Selling Both Physical and Digital Products – with Becky Perry, Pattern, Paper, Scissors

Selling Both Physical and Digital Products - with Becky Perry, Pattern, Paper, Scissors

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Welcome to the, bring your product ideas to life podcast, practical advice, and inspiration to help you create and sell your own physical products. Here's your host Vicki Weinberg.

Vicki Weinberg (00:00:22):

Hi. So today we're talking to Becky Perry from Pattern Saper scissors. So Becky makes and sells trend led contemporary so important for kids and babies, but for focus on slow fashion and sustainability, it is a really interesting conversation. Becky doesn't only sell physical products yet. She sells digital products as well. So we had a really interesting discussion about how setting digital products works, which is something we haven't yet covered on here. And hopefully there's lots to learn and lots that you'll find interesting. So I'd love to introduce you to Becky. Hi Becky. Thank you so much for being here.

Becky Perry (00:00:56):

Hi.

Vicki Weinberg (00:00:56):

So can you please start by telling us about your business and what it is that you sell please?

Becky Perry (00:01:02):

Oh, yes, of course. Thank you for having me. It's exciting to do this. So I set up a business, I mean, April this year and I sell sewing patterns and kits and complementary fabrics for making kids clothes and baby clothes.

Vicki Weinberg (00:01:21):

Oh, thank you. And tell us the name of your business as well, so that we have that right upfront

Becky Perry (00:01:26):

It's Pattern, Paper Scissors,

Vicki Weinberg (00:01:30):

But thank you. So, wow. That's really recent. I hadn't realized it was quite so recent actually, when we were talking about this before or wow. So, so as we record this, that's like almost six months that you've been going for.

Becky Perry (00:01:44):

So I kind of had to do the finishing touches whilst we were in lockdown and I had my daughter at home, so we were kind of working around that, but yeah, kind of getting the website up and running and things like that really.

Vicki Weinberg (00:01:57):

Did you have the yes. Is this, so did you have the idea for the business before lockdown or so it wasn't

inspired by logs or was it something you were going to do anyway,

Becky Perry (00:02:06):

Working on it for about six months previously to that? I, I have my background in fashion design. So I worked within, within that industry for 15 years as a designer for women's wear and kids wear. And then later on as a manager and I had my daughter and, and felt that when I went back, it wasn't quite right for me. I kind of, I felt like the things that I would dress was dressing her in became so important. You want something that, you know, you know, the background or so I just felt like fast fashion, maybe wasn't ready for male and to focus on something slower and more sustainable. So I kind of got this idea in my head and then there's a lovely community, really supportive creative community around sewing and craft, especially online.

Becky Perry (00:02:55):

And it kinda grew from there, the idea that I could make her clothes like make of the children's clothes and, and yeah, so it kind of, it began like that. And we just worked on a little collection and shelter in January with some really lovely kids. And, and then, yeah, by April I was kind of up and running.

Vicki Weinberg (00:03:14):

Wow. So obviously you didn't think that, you know, you've been locked down and have a child at home job giving the staff your business. How so? How was it? Yeah. So how was that? Did that impact on things at all in terms of timings or how you went about things?

Becky Perry (00:03:28):

Yes, it was tricky. I mean, part of the reason I gave up work as well was I wanted a better sort of work life balance, and I wanted to spend more time with my daughter and I got that full-time yeah, she, she went back a couple of weeks ago actually. So we haven't, we can take her back to the child wander until September. So it's, it's been tricky. My husband's been working from home and he's knocked, so we've just been kind of lik taking it in turns, but the nature of his job means he needs to be kind of doing those core hours. So my hours have kind of fitted around that, you know, seven till 9:00 AM and a few evenings and things like that and stuff.

