Resolved: 2014 Resolutions - January BBA Team Challenge

The January Challenge for the Blogging Business Artisans Team comes from Edi Royer of memoriesforlifesb. 

Blog about your plans for 2014 and share them with the team. Tell us what you have in store for your Etsy shop as well as your personal life. Feel free to share photos of upcoming projects or just make a list of resolutions/goals.

As I look ahead to 2014, I am inspired by Barbara Caron’s post on her blog, Potentially Brilliant Ideas.

She quoted Emilie Richards’ Somewhere Between Luck and Trust (Goddesses Anonymous):  

Abandon perfection.

  Welcome reflection.  

Nurture connection.

Here’s how I hope to translate those broad objectives into resolutions for the year ahead.

PERSONAL GOALS

Spiritual:         Keep a gratitude journal.

                        Pray daily.

Nurture creativity.  I just joined the Curiously Gorgeous Sisterhood designed by Sarah of A Cat-Like Curiosity to help me achieve that goal!  So excited!  The Etsy Success Newsletter also has a recent post devoted to inspiring creativity: 12 Tips for Creativity All Year Round .  It offers some great insights.

Physical:         Maintain a healthy diet 

                       without being obsessive-compulsive.

                       Walk more.

                       Stay off the Diet Coke.

Mental:           Read at least one good book per month.

                       Take a community college class to 

                        improve photography skills.

Emotional:       Spend less time on the computer and 

                        more time with family.

                        Finish Erin’s graduation quilt - finally!

                        Visit all 9 grandkids in 2014.

                        Don't sweat the small stuff.

Financial:        Maintain a near-austerity 

                        budget with occasional splurges.

                        Save for trips to visit grandkids.

                        Explore health insurance options.

                        Expand free-lance legal research.

ETSY GOALS  – Pasque Flower Creations

$10,000.00 in sales in 2014

500 new orders

Surpass 1,000 total sales in 2014 (I’m at 735 now, so it should happen.)

I will use the Master Plan Brainstorming Worksheet by Valerie William of Everyday Inspired

to create more specific Action Steps to help reach those goals, but here are my Top 10 PFC Resolutions for 2014:

1.  Monetize scraps (Rag rugs, doll quilts, small zip pouches, scrappy lap quilts, other?).

2.  Add personalized/ monogrammed items (learn to use my new embroidery machine).

3.  Expand and promote my oven mitt line -- my best sellers by far.

4.  Promote prairie sunbonnets (the only item other than oven mitts to make my Top 10 Favorites in Shop Stats).

5.  Create new shop sections to maximize SEO and reflect current shop identity.  

6.  Create a Clearance section in an attempt to recoup some of the costs of discontinued or less popular items.

7.  Write fewer but more interesting (hopefully) blog posts.

8.  Increase my number of Facebook followers or bust.  I have only 162 followers at last count.

9.  Explore options to market items in venues beyond Etsy.

10.Improve product photography.

ETSY GOALS – Aunt Pheba’s Vintage

$2000.00 in sales in 2014

150 orders

Have 100 listings by July 1, 2014.

I have only 3 resolutions for Aunt Pheba's Vintage:

1. Add more vintage book listings.

2. Consider adding estate sale finds, particularly jewelry and vintage sewing and quilting items.

3. Improve product photography.

Once the resolutions are written, the challenge, of course, is staying on task.  Gretchen Ruben of The Happiness Project offers 7 Tips for Sticking to Your New Year's Resolutions.

Wishing you the best of everything in 2014!

TTFN

LeAnn