Happy Friday! Below are my favorite reads from around the small biz blogosphere this week:

• How to Use Competitors to Grow Your Business
• 63 Free or Almost-Free Ways to Market Your Business
• Common Call to Action Mistakes
• Interview with Sara Selepouchin of Girls Can Tell (A great collection of insights on doing wholesale)

Steve over at MyWifeQuitHerJob recently posted about why he hasn’t quit his “day job”. He makes some interesting points, though I’ve made the opposite decision for myself. Are you thinking about leaving your day job? Here are some things to consider:

1. Do you really want to quit your day job?
On the face of it, you might say yes, but really think about whether you want this. Are you comfortable with leaving a career you may have spent years building? Are you okay with giving up the steady pay check, the guaranteed health insurance, the 401k matching? Some people can’t, psychologically, feel comfortable with giving up those things.

I struggled with this myself. I was wary of leaving a very lucrative career I’d spent over a decade building. It was also a shift in thinking for me. I’d always had my own thing throughout my partnership with my husband. Leaving my day job meant being entwined professionally.

In the end, I chose to leave my day job for a few reasons:
1. I hated my day job.
2. I am truly happiest spending my time with my husband/business partner.
3. I can actually make more money leaving my day job and focusing on our growing business, and this point brings me to…

2. What are your revenue streams and financial forecasts like?
It’s one thing to want to leave a day job, it’s another thing entirely to be able to still pay your bills doing it. In order to be sure you can afford to leave your day job, it’s important to examine your revenue streams and income projections.

It’s important to map out specifically how much money you’ll make from various income sources once you’ve left your day job. Will you be doing pop up events? How many, what will the attendance be, what percentage of attendees do you expect will buy, how much will the average order be? Have you done these pop up events in past years/months/weeks? How much did you make last time?

Will you be doing wholesale? How many accounts do you have, how often do they order and what’s their average order value? How many new accounts do you project you can bring on each month and what is the average order value?

Will you be doing online sales? How many orders per month do you get? What’s the average order value? What are your costs with doing online sales?

It’s important to answer questions like these and be sure to take into account all of your costs and income. Can you still earn enough money to support yourself based on your past experience and projections?

3. What is your safety net like?
If your financial projections aren’t met, what is your back up plan? Do you have savings or assets you can leverage to get through difficult periods? Are you comfortable with falling back on your safety net if things do not go as planned? At what point will you consider going back to a day job if your projections aren’t met?

3. How serious are you about your business?
I would argue that if you are deeply serious about building an empire, you are going to have to eventually quit your day job. I can’t think of many nationally recognized brands with an owner who has a separate day job. If you want to build a large business it’s going to demand your full attention. What I mean by this is you probably won’t be the next Ed Hardy or Kate Spade if you expect to run your creative business and work a day job simultaneously from now til you retire. If that’s your ambition, you are eventually going to need to leave that day job.

Not everyone wants to be the next Kate Spade or Ed Hardy, and that’s fine too. Building a brand of that size means you probably won’t be doing any hands on making of products. It means you won’t be the person answering the phone when customers call, it means you won’t be doing it all yourself. You will have to manage staff, rent the office space, hire the lawyers and accountants, etc. It means getting a lot more corporate and a lot less mom and pop. It’s not the model for everyone and there’s certainly tons of variation between DIYer and corporate mogul. It’s important to think about where you want your own business to go and what choices you’ll have to make to get those results.

Want to see your products in TV and movies? This week only Lauren Aseff is spilling her secrets about how to get your products into TV and movies. The offer ends TODAY, so don’t miss out.

Here are my favorite ecommerce, small business and marketing reads of the week:

• 5 Unique and Effective Email Offers
• The Downside of a High Conversion Rate
• The Dirty Little Secret of Overnight Success
• 10 Marketing Examples of Facebook Photo Albums
• 22 Free Keyword Research Tools
• Ecommerce Optimization Checkout Slideshow
• Revisiting Your Onsite SEO

Did you know that you can only use a coupon for Facebook ads once? In the entire history of your account, if you’ve ever used a Facebook coupon you can NEVER use one EVER again. It’s in their fine print, where they hope you won’t notice it.

