Found this fun idea for getting customers to buy jewelry (or any art or craft) at craft shows.

How to Get Your Jewelry Customer Buy at Craft Show Event.

Thank you Ooh-la-la Beadtique for sharing such a fun idea!

Also read Do Sales and Discounts Hurt Craft Show Sales? and 5 Places to Market & Display Your Handmade Jewelry for Free

How do you get your customers excited about buying?

You need to be a great salesman to make money selling arts and crafts. The problem is how do I become a great salesman without becoming the pushy salesman?

I have to admit I haven’t been the best example of a good art and craft salesman. Why, because I was always afraid of being too pushy. So, when I heard the word no I took it to mean no and I didn’t push the issue any further.

A good salesman of arts and crafts will have already contemplated all of the reasons someone would buy their product as well as the reasons someone wouldn’t buy.

They will already have answers ready to overcome the objections made by people considering buying their arts and crafts. They won’t take no personally and will simply see what they can do to gently persuade the customer to make the purchase, without being pushy.

So what are the reasons people should buy your art or craft?

1. high quality
2. price-affordable vs. good value for the money
3. handcrafted
4. great customer service
5. support local economy – local artist
6. help a good cause – charity

What are the reasons someone might not buy your handcrafted merchandise?

1. poor quality
2. price – not affordable or not a good value for the price
3. poor customer service
4. not ready to buy right now
5. not what customer is looking for -salesman needed to offer something else
6. salesman didn’t ask for the sale

So now you know why someone might buy your handcrafted art and you know why they might not. You are now prepared to offer the customer the sale several times through out the sales process and work to overcome their objections.

Also read 6 Reasons Your Art Festival Customer Won't Buy

What other objections do you face? How do you overcome these and other objections? What do you say when faced with these problems?

I have struggled as a show promoter to figure out what the perfect mix of advertising is for any show. I have learned that nothing is ever guaranteed and with the advent of cable TV, internet, and satellite radio advertising has become all the more difficult. My advice to vendors and promoters alike is this:

Advertising is everybody’s business.

Vendors remember that the more advertising a promoter must do, the more the booth will cost.

I have had a few vendors at my shows ask how they could help and I decided that how they could help was to tell everyone about the upcoming shows they are attending.

For the vendor:

I suggest that you create a simple flier on your computer that shows your schedule of upcoming shows. Take your schedule with you everywhere. Take it to your kids school, after school activities, lessons, work, church, and out to eat. Talk to people and ask if they are interested, give them a copy of your schedule of shows. Ask at restaurants, grocery stores, work and church if they will hang it on their bulletin board or lay it on an informational table or counter.

Let’s use 30 vendors for an example:
30 vendors tell 10 people about a show=300 people know
30 vendors tell 50 people about a show=1500 people know
30 vendors tell 100 people about a show=3000 people know

Write a simple press release to the local newspapers. Press releases are free as space allows so write as early as a few months before the show and again just before the show. Tell a little about your product what makes it unique and give a copy of the schedule of your upcoming shows.

For the promoter:

I suggest making a four up flier (or four ads to a page) mail or e-mail the flier to your vendors as they sign up for your show. Suggest that they make copies and hand them out or hang them everywhere they go. I also take the four up with me to activities etc. and talk to people about the show. It has been very well received and I have even found new vendors this way.

Send press releases at 8 weeks to show time, 4 weeks to show time, and every week after that.

Everyone use an automated email system like AutoWebBusiness.com or Constant Contact to keep in touch with clients, let them know of your upcoming events, offer product information etc.

AutoWebBusiness.com Increase your sales by 100% GUARANTEED! CLICK HERE

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Art and Craft Show Expert Shasta McLaughlin provides articles, hints and tips, checklists and more for artists and crafters that sell handcrafted products who want to save time looking for shows, packing for fairs, and get more sales at festivals. Now she is revealing how to collect your customers contact information, follow up with them and make more money while working less. Go to http://www.extravaganzacrafts.net to get her newsletter, The Extravaganza Craft News, that will help you avoid mistakes, save time and money when preparing your craft show booth.

One day I was riding in my sisters car. The roads were slick and the car slid off the road into a deep snowbank. The car was very stuck and trying to drive it out did no good. Along came a car with 5 guys in it. They couldn’t pull the car out using their car. They all got out and stood at different points around my sisters car then lifted up her car and put it back on the road.

One guy couldn’t have lifted the car alone, but together the 5 of them easily moved it.

Business is like lifting heavy objects. Doing it alone it’s too heavy but with many people working toward the same goal it becomes light.

Craft businesses often go out of business before they even get a good start when business owners try to do it all alone. There is just too much work to do and too many things to learn for one person.

