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welcome to the craft to Career podcast with Elizabeth Chappell or every week we
dive into how you can turn your craft into a successful career get ready to have the career you’ve always dreamed of
[Music] hello welcome to episode 85 of the craft
a career podcast I am Elizabeth Chapel of Quilters candy and this week I’ve
kind of been hinting at this for a while and I’m bringing it to you this week along with my friend Carolina Moore I
have got to make a big plug because she has brought a lot of value to this data
so this week I have gathered from a little over a hundred Quilters how much they earn as a quilt pattern
designer a lot of people are very curious you know what can I expect to earn is this a realistic thing to pay
the bills so keep in mind this is only you know over a hundred so that that could look
like a lot or a little there are a lot of quilt pattern designers out there so this is just such
a small sampling but it does give us some tangible numbers that we can look
at with some actual like okay this is what someone actually really did earn with their quilt pattern sales so also
if you want this information I have all of the responses and you can get those
when you click the link in the show notes there is an opt-in and by doing this you are joining my email list you
will be joining a part of my email list that tells me that you are interested in quilt pattern writing business
so that it’s opting into my email list but you will be getting all of the data
that people shared when they took this survey also now that I’ve done the survey and I’ve heard feedback and
gotten different ideas I definitely plan to do this again I’d love to do it every year but we’ll see I’m not going to
commit myself to that but I do plan to do this survey again and to ask a few different questions so
stay tuned because and if you are a designer please join and take the survey because the more information we have the
more valuable it is but before we go on I want to read a review from Apple podcasts this comes
from Tooty bird and she says invaluable information I have been in the crafting and sewing
industry for over 10 years during that time I have learned a lot on my own to help push my business forward but the
weekly information that Elizabeth presents is invaluable whether the week’s podcast is motivational or
teaches a new business technique she’s always adding some new information that’s transformative to those in the
craft and quilting industry this is the resource I wish I had when I was starting my business over 10 years ago
so 2D bird thank you for this review I am so glad that you are finding value in
the podcast and I really appreciate you taking the time to leave that review if
you have not left a review for the podcast please take a second to go do that it’s really helpful for the
longevity and the success of the podcast and to get seen by others we are here with the belief at least I
hope you are my my vision for all of us as quilterpreneurs and people is to open our arms and
believe that there is room enough for all of us and that a rising tide lifts all of the boats that when you or I have
success that it means more success for everyone and by sharing this podcast by
sharing the information that shows that you believe this that you want other people to hear about how to grow their
creative business as well so please take a moment to leave a review for the podcast and then let let me just share a
little bit about what I have this week so I have already pre-recorded a
conversation with Carolina Moore that we’re going to jump into but before that I just wanted to touch
on a couple of the specific answers that came from this survey so I put this
survey out to my alumni as well as a quilt pattern writing group in a
Facebook group and I’m very appreciative thank you to every one of you who took time to answer
there were actually 106 people who took the survey and your answers are really
invaluable so a couple of things that we look at are how long a person’s been writing a
pattern and how much they’ve earned in a launch and in a launch I asked how much
did you earn in the first week of selling your quilt pattern so that’s what I looked at as far as a launch goes
and then I asked how much did you earn in a year how many patterns do you have
total and so there’s a few things that we look at again if you want that information just go to the show notes
and you can get the link to get the PDF download with all of these answers and
responses so one thing that I did want to talk about
is the variety of answers that you get here well I talked with Carolina more
and you can also get her overall results which are awesome where she categorizes
things very nicely into averages but there there’s always going to be
outliers and exceptions and I want you to feel empowered with these numbers to
know what’s possible whenever you see someone who is having success you can
know that that’s available to you as well having Success is Not Guaranteed just
because you’re going to move forward with doing something it takes action it takes learning it takes doing you know
the things that that breed success so just because you want to do something or
just because you you throw a product out there it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be an overnight success or earn
Millions but there is Success available out there and so I want you to really look at all
the different numbers and responses and see the different things that are out there and that are available to you and
one of the things that’s hard for me about this is it’s totally Anonymous so I don’t know whose answers are what and
some of the answers like how many patterns did you sell in the first week of your launch this person says I don’t
have a traditional launch they do something uh where they release like a block of the month
but they’re doing really well and so I’m like darn I would love to hear more about that business model and what this
person is doing to have success so I just it can really open your eyes to different kinds of ways you could earn
money there’s even a question do you have other income Beyond writing and
selling quilt patterns but that’s quilt related a lot of people do and so just and some
of them put a few of their answers one of the things that I really want to do next year is ask what is your top
Revenue generator um because I’m very curious to see for some of these people especially one in
particular I’m going to guess that it’s quilt patterns but not the majority but quilt pattern sales are a piece of that
pie and I talk about this a little bit later in the podcast where I looked at my
numbers for 2021 I’ve had those done I turned in my taxes so I knew that I had earned twenty thousand dollars in 2021
from quilt pattern sales and it does it feels vulnerable like sharing that with you but there we are
and this year just a few weeks ago I met with my team and we were looking at the
Revenue income all the things for 2022 so far and what the goals are for 2023
and my sales for quilt patterns actually were cut in half in 2022. I’m like what
that’s embarrassing and the girl who helps with the number she was like no no no your overall Revenue has gone up
you’re just adding more pieces of the pie and you’re focusing on other things like my income is the biggest that it’s
ever been in the history of Quilters candy but my quilt pattern sales are not you know
it’s still ten thousand a year when it might go up a little bit we’ll see uh at