Becky Perry (00:04:10):

So this is it's been tricky and it'll be interesting to see what happens next year and stuff, but on the whole, it's kind of like with a bit of hindsight, it's, you know, it was lovely to kind of have her round and see her growing over the last six months and how she's changed and, and things like that. But yeah,

Vicki Weinberg (00:04:33):

And I guess it's also a good test of whether the business works around family life as well. Becky Perry (00:04:38):

It is, it is, I'm actually June with my second in December. So it's going to be interesting to see how they work alongside each other. And, you know, hopefully I can still kind of make this lot, make this work because the majority of it at the moment is online. I would love to say that in the future, I'm going to start doing classes and teaching. And that's definitely kind of where my, on my list of something that I would love to do. But with a small young baby, I think it might be on hold for a little little while.

Vicki Weinberg (00:05:11):

Yeah. Oh, and festival congratulations. Like I can only see the top half of you. Congratulations. So, yeah. So you say everything's online at abatement, so you're you sell a Memorial thing. Can you sell the patterns and you also sell kits as well? And is there a split, do you tend to sell more of one than the other?

Becky Perry (00:05:30):

Yes. We, I tend to sell the PDF patterns very well, actually. So I'll in patterns come into options. You can either buy them as a paper pattern and have them delivered to you and you can also buy them as a PDF. So you get sent the link and you just download it and print it off at home, on your computer. And I'm sorry on your printer. But yeah, the PDF patterns do quite well and they get more customers kind of coming from the rest of Europe and Canada fair few from Australia and New Zealand as well. So that's the kind of access to what I sell. And then yes, the paper patterns are more kind of UK based, although they are available around Europe and the kids at the moment, we just did the kit, says the lift legging sets, but I'm hoping to kind of grow that because they all set in quite well.

Becky Perry (00:06:19):

I think it's nice if you've got, if you're looking for a gift for someone, or if you just kind of starting out, it's nice to have a fabric to kind of, to pick and to go with it and not have to worry about the meterage, you know, that you've got the right amount and that kind of thing. So you get everything included, you get your cotton and your label and your elastic and whatever else needs to go with that specific pattern, but it's all sort of ready for you.

Vicki Weinberg (00:06:44):

And are you having to source all of those individual items at the moment for the kits?

Becky Perry (00:06:49):

Yeah, so we have, we have a good stock here at the moment ready, but basically most things are sourced from the UK, but our digital printed fabrics are made with a company in Bali at the moment. They were a company that I got in touch with who had had some really good press around working very sustainably looking after their workers. And we decided that to work with them would be a good way to kind of make a sustainable choice and kind of help employment. So, so yeah, we, we do that at the moment, which is quite exciting and they're lovely to work with.

Becky Perry (00:07:30):

The digital prints are great as well because they, they use less water and less chemicals. So there's kind of less harm to the environment. There's less chemicals going into the local community sort of water sources and things. So it's all kind of built around that. And that's one of the reasons why I work with them.

Vicki Weinberg (00:07:49):

Fantastic. So you, so you get in, so you've own signed fabrics and are they the yes. Yeah. And then, so are you then having to sort of collate the kit? So the fabric and the Preds and everything else, do you sort of manually put those kits together? Yes.

Becky Perry (00:08:06):

So everything's kind of based on what print they, the customer might use and then you get your matching threads, you get the elastic, that's the correct kind of way. It's basically, it's hidden elastic, so it's black or white, but it's whichever one goes correctly with the print and you get a label to sew in as well. So everything's kind of there ready for you to use. And then the leggings that we offer at the moment have little knee patches as well. So often include a kind of contrasting fabric for the knee patches.

Vicki Weinberg (00:08:38):

So I guess that putting those together is a little bit of sort of time intensive work once they're ready. I suppose it's just a case of shipping them out. Is that right?

