How to Confidently Grow Your Handmade Business - Amika Ryan Shepherd Like A Girl

How to Confidently Grow Your Handmade Business

Do you have the mindset of a Handmade Hero?

I know for myself when I first started my craft business, I didn’t.

I had a lot of fear of putting myself out there, putting my handmade products out there, and showing up on social media (especially live) for my audience.

Quickly, I learned that to grow your handmade business online, you need to overcome your fear and confidently become the craft boss you’re meant to be!

Today, I’m covering what it takes to be a confident #handmadehero so you can authentically show up and feel good in your own skin because I know that you’re here to touch lives and change the world with your creations.

Focus

I remember when I first started my business I went through the time-sucking content consumption binge that doesn’t really get you anywhere. It leaves you with too many ideas and a brain fog of confusion on where to fully start.

Eventually you need to stop seeking out all the freebies and take action!

To grow a profitable business you need to FOCUS. You need a strategy.

When I sit down to work on my business, I have a specific plan of action in place and I execute it.

I choose what’s going to move the needle in my business (aka revenue generating activities) and leave the email and engaging on social media for later in the day when I’m winding down.

But how do you get a business strategy in place?

You learn from someone who has done what you want to do (and I don’t mean going and grabbing their freebie) and you repeat it.

In the Handmade Hero Hamlet, my membership for crafters, artists, and makers, I teach a simple strategy that will grow your business without the fluff. You get tactics that will make the most impact in your biz and keep you focused.

The Hamlet gives you information and empowers you to take the right action.

Because look, I know you’re super busy and none of us have the time to do everything we want to do so you need a straightforward plan.

To get more information, head here, but finish reading first!

Self-care

At first I was really resistant to this point and just assumed I knew what self care meant – reading a book or giving yourself a face mask. I quickly learned I didn’t have a full grasp on this at all!

Growing up, my mother was the breadwinner of the family and always on the move. This is what I knew to be normal so when I became an adult, I stayed on that same exhausting path.

I eventually ended up with adrenal fatigue and this was my body screaming at me to take my health seriously.

The answer to healing my fatigue? Self-care.

I still remember when my nutritionist told me that I needed to find an hour a day to do nothing. I was shocked! I could get away with an hour a week, but an hour a day?! I thought she was crazy.

But I did what she suggested and I got better.

To prevent this from happening again, I continue with self-care. Most of the time, I can’t commit an hour a day but I do always do something for me every day.

So how is this important in growing your business?

If you aren’t “filling your cup” first, you can’t serve your audience (or at least not successfully for very long).

You‘ll end up tired, overwhelmed, and maybe even sick like me.

You need to make sure that you’re filling up your cup and when it starts to overflow, that’s when you can start giving to others.

The goodness is in the overflow!

Don’t feel like you need to jump to doing an hour of self-care a day. That can feel too overwhelming.

What I did at first was simply wake up in the morning and think about what I was grateful for. Once I got consistent with that, I started adding in other things and I now have a full routine.

Some mornings I get through all of it and some mornings I don’t… But keeping it simple and doing what I know will make me feel good (short and long term) is a daily goal.

Once you get consistent with #treatyourself, then you can more easily master the next point…

Being of Service

Are you building your business from a place of service?

Are you helping your customers solve a problem?

Are you investing your resources (your time, our knowledge or your money) to invest in others?

When you start focusing on growing your business from a place of service, everything begins to feel easier.

Selling turns into serving.

When I was first starting out, I absolutely HATED selling. It terrified me. Even when someone else asked me to buy something I would say yes so I didn’t hurt their feelings, because I knew that I didn’t want my feelings hurt when I was selling.

Weird right?

Well, when I made the shift to focusing on serving, selling didn’t feel like selling anymore. So get out there and serve your audience!

Grow and Learn

Are you setting goals in your business and not reaching them?

How does that feel? Think about it for a minute.

Maybe you’re not reaching them because you don’t fully know how to get there.

Or maybe it’s because deep down you don’t feel that you’re capable. You don’t really believe you can do it, or worse, you don’t believe that you deserve it.

Hear me out Handmade Hero… Your success is inevitable.

Abundance is everywhere. All you have to do is believe in yourself and TAKE ACTION.

But maybe you need to hear this first: you DESERVE to be successful and to get everything you want out of life. I fully give you permission.

Don’t just make your dreams smaller so you don’t disappoint yourself.

Set those high goals and then go out there and learn what you need to learn to reach those goals.

When you start taking action, everything will come together.

I’m here to guide you and support you in that.


If you’re ready, I would love to help you grow your online craft business and build it RIGHT WAY to explode your product sales! Join the Handmade Hero Hamlet now >>> CLICK HERE

Shepherd Like A Girl - Amika Ryan


Amika teaches online courses and workshops for craft business owners, artists and fiber enthusiasts to help them create sustainable and profitable handmade businesses. She's dedicated to helping you succeed with your handmade craft business in the noisy online space that is the internet today.