Sales slow?
Fed up with wondering
“What on earth do I do next?"
There is a way forward
When sales feel quiet, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and start taking drastic action, changing everything at once.
Your products.
Your prices.
Your posts.
Your platform.
Your whole business, if it has been a particularly dramatic Tuesday.
But slow sales are not always caused by the thing you think they are. Take the free 8-question quiz below and find one practical next step to focus on.
The problem is not the amount of advice. It is knowing what your quiet sales are actually showing you.
There is no shortage of advice telling small business owners what to do next. Post more. Try a different platform. Change your products. Lower your prices. Find your niche. Get more followers. Start again. Some of that advice may be useful. But only if it belongs to the problem in front of you.
Slow sales can be the symptom, not the source. A visibility problem can feel like a product problem. A confidence pattern can look like a marketing problem. A pricing issue can get mistaken for a sales problem. An audience problem can make you think the algorithm hates you. A growth route that no longer fits can make you believe you just need to work harder.
And when you are right in the middle of running the business, that can be incredibly difficult to see
Choose the pathway that fits your business
Every maker business is dealing with something different.
One business may need more confidence.
Another may need clearer numbers.
Another may need a better route to sales or growth.
Choose the pathway below that feels closest to what is happening in your business right now
I’m overwhelmed and not sure where to focus
Take the free 8-question quiz and get one practical place to focus your attention next.
I think confidence is holding me back
If showing up, selling, pricing or being visible feels confronting, start with Overcoming Imposter Syndrome for Makers.
I need to look properly at the whole business
Use The Maker Business Audit to step back and review what is working, what is missing, and what may need attention first.
I’m working hard but not getting enough sales
Use The Maker Growth Index to look at the practical sales levers available in your business now, and understand the growth routes that could help you move forward over the next six months.
I want the bigger picture behind all of this
Read The Advice Dilemma, the book that helps makers understand why generic advice can feel so confusing, and how to start seeing their own business more clearly.
I know what it is like to keep looking for the way forward.
I spent years asking myself the same question. What does my business need next?
I tried different approaches. I looked for better ways to sell and be seen.
Eventually, I changed crafts completely.
I thought perhaps a different product, a different market and a fresh business would finally give me the answer. Then the same questions began to appear again.
That was when I stopped looking only at what I was making and started looking differently at the business itself.
My background is in organisational development. For years, I worked at a strategic level inside a large, complex organisation, looking at what was working, what was not, and what the organisation needed next.
Later, I built my own maker business and achieved more than 6,000 sales on Etsy.
When I began applying that same way of thinking to small businesses, I started seeing familiar patterns.
The problem was not always where the business owner thought it was.
Sometimes, the way forward had been hiding in plain sight
The Advice Dilemma
What if the advice was not wrong, just wrong for your business?
Post more. Post less. Niche down. Broaden out. Raise your prices. Stay affordable.
Most maker business advice tells you what to do.
The Advice Dilemma helps you work out which advice was ever meant for your business in the first place.
Through forty maker-business case studies, the book gives you a way to step back, recognise familiar patterns and see your own business more clearly.
Because once you can see what is actually happening, you can make better decisions about what comes next.
What Other Makers Are Saying
Kind words from makers who have used my work to look at their business differently
I like that Barbara breaks things down into manageable chunks and really makes you think about your customer — rather than giving you generic advice.
— Sarah
I finished the workbook and got posts at the end. I've been playing with the prompts ever since — changing the customer profile, testing different niches. It amazes me what you get back with simple tweaks
— Karen
I have social media accounts but I've never really posted because I don't know what to say. This is exactly what I needed.
— Sandra
Your Version of Success Gets to Be Yours
Perhaps you want a side business that brings in extra income without taking over your life.
Perhaps you want to make your maker business your full-time work.
Perhaps you want growth.
Perhaps you want a business that finally feels manageable and sustainable.
I am not here to impose somebody else's definition of success on your business.
I want to help you see the business you have more clearly, so you can make better decisions about the business you want to build.
There is a way forward for your business.
Hello, I'm Barbara
I’m a maker and small business owner.
Across my own product-based businesses, I have sold mainly through my own websites and achieved more than 6,000 sales on Etsy.
But the experience that most shaped the way I look at business came from somewhere quite different.
I trained in organisational development and spent years working strategically inside a large, complex organisation. My job was to step back.
Look at the whole picture. Understand what was actually happening.
And work out what the organisation needed next.
Eventually, I realised that small businesses need that clearer view too.
Today, I create books, tools and practical resources to help makers and small product business owners make better sense of their businesses and work out where to put their energy next.
Because even when things feel tough, and sales are slow, there is a way forward. And I believe you should be able to see enough of your own business to choose it.
There is a way forward for your business. It may not be the same way forward as someone else’s. It may not be the advice you have been trying to force yourself to follow. It may not require starting again. But there will be a next step that fits the business you actually have.
Start with the free 8-question quiz and get one practical place to focus your attention next.
Prefer to start with sales? Download my free guide: Why Making Sales in Your Small Business Feels So Damn Hard. [Get the free guide]s a Paragraph Font