Unfortunately, on April 28, 2024, I was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia, a serious blood and bone marrow cancer.
This diagnosis requires me to undergo chemotherapy and stay in the hospital for the next 6-8 months, possibly longer. As a result, I must close the business temporarily to focus on my health and I am unlikely to be able to respond to any messages or emails.
Consequently, I will no longer be offering courses or starter kits for sale. However, existing customers who have purchased courses within the past 12 months can still access them using the link below, with the email address and password they used during enrollment.
Hopefully by answering these questions by video and writing a blog article on this subject, I hope that my answers to these questions about Starting a Creative Keepsake Business, will benefit everybody.
First of all, I want to apologise because my screen share failed during this video, which is why I have created this blog article, so I could link to some of the Course and Resources that I mention in the video.
Amy's questions to me, were as follows:
If I was to more than one Keepake Training Course, how do you suggest that I put the training into practice?
Amy, also asked wanted to know if she should just focus on one Keepsake Training Course and move onto the next one, once she has gained more confidence and if so, how quickly she should aim to do each Keepsake Training Course after the previous course?
To answer that question, I would always recommend that you have multiple revenue streams in your Keepsake Business. All of the most successful businesses have multiple revenue streams. In fact, research shows that the top businesses and millionaires of the world, have on average, at least around seven revenue streams in their businesses. You should never rely solely on only one product or reveue stream, when you're running a business. For that reason I recommend that you train in a combination of several Keepsake Training Courses.
So, that's what I would say, if you're looking to do multiple Keepsake Training Courses, you 100% should, because as I said, you should never rely on just one product range for your Keepsake Business, for a number of reasons:
Because some of the products are gift items and more seasonal, which means, you are more likely to suffer with a feast or famine sales pattern, if you rely on just one type of product. You need to build sales continuity into your Keepsake Business, by offering several products and services, regarding of the season or promotional period.
The other reason, is because not everybody likes the same thing. So by just having one product, you will limit your customer base and sales potential, only to those people that like that particular product. For instance, the 3D Baby Casting's are beautiful. They are extremely detailed, life sized replica's of baby's hands and feet. They are lovely, but they are not everybodys cup of tea! Some people love them, but some people hate them. They can be too lifelike for some people. So, if you only 3D Baby Castings to offer customers, who are seeking a Keepsake or Memento of their baby, you will be missing out on a large part of the market, who perhaps don't personally like 3D Baby Casts, but who do like the other Life Casting Techniques, such as the 2D Baby Prints, or the Ceramic Handprints. So, by uplevelling your Life Casting Skills and learning how to make a wider range of Lifecasts and Personalised Baby Mementos, you will be able to reach and appeal to a much wider audience of people, who have different tastes and budgets.
In addition, by offering more advanced Life Casting Services, like Hands Entwined Casting and Couples Casting, for example, you will be able to appeal to wider target markets, which may include, Engagements, Weddings, Anniversaries etc. But,equally, Parents love having a Hands Entwined Castingof their new baby, which involes Mum and Baby holding hands, or Dad and Baby holding hands etc, because this, allows you to capture the Palmer Grasp Reflex, which is the primitive reflex, where a Baby clings on to a finger. A baby looses this reflex at about six months of age, so this is a really popular Life Casting Pose, which parents love to capture.
Equally, customer's often wish to capture a Family Hand Casting, wherby you can life-cast hand-casts of several members of a family, all at once. This is such a lovely service to be able to offer, because it often involves entire generations of my family, from grand-children to grand-parents and often even includes the family pet! In fact, I had an email from a customer today, who wants to book in for a Family Life Casting for all Seven members of her family, which includes mom and dad, three children, and two dogs!
So, if you're looking to offer a few different products and services, I would personlly suggest, that you don't mix the Life Casting Courses with the Keepsake Jewellery Courses straigh away. First of all, decide if you think you'd prefer to start with the Life Casting Training or the Keepsake Jewellery Training. Focus on either Life Casting Training first or the Keepsake Jewellery Training. Stick with one, perfect the technique of that particular craft or art form, to increase your skills and confidence. Aim to become the best that you can be in either Life Casting or Keepsake Jewellery and then, when you're confident in your first chosen discipline, you can easily uplevel your learning and extend your product range, by move onto the Keepsake Jewellery Training or Life Casting Training, depending upon which one you started out with. It makes complete sense to do this, because if you are already offering a Baby Life Casting Service, for instance, you will already be getting your Keepsake Business out in front of your target market, of new mums and baby's, so, of course, it makes sense that you then offer them an upsell of Keepsake Jewellery, such as Fingerprint Jewellery,Handprint Jewellery or Artwork Jewellery. All of the Keepake Products and Keepsake Training Courses are extremely complimentary, so ultimately, you will gain greater success in terms of sales and profitability if you can offer both Life Casting and Keepsake Jewellery products and services to your customers.
