My Experience at the HelloEtsy Conference

This weekend was a global event held by Etsy bringing together small business owners to discuss human scale economies.

Human scale Economies:

a place where prosperity is measured not in dollars but in happiness and durability.

There were conferences with livestream broadcasting in Berlin, Germany, Booklyn, NY, Los Angeles, CA, San Francisco, CA, Washington, D.C., and here in Portland, OR.

Want to hear about my experience? Here we go.

I spent all of Saturday at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, attending seminars and watching streamed broadcasts of talks in other parts of the world. It was a great opportunity to connect with my peers, learn skills to find new success.

The first message of the day still ringing in my ears came from speaker Jack Joyce, the CEO of Rogue Ales:

I am not selling a product. I am selling a part of a journey, a ticket to the game.

He kept telling us it was all about repeatable stories. And all day long I was struck by the importance of repeatable stories. Every speaker seemed to add punch and glory to their presentations by having some good repeatable stories. Every successful business mentioned was brought up via a notable story. Stories play such a valuable role in our lives as small business owners: they put a face on our brand, they make us memorable and they serve as a catalyst for conversation.

I love a good story, and it made so much sense to me the role that repeatable stories play in incredible branding and professional success. And Jack tells a great story! He is very funny and I love listening to him talk about his business. Rogue Ales is an amazing local business, the list of things they are involved in is a mile long and never ceases to amaze me. One thing he mentioned that struck me:

Rogue Ales has never made any attempt to grow bigger, they have just worked to get better.

This message was repeated throughout the day, both in Portland and Berlin. A message about making your business better.

The keynote speaker at the Berlin conference, Chad Dickerson, the CEO of Etsy, was streamed online and after lunch we all watched it together in the commons of PNCA. He spoke about Courage.

When he was asked by an audience member what to do when courage fails you, his response was to get up out of bed each day and think how can I make it better today. He emphasized it was all about the small steps to make it better.

Again the message was not about how to grow our businesses, but rather, how to work harder to make them better. And I must say, it was his repeatable stories that made him personable and fun to watch. Here it is if you would like to check it out:

Watch live streaming video from etsy at livestream.com

It was clear throughout the day that the most successful businesses are owned by extremely passionate people. I know for sure that my enthusiasm for my work is what keeps me going. And seriously, persistence is key.

The keynote speakers here in Portland were the owners of Stumptown Coffee and QueenBee Creations. Both companies have grown recently and I've head about it thru media outlets like Facebook. Both companies needed more money and the paths they each chose were very different. Stumptown took on investors and was shredded in the press for doing so. QueenBee also faced needing more money and considered investors, but in the end decided to shrink her business in order to maintain growth.

Want more details than that? Are you a fan of Stumptown and QueenBee and interested in hearing more? Hear it from their mouths directly, here's a video of the talk:

Watch live streaming video from etsy at livestream.com

Back to my experience at the conference... the last session I attended was led by Jackie Peterson, author of "Better Smarter Richer", a great book that serves to help creative small business owners make more money.

Jackie informed us her middle name is "Raise Your Prices" and she likes to tell her clients to do so. Her philosophy on what makes a successful artist wealthy centered around developing a deep and narrow niche. I love this venn diagram she uses to illustrate how we could work to make our businesses better:

She spoke about the pressures and stress of the "Time/Money Squeeze". I swear she pounded the nail right on the head. So many artists like myself have a lot of passion and talent but with the growth of our businesses we experience a serious time/money squeeze. Her answer: develop a very specific deep and narrow niche and set measurable monthly goals, structure your time to meet these goals, and finally Charge More! Remember this is Jackie Raise-Your-Prices Peterson talking here. Words of the wise. She kept re-iterating and illustrating the value of working your business into this very deep and narrow niche.

Can I share a repeatable story that Jackie used in her presentation?

A client of hers, Amy McAuley of Occulus Fine Carpentry, came to Jackie one day for a meeting and told her she had decided to get rid of all her power tools. This seemed shocking, for a struggling professional woodworker to ditch all of her power tools, but she explained to Jackie that she had decided to focus her business on historic window restoration and learning the traditional techniques to do so. In focusing her work on windows created before the introduction of power tools, Amy McAuley had found a incredibly deep and specific niche for her business. This niche was so deep and specific, that within the next few years she became a renowned and sought after historic preservationist and now her business is thriving.

