Transcripts
1. Introduction To Course: Hi, I'm Sarah and
I've been running a Vinyl Decal business on Etsy for quite a few years now, as my main job and main
source of income. When I first started, I had absolutely no clue what went
into running a vinyl shop. And that it wasn't
just cutting out pretty things on my Cricut and sending them to customers. And that a lot more
went into it than that. I have continued to
learn a lot over the years and have built up
some quite good processes. So that's why I've
made this course so that I can share
them with you all. In this course, I will walk you through how to get started, how to come up with a niche
and choose a target audience. The basics of branding your business so
that it stands out. And the first steps you should take before
you begin selling, this will be perfect for you. If you own a cutting machine, you know the basics
of how to use it. And you want to start
making money with it, but you don't really
know where to start and you've never
started a business before. It may also help you if you
have started a business, but you just need a
little bit of help, maybe niching down or
improving your brand as well. Before you begin,
be sure to download the workbook from the
resources section as it has lots of useful
information and links in it and you can
work through it as the course progresses. Your project for this course is to share a brand board with your new business on it in the discussion section so that we can see what
you have achieved. I will show you how to do
this later in the course. Just so you're aware though, I won't be teaching you how to make or apply vinyl
decals in this course. Do check out my
beginner's guide to vinyl decals if you want
some more tips on that, as well as my YouTube
channel, Vinyl Decal School. Or if you already
have your business started and you've got
a brand and you just kind of wanted to get going with making the decals to sell them. Do check out my next
course, create vinyl decals that are ready to sell as that may be
more suitable for you. But otherwise, I
hope you join me on the course and
that you enjoy it.
2. What You Need Before You Start: Before we start, let me just go over a few things that you might need or you might
want to think about before you start
your vinyl business. The first and most important
one in my opinion, is a positive mindset. And the belief that you can achieve anything
you put your mind to. This is as woo woo as I will get. So don't worry If it's
not really your thing. But before we go
on this journey, I want to make
sure that you will succeed and that
you're committed to opening a shiny
new vinyl business that will either
give you more time, freedom, money, or whatever it
is that you desire. Please humor me and make a commitment in the
discussion section and let me know why you want to start a vinyl business and what it could do for you and
maybe your family. It might just be a bit
of extra pocket money, a family holiday every year, the freedom of
working for yourself or more time to spend with your loved ones
. Whatever it is. I would love to know and
I want you to write it in the attached
workbook too so you've got it as a reference to look back
on whenever you feel like procrastinating or
that you can't do it, you can just go back and look at that and remember your why. And hopefully that
will motivate you. For me when I started it was because I wanted it
to be my own boss. I didn't want to work
Monday to Friday, nine to six anymore. And that was really enough
motivation for me to push through and succeed and make this into a
full-time business. Now that's out the way time for
the more practical stuff. So obviously to make decals, you do really need
a cutting machine. You can make them with
scissors or by hand, but that isn't as fast. It's not gonna be
as easy to sell them without a machine
doing it for you. If you don't have one already
and you love to craft, you might want to look into that and then come back
to the course. Once you've mastered
the basics of using it, I work with both a Cricut Air 2 and a silhouette Cameo 4 But any kind of
machine that cuts designs out of
vinyl will work for a vinyl business
as long as you can do multiple designs
at once with it, and as long as you can upload your designs
digitally as well, then I will probably say it's easier to do this course and to run a vinyl business from
a laptop or a computer. But if you only have
a tablet or a phone, then that is doable as well. So other than that, your machine and an
Internet connection, that is really the
only things you need to proceed with this course
and start your business. The rest of this stuff you
won't actually really need until you set up your business
and finish the course. But just so you can start
thinking about them now, I thought I would give
you a quick overview. The first is that you may need
a selection of cutting mats if it is a Cricut that you're using and you
don't have them already. With my Cameo 4, I mostly use the
vinyl roll feeder that is included
to cut my vinyl, so I don't need mats for that. But for my Cricut, I
have a number of 12 by 12 inch and 12 by 24 inch mats. I do have quite a few, but you don't necessarily need all of them
because I will link to a video in the workbook
which will show you how to restrict your mats so you don't have to
keep buying them. The next is a separate
design software like Illustrator,
photoshop, or Inkscape. It's good to have. It's not a requirement. You can just design
things within Cricut design space
or silhouette studio. Or you can buy SVG files ready-made
and just upload those. But I do find
personally that having an alternative
design software that has a lot more features has made it a lot easier to kind of upscale my business and create better designs
for customers. Hold off on buying any
new vinyl and transfer tape just yet until you have finished the course and
