When you get business advice, very often you are getting told what to do. New tactics to try, new methods to test. Today I want to talk about what you need to let go of in order to grow and succeed on Etsy.
The Shoulds
The first thing is letting go of the “shoulds.” And this comes in the form of things like oh you should try TikTok, because I know someone doing really well there. You should try this new product because that’s something I would buy.
A lot of the times when you are getting this “should” advice it is taking you away from your original plan.
Sometimes that’s a good thing. But when you haven’t given your original plan enough time to actually work for you or when you’re jumping into something new without creating a plan for how we are going to stick with it, be consistent, and really make it work, then a lot of the times this new thing is just a distraction that’s not going to give you an ROI.
And a lot of the times when I talk to sellers about this the first thing they say is “I’m only doing social media because I should.” I want to caution you against being so general with this. I do think that most businesses need to have some sort of social media presence. The “should” aspect of this can be more like posting daily only because you should or posting to all of the platforms daily. What I encourage you to do instead, is to create a plan for some sort of social media that can be fun and interesting for you. So you’re not just creating another Instagram post because you should, you’re doing something that is fun for both you and your followers. And that also has often has much better results than doing things just because you should.
Being Everywhere
That leads me right into my next thing that you need to let go of an order to grow your business effectively on Etsy, which is doing everything and being everywhere. It is really easy to see something that’s working for another Etsy seller and to attempt to jump into their plan because you think that’s going to be the magic thing that means makes your business a success. But what works for one seller it is not going to work for everybody, especially when it comes to social media and marketing. So what I encourage you to do instead, is to pick one platform that you can really effectively and consistently work on, so you get really really good at it before you add anything new. So this one platform becomes really effective for you in growing your audience and converting those followers into buyers.
Hustling 24/7
The next thing I want you to let go of in order to have more success on Etsy, is the working 24/7 hustle mentality. There are definitely some sacrifices that you have to make at times when you’re growing your business. I’m not going to tell you that I didn’t have some nights where I didn’t get a lot of sleep. But I also want you to plan for resting and for having time for the things that truly matter to you, whether that’s friends and family or other hobbies that you’re not monetizing.
I got into this trap when I was growing my shop. What that resulted in for me, was me feeling really anxious when I’m not working. I could’ve accomplished the same goals that I had in the last few years, while taking more time off for myself. I would have been a lot happier doing it too. Because a lot of the work that came from that hustle mentality was busy work that didn’t move my business forward as much as some of my other priorities. It resulted in a lot of burnout that I could have avoided.
Doing it all on your own
The next thing to let go of is feeling like you have to do it all on your own. I tried that method for a very long time when I first started and learned some really valuable lessons about how to value my own time. When I started getting help in my business, I started growing and scaling much much faster. That resulted in revenue that was growing exponentially instead of plateauing out.
One of the ways that I do this is when I do make an investment in courses or coaching, is going into it with the mentality of guaranteeing my own success and getting exactly what I need from that specific program. I make an investment and commit to doing what I need to do in order to make that work for me. And in the last six years that I’ve been running my business, this has saved me hours and hours of time and stress and has resulted in a lot more revenue than if I would’ve tried to do it on my own.
Hobbyist Mentality
The last thing I wanna talk about is getting rid of your hobby mentality. This is something that most of the sellers start with. Maybe somebody told you at the beginning of your shop that you should sell these things you make because they would buy it. So you put some listings up and decide to see what happens. But as you get a taste of getting some of those sales you might be deciding that you want to grow faster and you want to make a business out of this. There are some thoughts that you cannot bring with you from that hobby mentality into your business.
You want to make sure that you are pricing to make a profit when you move into treating your Etsy shop like a business.
You want to make sure that you are being consistent in whatever definition consistent means for you. One of the examples is that I will see seller say they’re going to create a new listing every single day. That’s not always effective and can be a waste of time. I prefer batching instead. So maybe you want to create five new listings a week, instead of one a day. So whatever consistency means to you, you need to stay consistent in your priorities.
You need to recognize how valuable your time is. When you’re running a hobby it doesn’t matter if you can pay yourself all the time, but when you’re running a business you need to make sure that that business can support you. If you are taking really complicated custom orders and aren’t charging enough and factoring in your hourly rate in to the products that you’re making, then this is the type of thing that you need to let go of an order to start really running a business that supports you when it needs to.
The last thing that kind of comes with it that hobby mentality that you have to let go of in order to really run a business on Etsy is thinking that you can just wing it all the time. I don’t think you need to take this to the opposite and work every single thing you’re going do for the whole entire year is perfectly planned out. I don’t do that in my business. But you need to let go of making whatever you want, whenever you want. It’s much harder to get found consistently on Etsy when your shop has that garage sale mentality of listing whatever you want.
It also makes your life stressful when you’re trying to run a business and you aren’t planning in advance for when new product line should be listed or when you should start advertising a sale.
Now what?
What I want you to do now, is to make your own list of things that you are letting go of in order to grow more easily on Etsy this year. Put that list someplace where you are going to see it regularly. Because I know that it can be tough to remember, for example, that you do not need to be hustling 24/7 in order to see success this year. So if you put that list somewhere that you are going to be reminded of these things, then you’re going to get rid of some of those guilt feelings for letting go of what you need to let go of because you know that it is actually going move your business forward to do less this year instead of more.
Then head to my free Facebook group, Etsy Seller Help and Support, for even more tips and tricks.
-Sarah
