enJOY it by Elise Blaha Cripe

this is what's next for my business story.

My word for 2014 is whole.

I thought it was going to be a more personal word, but I realized as I've looked back at this year, that what I have been doing most with my work is trying to tell the whole story.

I'm sharing the behind the scenes with MAKE29 products and so many of my blog posts. I'm asking others to do the same each week on the podcast. I just spent a month sharing what my business path looked like.

I know (because I have done it) that it's really easy to look out at Blogland and see ducks floating on a lake: it appears super serene, well-lit and calm above. But when you take a peek underwater, there is a lot of intense paddling going on underneath. (Those donuts aren't going to photograph themselves.)

And so, in the spirit of sharing the whole story, I'm excited to announce (way too early) my plan for a new product:

In 2015, I'll be launching a day planner/goal setting workbook.

I absolutely believe that the only way to make progress on your BIG GOALS is to take small steps EVERY DAY. This product will help you combine the two into one rad, well-designed spiral bound book.

Some of you are thinking "What? Lame. I have an app for that." And (hopefully) others of you are thinking "What? Cool! Can't wait!" But I doubt that too many people are thinking, "Wow. Elise is launching a planner? How totally off-brand and out of left field."

This is my DUUUUUUH, project. As in, of course I would like to try and make my own planner, how did I ever think of wooden ampersands before this?

It's happening. And if all goes as planned (pun intended) it's going to be KILLER.

I am working with Jolby & Friends out of Portland, Oregon on the design. It will be produced in the USA. It will be full of useful space and it will be meant to get scribbled in. This is not a fancy "let's decorate it!" book. This is a GET TO WORK BOOK^TM. (Don't worry though, it's going to look good too.)

The catch is that it's October 30 and I'm telling you about a day planner that will not be available on January 1. This is a risk because Blogland (including me!) tends to want stuff...yesterday.

But hey, it is what it is.

Instead of staying secret and dancing around it for six months, I've decided to share the process as I work on this new project because that's what I like to do.

So, the current plan is to sell the first edition of the planner early next summer. It will be designed for use from July 2015-June 2016 following an academic calendar. This will sort of be a "soft-opening" for me to see how things go and get an idea about quantities. I love that I can stress the "you don't have to start working towards your dreams on January 1" message (which is true) and I know that some people - like students, teachers, parents and new college grads - might like to work with the academic calendar anyway.

Then there will be a big launch of the 2016 traditional annual planner. (And hopefully more to come after that.)

I'm waiting what feels like forever to launch because first of all, MAKE29 deserves it's due. I have three more ideas I am excited to work on and share. But second, and more important: I don't want to rush it. This is the product that I can see really growing. It's a planner right now but in five years, it could also be a desk calendar. A wall calendar. A notebook. A wholesale line. An app. A goal-setting community website (with a much catchier title than that). 

But that is not important today. What's important right now is that I make the best product I can.

There are some really cool features being worked into this planner. Different concepts that I haven't seen before (though I am sure they've been done by someone). But more important than the "extras" is the fact that this is going to be a planner built for practicality. I am testing every design we come up with (literally working with the pages at my desk on a daily basis) to make sure it's IDEAL for keeping track of to-dos and making progress on your goals.

So, that's the news. That's the finale. Exciting? Hopefully! Anti-climatic? Very possibly! Over-hyped?! Almost always! But what's that saying? Sometimes the journey is better than the destination? Let's hope!

Thank you so much for reading. Cheers to following your dreams.

love and thumbs-up emojis, elise

ps: did you miss the small business story? start with post one and work your way through all eleven.

this is my business story : part eleven.

read part ten here.

After having a baby in 2013, I entered 2014 feeling a bit more like myself. I had a plan to close the stamp shop, launch MAKE29 and start the podcast. Basically in that order.

As I mentioned earlier, my markup on stamps was not enough to grow or fuel this business and truthfully, I was bored and ready to move on. If I can't get excited about my own product, how I can expect anyone else to? So closing shop was an easy and non-stressful decision.

I was ready for the next thing: MAKE29. I have written a lot about this already but in sum : the goal of MAKE29 is to figure out what's next for me. I am experimenting with a lot of different mediums, products and price points to see what works. I used MAKE29 as a reason to launch a newsletter and have rebuilt parts of my website to support it.

