First of all, I hear you. HIRING IS HARD. It’s hard to manage people. It costs money. It takes a huge amount of time to find, vet and train people. You don’t have a big enough studio. You’re an introvert. You have just a small amount of work available. You live in a tiny town. You’re an artist, not a manager. You tried that last year and it didn’t work out.

Today, we’re rounding up some of the most common questions and concerns makers have about wholesale around the holidays. We’re digging into how to approach holiday wholesale as a newbie, how to cultivate orders with current stockists if you’re an old pro, and some simple tips to get orders in the door without a bunch of extra work. As always, though, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. So be sure to “sense check” these answers against what you know to be right for you and your business. 

Your cheat sheet for holiday sales and holiday sanity. It’s for any maker who is trying to get their handmade line into more stores, but without driving themselves insane. We share our biggest learnings, based on watching hundreds of makers grow wholesale over the holiday

Most makers have things in their ordering process that make it a struggle for store owners to understand the line and place an order. Learn a few quick fixes to improve your ordering process today!

Like so many people, I got really into The Great British Baking Show a few years back.

After a stressful day, there is something bizarrely relaxing about watching people frantically bake Cardamom-Vanilla Cupcakes With Raspberry Coulis Filling.

Part of Made to Last – a series of interviews we’re doing with established makers who have grown and evolved their businesses over the long term. We speak with Becca of Thicket talk money, starting small and focusing on what really matters in a small business.

As my baby’s first birthday approaches, another anniversary approaches as well — my anniversary of becoming a mom, experiencing birth, and stepping into this new phase.

For me, becoming a mom has felt like riding a mountain bike down a steep hill: exhilarating, joyful, demanding of my strength and skill, and only partially in my control. I’ve learned a lot over the past year. And most of what I’ve learned feels viscerally true to me across both my personal life and my work life.

In this article, we’re talking about the power and opportunity of email newsletters: using email to engage with your community and build relationships.

If you’re working to grow wholesale, your wholesale line sheet (or wholesale catalog) is one of your most important tools. It’s a single, cohesive way to present your line, products, pricing, and wholesale terms in a format that lets you tell your story to store owners, exactly how you want to.

So much of running a creative business boils down to words on a page. What you write in your outreach to stores, social media captions, wholesale marketplace listings, “about” page, and other materials are where the rubber meets the road. These are the places where your vision and dream and work touch the people who can support that work.

A few afternoons per week, I sit with a phone and a cup of tea and do coaching calls with folks across the country. And with each new person that comes on the line, there is a dramatically different experience. Some of the people I talk to are struggling financially, emotionally, and spiritually. Other makers are bright with their excitement and can’t believe how much they are thriving right now. The contrast is striking.

If you’re anything like me, you want to get a very clear picture of what something is before you sign up for it. So today we want to share exactly what it’s like to be a part of One Mill School so that you can decide whether it’s the right fit for you.