Business of Craft Season 6 Episode 5 Wendy Batten on Coaching Creative Retailers and Entrepreneurs

WELCOME TO SEASON 6 OF BUSINESS OF CRAFT

Welcome to Business of Craft, a show designed to help entrepreneurs with fabric or fiber businesses become more successful. Our guests share best practices and teach effective marketing skills, that help crafty business owners learn to grow and scale. Let’s start crafting a better business together!

Today I’m excited to welcome our guest, Wendy Batten, also known as the Retailer’s Mentor. She is a coach, consultant and host of the podcast,  “Creative Shop Talk” She also runs a membership group called the Retailer’s inner Circle.

Wendy comes to us as a champion for small shop owners and creative business owners in particular. She knows firsthand the challenges of running a creative business and has overcome burnout to build a successful venture. Now, Wendy is passionate about helping others achieve their dreams, offering one-on-one guidance, signature courses, and live retreats. She’s bringing her years of business experience and warm approach to becoming a trusted mentor and coach for creative retailers and entrepreneurs all over the world.

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[1:48] You have a little bit of an interesting origin story. You owned a brick and mortar business and then you franchised that business. You’re really coming from a place of walking the walk and talking the talk, maybe you can share with our audience just a little bit more about your origin story?

[3:19] You sold your business, right and then decided to become a business coach?

[5:42] What have you seen as far as key differences between running a creative business compared to other types of businesses?

[8:49] What were your first signs of burnout for yourself? What signs should they be aware of that they’re getting burned out?

[13:09] What else can you do to prevent the burnout?

[17:11] I know there’s some listeners that have kind of the opposite problem where they’re thinking, I can’t do this. And I don’t know how to do this. Do you have some advice for those clients about that particular type of intrusive thought? About growing a creative business?

[21:42] I also see people fall out of love with the craft that motivated them in the first place. Like, my passion was quilting, so I opened a quilt shop and now I  have no time for it and I’ve lost touch with my passion. Is that common with your clients?

[24:31] Do you have what other sort of productivity tips have been successful for you?

[38:40] You said on your website that you hate the word hustle. Can you say more about that?

[48:23] Can you talk just a little bit about what it looks like when you are someone’s business coach and maybe even just touch a little bit on how it might be different for folks in creative spaces?

[56:37] Tell us what you do, what services you offer, because you have the membership group, the Retailer’s Inner Circle.

Takeaways

Anneliese’s Takeaways:

• Find your who’s, and be willing to give it over to them. You don’t have to be involved in everything. Other people can do things too, especially if you create systems!
• Create a system so you can walk away and protect your time, your creativity, all of it. It increases the value of your business.
• Schedule in your creativity. Time blocking and project management are important for small creative businesses, but you have to give yourself time to find the joy in making, too. And that also means that it can help stave off burnout.
• Leapfrogging is a concept I’ve never heard before and I love it. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, someone else already figured it out. Learn from them. You’ll get to where you want to go faster.

Additional Resources

Join The Retailer’s Inner Circle HERE.
Connect with Wendy: Website | Podcast | IG