Explore Your Enthusiasm, With Tara Swiger | Craft | Art | Business

Remember when I said the podcast was coming back? That VERY week, I became the mom of three more kids!  Tune in to hear how my family expanded so quickly and what's next.  Don’t miss the next episode and all my news, sign up here: http://taraswiger.com/list Join the Facebook group for recipes and live convos:https://www.facebook.com/groups/essentialenthusiasm/ Follow me on Instagram: http://instagram.com/taraswiger  Find these shownotes (and 300+ more episodes!) here: http://taraswiger.com/4kids

I have a baby! I stopped selling my main product! Listen in to learn why!  After publishing an episode every single week for 6 years, the pandemic and life really threw me for a loop and it's been four months since a regular weekly podcast.  Well, I have good news - the podcast is back to it's normal weekly schedule! This week we're going to talk about the big changes in my life in my business, why I made the big changes that I did, and what lessons you can learn from my process. Find the full transcript here: http://taraswiger.com/podcast309

It's time to share my favorite books of March - June. I read 25 books and so many were so good! FInd the full shownotes at TaraSwiger.com/podcast308.  Today's episode is brought to you by Hank Green and his upcoming book A Brilliantly Foolish Endeavor. Find more at HankGreen.com  The books I loved: Home Before Dark by Riley Sager Support indies Buy from Amazon   The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix I talked more about this book in this reading vlog Buy it here. From Amazon:   The City We Became by NK Jemisin  Support indies Buy from Amazon We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry Support indies Buy from Amazon Queenie by Cadace Carty-Williams Support indies Buy from Amazon   The HIlarious World of Depression by John Moe Support indies Buy from Amazon Courtroom Thrillers I loved:  Miracle Creek by Angie Kim A Good Marriage by Kimberley McCreight

As I was thinking about if I wanted to record and what, if anything, I wanted to share, I realized that what YOU come here for is help with your business and encouragement in building it. And the best way I can serve you right now is to tell you other awesome business podcasts to listen to, while I continue my podcast hiatus, specifically podcasts by black women.  Because here’s the thing - we all have implicit (meaning unconscious) biases. These biases affect what we listen to, who we pay attention to, who we trust.  One of the ways we defeat these biases is to notice them and then work at changing them. And one of the best ways is to pay attention and then purposefully change your feeds.  Changing your feeds isn’t the ONLY step, you also need to be educating yourself and interrogating your beliefs!   Book Recommendations for educating yourself on how to be anti-racist: So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo Me and White Supremacy by Layla Saad (only $2.99 on Kindle!) How to be an AntiRacist by Ibram

What if you are just not getting things done? What if you just can NOT get things done? Before you start beating yourself up, ask yourself: is this just a season of my life? I recorded this episode over a year ago, when I was a brand-new mom, but it's so appropriate for what we're ALL going through right now - a completely new season in our life and business.    Find the shownotes with the full transcript here: http://taraswiger.com/podcast306

How do you find joy and enthusiasm for anything when everything is turned upside down? That’s what I’ve been thinking about this past week.  As you know if you’ve been listening for a while, my fundamental business belief, what shapes everything I do and how I work with makers and designers, is that your business will thrive and YOU will feel best about it when you follow your enthusiasm. What do I mean by enthusiasm? I like the definition:  intense or eager enjoyment or interest. You can follow your enthusiasm IN your business, by working on projects you love, letting go of expectations about what you “should” do, working with the kind of clients that you prefer. You can follow your enthusiasm outside of your business by allowing yourself to work on non-business projects and filling up your enthusiasm well with things that seem completely unrelated (for me lately it’s reading, and making bookish videos, which you can find on YouTube. Other times it’s been quilting or knitting).  But with everything uncertain

Welcome to April and the beginning of a new quarter! This is the time where we usually make plans for the coming three months and review the progress we’ve made so far this year but...everything is weird. How do we do that now? In the Starship this week, we’re Map Making - making a plan for the quarter. You can learn more about the Starship here and/or start making your own map with my book, Map Your Business.  I know, nothing is normal right now.  You are staying home, no one in your home is ever leaving it, you may not be able to get the supplies you usually do, you may not be selling where you usually do, people are buying less because some people are losing their jobs.  And yet.  Now is the perfect time to plan the new quarter.    I’ve actually talked about planning during uncertainty already - back in episode 254, I gave suggestions for how you can plan when YOUR life is uncertain. Add back in episode 291, I shared how I was planning the New Year while my life is so uncertain (as a foster parent).    We

