If you want your laser hobby to turn into a life-sustaining business, this holiday season is the best time to find out if you are ready to go pro.

This isn’t about finding one viral ornament or an evergreen product. It’s about 3 very serious real-life numbers you need to know and master before you quit your day job. We’re going to talk some serious business today!

So, utilize this busy season to test out if your laser business truly has what it takes before you go full time. There’s a lot to cover so –

Let’s dive in!

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Now, let’s get a little real for a second. We all have different financial goals. And, we all have different business goals.

Some of you watching this want to make $10,000 a month, others would be happy with $10,000 per year.

And you know what? A successful business is not made from a repeatable recipe. If it was as easy as 2 cups flour, 1 cup sugar, 2 eggs and a little cinnamon on top and BAM! Business. Then everyone would do it and succeed, right?

The reality is, some of y’all are trying to make pickles or pancakes, others are gluten free and some of us are trying to make a business with a laser.

So, I am going to show you how to bake your business, but it’s up to you which ingredients you use.

Hopefully that made sense, and now I’m hungry. Great.

Your Freedom Number (Not Your Holiday Revenue)

How much money do you actually need to run your life?

Back in 2006, I lived in a $500 studio apartment in downtown Denver while working part time as a receptionist at a book warehouse. I took home about $900 a month and I was just fine.

Fast forward 20 years and now I am feeding my family, paying insurance on 3 cars and trying to put a little away to retire on.

If you are waiting to make $10,000 in one month with your laser business, that is super reasonable. But are you keeping in mind that even if you sell $10k in products, that is not your profit?

So, this is the first number we need to master.

And if you are watching this and don’t quite have a whole business up and running yet – then listen up! This will also help you figure out what your product prices should be.

Let’s say you want to pay yourself $3000 per month.

Now let’s find out how much you need to sell to make this. We’re going to talk some real big numbers, but I just want you to know first that it IS possible. And if you start with this number in mind, you are setting a goal for yourself. And when you have a very real goal, it’s going to be easier to figure out the very real steps needed to achieve it.

Let’s say you need to make $3000. What do you sell? I sell laser cut jewelry, so let’s use that as an example.

This pair of earrings is sold for $19.95. I sell them on etsy. After the $2 in materials, $1.00 in packaging, .35 cents for the business card and little candy for the package, etsy fees and an average shipping cost of $5.87 – that leaves us with $8.38.

Other earrings are sold for more, some for less, so let’s figure the median gross profit is an average of $8.

Now, that’s not our profit, because we also need to pay for upkeep, more materials, maybe advertisements, a shopify website, all sorts of stuff.

Let’s say to run my business with these fees in mind, I need to cover $500 in materials, $100 for website and email upkeep and $300 for current and future in-person markets and $100 in laser maintenance and material waste. So, $1000.

I’m going to add the costs for just a moment, on top of our desired salary. $4000.

Now I am going to divide that by the average gross profit of $8.
That’s 500.

That means, I need to make and sell 500 pieces of jewelry a month to (in a very general sense) make $3000 profit while still being able to pay overhead and purchase the materials needed to replenish the stock to keep selling.

Remember when I said that there is not “one recipe” for a successful business?

The ingredients I laid down in my example might not be for you. Maybe you sell things for $100 a piece. Maybe you sell things for way less. Maybe you can live off less, or you need way more.

What you need to know, is that any business needs to find a way to sell and sell a lot. Even a plumber needs to fix more than 4 toilets in a month.

So, how do we sell SO much? How can you possibly sell hundreds of anything in one month? And not only that, but month after month after month. All while having the wiggle room and time you need to be able to scale?

Your (Actual) Time & Capacity Math

The first thing you need to figure out is – can I really make a LOT of this?

It takes me about a day and a half to make and package 100 pairs of earrings. So, if I only need to make 500 a month, that’s 7 or 8 days – boom easy. I must have a lot of time on my hands, right?

Incorrect!

There’s a tiny bit of math involved in this one, too. No need for animals, let’s just go really fast through this one!

How long does it take you to complete a batch of products? Since we need a way to be making many of them at a time and not one by one (depending on your business ingredients, of course), we need to know if we can whip them out or not, because we need to make time for all the upkeep, admin and business-y things, too.