Have you noticed that KFC and A&W teamed up? Have you thought about why they would do that? I have.

KFC and A&W are in direct competition with each other.

They chose to work together because they share costs and reach a wider customer base.

• They rent/own one building instead of two as well as sharing equipment.
• KFC and A&W share advertising costs. They put out one ad with both chains specials mentioned.
• They both use one set of employees rather than each company having to hire their own.
• KFC and A&W foods compliment each other. You might want rootbeer and ice cream with your fried chicken and mashed potatoes. You might want fried chicken and mashed potatoes while your friend wants a coney dog and tator tots, and everyone wants a rootbeer float. Both companies get more sales by working together.

In the business world working together is called a Joint Venture (JV for short). Jeff Dedrick says doing a joint venture isn’t like if I would make $1000 selling jewelry and my friend would make $1000 selling hair bows that we would make $2000 together. He says that if I would make a $1000 working alone and she would make $1000 working alone it’s possible that we would make $5000 working together.

So how do you make joint ventures work for your art or craft show business?

1. Choose someone with similar products but not exactly the same.

• Jewelry-Handbags-Accessories-Clothes-Other Types or styles of Jewelry-Makeup
• Woodworking-Furniture-Home Decor-Pillows-Curtains-Florals-Pictures-Light Plate Covers-Wood Carvings
• Pottery-Table cloths and place mats-Furniture-Florals
• Body Care-Embroidered Towels-Bath Fixtures
• Rugs-Furniture-Lamps-Curtains

2. Choose someone with a different style than yours if you choose a product that is very similar to yours. For instance two Asian jewelry artists can work together if one does very elaborate work and the other does only very fancy work. They would be able to offer products that closely match their target audience but would be able to offer a wider variety of price ranges, making more sales. Both jewelry artists would be experts in the same field and able to share information on the use and care of Asian jewelry.
3. Ask show promoters if it’s okay to share a booth or rent two booths next to each other and mix products.
4. Make an agreement to know each others products and to offer them equally if someone is looking for that item. Offer each others product as an upsell or downsell.
5. No one likes to work for nothing. Be honest with your partner and keep good records making sure they get paid for their items that sold.
6. Evaluate partnerships and adjust or discontinue as necessary

It’s no secret that fuel prices are on the rise.  High fuel prices either affect the profits your #handcrafted art or craft business makes or you adjust prices and methods to account for them either way someone pays the difference.

FuelEconomy.gov will help you to make driving to and from shows more efficient by helping you maintain your vehicle for maximum fuel efficiency.

Some other ideas to help you keep your profits in your pockets where they belong:

Time your trips to see friends and family to correspond with the best shows in the area.  Attending shows while visiting nearby friends and family makes the trip accomplish two purposes. It also makes the trip a business trip which is a tax write off, so save your receipts. By staying with friends and family you will save money on hotels and probably food.

When traveling long distances to shows find other events to attend on the way to and from the show. Increasing the number of shows you attend increases the number of people who see your product and hopefully your sales. Reducing the distance between events reduces the number of gallons of gas used per show. Also you will spend less time driving from place to place, giving you more time to see the sites and rest between shows. Keeping the distance short between stops also helps you to plan ahead better, you won’t be caught looking for a hotel between 10pm and midnight when most of them are already full. You can also make reservations further in advance when rates are better saving you money.

Do more shows close to home. This is obvious but worth mentioning the closer to home the events you do, the less money spent on gas getting to them. Tie a string to a pin and place the pin in your city on the map. Use it to draw circles on the map at distances of 30 miles, 100 miles and 150 miles then check out which shows happen in the cities inside your circles. In places where the population is dense you should be able to find quite a few shows happening in your area. For areas where there aren’t a lot of shows happening consider starting one, pick up business cards of artists and crafters off of bulletin boards, at farmers’ markets, and at shows happening in the area. Contact them and ask if they would be interested in attending a show. Some of the most successful shows I’ve seen were held in a large back yard with 4-6 crafters participating.

Get a website. I know some of you are afraid of computers and probably don’t even own one of your own.  Don’t let your fear of technology stand in the way of your profits. Many adult education classes offer all the basics of computer usage. You don’t even need to know any special computer languages to create and maintain your own website anymore. My website costs me under $100/year and came with a what you see is what you get editor with great tutorials. Your website works 24/7 to sell your product and inform your customers. You can’t get a salesman as dedicated to selling your product for a better price. Include your website on your business card. Give your card to everyone who purchases from you at events. Have them available to anyone who visits your booth. Use your website to inform your customers about your product, about where to find your product, and to sell your product between shows.

