Got crafts to sell? Here are 19 resources to help your crafty biz thrive!

Got crafts to sell? Here are 19 resources to help your crafty biz thrive!

On Wednesday we shared a video about how to position your crafty business just like any other green business, and you guys seemed excited about it! I thought you might like this list of resources for green business owners, including ones with crafts to sell.

The list below comes from our sister site Ecopreneurist, and it includes 19 resources to help you grow your green crafty business. If you’ve got crafts to sell, it’s important to focus as much on the business side of things as on the making side.

From the outside, running a crafty business seems almost easy, right? Sure, you have to make sure that you pump out enough crafts to sell at markets and in your online shop, but otherwise, no big deal! Unfortunately, even the coolest crafts need a little bit of help to move them off of the shelf. A crafty business is still a business, and you need marketing and strategy to help it thrive.

Without further ado, here is Derek Markham’s recommended reading for growing any green business!

1. Are You An Ecopreneur? From an enterprising individual operating a small retail business to an inventor who comes up with a better way to fuel our vehicles, from the founder of a non-profit organization to the organic grower who feeds our local community, just about anyone can be an ecopreneur and run a green business.

2. Making Green Business Dreams a Reality: Writing a Business Plan How does a business go from an idea in your head to a functioning venture that runs smoothly and turns a profit? It helps to get your ideas on paper, and this is where a business plan comes in.

3. How to Start a Green Business without Raising Money Instead of investing in a large inventory up front, Gerstein and Eric Grossberg started Brilliant Earth by serving as a match-maker so to speak for people looking for conflict-free diamonds for engagement rings, as well as other jewelry pieces of ethical origins. Gerstein says, “Our philosophy was to start to build supplier relationships and then to get customers, growing organically.”

4. Triple Bottom Line: The DNA of a Green Business Starts with People The triple bottom line is not greenwash, a PR campaign or the “principles” part of a Sustainability Report. It’s the DNA of how a green business operates. It’s measured by such things as trees planted, living wages paid and problems solved (not created).

5. Green Dreams: Resources for Green Business Planning Before you start a business of any kind, there is a lot of planning and research to be done. If you do your homework, you will have a better chance at getting your business off the ground.

6. The Pros and Cons to Being a Green Business After having been working in and with green businesses for over 20 years, this is what I see as their pros and cons.

7. Operating a Small, Sustainable Business: Resources for Ecopreneurs Recognizing a competitive advantage, many small businesses choose to remain small. Sometimes called personal entrepreneurs or lifestyle entrepreneurs, these owners carefully manage their green business to achieve optimal efficiencies in whatever niche market they serve.

8. Green Business Opportunities for Aspiring Eco-Entrepreneurs People want to change the world. We need to make sure they have the resources to do so. I wrote my book, Build a Green Small Business: Profitable Ways to Become an Ecopreneur, specifically to help people start green businesses.

9. 19 Free (Green) Tools for Small Businesses

10. Diversification and Filling Ecological Niches: Green Businesses Own a Portfolio of Enterprises The more income-producing and complementary projects my wife and I have in our ecopreneurial business, the more stable and secure we feel, careful to not let work override quality of life considerations.

11. How to Get an Investor to Even Listen to Your Business Idea How do you even get an investor to return your call (or email)? Although this answer is an over-simplification, I’ll recommend to you: Personal Contact.

12. How to Approach a Venture Capital Firm with Your Eco Business Many green business ventures that would be of interest to venture capital firms are in the cleantech, new materials, information technology, and life science spaces. If you are an ecopreneur with an idea in areas like these, your most important task is to explain the technology or science behind your idea and whether you have, or can get, the rights to the intellectual property.

13. PR Tips For Green Entrepreneurs Hundreds of websites are devoted to the eco movement; the mainstream media loves a green product story… and they have many from which to choose. P.R. professionals bemoan this situation.

14. Green Marketing Lessons for Entrepreneurs Transparency, product stewardship or life cycle management are some of the key hallmarks of any business, especially eco-centric businesses.

15. How to Reach Green Consumers — Using Psychographics To Define Your Target Market Psychographics, often used by niche marketers, it can be an effective tool for eco entrepreneurs.

16. 5 Tips for Fortunate Ecopreneurs Here are 5 tips to start a green business based on my experiences and book, ECOpreneuring: Putting Purpose and the Planet before Profits.

17. 4 Huge Market Opportunities for Eco Entrepreneurs To meet the demands of the growing green economy, a lot more eco entrepreneurs are going to be needed, building products and services that support and enable sustainability, not only on a large scale, but also, and perhaps especially, for the individual and their home.

18. How Green Is Your Company? Consumers Want To Know!

19. More green business ideas

Are you a green crafter with crafts to sell? Which of the resources above look most helpful for your small, green business?

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