9 Ways to Get Your Business Name Out There

(This post may contain affiliate links. If you click on them and make a purchase, I will receive a bit of the money you pay. You will not be charged more for the service because of this.)

You have started a handmade business? Excellent! Let's get your name out there.

This list of ideas is a great place to get started. Some ideas may seem old-fashioned, and some are more current. Feel free to use the list as a guidepost--do the things that seem to match your approach, and save the other ideas for another time. (Full disclosure: some of the links below are affiliate links.)

• Website:  Have one. Don't have one yet? I recommend Squarespace or iPage. iPage has a drag-and-drop builder that makes it easy to make your own. Squarespace takes a minute to learn, but has a LOT of features built-in that aren’t built into other sites. They are great for SEO and have modern, polished looking templates.

• Social Media Accounts: 

  • Pinterest is great for driving traffic to your website.

  • An Instagram account is important nowadays, as it is primarily visual, and also hosts videos.

  • TikTok (@amykalinchuk) is very popular right now, and if making short, funny videos is your thing, can help you to gain a following

  • Having a Facebook page is a good idea for general visibility online. Facebook is starting to fall out of favor a bit with social media experts, however. You can post to your Facebook page automatically when you post to Instagram, so it’s easy to post photos and information there.

  • Twitter is good for writers, and again is good to have for general visibility. If you like politics and are an author, it’s a good place for you.

  • YouTube is good for everybody! You can make little videos showcasing your creative process, or introducing yourself, or showing how to use your products. YouTube videos are picked up first in Google searches, so this is highly recommended. You can post videos to YouTube right from your phone—it’s easy!

• Business cards:  Have some with you at all times--hand them to people who ask about your business. Leave a few at your local coffee shop/gym/workplace that encourages this practice. Offer them for swag bags when the show organizer asks for things to put in their bags. Give a few to your spouse to carry around. You may have a local option for business cards. If not, consider Vistaprint or GotPrint. They both know what they're doing.

• (PRE-COVID 19 RECOMMENDATION. WE WILL GET BACK TO THIS AT SOME POINT. HAVE FAITH.)Local Vending: Just do it! Find local shows by doing a Yelp search in your area, then make a list of bookmarks on your web browser of all the interesting shows. When vending, put out a notebook and collect email addresses for your

• Email Newsletter:  Creating and maintaining an email newsletter list is LEGIT targeted marketing. These people signed up  because they WANT to know where you will vend next, what your website is about, etc. I use ConvertKit for my email newsletter. It has a metric tonne of features for tracking clicks to links, tagging particular people regarding their behavior, and online signups. You can even build landing pages through ConvertKit. I am very glad I switched.

• Articles in "The Paper":  Our local news source has a section called "Your Hub," which is for ultra-local news only. Many of the articles are submitted by the readers themselves. Write one and submit it!

• Talk:  Talk about your business! Tell your friends! They will ask for more information, and then you can direct them to your website via your business card! SEE HOW THIS WORKS?

• Make a Video: If you are so inclined, make a little YouTube video that showcases your work, or shows how it's made, or introduces yourself, etc. The People on The Internet love videos. You've got a phone, right? Make one!

• Donate goods:  USE THIS OPTION JUDICIOUSLY. If it won't break the bank, donate your wares to some raffles you hear about, or for your local roller derby team's gift basket for their games, or for your church bazaar raffle, or for your daughter's softball team's uniform fundraiser. You get the idea. ALWAYS remember to include your business card! Don't go overboard on this option, however--exposure is nice, but you can die from it, as well, you know. 

What other ways do you use to get the word out? Let me know in the comments! 

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The Ultimate Outdoor Vending Checklist

I love vending outdoors!

Since 2004, I have been setting up shop at my local farmer's market, selling soap to the masses. Well, back then, there weren't as many masses. Nowadays, it's hard to navigate the street because the market is so packed with people (UPDATE: We were able to still have the market in 2020! Far fewer masses, but the market still happened, as it was an “essential business. We are so lucky!). I am lucky to live in a place that has such a great market so close to home; I am doubly lucky to be a part of that market as a vendor for so long. 