Create a mailing list. Ask each of your customers permission to add them to your mailing list. Mail a postcard to customers in the area you will be doing shows letting them know where they can find you. Offer them a discount for bringing the card and a friend to see you at the show. People who’ve already bought your product are more likely to buy your product than the average Joe by staying in contact with them you increase your sales and profits.

Recently I’ve been working to make my business more profitable each and every day. Today it occurred to me that I should share with you how I plan to do that.

Week one I worked on catching up on left over unfinished crafts and business projects from previous weeks to prepare for my 30 days of greater profitability. As usual I accomplished some of the things I intended to do, did some things I planned to do later early, and didn’t accomplish some of the plan.

Week two I learned new things about my email marketing to keep my messages from being flagged as spam. I joined a networking site I’ve been meaning to join for months when they ran a special I couldn’t pass up. I did a client consultation which was a new service for me. I blogged about what I was doing and I did all this while keeping up with requests for information about my business.

Week three I mailed coupons to show promoters, had a second client consultation, worked on facebook profile and group pages. I created a profile on Fast Pitch Networking and added a few contacts there. I worked on cleaning out my email box, and signed up for a MySpace account, and I blogged about what I had done to make my business more profitable this week.

Week 4 what I accomplished.

• Power Pay contacted me but then never got back to me. I guess I still need to call them next week.
• I remembered that I had a Linked in account and had a new member join there.
• I found my friend that was already on MySpace and reconnected with her.
• I created an email I can send to all my customers and prospects reminding them that they can follow me on my blog, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and Linked in. I need to finish formatting it and send it to everyone. I remembered to tell a client over the phone that they could follow me all these places.
• Worked on creating my profile on Fast Pitch Networking. Added a few contacts there.
• Worked on cleaning out my overly full email box which got even fuller despite my efforts.
• I blogged about my experience working toward greater profitability this week.

Here is what I didn’t accomplish.

• I still didn’t get my accounting done.
• I didn’t call the people I just mailed free newsletters to in the last few weeks to ask them what they thought of the newsletter. It is probably too late but I will try to fit this into next week anyway. Call your prospects right away they are only interested about 7 days!
• I didn’t create any articles to send to show promoters that will encourage them to list their shows with me.
• Since I didn’t write the articles I also didn’t start calling my huge list of show promoters. Obviously I didn’t sign them up in my email marketing system.
• I didn’t get the article written for my newsletter although I have some very good ideas to write about.

I hope that this series is inspiring you to work along with me to improve your businesses profitability by doing something each day that will make your business stronger. I know that I’m a bad example but I would really suggest that you write your goals down on a calendar. This way you can truly see what you did accomplish and will remember what you didn’t get done so you can work on it in your spare time or in your next 30 day plan.

The plan for the next 8 days:

Day 24-Write and send a quick email to all my customers from the past asking them how their businesses are doing? Tell them how my business is doing and showing them where they can get more information from my business. Sort of bring them back to take another look at my business.

Day 25-Write the article for my newsletter.

Day 26-Finish writing my book.

Day 27-Clean out my email box.

Day 28-Do my accounting

Day 29-Create articles to send to show promoters who haven’t listed with me yet.

Day 30-Call show promoters and ask them if I can send them free articles.

Day 31-Blog about my 30 days to Greater Profitability for my art and craft show business.

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Entry 4 of 6 in the series My 30 Day Plan to Greater Profitability.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

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Art and Craft Show Expert Shasta McLaughlin provides articles, hints and tips, checklists and more for artists and crafters that sell handcrafted products who want to save time looking for shows, packing for fairs, and get more sales at festivals. Now she is revealing how to collect your customers contact information, follow up with them and make more money while working less. Go to http://www.extravaganzacrafts.net to get her newsletter, The Extravaganza Craft News, that will help you avoid mistakes, save time and money when preparing your craft show booth.

Parts of this 7 part series have been reprinted with permission from the article “7 Common Disconnects In Retail Business” by Pam Grimm of Ideaco.

7 Common Disconnects In Retail Business

4.  Assuming not Assessing: When a staff person could speak about products, she often told everything she knew about it before asking any questions. Most of the time the information was not even relevant to the question or need. We found most staff members don’t bother to probe for information to meet a customer’s need; they download all they know in hopes they have covered it.

How to Assess A Customers Needs

They say to assume makes an @$$ out of you and me. To assess what a customer needs you need to ask questions and hear the answers. Don’t get ahead of yourself and spill everything that you know about the product instead simply answer the question. When you’ve answered the question if they don’t say anything wait a few seconds and ask another question, it could be that they are considering one product over another or how much money they have to spend or it could be that they are waiting for you to ask for the sale.

