Darlene Isberg   Internet User
Most crafters and hobbyists fall flat when it comes to promoting their own products.  It seems the best they come up with is going into Craft Fairs, which is another way to spell "giving your work away for very little return".   Or, they put their products into consignment shops and end up getting ripped off as usually the consignment shops are set up by people with big ideas, no cash and are trying to get something going without the faintest ideas of how to run a business.

They also do not believe they are sales people so therefore they can not "sell" their work. 

To begin with, We are all sales people.  How many times have you found a good product or program and shared it with your family, friend or co-worker?  Lots of times.  That is selling.  So why don't you do the same thing with your craft and hobby products.  Just share that you do these items and let people make up their own minds about whether or not they want them.  Hard sell doesn't work for many unless it is a call center pushing cell phones or such like.  The public has really caught on to these tactics.

Start by making your own web page.  You can do this for free by signing up for a Blogger Page with Google.  Then take pictures of your products.  If you do not have a digital camera one of your friends or family do.  Borrow it to start with, or even get them over for coffee and have an in-house photo shoot.  Then load those pictures in to your computer.  Then post them to your blog.  A good example of this by one of our members is
http://www.wine-fi.com/wine-barrel-furniture 
 
Every year I am invited to attend one of my family's neighbor?s "Home Christmas Sale" events. She works all year and then starting in mid-November she has three weekends that she opens her home to guests to review what she has made throughout the year.  She also invites some other crafters to add their products and between them they fill up her dining room with products.  Its fun, it?s inexpensive for her.  It must work she has done it for the last 10 years.

Another issue is what to charge for your work.  To find out go onto the Search Engines for this information.  Review the websites that come up for pricing, web page design, layout, presentation, etc.  Look at these pages for everything you are not very familiar with right now. 
 
More on this subject to come later.
Nov 25th 2010 12:22