Because I have been around so long on this scene, I often get asked questions about vending, from those new to outdoor vending. The questions range from:

"Do you know the local tax rate? I forgot."

to

"You don't happen to have some duct tape I can borrow, do you?"

The answer to both is, of course, "Yes."  And the tax rate. You get it. 

Aaaanyway, listen, there are lots of things craft business owners need to know when vending outdoors. I could probably do an entire blog or video series on this exact topic, because there are a lot of things to think about for the very specific skill of vending outdoors. There's tent choice and weights, display choices, labeling choices for products, how to TALK TO HUMANS, how to manage the money, how to deal with market managers, etc. Maybe I should do a blog or video series. Maybe I just made my list and I'm copying it and pasting it to a doc right now! (Not maybe, I just did it.)   Let me know in the comments what aspect of outdoor vending you would like to read about. 

As a start, today I am offering you the Ultimate Outdoor Vending Checklist!

When I started vending, I didn't have much. Just a tent, one cheap-ass camping table (You know, those aluminum ones with the cardboard-type top? Ugh.), and a piece of denim to cover the table. The tent was super cheap, from a big box store, and I threw it away at the end of my first season, because it was broken in 4 places and I had to tape it with duct tape in those four places every time I had a show.

Oh, those were the days. Not very well thought-out on my part. 

I got smarter as the years went on, and as I packed my car each time, I mentally checked off everything on the checklist as I packed my car:

"Tent
Weights
Bungee cords
Sign
Tables
Chair..."


and so on. As time went on, I kept forgetting things here and there while vending, and the list got pretty long, so I had to write it down. 

I suppose that's another tip for outdoor vending: write everything down! My memory is just too full for details anymore. 

Since this blog is meant to be helpful to you,  I'm offering you the checklist that I use when getting ready for an outdoor show. I've spiffed it up so it looks nice. Enter your email address below to get yours, and please let me know what you think should be added to it, so I can update it.

​Enjoy your vending! I hope you sell out!

What It's Like to be a Professional Crafter

The Life of a Professional Crafter: A Case Study, is available for free!

I am wrapping up my 17th year as a professional crafter.

Reading that makes me blink. It's hard for me to believe, because I remember nearly every decision, every packaging attempt, every stupid label that jammed my computer. I remember my first day at the farmers market. 

The first day! 

I had a cheap tent, a camp table (you know those? They have aluminum edges and a thick type of cardboard for the top), and a big piece of denim for a tablecloth. I had five piles of soap across this one table, with a label tucked into a wire stand I made for each. 

Five piles of soap. They didn't have a swirl in them. A couple of them had no color in them at all. They were on top of paper bags, presumably to protect the tablecloth. INSERT EYEROLL HERE.

Before I left for this first farmers market, my husband was not very optimistic. He wished me luck, however, and supported me "trying it out." I will always remember how triumphant I was when I came home. 

"Guess how much money I made!" I said. 

"$50," he guessed. 

"$187! Ha!" 

He was impressed. After that, he encouraged me to do the farmers markets, and about 9 years in, I hired him to be my full-time soap maker. I taught him everything I know how to make and now he makes the soap. I make other products, and do most of the vending and the back end of the business, and he makes soap and does grunt work and runs errands. 

We make it work. 

I'm amazed, though, that we are starting our 17th year of this business. Having a handmade business is hard work, particularly when you have a full-time job on top of it. Most people are amazed when I tell them, and I have to chime in that I have help, but they are still impressed that I have a business at all. 

I usually don't tell them that I really have two. 

Writing has been my life for nearly my whole life; I wrote my first book when I was six years old. The Book About Some, Teeth had several riveting chapters about cow and horse teeth (I grew up in Iowa, leave it), and going to the dentist. Every picture of a mouth had about a million and three teeth in it. Best-seller, that one. 

