Don't worry this is NOT spam and I am not selling anything -- well not to you anyway since you are the competion:)
For curiosity I signed up for an online class in home-based businesses through a local 2-year college/technical school. An assignment for the online class asks me to find some actual businesses to study. Out in the woods where I live I don't really cross paths with anyone in the turning business except when I go to local festivals in the summer and turners are not real common at them either.
I am hoping some of the seasoned people in this group might like to share their knowledge. My guess is there are also other people who follow these discussions who wonder if they can make money selling what they turn. I doubt if you need to worry about me for competing with your business, so if you are in business (in the sense of selling your wares even if it is only a part-time business) would you mind answering the following questions? Thanks for the help.
Questions:
In hindsight, what would you have done differently?
What are your standards for a successful business, and how did you set them?
What advice would you give to someone just starting out?
Thanks for the help.
In case anyone out there has any interest in a class like this see the long link below. It is a national company that seems to use local colleges as 'franchisees' from what I can tell. You sign up for the course with the local school. (I paid $69). Make sure you copy the ENTIRE LINK and don't just click on it. People had problems the last time I sent a link to this group.
Waited until my work was on the cover of American Woodturner ;-)
Seriously, if at all possible, build up a repeat clientèle before taking the full-time plunge. Pay close attention to what price level they are willing to buy at ... that probably isn't going to change much. Cheap sales can keep you too busy to make large sales because you haven't the time to turn the items that can command a wealthier following. Like the cover photos mentioned above.
I sell face to face and via the internet. The FTF sales want mostly custom work. My hope is that I can sell ready-made via the internet. My standard for success is if I can make minimum wage from the website ...
24/7. I get occasional encouragement but, to be brutally honest, I'm not there yet. A part of the problem is that I manage to stay just a little too busy selling cheap things FTF to really get into the more fanciful / higher priced items.
I set that standard when I realized that minimum wage on a 24/7 basis would be better money than I was making in my previous job. It was 'steady work' but its main financial value came from an excellent health insurance program. The most I ever expect to make is double minimum wage ... 24/7.
The bottom of the ladder is where most businesses die. So my first move is to keep afloat long enough to get past the first rung or two.
Lower your expectations. ;-) (But seriously, folks)
Live simply. Don't spend a dime without at least two darned good business reasons for it.
To the extent possible, be a fiscal conservative; but don't skimp on the quality of your product and don't shave a nickel that will cause you to lose a customer.
Some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you. If you can't treat days as being pretty much the same, you've a wild roller coaster ride ahead of you because you aren't well-focused on your longer range goals.
Under promise and, if possible, over deliver.
When you have work, work. You can sleep later.
Better a customer thinks they got the better of a deal than for you to spend all of your profit looking for a new customer to replace the ones you used to have. A happy customer might tell 2-3 of their friends about you. A mad one will speak to many, many more.
If a vendor cannot / will not deliver what you need when you need it, being a couple percent less in price won't help your bottom line at all. Get a new vendor. If a vendor won't do business in a way that makes sense to you and is fair to both of you ... find another vendor.
Learn to manage your time, your temper, your money and your relationships. If you don't do those, all the manual skills and artistic vision in the world will not keep you from ending your days in obscurity.
If you have an existing relationship with God, take the time and steps needed to strengthen that one first. Do that, and the rest will pretty much fall into place. Galatians 6:17 and Matthew 6:33 were never rescinded. The atheists on the list might pooh-pooh this thought, but it has worked and is working for me and a lot of other folks.
If your only goal is to make money and be famous, this might be the wrong business for you. But if you are willing to accept money for adding beauty to the lives of others and consider it a privilege, then welcome to the bottom of the ladder ... the first rung is WAAAAY up there ... wanna race? ;-)
Bill
PS ... I'm just starting out, too. Give the others who respond full credence. Some (at least) of them will be both older and wiser heads.
I have had my web store up and running over a year now. I did so out of necessity hoping to replace at least some income I was loosing when I was permanently laid off from a job I had for 23 yrs.
As Bill says, lower your expectations.
While you may be able to create truly beautiful works, if you are nobody, very few will buy from you. If your price is trying to compete with the big names in the field, you are wishing on a star.
I think I approached it purely from a intellectual perspective and tried to market it as any smart business peson would. All my smarts in marketing didnt create a cult following that propelled me into the income I was seeking.
So, as mentioned, if you turn because you love to turn, remember you are adding some beauty back to the world, and not trying to put the Holland Bowl Company out of business.
God and we, have made predetermined paths that were set before us prior to birth. The experience I have in turning is spiritual, and I have come full circle to the realization that it may be my small piece of heaven and not a source of income. So I try to enjoy that gift now instead of making it my second career. I also try to thank him as many times as I can while in the midst of the dust and chips, for having discovered its peace giving attributes.
Seek God first, as Bill says. God speaks to us in the silence. But also when we do things we were meant to do. Things will naturally fall into place by doing this. If it does not, and you struggle with it, then it was not meant for you to do.
I suppose tried to keep more of a hand in during what turned out to be the long, dry years of college and shortly after. Don't think skipping college and trying to be a full-time turner out of high school would have been so great, though.
Not hating your job. Eating. Being able to pay for health insurance and retirement.
I'm not a business. I may never be a business, then again, I might. Check that first standard, and be very, very careful that you don't turn "a hobby you enjoy" into "a job that you hate". You can have a job that you hate (or just don't care about) working for someone else, and still have time (and money, and health coverage and retirement) for a hobby you enjoy - the nature of working for yourself tends to include not really having a lot of time for other things. I know a number of people who have found that the essential business functions of "being in business for yourself" pretty much sucked the joy out of the thing they went into business to do; I'm using my 11 foot pole to try to avoid that fate, and if it means that I never really go into business with turning and woodwork, so be it - I'll still have a hobby I enjoy.
Have a very solid understanding of money. I don't know how many people I've run into over the years who think that an expense being "tax-deductible" means the item is "free" - which is, on average, about
75% wrong (more or less depending on income). You don't need very esoteric accounting, but you do need to know if you are ahead, behind, or in dire straits, and pretty much know that all the time, not once a year, or dire straits is where you'll likely end up, by spending as if you are ahead when you are behind (or, perhaps, failing to spend on some money-making item you could have bought, but you thought you were behind at the time). Beware of loans, at least until you have a solid track record of reliable income to pay them off with; even then, beware of loans - saving up is cheaper than taking out a loan.
If you are presently carrying any debt other than a house mortgage, and especially if you are carrying any credit card debt, consider that a sign from above that your fiscal management skills need a serious tune-up before you even consider going into business for yourself.
Have a spouse or spousal equivalent? Is that relationship rock-solid? It's going to be tested.
How are you at selling? The best turner in the world, without sales skills, is just a guy/gal with a shed full of very attractive firewood, unless s/he's working for or with someone else who does have sales skills. If you'd like a cold-water-in-the-face assessment of what the average salad bowl is truly valued at, go visit the local second-hand shop. Pretty much everything above that price is sizzle, not steak.
General rule--if you are doing the work yourself you are not unless you get incredibly lucky going to get rich off it. You _may_ if you do everything right make a living at it.
Someone, I forget who, said "you sell to the masses you'll live with the classes, you sell to the classes you'll live with the masses". Hand made wooden articles are definitely "sell to the classes".
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