Your crochet business isn’t working the way you hoped and you can’t put your finger on why.
You have all the pieces that everyone says you should have in place
- Social media, consistently posting every day and networking
- Newsletter, consistently emailing once a week
- Great looking photos of your crochet from all the angles
- Your niche is tight and all your products fit the theme
So why are you not seeing the profits and sales that you need when you are working so hard with so little time left for yourself each week?
Prefer to listen? Click here for the podcast episode
It’s Not Easy
When you started selling your crochet, it sounded so simple. Crochet something, post it online for people to see and make that sale.
Simple right?
But that was a serious over simplification of what it takes to be a successful sales person.
But that’s also not your fault.
If you’ve never been involved in the world of business before then you had no way of knowing what was actually involved, and the side hustle culture that has risen up in the last few years has us all believing that it’s oh so easy.
I thought the same. I thought it really would be that simple. I remember making my first items for sale – a set of little storage baskets. They were cute and colourful. I listed them on Etsy and then… crickets. It took 3 months for them to sell, and only after I slashed the price way down.
It was then that I really started looking into how to sell my crochet properly and at a better price and I fell down the rabbit hole of learning about online sales. It took a lot of time and effort.
It took me away from my family time, it had me pulling my hair out wondering how something so simple could be this complicated. I only wanted to make a bit of extra cash to help the family finances, but it had quickly turned into a part time job without the pay cheque.
Making a decent profit from selling what you make isn’t easy, it was never going to be.
But you know that now. After all this hard work and long hours you’ve put into your crochet business, learning all the bits and pieces and yet something still isn’t clicking.
The Search For The Missing Piece
I know this feeling of looking for that one trick that will turn everything around. I was there myself.
I started my crochet business journey by selling the crochet that I made too. I had all the pieces that all the advice told me to have, and yet….
I was desperately searching online for answers, following business coaches, trying all the tricks and hacks. But nothing worked or just wasn’t tailored for a crochet business so couldn’t work.
It’s near impossible to search Google for a solution when you don’t know what the problem is. I just knew something wasn’t working.
And in the meantime, while I was trying to track down that missing piece of the puzzle, I was just carrying on regardless. Doing all the things that I was told I should, but wasn’t actually bringing in the results I was craving.
The problem is simply that traditional business advice was not built for a crochet business. It was built for businesses that can make products quickly and mass manufacture. It was built for people who can run their business full time and not between the kids naps. It was built for people who can bring in machines and automation to help them.
It was not built for a handmade process that takes time and has no shortcuts.
The Advice Is All Wrong
Selling the crochet that you make has a big problem. It relies on how much you can crochet each week.
You are essentially selling your time for money. If you are not crocheting, you’re not earning. This means that the amount of money you can earn has a limit. You can only change that limit if you increase your prices.
And I know you hate raising your prices. You believe no one will buy if your prices are too high.
But how will you make the profits you need if you don’t price high?
This is the crocheters conundrum.
- How to sell enough to make the profit you need without chasing customers away with your pricing.
- How do you make money when you need to take time off to be with your family or just to give yourself a break?
- How do you make the profits you need without working 60 hours a week just to get the bills paid?
It is fairly easy to sell your crochet and make the profit you need if you just want to make a bit of extra cash. But to make a living selling your crochet – that is an entirely different matter.
You are working as hard as you can, crocheting as much as you can. You are either not making sales at all, or you are getting too many orders for the time you have available, but not making enough money to make it worth your time.
The business advice to fix the crocheters conundrum is sorely lacking.
But the truth is, that selling the crochet that you make is the hardest and least profitable way of making money from your crochet.
There Is Another Way
You’ve poured so much of yourself into your crochet business that it’s become part of your identity. It’s who you are now and that makes any changes difficult to make. The question is, is it more important to finally get the money flowing or is it more important to keep yourself feeling comfortable. Because the solution is going to mean making big changes and in a way you’ve probably never considered.
I’m not saying you can’t make your crochet business work, I’m saying that it needs a change of direction.
That feeling that you’re missing a piece of the puzzle is correct, it’s just that you didn’t quite know what it was telling you.
You know something’s off, you know things are not working out as you expected. What hasn’t occurred to you yet – or if it has, you’ve pushed the thought aside, is that you are not on the right path.
I get it, you’ve put so much work and time and energy into your crochet business that to not carry on and crack this thing feels like you would be giving up, quitting on yourself and your dreams.
But that’s not the case. Changing direction is not quitting, it’s just acknowledging that the fix to the conundrum requires more drastic action than you hoped.
Let’s be honest for a minute. A marketing hack was never going to give you more hours in your week to make more orders. That magic promotion trick was never going to sell out your stock instantly.
So what are you going to do instead? What does a change in direction really mean?
A New Direction
There are lots of ways to make money from your crochet. The best way to make a living from your craft is by making sure you have recurring revenue included in your strategy.
This is where you do the work once but the money keeps on rolling in.
You’ve seen these businesses in action, you just never considered the possibility that you could do this yourself
- Blogs
- Pattern writing
- YouTube
- Classes
- Memberships
And so much more.
Your dream of making a living from your crochet and ditching the restrictive 9-5 is still alive. It just needs you to open your mind and have faith in yourself and your abilities to make it happen.
If this feels like a big switch and something that feels totally out of reach. I get it. That’s why over the coming weeks I’m going to tell you more about how these things work, how I made the switch from selling what I make to where I am now – blogger, pattern writer, coach.
I was once where you are now. And yet, here I am. I’ve come through it and I’ve never looked back.
But What If I’m Wrong?
If you still think that missing piece might just be an internet search away – and I don’t blame you for thinking that way, it’s the least painful and least drastic option. I have an idea for you.
Make a list. Write down how many sales that you would need each week to make your crochet business pay its way and how much time it would take to make those items. Then write down how much profit you would need to make from each sale to give you the money you need.
Be honest. Don’t think about how much time you actually have, just how much time those orders would take.
Now take the profit amount and divide it by the number of hours.
That number that is left is your hourly wage.
Would you accept a 9-5 job that advertised that pay rate?
I’ll leave you with that thought. But I’ll be back next week with more about the crocheters business conundrum and how changing direction is not necessarily as scary as you fear. I’ll also tell you more about my own story and how I cracked this problem. You can read that post now here
I’m Kelly Thomas, crochet business owner, pattern writer, blogger and coach. I started my crochet business selling what I make and made all the mistakes along the way. Let me show you what I learned so you don’t make the same errors.
You can listen to the podcast episode that goes with this article here. It is a bit different to what you’ve just read, but the message is the same.
You can check out the rest of my podcast here to discover more about how to turn your crochet into a successful business.
I also have this free guide that you can download which walks you through 12 ways that you can make money from your crochet.
