In this chat, you are going to hear my unfiltered shock at how little I actually know about Maya’s personal life - proof that you do not have to overshare on the internet in order to use social media for strategic business growth, how Maya has pivoted her audience over the years through drastically different styles of making, and (equally exciting for me), how she changes her business model throughout the year based on what her personal life needs - Hallelujah!

When you dream about going full-time with your craft, what is the real job? Is it really going to be your hands in clay all day, every day? Getting to hit that coveted “flow state” in the studio because you finally have no other interruptions and can simply focus? I mean, that sounds like a dream, but more often than not, the big surprise for any of us starting a small business can be that the bulk of our time isn’t actually spent on the thing we think it will be spent on. Cara Steinbuchel of Cara Mae Skincare (and the beloved Potters Skin lotion) brought up this exact subject on our chat this week and we peeled back the curtain about on her “real” job while also laughing about it all along the way.

I think it’s a safe assumption to make that most of us enjoy sharing a story about how we made a piece we are particularly proud of. Or heck! We enjoy sharing a funny fail story about a flop on the wheel (once enough time has passed that we can laugh about it, of course). Now what if I told you that storytelling is actually all you need to do in order to sell your ceramics. My chat today with Naomi Clement is going to shed some light on how all sales really is, at least when done well and perhaps more naturally than your local used car guy - is simply storytelling. Which actually isn’t so bad.

Sometimes, making art can feel less important as we scroll through the news and battle with all that’s happening in the world. How can the things we make battle racism? How can a pot positively influence the needs of climate change? It sounds a little silly. Until we realize that culture is what changes the world. And art is uniquely linked to affecting culture and thus, change. Today’s guest, Kristina Batiste, creates minimalist ceramics that hold these huge subjects within their beauty and reminds me that the things we make can bring about the change we dream of.

The Launch series is a peek behind the scenes on launching our own ceramics business, Carra Terra. Sharing in as real-time as possible, the decisions we’re making and why, the lessons we’ve already learned, how we are sticking to a plan or pivoting based on new information and endless more details because starting a business is a wild ride!

There are few things in life I find more encouraging than finding colleagues who understand your life. With all do respect to our supportive loved ones, there’s just something different about the depth of conversation you can have with another person who understands how heartbreaking it can be when you bump that perfectly trimmed bowl you’ve been working on for days off the shelf or how thrilling it can be to sell your first pot. Only the people doing these same things really feel the same depth of those feelings with us. And if it wasn’t obvious from Part One of my chat with Lisa & David of Dault Pottery, when I get a chance to connect with others who are building their life in ways similar to my own, I’ll chat for hours. So we’re back for Part Two, which really only ended because the kiddos made us!

When I hear people talk about boundaries and cutting back on work hours and all of that beautiful sounding work/life balance stuff, I assume the person preaching this has already reached a certain point of success. I think to myself, “Well, of course you can cut back on your work hours now. You already have -insert whatever- going for you, so it's safe to slow down." But what if the very reason for launching your small business in the first place was in service of building an un-hurried lifestyle? I've said many, many times that we must choose our lives first and build our businesses around them, second, but I didn't figure that out until I messed up the order with my first business. On this episode of the Maker's Playbook, Lisa & David Dault share how they are ruthlessly eliminating hurry from their freshly full-time pottery business right from the very beginning.

A lot of the time, we think about the benefits of in-person markets solely related to the sales we do on the specific day(s) of the market. But what if you thought a little bit more strategically? This week’s guest shares how she’s approaching selling at markets as a means of direct market research for who her ideal customer just might be… or not be.

In this 3rd installment of "The Launch" series, I'm comparing the dynamics between small markets and multi-day art fairs, shedding light on the energy and small bit of acting skills needed for face-to-face sales. As made clear by so many past interviews here on the podcast, there is a huge value to the direct conversations we can have at markets for understanding our potential customers' interests, but the thing that might come as a massive surprise to everyone is in this episode, I'm challenging the concept of the "ideal customer" and what that really means for building a small business.

Most of the time, when I talk with other makers about taking the leap to go full-time, we talk about the logistical things - having a bit of savings put away in case of emergency, understanding your numbers to make sure the pricing can support your necessities, getting an email list going in order to have ownership over your audience, etc. etc. etc. And while these things are indeed important, the unsung workhorse of being able to make a living from the things you make - the thing that often is the difference between keeping a business afloat or not, the thing that carries most of us through the uncertainty isn’t a spreadsheet or new planning journal. It’s our mindset. Battling the ups and downs of all that’s happening in our heads, particularly when it comes to feelings of scarcity - that - spoiler alert - social media is essentially built to enhance - is actually what Tzipporah and I wind up talking about amidst sharing the realities of her life as a mom of 4 with a self-employed husband as well!