After making soap for a bit, I decided I should write a soap making book. And then I wrote another, and another. I just published my fourth how-to book about making balms and butters. Moving forward, I'm going to be writing more online courses, teaching folks like you how to make your own handmade business work for you.  That link will take you to my first online course, Your Legit Biz.

Being an entrepreneur can be a crazy, disjointed ride. I started out making soap, and now the whole thing is morphing into teaching others how to have a company, and selling what you make. I'm feeling nostalgic about it, as I write this, and then I laugh, because there is NOTHING nostalgic about tearing down a tent in the middle of a pelting hailstorm, freezing my ass off.

Perspective.

If you would like to learn what a year in the life of a lunatic like me is like, then I'm happy to share it with you. I feel like, if people read about what one year is like, then they will know. You will really know what it takes, what kind of planning happens, what sort of decisions need to be made, what kind of pressure there is with time and finances and family. Learning about what it's like before you jump into it is actually pretty smart, I think. I didn't have that opportunity--I just jumped in. 

Ready to jump? Fill out the form below and you can read all about it in my ebook, The Life of a Professional Crafter: A Case Study. 

5 Days to an Organized Business

Hey there! I’m Amy Kalinchuk, and I do a lot of things.

I write, more than anything. I write and publish my own books. I am, of course, writing this blog post right now. I'm a crafter (I've got my first class up on Skillshare! You should check it out!), an entrepreneur (I make and sell  soap and skin care, and have been for 17 years), I play roller derby and workout in a CrossFit gym for sanity, and I have a family and friends. I’m a public school teacher, as well.

Many of those friends have exclaimed, many times, "How do you do this?" Well, they also have to realize, when they are asking me that, is that I haven't seen them in a long time, because I'm busy. But so is everybody--life isn't a busy contest. This is about how to juggle. This is a circus management contest. 

I'm sure there are plenty of bloggers in the Universe who can tell you how to get your home organized. How to organize your closet. Your kitchen cupboards and pantry. Your children's clothing and clothing donation when they grow out of it. 

I am not that person. 

My home is very often a wreck, because we craft for a living. My closet is a disaster (I'm an 80/20  person, for sure). My kitchen has food in it, somewhere. My child's clothing needs a good purge, as she has grown 8 feet the past half year. 

I can live with all of that. I CANNOT live with having my business affairs in a mess. Absolutely not. 

Hey, business is important! This is how you feed your family, right? (Or how you want to feed your family. You’ve thought of starting your own handmade business, haven’t you?) For me, everything else can be a wreck, but come retail tax time, my taxes are PAID, because I set the money aside and planned for it, and I did it efficiently because I had all the records for it at my fingertips. 

Yeah, go ahead. You can be jealous. I'll wait a minute. ::flips hair, looks at watch::

Over the years, I have become very good at organizing my business, it's true. In our crafty circle here in Denver, some call me the Tax Lady, because I know so much about this stuff, and I'm practical about it. I have had to be—I have had years in my business where finances were touch and go, and incurring a late fee would be too much to bear for that month. I’ve had to learn the hard way, but I’ve learned to get and stay organized with the back-end paperwork for my business. If they are going to call me The Tax Lady, I’d better have some semblance of organization. When a vendor friend (“friendor”) comes over to ask me a question, I want to be able to help. Hey, I'm happy to help them--it's not like I have some big secret.

I'm happy to help you, too. 

Fill out the form below and sign up for my free mini-course, 5 Days to an Organized Business! Over the course of a workweek, you will receive an email every day with a link to a private video I have made, outlining my organizational systems. Hopefully you will find some good information, and you can also leave a comment on the video so we can all have a conversation about it, and help with problem-solving. 

Get your act together, and keep it there. This IS your circus.  These ARE your monkeys.  You can do this! ​