MAKE29 has been a phenomenal learning experience and creative exercise for me. A huge amount of my energy this year is going into developing the 12 editions and creating a shopping experience that focuses on the story behind the products I am selling. I have just three editions to go and I am 99% sure I know what they are going to be. Maybe the most important thing to note is that I'm still loving this project. Usually, 3/4 of the way through something, I'm itching for the next thing, but (maybe because the products have been so varied?) that's not the case this year.

In April, I launched my podcast. I've talked about the process of starting the podcast, but I never shared why I decided I wanted to host a podcast. In fall 2013, for a online workshop at Big Picture, I hosted a video chat with some students. For an hour I answered questions live via video. I finished that super chat hyped up. I came out from the office nearly giddy and told Paul I wanted to be doing something like that.

What if I hosted something similar to small business owners like me? People could pay a small fee to take the class and then I would just talk for an hour or so about whatever came up, answering questions along the way. We agreed it sounded fun, but complicated. So then I thought maybe I could do one-on-one coaching and question-and-answer sessions via skype. That also sounded fun, but also redundant.

So then I realized I should just do a podcast. Same idea: I get to talk about business, other people (including me) get to learn about business. There's no initial money, but there is also no pressure or expectation. I'm "giving away" content but learning so much. I am so glad I went this route instead of the others.

Throughout everything, you have probably noticed that the blog keeps chugging away. The blog is the foundation for all of this and I am well aware of it. Some people can run a business without a blog. Right now, I am not one of them. 2014 has felt very natural at the keyboard and I have enjoyed writing so much this year.

This summer, thanks to the blog, I had the opportunity to speak at WDS. It was the coolest thing I have ever done (other than normal life milestones like graduating college, becoming a family, finishing Harry Potter, discovering a new show on Netflix, etc.). If you're curious, I didn't get paid to speak at WDS. I didn't notice a major uptick in blog hits or shop sales in that month or the months that followed. It hasn't really contributed to my bottom line in a tangible way yet. So, why, I wondered, does it feel so huge compared to other things I have done? What I realized is that at WDS, for the first time, I was able to speak in real life about my real passion.

And my real passion, I've learned over the past decade, is not working in a tall building and wearing a suit. It's not making frames, mini books or Project Life spreads. It's not blogging. It's not taking photos. It's not selling art prints or plant stands. It's not decorating playing cards or my house. It's not planning an orange and gray wedding or sewing quilts. 

My passion is helping people realize that what they want is attainable through a bold statement and hard work. My about page has said this clearly since 2010:

The one piece of information that I would want a reader of this blog to take away is everything is what you make of it. Have a goal? Write it down. Then set a plan and make it happen.

At WDS I was able to stand up and share that message. I was able to look back on my seemingly random body of work and see that the thing that holds it all together is the idea that I feel my best when I am actively pursuing a goal. It was awesome speak to such a wide variety of people about one unifying subject.

After WDS, I had a chance to speak on the phone with book agent about writing a book. What's held me back in the past and continues to hold me back now is that I don't just want to write a book to write a book. I want to write a book because I can't not write a book. Today, I feel like I can say everything I need to say through the blog or an ecourse or the podcast. Maybe someday the current outlets I have won't be enough and that will be the day I get working on the rad table of contents I have saved on my iPhone notes app.

In the meantime, I've told this story. I've written over 9500 words to share how I believe I got from A to B. After hammering this out, I have realized it's less complicated than it seemed, but that might be due to selective memory.

Here's what I know: I feel better about my career path today than I felt in 2003, 2007, 2010 or 2012. I feel like everything I've done has led me exactly to here. And here is a pretty great place to be.

About two months ago, I had My Idea. Elise's Big Idea, if you will.* I figured out what the point of all this (the reading, the writing, the business major, the marketing emphasis, the Type A personality, the retail working, the handmade, the selling, the teaching, the PR internship, the stamps, the oversharing, the speaking, the everything) has been and (finally) found The Product that I am supposed to be working on. It's not MAKE30. It's not a book. It's not bread baking. It's (tragically) not the 2014 version of The Baby-Sitter's Club.

I'll share more about it tomorrow, in the final installment. I'll warn you though, the path to getting that product to market is longer than my average four day turn-around and we won't "see" it until next spring.

to be continued...

*I'm not ashamed to admit that on 10/14, when I figured out a way to bring this story full circle I high-fived myself.