you know what to buy. But for when you do that, I will link to a list of vinyl suppliers from various different
countries I've found. Just so you can
browse and hopefully find the best deals on vinyl. Then the following
things aren't requirements, but they are useful to have. The first is a weeding tool. So people like to use tweezers, weeding pens, tools like this, anything sharp and
thin that will help you get rid of the
in-between bits of letters. I got this from a
vinyl supplier, but you can get weeding toolkits online with various
different styles in them. A Vinyl trimmer This helps if you're
putting vinyl onto mats, if you've got a Cricut
and you need to measure how much vinyl you need, and you will need some
sharp scissors as well. So you may want to use those
instead of the vinyl cutter. some kind of squeegee, or vinyl scraper like this. You can get bigger ones as well, or you can just use a plastic store card for
now as an alternative, you don't necessarily
need to buy one. This just helps to
smooth to transfer tape down on the
vinyl before you send it. A scrap holder
which is useful for collecting all of your vinyl scraps
as you're weeding. And you can get ones
like this where you wear them on your
fingers as you're working or you can get ones that stick to your desk as well. Large Bin for your scraps
will come in handy as well. Again, don't worry about
these things too much. though until you finish the course, you might actually
just be able to use some things you already
have in your house. It's not really worth buying new things until you have
your business up and running. If you are thinking
about it though, again, I have added links to all of these things I've just
mentioned in the workbook. So don't forget
to download that. Then the last thing is
just a bit of space. So you've got room
to make your vinyls, package them up, and also store your vinyl rolls
and supplies as well. When I first started,
I had barely any space so you can make it work no
matter what your setup is. You may just need to invest in some storage like this trolley that I have or
something similar.
3. How To Choose A Target Audience or Niche: Before we create anything, we need to know who we
are creating it for. In this lesson, we're
gonna go over how to find your target audience. When I first began,
I started selling wedding decals because I was planning my own
wedding at the time. I was already a bit wedding
Pinterest obsessed. So it was a bit of a no-brainer
that I would start there. As I knew what was trending
and what was popular. Some sellers offer a
huge range of decals, but for me personally, I found it much
easier to niche down, focus on a specific audience and then build up my
customer base from there. Although I still do mostly
sell wedding decals, customers return to me
for Christmas gifts, birthday presents, decals for other events in
their life like baby showers, birthday parties,
and stuff like that. But that's usually
because they found me originally by looking
for wedding stuff. It's also a lot
easier to start with a smaller range of
designs as well, rather than trying to do
everything and then juggle it. So let's find your niche. One of the simplest
ways to do that is to think what you
would use yourself. Do you have kids? Maybe you could make decals
for children's toy boxes, bedroom walls, lunch
boxes, bottle stickers. And then a super easy way to
market your product is to get your kids to take them to school and show them
off to everyone. Do you like an organized home? Think bin stickers,
pantry jar labels, custom shampoo and
conditioner bottles maybe. Do you work for a business that
might need branded items? Or stickers in the window. Do you have a number of local businesses that might be interested in a
similar sort of thing, Then there are obviously
so many ideas that aren't specific to your
situation as well. Maybe you could just sell Christmas decals if you just want to work part of the year. Or you could do iron-on
decals for sports teams. And so much more. If you're still struggling to
come up with ideas though, you could do a little bit
of keyword research in Erank, Etsy, on Google and elsewhere online to see what
is trending at the moment. If you search Vinyl Decal
in Etsy, for example, a number of ideas will come up, which may give you
some inspiration and you can build
on that from there. Do just bear in mind
that these are probably ones with a lot of competition. You do want to think of a way to kind of make them unique, or make them stand out from others. You could also look at the
latest trend reports as well and see if they
spark any ideas. I will link to a few
in the workbook. But for instance,
pinterest has predicted that celestial celebrations are going to be big this year. So as an example, you could use those as starting
point and maybe expand to other celebration decals in different styles
if they take off, the options are
endless basically, but as long as you are putting your own spin on it and you're not just copying other
businesses out there, then you have a
chance of standing out and finding your audience. Also makes sure to avoid any obvious Copyright
Designs as well, like Disney or
Marvel, for example. Then once you've decided
on a category or a focus, one of the easiest ways to make sure you're always meeting that target audience's
needs is to come up with a character profile
for your ideal customer. I've put together this work page for you to fill in
in the workbook. And it's to help you get really specific with your
target customer. Think of one specific
person, what they like, how old they are, why they need your decals? How will they will improve
their lives by using them and then give
that person a name. And then going forward when
you're creating your brand, you'll be able to picture that person in your
mind and think about whether they
will like it or not and whether they
will be attracted to it. Now go ahead and fill in the workbook with the details
of your ideal customer.