A deep and specific niche. This is what Jackie Raise-Your-Prices Peterson was all about. This niche is the intersection of a great amount of talent, passion and money. Evidently if we want to raise our prices, we need to declare to the world our professional deep and specific niche.

I found this very interesting. I took more notes in Jackie's session than anything else all day. And she has a free online book - check it out (its basically the presentation I attended)

http://www.bettersmarterricher.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/BetterSmarterRicher-free-ebook.pdf

Okay... so this is a very long blog entry, but hey, if you didn't get to attend the conference, or you felt like hearing what I had to say about my experience there... this is it!

Throughout the day I got to revel in my creative community of small business owners. Exchange stories and ideas and create a list of things that I want to do to better my business and nurture my relationships within this community.

videos of some of the talks are available here:

http://www.etsy.com/community/online-labs

and a final quote from one the speakers in Brooklyn, Bill McKibben:

"Community is the key to physical survival in our environmental predicament, and also to human satisfaction."

This Friday is THE Craft Party!

Hey Portland friends - you are invited to the Craft Party!!

There are events at the Museum of Contemporary Craft as well as the Pendleton Woolen Mill

Heres a schedule to get you pumped!

Friday, June 10

Open Craft Activities: 11 am–6 pm
Regular Museum admission ($3 adults)

Craft Party at the Pendleton Woolen Mill: 2 pm–5:30 pm
Etsy sellers bring your business cards!

Craft Party: 7 pm–10 pm
Sliding Scale Donation ($5–$25; Age 21+ only)

Museum of Contemporary Craft
724 NW Davis Street
Portland, OR 97209

Benefitting Quilts for Quake Survivors and Mercy Corps' Japan Relief Fund

Etsy's at it again! I Heart Art: Portland and Museum of Contemporary Craft host an all-day celebration and an evening party in Portland as part of Etsy's Worldwide Craft Party. We've teamed up with the Quilts for Quake Survivors project and Mercy Corps' Japan Relief Fund to reach out beyond our community and raise money to help those in dire need through our own crafty ways.

Daytime

Drop by the Museum during regular hours, 11 am to 6 pm, and craft in the Lab all day long (regular admission applies). Help sew quilts for the Quilts for Quake Survivors project or choose from three different crafting stations: embroidery, Japanese-style papercutting or a Mighty Ugly project.

See the I Heart Art: Portland blog post for details on the daytime schedule.

If you'd like to participate during the day, please RSVP on the Meetup.com page. The tickets available for purchase through this page are for the evening party only.

Visit the Pendleton Woolen Mill from 2-5:30pm and get a tour, play with the woolen craft products, view some pieces from the archives and network with other craft artists.

Evening

At 7:00 pm, the doors will open back up to the Museum and the real party will start! We're taking over the entire space with complete with food, beer and wine, a DJ, and even more crafting stations. Your door donation will get you an entry into the drawing for a whole slew of crafty prizes (books, gift certificates, handmade goods and more!), some food and beverage tickets, and a lot of crafty fun!

Throughout the evening you can rotate through hand-felting, origami, hand-weaving, and make your own crafty artist trading cards. The quilts made for the project will be on display, and Modern Domestic will have them available for sale and sell raffle tickets.

Is your head spinning yet?! This is going to be the biggest, craftiest and most awesome craft party Etsy has ever seen! Plus all proceeds will go to Mercy Corps' Japan Relief Fund, so you can get your craft on and feel good about giving back to those in dire need of help.

Learn more about the QfQ Project and Mercy Corps' Japan Relief Fund.

Im gonna Craft Party for sure. Friday is looking to be a super fun filled day! Who wants to join me!

