"No one cares, and I want to give up"

Does it feel like you're working so hard trying to start/grow your creative club and you’re not making any progress?

Have you even considered just throwing in the towel? Or asked yourself the question, "Why am I doing this?"

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then keep reading.

In the early days of starting our business, we put so much pressure on ourselves for things to be perfect. For every project and marketing attempt to be a success right out of the gate. We expected dozens of signups. But we only got 4. And it was our friends’ kids!

We lost sight of the fact that building a business is a journey and a process.

But here’s the thing: At the beginning of your journey, growth will typically be slow.

This is a dangerous time because your mind starts playing games with you.

You start thinking, why haven't I achieved this or that yet?

You see the progress that others have made, and you compare yourself to them.

You wonder why you are not further along yet.

But what we often forget during this phase is that you're in the process of figuring a lot of things out.

In these early stages, the best thing you can do is not to focus on trying to jam-pack your classes or get hundreds of subscribers for your monthly kits.

The best thing to focus on at this stage is getting a small group of students (all you need is a handful) to refine your offering and messaging. This will allow you to learn how to communicate what you do so that your customers think, ‘I want that.’

But what do we do instead?

We put out a flyer or do a few posts on social media that don't get a lot of attention, and then we think: "nobody cares; this is not going to work."

But NO, that is NOT what it means.

It only means that you've got to think about how to say what you do in a slightly different way to reach and attract the right people.

Remember, with an arts & crafts club, we’re playing the long game. It may start off slow (and may take time)... but over time, it begins to snowball.

And the longer you stay with it, the bigger the snowball becomes. You have to be patient, do the work, and show up consistently. 

We want to encourage you to focus on getting just a handful of students. Not dozens. Not hundreds. Just a handful.

This is exactly why we teach our CCC Academy students to do a 'soft launch.' Because, at the beginning, you don't have your messaging nailed yet. You don't have your offering refined yet. 

You don't have an audience to do a big launch to yet. 

So here's what we'd like you to ask yourself: How can I take the next step in the most simple way possible?

Perhaps it's creating an email

Or creating an Instagram post

Or jumping live on Facebook

Keep it simple. Say:

I want to start hosting arts & crafts classes for kids aged x. I'm looking for 5 kids with whom I can start testing some projects. I can promise you it will be a lot of fun, and they will learn some incredible skills in the process. If you're interested, send me a DM.

This is exactly how we started our arts & crafts club. This is exactly how the Creative Crafting Club was born. We did a simple soft launch. 

And what happened next? 

We started working with a small group and had a ton of learnings. We learned who our ideal customers were. We learned which projects work well and which ones don't. We learned how to say what we do in a way that makes our customers say, 'I want that.'

It taught us everything we needed to know to grow our business.

Today we run a thriving club and have had the privilege of teaching thousands of others from all over the world how to start and grow their clubs too.

It’s been an incredible journey, and it all started with just a handful of students.

So, we want to challenge you today to take that first step and start building some momentum.

Because you just never know where it's going to lead.

Let us know in the comments if you needed to hear this today and what your next action step is.

With love and encouragement,
Christelle & Stefanie
XO

P.S. Need some help getting started? Grab our Ultimate Starter Guide to learn how to start your club confidently.