends and go from there. With a talented craftsman at the helm of our workshop, there are many beautiful options to consider. What type of wood, which combinations, what is the price of wood, and how can we make this efficiently in quantity? Creating a brand new design is about a three-month process, from design options to prototypes, evaluations, and final craftsmanship edits. Once the specialty item is declared complete, photos are taken, descriptions written, and content is created for the website.

Creating a new product is not something we take lightly, and it's done with intention and careful consideration. In the early days, we made pieces and posted them online in a much shorter time frame. Then, we'd inevitably determine that a few design tweaks would look even better and allow for a more efficient process. But by that time, all the front office work of descriptions, promotions, pricing, and posting had been done. It's not ideal to backtrack from there. No one is happy to rewind a project at this point.

Today, the process has evolved and allows a window of time between when it's "finished" and when the front office team engages. We let any brand new designs rest on the workshop bench for a time for us to review and discuss. This way, any changes in the design can be done at a reasonable pace; there's no wasted time or money spent before the final version is complete.

3. Sometimes, things don’t go as planned.

In 2020, we wanted to create a holiday card to bring "Joy" to our clients. You may remember there was a U.S. election that year and a global pandemic happening. A big decision was determining when to send the card. Before the election? Is that too early, and people would be distracted? Or later, after Thanksgiving, they'd be swamped with other holiday cards and seasonal events. It was decided that "Joy" was a good thing to send earlier that year rather than wait, so the first week of November was it.

Our cards were meant to be fun and included a tear-off postcard (stamp included) that you could mail to family, friends, or a colleague. Checkboxes and fill-in-the-blanks let the sender personalize the message. Many hours went into the design and handwritten notes on each card. We were excited to send them off, imagining the big smiles of our recipients during such difficult times. Weren't we surprised when people sent us photos of their festive holiday cards arriving in March 2021? Say what? Turns out that the postal service had some machinery removed, and deliveries were impacted that season. All that excitement and debate around the perfect date didn't matter. It wasn't exactly the seasonal impact we had planned, but we like to believe that joy is welcome anytime.

Photos below left to right: The workshop has expanded significantly with tools and ergonomically improved design; we started with two box options, detailed specialty boxes and other pieces have since been added; and the days when “red” was still red, and today.

At ease, please. And other lessons learned.

Each year we review the data and glean the facts to determine what stays and goes in our business. We experienced excitement and frustration as we embraced new tools and technology. We worked around the supply chain issues. We enjoyed the satisfaction of launching new product lines (Specialty Series) and new gift box designs. We met clients and colleagues in person to laugh and live again. And we were aware of the continued heavy news cycles layered on top. Upon reflection, our business lessons revolve around communication and marketing channel growth, time, and our mindset toward all of it.      

 The raw numbers we collect (opens, clicks, visits, engagement, etc.) are combined with anecdotal information (texts, comments) to celebrate the wins and decide what we need to start or stop doing. Web analytics, social media tracking, and sales stats are some of the gauges we use to evaluate a given year. And, are we having fun? This is an important metric too.

 More is just more. It’s easy to get wrapped around the axel of social media and spend precious hours in the vortex of producing posts, stories, reels, videos, and feeds. Posts on social media channels were once a way to boost visibility when we had extra time. Today, with so much vying for customers’ attention, digital and social channels are a minimum point of business entry. More is not necessarily better. Weaving creativity into the message is the differentiator now. 

 One challenge is the sheer number of unique social platforms and products available. The vast amount of social media options that offer visibility, sales, and engagement are fantastic - and terrifying. (Do I really have to jump around and point? Ah, maybe.) Focusing on which channels to grow and our efficiency in content creation is vital. We’re an online business; however, we make a physical product, so we manage much more than the online elements.

 Another lesson was the self-inflicted tension around the learning curve of digital and web-based tools. Wouldn’t it be nice if it was all short and fast? Some things took more time than was allotted, which caused frustration in scheduling. You have to be mindful of and evaluate the size of your team, your circumstances, the true time investment necessary (an eye-opener), your goal for the platform (leads, sales, visibility, engagement?), and determine what works for your business and life. For the coming year, we’ve settled on a more reasonable frequency, a better-planned process (batching and tools like Later), and an intention of embedding ease into our day (more on this below.). Everyone wins when we accomplish this.

Add ease, please. It won’t surprise you to hear that this year is about a mindset of ease. We still have deadlines and schedules to follow, and things will not always go as planned. However, we can have more patience, reduce the “hurry” mentality and be more content with the journey. There will always be new products and technologies, and some deadlines will slide from their original dates. And yet, we’ll figure it out, life will go on, and it will be amazing.

Building a Foundation to Revive and Thrive

As we post our goals, journal our dreams and visualize the future, can we also create moments of rest and reflection? How about a few deep breaths that lead us to a hearty revival of energy and spirit? Let’s take some time to reflect on how to build a solid business base in a steady yet manageable way.

One step we’re taking is preparing to add more talent to the equation - part time, contract, hourly, weekly, it’s not a one-size-fits-all. The gig economy offers a variety of options to find talented people with flexible schedules. The challenge is, we still have to set aside time on our calendars and do the research. It means slowing down (interview, train, communicate feedback) to then move faster. Admittedly, this feels daunting, but in reality, it has to be done to grow.