Going off my example from before – If you need to make 500 pairs of earrings in a month, can you make at least 125 per week? If yes, ok great! If no, uh oh.

Then it’s time to figure out if we need to fix our prices, fix our making process – or both – BEFORE you quit your day job.

The reason why the holiday season is the absolute perfect time to be testing if we are about ready to go full time is because it’s busy.

I want nothing more than for you to be wildly successful this Christmas, find out you can totally handle it and go solo with your laser business.

One step you can do to get ready for this sales experiment is to join the Ignite and Scale Summit – Ignite the Holidays!

It’s a 3-day virtual laser business training jamboree! I’ve gathered over 20 speakers that cover everything you need to make this fourth quarter the biggest, most successful one ever!

Liz Wilcox goes over how to start and use an email list for easy sales, Rich the Louisiana Hobby Guy talks all about going from Blank to Bestseller, Eric from Valley Forged tells you why you need to get everything scheduled and ready right now, and Sarah from Creative Ramblings goes over how to curate high end gift sets that your customers are looking for!

Plus, more than 16 other panelists teaching product sourcing, designing, packaging and even LL, an Etsy expert, telling us what we can do to appease the algorithm and increase our sales.

And if you really want to scale your laser business, the right laser is absolutely paramount to your success, which is why I am thrilled to have iKier and Atomstack as the laser sponsors of the Ignite & Scale Summit!

First, I just recently got in the iKier Master 50w CO2 laser, and whoa. It’s fast, powerful and can cut any material with ease. I’ll be making a whole video on that soon, so stay tuned. But not only that, iKier is giving away their 7w enclosed portable Flex laser to one lucky ticket holder!

So, big thank you for that!

Double plus, each ticket is automatically VIP, which means there is no time limits to when you can watch the video lessons. I believe in the transformative information all the speakers and I have made for you so much that I have unlocked them all forever.

The best price is now, plus there are some fun live elements as well, so check out the link below and see what I have put together for you! And if you are from the future, check out that link and see what else I have to help you achieve your laser business dreams.

Now let’s talk more about math! Just joking!

Let’s get into HOW you can sell so much, and do it without losing your mind.

One Repeatable Sales Engine

I recently was restructuring my jewelry business to be sustainable and more part time. Which meant, I needed to lessen the amount of time I would take to promote my single-sale items, while still hitting a high volume of sales.

So, I turned to selling through Amazon warehouses, wholesaling and high traffic in-person events, rather than focusing on online marketplaces like Etsy. (Though, I did just hit 26,000 sales on Etsy, but that’s a whole other thing we’ll save for another day.)

All this to say, I am focusing on selling in volume.

For beginners, I definitely suggest thinking about doing this by ways of wholesaling or having a business to business model.

If you like making pretty things, focus on collections that can all fit into the same kind of shop, then go to those shops.

Perhaps you make local landmark items, well then, every tourist spot near you should come to know you by your first name because you are constantly striking up wholesale orders.

Want to make random things to scratch that creative itch in ya, then book an in-person market every single weekend. I’ve done a lot of shows, and I personally know a lot of people who do this. They mostly love it.

If you would rather work business to business, then the holiday season is your PRIME TIME to approach local workplaces to be their go-to resource for employee Holiday gifts, client appreciation packages, or even offer to set up a portable laser at their Christmas party and custom engrave ornaments on site. (Of course you’re gonna wanna charge a lot for that! Seriously, I’m talking $4-800.)

You want a big business, you gotta think big.

There are a lot of ways to sell lots and lots of products. It just depends on what it is you make and who you want to sell to.

If you want to know more about how to scale with wholesale b2b orders, how to approach businesses and finding the right kind products to sample to potential clients – well would it surprise you if that is covered at the Ignite and Scale Summit?

Seriously, it’s maybe the best thing I’ve ever built – plus I go into everything I’ve covered today – and way more – in my “Holiday Goldmine” mini challenge inside the summit. I hope to see you at the Ignite & Scale Summit!

Less math, more examples and inspiration for your exact laser business.

In fact, if you want to know right now what kind of products are actually going to sell for you this holiday season, as well as what you should not waste your time making, then check out this video next and get started on your most profitable season yet!

Thank you so much for watching and happy crafting!