Becky Perry (00:08:47):

Yeah. I mean, I put those together as in when people request them, so the patterns are already ready to go and packed up, but the, the Kips to kind of be the fabric needs cutting and we grapple the bits together and it just needs wrapping, but actually those kinds of things do, do take up a bit of time when you're running, when you're running a business. And they're not necessarily things that I thought of at the time that would take it would take the majority of my time, but they do. And you know, it's quite nice wrapping things, so,

Vicki Weinberg (00:09:17):

Oh, but they're not my debit yet. So I'm really fascinated by logistics and how people do things I'll send that or maiden a bond. You make them add someone or there's ah, yeah, I think they're probably a smarter, but what sounds fantastic is that as well as those physical items, you also sell digital products. I think you're the first person I've spoke to who sells digital products, which eyes count the PDF has been digitally. So it's that side of your business automated. If somebody orders a PDF, does it just do they pay for it? And then it automatically gets emailed to them or do you have to do something?

Becky Perry (00:09:50):

No, that's, that's exactly it. You, you purchase the design that you want. And once you have paid, you get an email that comes through within it should come through within 24 hours and it gives you the link to download.

And once you've got that, it's basically, is it far that you open in, you get included, you get the patent print, you get a pattern set up for printers, or if you wanted to take it to a printers or lots of our sewing stockists, sewing pattern stockists do printing now. So you can get it printed out onto it, like an eight zero page. And then you get the instructions included a little help sheets and things like that. And those things are quite

good as well, because they're all separate documents.

Becky Perry (00:10:32):

You don't have to print them. So it's your choice. If you want to print more things and print more paper, but you can kind of hold back. You know, one of our resources is trying to kind of save, be sustainable and save on paper. So, and lots of the things in the paper packaging is recyclable or is made from recycled paper. But with the PDF, it's there to kind of say, do you want to print this? And if you don't just read it off the computer, that's fine. You know, that sort of thing.

Vicki Weinberg (00:11:01):

Oh, that's great. And yeah, I'm really fascinated with sort of how the things work. So in that automation, do you mind me asking, so what, how do you do that? What systems are you using to have that all automated?

Becky Perry (00:11:12):

So that's just, that's just unfair my website. So I use Squarespace and when you're setting it all up, you basically upload your zip file and set up the email that comes off to us to say, okay, this person will be sent this link. And then it all happens automatically.

Vicki Weinberg (00:11:31):

Oh, fantastic. And I hope you don't mind if I detail questions, but I know that we're going to have listeners who think that sounds fantastic because it sounds like, you know, you don't actually have to touch anything. It all happens for you. I think, especially if you're, you know, short on time, I guess it takes a bit of work to get all this set up. But then after that you could, in theory, you know, not, not touch it for a week and just keep

Becky Perry (00:11:55):

Themselves really. Yeah.

Vicki Weinberg (00:11:57):

And do you sell on any other platforms as well as your own website?

Becky Perry (00:12:01):

Yes. So at the moment I sell within an online company called the fold line who sell various, various different patterns for women's men's and kids. They've got a huge following actually, and they've been great to sell for, I've been doing that for just over three months. And also the next couple of weeks, I've also started selling with an online supply called the fabric godmother, Hey, you stock a lot of fabrics, but also do

complimentary kind of sewing patterns, that site as well. And they're both selling my PDF patterns.

Vicki Weinberg (00:12:37):

Oh, fantastic. Yeah. Well, my next question was going to be sort of, how do you, what have you been doing is kind of tell people you're out here and spread the message of what you're doing.

Becky Perry (00:12:47):

Yeah. I mean, supplying, sorry, stockists kind of part of my, my plan to kind of get myself known and I'm using Instagram a lot and working out at the moment how it's kind of make Facebook ads work for me and, and kind of go from there. I'm reading a lot of marketing books, but I think I need to take a course or I get someone with a one-to-one it can help me a little bit. Cause that kind of things will need to me, you know, we did dabble in a little bit of promotion in my previous job and we, we bought press releases and things, but realistically it's a hot, you know, some, some people train for years to be good marketers and, and you know, you could just pick it up and vibrate it.