Here are a few things we’re doing to move forward and create the space to thrive:

Document Tasks to Hand Off

Over the course of the last six months, we’ve started to document tasks that we could delegate. It’s nothing fancy, a page on a tablet where I scribble a few words. (Rugged loves his workshop tasks, so his list will follow.) I’m making a running list I can trim later, but it’s a start. It feels like progress to write it down. I’ve been much more aware of the tasks I’m doing and the time spent doing them. I’m also aware of what else I could be doing. For example, unlike many people, I enjoy writing content, so that’s not something I want to hand off. I’m also the client-facing professional. However, operational items (inventory, shipping, research, invoicing, packaging, reports, templates.) are tasks I’d happily stop doing. It’s a chicken or egg decision. Do you add talent before you bring in the extra revenue or will more time in the day accelerate business? We’re wagering on the latter.

Virtual vs In Person Help

This decision boils down to whether the task has to be done on site or not. Packaging, for example, can’t be done online. If that’s a task we want to hand off, we need a person come here, have an area for them to work, access to the studio etc. Important things to consider. Or, reports, research, templates, these are all things that can be done from anywhere. As I jot down our wish list of tasks to delegate, I split them into virtual or in person.

Ask Around for Sources of Talent

We’re not the only ones in this situation and neither are you. Ask your business owner friends and colleagues who’ve hired, and their experience with the hires. (Cheap is not always good.) Research options via podcast interviews (see this blog for suggestions). Be sure to ask people who are close to your stage of business so you get recommendations on par with your budget. I’ve been on the phone with Belay to better understand their offering, and had UpWork recommended to us. This is in addition to the usual online options of LinkedIn, Indeed etc. Time and research are required here.

Start Creating Process Guidelines

This transition will be much smoother if there’s some kind of guideline for a new hire to follow, even if it’s bullet points. I’d like to skip this step, but logic prevails. I know I’ll pay later and spend all my time on the back-end fixing what I really wanted people to do, and not moving the needle on the company. And we’ll frustrate the talent too. So, the last time we shipped gift boxes, I sat down immediately afterward and wrote bullet points on all the steps we’d just completed. It was two pages long, and more steps than we realized. (I need to do the same thing when I post this blog too.)

Write it down, calendar it and set a timeline. This is a less glamorous side of business, however, it’s the part that will add freedom and time to enjoy the other things that make it all worthwhile.

Cast a Line and Connect the Dots

My husband isn’t one to enjoy casual networking, he still can’t believe lunches and latte conversations lead to meaningful new business. The issue for him is the time and patience it takes. By the time new orders, or something significant happens, he’s lost track of how that connection appeared in the first place. But I haven’t forgotten, I know we had that line in the water for some time. In my career, I’ve seen how genuine, patient, follow up can lead to new sales, strong partnerships and important visibility. I’ll share a few examples for the non-believers.

First, I was asked to speak on a panel recently on the topic of women in business. This wasn’t a hospitality targeted event or a corporate gifting audience, we were speaking to women working in all stages of their careers - full time, contract, just starting out, mid-career, with families, and seasoned empty nesters. I agreed because I was committed to sharing my story in the off-chance it might resonate with a woman in the crowd. After the panel, I received a message via LinkedIn from an attendee who said she thought her CEO would love knowing about our artisan gifts. She connected me with the CEO’s Chief of Staff, and I followed up. They then connected me to another individual, more follow up. Fast forward, and we’ve now delivered repeat orders to that global client, all based on the fact that I spoke on a panel months ago.

Second, even though our main target is corporate, we do sell gift boxes to individuals too. You never know who those individuals are giving a box to, who else they know, and/or where they work. Our marketing “speaks” to corporate, however, individuals order off the website from our full Gift Box Collection. In one example, customers have loved our gift boxes so much that they referred us to their favorite luxury vacation resorts. After several emails and phone calls, the resort executives then ordered our gift boxes for their VIP guests.

Lastly, years ago I read the book, Small Giants, and loved it. I enjoyed it so much, I took a train to New York City to hear the author (an editor at Inc. Magazine) and a featured CEO from the book, speak at Columbia University. Before the session began, I introduced myself to the speakers and invited them to come speak in Central Pennsylvania , where I lived at the time. I went home and followed up on my request. We worked on the details, and Bo Burlingham and Norm Brodsky came to Harrisburg to speak to entrepreneurs in Central Pennsylvania. Somehow, I managed to get two editors from a major publication to speak – no speaking fees – in our small city. It was a big success with entrepreneurs attending from all stages of growth. Later, I took the train back to Manhattan, to have lunch with Bo, ask questions and hear more of his insights on writing content. Looking back, that was a big moment in my life, when you realize what you can accomplish when you set your mind to something.

In our current business endeavor, we are lean and I don’t have time for days full of coffee meetings and casual lunches, I’m not suggesting that. I am saying that creating opportunities for selective outreach, with genuine intention, and persistence can be productive if you’ve laid the groundwork.

You can create your own path forward. Find your spot, set the environment, and cast your line. You might be amazed what it nets over the coming months.

Below is my signed copy of Small Giants (of course!) and a picture of our event coordinator (Jeanmarie Kline) , myself (the one with the rebel blonde streak), Norm Brodsky and Bo Burlingham. Still a favorite photo of mine!