Category: Small Business

bookmark_borderComplex Thoughts, Feelings, etc…

Posted on by savethesavages

It’s strange, isn’t it? The things we’ve spent time building up crumbles eventually as soon as people start to make fun of it.

Perhaps I’m too overly concerned…sensitive…about what people think but at the same time, you also have to put your feelers out there to see what people actually think.

It can be a downer on your energy for sure and it makes you want to hide (at least for me).

For example – my crystal shop. A few months ago on Reddit, I put up a photo of crystals for sale – some were natural while some were aura treated. It was then reposted in a subreddit forum called Mineral Gore. The purpose of the subreddit is to post unnatural, manmade or enhanced mineral specimens so people can comment at how ugly and atrocious they are.

One man’s treasure is another man’s trash. Again, to each their own.

But still, it personally affected me and I never wanted to post again.

The point of this post is that people ARE out there…UNCONSCIOUSLY making you feel bad for the things that you personally love. And when somebody shares their opinion that you don’t necessarily agree with regarding that thing you love, you’re most likely going to feel like shit and you’re going to want to hide.

Just understand that most people aren’t doing it on purpose or personally attacking you, they’re just sharing their opinion and preference.

But it still comes off harsh.

Reddit is a strange place…well, all social media in general. It feels good to have your posts or comments “liked” or “upvoted”, it feels awful to have them “downvoted” or when people leave shitty comments.

It’s hard to not take things personally, but I’ll keep on working on it.

(Yes, that’s me in the background with my husband taking a photo of this claw machine filled with kawaii stuffed animals).

bookmark_borderSocial Media Observations & Ramblings

Posted on by savethesavages

Mostly based on my own behavior, I noticed that:

– People just aren’t paying attention as much. For me personally, my attention span dips in and out. The millions of people promoting or sharing something can be taxing and I have other things on my mind these days. Maybe it’s because I’m getting old? Idk. I was also one of those people promoting or sharing something for a hot minute…I got sick of myself.

– One of the things I learned about marketing your business is that if you want people to pay attention, then you have to post A LOT. This is how people will remember you, through repetition. It’s annoying as fuck tbh but it works. Posting a lot in my opinion though, eventually leads to burnout especially if it’s not producing some kind of return (a lead or a sale of your product). I definitely felt this with my crystal shop and that’s why I haven’t posted in some time now. Although I had a couple of loyal folks who always bought crystals from me (if you’re reading this – thank you, I love & appreciate you!), the majority of my crystal sales never came from posting on Instagram anyways.

– Posting a lot won’t necessarily bring the results you want. If anything, the majority of people just want to be entertained by what you post. They don’t always want to buy, which is why I think the shop section of IG is pointless. I’m definitely one of those people who also rejects a lot of ads (most of them are irrelevant anyway)…which is why it’s hard for me to do ads for my own business. Too critical for my own good.

– I haven’t been very successful with my own entrepreneurial endeavors; thanks to the neverending pandemic, I kinda gave up on it. I tried it, but wasn’t built for it. Did the universe spare me from struggling and putting myself in a situation I didn’t really want to be in? Probably. That or being programmed to be an employee for life has taken its toll.

– As usual, I’m bored with everything that I’m doing and I don’t know what’s next for me. A friend did a channeled card reading for me recently and also sensed my eternal state of boredom. Sigh. Anyways, here’s an excerpt from Mystic Medusa‘s Astral DNA Report aka her take on my natal chart that at least gives me some clues as to why I can’t just settle as a “personal brand”:

Neptune House X

Their public image can be mysterious: an alias, nom de plume or a brand conceals the true persona. Tenth House Neptune people are adrift in an ocean of treacherous career currents until they find or create their true vocation. Their c.v. is peppered with surreal episodes, a twilight zone of enigmatic gigs and of course, quite a few off-c.v. escapades. Whatever their official occupation, their title is really “magician” or “rainmaker.”

Enjoy this gif I made. Happy Scorpio season!

bookmark_borderI Am Good at Overcoming Obstacles

Posted on by savethesavages

I’ve not talked about my affiliate marketing journey on here, as I have yet to make money from it. But I feel like I need to now, just to document all the shit I’ve had to do just to get it to this point.

5 years ago, I bought an adult domain. It had all the right keywords so I bought it. It turned out that that domain had some risky history that came along with it – Google decided that the domain was pure spam so it penalized me, giving me a manual spam label which I had no idea how to fix so I had to work on that just to have it revoked.

It worked and I was so elated. First obstacle down.

At the same time I didn’t really know what I was doing with what I had set up, so I halted everything. I kind of regret it now that everything is saturated but again, I was clueless about the affiliate marketing game even though I had purchased the playbook that would help me do it step by step and secondly: even though I spent money to test it, I was still scared about spending big chunks of money.

