My biggest goal for this year when it started was to build my email list both @corkieboltonjewelry and here at Metalsmith Society. With what is happening right now across the world that feels more important than ever. I’ve talked to some people in our community in the past week about shows being cancelled and how that impacts income. If you are experiencing that please know you are not alone! I would love to share some positivity and ideas about how to diversify our income streams. If you are someone who sells primarily at shows now is a wonderful time to start your online shop. If you haven’t been already, start collecting emails and then utilize your list! I have a blog article about it (I’ll link in my profile!) I know it feels like a hard time to “sell” but continuing to share your creativity, positivity and work will bring joy to people. If everyone stopped life altogether I think that would be even more upsetting, no? I have used two email providers Mailchimp and Flodesk. Mailchimp is great because it’s FREE if you have less than 2000 contacts however I find the emails are pretty simple. I’m in love with Flodesk (this is not an AD, however I do have an affiliate code for Flodesk link in my profile - you pay $19 a month regardless of how many contacts you have!) Flodesk emails are SUPER cute and for someone like me that does their own marketing and doesn’t have a ton of free time it has worked out well. Some other ideas about making sales right now, you can post items for sale on your Instagram and have people DM to buy, using PayPal to invoice them. You can create a pre-sale, I’m doing this right now with one of my best selling earrings over at @corkieboltonjewelry so that I don’t end up producing inventory that I might not sell all of. Shopify has just allowed customers using their basic plans to sell gift cards! Lastly I think this is a good time to utilize gemstones and metals you already have on hand (time to take inventory), and then when you are ready to buy more stones be sure to support your lapidary artists and small business owners! Please feel free to share your own ideas, positivity and support. We will all get through this together! X Corkie