Business Travel

I love to travel. Visit wonderful places. That I choose to visit. Like parasailing in San Diego, for instance.

And then there is business travel. Spend a week living in a hotel, far from home. No kids, husband, dogs or cats. No laundry or dishes. Sound idyllic?

No. Let me give you some of the down-side:

Jet lag. Which really makes you almost sick.

Losing 1/2 your weekend, because you live very far away and you must be in town for a Monday morning meeting, so you leave your house at 9am Sunday morning, only to arrive at your hotel in a far away city at midnight. Then you try to go to sleep, but it is only 9pm, according to your body clock. So you lie there, waiting for sleep. Knowing you're going to be exhausted in the morning. And you have to get up and shower and do your hair, and make your pudgy body look presentable. And put on makeup, and lipstick. omg. Oh, and shoes, that are distinctly different from your usual flip flops.

Then you spend HOURS in meetings, trying to look and act perky. And insightful. So you can impress your supervisor, your supervisor's supervisor, and their supervisor. You wonder if it is working.

You make every effort to think, and be smart. And this goes on from the moment you meet your fellow co-workers for breakfast at 7am, until you can finally get back to the joy of your hotel room, at 9pm. Your makeup is blurry, you have been too tired to reapply lipstick for hours. Your bra strap is showing. You look at yourself in the only full length mirror that you've encountered since the last time you were in town. omg.

This routine goes on for days. 1,2,3,4,5 - days, and nights, and breakfast, lunch and dinners. Through meeting after meeting. You wonder who, if anybody, you might be impressing.

omg.

Late this afternoon, I got an email from my airline. I can check in!!!! I can pay $15 for my suitcase to travel in comfort in the luggage area. I can get to the airport hours ahead of time so I can disrobe going through security. I can eat a well balanced meal of swedish fish and peanuts for dinner, again, just like last Sunday. I can wait for hours for my connecting flight at some remote airport, still far from home.

I can go home.

omg.

Am I there yet?

Money, Money, Money

Nobody wants to really talk about how much money they make. It's in poor taste. It's nobody's business but your own. And I agree. (well, kind of. If you're blabbing about how much money you make in public. discussions among friends are fine...)

But those of us that dream of quitting our day jobs, and making a living on Etsy - are very interested.

I read an interesting blog post today here, written by a shop on etsy with over 10,000 sales. So, it got me to thinking.

You can see Etsy's top sellers here http://etsybynumbers.blogspot.com/2009/04/etsy-top-200-sellers-handmade.html.

The #1 handmade shop has sold over 24,000 items, at an average cost of $15 (guessing, it is probably $18) - 24,000 x $15 = $360,000 - etsy and paypal fees = $335, 241. Of course, I have no idea what the costs are for making her items. And the shop joined in June of 2005, so that is over the course of 3 years. I could live well on just about $100,000 per year.

Could you?

It takes tremendous talent, as well as marketing know-how, fabulous customer service too.

But the #1 thing that will make you a success is your product.

How fabulous is your product?? And how much demand is there for your product? Is your product so fabulous that 24,000 people HAVE to have it??