I know many of you’re an artist/maker yourself and trying to grow your creative business.

I appreciate it when I learn new resources and tools to grow my business, so I wanted to share some of the resources I’ve found helpful.

This is kind of a random list, but I hope you find some of these helpful 😀

If you’re considering wholesaling your arts/crafts to retail shops:

• Megan Auman’s “How to Sell Your Products to Retailers” online class on CreativeLive – an artist friend of mine recommended this class to me, and WOW was she right. This is solid gold and worth every single penny. It’s quite extensive and detailed and packed with actionable steps to make your wholesale business successful. At the time I’m writing this blog post, I’ve probably only watched 50% of the contents (it’s very long), but I’ve already made a return on my investment by implementing one thing I learned in the class. You need to watch this if you’re curious about wholesale!
• Etsy Wholesale – As a small creative business owner, I rely so much on Etsy to sell my products online. I know it’s not perfect (my biggest pet-peeves being you have to compete with so many people who sell similar products at a really low price.) and I’d like to have my own online shop someday, but for now it’s working. Etsy also offers a platform to wholesale to retailers, which I’m considering applying for. I also learned a lot about wholesale policies and pricing from just reading their Wholesale Guide.

If you’re struggling with copy-writing:

•  Laura Belgray’s website, Talking Shrimp – I first discovered Laura on a webinar she did on copy-writing. She’s so hilarious and her materials offer lots of real-life stories and examples that will make you cry with laughter. When you sign up for her newsletter on her homepage, you’ll get a free cheatsheet for writing your tagline. I look forward to her newsletter, too, because it always makes me laugh 😀 and I need laughter in my life more often!

If you get distracted by too many blog articles and online resources when you should be getting other work done:

• Pocket app – Pocket is awesome for saving articles and online classes to watch later. I often get sucked into the interweb’s rabbit hole when I’m supposed to be getting my other work done.It usually starts out when I’m checking my email in the morning.I’d open one newsletter from a creative business blogger I like and starts reading the post. And I find a link to another article that sounds intriguing like “5 signs you need to redesign your website immediately!” I click on that and start reading another article…and another… Before you know it, you’re overwhelmed with more marketing strategies to implement and worksheets to fill out… Wait, what was I supposed to do today? 😀
  With one click of a button, you can save the articles and webpages on your Pocket app! I usually try to set aside a couple of hours a week to read and learn new things, and having everything in one place is really helpful. I can pick and choose what I want to learn depending on what mood I’m in and how much time I can spend.

If you use Instagram for reaching your audience and want to up your game: 

• Meighan O’Toole’s blog – Meighan is an online creative business strategist and offers lots of free and paid resources for creative business owners. She doesn’t just talk about Instagram, but I read this blog article “9 Tips to Create a Cohesive, Branded Instagram Feed” and learned a bunch!
• Link In Profile – It lets you add links to your Instagram images and send your followers to where you want them to go. I’ve just ended my 30-day free trial, but it’s seriously saving me time and I enjoy not stressing about updating the clickable links on my Instagram profile every day! I just signed up for a personal plan (it’s $9.99 per month after the trial period.) It’s a little difficult to explain in writing how it works – you can view my Instagram profile to try it out yourself 🙂
• Alex Tooby‘s free Instagram tips & e-course – Alex offers free and paid services to increase your engagement and profits on Instagram. Her free offerings include Must-Know Insta Tips eBook, 7 Day e-Course, and IG Supremacy Checklist. I took her 7 Day e-Course and learned a few new tricks on using hashtags!
• Later‘s blog – Later is an app/service that lets you schedule and manage your Instagram posts. OK, full disclosure, I’ve had Later account for a long time but haven’t used it as a scheduling tool (yet). BUT I learn so much from their blog posts! Just this morning, I got this post 9 New Instagram Features You Probably Missed in my email inbox. Totally useful information for someone who uses Instagram for their business (like me!) The Ultimate Guide to Using Instagram Hashtags was also pretty awesome and I recommend it to my friends all the time!

Ok, that’s it for today! Do you use any of these? What other tools, articles, classes do you find helpful? Please share in the comment below!

Thank you ❤

p.s. I’m gonna be on my sabbatical week off this coming week! My good friend is visiting me from Japan, and I’m super excited to hang out with her 🙂 You’ll probably see a couple of blog posts from me, though, about my winter holiday collection release (yay!) but won’t see my regular post until the following Sunday, November 13th. Just FYI!

xo Yuko