Things escalated quickly, haven’t they?
What a week we just had.
If you had told me that I would be sitting here recording this in my lifetime I would not have believed you.
But here we are, so welcome to this very weird edition of the Tizzit TV Show.
If you’ve never met me before my name is Deborah Engelmajer I am the founder of Tizzit.co, a community for makers and handmade shop owners and today we’re going to talk a little bit about Covid-19 and its consequences on your handmade or Etsy shop.
First off, I hope you are all safe, and healthy and have your loved ones around. I am not going to be addressing the health/safety issues, I trust you are all doing everything you can to help the world recover quicker and following your government’s advice. I am sure that if we all do our bit we can beat this thing sooner than later and save more lives but today I really want to focus on what this new context and weirdness could mean for you and your shop.
Now, just like you probably are, I am learning how to navigate this as
1. a human being and
2. a business owner.
I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I wanted to share a few thoughts when it comes to handling this as a shop owner:
I have been talking with the members of the Tizzit HQ community the last week, and I wanted to share some of what came up with you.
My goal here is not to sit down and walk you through a step by step action plan to handle this crisis because there is no such thing.
This is really unprecedented and so I don’t think any of us can pretend to be an expert at handling this. This is something we have to figure out together.
Things change quite quickly as you know. Actually by the time I upload this to Youtube who knows what will have been announced in the news, and this is truly going to be a journey we all go on together. And by “we” I mean the world and society at large of course, but in this specific case the handmade community as a whole.
So this video is my attempt to facilitate conversations, to offer suggestions, address some concerns I’ve seen and heard a lot of shop owners have, and also highlight some positive things and opportunities that could come out of this for you.
Please feel free to use the comments below to start conversations and connect with each other.
Really quickly, here’s what I’ll be covering: first I want to share with you 2 important ideas that I think are crucial for you to keep in mind to navigate this new situation.
Then we’ll dive into questions I’ve seen makers ask within my community or on social, so things like:
Then we’ll dive into marketing and social media tips in times of crisis, pretty much-highlighting opportunities and helping you feel less awkward about it.
Let’s dive in!
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I want to start by sharing with you 2 things that I want you to keep in mind and that apply to everything in this blog post but that also I believe will help you for the weeks and months to come as you navigate these uncharted economic and business waters.
I’ve been working with makers, creatives, designers and artists for long enough to know that most you don’t like to “sell” even in “normal” times. It’s not something you’re comfortable doing, or necessarily enjoy and often not the reason you started selling your creations.
So naturally, selling in these super weird times, for most of you I am guessing, is going to feel “insensitive”, “inappropriate”, “out of place” and the idea of “making the most out of a bad situation” probably sounds opportunistic and selfish.
It’s not though, and I’ll talk about this in more details in a bit when we get to the marketing/social media/business tips segment, but it’s crucial that you remember that “seizing an opportunity” is a very different thing from “being opportunistic.”
An opportunist is someone “who sees a chance to gain some advantage from a situation, often at the expense of ethics or morals.”
This is NOT what you are doing if you keep selling during this crisis, marketing your products or posting on social media.
That’s what a lot of people stuck at home right now without an online shop or an online business wish they could do.
This does not make you a sleazy, manipulative person. Not if you market and sell your products ethically, which means not tapping into fear, FOMO, fake urgency and scarcity, and all these yucky tactics that you should NOT be using during a time of crisis or… ever, really. And I know that’s not how you are selling and talking about your products, so really, you’re good.
If you have the opportunity to keep making sales, take it. If we want life and businesses and the economy to go on, you can’t shame or guilt yourself for running your shop and business during these times.
You are the economy.
So that’s the first thing you need to keep in mind: “seizing an opportunity” is a very different thing from “being opportunistic.”
This is an exercise that someone had me go through last week. I had done it before but it felt particularly useful to:
It’s a super simple exercise but a very powerful reframing device. Basically, there are some things you can control and things you can’t. Most of you are probably like “ok yea right Deb thanks” but stay with me: grab a piece of paper and write down 3 things you can not control at the moment and 3 things you can.
You’ll probably come to the same realization as I did, which is that my brain was obsessing over things I really could not control, or didn’t have answers to and that therefore I was totally wasting brainpower and energy. Meanwhile, there were things I could control and act on, but that I didn’t think enough about because my brain was cluttered with useless, anxious thoughts.
We feel anxious and freeze in fear when we feel we are losing control and our sense of agency.
This exercise (do it!) puts you back into the driver’s seat, and it will help you turn your anxiety and fears around your shop or life in general into actions, which leads to progress (the only way through is forward) and progress leads to growth.
For example, here are things you can not control:
On the other end, here are things you can control:
So do this exercise and see what comes up for you, and keep it in mind for the months to come, every time you feel uncertain (which honestly is probably going to be more often than usual) come back to it.
We’ve had a few members inside the HQ community wondering whether they should close their shop temporarily or (if they’re on Etsy) pause it or put it on vacation mode.
