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Almost everything you own you can find a “made in China” label somewhere on it. The truth is China has most of our businesses and it’s mostly because they can create a wholesale amount of items for very cheap prices. How can an American business compete?
When I first told my family that I want to sew bags & accessories and make a small business out of it my dad told me something I’ve been trying to fight eversince “You will never make a profit with China as your competition.” In a way I knew he was right, in order for me to make a profit I would have to price my items higher. For example on my reversible backpacks, I would have to price them at $60. The problem with that is that China sells backpacks for even less than $8! So when a resale store in America wants to sell and make a profit they can buy hundreds of them and sell each one for $20 and still make a huge profit. Well how can I compare my $60 to the $20?
When I first started I lowered my prices to the point that I wasn’t making any profit, I was barely making enough to pay for the supplies and hours. Then I started thinking how I can stand out.. How can a small business compete with that?
There are a few ways to stand out from big businesses;
1) Customer Service – always be nice to your customers, always go above and beyond, always answer questions fast
2) Unique – unique designs, multiple uses as convertible or reversible items, inventive
3) Scarcity – maybe we see it as a downside that an item is mass produced.. so a way to use that to our advantage is starting One of a Kind items. That way there is only ONE of an item and the customer can treasure it as it’s the only one of its kind.
4) Connection – working together with other small businesses, writing a blog, and connecting with other people who support quality & unique items
If you are starting (or own) a small business, perhaps on Etsy, don’t sell yourself short! Start thinking how you want to be paid, how you want to grow as a business, and how valuable your items are. Start thinking creatively on what you can do to stand out against your competition and the positives and negatives of owning a small business. As I have learned it’s important to continuously improve your business and learn how to make it successful. Someone once told me “Success is only 3 steps after everyone else quits.”
So what now?
Now my business is getting a fresh start, a breath of fresh air persay, and I will start making more high quality items and they will be one of a kind with a certificate of authentication to go along each handmade item. As for my prices, I will start putting them at what they were originally suppose to be but the items I have in store right now will stay where they are priced for you guys.
For the Small Business Owners:
What are your struggles ?
What are the things you found to work?
Any advice for others?
Running a small business or looking to in the future? It’s a scary undertaking and a long process for sure {if you’ve been there, you’ve seen it} but there are things that make it easier. There are people who you can connect with and get tips & there are friends who support you through it. I find that when I have organized, beautiful, forms that it becomes easier to deal with the challenging parts of business. I’ve looked and looked for business templates and haven’t seen anything cute and useful so far {maybe it’s just my luck?} so I decided to start my own series of business templates. I got myself a lovely binder and in it will be my business plans, records, inspirations, and more. I encourage you to start your very own and I will have plenty of templates for you to add to it :)
So join me as I start my Lovely Business Binder ~ subscribe to my newsletter for updates on the newest templates —->
Here’s the first form I designed, notice there’s space on the left side for you to hole-punch, I thought of everything didn’t I ;)
[download file="http://creativebalorina.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/acounting-records1.jpg" title="accounting records "]
Enter your email to download
{you will be subscribed to our monthly newsletter in doing so, which will update you on our new templates & such – you can unsubscribe at any time}
& if there’s anything you’d like altered on it let me know and I’ll be happy to do so :)
I hope this helps you out
Here’s a list of my favorite 22 wordpress plugins! One of the best things about wordpress.org is the plugins option. It’s a great way to take a blog and turn it into an amazing website, shop, platform, or whatever you can imagine. Throughout the years I found some amazing plugins that spice up the website. I’m happy to share them with you! In order to find these plugins go to “plugins -> add new -> and then search by its name or author” or follow the link and see if you can download it from the plugin’s direct website and then upload it into your plugins. {let me know if you are having a hard time & I’ll help}
Akismet | By Automattic | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0-$donate
Description: This plugin protects your website from spam comments & virus {so far it has protected my website from 3,274 spam!}
BackupBuddy | By The PluginBuddy Team | Visit PluginBuddy.com
Cost: $75 – $197 {depending on how many websites you’re buying it for}
Description: This is one of the best backup tools for your wordpress. It’s scary to thing you could lose all your hard work because of a virus or a plugin that wasn’t compatible with your wordpress! I normally wouldn’t want to pay for a plugin but this is a must for every website.