Questions that might help you know what they would like are:

1. Are you buying for someone special today? This tells you if they are looking for childrens items, items for teens, adult items or items for the elderly.
2. Are you buying for a special occasion? People need different kinds of things for birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and everyday.
3. Are you looking for a particular style? Depending on your craft your merchandise will have some varying styles some things might be more modern or contemporary, others might be more country, some things will be Victorian or classic. Things like jewelry will vary from an abstract random pattern to a symmetrical pattern that repeats itself. Some of your items may have an Americana flair while others might have an ethnic flair from other regions. Some items will be more natural while others may be more synthetic, some may be recycled.
4. If they are buying for themselves you can ask if they are buying to match a particular outfit? What color is it?
5. What are their favorite colors?
6. When the choices have been narrowed you might ask if you have answered all their questions.

Your job at this stage is to discover their questions and answer them while narrowing the choices. It’s a fine art but you’re a creative person you can do it!

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Entry 4 of 7 in the series 7 Ways for Your Art or Craft Business to Outsell the Retailers. Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7

What does Real Estate have to do with selling arts and crafts?

The way I see it your art or craft show booth is kind of like trying to sell a house. If you try to sell an empty house people can’t see in their minds what the house will look like when it’s all finished, painted, furnished, and decorated. You will also have a hard time trying to sell a house that is full of clutter, people can only imagine that the rest of the house hasn’t been taken care of well. They will see that the house will be too much work and cost too much money.

Your art or craft show booth is like selling your house. The booth will help your customers imagine using the product they have purchased from you. You have to do the imagining for them. How?

First you need to think about your product, who is it designed for, how and where will it be used? The answers to these questions should affect the theme and design of your booth.

Is what you’re selling for boys, girls, men or women? Is it for children, preteens, teens, young adults, or mature adults? Don’t present children’s items in an adult setting or adult item’s in a child like setting. Use colors that appeal to the ages you’re selling to. What ideas and themes appeal to them?

For instance fancy jewelry for teens might be presented as if at a prom, towel racks might be presented as in a high class hotel bathroom, and clothing needs to be presented as if it were in a fancy closet but also as outfits on the person.

When you created your product you had a vision of how people would use it, your booth is your opportunity to present them with that picture. Want to see pictures of art festival and craft show booths? Read Art and Craft Show Booth Display Pictures

Stage your booth just like you would a home that you were trying to sell. Imagine yourself as a customer walking into your booth. Critique and criticize as if you were the customer, ask friends and family to do the same. Ask for them to point out things that are distracting, look odd, and especially anything they feel is not safe.

In order to have a successful full time business selling your arts and crafts (defined as making enough income to support yourself or your family without having a part time job) two things must happen.

1. There must be enough people interested in buying your arts and crafts.
2. You must be able to persuade people who are interested in your art to buy.

These are two very separate and distinct problems with different solutions.

First one needs to realize that to be very successful selling their handcrafted goods they must chose to create a craft that is wanted and needed by a large enough group of people to support the number of sales the artist needs per day, week, month or year.

Most artists choose which craft to sell based on which one they like to create the most, the one they get the most compliments on, or the one they like the best. This is actually backward and can be detrimental to your business ever succeeding.

Crafters spend too much time looking for those who want their crafts this way. Artists don't realize they are trying to make people who aren't even interested in their art not only like it, but buy it-a losing game to be sure. 

They are always looking for people interested in their handcrafted merchandise and have no real direction to look... instead of going to a group of people who are already interested in their crafts and trying to persuade them to buy.

It's like trying to tell your customers their favorite color is purple when really their favorite color is green. They aren't going to even want to stand around and listen.

Like trying to sell hand tatted doilies to every child, teen, and young single adult that comes near your booth rather than slightly more mature married adults and grandmothers.

Let's be honest here we can't make people like what they don't like or want. They just won't buy it and our time and money will be wasted in the effort.

If your artwork meets the needs of a large group of people but still seems like people aren't interested the problem may be:

• is the group of people who want, need, and like your product large enough?
  • one caveat here is that you want to target a very specific group of people. Get too generic and you go back full circle.
• are you targeting your prospects well in your advertising, marketing and offers?
• are they are willing to pay your price to get it?
• are you selling where your buyers are, where they are prepared to buy, when they are prepared to buy?

What successful crafters do is choose a large group of people with common needs then meet the needs of those people.
They can do research and see if there are enough buyers in the group to support their dream of not having to work a part time job that detracts from a craft business.

You can still succeed selling your artwork this way if

• there is a large enough group of people who want, need, and like your product.
• they are willing to pay your price to get it.
• you learn where your buyers are and go where your they are to sell your product.
• you don't mind that your business will be less profitable than it could be.