I’m still clueless tbh, but not as clueless as I was 5 years ago.

5 years later, I started it up again and now I’m dealing with a site with malware (obstacle 2). I had taken care of it mostly by making sure the site was clean and secure, but still had one more thing to pass.

My traffic source said my site still had malware, so I had to do one more thing (obstacle 3). And thankfully, it worked within the timeframe I was given.

I know none of this isn’t very detailed (I’m sure those in IM – internet marketing – will get it) but the point is:

if we want to achieve our goals – whatever they may be, we’re gonna be faced with other challenges along the way BEFORE we actually reach our goal.

Expect it and keep pushing anyways.

And when we reach our goal, we STILL have to maintain it somehow.

The process and the effort of trying to make it all work together will be tiring, as there are different parts that have to connect for all of it to work. Pace yourself and take a break from it whenever you need to.

You don’t have to rush to make it happen but you have to keep going because you’ve already gone too far and spent money to set it all up.

So that’s where I’m currently at. I’m just typing it out for my sanity.

The title of the post is appropriate because it’s what I wrote down after I completed my third obstacle, for now. Also, I didn’t know what photo to attach so I copied and pasted some Wingdings.

I also purchased my birth chart report – it indicated somewhere in the report that I was courageous and liked to take a few risks in life. Could this be one of them?

bookmark_borderSome more notes on the business of healing

Posted on by savethesavages

+ Don’t give people suggestions/advice on how to manage their chronic pain; unless you have it you can’t ever know what they’re going through so it’s best not to say anything. Only those who actually have to live with it know, so be mindful of what you say.

+ As much as I want clients for my crystal healing practice, I’ll keep putting myself out there but will not force myself on anyone.

+ I’ve asked myself a bunch of times already why am I doing this – why do I keep pushing for it, why do I keep pursuing these things. Is it my ego? It sure doesn’t feel like it this time around, it feels like something else…something bigger than myself yet still infused with my artistic abilities. It’s going to take time to build, but stick with it.

+ Reiki is a lot more popular than crystal healing. You might get clients quicker if you offered Reiki instead. Should you follow the crowd? My higher self says: no, don’t follow the masses. You know deep down that the Reiki system has been corrupted.

+ Some people are straight up cheesy. I refuse to be cheesy, even if it means not being what people expect a healing arts practitioner to be.

Obviously I’ve had serious questions about the things I’ve been doing and why I’m doing them. It can be a total mindfuck sometimes. We must continuously examine our own motives for doing things we do.

bookmark_borderMore Notes from a Crystal Therapy Session 120318

Posted on by savethesavages

 

It brings me so much joy and pleasure to witness someone experience a healing of some sort, even more so when I don’t have any expectations of the outcome. Energy work is real and I am so thankful to have the perfect clients, I look forward to having more of these experiences in 2019. I am memorizing this blissful feeling and encoding it into my DNA. Or perhaps I have always known how to do this in a past life perhaps (a client mentioned this to me before), I had just forgotten and am barely remembering it now in this life.

Of course it hurts me to see people in pain; a part of me wants to cry along with them but at the same time I get to learn how to help them transmute this pain, which simply is energy.

This time around, the person receiving the healing and myself saw colors. We literally saw the same colors – pinks & reds – when I was chelating around her heart chakra.

On Saturday, I also activated my Light Language codes. Oddly enough I had been drawing these symbols repetitively for the last few months long before I even knew what LL was, not realizing that these would be MY codes. How wonderful and so very synchronistic.

I was also able to activate verbal, written & movement LL codes, which surprised me even more because I was not expecting it, especially the verbal part.

Anyways, I am pretty excited about where my life is headed right now. I still don’t know what direction I’m going in anymore, but as long as I follow my true interests, my intuition will guide me.

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For crystal healing/therapy sessions, visit me at Crystal Healer LA.
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bookmark_borderI Trust Myself

Posted on by savethesavages

Reflecting back on it now, setting up the crystal shop was easy; selling something that is tangible and beautiful is quite easy.

Marketing & selling a service on the other hand, is a bit more challenging; people can’t see it, it’s not tangible like a crystal or a stone. But it’s still doable.

I trust myself, I trust that I can make this work.

Everything takes times to grow, the hardest part is being patient especially when you’re planting a seed. Seeds grow in the dark, you can’t see what’s happening but you must tend to it, you must believe that it will grow.

This is what I’m doing right now with my latest project, Crystal Healer LA; just experimenting with it and seeing where it goes. I expect it to be another source of income, and I expect to receive awesome clients from it. I expect that I am going to be in service to others in a way that makes me happy.

I definitely did not foresee that I would take the path of the healer. But really, I’m just following my inner guidance and it feels right.