Recently this email showed up in our company inbox:

I had tried Facebook ads years ago and saw no measurable ROI. I’d also read that they’d been working on improving their ad model and that more recently advertisers were seeing better ROI. This invite made it seem like a good time to give Facebook ads another try. I clicked the “Get Started Now” link and here’s what the screen said:

I created a new ad and it ran for a few days. ROI? The ad cost about $1/fan. If 1% of my fans buy stuff at that rate I’m paying $100/conversion. Not so great. But here’s the kicker… a few days later my credit card was charged for the ad. When I contacted Facebook to ask why this was they trotted out their policy about only accepting 1 coupon per account EVER.

Here’s what they wrote:

If Facebook truly didn’t mean to cause “inconvenience and confusion” then why send out a coupon to a customer that can’t use it? Why show a message after the coupon is “applied” stating “Your $50 coupon will be added to your account after you create your ad”? Why not display an error on the screen when I attempt to enter the coupon code stating that the coupon isn’t valid?

I’m sharing this post so other page owners aren’t duped by this deliberately misleading user interface. I also hope Facebook will consider changing it’s coupon promotion policies or user interface to something more honest, so more users aren’t manipulated into buying ads they might not intend to purchase.

Yesterday I ranted about how much I hate to see anyone using unlicensed characters in their designs. I’d much rather see people creating their own characters. This can seem like a tall order though, how can you gain any traction with your own creations when there are so many established famous characters already out there? Here are some things to try:

1. Make it Awesome
This seems like no-brainer advice, but it’s crucial. Create characters that appeal to your target demographic. Make them cute, funny, interesting, etc. Think about what’s so appealing about existing characters like Hello Kitty, Pikachu, Darth Vader, etc. What makes people love them and how can you infuse those qualities into your creations?

2. Market It
If your characters are awesome the next step is getting them in front of people. Have a strategy for getting your characters out there. This can include viral videos about your characters, handing out free vinyl stickers or 1″ buttons featuring your characters. The goal is to get them in front of as many people as possible as fast as you can. It’s easier to get people interested in your characters if you present them in a way that’s fun and engaging. That’s why things like funny videos or free swag are perfect tools.

When we do live events for Ex-Boyfriend, we give out thousands of stickers featuring Fuzz Aldrin and Victorious Yeti, two of our flagship characters. We often vend at comic cons, and by the end of the weekend half the people walking around are displaying our stickers in their badge holders. The more we do events, the more people tell us they’ve seen our characters before.

3. Try Collaborating
Doing a mash up with another designer is a great way to cross promote your characters with another designer’s work. Look for a collaboration partner who has an audience similar to your own so you can both introduce your creations to one another’s fans.

4. Tell a Story/Create a Universe
A lot of popular characters got popular because of the stories they came from. A great story is what helps fans relate to your characters, so when designing characters for your brand think about a back story for them and how you can share the story with your fans. Think about ways your characters can pop up in different products and settings.

When we first introduced out Victorious Yeti in 2010 he was on a weather forecast design, but since then he’s popped up on belts, and acquired a ski resort. He often acts as our mascot, wearing a Santa hat in our holiday newsletter or cuddling a kitty in our promotion for our animal rescue fundraiser. He cemented his place in the Ex-Boyfriend universe by appearing in our who’s who of regular characters. The repeated use of a regular character in different contexts helps add consistency to our branding and helps our fans recognize our characters more easily.

Don’t forget, publicist Lauren Aseff is spilling her secrets about how to get your products into TV and movies. The deal is running this week ONLY, so don’t miss out.

Imagine you are at a craft show and you see a really cool screen printed tote with a design you recognize on it. It’s a design you know belongs to someone else. Would you buy from that exhibitor? Would you call them out for being a thief? What if the designer is George Lucas or Stan Lee and the tote depicts Darth Vader or Spiderman?

