Years and years ago when I learned to re-string dolls I never imagined where that one skill would lead. At the time I was just trying to fix my mother’s dolls. Once I learned how I began buying dolls to repair and resell. It was a little hobby business; my children were very young then and I didn’t have enough time to make a living at doll repair.
I began recounting my adventures in doll repair in my Mandaline Artful Living blog, mostly just to keep in practice with writing as I felt I was becoming rusty. All of a sudden, people all around the world wanted to send me their dolls to repair. I became overwhelmed with work, so I decided to sell stringing kits with instructions and supplies to enable others to repair their own dolls. Still I had people wanting to send their dolls to me. I raised my prices to encourage people to buy the kits. And I raised them, and raised them, and raised them… and now I’m charging $100 per hour to string dolls and people are STILL sending them to me. Right now I have a studio full of dolls being repaired and I am expecting 18 more next week! It’s too much work for one person. I have now prepared a comprehensive stringing kit, with materials to string at least 5 dolls of all types and sizes and I’ve prepared and included a course to teach all the fundamentals. The stringing kit materials alone are worth $150 and it will save you over $200 in professional repair fees by teaching you to do it yourself. The course value is $197. I usually sell these kits for $65 but right now you can get your for $40 with free shipping (within the USA). Restore your dolls to their former glory, or start your own doll stringing business. Believe me, there’s plenty of demand! Just click the button below to get your kit.
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How do you handle days when your only desire is to hibernate under the covers? That’s all I want to do today: sleep, or maybe curl up with a book or watch Harry Potter movies in my bathrobe. I certainly don’t want to stir myself into working.
We stayed up late to watch the Super Bowl’s overtime conclusion and I could barely drag myself out of bed this morning. And it’s rainy and dark and colder than it has been. And my Hashimoto’s Disease has been flaring up lately, leaving exhausted. I am supposed to be building my new funnel. I was doing great with it at the end of the week but then I put it aside and never picked it back up again. What, you ask, is a funnel? It’s a special type of website that sends customers directly to your offer instead of to your store or traditional URL with a maze of choices that misleads or distracts them. I wasn’t sure I needed a funnel until my mother brought home its importance to me. A few months ago I published my new Ultimate Zucchini Cookbook. I listed it for sale on Amazon, in my shops, and on my website and promoted it (with links to the sale page) on all my social media channels. This cookbook is a re-write of my grandmother’s original, which she wrote and “published” in the mid-20th Century ~ she typed it out on her typewriter and had it copied and bound into little paper booklets at a copy shop. I rewrote it with low-carb adaptations of the recipes included and published it as a much-sturdier hard cover book. My mother decided to buy one. I don’t know if hers fell apart over the years ~ more certainly did! ~ or if she wanted the low carb recipes but she tried to order one from my website. I was planning to give her one for Christmas so I would have told her not to buy it but she didn’t tell me about this until afterward. Anyway, one night my mother caused me some angst because she called to tell me she pre-ordered my book when it was still in the pre-order stage. I hadn’t gotten any notice of her order so I asked for details and she said she didn’t have to pay because it was a pre-order. (That’s NOT how pre-orders work! She should definitely had to pay and it was discounted during that period due to the wait). Then she said she saw a notice when she ordered her book that my son also ordered a copy. I didn’t have a record of that either. Visions of hundreds of undocumented cookbook orders coming into my website flooded my brain ~ unfulfilled orders, customer complaints, Squarespace shutting me down… In a panic I texted my son to ask if he ordered my cookbook, which I thought would be rather odd because I don’t think he even knew about it… like most 25 year olds he doesn’t breathlessly follow his mother’s career! Turns out, he did not order it. Neither did my mother. What did she do? Why did she think she ordered it when she didn’t? Why did she think my son ordered it? We may never know. You would think following a direct link to a product and ordering it would be simple but for a lot of folks, it’s not. A great many people just aren’t used to online shopping. Then if you have a storefront with a ton of choices they might get distracted and start switching between products and become overwhelmed with choices. And then many platforms try to offer suggestions of similar products a customer might want before they’ve even completed their first order. Sometimes these are helpful but I’ve noticed they often have nothing to do with the thing I’m ordering. They might even show buyers a lower cost for the same product which ends up in a race to the bottom, price-wise, for sellers. You may know the cheaper product will take 2 months to arrive or doesn’t include all the pieces yours has but many consumers don’t look at anything beyond the price. They may not even realize they are going to a different seller if they click on one of those links ~ I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’ve gotten an angry message from someone who insists they bought something from me when they didn’t ~ even products I don’t offer at all! So, a funnel allows you to control the narrative, explain why your product is superior, and send buyers to an order form right there on the page without any distraction. It works for any type of business, from local services and restaurants to online stores. I’m making funnels for my best-selling products and then suggesting my stores for complementary items on the Thank You page. I am such a big believer in this concept I partnered with ClickFunnels to bring you a 5-day business training from industry leaders, including Daymond John of Shark Tank. It’s free and it comes with a free trial of ClickFunnels 2.0. Just click the button below to register. I am really optimistic this will be my best year yet, but only if I can manage to get myself back to work on this funnel. So please hit the comments and give me all your best motivational tips! Oh, and don’t worry about Mom ~ I gave her a cookbook for Christmas. Here at "Amanda's Adoption Agency" (aka Mandaline shops; I renamed us temporarily to reflect the huge number of dolls currently available), we take immense pride in offering a remarkable collection of vintage and antique composition dolls meticulously repaired by our skilled artisan, Amanda Boggs.
Each doll undergoes a meticulous restoration process, where they are lovingly repaired by hand, re-painted, re-strung, and re-sewn to restore their original beauty and charm. What sets our dolls apart is the attention to detail, as some even feature handmade alpaca or mohair wigs, adding a touch of uniqueness to each one. Adorned in exquisite clothing, these dolls are not only aesthetically pleasing but also ready to find their forever homes. However, it's important to note that there's only one of each doll available, so if you find a special companion that speaks to your heart, don't hesitate to make them a part of your family before someone else does. |
AuthorMy name is Amanda, but my childhood nickname was "Mandaline". I am a mother of three turning my passion for creating into a full-time business. Archives
April 2024
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