Do you find joy in making things with your Cricut and would love to turn your hobby into a full-time career? Or perhaps you just want to earn a side income from your crafts and projects? Well, in this post, you will learn about the 5 most important things that you must do now to start a successful Cricut business and finally turn your passion into profit.
How to Start a Cricut Business
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1. Write down a plan.
Just imagine if you were to get into a car with someone who didn’t know how to drive and had no clue to where they were going.
How would you feel?
I’m pretty sure the first word that came to mind was “scared”.
Without a doubt, starting a business without a plan would make you the driver in this scenario and not having a clear plan on your business goals would be a very frightening ride.
When starting a business, it’s very important that you actually take the time to sit down and write out a plan on how you want to operate your business as well as your short and long term business goals.
Doing this will help lay a solid foundation for your business so that when you get to work, you’ll always know where you’re headed.
Free business planning tools can be found here on the U.S. Small Business Administration website.
2. Research your competition.
One way to gauge the potential success of your Cricut business is by studying and researching others who are already doing what you want to do.
The places you should look for your competitors would be on social media platforms such as Facebook and Etsy.
Your goal when conducting research is to see where your competitors are succeeding as well as failing.
Questions to ask yourself when conducting research would include:
- What are my competitors top-selling products?
- How much do my competitors charge for their products or services?
- What social media channels are my competitors using for marketing?
- What type of service/product is my competitor lacking?
- Where are my competitors located?
These questions once answered can help you design a concise strategy that will give you a competitive advantage when entering the marketing.
3. Test your business idea before going all in.
According to Insurance Quotes, 42% of small businesses fail within their first year because there’s no market for their product or service.
Creating a product that nobody wants would be a complete waste of your time, money and resources. Instead, you can test the market to see if people will actually want to buy what you plan to sell.
You can start by creating a small batch of different products and promote these items to friends and family first.
While doing this, try to be open to any feedback and adjust your services and items accordingly.
If you receive any requests for orders, take them! Keep a list of those interested so that when you finally start your business you already have a set of ready-to-buy customers.
Testing the market first will help you better create a product that will actually sell when you are ready to get your business up and running.
4. Prepare for business with the right tools.
Unfortunately this is one of the one of the top reasons that most businesses fail: The inability to manage finances and poor accounting methods.
Considering this when starting your own business, one of the very first things you must do is invest in accounting software such as QuickBooks.
QuickBooks is a great tool for small business owners because it’s both affordable and extremely easy to use. It allows you to keep track of your expenses, invoices and taxes all in one place without having to consult an accountant unless absolute necessary.
You can start a 30-day free trial with QuickBooks by clicking here.
Your finances will be one of the most important aspects of your Cricut business that you’ll have to carefully manage to ensure that you maximize your profit and don’t run the risk of getting into complicated tax issues with the federal government.
5. Reinvest what you earn.
When you start to earn profit from your Cricut crafts and projects, you may want to celebrate and spend money on other things.
However, I must warn you that doing so would be absolutely fatal to your business.
When starting a new business venture, in the beginning stages it’s important to reinvest a portion of your earnings to improve your products, expand your marketing efforts as well as build systems and a team.
Although earning income from your crafts is something many people look forward too, it’s also a good idea to be conservative and extremely realistic with how your profits should best be spent.
To do this, you’ll need to start by analyzing the weak areas of your business and use the early profits you’ve earned to bring each of these areas up to par so that in the long run you’ll have a sustainable business that runs on autopilot without a need for you to be hands on.
Starting a Cricut business from home can be extremely complex and that’s why we are here to help you.
Click here to join our FREE 7-day email course and learn how you can start selling your Cricut crafts and projects all the while creating an at-home business that’s profitable, fun and efficient.