My mindset is definitely different from last year, I was more driven & motivated. This time I’m more about just learning, experimenting and enjoying the experience.

I usually create content for every blog post, but I don’t know what to post this time around. I was digging through my internet files and stumbled on this surreal, occult work of art by Felix Labisse.

bookmark_borderDrawing: Soul Star and the Stellar Gateway

Posted on by savethesavages

Something about being in Leo season that’s making me determined as fuck.

I’m feeling a surge of energy from the sun.

In comparison to Cancer season, I feel a lot more stable and have clarity on what I need to do next…sort of.

Cancer season was turning me into a emotional wreck for no reason. I almost felt like a victim? A victim of my own fucking mind when it turns on me and starts to get me to think in limited ways.

I drive myself crazy sometimes. I feel alone on this because I feel like it’s up to me to keep up with finances, to figure out how to bring in more money. I feel like I’m the only one who invests in myself.

Anyways…

Right now I have investments and entrepreneurship on my mind. I think at this point I will have to create my own damn job; I keep looking on CL for something else but none of them appeal to me at all. The stuff that used to interest me no longer does.

Not only that but the deeper I go into metaphysical stuff, the less I can relate to the three-dimensional world.

At this point I really don’t want to work for anyone else but myself. How do I parlay this?

And is this a sign? It must be because it’s all I’ve been thinking about.

The Fool (0) has been showing up a few times now. This card usually never shows up, unless it’s time for me to dive into the unknown again.

And 8 of Swords is the card that tends to remind me of the so called “prison” that I created.

I have a few ideas (some are risky while most are just past my comfort zone) but at the moment I can’t think of anything else:

+ Pull out money from my 401k account, quit my job and live off of that while I bring up my small business.

+ Live a lean & frugal lifestyle. Downgrade to a smaller place (might have to be an apartment, meh) and cut out the cable and other stuff so I can have less expenses.

+ Move closer to my work so I don’t have to drive my car & spend so much money on gas and car repairs; I can just walk.

These are just ideas that have been running through my head these last couple of months. All I know is, something has to change. If this is my dream, then surely I can change it right?

Here’s my latest drawing: Soul Star and the Stellar Gateway. These are based off the 12 chakra system according to Katrina Raphaell in her book The Crystal Transmission.

bookmark_borderMore Thoughts on Selling, Marketing & Social Media

Posted on by savethesavages

I get a lot of people following/unfollowing me daily on my crystal shop’s Instagram page. The number of followers hasn’t really grown that much. But that’s alright because I still get sales.

At first, I did get hung up about it. Like why do people play the stupid ‘follow to unfollow’ game? It really annoyed the fuck outta me.

Anyways, I realized after a year that it didn’t actually matter…I still made sales.

Moral of the story? Just because you have more Instagram followers doesn’t necessarily mean you get more sales.

I’m writing this because maybe some of you are feeling discouraged or feel like you’re not gaining any traction on selling or putting yourself or your brand out there. It’s crowded, everyone’s doing the same damn thing, people steal content, I have to show my face when I don’t really want to, blah blah blah…

It’s definitely going to feel that way sometimes, especially when you’re just starting out.

But with consistency, patience and most importantly – using your own unique voice & perspective – you WILL sell and you WILL attract the right people. And all your hangups about other people doing the same thing will melt away.

Not as easy as it sounds, but if you intend for things to be a certain way – trust that it can happen.

And as cliché as it already sounds – you really HAVE to believe in yourself. You have to be your own fucking number 1 fan. Your negative self-talk will only hold you back.

You also have to stop looking at what other people are doing. I swear, as soon as I stopped doing this – my creativity came back; my writing and my art sounded like me again.

I’m a life coach now by the way. Kidding!?

I’m writing this to encourage you and myself. I have more confidence now that I’ve had the business up and running for a little over a year. So while I have some nuggets of wisdom to share, I’m also aware that I still have a long way to go.

Either way, I’m not worried about it. I intend to have fun and go at my pace.

I see a lot of people start their shop pages on Instagram but don’t really last longer than a month. Why? Because I think they run out of steam. They tend to post a lot hoping people will notice them and start buying right away, but then they burn out just as quickly as they started.

Consistency and repetition is key. But also, pace yourself so you don’t crash and burn. Self-care is just as important.

One of my mentors was telling me you should post 3 times a day on Instagram. I followed that at first, but got tired. So now I only post once or twice a day, depending on how I feel.

What most people don’t think about is that while even starting a small business can be a lot of fun, it’s also A LOT of work. You are the owner, marketer, manager, accountant and more…all rolled into one. You can easily go through a roller coaster of emotions too – from being happy and excited because you made some sales, to being scared and anxious because you spent a lot of money to make those sales, then happy and excited all over again because you paid down some of your debt. Yay!

