The Create & Thrive Podcast

I got a ton of great, meaty questions – and I answered a number of them in this episode. If I didn’t answer yours, never fear! I do plan on doing a follow-up episode answering more questions in a future episode.

I answer questions like:

Huge thanks to everyone who sent in a question – I loved this opportunity to help you out directly.

You can make a secure donation (of the amount of your choice) via the Paypal button below.

Each donation helps cover the cost of hosting, show-note writing, research, interviewing, recording, editing, etc. etc.

In short – it helps to cover the time and financial costs of putting together a free weekly show to help you grow your handmade business.

You can also:

My guest in this episode – Dr. Rie Natalenko – is a teacher, writer and textile artist. She’s an expert in the art and science of teaching creative workshops to adults.

She has penned a book titled Share Your Skills – An Ultimate Guide to Running an Art or Craft Workshop.

If you need the confidence to start teaching creative workshops or you would like to enhance your existing skills, then this episode is for you!

This is one from the archives – I first published it a few years ago – but given that I plan on publishing an episode in the near future about how to teach craft workshops online, I thought this would be a great primer for that – because the ‘teaching’ part is the same.

You can make a secure donation (of the amount of your choice) via the Paypal button below.

Each donation helps cover the cost of hosting, show-note writing, research, interviewing, recording, editing, etc. etc.

In short – it helps to cover the time and financial costs of putting together a free weekly show to help you grow your handmade business.

You can also:

A well-planned policy preempts a lot of issues, and makes sure everything is spelled out clearly to your customer prior to purchase.

It also keeps everything fair and transparent, and makes sure you can’t be accused of making up one set of rules for one customer, and another for others.

It’s as much about your protection and peace of mind as it is about informing and protecting your customers.

In this episode, I discuss the ins and outs of policies – what you NEED to have in there (no matter what platform you use), and give you some Etsy-specific guidance, as well.

You can make a secure donation (of the amount of your choice) via the Paypal button below.

Each donation helps cover the cost of hosting, show-note writing, research, interviewing, recording, editing, etc. etc.

In short – it helps to cover the time and financial costs of putting together a free weekly show to help you grow your handmade business.

You can also:

I cover the what, why, when & how of tracking stats in your handmade business – and I’ve got a downloadable spreadsheet you can use right now to get started!

Enjoy! 

You can make a secure donation (of the amount of your choice) via the Paypal button below.

Each donation helps cover the cost of hosting, show-note writing, research, interviewing, recording, editing, etc. etc.

In short – it helps to cover the time and financial costs of putting together a free weekly show to help you grow your handmade business.

You can also:

If you are yet to launch your online shop; are on the fence as to whether it’s worth it; have been thinking about it for a while and don’t know where to start; or you have one but you aren’t sure about how improve it – this episode is for you!

I outline the main benefits of having an online shop – even if selling online is not your primary venue of choice.

I also share the 5 things you need to get a handle on before you can start successfully selling your work online.

P.S. The body of this episode is a replay of a classic episode from the archives. Since I started the show in 2014, there are a number of really valuable episodes in the archives that you may not have heard before – so I’ll be highlighting them every so often over the coming months.

P.S. This month, I’m running a mammoth giveaway to celebrate the brief re-opening of Thriver Circle membership AND the opening of registration to my flagship course, Set Up Shop.

I’ve never done a giveaway like this before – the lucky winner is getting a HUGE prize!

The members of my private online community for makers – The Thriver Circle – are the most awesome, supportive group of people out there… and I wanted to take the chance to say thank you to them by giving every member the chance to win this very special prize.

This giveaway is open to both current and NEW members – so if you’re not already a member, you can enter by signing up while membership is open!

Find out all the details of this mammoth giveaway right here.

You can make a secure donation (of the amount of your choice) via the Paypal button below.

Each donation helps cover the cost of hosting, show-note writing, research, interviewing, recording, editing, etc. etc.

In short – it helps to cover the time and financial costs of putting together a free weekly show to help you grow your handmade business.

You can also:

They’re asking because they’ve heard horror stories – where people have put their shops in holiday mode, then re-opened to crickets. It drives me nuts to see so much misinformation and scare mongering, so I wanted to address this always-contentious topic.

Today, I’m going to share my own experience of putting my Etsy shop in holiday mode (for up to 3 months at a time!) many, many times over the last 10 years.