Becky Perry (00:13:30):

So, so yeah, that's kind of my big thing to learn those 20, 21,

Vicki Weinberg (00:13:35):

I think you're right. And there's so much you could do in terms of marketing as well. Isn't there, so you could deface their core Google and there's so many options. It's probably limitless amount of things you could do. So yeah, I think that is a real challenge. So I'd love to talk a little bit about your ideology and cause you've touched on before about talking about sustainable fashion and about how, where possible, you know, you want the people to not print too much and how your paper products we cycle. Also, we get to talk a bit more about sort of the ethos behind your business piece. I always think that's really interesting.

Becky Perry (00:14:09):

So, so yeah, I mean, as I mentioned, I come from, I worked within the fashion industry and I worked for the high streets and you know, there's a lot of conversations going on within those industries at the moment, but how they can improve things, how they can make things better for workers be more sustainable. But at the moment it's still,you know, it's still a fast fashion industry and it's, it's extremely wasteful. So something that I really felt was important to focus on as a small business for me and for now having a family was how do I make it sustainable? How do I make eco-conscious?

Becky Perry (00:14:51):

So the thing about sort of slowing down fashion is, you know, you take these certain patterns you can, you can do with them, what you want. You can make something new, but you can use them again. And again, you're not, it's not a one trick pony. You're not paying for something for one off. And then that sex they're reusable. Also once you've made garments, you should pass them on there's that kind of thing. You know,

kids do grow. Yes. We know they go out things quickly, people pass it onto someone else and that kind of thing. So there's all that side. There's the side where I kind of really focus on making sure we're using recyclable materials. So our packaging is recyclable biodegradable, our instruction booklets who are recycled or flies or recycled at the moment have not been able to get our patterns or sewing patterns to be recyclable, but that's on the list.

Becky Perry (00:15:40):

And so, yeah, so I'm really trying to kind of be making conscious effort to make sure these things have that kind of sustainability side to them. And then I guess the other side with my ideology ideology is making something creative, helping people be creative and helping people make something for a loved one. So it felt really important to kind of find that fun in things. Again, I think when you do something creative for a living, it can sometimes become your job and you kind of lose that hands-on side of things. And I wanted to get back to that, but it made me realize how, how much you get out of it and how much joy joy you can get from it.

Becky Perry (00:16:21):

So it was kind of introducing that to other people. So a lot of people that might buy my stone patterns can already, so, and, and that's great, but I'm also trying to introduce it's people who don't necessarily have those skills and who wants to learn a skill, but it's great that they can make it for loved one. It doesn't have to be there in children. It can be somebody else's. So, you know, it can be for a gift or a baby shower or something like that. But I just wanted to be able to kind of help people be creative as well. So they're, they're the kind of two main sides of, of what I do and why I do it.

Vicki Weinberg (00:16:55):

Thank you. And I was going to ask actually, and it's a bit of a personal question I'm curious about. So would you say that your, I guess kits and patterns, even if you've got no. Well, very little so inexperience. Could you have a guy?

Becky Perry (00:17:10):

I think generally it's helpful if you have a sewing machine, but we've done recently. We did a free PDF pattern for a, a dribble bet online. It's called our Billy bandana bib and that's free to download is a sign up with our newsletter author. But basically that's got hand sewing stitches is hand sewing instructions as well as machine sewing instructions on it. Say that if you don't have access to a sewing machine yet, but you'd like to give it a go. That kind of thing is doable and it's not too big to be able to do you print the pattern off and it's only two 84 sheets, I think no, four, eight, four sheets.

Becky Perry (00:17:51):

So you're not, you're not working with something huge. You can use kind of scrap materials or something that you've had lying around for awhile, but it's something that's kind of easy enough for everyone to give her a go,

Vicki Weinberg (00:18:03):

Oh, that's really good. Cause I, I found that Joanne locks out and you, you possibly have had this as well as so many people started a new craft or hobby, you know, cause it seemed like a really good time to give something a guy. So do you feel like if you had any, have you seen the effects of that because obviously you launched in April, you didn't know we were going to be in a national lockdown at that time, but do you think that in some ways helped because people were looking for things to do at home, but creative?