A 4 day work week… it’s the thing of dreams. And, according to many many studies I’ve read about in many books, actually highly linked to better productivity and all sorts of other very business-savvy things that only a fool would say no to. But in all of those books I’ve read, the examples have been from companies that had teams. So it was very easy to tell myself excuse after excuse of why it could clearly work for a team, but not work so well for us solo-preneurs, or itty bitty businesses trying to do the work of 10 people while only being one person . That is, until I saw a post by Julie Cloutier on Instagram, where she was celebrating her one year anniversary of a 4 day work week...

Episode 2 of the special The Launch series! This week I reflect on our first in-person market experience - just 6 short days after it happened. So yes, I'm still tired. :)We also have some insightful questions from our Community members as our framework for this review on the highs and lows of our first market.

Have you ever wanted to be a fly on the wall while someone else starts a ceramics business? From the very beginning? Well, you’re in luck! In this new series - The Launch - I’m sharing (in as real-time as I can) the reality of what it’s like for Francesco and I to start our pottery business, Carra Terra. First up, what the last 2 years of twists and turns, starts and pauses, has been like and how that’s brought us to this summer of going all in on in-person markets. Spoiler: This episode airs one week before our very first in-person market. I’m guessing you’ll be able to hear the nerves through your headphones.If you are going through all of this yourself and want to dig deeper on these conversations, come join me and over 60 other makers from all over the world inside of The Community. You can learn more about what this amazing space on the internet is by visiting makersplaybook.com/community. Becoming a member not only welcomes you into an amazing group of makers and colleagues celebrating the great successes with each other as well as supporting each other on the not so great days, your membership also helps with the creation of this very podcast.

Commissions… I feel like it’s a four letter word when I talk to some potters. You see them physically tense up and take a deep breath ready to do battle with a fire breathing dragon. And I’ve always been a little bit confused by this because I kind of like them. Just add it to the list of the ways that it makes me a bit of a black sheep in the art world. You can slot it right next to my love of systems and routine and willingness to talk about marketing and sales. But I digress… When I sat down with Micah Schedler I thought we’d mostly chat about how he’s balancing working as a health professional in nursing as well as having 2 little kids and launching a brand new website - I didn’t know we’d share a joy of the efficiency of commissions and that’s actually where he hopes to focus most of his business. But hang with us here. If you are already rolling your eyes, thinking “No way, Rebecca. I tried it once and it was a mess. I’ll never do a commission again.” Before you click the next button, just give us maybe 10 minutes to see if Micah’s controlled approach to how he makes commissions work best for him - amidst the sleep deprivation of toddlers and working another job - might help you re-think this often annoying request…

Do you feel like the time you spent in a previous career (or a current one) is just pulling you away from moving forward in clay? But have you ever considered that the “background knowledge” you have gained from other life experiences is actually part of creating your unique voice and style as an artist? In this week’s episode, Larissa Warren of Rat Bag Studios and I discuss how her previous career as a teacher directly influences her current work, how the connections and background knowledge she gained while in that career directly support her recent jump into being a full-time studio potter and how the literal background knowledge of the medium you are working in is crucial to actually making the work. While so many of us scour the internet for quick and easy answers to what another artist uses for clay or glaze, what material do they make those stencils out of and how do you (insert whatever unique style skill here)... Larissa points out that maybe the key to figuring out all of those questions is actually found within the trial & error that comes with gaining the background knowledge of the process in the first place.

My chat this week with Gloria Han opens up so many bit and important conversations (spoiler: this means, there’s going to be a part two!). From getting into education because of a passion for teaching (rather than it being the automatic route after graduate school as it is for so many), to balancing contemporary work with traditional making practices, and encouraging new artists to consider the wisdom of generations of knowledge before defaulting to the overused excuse of there being “no wrong way to make something.” Gloria’s teaching practice and her making practice are intrinsically linked - one informing the other and also each allowing the space for the other passion to be nurtured without the push of capitalism to make work that’s easy to sell.

When I sat down with Paul Blais of the Potter's Cast and a packed room of fellow makers at NCECA, we hit upon a lot of business subjects. Frankly, just one of the questions he threw my way could have been its own entire episode. So today I’m expanding on a few of those subjects in this solo episode. If there are still questions you had from that chat, send me over an email at podcast@makers-playbook.com and I’ll queue up another follow up episode as well! Because if there was one way to sum it alllllll up, it’s that just about every decision when it comes to your own business - whether a side-hustle on the nights and weekends or a full-time gig - nearly every decision you are going to have to make is interconnected to every other decision.

When I say “making a living” what do you think I mean? Do you immediately think of income and how much money you make? Or do you think of how you spend your time? Do you think of the balance between working hours and leisure hours? I don’t think there is one particularly correct answer, but on this episode of The Maker’s Playbook, our guest, Danny Meisinger does put this phrase into some very helpful perspective for those of us trying to figure out the financial side alongside the dream life of being a full-time potter in the 21st century. If you are dreaming that same dream, or even just curious about what it’s actually like to make a living from what you make, this episode is for you.