the end of the year and also keep in mind that I have a membership the Quilters candy membership
and I’ve been heavily focusing starting this year on releasing my patterns first
in the membership and I earn way more money from my membership than I do for
my quilt pattern sales but in a way I’m also that’s also paying
for my patterns so it’s not my patterns every month but at least a couple times a year I have one of my patterns that is
being released exclusively to those numbers I want to reward them and make them you know the VIP so it’s not just
like a clean across the board here’s how much I earn for my quilt pattern sales at least for me and as you can see from
the results not from everyone and then I did want to touch on there
was one response that uh one person left and again you can see all of the
responses but this person I don’t know if they know that I was the one hosting
this survey and it was a blind comment on the course
that I teach on how to write and sell quilt patterns or if they did know and this was their chance to tell me how they feel about it either way it doesn’t
matter but um but the questions are how long have you been doing this and this person said for
for four plus years they have 20 plus patterns and then the question is how many
patterns did you sell in your first week of the launch of your last pattern does
that make sense let me repeat that how many patterns did you sell in the launch of your last pattern for
the first week why am I making that more confusing than it needs to be anyhow there we are I think you know what I’m saying this person says two
two exclamation mark but not for lack of planning marketing or advertising
and then they continue to say I’ve seen a steady decline in sales since the Advent of pattern writing courses
and then goes on to say that buyers are reluctant or unwilling to buy from any unknown to them designer due to the
poorly written free patterns regardless of the unknown designer’s good reputation and long history
and then how many patterns have they sold in the past year four four exclamation mark again pattern writing
courses have generally ruined the quilt pattern business for most designers and then the question how much have you
earned in the past year as with your quilt pattern sales and this person says peanuts there are so
many free poorly written patterns out there thanks to the pattern writing courses generally no one wants to buy
patterns anymore and now expect them all to be free again and again and again pattern writing courses have generally
ruined the quilt pattern business for most designers also the 10 000 plus follower designers collaborating
together in large groups for multiple free Samplers each year exacerbates the no low sales situation
so I don’t know who this person is but I’m going to address this because all of
you who download the information are going to read that and see that so I’d rather have a conversation about it
that we can see here that there are people clearly still earning some great
money with quilt pattern sales and I mean even right now I’m reading a
book by Amy Porterfield two weeks notice it’s a brand new book and she talks about this very thing that she had in
her business it was so lovely to hear her talk about this actually because all I see is her success now but one of her
very first launches she put in thousands of dollars and she earned 276 dollars total from the launch I was like really
Amy Porterfield I feel very validated so
you know if she can crash and burn and have success the way she does then there’s a chance we’ve all got a chance you know
so she talked about her wanting to just put her head down and and put the blame
of what happened elsewhere and she said honestly it that isn’t going to do the
trick if P if there’s success if people are having success out there you can
have it too it’s available to you it is a matter of learning what is working and
how to make it work so this person who says uh they only sold two patterns during
the first week of their launch but not for lack of planning marketing and advertising I want to invite this person and anyone
else who thinks like this which is probably all of us at some point instead of looking at well it didn’t
work and to take that responsibility off of your own shoulders to instead evaluate what you did and how you did it
and how you can improve it because I promise you there is a way to Market and
advertise to get more sales there just is and I’ve seen it and I have been down
that path where I did something and I thought I did all I could do until I studied and
found new ways to Market and all of a sudden boom it grew and sales went up
and then um it’s just it’s really funny for me to address the decline in sales since the
Advent of pattern writing courses so the idea that by teaching other people
the how to write and sell quilt patterns it’s very much the mind frame of
there’s only so much success out there and if someone else takes some of that success that means there’s less for me
it’s almost looking at success as like a pie and that’s it that’s all there is and if
you take a bigger piece of that pie then my piece is going to be smaller and if you don’t know me you know I’ll
tell you if you don’t know me let me introduce you to my school of thought I see it very differently the I believe
now not always because I’m human and that inner brain likes to to like make
me second guess but when I am my best self I believe that there is enough success
out there for us to have so there is an abundance there’s enough out there the only
resource that matters is our human creativity we can come up with new creative things we have since the dawn
of time we come up with something new something different it will never I mean we
I could go on and on about that one but there is not a limited source of success
and so by myself or anyone else teaching people here you can write patterns too
and you can have success it does not mean that I’m taking away from anybody else and so just lean into and try to
surround yourself with people who have a positive mindset and who are willing to
accept that your success actually brings more success to all of us that by having
more quality patterns out there and I stress quality because it’s not just
about throwing out free and free content well I’m gonna address that one next but by putting out good quality content that
improves everybody I mean even I think about movies if you go back and look at movies from when I was a kid
like Jurassic Park when it came out I was like the special effects have arrived it will never get any better
than this like it looks so real this is such an amazing experience now if I watch that movie with my kids I’m like
wow we’ve come a long way movies in general have gotten better and
better both in storyline I think anyhow that’s an opinion but as far as special
effects all the things they just get better and better that doesn’t mean that because one movie is better that all the
other movies aren’t as good it just means that all the movies get better in quality over time
so we want to improve the quality of work that’s out there and hopefully reach a broader audience and invite more
people into this quilting community and then let’s just talk about this
marketing that they kind of made a jab about saying that the 10 000 follower
designers who collaborate together in large groups for multiple free Samplers each year exacerbates the no low sale
situation I’ve actually been a part of one of those groups and it was phenomenal
