Starting Your Own Craft Business

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When you're starting your own craft business, you may not consider how your creative decisions are tied to your business decisions.

In fact, for some professional craft artists, the idea of connecting creative decisions with business considerations can be very challenging. It can feel like selling out.

When you take some time to think it through, it's actually amazing how closely creative and business decisions are connected. So whether you decide to change a creative decision to meet a business goal or not, being aware of how they are related will help you to make smart choices for your own business.

Here's One Quick Example:

If you're starting your own craft business, and you make the creative decision that you want all of your products to be one of a kind pieces because you love the design process and can't stand the idea of doing repetitive work, that decision will have a big impact on the nature of your business. It will impact:

The prices you'll need to charge to make a fair profit

Since you will need to spend more time designing (rather than producing) pieces and doing any administrative work related to each piece, your prices will need to be higher than someone who does not do one of a kind work.

The nature of your target market

If your prices are higher because your pieces are one of a kind, that will have an impact on the nature of your customer base and which sales venues are most appropriate for you.

The time it takes to promote your work online

Taking good photographs and writing good descriptions of your art or crafts takes a lot of time and if all of your pieces are one of a kind, it will take more time to list each one of a kind piece (as opposed to listing a few pieces in a limited line of products).

Your sales and marketing strategies

You'll be selling quality over quantity. You'll need to consider marketing the exclusivity of your work, and that focus will need to be reflected in your sales and marketing strategies.

It's not a matter of right or wrong. Some craft artists would do better producing one of a kind pieces, while others would be happier and more profitable selling a limited line of pieces. It's just one example of the many ways that creative decisions and preferences will make a huge impact on your business decisions and direction if you are starting your own craft business.

You don't necessarily have to always choose what seems like the best business decision over what seems like the best creative decision. As you develop your line and style of products along with your own craft business management procedures, you'll come up with those answers that best fit yourself, your business and your customers, and they'll be very individual. However, when you're making those creative decisions, keep in mind the ways in which they will impact your business decisions so that you make fully informed and well thought out business and creative choices