A month or two back, my dog-related networking group,
The K9 Circle, hosted a guest speaker who talked about
"Four Vital Essentials To Growing A Business In Today's Marketplace." The talented man who gave the presentation was Aaron Mangal of
Magnetic Messages. I've been re-reading his presentation and thought I'd share the basics with you.
To begin with, what is entrpreneurship? Aaron gave us a quote from Jeff Bezos, "Entrepreneurship is really more about a state of mind than it is about working for yourself. It's about being resourceful, it's about problem solving. If you meet people who seem like really good problem solvers, step back, and you'll see that they are self-reliant." He also described for us a very interesting study. In a study published in
Getting Rich Your Own Way, 1500 middle class workers were asked about their career goals and were subsequently tracked for 20 years. At the end of the study 101 out of the 1500 were millionaires. So who of those individuals was more successful in their business? Of those 1500 people, 83% made their career decisions based on money and 17% chose their careers based on passion. And here's the interesting part; 99% of the 101 millionaires came from the 17% based on passion. So to all of you out there who do what you love for a living, especially you fellow Etsians, your chances of becoming a millionaire have dramatically increased. ;)
So let's talk briefly about advertising. This is where vital essential number one comes in
; we are in the Information Age, so it’s time to study, meaning, know where consumers get their information. Here are some statistics on the traditional venues of advertising and marketing. Only 18% of TV ads generate a positive return of investment. Fifty percent of newspaper readers are doing another activity at the same time and 46% of magazine readers do the same. So what seems to be the best avenue for marketing and doing business in today's marketplace? The internet! There were 22,368,960 billion views of User Generated Content in 2007. Research what tools you have on the internet to market your business.
So when using the internet to market and conduct business, we should remember vital essential number two,
use transparency as a new guiding principle. Our conversation with the marketplace must be honest, authentic and completely “see through.” Why is this? Your marketing cannot defeat a community, you can't trick people (nor should you want to), there's nowhere to hide, and your secrets aren't safe (of course, if you're an artist, there are some techniques that you must keep to yourself to keep your work unique to you). This is all especially true for the internet, so take a vow to be authentic, empathetic and honest with your market. Your consumers will recognize and appreciate it.
This brings us to vital essential number three,
become a friend and an expert to win the market over. Being a friend and an expert of a particular subject makes you a maven, and with the internet today, virtually anyone can become an expert in any field. Friends are trusted and salespeople are despised. There’s only one way to cross over; become a maven. Here are four steps to become a maven:
- Choose a subject area you’re passionate about
- Commit to lifelong learning
- Work hard and smart to create world-class content
- Build a knowledge base and fill it with relevant cutting edge tools
Finally, this brings us to vital essential number four,
share value through expertise, time, ideas and commitment. Sharing with your market in this way shows that you care about your customers. Sharing knowledge leads to very happy customers. Find ways you can share your ideas, time, and commitment with your market.
So, the overreaching goal of the entrepreneur is to utilize these four essentials to create an environment where the value of you being in that enviroment is greater than the value of the environment without you. Basically, make yourself vital to your market. :)
Again, I'd like to extend a special thank you to Aaron Mangal for joining the
K9 Circle and sharing his expertise, allowing me to share it with you. I hope these tips help some of you entrepreneurs and fellow Etsians out there. Enjoy building you business and keep on doing what you love!
I also had a plethora of oil paint portrait Christmas commissions to complete, and I enjoyed creating every single one of them. Here are a few of them.
Please let me know if you have any questions. Happy shopping!
And for more reading, check out some of my more popular posts.
Each shop will have a different sale. Be sure to read each shop's Shop Announcement for details. Here's the list of those participating.
For all you last minute shoppers out there looking for something unique to give this year, swing by my Etsy shop. I'm offering expedited shipping options to ensure that you get your order on time for Christmas. Simply type in your expedited shipping method in the "notes to seller" upon checkout, pay for your order, and I'll send you an additional invoice for the difference in shipping. Priority Shipping for my pendant necklaces is an additional $3; Express is an additional $7. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about expedited shipping for other items in my shop. Here are the shipping deadlines according to the USPS.
