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All Our most recent articles

Store & Maker Interviews Emily Kerr-Finell Store & Maker Interviews Emily Kerr-Finell

Made to Last Series: A Deep Dive with Jonnie Estes of Grey Theory Mill

Part of Made to Last – a series of interviews we’re doing with established makers who have grown and evolved their businesses over the long term. We sit down with Jonnie Estes of Grey Theory Mill. Jonnie gets specific about how the pandemic and the recession are affecting her sales, the emotional roller coaster of running a business, the good, bad, and ugly of her experiments with ads – and where she is headed now (12 years into running her business.)

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Line Sheets Emily Kerr-Finell Line Sheets Emily Kerr-Finell

What Parts of Your Story People Actually Care About

Yes, your art is meaningful on its own. Yes, your products are tangibly better than others. But ultimately, your story is a key reason that a store owner will choose your line over another. In fact, with all the hullabaloo about Faire accepting international makers (what many US makers read as “cheap stuff coming in from other countries”) this becomes even more important for any maker trying to grow wholesale.

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Growing Wholesale, Store & Maker Interviews Emily Kerr-Finell Growing Wholesale, Store & Maker Interviews Emily Kerr-Finell

Don’t Hire Someone to Be Your Best Friend (And 6 Other Hiring Tips)

First of all, I hear you. HIRING IS HARD. It’s hard to manage people. It costs money. It takes a huge amount of time to find, vet and train people. You don’t have a big enough studio. You’re an introvert. You have just a small amount of work available. You live in a tiny town. You’re an artist, not a manager. You tried that last year and it didn’t work out.

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Growing Wholesale Emily Kerr-Finell Growing Wholesale Emily Kerr-Finell

Our Holiday Wholesale Q & A

Today, we’re rounding up some of the most common questions and concerns makers have about wholesale around the holidays. We’re digging into how to approach holiday wholesale as a newbie, how to cultivate orders with current stockists if you’re an old pro, and some simple tips to get orders in the door without a bunch of extra work. As always, though, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. So be sure to “sense check” these answers against what you know to be right for you and your business. 

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