and my sales did not get hurt in the slightest and it grew my email list by a
lot so a couple of things I see here again is this maybe
feeling a little bit threatened by people who have more than 10 000 followers so to mention specifically people who have 10 000 followers well
again it’s it’s looking at those vanity metrics and so just to invite everyone all of us to to remember to step back
and to not not focus so much on how many followers people have but also let’s take a look
if people are doing these free samplers why are they doing it and why do they
keep doing it it must be serving a purpose for them I wonder if I could try that in my own way and then look and see
if their sales are going down because of this then they probably wouldn’t be doing it but my sales haven’t been hurt
the people I joined in with it hasn’t hurt our sales the more people you get on your email list the more people
you’re going to be contacting and and selling to so your sales should be going up
and so I see it a lot where people uh like to throw stones at other people’s
businesses or their marketing especially when someone’s having success it becomes
that moral kind of well morality wise that’s not right and if I can’t win in
this way at least I will be the better person so again this is totally Anonymous I
don’t know who this person is my guess is they aren’t listening to my podcast but I don’t know
um but I do just in the most loving way because all of us can relate to these
feelings and in a way thank you for being open and sharing how you feel about it because I guaranteed if you if
one person feels this way other people feel this way too which brings in a whole nother lesson but
just to open your mind to the idea that that you can have success and to really
put on blinders and to not pay attention to or judge the way that other people run their business
if you don’t love it then that’s not for you and that’s the other lesson I was referring to we as business owners we’re
not for everybody you do not want to be for everybody you know you’re making an
impact and having success when people are specifically saying I don’t like what they’re doing I wish they would do
it differently they should do it this way that means people are noticing you for one thing I don’t know if you remember I had Emily Dennis on the
podcast a while ago and she said she had people reaching out to her or a person I can’t remember
saying you should really try different kind of pattern years all kind of look the same and she was like I think they
actually really meant it coming from a kind place but she kept doing these kinds of
patterns because they sold well she was like I know what sells well so I’m going to keep doing that because it sells well
and so oftentimes when I hear people look at someone else’s business and critique it it comes from a place of
insecurity or maybe jealousy um and wishing that they could have
success in another way by not and I don’t know why people care
um I mean in this particular instance this person is feeling like their sales have directly been hurt because there
are other people learning and taking a course on how to write and sell quilt patterns
um but again just open up your mind to the possibility that there are things in
your power like don’t let the success of your business hinge on someone else don’t let because someone else is
deciding to do XYZ I can’t have success don’t give that power to other people you own your business if there is
something that isn’t going the way you want it to trust that there is a way that you can learn how to do it better
there is a way to get sales I mean you will see the numbers there are some people who are earning great money with
their quilt pattern sales they’re doing something right so learn learn what those things are
there there’s always a way to improve those sales and those numbers so with that said let me jump in let me
introduce you to Carolina and let’s chat about the the numbers and the data
[Music] all right Carolina thank you for being
here so I actually reached out to you specifically because you had shared that you used to do
numbers tell me more about what you’ve done with numbers in the past in analysis
so um in 2018 I went back and I got my MBA um in part because I wanted to
understand like the numbers behind business um and one of the classes for my MBA
that we had to it was actually it was the first semester and it was super hard when you’re going from not having school
in your life for over a decade and then suddenly having school in your life in addition to kids and everything else you’ve got going on
um was it’s called quantitative analytics and we always shorten it to quants which is
yeah understanding numbers um and it was honestly one of the most valuable classes that I took because you
learn I learned a lot about risk so looking at numbers and calculating
risk based on the percentage likelihood that something was going to happen but also um how to sort data and use data to be
able to understand you know future decisions because it’s really what you want to use numbers for how did I do
compared to my goal and then how do I think I’m going to do in the future based on what these numbers are doing
and I loved it so much that in gosh it was my second and last semester I took another class on customer analytics
which was super intense very very difficult class
um and managed to squeak out a in that class I don’t know well done it was
right like that was it was one that was like why did I take this class but I learned so much about the numbers and
data um and how to sift data and sort data and understand and you know look at outliers and look at
um you know making a hypothesis about the kind of results you’re gonna see and then seeing the results and seeing do
these make sense do they not what else do I need to look at so um which I mean so the numbers here that
that I have which we’ll dive into it but one of the things he talked about is what can I expect from these numbers so
people wonder how much can I earn as a quilt pattern designer what’s a realistic even thing to think about and
I have been trying to figure out what what is that you know I can share what I have but what so I put out a
survey which moving forward I would definitely tweak it there are certain things that I would ask differently
um but we have a great set of some beginning knowledge here but also one thing I would love to do moving forward
is where people can only enter a number because that leads to some great analysis but let’s just go through these
questions and I would love your Insight you know I shared in a Facebook group for quilt pattern designers that I was
going to share this information and they were like oh I can’t wait to see the analysis I’m like oh I know I don’t know that I’m
offering that but I so now I think I’m putting you up to the standard but I did want you to come on here because you
have more experience with that than I definitely do well and I used to just very similar to
this in the crafts industry for craft bloggers because I started in this industry actually from the craft blogger
side and then moved into being a quilt pattern designer through a whole series of events okay um so yeah I love that you did the
survey I was so excited when you did it um and of course like year two numbers you’re going to you learn from the
survey that you did and change the kinds of questions that you ask and more information and we can talk about that
as we go through these numbers but like for beginner first survey like Baseline
