⚠️TOUGH LOVE ALERT ⚠️

I’ve posted about this on Instagram before, and it always seems to ignite a little fire. No one cares about your Etsy sales number besides you.

Etsy is not a perfect platform, but it is a damn good one. We believe it is the best marketplace handmade business owners have right now. ⁣

Sellers (and some buyers) often gripe about Etsy changes, but for me I find this one UNCHANGED thing is my biggest grips: displaying the seller’s sales number on the homepage of the Etsy shop. It’s been this way since day one and hasn’t changed.⁣

The fact that Etsy publicly displays your sales number has ALWAYS seemed ridiculous to me.⁣⁣

For years, I have heard so many sellers express discomfort with this number on display so publicly.

⁣Etsy sellers take it to mean something about them and their product or as an indicator of success or failure.⁣ It’s not.

For full show notes for this episode and a list of all episodes visit merriweathercouncilblog.com/144

What problems do non-essential, luxury, handmade products solve?

Great question, maker!

Oh, you’re only asking because it showed up on some ideal customer avatar worksheet? There’s a reason you keep bumping into this question. It can be hard to answer. 

You might think of other issues people regularly seem to seek to fix like weight loss or better health or learning a new language or skill. Again, likely your product doesn’t address those.

The problems your product does solve are still worthy of investment though. The people who have those problems absolutely agree.

Your non-essential, luxury, just for fun, handmade item DOES solve someone’s problem though. To figure out what problem that might be, you need to expand your understanding of what a problem is.

For full show notes and all the links mentioned in this episode please visit merriweathercouncilblog.com/143.

I’m excited to dig into the big sometimes-scary topic of investing in your business today. 

For the past ten (nearly 11) years, I have been operating and making financial decisions about my businesses. I have spent about half that time working with small business owners full time, so I am very familiar with all the hesitations and concerns of making business investments. It might surprise you to know that I have found most of those concerns are the same regardless of how significant the investment is.

It’s important to note that investing and spending money is so personal. How and where we each spend our money is our business. It’s absolutely none of my business what you choose to do with your money. I am regularly asked about investing, though. I want to give my response to those inquiries a bigger platform here on the blog. 

For full episode notes and links mentioned in this episode visit merriweathercouncilblog.com/142.

Season 8 of The Merriweather Council Podcast has landed! I cannot believe this is the start of our 8th podcast season!! 

If this is your first time listening to The Merriweather Council Podcast, welcome! The Merriweather Council is a female-owned and operated small business that provides support resources for makers in business. Our mission is to lead makers to turn their crafty tendencies into profits and become empowered business owners who thrive on their own terms.

We have already published over 130 episodes of The Merriweather Council Podcast; you can see them all right here. To kick this season off, I will highlight one episode from each season that is worthy of the re-listen (or first-time listen!)

For full show notes for this episode and links to all the highlighted episodes please visit merriweathercouncilblog.com/141.