Are you one of those creative minds who don’t get enough of it with your regular job? Or, maybe you have this habit of trying your hands on with more innovative ideas.
But, like everyone, maybe you are stuck with the question, “From where can I get started?”
Well, Builderfly is ready with an answer. You can showcase the things you craft in your spare time at your Builderfly store. You can sell from here without any commission charges.
Now the real question comes when maintaining your inventory. We know, you have a job to do and other works as well. So, the tough task is to take out the time to create and the way you gonna manage it.
But, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” So, obviously, it’s possible for you to manage your business with your job. And, especially when the business is actually your hobby.
Though you will be super busy when you start this. But, believe us, you’re going to enjoy it the most!
Here we’re sharing some amazing ways that were shared by some creative artists/ store owners to manage their craft manufacturing business with their regular job.
Manufacture strategically and sell smartly
Don’t just involve yourself in the typical manufacturing process, rather design only what is needed in the market.
Sounds fair? Yes, and for that, you need to do some research based on the buyers. For this:
- You need to consider different buyer personas for your business.
- Keep an eye on your competitors and follow the tactics that they are trying to pursue customers.
- This helps you decide the range of products that are trending in the market and this way you can drive better results out of it.
Rather than making 100 products of different varieties to sell, you can design 50 best trending products. This saves your time of making those 50 products. Also, you will recover your investment cost sooner after selling the 50 trending products you made.
Get yourself a working studio
Though you are working on your small business, you should get yourself a working studio.
Don’t get scared by the name, you can choose any of the room of your home where you can keep your finished products, raw material as well as manufacturing machines. Believe us, it is really beneficial for your business in many ways:
- You can start and stop working anytime.
- You won’t be wasting much time in finding some material you placed somewhere.
- You can work at peace, without any external disturbance.
- You can manage your inventory in a better way and check the in-stock products.
- Reduces your commute time to your external warehouse.
- Enables you working in mean-time with managing your other homely duties.
- Helps you in managing your other business activities like product photography, cataloging; that too, at the same place.
Create unique samples
Once you list down your products, don’t indulge yourself in making similar pieces of the same product in quantity. Try to have the inventory variations as well.
Design unique samples for your product category and mention the available colors based on customer choice. When showcasing:
- You can list your product listings as “Made to order”. In such a situation, customers will contact you directly to place an order for the product.
- You can mention your manufacturing time into the listing. So, you will create the product with the color/ design variation only after you get the order.
- You can keep a huge list of products in your inventory, without investing much time in manufacturing.
When you follow this case, you don’t have to worry about managing a huge in-stock inventory, you can always create as per your time slots.
Maintain work consistency
Irrespective of the hours you dedicate to your crafting and designing thing, just maintain the consistency. We are not talking about 4-hours or 2-hours daily, rather it’s about just spending some short time on a regular basis. Some crafters say:
- This enhances your dedication towards your business.
- It helps you in managing surplus work with your small business idea.
- Keeps you creative enough to bring innovative ideas.
- Grow and develop your habit of multi-tasking.
- Flourishes your understanding of your business.
To maintain the working consistency, you can always take the morning or day-ending hours to craft something. The best thing is, it will help you relax and boost your creativity.
Manage to work in chunks
We believe you need full dedication in whatever idea you bring to the table. There will not be only a single task like manufacturing but a lot of things to do like photo editing, content curation for product descriptions, promotion, etc. You can take care of these activities by working in chunks; like:
- You can do the basic photo editing of your products and write descriptions or read blogs to gain business insights and learn about other business case studies while commuting to your office or any time when you are traveling in public transport.
- Check for the product costings or make that estimation based on other products, while chatting with your friends. Or, you may ask your friends who are much into shopping.
- Ask freelancers to do certain things, you are taking more time in managing tasks like photography, cataloging, etc.
- Opt for thinking about the work stage in the entire process that de-stress you, in mid of your coffee breaks. This keeps you motivated to work on both ends.
You can always try any of these amazing ways to manage your work-life balance and get huge benefits with the chunks of work. If you came up with any of the interesting ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Feel free to share at support@builderfly.com
