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There are countless people running successful craft businesses from home. Many of them are women fitting their business around their children. Even though there are so many craft businesses already thriving, there’s always space for more. You do, however, need to be prepared for the realities of running a craft business from home. Here are four tips to help.
Make sure you legally can work from home
It’s advisable to check if you need any special permissions to run a business from home. If so then do apply for them. For crafters, getting permission to have a home business is often just a case of filling in a form and possibly paying a fee. You’re not going to be doing anything dangerous or creating a nuisance or lowering neighborhood real estate prices.
The main benefit of getting an official sign-off (even for a fee) means that you should be able to get insurance cover without any issues. If you don’t have the right permits you may end up with a future claim being declined purely for that reason.
You may need to rethink your workspace
When crafting is a hobby, you can work at your own pace. When crafting is your living, your income will often be directly linked to your working speed. Your working speed will often be directly linked to your ability to organize your workspace to suit your workflow. When you’re crafting for a living, this is going to include packing items and regular business administration.
Ideally, therefore, you’ll have a single space where you can take care of everything from start to finish in a time-efficient way. Making this happen in reality can actually be a lot easier than you might think. It’s often more about time and commitment than budget.
In other words, you may need to have a complete declutter and reorganization of your craft space before you can seriously think about making crafting your business. If you really can’t optimize your craft space as much as you need, then just do the best you can with what you have. Be prepared to upgrade later as the money starts to come in.
Stock control is vital
When you think about business administration, possibly the first which comes to mind is bookkeeping. This is, of course, very important. In craft businesses, however, stock control is at least as important.
You’re going to need a way to keep accurate records of both your supplies and your finished items. You’re also going to need a way to ensure that you always give yourself plenty of time to restock supplies. For example, if you’re having them shipped, you need to allow for delays.
In the early days, it might be fine to use a combination of spreadsheet and prompts in your calendar. You should, however, usually make it a priority to get proper inventory-management software.
You will need to sell
This may sound like stating the obvious but if you’re going to turn your crafting hobby into a business, you’re going to need to be prepared to sell your items. This means that you’ll need to get to grips with pricing, advertising, and marketing. If you’re not confident with these then it might be helpful for you to take a short course in business before you start.
