Creative Stifle

Did somebody say trifle!!!!! Oh stifle....... i see, how disappointing.

As you can tell this isn't Emma.

Hi , I'm Craig , the other half to Creative and creator of Side Burner.

First blog for Creative so be gentle, I've done other blogs before but not one that could affect the future of a business!!!

So , when I handed my notice in at work and decided to put 95% of my energy into Creative and Side Burner ( currently part time , 2 days a week at previous job ) I had no idea how hard it would be .

I've always been up at 6am on the dot getting ready for work, military type motions , shower, dressed, breakfast, make lunch, off to work, day in day out for the last 32 years!! WOW , when I type it out it's crazy how much time we spend working for other people.

It is strange going from 43 hours a week , managing 15 staff at a retail warehouse, again military type procedures, to lying in bed until 8am deciding whether to have cake for breakfast.

We decided this year was going to be the year I put some input into Creative , maybe a year too early I think , but, i was getting excited at how the business was going , all the different directions it could go in, group bookings, therapeutic weekends away, a host of different crafters joining us........that was my job, to find crafters who were interested in teaching their craft and using us as support, easy right?

Craft contributes £3.4 billion to the economy each year with over 12,000 businesses, that's not including all the crafters you see at fayres , selling on Etsy,Ebay etc, it is huge and only getting bigger!!!

So i thought i'd get crafters to sign up to take lessons no problem, noooooooooo, the percentage of crafters that want to teach their craft is low, and i get it, why would you teach someone how to do what you are trying to sell? 

It's hard to put across to the people i'm contacting that I don't want to be part of their business, I want them to join us to be stronger and utilise our platform to create a successful community together.

I sometimes think that the people I contact don't understand the concept, it's probably the way I put across the proposal and I need to work on that but I also don't want to sound pushy or arrogant with what I am saying, It's worked so well for Side Burner so I am obviously looking for pyrographers as I know all there is to know on how to get started with the workshops.

It's probably my business naivety that is letting me down personally but luckily I don't have that aggression you need to get your point across, I see it daily on Facebook posts, businesses acting angrily to a negative review or posting a picture of someone who didn't like their product to get peoples validation, that's not Creative, that's not Side Burner, that's not me.

Gone off track a bit there , first blog, let it go.

So to sum up why we do workshops , it's about getting 10-15 people , sometimes strangers, into a room and connecting with them , connecting in such a way they remember when they did a pyrography workshop, connecting in a way they go home satisfied with what they've achieved today, connecting in a way that just slightly it makes them feel better about themselves, connecting in such a way that the people then spread a bit of positivity without knowing, that's why I do it and that's what I want to find in other crafters/teachers.

I think the percentage of my potential pool has just gone down a lot more but if you're in craft for the money you're in the wrong business