numbers I just I found this fascinating I think that you did a great job on the survey oh well that’s very nice of you
very generous which for you listeners if you’re wanting to see these results I do
have them there’s a link in the show notes episode 85 of The Craft career podcast and that’s on my blog at
www.quilterscandy.com and that’s where you can find the link to get all of this
data so let’s just go through there were six questions that I asked the first one
is how long have you been writing and selling quilt patterns number two how many patterns Have You released so far
number three how many patterns did you sell during the first week of your pattern launch and I asked that one
because students are like in my first week I sold this many is that good is that bad and not that one’s
good or bad but just to get a feel for what’s average and then number four how many total
patterns did you sell in the last month how many of you are sorry how much have
you earned in the past 12 months from quilt pattern sales loan and then do you have another source of income within the
quilting World Beyond just quilt pattern design so those are my questions and I shared
this with you and you had put together some cool analysis do you have that and
do you want to share what you came up with I do so I went through the numbers
um there were a couple duplicates that we had and then a couple so I took out a couple duplicates that there were I
think we ended up with like 106 responses which is a good number um and then I normalized them so like
one of the things I did was how long had people been pattern writing I changed
that to a number of months so someone said they’d been doing it for one year I changed it to 12 months if they said a year and a half then 18 months
um so that that would be a normal number um to be able to do that
um and then I made sure that the dollars someone wrote out one thousand or wrote
out 300 then I change it to numbers 300 or 1 000. um so that that Excel could do its magic
of actually sorting it um and
I love the results so let me see if I’m pulling the spreadsheet so out of the
106 responses um the number of months pattern writing
the average was just over five years
um the number of patterns released total average was just over 33 patterns
the number of patterns sold in week one was just over 80 it was like 80.9
and the number of patterns sold last month was 202.93
okay and the 12 month revenue and again this is one of the things that we were discussing in the group was that this
revenue is just pattern writing revenue and so few pattern designers make their revenue just solely on pattern design
they have a shop where they sell like Notions that go along with their patterns
um they work with companies in different ways they have affiliate links there’s so many other ways I mean even Instagram
is paying folks to do reels there’s so many other ways that you can make money so this is just the pattern portion of
the income and the average across all 106 people was fifteen thousand two
hundred and twenty nine dollars and ten cents 15 000 is that right fifteen thousand
two hundred twenty nine ten um so but that’s across a huge range of
experience um the the highest end of experience was like
264 months um which I can do the math real quick on
that equals this divided by 12. so that’s 22 years so we had like four
people with 22 years of experience um and someone with six months of
experience and someone with 22 years of experience that’s different it doesn’t mean better worse
um well and the majority of the people are rather new if you’re looking at this
there’s I’d love to again gather all that number and and put it into different categories but like if there’s
a piece of the pie I would say the biggest piece of the pie are people who’ve been doing this
around a year give or take so interestingly because I did sort it by
three different categories I did a category of a year or less I did a category of 18 months to five years
because there was no one who had done it for 11 or 13 months so a year less than 18 months to five years and then more
than five years for the year or less there were 26 people who answered the survey had been
doing this for a year or less 50 people who’ve been doing this for 18 months to five years and 29 people who had been
doing this more than five years so say that again the three the one year or less was like 18 20 26 people
27 18 months to five years was 50 people okay so that’s the biggest one more than
five years was 29 people so the biggest chunk of these people is in that middle group so it’s very much like a bell
curve that we see in a lot of surveys less at the beginning a lot in the middle and then less at the end
um and then I sorted all those numbers like the averages based on all that
experience right so someone who’s been doing this for a year or less on average of those responses
um the average amount of time that I’ve been doing this was 0.823 years
so it was like almost 10 months 9.8 months and do you have any like of those people
they earned this much those people their 12-month Revenue was
1473.36 on average okay how about the next group does the income go up as they’re in it longer on
average it does so of the 50 people who’d been doing it from 18 months to five years on average they’d been doing
this 37.74 months which is just over three years 3.145 years so about three
years in a month um and they sold just over 90 patterns last
month in their 12-month Revenue was 12 343.59
so the jump from one year to and this is
an average of three years so just under a year to just over three years um it goes up
from from almost 1500 to just over 1200 or sorry from just over 1500 to just 12
000 excuse me so from 1500 to 12 000 after a couple years of experience and
we would expect to see that because the longer you’re doing this like if you make if you just write three patterns a
year or let’s say four patterns a year one’s a one a quarter after three years you have 12 patterns
right so that’s going to be more patterns that you can sell it’s also more likely that you’re going to be in
with Distributors and you’re going to be in with shops it’s going to be more likely that you’ve been able to speak at some guilds and you’ve been able to
build an audience and a following um so it’s very we would expect to see
those numbers go up and it’s so awesome because we really do see those numbers go up as we move up
um and then going up into the more than five years
um the average time that this group this more than five years group has been a
quilt pattern designer is 152.5 months which is 12.7 years so
almost 13. a little over 12 and a half 12 and three quarters years
71.89 patterns okay they sold last month almost 600
patterns so it was 582 patterns and their 12-month revenue is 33
712.4 cents okay well just to point out that I mean some of these again it’s
really fascinating to look at the individual results because some of these people are earning over a hundred thousand and when I say that it might
just be one well there was one person who responded that they were making a hundred thousand and then one person who
responded they’re making three hundred thousand um their 12-month Revenue was three hundred thousand dollars so I took out
that 300 000 because it was such a huge outlier and re-ran those numbers
um with that person removed the average time of this new group this new cohort
is 12 and a half years just over 12 and a half years so the average time didn’t really change that much
um and there average number of patterns that they’ve that they sold last month was 472.
