Handmadeology University

Day 1 – Mindset: Business & Technology

tim adam in 5 Day Course

Welcome to the first **official** day of the Handmadeology  U marketing course!

Today we are focusing on MINDSET. More specifically, we are focusing on two types of mindset: Business and Technology.

First, let’s talk a little bit about business.  When I first started my Etsy shop, it was nothing but a hobby.  I loved to create art with metal.  It was my passion and I was simply amazed that I could actually make a couple extra bucks selling it online.

I never thought that I could actually do it full time…  Until I started thinking of myself as an **entrepreneur** instead of just someone with a hobby.

“Entrepreneur” can be a scary word… And this mentality didn’t just switch over night.  It actually took me a really long time to actually identify with the phrase.  See, I was raised in a family that had no entrepreneurial spirit… go to school and get a job is what I was taught.  That is the only way.  But that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

The point is, when you begin to look at yourself as a business owner instead of someone who has a hobby, something changes.  You begin to look for new ways to do things.  To promote your products.  To create new products.  And to be more efficient in what you’re doing.

So before we ever begin to talk about marketing, always remember that you are marketing your **business** and not your hobby.

Ok enough about business… moving onto technology.   I can’t tell you how many emails I get from people saying, “I don’t GET social media.”  They’re usually referring to Twitter, blogs, Facebook, Myspace, analytics, or anything else along those lines.   Everyone seems to think that technology is an “age” thing…

People think since I’m 29 years old, all this stuff comes natural to me…  Hopefully you won’t believe that after you read a few of these statistics:

• The fastest growing demographic on Facebook right now is women over the age of 55.  The number of users grew by 175% between January and March.
• The number of users over the age of 35 doubled on Facebook between January and March.
• The most common age demographic on Twitter are people between 45-54 years old
• Baby Boomers are using social networkings sites 80x faster than Gen Y.

So what do all of these statistics mean?   Technology is about ATTITUDE… Not AGE.

If you have the mindset that “this technology stuff just isn’t for me…” then you’ll never be successful with it.

But if you can just take a couple baby steps… and then see the power in these technologies, I have no doubt that you’ll be hooked.   So before Wednesday, there are three steps I’d like you to take:

1)  Sign up for a Facebook account

2)  Sign up for a Twitter account

3)  Sign up for a blog

I’ve provided some step by step directions with screen shots below.  If you already have all three of these accounts setup, congrats!  We’ll be going over specific strategies on Wed-Fri. 

Until then…  Scroll down to the bottom of this text and check out the marketing tip.  (It’s one you won’t want to miss.)

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Facebook Sign up:

Head over to Facebook.com

When you sign up for your new Facebook account make sure you use your name not your business name.  In Facebook Term’s of Service it states that it’s actually illegal for entities to sign up for personal accounts.  If you don’t use your name, you run the risk of Facebook shutting down your account.

When you activate your account you will be prompted to fill out some info.. you can skip these if you like.

Make sure you pick your network.. this is where you live!

Real Quick Facebook Tip….  Adding your clickable link  to your profile left column!

You can see mine below…

Click on the edit your information button…

That will bring up this box.  You will want to enter all your links here so your friend can click through to your sites.

This is the basics to setting up your Facebook account.. there will be more to come!

Twitter Sign up:

First you need to head over to Twitter.com… Once you are there just click the green Get Started button!

Fill out all the info here.  Make sure you sign up with the user name you like… you can change this later.. but you want it to be either your name, your Etsy shop’s name or something very close to it.

Once your account is created you are ready to start Tweeting!

Some Twitter Channels you should follow:

@timothyadam

@handmadeology

@etsy

Blog Set up:

I recommend Blogger.com if you are setting up a blog for the first time.  Blogger is very user friendly and is very customizable!  Here are 2 of the blogs I have built on

the Blogger platform:  TimothyAdamdesigns Found-handmade

First step.. head over to Blogger.com and click the create a blog button:

If you don’t have a Google Account, you can sign up here:

Here is where you want to pick your name.  Once again, pick a name that fits with your Etsy shop.

Pick your template and you are ready to start blogging.

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Now I know I promised marketing tips…  Today is dedicated to setting a solid foundation for your marketing strategy.  But, to hold you over until Wednesday, here is a tip that will *instantly* increase your profit…

Take your highest price product and increase it’s price by 25%.  (Or create a new product that costs 150% more than anything else in your shop.)

I know what you’re thinking: “Doesn’t a higher price lead to less sales?”  Not exactly…

You are thinking in traditional economic terms.  Traditional economic theory  states: When price goes up, quantity sold goes down.

Fortunately, consumers don’t operate under rational terms… Consumers are irrational.  Let’s take two different scenarios:

Scenario A:  You go into a restaurant that has bottles of wine priced between $10-$20.  Assuming you have no knowledge of wine, how much money would you spend on a bottle?

Scenario B:  You go into a fancier restaurant.  This one has wines priced between $20-$30.  Now how much money would you spend?

80-90% of people choose $13-16 in the first example and $23-26 in the second example.

What does this mean?

People naturally regress towards the mean.  AKA – People like to be AVERAGE. Nobody wants to get the cheapest wine.  And nobody wants to get the most expensive one.  People like to fall somewhere in the middle.

So how does this help you?

If you increase the price of your highest price product (or create a new higher priced product all together), it will make your lower priced products look more attractive to buyers.

It’s called price anchoring.  You might add a new product that is 150% more expensive than anything else you have… and you might not sell any of those items.  But the point of adding that product isn’t to increase the sales of it.  The point of adding a higher priced product is to increase the sales of your LOWER priced products.

If you have products between $10-$40, I bet 80% of your sales come from $15-$35 items.  When you add a $60 product, you’ll see the majority of your sales shift to the $25-$45 range.

This is exactly what I did with my jewelry trees.  I have a tree for $19 and a tree for $95.  Most of my sales are in between $30 and $50.

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Ok – so that’s the first day.  I really hope you learned something new!

Understand  just the tip of the ice berg… There is plenty more to learn. I’ve packaged some of the best content that I’ve ever created into the infamous Handmadeology Curriculum. It’s five different books that will teach you EVERYTHING you need to know about selling handmade products online.

You can learn more about the books here and this page will teach you about how to join Handmadeology University.