Becky Perry (00:18:32):

Yes. I think there was, there was an element of that that kind of gave it a bit of a bolster at the beginning. And I think that one thing that's tricky is because I focus more on kids where the people that may be doing that also have kids at home. So it was a little bit tricky to say that that's definitely the case when you think, okay, I've got all these projects. Sometimes I can't get anything done. And especially when you're then working with kids at home. So I mean, I, I do think it made a difference, but it may have made a difference to other people who worked with adult clothing a little bit more than the, maybe for me.

Vicki Weinberg (00:19:10):

Yeah. I see what you made because yeah, it is. It's bright. I decided to, I was going to start, try and cross stitch actually during lockdown and I still haven't finished my first project that I started in April because yeah, kids lies tricky. Isn't it

Becky Perry (00:19:23):

Post on Instagram this morning about how, you know, you always full of so many ideas, but there's never any time to get them done. And I think, yeah, she, one of the nice little things about doing something like cross-stitch or doing something like a sewing pattern is you don't have to do it all in the same, in the same breath. You don't have to get it all done at the same time, which is kind of what I'm used to doing, but actually little bits at a time, you know, just, just an hour here and there can actually be really therapeutic and help you relax. So those, you know, there is that side to it. I think a lot of the time we don't find that that time for ourselves, but it's important.

Vicki Weinberg (00:20:02):

It is important. And I D I really also liked the fact that your patterns are to make plays for children as well, because I do think there is something about making something for somebody else. That's really lovely. That's such

Becky Perry (00:20:14):

A nice guy, very cute.

Vicki Weinberg (00:20:17):

And I guess there's a bit daunting as well, cause less fabric, and they're a bit smaller than

Becky Perry (00:20:23):

Absolutely. You spend less money on the fabric. So, so yeah, it's always a good little project start you off. Okay.

Vicki Weinberg (00:20:29):

They work for different sizes as well. So I'm, I'm again, I'm being really curious. So if you've got the pattern say you bought, you made something and then you know that your child grew out of it. Could you make the same thing again? Just speaker

Becky Perry (00:20:40):

Yes. Yes, absolutely. So our baby patterns from naught to 24 months and our older kids patterns are from year anything up to 11 years. So the idea being that when you get your pattern, if you chase it off, once they're bigger, you can reuse it again.

Vicki Weinberg (00:20:59):

Oh yeah. That's fantastic. I mean, yeah. I really like how, yeah. How like how sustainable it all is, how you could, despite this one pattern and you could just make multiple, but mostly dresses and different fabrics. Yeah.

Becky Perry (00:21:14):

And it's for different ages. And I had someone recently who sent me an image of the t-shirts that she'd made for her two daughters and her niece, which is lovely the same t-shirt but three times with a pretty good,

Vicki Weinberg (00:21:26):

Oh, that's really nice. It must be lovely to get pictures and see what people have actually made from your parents.

Becky Perry (00:21:32):

Yes. It really is. It's lovely. It kind of makes you realize that, you know, your products out there and people are using it and it's not just sort of going into a black hole. It's really, it's great to get the feedback.

Vicki Weinberg (00:21:43):

Yeah. Because I guess as one thing, people buying it, but another people actually using it because I guess it also gives you kind of proof that they work, that people can work with them. That, that, do you know what I mean? Yes.

Becky Perry (00:21:55):

Yeah. And I never to play, you know, sometimes things come up and people notice something and say, actually that in your pattern, this said this, but is that what you meant? And you know, I've been able to correct a couple of things because a couple of people have mentioned, I've mentioned stuff, which is, which is great because there's a person running a business by themselves. There's only so many times you can read something through to check for any mistakes and, and not notice it becomes the blame. You just you're reading it as you think it should be, but there's a glaring the state desk, especially if you're dyslexic. So, you know, those kinds of things. It's great to hear that feedback and kind of hear what people think.

Vicki Weinberg (00:22:36):

Yeah. And I guess also there's a part of that. Something can make total sense to you, but it isn't until you put it out there that you realize it only makes sense to you.

