Business Techniques #3

It’s so interesting to see how different sellers manage their profits! Everyone that I’ve talked to so far has a different technique and I’m learning a lot from their stories.

The next successful Etsy artist I chatted with was Kitty Cross Bones, you might remember her from her “Quit Your Day Job” article in the Storque…yeah. Lucky bum, hey? Here’s how this girly answered my question.

Q: What is your formula for your earnings? How do you work out how much to put back into the business and how much to save?

A: My earnings would be Sales – fees= net income – supplies = profit. I only put back into the biz when I run out of supplies so anything after that would be saved. I actually don’t have an exact formula as in depth as the other sellers on your blog. I don’t charge for my design or setup fees. Mainly the product would be calculated for parts+labor. Sometimes I work about 18hr days in the studio.

When I first started out selling, I was actually putting my personal savings into it from my day job (which I recently quit last year due to my Etsy success) I was in the hole, so to say, before biz started to pick up.

You asked how do I know how much money to spend on the biz and how much to save? So when I run out of supplies I will reorder them. I buy in bulk so the price is low and whatever is leftover after spending from supplies I put that into my savings account and then pay my credit card bills with it…

 

There’s so many different ways to manage your money! And it must be successful, Kitty’s quit her day job…and all the other successful Etsy Artists I’ve interviewed are super successfull too!

This series is really giving me food for thought. How should I manage my finances? What theory works best with my needs and wants? It’s a hard call, since I’m still just getting started, and it’s so great to have all this advice from sellers who have made it!

They keep coming…

                               

Business Techniques

I started a forum post on Etsy the other day, asking for suggestions for successful Etsy sellers. I got a huge response and it was really interesting looking through the shops that have made it big!

The reason for me looking for successful Etsy sellers was that I was looking for someone to answer a question I had. Since I’ve started making more money with my bags lately, I’ve been wondering how much of that I should be putting back into the business and how much I should be saving. I thought if I could ask someone who’s already established this question, it might help me out some! Better yet, why not get a few opinions and see which might suite me better.

I convo’d a few of the sellers suggested, some of them being sellers I had already been in contact with about featuring in the blog etc. Ahpeeleis one of these sellers, and seriously…I love these guys! Their shop is amazing, they are so helpful and nice…just friggen awesome. And they’ve hit the big times, it seems (congrats guys!!).

My question was: Q: What is your formula for your earnings? How do you work out how much to put back into the business and how much to save?

And they answered: it’s a good question
unfortunately we dont have an exact formula
for the first few years we put pretty much everything back into the business
except what we needed to eat and keep the lights on
we learned to live really cheap, take walks for fun, and cook all our food
it was a game to see how little money we could live on
then everything leftover we spent on tshirts and silkscreen stuff
it helps that we really love making stuff
so we dont miss the mall (we hate the mall)
though we are able to save some money now
we always have goals that we are saving for
the goals are the most important part i think
they give us direction and motivation.

Their answer doesn’t give any definite “You need to do this” stuff, but it’s awesome knowing that they started out counting their last pennies into the business and not actually making much for the first couple years. It’s really encouraging to know that it takes a while to get properly on your feet and profitable!

Also, have you read their Success Story? Just a bit more about their business and how they started…really interesting!!

 

I’ll be posting more of the answers I received to this question during the next couple days…hopefully you find them as helpful as I am!