On the other hand persuading a person to buy your crafts when they are already interested is much easier. It requires many skills but most of them are small and can be learned over your career.

The skills you will need include:

• correctly pricing crafts.
• using signage and tags effectively.
• proper displays.
• learning to make small talk that draws out the needs of your buyer.
• recognize the needs of your customers from clues they give in conversation.
• not over selling or underselling -giving the customer just the right amount of information so they don't feel overwhelmed or that their questions haven't been answered.
• recognizing when a buyer is on the fence-knowing what will get them off the fence and on the buying side.
• using coupons, discounts, sales, samples, upsells and downsells effectively to persuade an undecided buyer. Read Do Sales and Discounts Hurt Craft Show Sales?
• staying in touch with and following up with customers so they will buy for the first time, make repeat sales, and refer you to others.
• using your business documents, fliers, business cards, to sell more handcrafted works of art.
• asking for the sale and calls to action.

The difference between trying to create interest in your crafts and persuading people to buy your crafts is: You won't be able to create an interest in your crafts where there is none! You will be much more successful trying to persuade a large group of people who want, need, or like your craft already to buy.

The way I see if people really aren't interested in buying your artwork you have 3 choices:

1. Go where people are interested in buying your crafts.
2. Find a craft they are interested in buying and sell it.
3. Find a job working for someone else.

What do you think?

Recently I’ve been working to make my craft fair business more profitable each and every day. Today it occurred to me that I should share with you how I plan to do that.

Well last week I worked on catching up on left over unfinished projects from previous weeks to prepare for my 30 days of greater profitability. As usual I accomplished some of the things I intended to do, did some things I planned to do later early, and didn’t accomplish some of the plan.

Here is what I did accomplish.

• I kept up with incoming orders and new requests for information while getting my kids ready to go back to school.
• I published my monthly craft newsletter that I try to accomplish the last week of the month (although it won’t be due out until the next week).
• I learned something new about my email marketing that will keep my messages from being flagged as SPAM as often.
• I worked with a new client doing a phone consultation on building their website (this is a new service I offer).
• I blogged about my experience working toward greater profitability this week.

Here is what I didn’t accomplish.

• I really didn’t get my goals written down on a calendar although I do have them planned out in my head.
• I didn’t get my accounting done and it has been falling behind a few months now.
• I didn’t get my office really clean (instead I worked on my daughters room and it is greatly improved).

I hope that this series is inspiring you to work along with me to improve your businesses profitability by doing something each day that will make your business stronger. I know that I’m a bad example but I would really suggest that you write your goals down on a calendar. This way you can truly see what you did accomplish and will remember what you didn’t get done so you can work on it in your spare time or in your next 30 day plan.

The plan for the next 7 days:

• Day 8 -Get my coupons sent out that I mail to show promoters each month.
• Day 9 -Call the people I just mailed free newsletters to in the last few weeks. Ask them what they thought of the newsletter and if I can sign them up for a free report and to receive further information from my company. Sign them up as prospects in my email marketing system if they say yes.
• Day 10 -Do my accounting.
• Day 11 -Create a few articles to send to show promoters that will encourage them to list their shows with me.
• Day 12 -Start calling my huge list of show promoters and ask them if I can send them free articles that will help make their businesses more profitable as well as articles that will make their vendors businesses more profitable. Sign them up in my email marketing system.
• Day 13 -Continue calling my list of show promoters and sign them up for the articles in my email marketing system.
• Day 14 -Contact PowerPay about getting a system in place to be able to accept credit cards.
• Day 15 -Continue getting PowerPay set up and blog about my experiences this week.

What are you doing to increase sales in your craft fair booth?

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Entry 2 of 6 in series My 30 Day Plan to Greater Craft Show Profitability. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Well today I was checking the polls and there have been a lot of you respond to them. So I will let you know what the results are as they currently stand.

What is the average price of your product?

• 1 person answered $20.01-$30
• 1 person said $100.01-$125

What are the 3 biggest obstacles your business faces?

• 1 person answered How to Market/Advertise My Business
• 1 answered Displays
• 2 said it was How to Make my Website Make More Money
• 1 said Cutting Costs
• 1 said How to Make More Sales at Shows

What seasons do you do shows?

• 1 said they do Fall Shows
• 2 said they do Winter Shows
• 2 of you do Spring Shows
• 2 do Summer Shows
• 1 only does Holiday Shows
• 2 or you do Shows All Year Long

When do you start selling Christmas and holiday merchandise?

• 1 said I sell holiday merchandise all year round
• 1 starts selling holiday merchandise right after Halloween
• 2 start selling holiday merchandise right after Thanksgiving

Do you change the look of your booth to coordinate with seasons, holidays, and other special occasions?

