It's very common to have to build your crochet business around a job, here's how it's done

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Hello and welcome to Crochet Business School podcast.

I'm kelly and I'm here to help you to discover all the ways that you can create your own dream crochet business.

Your business does not have to look the same as anyone else's and you can do it the way you want.

So what do we have on the podcast today?

Can you build your crochet business around a full time job?

Yes, you can.

It's going to take you a bit longer to build up your sales to where you want them to be and make the money that you need and you're going to have to make some sacrifices when it comes to free time and how much of that you have.

But yes, you can, and many do.

It's how I started.

I have a full time job and I've got a little boy, two huskies and it's chaos around here and I've built my business around all of this.

You have to learn what to prioritize, you have to learn what is going to bring you the most return for your investment.

You're gonna have to learn to really focus to get as much done in the time that you have as possible.

But you can do it and many, many people do.

So the first thing you really need to do is to find out how much time you do have and that you just get a sheet with every hour of the day written down and block out those hours where you have to do other things.

So the day job, your sleeping time when you have to pick the kids up from school, the time you need to cook, the time you put aside to do jobs and make sure you do put some time aside for yourself because you do not want to be working 24 7, that just leads to burnout.

So you do need to make sure that you actually block out time for you where you're not thinking about business, where you're not thinking about work when you're not doing housework, it's just your time.

That's really important because otherwise burnout means that you just can't do anything and then everything stops and burnout is so frustrating because you really want to do things but you just can't bring yourself to.

I've been through that several times and it is not a nice place to be these days.

I make sure I don't get there, I know what the warning signs are and I make sure that I dial back, take some time for me and just do the things that need doing.

So that's really something you need to bear in mind.

But once you've got the sheet with your time blocked out, you can see how much time you have and then it's time to get focused and decide what it is.

You absolutely have to do.

Now, there are a lot of things in business that are nice to do but are not essential.

So first things first, which single social media platform are you going to be on?

It's really tempting to try and be on every single one.

But if you are strapped for time you simply do not have time to do that one.

Social media platform pick one and that is where you'll be forget the others, you'll have people telling you, oh we've got to be on instagram so we've got to be on facebook, you've got to have a group and a page.

Oh what about twitter, Ignore real pick one for me.

I love Pinterest.

It's fantastic.

I don't have to interact with anyone.

I don't have to go into different groups and talk.

I can literally just post a pin the good title, keyword rich description.

The link to where it's going and job done.

I absolutely love it.

That's my platform.

I do have some posts going out on facebook and instagram but they are not my focus Pinterest is where my time is, that is my main platform and you need to choose the one which you're going to find easy and that you know how to use to pick the one that is going to work for you then choose a product line.

You don't need to have a million won products, you can just choose 10 and those 10 products you are going to market the hell out of you're going to make sure that you're posting about them, you're screaming the benefits of them and just get it out there now if you need to create more time for yourself, that means you're going to need to pay.

There are tools out there that will help you.

But they cost but if you have very little time they are worth their weight in gold.

I use social media schedulers for Pinterest, I use tailwind and for my facebook post I use a site called Your Post and that just puts all my posts in a cycle.

So I don't have to remember to decide what I'm posting every day.

It just takes something out of my posting bank and just put it on.

I absolutely love both these programs and they saved me so much time.

But it's up to you to decide if you're ready to make that investment and when it's time to make that investment, that's a choice to be made.

But there are tools out there that will help you save tons of time.

Of course when you're starting out, there's very little cash coming in.

So this may be something that you do down the line at the same time.

These tools can help bring more money in more quickly.

So it becomes a toss up between do I have the money and can I afford to wait to bring that money in?

It's a balance and only you can decide when the time is right to make that investment.

But you can build your business around a full time job.

If you're making what you sell, then your product line should be things that are quick to make.

Don't have a product line filled with jumpers and cardigans and ponchos because they take time.

So you also need to make sure that you have the time to make your orders.

And you can do this by two ways by having order slots.

So you know how much time each item takes you to make.

Then you book each order in and see how much, how many orders you can fit in a week and then you only accept orders fit into that time.

The other way is to have pre may stock and only sell what you have already made for this.

I don't recommend any wearables, no clothing because you can't adjust sizes so you need to have things that are only one size only in a limited color range.

So you could go with like baskets and rugs.

Um scrunchie is bunting of that type of thing fairly quick to make but are also likely to sell.

So you need to decide how that fits into your product line and which option would work best for you and then just go for it, Make sure you post at least one post on social media every day, make sure they're not always buy from me.

Now, this is price Buy from me.

Now, this is the price.

You need to make sure you have interactive posts on there so that your audience want to comment on them because the social algorithm C Day is all about interaction.

Your posts don't mean much unless you get interaction.

You want comments, you want reactions and that will tell the platform that you're on that your content is light that the audience likes what you're posting.

And then they will reward you by showing to more people.

So you need to have good content and then go and find your customers.

Go and find your audience.

Get out there, interact with other groups where your target customer is likely to hang out.

So there's just some tips for you and it can be done.

It's just gonna take a bit more time for you to get to the number of sales that you want than it would if you will be able to do this full time.

Thank you for joining me on the podcast today.

I hope that's giving you something to think about.

And if you'd like to hear more about what's going on in Crochet Business school and would like tips advice and want to know when the next podcast is out and subscribe to my newsletter using the link below.

So that's it for me.

And I shall see you next time for the next episode.