It's that time again; giveaway time! This month's giveaway runs from Monday, December 15th to Friday, December 19th at 11:59pm EST. In the spirit of the holidays, there will be three winners chosen! The prizes this time are $15 gift certificates! The gift certificates can be used in my Etsy shop, www.alloverart.etsy.com, where I have a wide variety of items. I have several hand-painted fine art resin pendant necklaces, fine 
art prints of some of my original paintings, note card and envelope sets, original oil paintings on canvas, and more!
Here's a link to the screenshot of the Treasury in the Flickr Etsy Front Page Group.
On another note, the Handmade For The Holidays show was today and we all had a blast. It was great to finally meet some of the other talented members of the NCTriangle team. Thank you to everyone who came out!
The NCTriangle Team is holding it's "Handmade for the Holidays" show today! Meg of VintageScraps is hosting the show in her beautiful home. I had the opportunity to set up last night and her house is GORGEOUS in all it's Christmas glory. Her tree puts mine to shame. Here's a list of the vendors that will be at the show:
A month or two back, my dog-related networking group, The K9 Circle, hosted a guest speaker who talked about "Four Vital Essentials To Growing A Business In Today's Marketplace." The talented man who gave the presentation was Aaron Mangal of Magnetic Messages. I've been re-reading his presentation and thought I'd share the basics with you.
Well I'm back from Holly Days that was held at Sanderson High School in Raleigh this past weekend, and let me just say that Sanderson did a fantastic job with the show. It was a huge success for me and many other vendors and I had a great time! I've already pre-registered for next year and put down a deposit. A big thank you to those of you who have seen me at previous shows and visited my Etsy shop that came out to visit. It was great to see you all!
This weekend marks the 10th Annual Holly Days Art and Craft Show at Sanderson High School in Raleigh. The event lasts for two days and I'm really looking forward to it! (For more info, see the flyer at the end of the post.) In order to prepare for it I've created numerous new hand-painted resin pendant necklaces, including some new 1.5-inch circle pendants. 
Another new creation I've come up with is a unique way to show off your artwork! It's my Custom Hand-Painted Resin Pendant Necklace Of Your Artwork. April Paige of April Paige Fine Art contacted me with this idea. She wanted her original Buddha painting turned into a hand-painted resin pendant necklace. Here's her original painting and the pendant I created for her.
In my Etsy shop you can find a wide variety of hand-painted resin pendant necklaces. Once I began creating and selling these unique pieces of wearable art, people began asking me about the process and how to work with resin. Resin is actually quite simple to work with, but it can be troublesome and messy if you don't know what you are doing. I'm sure that different people have different methods of working with resin, but here's my process.
to create the resin finish:
To begin with, make sure that you are working in a well-ventilated area. Set up your workspace on a flat surface that you don't mind getting messy. Feel free to lay down any paper or board to catch any drips or mess that you make. Lay out your tiles face up. Check to make sure that they are dust and lint-free. To the left is an image of some of my tiles that have been painted and sealed, and are ready for the resin finish.
gives me more control. I suggest putting less resin on the tile than you think you need. If after a minute or two the resin hasn't reached the edges of the tile(like in the image to the left), add a little more. Resin is self-leveling, which means it will spread until it reaches an edge to "cling" to.
After a few minutes, you should be able to use a toothpick to pop and or pull out the bubbles. Some people use a small blow torch to get rid of the bubbles, but I do not have one and have found that a simple toothpick works just fine.
After you have removed any bubbles, closely examine the resin for any lint or dust that may have fallen into it. Make sure you have several different light sources at different angles so that you can see reflections on the surface of the resin. Once you are finished, cover it with one of the 3 oz. plastic cups.
This will keep the tile and resin protected and keep dust from falling into the resin while it dries. Follow the timetable for drying time in the instructions included with the resin. For my tiles I allow three days total drying time before I turn them into pendant necklaces.
After being on the road for 14 hours yesterday with constant rain, traffic, and a ticked-off Kasey Jones, we are home! Tell me, how is it a good idea to do road construction on a major highway on Thanksgiving weekend? Who in the NC Department of Transportation decided that one of the busiest travel weekends of the year was the perfect time to have a major highway go down to one lane? Anyway, I digress; it's good to be home and get back into a normal schedule. :)
Friday, the ceremonial kick-off of the holiday online shopping season in 
the United States between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Whereas Black Friday is associated with traditional brick-and-mortar stores, "Cyber Monday" symbolizes a busy day for online retailers. The premise was that consumers would return to their offices after the Black Friday weekend, making purchases online that they were not able to make in stores."