4. Decide On A Business Name: Once you have your
target customer in mind, it's time to come up
with a business name. This lesson will be
short and sweet because a business name is really something that should
come from the heart. There are some business
name generators that I will link for you in the workbook
if you want to try them out. And they could give
you some inspiration, but don't over-complicate it. You might not want to include vinyl decals in the name just in case later
down the line, you wanted to start selling a
different line of products. But then again, you also
don't want to be too vague because you want customers to know what they
can expect from you. Then again, there
is the option to open a second arm of
the business in future. If you do want to do a
different range of products, for instance, you could
start with Rosie's vinyls, and then if you wanted
to do Printables as well, you could have a second shop
called Rosie's printables. And then they are still
under the same umbrella. Just think about which route
you would rather take. You might know what
you want to call it already or you might
want to brainstorm a few ideas and run them past someone you trust
to get some feedback. But before you definitely decide what you want
the name to be, make sure you do a check
across Google, Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, Etsy
and anywhere else that you might be putting
your business out there to make sure that no
one already has that name. And especially not a vinyl
decal business as well. If there is, maybe you can just tweak it a little bit
so it's different. Or you might need to come up with something
completely different, but under no circumstances, use the same name now, you may as well just hand your
customers over to them, especially if they have been
going a little bit longer. Use the lined page
in the workbook if you need to brainstorm
some name ideas.
5. Choose A Colour Palette: You've got your target
audience in mind. You've got your business name. So it, now it's time
for the fun part. Designing your brand. The colors you choose
for your branding may be way more important
than you think. But now you know what kind of audience you're
trying to attract. It should be easier
to figure out what kind of colors to use and what kind of vibe you want to give off too. Do any of these
standout to you? If you want some further
reading on color theory, I'll add some links to the
workbook for you to check out. Then once you've decided on one or two main colors
you want to go with. You can then use the
site coolers.co to put together a palette
of colors that go well, that you can use across
all of your branding. Go to the site,
start the generator, and it will take you to a
page that looks like this. If there's a color on there
that you like already, you can lock it and then you just press the space bar and it will find complimentary
colors to go with that one. Any of these you like, just lock until you got five that
you're happy with. Then you can copy
that color code across to somewhere else. Or you can copy a color-code in where you can use
this to move around, find a color you like. Again, lock it, press the space bar, find
complementary colors. You can also pull in an
image and use a color from that to get you started if you've
found one somewhere. You can also pick
different shades if you just want to something a
bit darker and don't forget to save to make sure you don't lose your palette as well. Once you've done that and
you've got your color codes, we're going to start a brand board. I've popped a blank brand
board in the workbook for you if you just prefer to
note things down for now. But if you want to create
something that you can use that will
look professional. You can either use a
design software that you use already or you
can use Canva, which is a free online
design software. I really recommend
Canva for this as they have some
really great templates. If you do want to use
Canva, open it up, you may need to create a free account if
you don't have one already and search
for brand boards, it doesn't really matter
which one you pick as we're going to change
it as we go along. But it may be better to look
for a more simplistic one. Just as you're starting
out, open it up. And the first thing
you're going to do is add your color codes. Just click on the shape
you want to change. Open up the Color tab and copy your first code across
to this section here. Then repeat until you have
all of your colors saved, and then don't forget to save the file so you can come back
to it in the next lesson.