• 2 of you said Yes, I decorate my booth for the holidays and seasons
• 3 said No, my booth stays the same through out the year

What is your average income at craft shows per year?

• 4 answered Between $0 and $10,000
• 1 answered Between $30,000 and $40,000
• 1 answered Above $50,000

What do you sell at shows?

Note: I changed some of the answers to this poll so some of the answers are skewed just a bit.

• 3 answered Fine Art-Painting, Sculptures (this is where I made some changes, I divided Sculpture into it’s own category so some of the answers here might have belonged in the new category).
• 1 of you does woodworking
• 1 sells candles
• 1 sells health and beauty
• 1 pet items
• 2 of you sell jewelry
• 3 answered Other
• 1 answered Sculpture
• 1 answered Photography, Scrapbooking, or Paper Crafts

What types of shows do you usually sell at?

• 2 answered Juried Fine Art & Craft Shows
• 3 said Unjuried Art & Craft Shows
• 1 said Fair or Festivals
• 1 of you sells at Gem and Bead Shows
• 1 of you sells at Other Specialty Shows

Do you sell your arts and crafts on the web?

• 12 of you said Yes, I have a website
• 5 said No, I don’t have a website

Do you do any marketing outside of craft shows?

Is this poll working? So far only 1 of you has answered this poll. I wonder if this is the same person that is making over $50,000 a year. Do this one thing to out compete your competitors.

• 1 of you answered Yes I follow up with my customers outside of craft shows.

Do you do arts & crafts on the side or as a regular 9 to 5 job?

• 6 people do arts and crafts to make an extra income
• 2 people said Arts and crafts are my regular 9 to 5 job
• 5 people said that they want arts and crafts to be their regular 9 to 5 job

How much of you time is spent looking for quality show?

• 2 said 30%
• 1 said 50% or more
• 2 said 10%

So that is the results of the polls. I hope that gives you some insight into your business and your competitors. Please participate in the polls on our home page.

Recently I’ve been working to make my business more profitable each and every day. Today it occurred to me that I should share with you how I plan to do that.

• Day 1-Set a goal to do something to make my business more profitable each day for 1 month.
• Day 2-Make a plan. Get out a calendar and write down the goal for each day until calendar contains one goal for each day. Make each goal one that can be accomplished in a time frame of 1 day to 1 week.
• Day 3-Finish writing down goals on calendar. Breaking larger goals down into step by step goals if necessary.
• Day 4-Clean office so I can find everything I need to accomplish goals.
• Day 5-Do projects I’ve been putting off for the past month or so especially accounting.
• Day 6-Finish projects I’ve been putting off for last month.
• Day 7-Blog about my experiences this week.

PS. This is not my office! LOL

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Entry 1 of 6 in series My 30 Day Plan to Greater Craft Show Profitability. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

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Art and Craft Show Expert Shasta McLaughlin provides articles, hints and tips, checklists and more for artists and crafters that sell handcrafted products who want to save time looking for shows, packing for fairs, and get more sales at festivals. Now she is revealing how to collect your customers contact information, follow up with them and make more money while working less. Go to http://www.extravaganzacrafts.com to get her newsletter, The Extravaganza Craft News, that will help you avoid mistakes, save time and money when preparing your craft show booth.

We all face the same problem how to sell more handcrafted arts and crafts and make more money. Want to know the easiest way to double sales on your website and in your craft show fair booth?

People want what they want and they want it now! Make it easy for them to get your items now and in the future.

My family sold fireworks the past 3 years. The first year I noticed something that held true the other two.

I noticed that 50% of sales at the fireworks stand were made on credit cards. I also noticed that people who had decided they had already spent their limit often decided to purchase more when they learned we accepted credit cards.

More people buy when they hear that we accept credit cards because psychologically they are separated from the feeling of spending money. Taking out a piece of plastic and handing it to someone feels different than taking out a dollar and handing it to someone.

People spend more money when buying with a credit card because they can. They want something right now and they can get it now by putting it on a credit card.

People have been conditioned to forget about the payment involved with a credit card, because… they can pay for it later.

Lori Mulholland of Stitch a Book (www.Stitchabook.com) says,
“My experience at shows are your HAVE to take CC’s. Some of my shows are 50 % CC income.

I started out with the old Knuckle-buster hand push-pull contraption, and was recently told about SQUARE. It’s a white square that has a divot in it. You attach it to your smart phone, and you can slide the CC in the divot and process it that way. You get the customers email address, and the reciept is sent to them via email. Google “Square” and you will see it. The Costs of accepting CC’s is way better than the alternative. I have used Propay for many years and it has worked well, but it was brought to my attention at a recent show, that the use of the knuckle-buster is now illegal, for identity theft purposes. Having access to the whole number is OUT-Dated and Out lawed. The Square takes all that off your plate.”

