We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Vanessa Young Russell. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Vanessa below.

Alright, Vanessa thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Any thoughts about whether to ask friends and family to support your business. What’s okay in your view?

I’ve have gotten to the point now where I no longer ask friends and family to support my small business. I have befriended so many customers and fellow artists who gladly share and support my business. Don’t get me wrong, I do have a handful of friends and family members that do support me. However, more often than not, they want freebies and discounts. It is incredibly discouraging when I have strangers willing to support me and pay full price just because they like my products, but family and close friends won’t. So your best line of action is to turn a customer into a friend and you won’t have to ask them for support because they’re already giving it.

Vanessa, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a homeschool mom who wanted to make extra money for my family so in 2017, I turned my hobby into a business. I have been crocheting since I was in highschool and it was always a great way to relieve stress and anxiety for me. I made sure to set boundaries so that I wouldn’t lose my joy for it.

I started off with small farmers markets, selling word of mouth and Facebook, then I moved to larger markets and created a website to expand. I tried Etsy and Amazon handmade as platforms, but they just weren’t a good fit for me.

As a business owner, I have been so fortunate over the years to be able to stay home with my children and be deeply involved in their development and education.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

I’ve tried Amazon, Etsy, and Facebook marketplace as well as creating my own website through Shopify. In the end, I chose to stick with my website. I found no pros to using amazon. It was free for their handmade account, but I never got any sales and it was difficult to list products on the platform. Etsy was great especially during the pandemic and if you don’t want to do your own advertising they make it easy for you. However, the constantly increasing fees became a bit much. They even charge a fee on your shipping cost. You had to raise your prices just to cover the fees. It was no longer worth for me. My website through Shopify is one monthly fee and it makes it so easy to track my inventory for online and in person sales. Once you get use to using to program it’s very easy to manage.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

I use social media to keep in touch with my clients and engage them. I ask questions to find out what they like and what they want to see more of from me. My Shopify account allows me to send email to customers who don’t have social media accounts.

Contact Info:

• Website: vanessacrochets.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/vanessacrochets
• Facebook: Facebook.com/vanessacrochets