That is the reality of a lot of small businesses & entrepreneurs – spending money to make money.

Would I do it all over again? Probably.

The secret is to only sell what you love, what you yourself would buy. I guess in some ways this is difficult because you’ll be tempted to keep a lot of the stuff you’re supposed to sell!

The other secret is to branch out and learn other skills so you can stand out from everybody else who sells the same thing as you.

Here’s a personal example: I don’t consider myself to be a seller or come anything close to being a salesperson; I am so anti-hustle. Not into it at all. But on the contrary, I AM selling, consistently.

How am I doing it? I honestly couldn’t tell you.

Either people really love the crystals that they see on my Instagram, or they like me as a person. They could be basing it off the reviews I have on Etsy.

It could be all of the above or none of the above.

Behind this human avatar, I could really be a fucking magical being – creating whatever I want to happen next. That sounds feasible to me.

Whatever it is, the effort is paying off – that doesn’t mean I’m done. I have to continue, because I love that I created this; and I love that people love it too.

And I also know that you can do this for yourself too.?

p.s. hope you enjoy the photo I posted with this post! My mom’s church friends already think I worship the devil anyway.???‍♀️?

bookmark_borderWhere Do I Go From Here?

Posted on by savethesavages

Now that I’ve added a couple of healing modalities to my belt – Reiki, Trans Crystal Therapy…

where do I go from here?

I learned it and got certified…but now I’m not sure how to go about attracting clients, at least for TCT since that one was a much larger investment.

Also since I have a home based business – the crystal shop, do I start thinking about having a space separate from my home to do this kind of work? There’s so much to think about when having & expanding a small business but I guess I DO like thinking about it because it’s mine.

I’m in total limbo right now. I’m on a threshold of a major change here but I don’t quite know what it is. All I know is lately, I’ve been thinking more and more of taking the leap from my 9 to 5 and just going for it. I want to be patient though and wait for the right time. But IS there really a right time? I feel as I’ve been wanting to take the leap for years now.

If I fail, then I fail. But what if I don’t fail? What if I succeed? What if I’m already successful but just need to take it up a notch…

That is what faith is, right? Believing and trusting that whatever I’m meant to be doing will work out somehow even though I can’t see that far ahead.

Today the Empress showed herself to me so at least I know I’m on the right track, but then the 2nd card showed me 5 of Pentacles. Ugh, why is tarot so conflicting sometimes!?

Anyways, here is a test animation that I’ve been playing with. The trick is to do a nice animation that doesn’t have a huge file size when saved for output. I think that’s why animated gifs are so good, remember when people thought they were annoying?

I feel somewhat uninspired right now, a little lost and clueless – the Moon showed up a few times too amplifying those feeling even more – but I will keep on moving forward…

and I will always count my blessings.✨

bookmark_borderSupport Minority Owned Small Businesses

Posted on by savethesavages

So I came across a very unique keyword phrase on AdWords that I saw for the very first time ever:

“black owned healing crystals”

I’m guessing that my crystal shop website popped up when a person entered in that particular phrase. Very interesting, indeed.

Very interesting because I have tried to stay neutral in such matters; like not really identifying as a minority or a person of color – even though technically I am. I wasn’t avoiding it, I’m just not into labeling myself. I truly believe that we are all One Spirit but in this three dimensional world, I get that we have to ‘play the game’ still.

I also know that some of the people I follow on Instagram do use certain hashtags like #minority #blackowned #supportblackownedbusiness etc…

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t know where I fit in and I don’t care. I wasn’t trying to define myself as either or. When you’re Filipino or Asian for that matter, most people don’t really see you. They mostly see black or white people, with Latinos a close third.

This is just my opinion, perhaps I am wrong on that so feel free to correct me.

We fall in that gray area I think where people know we exist but it’s almost like we’re just “there”. Is it because most people perceive us as quiet and not a huge threat to society? Who knows.

I imagine it’s much worse for Native Americans; nobody cared too much about their issues until Standing Rock made headlines.

Sigh, annnnd I don’t know what I’m getting at now. I don’t want to talk about political/social issues on my blog, there’s enough of that to go around.

I’m still anticipating that people would like Metaphysical Vibes because of the beautiful minerals and the content I post, not so much about the color of my skin. But I also get why people would want to support minority small business, we definitely need more diversity and inclusion in every market. If that is what’s going to bring me business, so be it. I’m open to whatever the universe wants to give me, I know I am blessed either way.

Do I consider myself an ally of black people? YES! And not just black people, but every being.

So if you like crystals and prefer to support a minority then yes, I am one. You can buy crystals and stones at Metaphysical Vibes.??