which actually was just a little about 100 less because it was 582 before with
that that one outlier in there and then the 12-month Revenue went from 33 700 to
23 470. so again this is just the pattern sales
revenue not Notions not any um not books
um that’s true not and not fabric design none of the other things that
honestly from my experience of being in this industry um someone who’s been doing this for 12
years usually isn’t only writing patterns they’re teaching they have a couple books out they have a fabric line
they might have a notion um they might have some kind of they they do we don’t see as many Affiliates
in uh right we don’t which surprises me and I think it’s gonna change I know I’m
like let’s jump on that folks um and while I did a podcast episode
with you on Affiliates a couple months back um yep that lays out exactly how to do
it actually I think it was almost a year ago yeah that we did that now yeah because it was shortly after Black Friday and my
Black Friday that’s right we’re even better so um and made me look at last year’s ago I
mean last year’s was nice but this year was good um anyway so yeah you know to make
um and this is again also Revenue so right one of the things that doesn’t include expenses yeah yeah just the
income because as we know there’s photos and the fabric if you’re buying that but I
mean one thing that is so crucial I think for a fabric or quilt pattern designer to get their head around
is don’t throw in the towel if you’re like oh man it’s going to be twelve thousand dollars a year on average at
you know the three year mark But to speak to the importance of building your
resume if you will so that you can diversify your income I would love love love to ask these same people what’s
their total revenue with all things included you know
and that number would go way up for sure but having quality quilt patterns under
your belt is huge for the other things that you’ve kind of touched on you know the other thing that I found interesting
is that um for someone who’s been doing this one year or less their average revenue was
fourteen hundred almost fifteen hundred dollars um and I did a presentation for my local
guild about what it takes to start as a pattern designer and if you’re looking at
you know the fabric to buy it to make your quilt um getting the actual pattern printed
some of the software that you need um you know getting a website getting an
email program to send out emails to people those kinds of things it’s about a thousand dollars
to launch your first pattern and the 12-month revenue for these
you know a first year pattern designer is fourteen hundred fifteen hundred dollars so you’re looking at if you do
Put Your Shoulder into it there’s no reason that you can’t reasonably get
your investment back the first year yeah absolutely well and also one thing
that I like to remind myself and others if you look at this sheet and you see
the outliers that are on the higher end here’s the deal it’s happening to
someone and it can be you and so learning some business strategies as to
well how could I sell more how can I be better have better sales there are
business strategies to Growing your numbers like if it’s available to someone it’s available to you too
whoever is having these sales and I wish I knew but it is actually totally Anonymous like these outliers I’m like
man and there’s some of the answers that they’re like I don’t do a normal launch so this doesn’t apply to me yeah but
their sales are really good I’m like what is their business model I’m so intrigued because it’s working really
well you know but um but if there’s success out there it’s available to you a lot of business is in the mindset and
so I could see some people looking at these numbers and being like oh sure enough I’m going to be that person who earns zero money after two years and so
a lot of it is in like how you approach it I don’t know have you seen that with your own business which sorry you said a lot of things
that I was like several of them yes the mindset of um
how you approach your business being like Oh I don’t know if I can do this or I’ve got this and how either one of
those mindsets affects your success absolutely I mean there’s a lot of you know fake it till you make it and once
you make it you just keep faking it because yeah you’ve got that muscle memory down of Faking it so you keep
going but like I’m looking at these numbers for the 26 folks who’ve been doing this for less than a year and
there’s like eight of them who when asked how many patterns they sold last month um the answer is zero and the number of
people who the number of patterns they sold their first week of launching a pattern um it looks like more than half of them
are single digit um so when you’re first starting out and
you know you’re you launch a pattern and five people buy it that’s a success
measuring your beginning against someone else’s middle um it’s not fair to you and stop that
already and I think you’ve known away um success breeds more
successfully seen that over the last couple years but the more success you have the more people recognize you and
notice you and want to be part of that success and want to join in and the more
fun you’re having the more people want to be part of that fun so um this is true because when you go into
the five-year people you don’t see as many single digits
um right for free pattern sales oh well you’re pretty close but not quite like
it’s still yeah even people have been doing this on average of three years or more there’s still quite a few single
digits well and there was someone who had been doing it I want to say for 22 years and they still were not selling a
lot which oh yeah it’s not all about just time it’s about quality and you know
there’s a lot and I’m not saying that theirs isn’t good quality I’m saying that there are things we can do you know to
up our sales of the four people who’ve been doing this 22 years
um one person on launch week sold five one sold 16 one sold 24 and one sold 618 and
I’m guessing that the person who sold 618 um some of that was to distributors
oh they they have a breakdown actually wholesale retail Etsy and then they only sold 12 on their website
487 were wholesale distribution distribution so there you go there’s a big piece of the
puzzle that having a wholesale account will sell you more and then even how
many patterns sold last month um it was of those four people
1855 160 and 562.
um yeah the other thing that we didn’t ask that I would love to see is how many hours a week do you put into your
business because I’d love to see the correlation between you know how many hours you put into your business versus
what you’re getting out of the business not only the number of hours you put
into the business is going to get you more Revenue to a point because everyone too have been burned out and Yeah
putting 80 hours a week into your business it’s probably not going to be much more profitable than putting like 50 hours or 60 hours into your business
honestly um but I would love to see that as you do this longer that the coral you don’t
need to put as many hours into the business to see as much revenue right the return per hour is probably going to
drop you don’t think you need to put as many hours into it right well and that also speaks to because you have more patterns that are
out there that are already sitting there and they’re earning you money but you’re not doing more work but you have built a
brand and credibility and people like that so and when you have patterns out
there there are fabric manufacturers who see those patterns and say oh we have this line and it’s going to look perfect
with that pattern and they make your pattern in their Fabric and then you get
this Russian sales again um or you know you see a new line that’s you say oh this line would be perfect
for this pattern that I wrote four years ago and you remake the quilt which is a lot less work than rewriting a pattern
and you get a huge burst of sales again so the kinds of you can work smart more
smart and less hard the more you have that base of your business built up
and I get I mean a couple of things that I’m thinking of as I’m looking at this and hearing what we’re saying one I know
that there is a large group of the population that does not have the luxury of waiting a couple of years for things
to really pick up and and I I wish I could like fix that
for everyone you know I mean it is with any business you’re going to start up if you open a restaurant if you start up
any business the first few years you usually take a financial hit a little bit and if you can stick with it though
like I can also see because I know I’ve worked with students and some I’m not saying everyone needs to just toughen it
out and like stick with it no matter what because sometimes you decide this isn’t really what I want to do maybe I’ll do something else but if you’re
really passionate about having a career in the quilting industry and you’re not seeing success like you want right away
don’t throw in the towel it doesn’t mean it’s not working it just means that’s part of the process and learn you know
learn look at what’s not working um anyone who I read from or study from
who is successful they talk about the mind games that we play it’s not unique to you but we tell
ourselves oh it’s not working out I’m doing this wrong other people are having this and we come up with stories of why
it’s not working but if you can stick with it and continue to make a quality product and build an audience start
small and build that audience it does grow over time it does pay off for sure
well and a couple things um someone told me early on I think I
was in like year three um and struggling and someone said it takes eight to ten years to be an
overnight success yeah that’s true and I kept that close and sure enough like it was year eight
that I got a book deal you know it was Year to everyone you’re 10.