Becky Perry (00:22:45):

Yes. When you've been doing it for years, but someone's a beginner, you have to be so careful to explain it and you sort of explain the terminology and, and things. And actually we included a glossary with all our packs as well, so that if you are a beginner and we're referring to any kind of, you know, sewing jargon, then that you can kind of look anything up to check what it means.

Vicki Weinberg (00:23:06):

Well, that's really nice because I think for beginners, that, that, cause that's something that can be a bit daunting, sort of the language and terminology use, if you don't know what it is. And it's great that you have that kind of relationship with your customers, that they're able to go back to you and say, what did you mean by this? Or could you improve that? I think that's really valuable that you're getting that feedback as well. Yeah.

Becky Perry (00:23:26):

I do. I really want to grow that I'm working sort of alongside Holly on my website and partly on Instagram, actually, just to kind of upload videos with tips and kind of explain how to sew things and some of the trickier pieces so that if they, if they need some extra help, they can kind of either pop on the website or they can catch it on Instagram. And it's just a kind of, bit of help and an explanation on, on certain things. So I kind of want to grow that side of things because as I say at the moment, if I can't, if I can't do a workshop and I can't teach, and that's still something for kind of next year or possibly even the year after, what can I do that kind of gives me that contact with the customers so that I've, I've kind of got that, that side of things as well.

Becky Perry (00:24:11):

Cause that's important for me as well. Yeah. So I'm not completely insular in my house. Just kind of doing my own thing and sending it out, but getting feedback and talking to people and seeing what's liked and what isn't and how they, how they work and et cetera.

Vicki Weinberg (00:24:27):

I think doing those sorts of videos would also be very helpful because people get to see you and realize that once people see you and see your actual person, if you know what I mean, it then makes it easier for people to contact you and give you feedback and ask questions because you automatically, yeah, there's a face there. So I think that that's a really good approach and it's, yeah, it's a really nice thing to do as well because, and sort of builds up these online videos. Cause presumably from December when your next little one comes, there might be a time where you can't be really responsive necessarily with babies. Like how, how things

Becky Perry (00:25:01):

Nothing's changing. But of course everything changes to Smith. Yeah.

Vicki Weinberg (00:25:05):

And you just don't know to what extent, I think it's a really good idea to have all this content out there so that, you know, people can have access to that whenever they need that.

Becky Perry (00:25:15):

I can't do snake. Cause you can do it on your phone. It's, you know, you've got the access there in front of you as, and when you need it. I mean, yes, we all use it a little bit too much sometimes and we all get overwhelmed, but it's, you know, the logistics of it are brilliant. So, so yeah, it's, it's nice to kind of be in touch with everyone.

Vicki Weinberg (00:25:37):

Yeah. And there's something that you just said about being able to do it on your phone. If you've only got five minutes, you can just do something really quick and yeah. They can still have really big benefits for somebody, but you don't necessarily have to sit down. You know, like I imagine years ago you'd have to go into a studio with a camera and actually, do you know what I mean? It'd be a bit more involved process, but yeah,

Becky Perry (00:25:56):

It's on my hand for an hour and some makeup on

Vicki Weinberg (00:26:01):

Having everything on your phone is yeah. It just means you can just do it. It's really good. So just a few more questions if that's okay, Becky, so one thing, and I always ask this question, even though I do realize that by this point in the interview, you most people have answered this a few times over. So what, tell us about some of the things you love about your business.

Becky Perry (00:26:23):

Ooh, I, I love the balance has given me, I love that I don't have a huge commute to work anymore. You know, that the I'm working from home, that I can drop my daughter off and pick her up and, and that, that side of things, and it's, it's working, it works for me now. I love the freedom. It gives you the autonomy. It gives you, you know, making your own decisions. And I mean, even as a manager, I made a lot of decisions

in my previous role, but you're still, you're still then answering to other people. And, and it's really nice to kind of be making those decisions myself and, and to kind of do I, do I love to design patterns or prints or, you know, I even makeup finished garments as well and sell them as handmade product, but it's really nice to be doing something that is exactly what I want it to look to look like.

