Your Home Craft Business:
When Things Go Wrong

Having your own home craft business can be a huge blessing, but when things go wrong it’s easy to forget why you wanted to work for yourself in the first place. Hang in there though, it is worth persevering!

Here are some common problems, and tips for dealing with them:

No sales or bookings

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, there will be periods when no one books a party with you or buys your crafts. As long as you’ve done your best (i.e. made those follow up calls, etc), try not to get discouraged. Every home craft business goes through this at some stage.

Both home parties and craft selling are subject to seasonal peaks and troughs, so you’ll often find you’re frantically trying to keep up just before Christmas, then sitting twiddling your thumbs in the New Year. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though...

Being busy in your home craft business is a real boost (mentally as well as financially) but working constantly at a hectic pace can burn you out. Use the peaceful aftermath to recover your creative muse, which is often lost when you’re constantly manufacturing your crafts to order.

It’s also a good time to take stock of where your home craft business is going, implementing new strategies, rethinking your pricing structure, etc – things you don’t have time to worry about when you’re busy. Perhaps your website has been neglected and you can use this time to work on making it better.

And if you keep making those phone calls, you will start getting bookings again – with any luck you’ll soon be so busy you’ll be longing for a break again!

Family crises and difficult situations

One of the advantages of working from home is that you can be there for your family when they need you. So when there is a family crisis, don’t feel guilty about putting your home craft business on the back burner for a bit, while things get sorted out.

As long as you continue to behave professionally with customers and hostesses, slowing down your home craft business won’t do any long term damage.

Sometimes, though, it’s the small situations that make you wonder why you ever wanted to work for yourself:

• Kids have a marvellous knack of getting sick just when you have lots of custom orders due.
• Your husband or partner always seems to get sent away on business precisely when you have stacks of parties booked.
• Babysitters are prone to cancel right when you’re about to leave to do a party.

It’s enough to make you run screaming to the nearest job centre!

Always having a back up plan is the key to dealing with these mini-crises. I’m lucky to have some wonderful friends who will babysit for me at the last minute in a pinch, but that’s because they know I’d do the same for them. Build yourself a support network for all eventualities by being willing to help others out – corny as it sounds, it’s true that what goes around, comes around.

And if there is absolutely nothing you can do, just take a few deep breaths, phone your customers or hostesses, and break the news to them as apologetically and professionally as possible. Sending a small gift with an overdue order goes a long way towards keeping good relations, or offer your hostess a larger commission for rebooking her party to a more convenient date.

It’s not ideal (and certainly don’t let any one down unless you have absolutely no alternative), but showing you’re still committed to good customer service will limit any damage done to the bare minimum.

Unreliable suppliers

One thing that really drives me round the bend is when you get a custom order only to find out that your supplier has just run out of stock of the most important component.

I try to avoid this by making sure I order most things in bulk, and have several different suppliers, but it still happens. Try all other avenues to get hold of the supplies anyway.

For instance I’ve sometimes found something on eBay that my suppliers have run out of, or I’ve been known to take apart other pieces of jewellery to claim the necessary beads for a custom piece. It’s not terribly cost effective, but to me good customer service is paramount, so I do what I can to fulfil all my orders when I said I would.

However, when there is absolutely nothing you can do, most customers will understand if you give them a call and explain the situation. Promise to let them know as soon as the parts are available, and offer them a refund if they prefer.

I usually include a discount voucher with the late order by way of apology, and also to encourage them to shop with me again - hopefully they’ll be dazzled by the speed of my service the next time!


So is it worth it?

Things will go wrong. And yes, you will wonder what on earth you're doing trying to run your own home craft business. But remember the benefits of working for yourself, work hard, and sooner or later things will get back on track again.

It is worth it!