Thread: Picking Brains ?

Think most pros would like to know the answers too.

OH YEAH BABY!!!!!!!

R U Guys trying to tell me you dont have all the answers!!!

G'day.

1. appoint wife marketing manager.

2. store everything you make in the lounge room.

3. go back to the shed & keep punching 'em out.

Have done all the above and then some !!

OK, start giving it away to friends, relos & co-workers for Christmas, birthday,
engagement, wedding, christening presents etc....

If you are any good, some one will start ordering items from you.

If not, you are doomed to spend the rest of your life sitting at craft markets.

I always feel empathy, sympathy? for those poor buggers at the craft markets. Surely after a while, making simple pens and small bowls and keyring holders loses it's appeal?

Would you not be better off selling small volumes of more expensive items that are more fun to make?

Originally Posted by Different

I know some of you are professional woodworkers and some are not and some just hope to be some day but I would like to hear any ideas or proven strategys for marketing your woodcraft to the public both on and off the net, here and overseas.

I know most of the discussion on the board these days is fairly frivolous, but here is my contribution - less entertaining, but hopefully more helpful.

I am not a professional woodworker, but I am a professional business strategist, and I work across a range of industries addressing this kind of question.

I assume that "most" of us on this forum are more interested in "fine" woodworking rather than knock-together artificial-board stuff such as seen at the discount furniture stores. The difference is important. Typically in any market there are the volume producers that compete on price (and volume) and the niche producers that compete by having unique products that can't just be bought anywhere.

So .... unless you really want to compete with cheap imports (and I suggest you'll never make any money this way) then avoid circumstances where you are competing on price/volume. If you've got something fairly priced at (say) $100 and some prospective customer says he'll give you $75, DON'T AGREE. If your product is sufficiently unique he won't be able to buy it elsewhere so if he wants it he hasn't any bargaining power except your need for immediate cash. I am continually amazed at the readiness of quality craftspersons to discount their wares when they don't have to. When I go to markets I enjoy the fun of bidding people down even in cases where I would happily pay their asking price!

The problem with niche markets is that only a small number of customers recognize value in the product. (if everyone did it would be a mass market and some big factory in China would be making them!). So, for fine woodworking products, the best advice is:

1) take time, lots of time, to think up things that you can do that others can't do, or in designing/making products that are different. Sometimes they don't have to be much different physically, but they have to be different in the eyes of the customer.

2) take time to find the right kinds of outlets with the highest proportion of potential customers. Backpacking students who frequent craft markets are less likely buyers of fine high-cost woodcraft than are the up-market Japanese tourists who tour "the Rocks" in Sydney. (Of course, tourists can take home a small turned bowl much more easily than they can take home a dressing table).

Some professional woodworkers make money from selling wood as art pieces, but this is a different market to what I describe.

Hope this helps.

Qw

Oh yes .... if you want to make money in woodworking, but you really "love" doing it "for the fun" then you should perhaps think again. I'm sure the professionals on this board will agree that this is very hard to achieve. You come up with some great unique idea/product. You find a couple of really good/appropriate outlets. Your product starts to sell. Then you find yourself spending all your time making just that product (and making money!) but also hardly having much fun any more. This and similar problems are quite real in many industries where the participants are in it for the emotional value not the $'s (most end up being underpaid and providing poor service rather than being well remunerated, providing good service, but running a business rather than a hobby).

Interesting, very interesting.

Thanks QLDWoodie


Ben.

Ive picked me nose a few times, but Ive never gone that deep that Ive picked me brain.

Although there are those on this BB who would disagree. :eek:

Cheers, Booger

Originally Posted by ozwinner

Ive picked me nose a few times, but Ive never gone that deep that Ive picked me brain.

Although there are those on this BB who would disagree. :eek:

Cheers, Booger

You have to be careful Al, theres a little bit of string at the back that holds your eyeball in, and if you loop it round your finger accidentally, you can have a nasty accident. Once you pull your eyeball out your nostril, there's no easy way of getting it back in.

Of course you can then get to your brain through your eye socket.

:eek: :eek: :eek:
Cheers,

Dr Midge

You two are just plain strange (bloody funny though)

Thanks for the food for thought QldWoodie, good advice there.

I am in the very beginning stages of trying to make a bit of pocket money from scrollsawn name plaques. I print out the name (in outline mode to save ink) in some sort of cursive font like Brushscript, attach to cypress (from planed down fence picket) and cut out. People seem to like their own name done this way, and I'm trying to put the word out that they are good gifts to give...

There are about 150 odd people at work so I am trying to promote the idea there. Only a couple of sales so far, I don't expect to give up the day job but am finding it a kick that a couple of people like what I can make, and you never know, I may get enough sales to buy that Delta scrollsaw when the woodwork show rolls around to Melb in October!

Cheers.............Sean

Thanks Qldwoodie food for thought. In fact some of your points are indeed part of my philosophy on pricing and discounts.
I worked in this industry for about 5 years but went through a very quiet spot and my wife losing her job made it necessary to bo back into the workforce (IT) for another 5 years. I am once again working wood and just trying to market my product in the marketplace.