Becky Perry (00:27:19):

I'm not designing it for, for a brand where I have to make it look a certain way. I have to make it appeal to their customer. This is my customer. Now this is purely my thing and I can do and make it exactly what I want. So really, I guess it's, it's that? And it's just being creative again. It's using my hands again. I just I've, I've missed those things and yeah, it's all of that.

Vicki Weinberg (00:27:46):

Oh, fantastic. And so what is the sort of split as well? So between, what would you say the split is between the time you can spend on the creative staff and the time you need to spend on the other, you know, the business side of things.

Becky Perry (00:28:02):

So it feels like it's different every week, but I guess really I have about a day a week where I'm purely doing admin and kind of catching up with emails, making sure an order's on its way, that kind of thing. I probably have. I'm going to say, if I'm working five days a week, I say, I'd have about two days to kind of work on creative stuff. So at the moment I'm working on them, I've been working on patterns for Christmas pajamas and actually we're selling, we're going to be sitting notice as a family Christmas packs. So they should be available by the end of October, but they're going to come out as a PDF pack that you can download and you can buy them for the entire family and make your Christmas pajamas, or you can buy them individually.

Becky Perry (00:28:46):

But so I'm spending time on that. Whereas if I wasn't like in a pattern, I might be spending a bit more time doing, say a video for social media or some kind of sewing tip tutorial or something like that. So I kind of try to spend half the week doing that. And then, and then, yeah, so it's, it's like we mentioned earlier, so packing actually takes up a bit of time. The, you know, we put, we wrap everything in tissue paper and it goes into an envelope which is, you know, pretty simple, but we also add like a stamp to those envelopes to say, this is recyclable and biodegradable and a bit of branding on there. That's pretty important to me. And, you know, writing a little note to say, thanks for your order, you know, please add a certain how you get on.

Becky Perry (00:29:32):

And so yeah, it's kind of every day is a bit different really, but yeah, there's always, there's always plenty to do,

Vicki Weinberg (00:29:39):

But it's nice to hear that you still get for the creative side as well. So it's not just the day-to-day running of the business and all, it's nice that you do still get the time to be creative and we're recording this in September, but by the time this goes live, your Christmas pajamas will be on sale. So I'll make sure we include a link to that in the show notes as well, because I'm, I can't say, but I'm going to at least go and look at them. I like the idea of family Christmas.

Becky Perry (00:30:13):

Yeah. I mean, realistically, I guess I need to focus a bit more on marketing, but I just, it's just so nice to create a new pattern. The, yeah. I just thought I'd go for it that in a few Christmas prints and yeah. We'll hopefully we'll get those out in the next few weeks.

Vicki Weinberg (00:30:28):

Yeah. And do you know, that's one of the things about having your own businesses that you should be able to do, the things you enjoy as well as, you know, you have, there's other things you have to do that you may or may not enjoy, but yeah, absolutely. If you, if that's what you love doing and that's why one of the reasons you started then yeah, it's great. But you're still taking the time to do that because I think we've a creative business. You probably could get to the point where you were spending all your time on marketing and ad men. And that whole reason you started could I imagine just kind of go by the wayside because something that you have to make time for. Yeah.

Becky Perry (00:31:02):

That's so true. And yeah. Having a business where we make the product, as well as sell it, you know, that that time does have to be split, but it is, I would really miss it if I didn't do that side of things.

Vicki Weinberg (00:31:14):

Well, I think it's great that you, that you are still, that you know, that you can still do that. Thank you. So just one final question, if that's okay. And this is one I ask everybody and it's probably my favorite question is what is your number one piece of advice for anyone else wanting to start similar kind of business?

