Over several years of creating, I have applied unique skills that helped my business and artistic skill improve. Discover growth with me in this blog and feel free to apply this to your business and/ or life.
Photo taken at The Cooperstown Fenimore Art Museum accepting the Directors Choice award.
1- COURAGE
When you begin to find out you have a talent and that there is a market you must dive in at some point. For me, It started in 2013 as a way to heal from PTSD. It was my only safe place to express myself over time. I had made a few items including a mirror, a mail holder, and a coat rack. Over the years I gave some out as gifts to my Adirondack family and chose to hold onto the others. It wasn't until a few people made offers to buy my work that I even considered selling it. At some point I had to muster up the courage to dive into the idea of selling. At first, I was overwhelmed by a start up checklist I made. Study competition and their pricing, where to sell, what events to attend, how much is needed to invest the first few years, what hardware and glue to use, set up a website...etc Then I reminded myself we all start somewhere unless we never have the courage to start at all. Courage was the first skill I had to apply and it is still useful today. I still get to display courage when reaching out to new clients and stores.
2-HUMILITY
This has been a necessity. Humility presents itself in a way of accepting and receiving the fact that there is always room for improvement. I believe it is a necessity for growth and being more efficient in creating finer quality rustic décor over the years. There has been several times when someone would give advice on how to improve certain items. Normally, in my personal life, I feel like advice not asked for is like a slap in the face. But when pertaining to business I welcome it as a blessing that I get to choose to accept or brush it off. The best advice I have been given was from the seasoned rustic artisan's that have had great success in becoming renowned. When they speak about how I could enhance the quality, I listen. In order to listen and to receive this knowledge one must be humble. This ties into the next one.
3-LISTENING
I feel as though listening and humility go hand in hand. You can be humble all you want but in order to apply the advice given you have to listen. Listen to a customers needs by genuinely absorbing their words without interruption. I'm a talker myself so I got to practice this over the years. When someone approaches my set up at an event I like to see how I can help them. Although I'm not offering counseling services I can still offer to help them find something that they truly connect with even if just in conversation. Some of us just need to be seen and heard and I value the ability to deliver that. On the flip side, the person is looking for a wedding gift or a Christmas gift for a loved one...maybe they want to treat themselves. Regardless of what they are looking for I can help them find it by communicating. This means listening. Ask them what drew them to my work, do they have a cabin? Are they from the area? Some people are traveling from far away and don't have a lot of room in their luggage. They tend to purchase electrical plates for easy travel. I like to recommend mirrors or picture frames for wedding gifts...the mirrors because reflecting on that time is beautiful. I once met a homeless man who lived off of 20$ a week and without judgement I was present in conversation with him for a good half hour and he chose to spend half of what he uses in a week on my art.
4-WILLINGNESS TO LEARN
This has been useful in all aspects of my business. Creating my website and content in it, learning competitors prices, learning how to better communicate, how to reach a broader target audience, how to skillfully craft an innovation and more. If you have ever created a business website or even a business related social media platform you know that there is quite a lot to learn. Once you have learned all of that, in comes reels, new filters, upgrades, new tools, a change in the SEO and more. Adapting to what is trending for outreach is important to connect with people in a way that interest them. Sometimes I definitely prefer to be old school by being face to face; I don't know many successful people who didn't go out of their comfort zone at one point or another. Thankfully WIX has provided a lot of free educational videos and a lot of other things can be taught through Youtube videos or marketing classes. I love learning, so its exciting for me to take time out of my day to retain new knowledge. Many years ago I went to school for Graphic Arts & Design where I learned how to create logos, websites, take good photos, and more. A decade went by and those skills needed refreshing so I relearned a lot of it.
5-APPLYING EVERYTHING
What is knowledge without action? Am I right? It took many years to get to where I am today. In reference to my décor I have applied a lot of advice given. Upon the request of many clients, I decided to expand into rustic furniture and beach décor. This has been a beautiful success. Not all advice was very beneficial so some of it turned out to be more like trial and error. A lot of people asked if I made candles and I finally decided to make some and they often sold out by the dozens quickly. In the beginning the moss I applied flaked off so I discovered a way to kind of sand it down and minimize the shedding of it almost to none at all. Being that I have a very low tolerance for toxic chemicals I decided to find a varnish that was unscented/ plant based/ non toxic. It can get overwhelming admiring some competitors work in stores with a strong poly odor being sensative to toxins and all. I have added hidden hardware to a lot of bark to prevent it from curling over decades of admiration. It's really a concept of thinking outside of the box. Sure improvements meant investing more money into higher quality products but that's exactly what I want to provide you with.
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