Running an online business can be quite lonely sometimes. I never really get to meet or have much interaction with the customers that drive my business.

Beyond the occasional social media comment or Etsy shop review, I don’t get to connect with my customers or followers. I have been working to change this recently by encouraging customers to share photos of their beading with me.

The Unexpected Side of An Online Business

A couple days ago, I received feedback from a lovely lady who had purchased two patterns from my Etsy shop. In both reviews, she mentioned that she was new to off-loom beading and that she was willing to learn and will treat this experience as her personal challenge.

One of my goals for this business is to make my beading tutorials easy-to-follow and not just for experienced beaders. With this in mind, I decided to reach out to her and ask her to let me know if she had any difficulty following either of the tutorials. I love hearing from my customers and I want their feedback because I care about what they think! Also, I can’t make changes if I don’t know what their needs are.

The customer responded to me and her enthusiasm was so infectious and raw that she got me excited for her! She told me that she follows video tutorials better and reading patterns has always been difficult for her. I let her know about my YouTube channel so that she could have that avenue for learning.

She thanked me for my response and told me that I could be her “bead angel”. Now that really made me smile! It made me feel like I am really making an impact on this lady’s beading education and that is my ultimate goal.

My vision for my business is to be a worldwide leader in jewelry-making education. This particular customer’s response to my tutorials and her appreciation for my reaching out to her really made me remember why I started this online business in the first place. It’s good to know that I have a positive effect on people and I thank that customer for being so honest with me.