Story Time: Business anniversaries & new goals!

Hi CoCo fam!

It’s finally June! I feel like I have been waiting for this month ever since the last winter started. Here in NYC the weather is FINALLY cooperating, I have a few summer plans in motion and overall it’s a good time over here. June is a special month for me because it marks a few anniversaries for my brand. First of, it marks my 2nd year of blogging *cue confetti*! On top of that, this month marks one year of my jewelry line opening and I think even my photography venture. I guess I like to start new projects at the start of good weather! I periodically like to check in on my businesses, my goals, my progress and my set-backs. I especially like to do it at yearly marks to see what has worked and what I need to do better. I know a lot of you are either considering starting a side hustle or business, have started one or have toyed with the idea. So I figure it is beneficial for me and for you if I document my highs and lows on my platform. After-all, I will look back at this and see how far I have come and hopefully help someone who is also just starting out see what the bottom looks like and what progress looks like. So thank you for sticking around as I share my year with you all!

Shop the look:

2 years of blogging

Ah man, how two years have come and gone so quickly. So what have I learned? Well that time waits for no one and planning ahead is super important. I mean… these things I obviously already knew but it was reaffirmed for sure.

Time management is very important when running and type of brand or business, especially when there are various moving parts AND you are doing this on the side of a full time job. So I had (have) a planner that is dedicated solely to blogging work, notes and deadlines. I’m not going to lie, I had all these amazing ideas written down but I didn’t prepare well ahead of time to secure people to help me with photos and to bring the visions to life. I definitely didn’t say “no” enough so my time was spread very thin and I was easily distracted. So this all led to low amount of content for the blog and Instagram, less articles written and me just being very hard on myself for putting everyone’s needs before mine. SO with the upcoming year, I plan to revisit old goals and optimize how I will get them done consistently.

For the next year, I will not dedicate as much time to others before making sure my business is handled first. And I will stop making excuses for my “lack of time”. I know there is time that can be salvaged here and there if I just plan appropriately! And I need to lean on my support system more! I need to stop being afraid to ask for assistance and just ask. I have a few things planned for the other half of 2019 and I intent to execute!

Although I had these set backs and low amount of content on my website, I did have some WINS. So I wanted to be able to secure paid sponsored posts for my blog, get more free swag to review and make more connections with black women doing what I am doing. And I was able to do all 3! I now can say that I have a growing network of blogger associates, my blog IS FINALLY MAKING ME MONEY and I have some free items to try out and share with my audience. This was really exciting from me because I thought I was missing something and could not figure out how to make a cent from this blog of mine. Now going forward I need to scale up! I need to find more brands to work with and generate monthly income from my blog, even if it is small. So that is the goal for year 3!

I also recently gave my blog a face-lift! I had designed it the first time with NO KNOWLEDGE whatsoever about website building. I just YouTubed and prayed my way through it. I use WordPress.org as my platform and Bluehost as my hosting service. I love them both now as there was a definite learning curve but I got the hang of it. I revamped it’s look a month or 2 ago and love it! It makes affiliate marketing so much easier, its much better to look at, its faster and more SEO friendly. I still have a long way to go but I am proud of what I was able to create! Now let’s get into my other side hustles…

1 year in jewelry making

My new babies are all grown up now! Last June I reopened an old Etsy shop that I used to sell waist beads on way back in the day. I renamed it, added new product and opened up shop quickly. I think I had the idea for CoCo Made With Love that spring and had officially started in June. The Etsy store started off well. In the first month I had a few sales and as the months went on I had a bit more! But after several months the traffic and sales had declined. In any event, I am happy to still have multiple sales each month. Several months after opening my Etsy shop, I decided I wanted to own the store myself instead on solely being a vendor within Etsy. So now I have my own shop in this world, named CoCo Made With Love (CLICK HERE to be directed to it), and I still run my Etsy store. The Etsy store is great because they have their own customer base so I will always generate sales from that. As I grow my social media presence and attend more events, I am slowly but surely getting the word about MY own shop out as well. So both sites are bringing in the cash.

Since this was my start-up year, I invested a lot of money into it that I did not make all back yet. I had to buy tools, materials, packaging, etc. With all of those things, I also had trial and error periods where some materials did not work out for my designs or brand so it is money spent on items that will not be sold (yet). I am not too mad about that because it is all part of the process. Now I have a solid list of suppliers that I get my materials from so I am no longer wasting money on items that I cannot use.

CoCo Made With Love is a jewelry line made with the sensitive skin customer in mind. I am one of those customers so I know there is a need for chic yet comfortable jewelry. I have sensitive skin, allergies, and eczema so when I wear certain costume jewelry during a flair-up period or in the summer when I am sweating, I break out and left to treat the irritation over a long period of time. So I wanted to create affordable jewelry for people like myself. I want to be able to wear the latest trends without it having to be solid gold all the time. With these things in mind, I decided to mainly use gold filled materials in my jewelry and have some brass items as well. If an item is gold-plated, I try to have the base metal stainless steal or another metal that would decrease the chances of an irritation. I also wear my new pieces for a few weeks before adding it to the shop for quality and control. I want to know what items hold up with wear and tear and which items may irritate skin. Once I finish being the guinea pig, I add them to the shop!

In this past year, I was able to identify which items sold the most, which materials sold the best, and get specific on who my target audience is. These were real eye openers and a fun roller coaster ride to be on. I once again created my website from scratch and was more than ready to give this one a face-lift as well this spring (this time with help from a theme I purchased). I just finished that upgrade a week or 2 ago and it is up to see now!

What I have also learned in this past year is how to manage my business funds. I have gotten comfortable managing my personal but this was a new playing ground for me. Books like “Profit First” were very helpful and I am confident that in this second year and beyond I will not be in the red. I will stay within my budgets and know when to make smart financial moves. As I grow, I know there may be a time where I will need to take out credit or spend money I don’t currently have in the business account in order to make exponentially more in the end. I am working on knowing how to identify those instances. And I am excited for new challenges!

For the second year, my goals are to vend at an event or festival, at least triple my earnings, and to design fly-off-the-shelf pieces to be my signature items. I would also love to learn how to make better quality pieces and get the tools to execute that. So I will definitely invest in education!

1 year in photography

This year in photography has been an interesting one. It started off very slow at first and was very expensive. There were some lenses and such that I felt I needed to be able to work with clients so I had to spend up front in hopes to make it back tenfold. I also purchased another camera body because I feel that if I am booking clients, I need a safety net in case my main equipment breaks or fails. So I have 2 different cameras that have different strong suits but both will work well in my business. I am
currently shooting with a Canon 77D and a Canon M50. Over this year I have learned so much about my camera! I had it prior to taking clients but I had always used it on automatic mode. I can now say I know how to use
manual (thank goodness!) and has gotten better with the quality I produce. I have also improved in my photo editing skills.

I have booked clients every few months and I do a lot more unpaid work as of right now. But moving into year two, I aim to book more paid clients and grow my portfolio. I will also be working to better improve my editing style and make it more efficient. I would love to have multiple clients weekly so that I generate a monthly income from this. I enjoy shooting others and I want to do more of it (paid)! I would also like to get better at shooting myself so that I can create more photos for my own websites and social media in efforts to be MUCH MORE CONSISTENT in my content creating.

This concludes my anniversary review and update! I hope to reread this in a year from now and see that I have done everything I aimed to plus more! Don’t forget to subscribe to my blog and follow me on Instagram to keep up with my progress and just to see what I am up to.

Until next time folks!

With love,

CoCo