All of our Life Casting Courses and Keepake Jewellery Courses are available individually on our Website at full price. However, if you have attended my Time and Freedom Webinar, which I highly recommend, because I go into everything you need to know about starting a Keepsake Business, in great detail, including all of the different product and training options, the cost of making the various products, recommended retail prices and potential profit margins. I even demonstrate how to create a cash flow forecast and sales forecast, so that you can see exactly, how many products you would need to make and sell to reach your desired income.
So, if you haven't registered for my Time & Freedom Webinar, please do so, because you'll gain lots more valuable information and gain access to a special offer, which is exclusive for my Webinar attendees, where I have bundled together, all of my most popular Life Casting Courses and all of my most popular Keepsake Jewellery Courses, into a special package, available at a special price.
The reason that I've done this, is because, in my experience, the people who have most success with their Keepsake Business, are those that register for multiple Keepsake Training Courses and offer multiple products and services. So, I've bundled together all of my most popular Life Casting Courses and all of my most popular Keepsake Jewellery Courses, to make it quicker, easier and much more cost effective for you to start a Keepsake Business.
So for instance, if you are interested in starting a Life Casting or Hand Casting Business, I've packaged up the follwoing Courses: Baby Casting, 2D Baby Prints,Hands Entwined Casting,Family Life Casting,Metal Cold Casting and Resin Casting. Don't forget that any of these can be for Pet Paw Print Casting, as well as Baby Hand Casting and Family Life Casting. In addition, the Metal Cold Casting and Resin Casting Courses, which involve teaching you how to upgrade traditional plaster 3D Cast's to Cold Cast Metal or Resin, making them more durable, for those customers who want their Hand Casts out on display, rather than framed. It's a sensible and profitble idea, to offer these additional life casting products and services, because some customers don't want their Baby Casts framed. Often, customers may ask to have them free-standing, so that they can feel or touch them. But, if they have only be life-cast in Plaster, I would never recommend that they are unframed and left freestanding, because plaster is fragile, so if they were to get knocked off of a mantle-piece, they would most likely smash. This is why I alway's recommend that you upgrade to Cold Cast Metal or Resin, for any Customers that want their casts free standing. Our Cold Cast Metal Casting and Resin Casting Courses, also teach you how to make duplicate copies of your original Plaster Baby Casts, which is invaluable, because quite often, Customers, ask for multiple copies of their baby hand and foot casts, for other family members, such as grandparents etc.
As I said before, you can either buy each of these individual Keepsake Jewellery Training Courses directly from my website, or if you want to save money, increase your skills and earn more money, you can buy all of my most popular Keepake Jewellery Training Courses as bundle, by registering for my Time & Freedom Webinar. This will help you stand out from the competition, by having a superior range of products and services to offer, with more interesting nd unique Jewellery designs and it wil give you more opportunities to sell, by appealing to a wider audience.
So, if you haven't registered for my Time & Freedom Webinar yet, please do, because you will get much more detailed information on the advantages and disadvantages of starting a Keepake Business, including the start up costs, cost of materials, RRP's, Profit Margins and Potential earnings etc.
I'm not naturally Creative. Will I be able to Start a Keepsake Business and make it a Success?
The other question raised, was, whether or not you would be able to start a Keepsake Business and make a success of it, if you're not naturally Arty or Crafty? Honestly, please don't worry about this, because you don't need to crafty or creative. Believe it or not, I don't consider myself to be particularly, artistic, or creative and it's not at all necessary to be. It's more important that you know the correct techniques and process to follow, rather than being specifically arty, or crafty, so honestly don't worry about that. We will teach you all of the techniques and processes that you need to know and your creativity will follow. I'm not going to let you fail, so don't worry about that.
If it offers any reassurance, I've trained thousands of women all over the world how to start a Keepsake Business and I would say that at least 30% of all of my students, intially have fears and self-doubt that they won't be creative enough. But, nobody that I have ever trained has failed to pick up and perfect the techniques necessary to make a success of their Keepsake Business. I believe that this is, not only due to the quality of my Training, but also the high level of support, that I personally offer, which you will be able to easily authenticate by checking out my Google Reviews and Facebook Reviews to see what people are saying.
Will I be able to Start and Run a Keepsake Business Part-time around my Day Job and the Demands of raising my family?
Your other question, was about whether or not you would be able to run this business, alongside your day job and looking after two school aged children. In terms of having enough time, I completely understand the difficulties of working and raising two children, whilst working part time. All I can say is that when I first started my Keepsake Business, over 20 years ago, I was a single parent, with two young children. I was also working part time, but I gradually built up my Business until I was able to quit my day job and work on my Keepsake Business full-tme. In fact, most of my Students, that register for my Keepsake Training Courses, are in exactly the same position. In most cases, they are Mums, with babies or young children, working part time, who gradually build up their businessses until they feel ready to go full-time. I have so many lovely success stories, which I share in my Time & Freedom Webinar, from students, who have been able to give up their jobs to go full time in their business. But, obviously, in any case, this won't happen overnight, or without appropriate hard work and effort devoted to your Business. It may take you a year or more, but it is possible, so long as you stay focused and committed to your business and marketing, it is entirely possible.
If you would like additonal information about starting a Keepsake Business, please follow the links below to download my FREE Guide and to Register for my Webinar.
