This might be the toughest part of creating patch art and selling it as a business and not just a hobby, for me at least.
So what the heck do you do when you put all of your creative energy into a design that you were sure would kill it and sell out in an instant and bang, zooop, flump, splat... It doesn’t quite take off like you thought it would...
Well, first and foremost I worry, try to imagine where the money from this mishap will come from instead, because at this stage in my business I need each drop to do well, not sell out exactly but sell most... Then I think about getting another job and giving up... Then I pick myself up remember that I love this, that I’m usually at least decent at it, and move on. The reality is they can’t all be bangers!
I have drilled down my past failures into a few categories;
1) did I make too many, am I not big enough, well known enough, do I not have enough followers on social media... baby steps folks, gotta scale up as demand increases for yo brand I can’t expect a major sell out when no one knows who I am... manage my expectations, of my 500 subscribers, 270-ish don’t actually care about my newsletter, brand, or future. They are “just here for the violence”...;) and maybe the give-a-ways... So I really have less than half of the 500 who might be interested, and I know that each design appeals to a smaller audience than the horde, so there’s that. And sometimes people just don’t want to throw down the cash, I get that one too, makes sense. I save my money for design I really really like too!
2) is the design just crap? Did I just make a shit design? The short answer is no... the long answer is yes... let me drill that down a bit. No, any design that I put hours of my time drawing up, picking thread colours, getting samples and making tweaks to is good. But not all of my work is safe, mainstream, or popular right away. I don’t try to make the same stuff as everyone else, but I also need to make money at this... some of my designs are not what you want as a potential customer, some of them do not fit the formula that you use to determine wether or not you’re gonna drop your hard earned money on! Or maybe you would, but I priced them too high or my shipping from Canada is too expensive for you to bite...
I guess this moral of the story, for me at least, is... push, push, push... bounce back and keep moving forward, some day I will have enough people who like my designs to support me without worrying about each and every design I drop, that would be sooo sweet. Or maybe not ;), and I’ll push on to something else. Either way I will keep moving ahead and trying my best to create work I’m happy with that I hope you’ll want to add to your collection.
Remember to support the makers you like, your money is your vote, you decide who stays in this community and who moves to the wayside while others get to step up and try their luck!
Side note: you don’t have to buy every patch I make to help me grow, you can also support my work by liking or sharing posts on Facebook and Instagram so that other people who might want to buy that particular design get a chance to see it!
If you made it this far in the article, thanks a ton for reading and your support means the world to me!
Thank you!
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