Wednesday, June 20, 2018

The Queen of Reinvention

Life changes.  And I must roll with it.  Our business and farm and home life have been in flux lately.  Our old business model wasn't working.  There haven't been enough sales for us to be in the black for three years.  I've tried and tried to pull us out of the nose dive we are in with no success.  So, if what you are doing isn't working, you change what you are doing.

Instead of traveling once or twice a month to far away, expensive fiber arts and art shows, we are going to try to stay a little closer to home.  I can't do as much driving as I used to.  Physically, it's just taking too much out of me.  And fuel and expense cost just keep going up.  Attendance and sales are way down.  Our solution is to switch from a fiber and yarn booth to a farm booth.  We are adding new product lines that diversify our offerings to appeal to a wider audience and we are attending three different farmer's markets this year.  Our hope is that we can keep costs down while keeping a steady stream of smaller dollar amounts coming in.  It's more work for us, but we like working!

We are also revamping how we do business on the internet.  Etsy has raised their prices to the point where it is not sustainable for us to be there.  So, we have started our own website!  You can find all our goodies at www.desertgardenfarms.com.  I particularly proud of having figured out how to do that!  We will rely heavily upon word of mouth and the recommendations of friends who love us, so please feel free to link us in your blogs, social media, etc.  This is a huge learning curve for me and I'm nervous, but I'm excited to be doing something.

Finally, I will be teaching locally A LOT more.  I am passionate about teaching and I need it to be a regular part of what I am doing.  So, you will see me post 2 to 4 local learning opportunities per month.

We are sad to be missing out on some of what we did before.  We have great memories and so many wonderful experiences to reflect upon from that business model.  But, we also look forward to trying some new things.  OH, and did I mention, my husband gets to go with me to the Saturday market??  Sooooo excited about that.


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