um but yes I got like years eight and ten were huge um and then more growth from there
um but the other thing is I’ve had times where I’ve seen people that just look wildly successful online and I’ll have
conversations with peers who know them like actually know them instead of just seeing them online and sometimes it’ll
be like oh yeah they’re working their butts off and I say oh okay they can have that success because I don’t want
to work that hard like too much work um I’m okay being less successful than that and not working that ridiculously
hard but there are other times where they say oh yeah that’s all smoke and mirrors like those pictures were taken
in their in-laws basement because they’re living in their in-laws basement and have been with their six kids and I
they’re all crammed in there um and you just don’t you don’t know what you don’t know about other people’s
lives you only know what they’re showing which is another reason that the comparison game you’ll always lose
because you you have the 100 picture of what’s going on in your life and you have the three percent picture of what’s
going on in their life yes okay and I know because I’ve talked to people and they’re like so and so must be earning
over a hundred thousand dollars a year and I’m like no they’re not because it
looks because they have so many followers or it’s these vanity metrics and then I’ve had a few people on the
podcast who have 10 000 followers or so and people don’t give it much of a
Second Glance and they’re earning Millions a year you know and so don’t be
fooled by these metrics that you don’t know I mean we don’t know who’s giving these answers on this survey but there’s
a wide variety so just to kind of put your blinders on and keep doing your thing it’s much easier said than done I
get it I have to have my husband remind me like what would the podcast Elizabeth say to you today you know how would you
handle this the person who’s making 300 000 I mean first of all good for them but you know do they have an assistant
um who’s helping them with things um I know a pattern designer who she
creates the design for the quilt um and then she sends it to a pattern writer and the pattern writer does all
the writing and then she tests the quilt um so
and that works for her she I know she makes good money it might even that might even be that person who made the
300 000 it wouldn’t surprise me to to learn that that’s her um because she’s created a system that
works for her she probably has more expenses than like I would since I’m writing my patterns but I mean I can I’m
not making 300 000 in patterns right but patterns are the majority of her
business um and she’s created a system that works for her and there’s zero shame in that
like if anyone says less of a pattern designer because she’s sending it to someone else to actually write up the
pattern nonsense but also like who cares she can be lost and make more money all
day long so okay I love when people love to throw stones about people’s success
I’m like that’s really funny because they’re doing really well so I think right applaud them for that you know
like yeah okay you’re a Ghostwriter or if I hire you know a gardener and a maid
you know it’s all just I only have 24 hours in a day so I have to maybe hire
some stuff out somewhere or get less sleep and at some point you just can’t get any less sleep anymore well and you know there are other people
who their job is to be a ghost writer and we’re helping the whole economy as you know hiring people out for different
things it’s we all work together to make a product and to make a living but okay I’m curious you don’t need to say
numbers but and I’m putting you on the spot here I don’t even know if you know what has been your biggest source of
Revenue and income this past year if you had to guess and maybe you do know but
um my exclusive product so I launched the boxback template this year um and that made a huge difference like
um I have nine and soon it’ll be 12 patterns that go with it um but it’s done like better than like I
had big plans for it and it’s done even better than I imagined and there’s even more plans for it again next year
um but having my own notion and the reason is um because the margins so when when
you’re looking at what to sell in um in the world of rules quilting
specifically but this applies anywhere if I were to go to Checker and so I sold
a ton of scrap tape it does really well for me I have a couple patterns that use scrap tape um but if I buy scrap tape from checker
for I don’t know I’m gonna use a round number let’s say it’s ten dollars and I sell it for 20. then my profit is ten
dollars minus any expenses I have so if I’m doing free shipping then I have to take
the free shipping cost out of the 10 profit that I’m making um any time any labor any packaging
materials um all of those have to come out of that ten dollar profit that I would make
whereas with the boxback template it sells for 23.99
um and I’m making way more than 50 margins on my box by template so it’s a
higher cost item um and my margins my percent margin is
higher so my profit is much bigger on that um and then also I sell a ton to
distributors awesome do you teach classes on this or how do people how have you marketed it I
guess Market of the box back template yeah um through Distributors and they do that
so I’ve done videos um and I’ve done videos not only on YouTube but on Instagram and Tick Tock
um I’ve gone to a couple quilt shows which was really fun first of all because I missed seeing people in person
last couple years because of covid um but it was fun to demo it in front of
Quilters and get their immediate feedback and questions on it right which
is really important when you have a new product to get and I did that with like my local friends and Quilters but to do
that with hundreds of people they don’t know me and there’s no skin in this game for them they can ask like completely
ridiculous off-the-wall questions and I’m on the spot answering these and but I loved it because it really gave me a
sense of what their needs were in regards to the tool um so yeah in-person shows
um I’ve talked about on a couple different podcasts that I’ve been on I have a significant newsletter list that I’ve put it on the newsletter list and
then yes also getting out to Distributors I also did buy advertising space there are two so I don’t know if
you know this and there’s probably listeners who don’t know this there are two major industry Publications
um for the quilting industry one it was called quilt retailer magazine and
they’ve just rebranded themselves to creative retailer magazine um because
they the information there is applicable to more than just quilt retailers so if
you’re a scrapbooking retailer or rubber stamping retailer it’s the same kind of information
um so now they’re creative retailer magazine and the other is called Fab shop magazine and they both are
subscription based you it’s not expensive to purchase subscriptions but I bought an ad in Creative retailer
magazine as well um oh cool and that was you saw payback like you got money from that
so the interesting thing is I don’t know the direct return on that um because
so I don’t know but I definitely see more and then I also reached out to
specific Distributors like the boxback template is available at Fat Quarter Shop um okay cool and then we’ll reach out to
them and say hey and you know that’s one of those sometimes they respond sometimes they don’t but they did and