Is this different than what Paperchase famously did when they stole from independent artist Hidden Eloise? Is it okay to steal from Marvel or DC or Sanrio or Lucas Arts just because they’re bigger? Careful how you answer that. If you’re lucky one day you’re going to be big and someone’s going to want to steal your creations. Are you going to be as lax about it?

Here’s why stealing is stealing and it sucks no matter who you are stealing from.

1. It’s illegal
I don’t care if you think you’re protected by parody or free expression. If you are making something for profit/commercial purposes no judge is going to look favorably upon what you’re doing. The legal definition of parody is narrow and when you are clearly just using someone else’s creation to make a fast buck your chances in court aren’t good.

I find it disappointing that major intellectual property holders like Marvel and DC don’t more rigorously protect their property but that doesn’t mean they never do it. It doesn’t mean they won’t bust you and take everything you own. It’s not worth it. If you think you’ll fly under the radar because you’re small think again. Big and small intellectual property thieves get caught all the time.

2. You are ripping off other little guys
When you steal from companies like Lucas Art or Sanrio you’re not just hurting them. You’re hurting the people they license to and not all of their licensees are mega corps. While you’re ripping off intellectual property other people are paying to license and they now have to compete with you in the marketplace. Your cost of doing business is less because you’re not paying licensing fees and their cost of doing business is more because they are.

It’s also important to consider that licensing is an important revenue stream for companies like Marvel, DC, etc. and when you steal their creations you’re hurting the licensing part of their business. That licensing money is what allows those larger companies to hire people and create jobs.

3. You’re showing your own lack of creativity
If I see your craft fair booth or online store full of unlicensed Storm Trooper, Mickey Mouse and Hello Kitty designs, I will think you suck and have no creativity of your own. You’re not building a brand by trying to make a quick buck off of someone else’s brand. I don’t care if you put Darth Vader in a dress or put Mario and Luigi in a pizza parlor, these characters do not belong to you and regardless of what you do with them, you’re not creating something of your own. Slapping these characters on a t-shirt or tote or pendant without paying for licensing tells me you are lazy and don’t have ideas of your own.

So what about those who pay for licensing?
I really have no issue with this. If you are legitimately paying to license Angry Birds or Pikachu that’s fine. It’s a perfectly legal business model.

In those instances where something is being licensed one of a few things is going on.

A. The company’s business model is built around licensing stuff and their branding isn’t an important part of their business.

B. The company’s business model has nothing to do with the art they licensed and it’s just helping them sell their already established brand. (For example Zippo licensing from Harley Davidson. Their business is really lighters, not the designs on them.)

C. The company has licensed a collaboration deal that incorporates their established branding with another company’s established branding. (For example Johnny Cupcakes collaboration with Hello Kitty.)

Before you try to “get creative” with someone else’s characters, consider the legal ramifications and what it says about your ability to build a brand of your own. If you’re trying to figure out how you can make money by just designing characters of your own, stay tuned. I’ll be talking about that tomorrow.

Don’t forget, publicist Lauren Aseff is spilling her secrets about how to get your products into TV and movies. The deal is running this week ONLY, so don’t miss out.

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Happy Friday! Here are my favorite reads from around the web this week:

• 4 Mistakes Small Business Owners Make When Conducting a Blog Giveaway
• 8 SEO Pointers for Ecommerce Product Pages
• 10 Ways to Improve Product Photos
• Anatomy of a Failure – one entrepreneur shares the story of a failed enterprise
• The Realities of Making a Living Online (This one is an absolute must read!)
• 8 Must-Have Google Analytics Features
• Creative 404 Pages to Inspire You to Overhaul Yours
• Offer Free Shipping Without Going Broke

Lastly, on a personal note, if you’d like to help Ex-Boyfriend out with our charitable fundraiser for homeless animals any little bit is appreciated! Read the details here! Fundraiser ends Sunday.

