Affiliate Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Additionally, I may get commissions for purchases made through other affiliate links in this post.
There seems to be a lot of new Silhouette and Cricut owners lately, and many of them are interested in using their machine to make money. If you are one of them (congratulations!), but I urge you to learn from the mistakes of the small business owners that came before you. Today, I’m sharing the most common mistakes I see from new small business owners.
6 Mistakes New Silhouette & Cricut Business Owners Make
- Jumping into a new business before you know how to use your machine. Please, figure out the in’s and out’s of using your machine and troubleshooting before you start selling. I mean, you wouldn’t want someone to operate on you because they bought a set of surgical tools, so don’t sell products before you know how to use the machine.
- Starting a Silhouette or Cricut business just to make money. Many people want to make more money; but if you don’t love what you do you are likely to burn out quickly, be miserable all the time, or both.
- Not researching copyrights and trademarks before you start selling products. Nothing is going to hurt your business more than getting sued over making something that you don’t own the rights to. I have lots of information about trademarks and copyrights – you just have to read it.
- Copying another designer’s design or products. It’s frowned upon in the crafting world to blatantly copy another crafter’s design. Your business is likely to do better if you can come up with your own ideas anyway! See this post for more information; or head to this post if you’ve been copied.
- Putting your products online and expecting them to sell themselves. In recent years, handmade marketplaces have become more popular and competition has become greater. If you want your products to sell well, you have to have a certain amount of hustle in you. You have to be able to put yourself out there and promote your products. If you can’t, this business might not be for you.
- Not registering with your city, county, or state and making your small business an official business. In many cases, the process isn’t difficult and the pros outweigh the cons! Read about the benefits in this post.
If you are doing some of these things right now, don’t panic – just work to correct them and set your business up for success!
Since 2015, Christine Schinagl has been helping crafters start and run craft businesses through her blog, Cutting for Business. As a Silhouette and Cricut crafter herself, she has a unique take on what works and what doesn’t work in the craft business world. She also enjoys teaching other crafters how to create digital SVG designs, available through the Design with Me series.