On one hand, there’s a concern around getting orders and not being able to fill them or to ship them, and on the other hand, there’s a concern that it could be hard to come back from a prolonged “vacation mode” because you effectively disappear from search and you’re not building your relevancy score or listing quality score during that time, while other shops might.
The way I see it and my advice to you as of today would be to instead (and that’s valid on Etsy or for your website) extend the processing time (I think Etsy lets you set it to 10 weeks? maybe 8?) and adjust the delivery time too.
Most importantly, you want to communicate with every single customer you get an order from, contact them, make sure they are aware of the potential delays, and if needed – you can cancel an order.
Remember no one on this planet right now isn’t aware of what’s going on with Covid-19. People will understand, if they don’t, honestly – just cancel the order and good riddance, you don’t want that type of nasty customer in your life.
The only reason I think you should close your cart on your website temporarily or put your shop on vacation mode is if (touch wood that never ever happens):
Other than that, I think if you communicate effectively and extend your processing and delivery times, there’s no reason to shut your shop down.
Similarly here, we’ve had a few members in the Tizzit HQ community who are still getting orders since lockdowns and quarantines have started in different parts of the world.
Most of them feel lucky because they are still getting sales but instead of being excited about it, they are worried about the logistics of it which is totally understandable and might be your case too.
Obviously, there are a lot of different factors coming into consideration here based on your and your customer’s locations.
You might not be quarantined yet, you might be but the post office might be considered an essential service, and beyond what’s being imposed by your government or authorities you also get to decide on a more personal level if you are comfortable going to the post office if it means that it exposes you, that you can’t maintain proper social distancing, etc.
A few options my members have been discussing and implementing around this – if you can and still decide to continue shipping – are:
Of course, the last thing you’ll want to check are:
As long as you contact every customer and communicate effectively with them, you’ll be ok – remember again, everyone is going through this and would understand if you had to cancel an order or if it was delayed, especially if you’ve communicated that possibility to them.
Most of you, if you’re selling your products online probably actually have a really low overhead so you’re looking pretty good compared to most brick-and-mortar businesses out there. Your sales might take a hit (or not, but they might) over the next few months, but you should also be able to reduce your expenses considerably.
It is not the best time to order a big stock of supplies for a new collection you wanted to launch in 6 months for example.
Where possible, put things on hold and reduce your costs.
Speaking of launching new collections and products, another question that got asked in the Tizzit HQ community was…
This is again a case per case, it depends on what you are selling obviously. In this case, it was about a collection for kids clothing that is already designed, for which stock/supplies have been bought, and for which there are existing pictures ready for the listings. It’s not a product that’s inappropriate in any way, so I see no reason not to go ahead and add those new products to the shop.
I’d probably advised against it if it implied an important investment in materials, but if your stock is ready, and this is something that people are still likely to be interested in buying, I don’t see why not.
It comes back to this idea of not feeling bad about making money during this time. It does not make you a bad person or an opportunist.
In another case, another member was wondering what to do if your products are not likely to be bought in the coming weeks or month (in this case digital download for party printables). In cases like this use your best judgment, we don’t know after all how long it will take to get things back to normal, but maybe instead of launching something unlikely to sell, use that time to work on other areas of your shop and marketing and getting ready for when things get back to normal OR if that’s a possibility for you, consider pivoting slightly for a little while and offering a new type of digital product that your customers would feel they need more right now (like printables for kids activities at home, etc.). I understand this isn’t possible for everyone, but for those of you selling digital downloads for example, it might be worth considering.
Another question that came up in the HQ community forums was “is it still worth it to work on opening my shop”? I’ve heard that from makers and community members who don’t have a shop opened yet or just opened one, and who are thinking this is a really bad time to jump into business.
Although I understand the fear, I actually think it’s a great time to be working on opening a shop and starting a handmade business.
There were some really good replies to this question from inside the community, mostly other members saying that yes, because:
A business is not a sprint, but a marathon. It takes time to set it up, build a customer base, market it properly. While we don’t know long the restrictions will continue or how hard they may be, this will most likely NOT be the new normal. There is panic and uncertainty now, but with time and information, it will change. Once that happens, people will start being interested in purchasing things again.
Someone else said:
100% By the time you get things moving in your biz, we may be seeing some normalcy again.
Someone else also recommended using this downtime to work through training and courses, that this was a great opportunity to get ready for when things get “back to normal”.
I could not agree more.
Whether it’s inside the HQ community or elsewhere, there are lots of free and paid courses and resources online that you can tap into to work ON your business during this time and make a lot of progress so you’re ready for action when the dust settles.
So yes, it is still relevant to work on opening your shop and starting your handmade business.
This is difficult because this most likely means your sales will stop for as long as lockdowns, quarantines, and social distancing laws are in place.
Depending on your cash flow, you can, of course, decide to simply wait until things get back to normal and sadly take a bit of a hit financially, but my advice would be to use this time to set yourself up with an online shop if you can.