Do you toil away at your day job and scheme ways to make your living selling crafts? While this isn’t an impossible dream, it’s not going to be easy. There is no magic bullet or special trick to growing a business. It’s mostly about putting in the time and money and having a plan. Here are some signs that you’re not on track for growing a real business.

1. Your income goals are not significant enough to earn a living or grow
I often hear people say things like “If I could just sell 10 necklaces a week! That would be like $500! So much money! I could live on that!” First of all, $500 per week is going to only make you $26,000 per year, a fairly meager living. Plus, you have to factor in your costs. You’ll need to pay for supplies/manufacturing, internet/website, marketing, etc. The list can go on forever once you’re running a real business. I consider my own business fairly small and we have a six figure operating budget. If you want to grow a business, your income goals need to account for paying you and your business expenses.

2. You have no roadmap of how you plan to meet your income goals
Even if you’ve settled on an income goal, if you don’t have a plan to meet that goal it’s still no good. It’s not enough to say “I want my business to net $50,000.00 this year”, you need to specify how you expect it to do that. Will you be doing this with wholesale? Online sales? Pop up events? In order to meet income goals, you’ll need a specific plan that maps out how you plan to meet your goals. What revenue streams will you rely on and what are you goals for them each week, month or quarter?

3. You refuse to properly invest time or money in your business
If starting a business was cheap or easy everyone would be doing it.  If you want to run a real business expect to invest significant time and money. Don’t expect to build a quit-your-day-job-sized enterprise in your spare time on a shoestring. Yes maybe you’ve heard a story about someone who did that, but it’s extremely rare that things work that way. If you’re not willing to do the 60+ hour work week and invest tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars before you see a significant return you’re going to have a hard time growing a real business.

4. You refuse to do the really hard work
Owning a business involves doing a lot of stuff you do not want to do. Most creative people don’t enjoy bookkeeping, sales, marketing, etc. The creative stuff is more fun, but it is a small part of what you’ve got to do to run a business. My partner and I spend about 10% of our time doing design work. Most of our job is administrative tasks, marketing, sales, vendor relations, managing people. Sometimes it’s tedious crap work like scanning receipts and taking inventory. We’ve just started hiring help so we can be more productive, but it’s not a perfect solution since the more people we hire, the more managing we have to do. It’s all hard and most days we feel like strangling someone. If you want your business to grow, you’ve got to be willing to do anything and everything the business requires, even if it’s stuff that’s not in your comfort zone.

I’ve said before that I’m not a big fan of buying store lists for doing wholesale. So how can you go about getting a good list of stores for pitching your wholesale line? Here’s some great resources:

1. Yelp
Yelp is an indispensable resource for finding brick and mortar businesses. You tell it what area to search and what kind of business you’re looking for, it gives you the list. It even tells you about similar businesses in an area. So if you find one boutique on Philadelphia you want to pitch and then you plug it into Yelp, it will give you a list of a bunch of other stores just like it that are also in Philadelphia. Just check the right hand column for the list titled “People Who Viewed This Also Viewed…”

2. Other People’s Store Lists
Some designers share their store list on their website. If you know of some brands whose products you can see your own products sold along side with, check to see if they’ve got a store list on their site.

3. Trade Shows
Trade shows are a great way to discover stores to pitch and meet with buyers face to face. They can be pretty expensive to do, but it will save you some online sleuthing time if you’ve got the cash to do trade shows. Be prepared to not make a ton of money right off the bat with trade shows. Some buyers take months to place an order so it’s much more of a long term investment.

4. Similar Web
Similar Web is a great tool for building both your press list and your store list. You plug in a site you know of (like a store website), it gives you a list of websites that are like it.

5. Fans
Your customers know their home town best. So if you sell online and have a bunch of customers on Facebook or your mailing list ask for their help. Let them know you’d love to have your products sold in their home town and ask them to suggest stores for you to try. Super fans might even be willing to lobby stores in their area on your behalf to get your stuff on the shelves.