Marketing Your Crafts: Build Relationships

As I was filling some orders yesterday, it occurred to me how important developing relationships with local clubs and businesses has been for me as a crafter-for-profit. When we first "retired" to Mexico, I joined a few organizations to meet people and get involved.

When these new friends started encouraging me to sell the type of things I made for them as gifts, I had a ready market. They purchased from me, recommended me to friends, who recommended me … and a home-based business was born.

That was eleven years ago and even though I stopped actively soliciting orders when I closed my little shop five months ago to concentrate on The Artful Crafter website, people continue to track me down for calling cards, brochures and crafts.

This week alone, I’ve done a presentation plaque for a restaurant that hosts our culinary art society, name tags for our garden club and Red Hat society, mass intention cards for our church, and I’m working on logos and brochures for a B&B and a group that raises funds for scholarships. All this to be done in my spare time :-)

When I think back to how I met the people who continue to call on me, most were through the clubs and activities I joined in my first year or two here. I accepted all orders, no matter how small. You never know when someone who only wants some calling cards might purchase a B&B or start a new fundraising effort and come back to you time and time again.