6. Create A Logo and Choose Fonts: Once you've chosen the colors, it's time to create
a logo and to choose some fonts that can be
used across your branding. Think about what is
easily readable, will stand the test of time, can be scaled up to a
really large design, but also dial down
to a small one too. The first logo I created for my vinyl business was
absolutely awful. I just threw it together on Photoshop and it looked
so unprofessional. And I felt like people weren't
really taking my business seriously because of a
lack of cohesive branding. So less than a year after
I had opened my Etsy shop, I had a close it for a week and rebrand everything and
it took so much time. That is basically
why I'm teaching you this in this course. So you can get it right from the beginning and
you don't have to make the same
mistakes that I did. You might still want to
re-brand later down the line, but hopefully that will be
because your business is growing rather than out
of embarrassment like me, You may already be an
illustrator whizz in which case you probably don't need to watch the
rest of this lesson. You can just go ahead
and create a logo. But if not, here are a few different options
to get you started. So the first one is
to hire someone to create one for you if you're not confident in doing it yourself, although you should
really be spending a decent amount of money to get something that
looks professional. There are budget
options for this on places like Fiverr and Upwork. And you can hire
people on there for a reasonable price to create
some options for you. Just remember to
pass on everything you've decided so
far so that they have all of the
information and they can create something that
matches your brand. The next option is to use a pre-made template like these
ones on Creative Market. You just need to open them in a design program and edit
your name and details. Just make sure you
have a program that accepts the files
that they are selling. The problem with this, however, is that there is a chance that a lot of people out there will
have the same logo as you or a very similar one. And it gives you less
opportunity to stand out. But again, it could be a good place to start until
your businesses is up and running and you have
a bit more money to spend on a more
professional logo. Canva is another option and it's free. there are also
templates on here. Again, you may end up with a very similar logo
to other people. However, it is a lot easier to change things around on here. Change it to your
brand colors of course, add different fonts,
different elements, etc. So that you can make it
more of your own. The only issue with this
is that you will be unable to trademark your logo if
you create it like this. This could cause you
issues in future. For just starting out though, I think it's a really good option. Canva is great for making
social media templates, adding details to your pictures to help sell your products, creating business stationery
and so much more. So if you do create
your logo in Canva, you may want to pick your
brand fonts from here as well. If you haven't already
done that for your logo, go for the free fonts as they
have a commercial license, and pick ones that
are easy to read. You may want to
pick a script or a fancier one for
the larger titles, and then a more block type
font for the details. Or you can also upload
your own fonts. If you have Canva pro, just make sure you have a
commercial license for the font and are allowed to use it
for things like logos. Then if you don't want to
use Canva or a template, you can create your
own from scratch in a design software like
Illustrator, Inkscape. Procreate, Photopea, Photoshop - there are so many different
options out there. Just don't use
design space as you won't be able to get a high enough quality
image from that. When you're doing this,
unless you're drawing freehand or using only shapes, you will again, probably
want to choose some fonts, both for your logo
and your branding. In the workbook, I will link to a page full of websites
where you can find fonts and also
elements that you may want to include in
your logo too. Again, make sure you are checking for a commercial license first. Once it is created, add your logo to the
workbook if you can, or maybe just do a skecth on there, or to your brand board on Canva. And then also add the names of your fonts to the
font section too. Then if you are doing a
brand board in Canvas, then your template may
also have some space for you to add extra elements. Mood board pictures, a
little tagline, example social media posts and various other things
which describe your brand and your
target audience. Have a play with this, you can look for royalty free pictures on
Unsplash or Pexels, or use some of the free
elements in Canva. There are so many
great ones on there. If you want some inspiration
on moodboards, checkout, Pinterest for that,
just remember to save it so you've got
it for future reference.
7. Set Up Social Media Accounts: This is a pretty
straightforward step, but it's still a
very important one. Social media is
often the place that customers go first to check out that you're
the real deal. And you may also want to use one of them as a sales
channel as well. So for that reason, it's really important to
set them up properly as a business profile and separate them from your
personal profiles. You don't need to try
and juggle all of the different social media
accounts for your business. In fact, I would
actually recommend on just focusing on one or two and building those up first before you think about
moving onto other loans, you just need to
think about where your customers are most likely to hang out to help you decide
which ones to start with. Even so I do think it's
better to just set up all of the accounts when you start out with your
business name. And then maybe if you do want to dabble with
them down the line, they are already
there and nobody has stolen your name for themselves. Before you set up all of
these social media accounts, you do want to get a business
email address as well. You can get a dedicated
business one, but they do often cost money. So the easiest way to do this is to set up a Gmail account. That way you can just have
your business at gmail.com. It's free to set up. Then once that's done,
you can work your way through all of the
different social medias. For most niches, I would say a Facebook
page is must have. as there are still so many
users on Facebook. It's a good opportunity for selling and it's
really easy to set up. Instagram is a great way to
find potential customers. However, with a vinyl business, it can be tricky to
generate enough pictures if you're not directly
making finished products, but if you're prepared to share behind the
scenes pictures, and really let your
customers get to know you. Then this could be
the one for you. Tiktok is my personal
favorite and it's where I like to find a lot of small
businesses I buy from. It can be a bit daunting, especially if you don't necessarily want
to show your face. But there are so
many creative ways to show off what you do. Just try to mix up
your content and try out trending sounds and
videos to get started. I personally don't use
Twitter for business because my customers don't
really hang out there. But it might be perfect for
you if you're focusing on business decals or a really specific hobby
or something like that. Or if you already spend a lot of time on there and know it quite well. And then Pinterest, this doesn't
technically belong here, as it is actually more of
a search engine option. But it's definitely a very
useful tool to promote your business and can lead to huge traffic numbers
when used right. Then of course, there are
various other mediums you can use. Youtube, LinkedIn. There are new ones coming
out all of the time, but perhaps just
start by opening accounts with all of the
ones I've mentioned for now. I've put a space in the workbook
if you want to note down your username and
passwords and keep it somewhere safe once your
accounts are opened, It just goes without
saying that you should keep them business focused. Yes, share funny gifs that
are relevant to your niche, engage with customers, use it to connect
with other businesses show behind the scenes
and show your family. But try not to share every little thing like what
you had for lunch. Try not to post
negative comments about tricky customers and
definitely don't use it as a place to vent
your personal issues.