When people pay cash for an item they may have to wait six months or more while they scrimp and save up for it. Giving them the feeling that they will have to work and sacrifice for it, something they don’t want to do.

In the meantime they will probably forget that they wanted the item or where they saw it. Save yourself time, effort, and profits by making it easy for customers to purchase now.

What does this mean for your arts and craft shows booth? It means that you can double your sales at fairs with this one simple solution, accept credit cards!

Why don’t we all accept credit cards?

Most of us look at the cost of accepting credit cards and it seems that it’s going to cost us more than we can afford.

We look at the options available and we see that it’s going to be seemingly inconvenient for us. With new solutions like SquareUp (https://squareup.com/) that work with our mobile phone there are no excuses.

The costs of accepting credit cards becomes unimportant when you consider that you will double your sales and profits by accepting them.

PS Don't forget to have a sign saying you accept credit cards. People will actually stop by because they can use their card with you.

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Art and Craft Show Expert Shasta McLaughlin provides articles, hints and tips, checklists and more for artists and crafters that sell handcrafted products who want to save time looking for shows, packing for fairs, and get more sales at festivals. Now she is revealing how to collect your customers contact information, follow up with them and make more money while working less. Go to http://www.extravaganzacrafts.com to get her newsletter, The Extravaganza Craft News, that will help you avoid mistakes, save time and money when preparing your craft show booth.

People in general require 7 or more contacts with a person or business to become comfortable with them.

Most people only buy from your craft show business after 7 contacts with it although there will be the rare person who will buy from you the first time they come into your show booth.

Do you see the same customer walk into your craft show booth very rarely, rarely, sometimes, regularly, often? Are those contacts daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly?

You are making a common mistake if you answered that you very rarely, rarely, or sometimes see the same customers at craft shows. Many crafters spend too much time and money chasing new art and craft show customers and don’t spend enough on turning people who are already interested in your crafts (your prospects) into buying customers.

You are losing most of your sales if you don’t follow up with customers who come into your booth.

Follow up with your customer by creating a marketing plan.

A marketing plan is a very simple guide for your business. It shows you what you are doing to guide your prospects through your process to buying your arts and crafts.

Quickly make a list of everything you use to create a contact with your customer including business cards, fliers, emails, website, blog, art and craft shows, direct mailing pieces, phone calls, and social networking. Leave lots of space between each item so you can write down the goal of each thing. Decide on and write down a single goal for each marketing piece.

Goals can include things like getting prospect to:

• visit my blog
• follow me on facebook, twitter, LinkedIn or other social marketing
• visit website
• give me name and contact information
• share their email
• tell me their needs
• getting a testimonial
• visit my craft show booth
• buy something

The goal of each marketing piece will help you determine where that piece of marketing will go in your marketing plan. Make sure to emphasize the desired action you want your customer to take in each piece of your marketing so that your prospects can easily tell what action you would like them to take.

Customers aren’t likely to trust you enough to buy handmade crafts from you on the first contact. Now draw a map of how you would like to encourage your customers from their first contact with you down the path to buying crafts. Remember to continue to encourage those who come into your booth and have purchased crafts from you before to come back to your craft show booth or website.

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Art and Craft Show Expert Shasta McLaughlin provides articles, hints and tips, checklists and more for artists and crafters that sell handcrafted products who want to save time looking for shows, packing for fairs, and get more sales at festivals. Now she is revealing how to collect your customers contact information, follow up with them and make more money while working less. Go to http://www.extravaganzacrafts.com to get her newsletter, The Extravaganza Craft News, that will help you avoid mistakes, save time and money when preparing your craft show booth.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking if attending craft shows isn’t about selling crafts then what is it about?

It is about selling crafts but it’s also about many other things. For instance attending craft show is about knowing who your customer is, building a relationship with a them, it’s about collecting your customers contact information and later following up with them, and it’s about getting feedback about your product.

If you base the success of a craft show solely on the number of customers you saw, the number of sales or the dollars you made there, you are missing the boat. Attending a craft show means so much more to your business.

Let’s start with market research. A local craft festival can be a good place to try out your new product idea without a large investment of your time or resources. You can create just enough of a product to fill a booth and create a nice display. Create a few signs stating the benefits of the product to the customer. Rent an inexpensive booth at a show where the type of person who would buy your product would be in attendance. Now pay close attention to who comes into your booth:

• what age are they?
• are they men or women?
• are they well educated?
• what seems to be their income level?
• do they have children? 

