The Crafts Report: Public Opinion

What Is the Most Stressful Aspect
of Being a Crafts Professional?

What’s your opinion?

Each month, The Crafts Report invites readers to respond to the Public Opinion question. Responses are published in the magazine.

This month’s question is: Were your 2003 holiday sales better or worse than expected?

Please respond by Jan. 8. Responses to this question will appear in the March 2004 issue.

E-mail: publicopinion@craftsreport.com; or answer online here.

Send responses to: “Public Opinion,” The Crafts Report, Box 1992, Wilmington, DE 19899; fax: (302) 656-4894.

Anonymous responses will not be published.

I find two aspects very stressful — on a practical basis, it’s setting up and breaking down your booth and everything that goes along with this.

On a different level, I find the most stressful aspect of being a crafter is that you are [the entire production]. If something happens to you, there usually is no backup to create your work or to sell it. If you get sick before a show, you lose not only the booth fee but also the potential income. And if you develop a serious disease, it could result in the loss of many booth fees plus all the income expected from it.

The multi-tasking I have to do every day: show scheduling, inventory management, production management, doing shows, mail (the list goes on and on). As stressful as it is, I wouldn’t want it any other way!

Being a crafts professional becomes stressful when you don’t have control over the advertising and marketing of the shows you attend.

Not having a steady, consistent income and having to budget for the slow times. That aspect of the business has taken me a lot of time to get used to. Sometimes I feel like trading it all in and getting a regular nine-to-five job. At least then I’d know when and how much I’d be getting paid.

But then I remind myself that this career is the only one that makes me truly happy. With that in mind, I make sure to look at my budget each month and evaluate whether it needs adjusting.

Lack of a performance review. When you work for someone else, you get concrete feedback on how well you’re doing. You get periodic reviews, or your boss lets you know when things aren’t up to snuff. You get the pay raise or the nicer office or the job promotion. Good performance is usually linked to good benefits.

When you work for yourself, your efforts may not produce good results for months, even years. It takes time to get a product developed, to research markets, to create a marketing plan. That lag time for your sales to catch up can be discouraging.

When things go well, it can be hard to tell what needs doing better — you’re too busy keeping up with orders to take a hard look at what could be improved. And when things aren’t going well, it can be difficult to separate out what needs improving vs. what simply isn’t under your control.

It takes practice, time, periodic self-evaluation and plenty of self-confidence to stay
centered on your professional, artistic and personal priorities when you’re a company of one.

Having to watch for thieves. More and more people are stealing from my booth, so I’m trying to find a way to transport closed cases to all my shows now.

Feeling the need to produce, produce, produce — especially when you forget why you’re a crafts professional.

The most stressful part of this job is having to set and keep my own hours. I work best with a set routine to follow, but it’s all up to me to set that routine! It’s also the best part of the job … no one telling me that I can’t take time off for a doctor’s appointment or to pick the kids up from school.