After 23 years of markets,
finally a sale a day online.

Hi Mei,

How are you? I am a mature age participant (yes a granny of nearly 60) of your course and have benefitted from it soooo much!

Initially I joined because I wanted to start a business in jewellery, which I did. With the help of all aspects of the course I set up my first website, learnt about basic online marketing and many, many other things besides.

It taught me about the process from photographing the product, with white backgrounds, and lifestyle photos, and the entire process of getting them onto a Shopify website with product description, and SEO.

Now the thing with that lovely business is that I had to share the profits with my daughter and we weren’t getting paid enough for it. The jewellery prices had a ceiling below what we needed. I gave it to her to do with what she likes, because mums do that.

But this was an amazing stepping stone in learning and honestly, I learned from each month because your “A sale a day” course was exactly what I needed.

My husband and I have had a business for over 23 years in recycled timber picture frames. We have had great moments with it where we earned an enormous amount and have brought up 4 children on this business.

But! We were doing markets, festivals, fairs, wholesale events and more. When we look back on this we realise just how intensely hard we worked, especially hubbie Simon.

Making recycled timber picture frames out of Australian hardwood is incredibly hard work. People think it’s romantic but no, it’s a massive slog actually. Once the kids became independent Simon became overworked from working so hard to provide for his big family for so many years.

At the same time there was a recession and cost of living has risen in Australia resulting in a big reduction in sales. Not only that, competition from the international market is fierce. With globalisation there are now so many stunning products from creative people from all over the world. I am for globalisation, but our sales were dwindling.

We are a pretty tenacious couple, which is why we have survived 23 years of a crafts business. Our attitude has always been, well let’s work this out, let’s see where we can improve. Not to give up but to keep being creative. What on earth should we do to keep ourselves afloat in a country where there is almost no manufacturing business left, where creative people are really copping it because of a variety of reasons. Someone wise told me: Well, actually you just have to be the best!

Simon and I have retired from doing markets thanks to everything I have learnt and applied from your course. We are making a sale a day, which is great, because this is enough to give us a modest income. In the last 2 weeks we have received via the website: an order for 7 dress mirrors for people who are creating a luxury retreat for 18 people on a small island on the Barrier Reef, a bulk order from an architect (second order) that specialises in sustainable living with her interior design and architecture business. And on top of that we have an order from the government (second order) for a good number of frames which they are using in an award ceremony. All advertising gold!

Where do the benefits from your course come in? Simon and I knew just about nothing about how to move the business online in a professional way. We had a website made by overseas people that was so embarrassing, even the English was bad! Extremely bad.

Having dabbled with Shopify with the jewellery business in combination with doing your course I was prepared to help make a big shift from doing markets, etc to moving the entire business online. That is no small feat. I needed everything in your course because it is completely designed for crafts people and artists. There are so many baby steps to create a good online shop and business. I needed everything in your course. We are still using your course to refer to because all the baby steps are covered. There is even a free Facebook master class which I have used part of to create successful FB ads. The list of benefits is too long to mention.

Altogether with changing from the jewellery business to finishing putting Wombat Frames online and getting a sale a day it has taken me about 1 ½ years of part time work, but at least 3 days a week. It’s a lot of work. Especially when we are competing with major businesses. This also included doing your course though and took extra time because everything had to be learned. I am still learning lots all the time.

Our website is on the front page for lots of keywords. We are lucky that we have a niche product. (that’s probably because it’s so much work lol). Our big orders have come from Google Search. The everyday orders come from Facebook.

We have learnt so much and are still learning a lot, which is something we enjoy because it’s all very creative and interesting. One of the big advantages for us creatives is that we can make lots of things look good! And we enjoy being creative in the photography, copy writing and making ads etc etc.

Big hug for thanks for all your hard work! You’ve helped us more than you’ll ever know.

Gabrielle Marlow