Friday, September 22, 2006

Waiting For Success

There is an interesting discussion going on over at the CafePress forums.

Someone said that newbies should be patient and give a design/shop three months before they consider it a failure. Someone else said that this was bad advice and that one should wait at least a year before calling a shop/design a failure. The second person even said that one should not listen to advice given by people who have been in the CafePress business for less than two years.

The thing about two years of experience before you qualify for giving advice is a complete nonsense. There are people who may have no experience in being a CafePress shopkeeper but on the other hand have huge knowledge about SEO or marketing. Why wouldn't they give advice? I believe that everyone can bring something new and everyone should be listened to. Not every advice needs to be taken, but for myself I will listen/read everything and use whatever I find interesting be it from a CafePress veteran or not.

Patience, yes, that's true. Patience is a must and I will repeat that a million times. Patience, patience, patience.

Having said that, I have to say that waiting is not easy. As a relatively new shopkeeper I know how hard it is to put in 12 hours of work a day and get just two or three sales a month if that many. It's easy to say be patient when you are getting 20 sales a day. Some of the people in that thread say... oh yes, be patient, wait for months and months... but in another thread they come and complain when they sell only two or three things a day. I'd like to see their morals if they would suddenly have to wait three months (or a year!) to get a sale. Would they say, oh cool, never mind the sales I'll just keep working on it in the next 12 months or would they start having doubts and thinking of quitting?

My final words... yes, I'll be patient and keep working on it, but yes I will be disappointed and long for more sales and better results at times. Up and down... riding on the waves... that's how life is for me.