THERE’S HOPE FOR US NIGHT OWLS AFTER ALL- YOU CAN RISE LATE AND STILL BE SUCCESSFUL!

Have you ever felt pressured to rise early before the sun? I know I have but i’ve never been a morning person. In fact when I’ve held several night shift positions at a job i couldn’t be happier. I LOVE working nights! and i never fell asleep on the job. I was just always a night owl. I even hated the night while growing up. I hated that everyone went to sleep and that it was dark and quiet for hrs. I’m not sure why i’m such a night owl but i do love to stay up at night. However, staying up late at night means not being able to get up early in the morning. I HATE early mornings and have been forcing myself lately to be more of a morning person. Lori Greiner from shark tank said in her book that she is up by 4:30 5;00 am. I’ve been trying to get up early like her because many believe that only people who are morning early birds “catches the worm” and are more successful. Here is an article that may help you think of the night owl a little differently. Maybe you don’t have to change your night time ways after all 🙂

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230436

WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH YOU GET GOING!

Have you ever experienced discouragement in your business or a slow down in sales? Did you feel discouraged or felt like giving up? Well here are a few tips to help you through those slow times and to keep you going!

Promote: When sales are slow it’s the best time to promote promote promote! research the best and free methods to advertise and promote your business.

Read inspirational books and articles

Anytime i feel discouraged i go on the entrepreneur website and read an article. I also purchase lots of books on my nook! It helps to read about others who are trying just like you.

Seek out success stories

When you read about other ppl’s  achievements and the struggles they themselves went through it is a great motivator. It tells you that they were where you are now and still made it and if they can so can you.

Get out there and sell your business

The best form of advertising till this day is word of mouth. Learn to network! get out there are get around other people in the same business as you are and spread the word about your business or product.

Get business cards and pass them out

Sometimes business gets slow because some people don’t know you exist. get out there and hand out business cards to random people to help spread the word. Remember to research your target market first so you know where to go to hand out cards and attract new customers.

Join groups and forums online that is related to your niche

participate in groups and forums to set an online presence. Talk about what others are talking about and get involved. you don’t have to talk about your business or items just talk about whatever they are talking about. You will gain a following when you put yourself out there and just be you.

Try some of these tips when things are slow and you are discouraged to keep you pushing moving and growing! 

 

Stacie Laurell

StacieLaurellcrafts.com

 

What the thieves taught me about love & community

Here’s a interesting read for all 🙂

I married a good, good man.
Side note: This post is totally off topic – and yet, not really at all.  

Creativity takes teamwork.  Living life as an artist takes a lot of stamina and effort.  – If only it were as easy as it is in my imagination – gracefully pushing white paint around a canvas, always just right – but, it is rarely that easy.  And in fact, I don’t truly enjoy the process when it is easy.  Creating something of worth – something from within you – takes grit and passion.  And it takes back up.  A lot of back up.

This is why I am thankful I married a good man.  Dan has had his own career with it’s own ups and downs.  He is so very busy, and skilled, and has clients that make my head spin; and yet, my priorities are his…

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Mistakes an Ingredient for Success?

Some of us like myself HATE making mistakes. I know for myself I can’t stand it. I beat myself up over and over again over it. Mistakes in business means loss of money and that can be both upsetting and discouraging. When I started Stacie Laurell Crafts I made lots of mistakes. In fact i’m still making them. A fellow entrepreneur once told me that mistakes are part of the process and that I should embrace it. I thought to myself..” oh shut up” mistakes means failure but i couldn’t have been more wrong. Some of THE MOST successful Entrepreneurs made huge mistakes in the beginning and it helped them sky rocket to their success. But if you don’t know how to deal with and learn from mistakes it can really hurt the outcome of your business. Check out this article on mistakes and how you can make them a powerful tool for success. http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/232417

The best Form Of Advertising Is Great Customer Service

Have you ever heard of term under promise over deliver? Well I’ve read it several times before and realized that using that philosophy really works! Whenever I sell online I give more than what i promise. Sometimes if someone orders 1pc of clay I send them 3pcs instead. Once a customer spent over 100 dollars in my store and I stuffed her box with LOTS of arts n crafts extras! She was so happy that she is now a regular customer and shops with us pretty often. Your goal when running a business is to not only acquire new customers but to put in place a plan to keep them. The best form of advertising is word of mouth. Next time try to under promise and over deliver and see if you get an increase in sales.

IF Social Media Doesn’t Bring You Sales You’re Probably Doing It Wrong!

IF you social Media Doesn’t bring in sales you’re probably doing it wrong!

I LOVE the show Shark Tank! i watch it every time and sometimes I watch it again on demand just to see if i missed any
great marketing tips. I’ve noticed that when most of the contestants that has high sales are asked how did you get your name out there
most of them say social media! When i heard that I thought wow! you got thousands of dollars worth of sales through social media??

A few months ago i remember asking my sister who worked in marketing and also works for Pepsi “how do i market my business”
and all she said was social media. Well i thought that response was too vague and so simple. I said come on what else
should I do”? and she said again Social Media! Well after watching so many people say the same thing on shark tank i thought
maybe she was right all along. But if you ask people on forums or blogs “do they promote on social media? most of them
say well i promote on facebook and twitter and it doesn’t work for me. I’m starting to think that they are doing it wrong just
like i was doing it wrong a few months ago. So what are some people doing wrong when it comes to promoting on Social media?

Here are a few tips!

First make sure you have your own business page and do not use your personal page as your promotion page

Some people think it’s not necessary to have a business page but it is. If you want people to take you seriously then you
must look professional. Have a business page for your products. You can even link it to your personal page if you’d like to.

Second Don’t post endless listings of your items! no that is not marketing! what do you mean that’s not marketing you say?
well yeah it’s not. I once saw a lady on twitter post at least 20 to 30 links to her listings every hr on the hr. so much
so that he clogged my feed and all i saw was her listings all over my twitter. I had to delete her immediately and i
didn’t even look at any of what she had to sell because she was just annoying. She clearly had NO IDEA howto market her
business effectively and if i deleted her i’m sure so many others did the same.

If you want to promote your business you can post your listings every once in a while but also post interesting things like
articles and interesting news related to your business. You can also help promote others. like people or businesses that
are related to yours. Join groups! that’s how you properly market your business. And instead of just posting a link to your
store listing how bout you right interesting facts about your products! things that will interest others. you will notice
more people following you and liking your page. If you are unsure how to run a successful social media page look at other established
businesses to see how they organize their page and what kinds of things they post!

and thirdly, be consistent! do this everyday or every other day. don’t just post one week and then come back weeks later.
Keep your pages active so that the search engines will keep up on them!
Following these simple steps for social media promoting will help a great deal! Also don’t expect overnight success!
but if you keep at it you will see sale conversions. I have when i started using social media the right way! 🙂

Stacie Laurell Crafts

https://www.etsy.com/shop/STACIELAURELL?ref=si_shop

Starting and Growing your own business

Have you ever watched the show Shark Tank? Where entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a bunch of rich investors hoping to strike a deal? I’ve had so many people tell me I should try Shark Tank. I think i’ll pass. Maybe in the near future but not right now. I want the satisfaction of knowing that i grew my business from scratch and dirt and rose to the top with little to no capital or help. But not everyone’s like that, There are some people who would give anything to get that kind of help and “capitol”. What are you doing to grow your business? Social media?, word of mouth?, blogging? I’ve decided that i will do my best to get Stacie Laurell Crafts out there. I love my product and I believe in my business. No matter how far you’ve come or if you’ve just started do what you can to succeed and grow your business and never ever ever give up.