Better Author Bio | By Arif Nezami | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This plugin lets you have a small description about the author at the bottom of the post. {You can see mine at the bottom}. The good thing about this plugin is that if you have multiple authors {as this website} you can see specifically who wrote each post and you can quickly go to all the posts that author wrote.
Example:
Calendar Archives | By Amit Badkas | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This is a great tool to show your posts in an organized, visual way. You can put this calendar on a page and it’ll display a calendar with images of your posts. It automatically grabs the first image you inserted in your post and makes that the representation image in the calendar.
Example: view mine here
Facebook Comments | By Alex Moss | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This plugin lets people comment on your website with their facebook login so they don’t have to fill out your comment form. It’s also good because they have the option of their comment showing up on their facebook wall and if they do show it, it’s free advertising for you.
Example:
Facebook Likes You! | By Piotr Sochalewski | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This is another facebook plugin. It provides a like + send button on each post or page {depending on your settings} and allows your viewers to like a post.
Example:
File Gallery | By Bruno “Aesqe” Babic | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This is a great tool if you upload alot of photos at a time. If you have multiple amount of photos in a post and you don’t want to have to put one by one, this is the plugin for you. It organizes your uploads and lets you move them around and then put them in your page or post as a gallery or regular images. {This one saves me alot of time}
Example:
GRAND Flash Album Gallery | By Sergey Pasyuk | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0 for the basic one {that’s the one I’m using}
Description: I’ve tried a handful of flash galleries and I didn’t like any of them other than this one. They all had a huge logo advertising their sites on top of the gallery and etc. This one also has the option for people to view it Fullscreen or as a Slideshow.
Example:
Grunion Contact Form | By Automattic, Inc. | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This is a great contact form that you can also modify.
Example: My example here
MailChimp Widget | By James Lafferty | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0 – $donate
Description: Mailchimp is a great service that lets you send beautiful newsletters to your subscribers. I highly recommend it. This is the plugin that lets your viewers signs up for it from a widget.
Example:
My Calendar | By Joseph C Dolson | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This is a cool calendar that lets you set up events. I use this for other websites more than mine, like the architecture club website. It’s pretty good for setting up events. I use it for this website only to tell my authors when they have to post a new blog post.
Example:
MyWebCounter | By webcounter | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: I’ve been looking for a great web counter for a while and I finally found a good one :] This is a simple one but works great!
Example:
Polldaddy Polls & Ratings | By Automattic, Inc. | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This plugin lets you setup polls for wordpress, it’s great to get your viewers input. The second part of this plugin gives you the option to let your viewers rate your posts.
Example:
post-views | By Suny Tse | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This is a great plugin that keeps track of your visitors and lets you know in a variety of ways how many people are viewing each post & page!
Example:
Related Posts Thumbnails | By Maria Shaldybina | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This plugin displays related thumbnails at the bottom of each post. I like this plugin and it worked great when I first got it but for some reason I’m having trouble with it now. I have tried a few other thumbnail related posts plugins but had no luck.
Example:
Super-simple Pinterest Widget | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: The name says it all, it’s a simple pintrest widget that shows your pintrest.com pins!
Example: You can see this plugin in my sidebar —->
View Random Post | By PHPoet | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This plugin lets you put a widget button that lets your viewer see a random post.
WordPress Font Uploader | By Pippin Williamson | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This plugin lets you choose your own fonts for your website by uploading them. I LOVE this plugin, it definitively brought character to my website :]
Example: You can just look at the variety of fonts on my website :)
WP e-Commerce | By Instinct Entertainment | Visit plugin site
Cost: Starts off at $0 but you can upgrade some stuff for money
Description: This is THE plugin that lets you transform your wordpress into a shop. It’s number 1 out there and best the rest by far.