Make notes about your observations and soon a pattern will emerge. You now know what kind of person to market your product to. The type of person who enters your booth most often will probably be the type of person to buy your product most often so pay close attention.

Now that you know who you customer is you will always want to focus on that type of person with all of you advertising and marketing dollars.

People want to buy from companies that they trust. They want to know if they have customer service issues that someone will resolve them. Attending craft shows is your opportunity to show customers what level of customer service they will receive when they buy your product. Treat every customer like your best customer and they just might become, “Your Best Customer.” Get to know the customer and establish a relationship with them. Find out their name and say it a few times during the conversation. Try to remember it the next time you see them, they will be impressed when you remember their name.

Your best customer is the person who just bought from you, so you need to devise a way to contact them. A simple way to do this is to use a duplicate receipt book and include their name, address, phone, and email on the receipt. Ask their permission to add them to your mailing list and write that on the receipt. Include your contact information on the receipt and they have everything they need in one place to contact you if they have a problem or need to make another purchase.

Having a customers contact information doesn’t do you any good if you never contact them again. Send out a birthday discount (be sure and collect this info if they will tell you on the receipt), special occasion and holiday discounts, notices of where they can find your product, and relevant merchandise information. Tell them to bring your mailing and a friend to see you at craft shows to receive a small gift.

AutoWebBusiness.com is an inexpensive way to follow up with your customers through automated email series a.k.a. autoresponders.

The best part of attending a craft show is getting feedback on your product. This is all about your attitude. You can be offended by criticism or you can see it as market research. Anyone who comes close enough to criticize your product was probably interested in it. Criticism can help you improve your product and make more sales. If many of your customers would want what was suggested it is worth it to try to implement the changes suggested. So instead of getting down about criticism enjoy the compliment that they were interested enough in you and your product to try to help out.

Smile genuinely and thank complaining customers for their advice, write it down and consider the benefits and risks of implementing them when you have more time and energy to deal with them. Write down the compliments as well and remember you don’t want to change these things unless you can improve on them.

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Art and Craft Show Expert Shasta McLaughlin provides articles, hints and tips, checklists and more for artists and crafters that sell handcrafted products who want to save time looking for shows, packing for fairs, and get more sales at festivals. Now she is revealing how to collect your customers contact information, follow up with them and make more money while working less. Go to http://www.extravaganzacrafts.com to get her newsletter, The Extravaganza Craft News, that will help you avoid mistakes, save time and money when preparing your craft show booth.

Why is it that 20% of the artists and crafters make 80% of the money?

The reason is that 20% of the artisans set goals and take steps that will take them to their desired effect.

A captain of a ship at sea decides on the final destination of his ship, then he charts his course mapping out each stop along the way. He departs from the docks and sets his course.

In order for your craft show booth to achieve the goals you want for it you must define what those goals are. Your goals (your definition of success) are your final destination. What do you want from your craft business?

• Do you want to do crafts to make extra money for the holidays?
• Do you want crafts to be your full time job?
• Do you want to create handcrafted products to supplement your income?
• How many craft shows do you want to participate in a week, month, season or year?
• How much money do you want to make at a show, a month, a year?
• When do you want to achieve these goals?

When you’ve chosen the final destination for your craft show ship you need to decide on the course you are going to take to get there.  The course you chart will vary depending on your final destination?  You will have to do more to achieve greater success.

Places you might need to stop along the way to achieve your success:

• A certain number of shows each week or month.
• Know which shows are best for your product.  Juried, unjuried, art, craft, fair, festival, bazaar, boutique or commercial.  Which one best suits your product, has products in your price range, has your customer in attendance and the least competition?  Do you want to do wholesale and retail shows?
• Know which products are most profitable and at what price you sell the most while still earning the most profit.
• A way to collect your customers contact information and an incentive to encourage them to give you their information.
• A way to follow up with the your prospects, and a way to follow up with your customers.
• A website.
• A blog and other social networking sites.
• Email marketing system
• Mailed advertisements
• Participate in contests
• Press releases, call to artists, and other publicity

After you’ve chosen your destination, and charted your course the next step is to leave the dock. Like the captain of the ship you are never going to get anywhere if you never start out. The sea is always threatening and unpredictable but the captain and his crew put on their brave faces, prepare the ship, untie it from the dock, raise the anchor and set sail.

Like the ship at sea you are going to get blown off course a little every time the wind blows and the waves threaten so as the captain of your ship the last thing you need to do is check your compass make sure you are on course and adjust accordingly.

That’s what 20% of the people do that earns them 80% of the money. They chart the course of their ship, set sail and correct their course as necessary.

What do you think?