I thought I would do a short update today.

I turned off my shops the second week of December. The reason being, although you have a posted production date people inevitably DO NOT READ. I mean people will think they can have something delivered by tomorrow for no additional charge not even thinking about the time it actually takes to make something. I think a lot of customers are spoiled by Amazon and think the entire world works this way. It is my belief it's better to just shut things down for a couple weeks and finish existing orders and enjoy Christmas.

So that is exactly what I did. I let me employee take time off as I would be shutting down and doing the same. She hasn't worked since as I haven't been busy enough to justify it right now.

Some of you may be wondering how this works with payroll (as I did). I reached out to Gusto Payroll (formerly called zen payroll). So here are the options:

1. Process payroll every week with zero hours. 2. Tell the system to skip payroll (does the same thing as option 1).
3. Suspend your account. So the third option basically puts the system on hold so you don't have to setup everything again. (You can only do this ONCE a year). So you can NOT suspend your accounts several times a year.

For now I went with option #1 as I was anticipating Valentines/Easter to be semi busy. Don't get me wrong it's been fairly steady but not a big increase over last year. Part of that is because some of my blanks were several weeks late coming in causing my selling season for valentines to be shortened. I'm crossing my fingers Easter will pickup. This part of the reason I've gone with the first option, as I can easily have my employee puckup hours here and there.

After Easter I may suspend my account for a few months before the fall craziness starts again. This will allow me to not encur the monthly fee but not loose all my setup. I did ask about how long do I need to activate again before letting them work and was told to try to give them a few days. If I go this route I'll let you know. I did ask what happens to all those taxes etc I need paid on time if I suspend my account and was told there are several exit questions that will ask you all about this (like you want them to still pay your taxes).

Some other interesting things I learned. In the state of Ohio, you have to have X amount of hours your employees have to work before you actually have to pay unemployment fees. So I received a refund from them since my employee only worked a couple months for limited times. So you may also want to look into that for your state.

As of right now I'm just focusing on getting more organized and narrowing my shops focus. I hope everyone has learned from your successes and failures last year and have developed a plan for 2016!

Ok....trying this again. Nothing Like posting a great post and somehow it didn't save!

So here I am back to the fall craziness of my business. The last two years I have worked myself to death. It's only for a few months and clearly at some point I just can't produce anymore than I can physically do. So what do I do?

Hire someone right? Work even more hours? Do less? As I was preparing for the fall holiday season and ordering my blanks for my embroidery business I wanted to order more than last year so that I could produce more. My brilliant husband commented on my decision making..."why are you buying more if you can't produce more"? Good question right? We all want to make more, but if you can't physically make more what is the point?​​

So it was time, I needed to hire someone even if it was just for the holidays. I talked to someone who had a online quilt shop who had successfully hired, employed and grew her business. She gave me advice and told me how she did things etc. I talked to my friend Lisa who has a friend who 1099's her workers etc. I talked to my accountant about hiring an employee versus 1099 and read a lot of articles online as to what to do.

Well it comes down to one thing, an employee is an employee and should be hired as such. Does it necessarily make smarter financial sense? However, I am a rule follower and want to make sure I am not getting fined for not doing what I should be doing.

First thing I did was tried to compare and look up companies that do payroll and take care of the majority of the work for me. I found Zenpayroll ​​​ and found that they seemed to be a good fit for me. It costs $29 for the monthly fee and $6 per employee after a 2 month trial period. Although I don't like having a monthly fee of any kind, I didn't find anyway to avoid this unless I wanted to file and pay all the tax stuff every quarter. I think it probably makes sense in the long term if you have more employees than the big ONE I am hiring, but I have to start somewhere right?

The next step and maybe should be the first step, is finding the right person? Where do you look to hire people. I mean I worked in retail for years and I know how we found people, but where do you find someone to work in your home business? I found mine in my babysitter. I pay my babysitter well ( I mean she watches my 4 nutballs and that's a lot), she has helped me with my craft show (the only one I do) the last 2 years and has done a great job. I told her I would pay her what I pay her to watch my kids. Yes, I wasn't really thinking at the time of all the extra fees and costs associated with having an employee. So i'm saying it here BIG MISTAKE...I should have paid her more than minimum wage, but not what I pay her to watch my kids. I am true to my word and won't go back on that, but hindsight is 20/20 right?

So I filled out all the information on the Zenpayroll​ and discovered some other things I need to add to some government websites for Ohio. I believe I got all of those setup, which was fairly easy to do.