I Heart Art: Mixer Recap

I went to the IHeartArt Mixer last night - it was amazing and crazy and awesome. I want to share what the experience was like from the artists perspective, first let me explain what it was:

WHAT: speed dating event for artists to meet local shop owners and buyers
WHEN: Sept 1st, 2010

WHERE: Design Within Reach in the Pearl, Portland Oregon

sponsored and hosted by PNCA, IHeartArt and Etsy

WHY: a catalyst for local shops to find new local handmade goods to sell in their retail stores - also an opportunity for vendors to practice presenting their work

Here is a list of the participating retailers:

The Gallery at Museum of Contemporary Craft, The Joinery, Local Goods, Mink Boutique,Moxie, Powell's Downtown, Presents of Mind, Radish Underground, Redux, Relish, Seven Planet,Sword + Fern, Tender Loving Empire, Tilde, Trillium Artisans, Twill, Union Rose, ZimZim

Applications went out a few weeks ago and then there was a lottery where 60 artists were chosen at random to participate. It was a free event, unjuried, you simply had to be capable of filling wholesale orders and providing a line sheet. I got an email that I was invited (my name was drawn in the lottery) and then another email detailing the event. It was intense. Well organized and super crazy all at the same time.

Everyone arrived around 6pm and there was mingling while we went thru the registration process. Deschutes Brewery supplied a free bar that kept flowing until they ran out. Creme puffs, fruit and sandwiches were also provided to keep the crowd content while they waiting for their moment. Some additional shop owners and local craft celebs were there to mingle and chat with the restless crowd, their nametags said "Superstar!" They were there to encourage us with pep talks and success stories. This all occured downstairs in the DWR chair gallery. It was hot and crowded. A bit intense. Have I said that yet, that it was really intense!?

I was in the first group of artists that was led upstairs to enter the speed dating arena. The shops were set up in 16 stations around the room. We sat in exquisite furniture as we introduced ourselves to these shop owners, one after another. 2 minutes exactly for each station, 16 stations only taking a little over a half an hour - but it felt like a workout! Isaac was running around with a bull horn yelling at us to change stations and letting us know when we were about to run out of time. I was a bit sweaty by the end. Maybe it was the intensity, perhaps the heat of a combined vulnerability of all these people. It was something awesome.

As I walked around and took pictures the energy was amazing; the shop owners were so focused on the artists pitching them and the artists all had their amazing samples:wonderful paintings, plush monsters, clothing, accessories, you name it... simply awesome. Once I joined the pitching line, I quickly had to laugh at the whole experience. It was crazy! I was not familiar with some of the shops, and that was my error. There was no time for social niceties (ie them introducing themselves and telling me what types of things they sell, what their space is like and what kind of buying structure they use) None of that, just 2 minutes of crazy fast pitching myself. Me talking about me. And then standing up and going to the next station to do the same thing. Some of the shop owners knew me, some were familiar with my work. Some were a really good fit and I look forward to working with them. It was a very positive experience.

My pitch was pretty simple: I had a basket with a few samples in it, mostly small things that would sell well in a gift shop and I brought my book to show pictures of my work. Also in the basket were cards and line sheets, just in case any of the shops were interested in carrying my work. The book was a hit, everyone liked looking at the pictures of my work and loved my sweet book. I also had one mobile hung from a hoop I clipped to the basket, I think it looked sorta fun. I wore a colorful pair of earrings as well. There were 2 kazillion pictures taken that night, and I dare say my dorky little basket of mobiles was a hit!

I did this event because as an artist I avoid going into stores and pitching myself. Frankly, it makes me uncomfortable and I simply don't do it. So I thought this event would light the fire under my ass to find a few new business relationships out there in the Portland area. I've never done something like this, but I think its a great idea!

It was a wild success, I hope there are more. Required a lot of hard work and organization behind the scenes... for that I want to share a big thank you to the IHeartArt crew and all the supporting folks who made this event happen. I just kinda signed up and showed up with my camera... and a few samples...

Thumbs up!

Tea Time in Laurelhurst Park

Its finally warm outside (although not in the morning lately) and time for tea parties in the park! Well, this is not so much a party - but a get-together. I call it Tea Time - it all started as a way for local makers and sellers on Etsy to get together and chit chat about their businesses and

network with each other. Anyone is welcome to come, its a lovely group of local creative people that get together when we can, bring our crafts and some snacks.