Today on ELISE GETS CRAFTY I am chatting with author Kari Chapin about following creative dreams. Click here to subscribe or stream the episode from your computer here.

this is my business story : part ten.

read part nine here. 

One of the greatest mistakes that I have ever made was assuming that I could do it all at the same time.

I planned to take a two month "maternity leave" when I had Ellerie. But what I didn't come up with was a plan for after the maternity leave ended. I somehow thought that I could actively raise a kid and actively grow a business without help. I'm not sure why I thought this. It's true, many people, all over the world, successfully do both by themselves. But many people, all over the world, also return to work and have childcare.

In retrospect, I (and my family) would have benefited greatly if I had realized earlier that I was in the later group.

I also kind of sucked at really taking a "maternity leave." I kept blogging on occasion while on break. I have mixed feelings on this. I'm so grateful that I got those thoughts into real words, but I also realize that while this blog is still personal and authentic to who I am, it is no longer just an outlet. It wasn't fair to me that I treated it like that.

I put a lot of pressure on myself those early days of motherhood and boy, was I a mess. It wasn't until I started writing, editing and re-reading this business story that I realized what I went through my fall semester of college was very similar to my transition to motherhood. This description of how I handled the job application process?

I was totally insane. Totally overwhelmed. Totally over-reacting. Totally panicked.

It is word-for-word how I felt as a new mother.

You don't need to be a detective (or play one in BlogLand) to see the reason. I am really bad at handling life when things feel like they are spinning out of my control. Waiting for someone else to give you a job is not great when you're super Type A. Bringing home a newborn and recovering from surgery while your husband is deployed is not great when you're super Type A (let's get real, none of those three things are great when you're Type A). Raising a kid and trying to run a business at the same time is not great when you're super Type A.

Obviously, in both cases, I found my footing. I have grown the most (by far) in the years when my Type A personality was forced to take a few punches. But it took a tremendous amount of letting go, time and some honest conversations with (what felt like) everyone I knew to get to a point where I didn't sob at the drop of a hat. It took me months to recognize that I needed help. And then once we got some, it took even longer (almost a year) to realize that we still needed more.

In the job hunt and the post-birth "balance" quest I had to recognize that what mattered was what I needed, not what anyone else thought was important. While I have no regrets about the path I took to finding a job, I would go back and change a few things about how I handled my transition to motherhood.

I so wish I would have gone easier on all three of us those first few months. I wish I could have believed the people who told me it will all even out and be okay. I also wish I would have planned from the beginning that we'd get part-time childcare. Before I went on maternity leave, my job was contributing substantial income and we always expected that I would keep working. It would have saved me so much guilt and stress and sadness if I known to do that I needed help.

photo from last week. credit : Amy Tan

Today, Monday, October 27, things are good. My girl is in so many ways already my best friend and it's so true what they say, every single day (somehow!) gets better. I wrote out this whole saga because this experience was life-changing (obviously) but it was also another turning point in my career.

I am a different business owner today (more decisive, more secure and more efficient) than I was before Ellerie. Having a baby rocked my world, but also made it a brighter and better place. It's also lit a creative fire like I will never be able to describe. I can't really figure it out, but I know a huge part of it is that I've become more comfortable with who I am and what I really want/need to be doing. This past year (2014), despite what felt like a crazy schedule and some growing pains, has been by far the most satisfying year for me creatively.

to be continued...read part 11 here.

this is my business story : part nine.

read part eight here.

I entered 2012 without much of a plan for how I'd make money. There was no plan for anything really. Paul was still deployed. Our new townhouse was mostly decorated. I was running out of steam on prints and minibooks. My online workshops felt like they had run their course. I really had no idea what was next.

At the end of December 2011, I had received an email from Becky Higgins asking if I wanted to try out the Project Life scrapbooking system. While it hasn't entered my business story too much yet, scrapbooking was always in the background (and sometimes foreground) of what I've been doing on the blog since the beginning. I have shared many paper projects over the past few years (though admittedly, not many these last few years as my interests have shifted a bit).