How  do you decide what to do next? How do you make a decision? My family has a simple question that we ask to make complex decisions and I’m sharing it with you today.   I want to talk about how you decide ANYthing in your business (or life) and a quick question I use to make better decisions. I’m not even going to make you wait, here is the question to ask yourself: Hard now or hard later?  Over the years of making decisions together, from do we want to get pizza delivered or make dinner, to should we buy a new or used car, to should we rent or buy...my husband and I have realized that making decisions is it’s own skill set. To make decisions together, we need to be on the same page about what matters, what our values are, and where we’re going as a family.  And there are a lot of ways to make bad decisions! If you just look at the short-term effect of the decision, if you look at what’s gratifying RIGHT NOW, if you make a decision based on a value that’s not really your own...you end up with a not-great re

Why do you feel stuck? Why isn’t your business growing? It could be one of these mistakes that are common in creative businesses. I want to help you avoid these mistakes, so let’s dive right in.  I’ve been working with product makers - yarn dyers, bag sewers, jewelry makers - and designers and shop owners for the last decade! I’ve been getting up close and personal with them, in my community, the Starship, since 2011. So I have seen a lot of what holds us back in our business, and what to do in order to move forward with confidence and profit.  Today I wanna talk about three of the mistakes I see makers and designers make, in their thinking, that holds them back. If you want to avoid the three mistakes most creatives make in running their business, check out my free workshop on the 4 Foundation Method to a Thriving Business, where I explain the mistakes AND teach you how to avoid them (or fix them if you’ve already made them!). You’ll find that at Taraswiger.com/foundaitons.  Real quick before we get into it.

It's the 300th episode of the podcast! OMG! Celebrate with me in this episode as my husband  asks me YOUR questions. We discuss the very twisty journey that brought me here in my business, how I plan my weeks, and how I order my coffee.  You can SEE us answer these questions right here: http://taraswiger.com/podcast300   Help me celebrate by:  Leaving a review on your podcast app!  Joining the free Facebook group where I'll be going LIVE this week with a celebration! 

Are you using Instagram Stories? Is it connecting with your customers and helping you reach your goals? Or are you confused about what to do to make it effective? Today I’m going to answer your questions about WHY you should be using Instagram Stories and HOW to make them work for you! Today we’re diving into the tool Instagram Stories and how you can use them to connect with your right customers, build trust and make sales. Head over the to the VIDEO version of this episode to see a walk-through of everything I talk about: http://taraswiger.com/podcast299 What is Instagram Stories? Instagram Stories is an extra feature on Instagram, where you can post images or 15 second videos from your day. They expire after 24 hours. You can shoot them “live” from inside the app, or you can use the photos in your photo library on your phone. You can also share your regular Instagram posts (if viewers click on them they’ll be taken to your post where they can like and comment) and you can share other people’s Instagram pos

Is Instagram worth it? How do you make sales with Instagram? I know! This is one of the ongoing questions my students have about any tool, and Instagram in particular. Today I’m going to explain EXACTLY how you can increase your sales by using Instagram. Before we dive into Instagram, we are coming right up on episode 300, and I am including YOU in this episode! To participate, head over to my free FB group: fb.com/groups/taraswiger and the info on how to be involved is right there, pinned to the top! Today’s question comes directly from the FB group: Does Instagram actually make sales for anyone? It seems to be just a waste of time, a bunch of content going into the void. First of all: yeah, it can DEFINITELY feel like a waste of your time! The good news is: YOU are in charge of whether it's a waste of time or not. It’s true! You don’t have to wait for Instagram to send you people, or for your right buyer to just stumble upon you. Instead, make Instagram effective for your business by creating a plan and usi

What is the best book you’ve read lately? In today’s episode, I’m sharing my favorite books of this winter - from December - February. Every quarter I round-up my most-favorite books and share them here. If you are subscribed to my YouTube channel, you may recognize some of these books, as they were part of my Best Books of 2019. If you like learning about great books and you are NOT subscribed over on YouTube, you are missing out! I share reading vlogs, monthly round-ups, and all kinds of fun bookish stuff in my Monday videos at TaraSwiger.com/YouTube. You can scroll down and see my whole Reading playlist or click on Videos to see my most recent videos. StatsI have read 16 books so far, and I will likely finish another 3 before the end of the month. 4 mysteries, 2 giant YA space operas over 600 pages, 3 personal memoir essay-ish things. All three of the memoirs were great, so I’m going to just quickly tell you, you should read them: Enough, by Shauna Ahern, who you may know as Gluten-Free Girl. I read her b

Now that you’ve worked on your fear, what about your other beliefs that are holding you back? What do you need to believe in order to move towards your goals? Over the last few weeks we’ve been talking about what’s holding you back. We’ve talked about how a lot of you say what’s holding you back is… YOU. Fear is at the heart of a lot of it. Another aspect of what’s holding you back is what you believe - about yourself, your business, and how the world works. This is your mindset, the set of beliefs that form your frame that you look at the world through. Now, before you think, “yeah, yeah, I gotta have the right mindset. But what I really need is 5 steps to grow my Instagram!”...let’s take a minute, just like 10 minutes, to go deeper on this. If your mindset and your beliefs are holding you back, it won’t matter how many tactics and tricks you learn for Instagram or Etsy or craft shows. It won’t matter because YOU will keep holding YOU back. Mindset We’re going to talk about a few different ways your beliefs