8. Set Up Your Business: Before you start
selling anything, you need to make
sure that you are legally allowed to do so. And also that you are able
to keep a record of your incoming and outgoings
for tax purposes, you need to refer to
your country or state specific guidelines on
how to open a business. It may be the case that you can just register as self-employed, or you may need to register as a business
or a limited company. The best thing to do is to call your local tax office for assistance and see
what they suggest. But I will add as many links
as I can into the workbook. So you've got them for
reference and hopefully they can give you a little
bit more information. It may seem very
daunting and I can't legally advise you on
the best route to take. But once you've got it set up, it's usually pretty
straightforward after that. Another thing I
can't advise you on, but that you may require
is business insurance. There are a lot of providers
out there that cover craft businesses and
small businesses. And depending on what you need to cover
and what your excess is, the prices can
vary dramatically. But again, check
out the links, do a bit of research
and you may not necessarily need
it until you get everything set up and
start selling anyway. But the next thing
you want to think about so that you're not in a blind panic when tax
deadline rolls around, is how you're going
to keep a track of all of your
incomings and outgoings. If you don't have
that many then a simple Excel spreadsheet
might be fine. But if you want to
save time and you have got quite a few
to keep track of, then you may want to look into an accounting software. I
used to use Wave. They're free and they're
very easy to use. They let you add everything
under specific categories, generate branded invoices, and they show you your profit
and loss and expenses. However, you can no longer
open an account with them outside of the
US, I think it is. I actually use QuickBooks now and I do actually
prefer them. They have better features
and it's easier to sync up your bank account
so that they input all of the information
automatically, you do have to pay for them, but I just find that they make uploading and organizing
your accounts a lot easier. Then there are others
like FreshBooks and Xero. If you want to compare a few, a lot of them do
free trials as well, I have linked to all of them
in the workbook. So you can have a look. Then when it comes to
bank accounts, again, I don't have any training, so I wouldn't be able to
advise anyone on this. But you may not necessarily need an official business
bank account. I'm a sole trader rather
than a limited company. And because I get my payments incrementally
throughout the month, rather than as lots of
little transactions. It's just as easy for me to have a normal bank account
that I use for all my business stuff than it is to actually pay for a
business account. You could also have a
dedicated PayPal account. But that may be tricky
if you come across businesses that don't
deal with PayPal. So there are a few
options out there. If you're unsure, maybe
speak to your bank, they might try and sell you
a fancy business account, but hopefully if you
explain your circumstances, they may be able to tell
you the best route to go. Either way, whatever you do, just make sure you have an
account that is solely for business use so that when it
comes to your tax return, is a lot easier to
sort everything out.
9. Congratulations & What's Next?: Just like that, you've
opened a brand new business. Congratulations on
completing the course and taking this journey with me. I hope you found it
really helpful. If you did, I would be forever grateful if you could
please leave me a review. Also, don't forget to
add your brand board to the discussion section so we
can see what you've created. Just download it as
a JPEG if you're making one in Canva
and upload it here, and then it's time to
move onto my next course. Create vinyl decals
that are ready to sell for even more tips, please follow me on YouTube or TikTok, at Vinyl decal school. And also follow my teacher
page here on Skillshare to keep an eye out
for other courses that will help you grow
your vinyl business.
Sarah Bradley, Making & Selling Vinyl Decal Classes