It doesn’t mean you can’t go back to selling in retail and at markets down the track but it’s a great opportunity to use this downtime to add an online element to your business model and gives you a security blanket in case some of the retail shops you are used to selling in go under, or markets and shows take too long to re-open and/or see foot traffic only slowly coming back up.
Unfortunately, that’s a possibility. I think some niches and industries will thrive during this crisis, others will struggle more.
This goes back to this exercise I had you go through at the very beginning of this video: some things you can’t control. I know it doesn’t in any way make it easier to accept, but at least it takes your focus away from that and onto what you can control.
If you have low overheads and overall costs because you’re selling online, you are in a great position to bounce back and recover quicker than most businesses will. Things will get back to normal.
In the meantime, control what you can and use that time to triple down on working on your business, working on your marketing, working on your systems, batching pictures, graphics for Pinterest or what have you – all the things you ‘didn’t have enough time for’ before and that will help set yourself up for success for when things settle so your sales and activity pick back up quicker.
You can and should also use this as an opportunity to keep top of mind via your marketing and social media EVEN IF your sales go down or flat.
Which is a perfect segue to our next segment:
First I say “during the crisis” like these tips don’t apply outside of this weird situation we’re in – but really this is what you should be doing all the time.
It’s just that now you reaaaally can’t get away with not being mindful and sensitive to what people are going through in your messaging.
The way you use your social media platforms and what you say in your marketing more than ever needs to be focused on the human element.
This is what selling and marketing ethically really is: putting the human element and genuine relationship building at the center of your marketing and your business efforts.
Selling on social and selling, in general, should always be about humans, stories, connections, about understanding at their core what your customers feel, want, and are going through in their lives.
It’s always been the case but now you’re forced to really understand that so that your marketing doesn’t sound phony or just plain awkward.
If we’re being honest here, and please don’t take this out of context I am in no way saying that I am happy about what’s happening but I can’t help but feel a little excited about this for you because it’s an opportunity to really learn how to connect and sell your handmade products without actually selling your products.
I’ve been saying many times in numerous videos in the past that to make selling on social work, you have to focus on social, not on selling.
People come to social media to be entertained, inspired, to connect, to kill time, not to be sold to. Sales happen because you build relationships, not because you tell someone on Instagram “SHOP NOW, LINK IN BIO”.
And this is more important than ever if you want to navigate this crisis as… well, first a decent human being, but also if you want to keep selling during it, or recover quickly from it when things calm down.
Before it was easy to just drop “NEW CINNAMON SCENTED CANDLE IN THE SHOP, BUY NOW” but today it’s going to feel a little odd and insensitive to use a caption like that, so you’ll have to find new ways to talk about your products.
So instead, if your brand has a funny voice you could say something like “I feel all I’ve been waiting all my life for an acceptable excuse to spend my entire day in pajamas watching dumb Netflix shows and eating peanut butter cookies with a cinnamon-scented candle burning in the background. This day has finally come.”
Here’s what you must remember and why this is a great opportunity:
A LOT of people are going to stop posting on social media, to stop marketing, to stay quiet – because it’s too awkward, they don’t know how to handle it and so they’re going to stop trying, retreat and go to the ground until the dust settles.
But not you! Or at least I hope not. This is actually a great opportunity to stand out by being present.
You want to do the opposite, you want to be the brand, the maker, the shop they remember when they’re ready to buy again because you kept posting and stayed top of mind during these weird, weird times by providing content and posts they found useful, funny, inspiring and that made them connect with your brand at a deeper level.
If your customers are the type who love funny or sarcastic memes and GIFs, post those, if they want inspiration and motivation, share motivating and uplifting stories and quotes.
Use your brand and social accounts to show up for them and provide value.
And just so we’re clear here, value isn’t necessarily a 2000 word-long blog post, an hour-long craft tutorial, or anything like that. It can be as simple as a GIF or a quote that makes them smile or feel more connected.
Remember, your sales might take a hit, or they might not. But even if they do (and actually, especially if they do) keep showing up.
Things will go back to normal, and when they do your followers and customers will still be there – except with an even stronger connection to your brand.
Finally, please… look after yourself. Mind, body, the whole lot.
This is a challenging situation we’re all in, so make sure you prioritize your health.
Move your body, keep your mind active.
Cut the news down. Once a day is honestly enough. And when I write that I am also talking to myself. Seriously, too much news and you’re stuck in this anxiety loop that you don’t need in your life right now. Once a day is just fine.
Most people will triple their social media consumption and be stuck on the news. Don’t be that person. Replace your social media and news consumption with more useful things.
Lean into online communities for support – be it free Facebook groups or membership communities like Tizzit HQ, find a tribe you can lean on, connect with, get support from.
Use the time you have to dive into online courses and resources and work ON your business. Focus on the opportunities we mentioned in this blog post, get that sense of agency back by actually using this time to make progress and prepare.
Love you all, take care and stay safe and A BIENTOT!
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