Are you getting in the way of your handmade business moving forward? Yeah, it’s time to get out of your own way. Lately we’ve been doing a series on how to make your 2020 goals come true. In episodes 292 and 293, I gave you lots of applicable, step-by-step advice on how to increase sales, so be sure to head over to TaraSwiger.com/launch if you missed that. But as I said in those episodes, only a small percentage of people will follow through with the action plan. Why? Well, for some listeners, what I shared just isn’t applicable. Maybe you don’t have a business. Maybe you are just starting and you don’t have any products yet. For some listeners, growth isn’t their primary goal in 2020. Maybe you have more demand than you can supply. Or perhaps your work day has gone wonky, and what you want to work on this year is working LESS or taking more time off or stopping work at a certain time. We’re not always in a place of growth. Or maybe you’re like I was in 2019, where your life has been upended and your main goa

What’s holding you back? What is keeping you from achieving a profitable, sustainable business that you feel confident in? What is keeping you from working towards your goals every week? We’ve been working on reaching your sales goal, all month. To hear episodes about increasing and sustaining your sales, tune in to episodes 292 & 293. After those episodes, I debated over what to cover next and then I realized: what’s keeping you from your goal is different for everyone. You have your own roadblock, so let’s talk about and work through it! One of the questions I ask everyone when they join my free FB group (are you a member yet?) is, “When it comes to your business being profitable AND doable, what do you think is standing in your way?” So today that’s what we’re going to talk about: the things that are standing in your way. And next week, we’ll talk more about how to get out of your own way. It’s my hope that hearing what’s holding others back will help you recognize what’s holding you back, what is stan

How do you keep sales going? When you don’t have anything new? When you’re not launching? What can you do to stay consistent? Today we are diving in to making more consistent sales! Recently Starship Captain Brenda asked: “I just launched a pattern last week and had a good amount of sales, but now what?” I’m going to share with you what I told her. This is the second episode in a series about reaching your 2020 goal of increased sales. You can listen to the first, which was about launching and find the Massive Launch Resource Kit at taraswiger.com/launch Ok, let’s get into it: what do you do to keep sales going? The answer is simple: Send another email. Yes, if you send 3-5 emails during your launch and now it’s over, get right back into it! Send an email! Post on Instagram! Use the momentum to establish a consistency you might not have had before. I know you're worried your people won’t want to hear from you too much - YOU ARE WRONG. They want to hear from you even when you’re not launching. If they stuck wi

In this episode of Explore Your Enthusiasm, I'm walking you through my Launch Plan Worksheet, so that you can great a clear and thorough plan for your next launch. Find your copy of the worksheet right here. Then track the results and tell me about it! DM me on Instagram!   Listen in at TaraSwiger.com/podcast292

As a culture we talk a lot about planning the year for about 2 seconds on December 31st and January 1st, but the fact is, when you’re building a business or following a dream, you are planning and implementing a plan all the time! Today I’m going to share how I planned my New Year, warts and all. Welcome to the New Year! Over the years I have written (and recorded) a lot about New Year and seasonal planning, so this year I decided to share exactly what I’m doing, with a bit of my feelings and experience as I do it, so you know you’re not alone. You can get access to ALL of my episodes about planning your New Year AND a new worksheet, at TaraSwiger.com/2020Goals. Download it now! It started in early December... Inside the Starship, we read the book Everything is Figureoutable, by Marie Forleo, as a part of our Q4 Book Club. This book is packed with encouragement and tough love for moving forward on your big dream, no matter how unreachable it feels. I really committed to not just reading it, but also working t

Are you setting New Year’s Resolutions? Have you in year’s past? How’s that worked for you? What if we stop with the resolutions and instead we actually transform our lives in 2020? You find ALL of my resources for creating a great year at taraswiger.com/2020goals So the problem with resolutions, I’m sure you already know, is that they don’t work. Think about it- have you ever met someone who said “I made a resolution and reached it!” No, because the way we set resolutions, the words we use aren’t reachable. In a 2018 survey, one-third (31%) of Americans who made New Year’s Resolutions last year say they didn't stick to any of their resolutions. A plurality (38%) say they stuck to "some" of their resolutions. Even the language used in the survey was “stuck to” resolutions. How do you know if you stuck to something or not? Let’s look at the most-popular resolution : “exercise more,” with 59%, “eat healthier” (54%), “save money” (51%),  “lose weight” (48%), “reduce stress”. These are impossible to succeed at b