I then started remember all those posters I used to have in my employee break room? Did I need those too? I mean this is in my house. Why yes I do and found a nifty little government tool that helps you figure out which ones you need, found here: click . It is FREE, did you hear that FREE (print on your printer)! So although you will find websites that will offer to send you the posters for a nice large fee, I found this to be the best option for me.

Finally, I discovered I needed workman's compensation insurance? What?. Yes, it's there to protect you and your employees. In Ohio it's through the state, so I had to signup for that. So I believe I signed up for and completed all paperwork that I needed to.

My employee will come on Friday for an hour and then back again on Sunday for a few hours so I can get her involved in the production of my goods. I found a free app called "TimeStation" that is a FREE app that allows you to have your employee (up to 10 for free) clock in and out so that you can keep track of their time. I think this is the best option, considering I would lose a piece of paper with random times on it . With that being said, I know that I need to be able to double my production with the added cost of an employee. However I know it will be an investment in time and money onboarding a new employee and teaching everything I know about my business that has taken me years to figure out. So patience will be a needed virtue I'm sure.

I am sure this will be an expensive adventure, but it's time to learn if this will be beneficial to my business or just an expensive learning experience.​​ There is only one way to figure that all out...and that's to do it! I think if I were to say the one thing I would do differently is, I would have factored in all these extra costs into the pay of my employee.

I'll report back in a few weeks as I do some payroll processes and can tell you how much this is going to really cost me ;)​

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So those whom have never ventured into the world of etsy I'm sure you have pondered this question more than once. You have friends that have an etsy account and you've received mix feedback? What do you do?

I'll give you my feedback and let you decide. First let me explain my background of different things I have used.

When I first started my business (selling pacifier holders) I started on ebay. I found myself with more supplies than I needed and decided to add my supplies to my offerings. I had/have websites for both but was having trouble being found. I was selling items and supplies that weren't offered by many sellers.   Ebay started to have numerous overseas sellers that offered my items at the fraction of the cost of mine. As time continued ebay changed and the fees outweighed my profits.

During this time I had heard of etsy and started offering my supplies there (my backup plan so to speak). I had several friends (lisa for example) who was selling boutique items she made on etsy fairly successfully (she had a website as well). She encouraged me to try selling my growing offerings of handmade items (birth of Kugga kids). I closed my ebay shop and kept my websites open.

I had some success with Facebook, but soon realized with the ever changing rules and visibility of my posts my investment in Facebook marketing was a waste of money. If your fans don't see your post how can you reach them?

I decided soon after to give Etsy a try for my boutique items, what did I have to lose? Well maybe some initial vested time I thought. I sold maybe a couple items a month but nothing you would brag about. I continued to grow my business and items that I offered and late fall things really started doing well on etsy. The following year I had a consistent following (again nothing to brag about...but a start). I continued to to spend more time on SEO and fine tuning not only my images, but my listings in general. My business has continued to grow and I have been pleased.

My website business has been slow since I've dedicated less time to Facebook and more time on etsy. My etsy has grown to the point i have contiplated closing my websites to save on costs. However with etsy going public and the ever changing rules and their inability to manage and police the policies they have in place...once again the slow decline is happening.

Why stay you ask? Find something different? The facts are simple, I'm still selling (maybe not as much as I want) but I am. So for now I will continue my websites and my etsy shops as I am still in the positive. There are many other selling platforms out there now, however I'm not interested in spreading myself thinner than I already am. So my suggestion would be to at least try it, even if you only list a few items you can quickly determine if you an audience there or not.

Just my two cents and I am by far not an expert of all things selling online, but have enough experience to share.

Have you ever wondered the secret to hooping the Baby Cubbies?  Well first let me explain what they are.  These are stuffed animals that have stuffing pods inside of them instead of loose stuffing. They are made with a zipper at the bottom where you simply unzip and remove the pods so that you can embroider.  I use these alot for my embroidery business (Kugga KIDS) and as I network with other embroiderers and crafters we all discuss the best methods of what to use and how for embroidering on them.  Here is a quick video of how to hoop using the Mighty Hoops as these are my preferred method for hooping these.  If I find a better way/option I will be sure to share with all of you.  I hope you enjoy!

This blog was created to help other crafters and small business owners.  We will be featuring other designers and crafters alike from month to month so that they can share with you their "secrets" and tricks for being successful.

Check back soon as we update the blog and get everything together.