they now carry the boxback template as well so yeah um and then lots of Facebook lives with
local quilt shops and then non-local quilt shops whenever someone reaches out and says you know would you like to yes yes
um because so yeah you work for that and it’s really interesting too because this
now sets you up as a sort of expert in a way which I know people generally get freaked out by like oh I’m an expert but
you are in this product and it builds credibility and you know you you just
have experience under your belt and now you are more appealing and desirable to
be featured in magazines to get hired for other things and so adding these things over time I mean for you this has
been your number one Revenue generator for the year that’s huge you know yeah I
also did an advent calendar that did really well this year oh cool and again I mean that’s it was 75 per Advent
calendar so again higher ticket items with higher margins will get you more
profits um so and it was custom the margins aren’t there to be able to sell it
wholesale or or um to shops um to distributors or Wholesales so
um that one was only through me um and the amount of work in it is like
I don’t want to be making 10 000 of these to send out to all the difference because it’s so much work it was like a
week of work just to make the hundreds that I did make um oh I feel for you having done those boxes the subscription boxes in the past
I’m like uh I I thought of you there but yeah so
um and then finding products that you know work well together so
um if someone is already writing patterns can you sell a notion with it even though it’s not your higher margin
item it’s an upsell right so if you if you’re making half square triangle
quilts creative grids has the 7 8 inch ruler that makes cutting those stupid 7
8 inch squares so much easier so selling those if you’re not able to for whatever
reason have a physical shop where you carry inventory and ship it out yourself because that is a whole different level
of work you have to have the inventory you have to you know have the packaging stuff you have to go to the post office
and drop it off it is a whole extra layer of work um sign up to be an affiliate at different shops Like Fat Quarter Shop is
a really going to share a sale get yourself a Fat Quarter Shop affiliate they carry almost every of the major
rulers um and then just affiliate link them and get your couple percent there so every
little way that you can add those pennies and then you know create a YouTube video about it and enable ads on
your YouTube video now you’re making money from one pattern in three ways and then create a Instagram reel about it
and sign up for the reels you know payout program now you’re making money there off of it as well and then you
know create a class around it and Market it to guilds now you’re making money there as well and so now you’re 1500 a
year as a new pattern designer or you’re 30 000 a year as a experienced pattern
designer becomes so much more because you’re not doing it’s just an incremental amount more work to pick up
money in all these other buckets well and I’ll share I mean it feels very naked and vulnerable but I’ll share so I
went and looked for 2021 I had all of my patterned sale numbers and it was twenty
thousand dollars that I earned in pattern revenue for 2021. and then I
just had a yearly meeting with my team and I was like asking my girl who does all the numbers what what are my pattern
sales for this year it’s about half and I was like what I’m so embarrassed and she’s like no no Elizabeth
your business model has changed and you are now earning more money than you ever
have but my pattern sale numbers have gone down so if you were to look at me
you know year whatever I am her numbers her pattern sale numbers went down but my overall income has gone up and it’s
because I am diversifying that pie I’m adding other things to the pie and the patterns are not the biggest piece of
the pie anymore you know um the membership is really and the course are the top ones and
so also to keep that in mind as you look at those numbers and think they’re only earning this there there are other pieces of the pie that are bringing in
much more but having those patterns is definitely part of the equation
but it’s also I mean that’s smart business because if I write a pattern I can sell someone that pattern once
they’re not going to buy that pattern again next month or next year I mean unless they lose it but usually a lot of
people buy digital patterns in which case they’ll just re-download it right so you can only sell someone a pattern
once maybe twice if they lose their stuff um you know if they’re not organized you’re not going to be able to sell
someone 12 of the same pattern if you want to sell someone 12 patterns you have to write 12 patterns and then have
them be interested in all 12 patterns whereas something like a membership um people subscribe to that and then you
are collecting Revenue every single month because you’re offering value every single month whereas a pattern
will not continue to offer new value every single month so the biggest and we
talk about this in business the biggest cost for a customer is the cost of acquisition so the cost of getting a new
customer it’s running ads it’s doing the things that get them interested and once
you have someone interested as a customer it’s much easier to upsell them it’s much easier to get them to buy a
second time and in the case of a course you already have them signed up to buy their second month and their third month
and therefore not the sorry a membership their second month and their third month in their fourth month with a membership so you’ve now taken that cost of
acquisition and you’ve spread that cost of acquisition over a longer term Revenue
and if I’ll I one thing that I learned I don’t even know when a year or so ago it doesn’t matter but the idea of a
customer journey and you talked about this with an upsell but you want to provide a pathway of experiences so
let’s just say quilt patterns is at the beginning of that path what’s going to come next for you let’s say it’s this uh
ruler template that you’ve created but then once they’re done with that then what’s the next thing that you could
sell them and what’s gonna and naturally like what are they going to want to do next on their their journey of
progressing to make something so just to keep providing that next step of okay now you need this next thing let me help
you with that here’s a product that will solve that for you um and to help keep them on that pathway
like that and I know sometimes like when I first started as a quilt pattern designer I’m like there is no Journey what no you buy the pattern you make the
quilt done but just to think outside the box a little bit and think well then they’re gonna have to learn how to quilt
it what if I were to teach them how to quilt it or how to take care of their quilt or how to take photographs of the
quilt once it’s done you know all these things have story equal blah blah um or now you’ve made this kind of quilt
do you want to learn how to make this next Advanced type of quilt let me teach you how to do that and just to to think
of your customer going on a journey and providing multiple products that are on that
natural path that they’re going to go on also one thing to avoid is like if you sell a pattern to someone to then
right away say okay and here’s another pattern because they’ll be like no I just bought a pattern I want to make this one so instead of selling them the