If you can make it - this Thursday (July 22nd) out in Laurelhurst Park - anytime between 10am and 2pm - NE corner of the park (near Ankeny Street) - find a group of chatting crafting ladies sitting at a picnic table. Its lovely. Even if you can only make it for a little bit of time... I will be there around noon - see you there!

Its a Party!

I'll be there! You should come out to this Meet n' Greet party!

this Friday - the 26th - 6:30pm at PNCA
free drinks and snacks
click the hand for more info

Exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Craft

I have some work in a small exhibit at the MoCC. Check it out! I took pictures in case you can't make it to the Museum in person.
Its a great exhibit of DIY things you can find and buy on Etsy that are all made by artists here in Portland Oregon. Its part of a new relationship between the Museum, Etsy and PNCA. My little mobile making kit is included amongst good company...
A cheese making kit! This one really caught my eye... Tim and I have been talking about making cheese for Valentines Day... wouldn't that be fun!? Maybe?
A bag from Bossa Nova Baby - I love how they displayed it stuffed with yarn :)
And this awesome table (I didn't know that it came in pieces and you assemble it like a puzzle and paint the individual pieces how-ever you would like!)

There are many more goodies in the exhibit... it'll be at the MoCC for the next few months up in the Labs.

the Sampler - Portland City Shout Out

Today I received a little Google Alert to show me that CraftZine Blog gave me a little shout out as one of samples in the Portland City Sampler. The Sampler is a wonderful company that serves to promote and advertise small businesses to relevant publications and stores. Here is their words to describe themselves:

The Sampler is a super fun marketing & promotional tool for indie businesses. Each month, independent crafters, artists, shops, zines and record labels who run web-based businesses send samples and promotional materials to a contribution pool. All the samples are photographed, posted to the site and then are portioned out, put in little packages and sent off to Sampler Subscribers, other Sampler Contributors and members of the Media all over the world!

I've participated twice, I like the business model, as I'm all about gorilla marketing. The cost of advertising with this company is the cost of the samples you submit and the shipping to get them all to the Sampler in time. If you are curious about submitting, here is a link with FAQs.

This second time I have submitted some samples specifically for the Portland City Sampler, which was organized through the Portland Independant Artist Cooperative. I submitted small little glass bits on wire stapled to a card and put in a cello bag with a sticker and a flier for Aquila. The last time I submitted full on little mini mobiles, I think 30 of them. This second time I knew there were 100 Portland Sampler boxes that would be made total, so I wanted to be in every single one, thus the small easily made in super bulk sample :)

Glass Pendants with Flowers

I could imagine wearing this around my neck. Beautiful.

I am collaborating with a friend to make these glass puddles into lovely wearable jewelry. Judi is a fellow seller on Etsy living here in Portland Or. She and I are both members of PDXEtsy, the local street team. I love her jewelry, and this collaboration will be really fun.

check out her Etsy Store: Curly Girl Glass

I've made up a dozen or so of these pretty puddles... this one in particular really speaks to me. I love how it turn out. The branches underneath the flowers and leaves were really neat, I purposefully made them multicolored and put lots of little nooks and crannies... the way the trees look now outside, I love how the flowers seem to come right out of the gnarly bits of the trees

Spring Sale!

For the rest of the weekend - if you purchase one of these little mini mobiles from my Etsy shop you will get another one FREE!
check it out - I am feeling generous!

and then you can find even more free stuff and great deals on Portland Oregon local handcrafted goodness by going to www.PDXEtsy.com

PDXEtsy BOGO Sale!

The Portland Etsy BOGO SALE!
All day SALE March 15th and 16th
(Saturday and Sunday, PDT)!

Many PDX Etsy Team members are having sales this weekend.
Don’t miss out on these great deals – two days only!
BOGO items will be clearly marked.

In my Etsy shop you can buy any BOGO mini mobile and get another one free with your purchase!!! In fact, in the spirit of the sale, if you buy anything out of my shop, know that you will be getting something free! Whoo Hoo!!!