Becky Perry (00:3136):

Ooh, tricky. I think the key thing realistically is working out what, what you really, really need to get your business started. So why are you doing it? Who is going to buy it? And also what all the components that you need to gather to get that going? I think I've had sort of really interesting conversations with various people recently because you know, a lot of, a lot of jobs are changing and people are kind of, you know, people are losing their jobs and they want to start their own thing. And why not? You know, it's a great time

to start it, but I think the more you delve into something that you want to do, the more you realize how much planning there is in there and kind of how much, you know, realistically how much money do you need to spend to get this out?

Becky Perry (00:32:27):

Who might you need to employ on the things that you can't do yourself? So for instance, I employed someone to do my branding because that's not really, I love having an opinion on branding and I love giving feedback branding, but I can't design it myself. You know, I want to someone to do that and someone who knew what they were doing, so kind of employing employing people for the right parts of different jobs that I can't do myself is, is key. And just, yeah, just kind of really making sure you're kind of clear on what you're going to have to do before you can launch.

Vicki Weinberg (00:33:02):

Yeah. That makes real sense. Thank you. I definitely make sense to think it free before, before you start. And I think it's also a good reminder that you don't have to do it all yourself as well. Cause I know that's something that's quite daunting because I think realistically none of us, or very few of us are going to have every single skill that you need to run a business. And some of it's learning as you go maybe. And some of it is, you know, if you're in a position to get help from elsewhere

Becky Perry (00:33:30):

Lately. I mean, one of the other things I'd say as well is the information and the support from joining. I mean, I've met you through all by mama and there's, there's various ones out there, but the, the support you get from a networking group such as this is incredible and invaluable, I'd say that's a really key thing to do as well. Yeah. It's been, it's been a really good support system, especially when you're working from home by yourself.

Vicki Weinberg (00:33:60):

Yeah. It's fantastic. It actually, I've, I've, I've been feeding lots of people from the All By Mam network and I'l I'll, we'll put a link to that in the notes for this episode as well, if anyone's interested and I agree whether it's this one or whether it's a different grape. Yeah. I think being in groups of like-minded people in similar, you know, in similar situations, so this, the network that we're part of is mainly madams running their own businesses, I think, yeah. It's invaluable to be able to talk to people who understands where you're coming from and while they might not know your business, they can kind of empathize and understand some of the challenges.

Becky Perry (00:34:36):

It just, just rubbing ideas. So, you know, it's the kind of thing that you would do in your job all the time, just for the person sat next to you. And actually when you work from home, there is an out person. So to have to have like a WhatsApp group or a Facebook group or whatever it is to kind of access is just brilliant.

Vicki Weinberg (00:34:55):

Thank you. And yeah, I think I agree. I think that's completely invaluable and definitely something that recommend people do sort of early on, because I think especially in the early stages, it's, that's one of the things that can be the most daunting. Isn't it going from working in a team perhaps, or working with other people to suddenly being alone. That's quite scary. So your own critical bulls. So yeah, I think getting in a, in a group is, is fantastic and really to get advice. Thank you. Say Becky, where would be the best place of people's come and find you if they want to come and say collect at what you're doing?

Becky Perry (00:35:31):

Yeah. It's coming from me. So my Instagram handle is @pattern_paper_scissors and my website is www.Patternpaperscissors.co.uk.

Vicki Weinberg (00:35:46):

Thank you. And if you're listening to this while you're at the gym or driving or walking or something, I'll link from the show notes as well. So you can get there really easily if you can't write that down. Well, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. Thank you for sharing your story. And all of the advice that you've had is fantastic.

Becky Perry (00:36:04):

Oh, it's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much.

Vicki Weinberg (00:36:10):

Thank you so much for listening. I really hope you found this conversation, Rebecca, interesting and useful, and that there were things you can take away from it as always. I'd love to know what you think. So you can email me vicki@tinychipmunk.com. The links, everything we spoke about stay will be included in the show notes for this episode, which you can see wherever you're listening. And if you have got, if just a few seconds spare, please do take the time to rate podcasts as well. That just really helps other people like you to be able to find it. Well, thank you so much. And looking forward to speaking to you again next week,