I was flattered to be asked by Becky and excited to try a new documentation method. Six weeks after sharing my weekly spreads (most of which included cards I had made) on the blog, I got an email from Becky asking if I wanted to design a new edition of Project Life that would launch in 2013. At the time only two editions were released each year this felt like a huge & unreal opportunity. I didn't have the Adobe Illustrator skills needed and so I teamed up with my friend Meredith Carty (hire her for design work, she's rad). In secret, over the course of six months, I conceptualized the kit.

Meanwhile, in May 2012, I opened the stamp shop. Talk about a game changer. There was no long-term plan here except for the fact that I really wanted a THIS in an arrow in stamp form. I ordered one for myself and shared a photo of it. The response was positive and so on a whim, I designed six more stamps with a similar feel. I launched the stamps and had an overwhelming response those first few days, selling something like 500 stamps. It was completely unprecedented and I was not prepared. Neither was my stamp producer and it ended up taking me three weeks to get the designs to customers.

With the rubber stamps, I transitioned away from Etsy and started self-hosting through e.junkie for more customization and less fees. A few months later I completely rebranded my website (it looked a lot like it does today) to reflect my new venture. At the time, this felt like it. If you'd asked, I would've guessed that rubber stamps were going to be my new career path. My designs were incredibly simple, but they sold well. I loved using them and enjoyed creating samples which helped keep them moving.

In retrospect though, this was not a sustainable long-term business. My markup wasn't high enough to expand and sell them wholesale because I was selling them at just over double the cost it took to have them made. I was having them produced in the USA (yay!) but the factory was on the East Coast so orders took awhile to get to me and it was hard to keep the right stamps in stock to meet demand.

Regardless, it was fun product to sell. Every few months I would launch a new "line" and continued to add to the shop. New designs always sold but never at the rate and speed of that initial launch. My biggest sellers continued to be from those first six designs.

In August 2012, the fact that I was connected to the Seafoam kit was announced and it was a really exciting time. The response was positive and it was incredibly satisfying to have my name on a product that people wanted to use. At the time, the Seafoam kit (still available for sale here) was the biggest thing I had done. You would think that I could look at my resume and think "Oh that's it. That's the moment where I 'made it'." But if I've learned anything from this path is that there's no such thing. No one event is where you've "made it." It's a constant process of "making it."

I used to think "If only I could get X amount of hits." or "If only I could get a mention on X's blog." or "If only I could sell X amount of product." or "If only I could have the opportunity to do X." But over many years I have had some of those things happen. I have gotten the hits or the mention or the sales, only to realize I'm still exactly me. Those big things are exciting and satisfying but they are also just a blink. There is no "made it."

I'm always thinking about what will be the next thing. I understand that that might sound discouraging; I've been called out on it before. But for me it's so encouraging. I love this entrepreneur life. I've signed on to it because it's inspiring to be working towards a finish line that moves. If that finish line stops moving, I'll know it's time to pack up my desk and find a new career path.

2012 was a really big and great year. The stamps felt like the start of something. The kit design process was so much fun. Towards the end of the year I teamed up with the A Beautiful Mess girls to teach an ecourse on blog web design (version two of this class is available here) that had incredible reach and really pushed me to develop my own coding skills. I was riding a high and I entered the new year excited about the business but mostly looking forward to welcoming a baby in the summer of 2013.

The first half of 2013 moved fairly quickly, especially from a business standpoint. Most of my money those months came from pre-existing online workshops, stamp sales and affiliate programs. I wasn't thinking about growing the business or trying anything new because I was so singularly focused on getting our baby out and becoming a mom.

Those months really are a blur, but I vividly remember being 36 weeks pregnant and telling someone I was looking forward to the "challenge" of fitting a baby into the fold.

[Insert manic laughter here.]

to be continued...read part ten here.

this is my business story : part eight.

read part seven here.

Sometimes when I start talking money or financial goals people get a bit nervous. "Oh, I hate to think about the money." Or "Oh I'd rather not discuss money."

But, let's get real, to make money you've got to think about the money. As we learned from The Baby-Sitters Club and Kristy's Great Idea, money comes when you recognize a need and you get organized enough to fill that need.

You don't have to talk about the money with everyone (like I apparently want to do) but you have to find someone (even if it's your accountant or your journal) to talk with about the money. To make a real go of owning your own small business, you have to be realistic about what sort of income you want to be bringing in.

My dad always says that "money is a tool to get things done" and it can really help to think of it like that. Money is not the finish line, money is a tool to keep you participating in the race. I'm not trying to make piles of money so I can stack them up and sit on them. I am trying to generate income so that my family can work towards the lifestyle that we want to live. That's it.