same product think of what’s the next thing oh you’re going to need fabric to make it here’s some fabric or I can move
them along and then there are um so much like your membership
um what do people want to do when they finish their quilt they want to show it off do you have a Facebook group or a
membership or a way that they can show off their finished project because that is part of the customer journey of a quilter is I’ve made the thing I want to
show it off another part is you know I’m struggling I want to ask questions of someone do you have a way for someone to
ask questions if they’re struggling like the journey isn’t just what I’m what are they buying from me along this path but
what are their experiences and how am I supporting these experiences throughout the process
yes and Community that’s a major Value Point that just creating a community
adds a lot of value so there’s a lot of fun ways to get creative with an income as a quilter
um but yeah so I’m curious again kind of putting you on the spot if you have that
analysis of the numbers do you mind sending it to me and I’ll include that in the PDF that they can get
um yes I mean I just have it here as a um a really ugly Excel spreadsheet that’s
all I’ve got too sorry listeners that’s what you’re getting is really ugly Excel spreadsheet but it’s got the data I can
pull some stuff out of here so that it’s less of a big ugly spreadsheet so that they’ve got some specific
um in what we talked about in case you know I I’m often doing something else while listening to podcasts not
scribbling down the nothing that I’ve heard exactly but yeah I I do think it’s
important to note that like these numbers don’t come out of nowhere it’s not that you know I say one day I’m
gonna be a quilt pattern designer today and 12 months later you know I have 1500 in Revenue
um right there is you know there’s a plan and there’s work and I mean you talk a lot about these things in other
parts of your podcast or other episodes of your podcast you know there’s um
there’s a there’s people who you know wake up one day and say I’m gonna do a thing
um and then a year later all they’ve ever had is the idea yeah and they’re frustrated that nothing
came out of it um ideas are just like that’s the seed if you
don’t water it if you don’t tend it if you don’t you know weed the garden you’re never going to get fruit out of it
um there is fruit to be had you know we have this these numbers that show that there’s an orchard out there
um but if you don’t yeah tend the land and do the things you know keep the bugs
away keep the pests away whatever else needs to happen in Orchard your orchard will not bear fruit
exactly no that’s very beautifully said I like that Orchard analogy by the way my dad is a gardener and it speaks to my
heart I love that I’m not a gardener and my Gardener and I do not have a gardener so
but I have a quilting business and that’s my Orchard so yeah
well thank you for doing this analysis and sharing so our listeners if well
first of all they can go back and listen to the episode that you were on last time again I’ll leave that link in the
show notes but where you talk about affiliate marketing if they’re like what how can I earn more money being an affiliate go listen to that but if they
want to find you and see more about who you are what you sell and what you do where can they find you
um so on Instagram I’m craft more I’m also craft more on Tick Tock and if you
go on to YouTube and you just type in my name Carolina Moore I will pop right up
um if you type Caroline into more into Google I used to come up I should still come up on as Caroline no more on Google
but um I have a Blog called always expect more and it is more with two o’s always expectmore.com and I have a shop
called Carolina patterns.com yeah yes okay it’s m-o-o-r-e in case the
listeners are wanting to type that in so thank you so much for being here also
real quick before we officially go I just want to say thank you you’re like the host of this Facebook group for
quilt pattern designers and you just have a very level head about you I love having you on the podcast but also just
in the quilting Community as a friend because you’re very level-headed and but
[Laughter] um even with these numbers you know
there there was some talk about well clearly if you’re doing this for this long it doesn’t guarantee success and no
you’re quick to point out like well there’s always going to be an outlier you know let’s look at the trends in general and I just I really like your
approach to things so thank you thank you yeah well thanks so much for being here thanks for having me this was
fun it was all right we’ll see ya all right bye [Music]
thank you so much Carolina for being here as you can see she was invaluable she’s got a special set of skills that I
do not so again go to the show notes it’s quilterscandy.com podcast episode
85. you can get all of the data both uh the raw data and then what Carolina
added with the averages and all of that because you don’t want to listen and take notes you know during a podcast so
that’s all there for you and when you do get that you are opting into my email list so just you know that and you’ll be
added to the section that’s interested in this kind of a thing you can unsubscribe if you want to and again if
you’ve not left a review for the podcast please do I love to hear from you and it
also really helps the podcast to be seen by more people when you leave a review for the podcast
and just as a reminder it’s getting close to the end of the year December
5th is the last day which is actually in just a couple of days from when this will release it is the last day to apply
to be in The Mastermind with myself next year so far there are some really
awesome people and I cannot wait these will be my close friends confidants
business people for 2023 and I have some awesome things in store I cannot wait to
collaborate and grow our businesses together if you’re interested in learning more about that visit quilterscandy.com and there’s a link at
the top of my website where you can apply that will be gone on December 5th and if you are an alumni you can join me
in the crafty career Club this is something I’m super excited about it is
where I take you alumni where we all have a background based knowledge but I
go through each month with you holding your hand giving you one thing to focus on to grow your business this is a
membership if you will a club unlike any other I I don’t even know the idea for
it just came from listening to my students and hearing them ask what do I do next this momentum this all this
energy and forward motion with the course I want to keep it going I also I’m not ready you know I kind of
want my hand held a little bit more I’m not ready to just go and do this on my own and so I am breaking down each month one
tangible thing like this month or not this month in particular January we’re going to go through yearly planning
then we’re going to talk about building an email opt-in and next month creating an email sequence looking at our
websites and how to improve it and there’s accountability and there’s a leaderboard you can see everyone who’s
finished those things so there’s it’s just I’m super excited to work with you
and to hold your hand and help you grow your business so be sure to come and join if you are
an alumni of either the quilt pattern writing course or the crafty career course and thank you so much for being here on
the craft career podcast I will see you next week next Friday until then have a wonderful week
[Music]