Example: you can look at my shop to see a way you can set it up
SexyBookmarks | By Shareaholic | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: This plugin is a way for your viewers to share your posts to facebook, twitter and many other websites. It’s pretty clever !
Example:
Under Construction | By Jeremy Massel | Visit plugin site
Cost: $0
Description: Makes it so your site can only be accessed by users who log in. Useful for developing a site on a live server, without the world being able to see it.
Example:
Widget Context | visit plugin here
Cost: $0
Description: Widget Context allows you to specify widget visibility settings.
Example:
If you find any other lovely plugins; share them in a comment below! :)
UPDATE on 12/2/11 : I will continue to add plugins that I find over here so you can have them all in one place. If you do find other plugins that you enjoy, please share it with us! :)
AMAZING DEAL! :P
First of I want to say that I’ve tried at least 100 themes from all over the net, even ones I paid for, and my favorite ended up being the Storefront Themes. They have a simple layout but with a lovely flash banner option, which is what I was looking for, and lots of customizing choices. They encourage that you take their themes and make them your own. If you know a little html {I learned it with myspace haha} you can go into their code and customize it till its perfectly you! AND the best part is their customer service! They try and help you as if they were your close friend, guiding you through it all or even logging in and doing it for you. I’ve had this theme for a little over a year and I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out, and I can always go in and customize it.
The theme I’m using is called the Elegance theme but they have another 6 choices {plus one more on the way}. The cool thing is that if you want to run a shop, these themes are designed to operate it beautifully! {Honestly though, even if I didn’t have a shop I would still use this theme}.
So give them a try, let me know if you need help as well and take advantage of their Anniversary Sale right now!
Here are some websites that have used wordpress themes: {Click on the image to go to its website}
http://creativebalorina.com/services/requests/fabric-i-own/
~photography~
DESCRIPTION:
.photography.
INSPIRATION:
I finally got a chance to photograph all the fabric I own. Now when you guys want to request an item like a backpack or a pouch, you can look at my fabric page and pick from what I have. You can click the link here to go to it or put fabric in the search bar and you should find it.
~message in a bottle~
DESCRIPTION:
.message.gift.mission.
INSPIRATION:
I’ve always wanted to send a message in a bottle! I have written a message, made a bracelet, decorated the bottle and put it in. I have decided to make it a fun game and see how many people would play along.. Mission -> send a message and a gift in the bottle you received it. {We’ll see how many people will get involved}.
Message:
“Dear You Lucky Person You,
I bet you are surprised and a bit excited to find a note in a bottle, right? I thought so. I’ve always wanted to leave a note in a bottle and I finally did it, crossing that off my bucket list. As you might have noticed, there’s a little gift in this bottle, not your ordinary message in bottle now is it? So you want to know what this gift is about? Well I figured someone might enjoy it. Simple as that. So now I have a mission for YOU! Yes you! :)
Take this bottle and write your own message {it can be a poem, a inspirational quote, a joke, a drawing, something that will brighten someones day} and put a gift inside it {make it or buy it find a treasure you own}. Throw it as far as you can in the ocean and watch the waves take it away and lets make this a fun & encouraging chain of messages.
In order to track this send me a email at creativebalorina@yahoo.com with the bottle you’re sending and the gift you have put :) {You will be featured on my website!}
Let’s see how creative you can get!
p.s. make sure you leave instructions for the next person {maybe scan my note and put it in as well}
with lots of love,
Lorina Daiana
creativebalorina.com”
~paper crafts~
DESCRIPTION:
.business cards.
INSPIRATION:
After making my first homemade business cards and getting so many compliments I have decided to make more. I’ve noticed such a big improvement in my website since I prayed to God for His will to be done in my life and I wanted to say thank you by putting a design with a verse on the back of all my business cards :]
The front I used my mom’s velvet scrapbooking paper then printed the text on a yellowish paper which I then sewed on the velvet paper. Then I cut the back designs and taped them on the back of the card.
It was a very time consuming project but I had fun doing it and I feel the little touches are important in a business :]
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