Setting a financial goal for my business in 2011 was a tremendous turning point. Having a dollar goal made it real. This is something real now that I am doing. If I hit my $30,000, I've succeeded. If I don't I have failed. Obviously it's much more complicated than that but it helped me to really see the numbers as black-and-white.

Financial goals also encouraged me to think more about what actually made sense from a money standpoint. I quickly realized that selling sidebar ads for $50 to four-six small shops a month wasn't going to make that big of a dent in my $30,000 goal. I also had to really consider if for $200-$300 a month I was willing to give up my own retail space. Between giveaways and welcome sponsor posts, I was sacrificing my own brand and content for a small percentage of the income I was hoping to earn. In my case, that wasn't worth it. (This was the first sign that I was a business with a blog and not a blog that's a business, you can hear more about this on podcast episode 014b.)

Around this time I remember transitioning towards affiliate programs and away from sidebar sponsors. I vividly remember blogging about a pair of gap shoes and then getting comments and emails that many people had bought them. "Man," I thought. "I wish I had made commission on those sales." I started looking for more affiliate programs that would make sense with my blog.

Thankfully, over the past few years affiliate programs have grown stronger to help support bloggers AND brands. Today I rely on affiliate programs for small but steady income. (You can read more about this here.) For me, this works well since I am always going to be trying and blogging about new things. I'm selective about what I share and I don't think it takes away from my products or "brand" to use affiliate programs. I am careful to disclose these programs (and really everything business related that I do) so that you don't ever think I'm "trying to trick you." Honesty is more important than $$, obviously.

But back to the financial goals. Setting a number to hit also helped me think more logically about my product output. If, for example, I planned to sell a widget that netted me three dollars, I would have to sell 10,000 widgets to hit my goal. Realizing that makes it clear that I would need to drastically improve my reach, raise prices per widget or diversify what I am doing.

In 2011, I knew I'd never net $30,000 on poster prints and mixed paper books alone. So the first big thing that I launched was Blog 2.0, a web design class for TypePad bloggers. I put so much work into that class and I am still proud of it. I priced it at $115 which even now makes me a little nervous. But it sold. My first class was capped at 40 so I could offer one-on-one help and it was a success. I made about $4000 after fees and was beyond thrilled.

That class, with what felt like a very high price point, was a game changer for me. It lead to bigger teaching opportunities in the following years and showed me that taking risks can be worth it. That nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach? That can be a very good thing.

In June 2011, Paul and I were in Palm Desert before he headed off to his first deployment. I remember hitting $15,000 (half my yearly goal) on June 30. We celebrated with mimosas at 9am in the morning. This crazy job? This crazy career path? I might be able to make it work.

Paul deployed in August 2011 and suddenly I had more free time than I knew what to do with. I packed up our beloved San Diego apartment and moved to a new townhouse in Oxnard in December. At this point in my "career," blogging had become second nature. I was easily writing every day and developing editorial calendars quickly. My photography was finding its own groove. I was increasing traffic again thanks to the DIY focus (and pinterest friendly content) of the 26 Projects.

I was still selling on Etsy and my biggest sellers were season-focused mini books that I worked on along-side with customers, often sharing video tutorials (this category is an example). I sold about 250 of my summer books and maybe 150 holiday books. I was experimenting more with product launch hype and created my first video trailer.

When I think back on this time, I was in such a bubble. What I was doing felt totally independent from what anyone else was doing, although I was just starting to meet my online friends in real life. As you've learned from this series, my career has progressed slowly - in part because it's just been me alone and there has been no one else to bounce things off or push me to expand. In many ways I am grateful for this bubble. It's helped me figure out how I work best and what I really like. When I do collaborate with others these days, I feel like I have a stronger voice to bring to the conversation.

After a year of different things: a big online course (and two successful reruns), many (many) mixed paper books, affiliate programs, a deployment and my first big year of sharing DIY projects, I was still in that bubble but had found my grove. I had reached my $30,000 goal and was excited to think 33% bigger in in 2012.

to be continued...read part nine here.

Today on ELISE GETS CRAFTY I am chatting with author, Kim Werker about letting creativity be ugly. Click here to subscribe or stream the episode from your computer here.