And, you guessed it – my business is still going strong!

That said – putting your Etsy shop in vacation mode DOES have an impact on your SEO (Etsy search rankings) – and I discuss exactly how and why this happens – as well as giving you concrete strategies to overcome the lag when you re-open.

P.S. This month, I’m running a mammoth giveaway to celebrate the brief re-opening of Thriver Circle membership AND the opening of registration to my flagship course, Set Up Shop.

I’ve never done a giveaway like this before – the lucky winner is getting a HUGE prize!

The members of my private online community for makers – The Thriver Circle – are the most awesome, supportive group of people out there… and I wanted to take the chance to say thank you to them by giving every member the chance to win this very special prize.

This giveaway is open to both current and NEW members – so if you’re not already a member, you can enter by signing up while membership is open!

Find out all the details of this mammoth giveaway right here.

You can make a secure donation (of the amount of your choice) via the Paypal button below.

Each donation helps cover the cost of hosting, show-note writing, research, interviewing, recording, editing, etc. etc.

In short – it helps to cover the time and financial costs of putting together a free weekly show to help you grow your handmade business.

You can also:

This is a very special episode of the show – in which I take you inside my membership community – the Thriver Circle – and share one of our Business Intensives.

Each month, I offer 2 Business Intensive spots to members, during which I hop on a live call with them – and with other members listening in and giving their feedback – and we spend time working on the key issues facing them and their business.

My guest for this Business Intensive is long-time member Kriket Broadhurst, who has been in the handmade industry for over 10 years – from making her own ceramic beads, to running an artisan shop in England, to coming home to Sydney and building a successful seaglass jewellery business based at markets around the city.

In this episode, we discuss some of the issues that crop up when you’ve been in business for a long time; we talk about how markets differ across countries; we discuss the challenges of taking a OOAK handmade business online (and strategies to make it work) and much more.

I hope you enjoy this chat with Kriket, and the peek inside the Thriver Circle!

P.S. This month, I’m running a mammoth giveaway to celebrate the brief re-opening of Thriver Circle membership AND the opening of registration to my flagship course, Set Up Shop.

I’ve never done a giveaway like this before – the lucky winner is getting a HUGE prize!

The members of my private online community for makers – The Thriver Circle – are the most awesome, supportive group of people out there… and I wanted to take the chance to say thank you to them by giving every member the chance to win this very special prize.

This giveaway is open to both current and NEW members – so if you’re not already a member, you can enter by signing up while membership is open!

Find out all the details of this mammoth giveaway right here.

You can make a secure donation (of the amount of your choice) via the Paypal button below.

Each donation helps cover the cost of hosting, show-note writing, research, interviewing, recording, editing, etc. etc.

In short – it helps to cover the time and financial costs of putting together a free weekly show to help you grow your handmade business.

You can also:

I first spoke to Cath on the show way back in Episode 47.

I loved chatting with her so much, I’ve been looking for a topic to talk about with her on the show ever since – and thanks to a social media post by Mostly Miniature, I realised the perfect topic – how craft business and activism can combine.

Cath has always had an activist element to her business, but it became a big focus for her during the same-sex marriage plebiscite here in Australia in 2017. Cath sold pins that raised over $15,000 for charity, and her activism has continued ever since.

In this episode, we discuss her personal journey, as well as the pros and cons of making your religious, political, or ideological stance known as part of your business identity, and how that could possibly affect your business (positively or negatively).

Should you do it? Do you do it? Or is it something you keep well separate from your business?

You can make a secure donation (of the amount of your choice) via the Paypal button below.

Each donation helps cover the cost of hosting, show-note writing, research, interviewing, recording, editing, etc. etc.

In short – it helps to cover the time and financial costs of putting together a free weekly show to help you grow your handmade business.

You can also:

The dominant cultural narrative is that ‘bigger is better’ and that we should always be striving to grow our businesses bigger.

But… is it necessary? What if you just want a small business with a modest income? What if you only want a part-time business?

In this episode, I share why I deliberately keep my own businesses ‘small’ – and why it’s okay if you want to do the same.

You can make a secure donation (of the amount of your choice) via the Paypal button below.

Each donation helps cover the cost of hosting, show-note writing, research, interviewing, recording, editing, etc. etc.

In short – it helps to cover the time and financial costs of putting together a free weekly show to help you grow your handmade business.

You can also: