Many times, as business owners we have all these ideas and are not sure which way to go so we try all sorts of things. But we need to think of ourselves as gardeners. My uncle had a large garden he put in every year. I used to love and walk through all the veggies and fruits that he would grow. True confessions - I was not a big fan of when I had to help tend the garden. Ha!

Each year my uncle would make a plan. He took the time to plan things out ahead of planting season. The plan reviewed what he grew last year and how much a specific item grew last year. He decided if he wanted to grow it again or try something new this year. Another thing he decided was if he was going to grow it in the same spot or a different spot in the garden. Next, he would review what he needed to do to get the ground ready for planting. Then came the process of planting, tending to it during the growing season and then what he would do with the produce. But there is a step that I didn’t mention in these steps. Sometimes the gardener needs to include pruning in the process. Pruning is necessary when cutting away dead or overgrown stems or branches. This increases growth and fruitfulness.

Your business is a garden. We may have a lot of different products in the shop, but not everything is doing well. We need to be like my uncle and review what worked well last year and evaluate what we want to do this year. Soon we will be coming upon harvest time for business owners. The fourth quarter of the year can be the busiest time for some businesses. We need to prepare our “garden” and do some tending to items that may need to be pruned or maybe even eliminated. The best time is 3 - 4 months ahead of time, so we need to get busy!

 Here are some ways to tend to your “garden”--

• Take a look at your shop and see what is not selling. Does it match your niche? Do you need to change the titles, tags, attributes or photos?
• Do not change all your tags at once. Make a few changes based on your SEO research from eRank or Everbee and then wait at least 30 days to see if you start seeing results. It could take up to 90 days to see results, so the sooner you do this the better.
• Do you have a full product line? Create new products to compliment the results you where you are already seeing success. Make sure the titles of similar products are not the same.
• Offer a personalization option to your products as this is very popular with customers. This can be done for digital items too.
• Add new types of products in your shop if it makes sense – but only after you have done research to confirm it is a good niche. For example, if you are selling necklaces, consider adding matching earrings or bracelets.

Hopefully this will help you in thinking about ways to grow and tend to your own business. I am working on something for shop owners that I plan to announce soon, so make sure you are in the free Facebook Group to find out about it when it is released. I look forward to seeing you there!

Did You Know? Printables Resource creates products but also curates great resources to help in building your own business! There is a Business Building Resource Page, a Resource Directory and even a Freebies Page.