Since I have never done a show outside of a recession, I still have no reference point as to how well this business could be under a normal economy. The first part of this year was miserable. I battled bad weather that canceled some show days. I had some shows that had perfect weather and a very high attendance, but sales barely covered my expenses. My shows ranged from small one day street fairs to large three day art festivals. With all this under my belt, I still have no idea what is going to sell well at a show because every one is different.

The only correlation I can see is that price points drive each particular show rather than the product. I would have a show where everyone is buying in the $50-$100 range one weekend, and the next weekend 10 miles away, they would only be buying in the $10-$35 range. The only consistency seems to be the price points. Last year and up until the middle of this year, I only carried endgrain boards which put my products in the $35 – $100+ range. Sales were very good last year, but this spring, they were way down. Around May, I started making a wide selection of face grain boards in different sizes that ranged from $10 – $30. All of a sudden sales spiked and I was having trouble keeping enough inventory built to handle each show. Obviously, everyone loved the new boards, but I suspect it was the price point. So, I went to show with a huge inventory of face grain boards, and guess what? The higher price end grain ones were flying off the shelf. I brought over half the face grain ones back home and had to increase my end grain inventory the following week. (This was after I banged my head against the wall for a while trying to figure it out). Coming back from a show with a lot of cash is good, but I still want to know why.

If I had to pick one product to single out, it is bookmarks. I got carried away this spring and made up around 500 bookmarks. I have about 10 left. It was a real unconscious and lucky move on my part because at a couple of shows, bookmarks kept me from losing money. They always sold well, but not as well as I would have thought for a $5 item. I was averaging about 10 a show during the first half of the year. However, I hit one show this fall and sold just fewer than 100 of them. It was on a Sunday and the bible thumpers were out in force. Overall, two thirds of my bookmark inventory was sold at the fall shows.

This fall, particularly September and October, were completely different shows from the spring ones. I have never experienced people lined up out my booth with my products in hand waiting in line to check out. It was pretty intense. I made the mistake of booking two back to back shows in October with one of them being out of State. I thought I had plenty enough inventory to handle both shows, but the first one, which was three days long, cleaned me out. I had a lot of boards that were at least a year old sitting in a cabinet because I didn’t think they were pretty enough to sell. I emptied these out and took them to the next show and sold them all, for a reasonable price. In fact, I even increase the price on a few items from the previous show, and it didn’t slow down the customers. My Dad accused me of price gouging, and I just replied “Supply and demand”.

So are spring shows not as good as fall ones? I believe the answer is yes. Every experienced crafter I have talked to at shows always tells me that the falls shows are much better. I can understand this, but was the spring shows really bad this year because of the recession? I also believe this is the case because many long time crafters at these shows were not doing any better than me. Some of them gave me their sales numbers from previous years, and this spring seem to average about 75% below their normal sales for the same show. I was up about 25% at the 2009 fall shows compared to 2008 so I am assuming that the economy has taken a positive swing from spring to fall this year. The only people making money this spring were the food vendors. One thing I did note is that this spring, everyone was paying in cash. This fall, everyone was using plastic. When they use plastic, they tend to buy multiple and higher priced items. It wasn’t uncommon for someone drop $300 or more and walk out with an armload of stuff.

This year resulted in wild swings. I went to each show with absolutely no expectations. Some would return 1.5 times booth fee and some would return 20 times booth fee. I had trouble staying awake at a few also. I set up in the rain at some shows and closed early because of rain at some shows. I started out the day at some in a T-shirt and finished the day wearing three jackets. At one show, I had to change my shirt three times because the humidity was so high I was sweating buckets of water. Craft shows can be a miserable way to make a living, but they can also be a lot of fun. I have made a lot of new friends this year and have socialized with friends this year that I met last year. The number of repeat customers is very high and word of mouth tends to drive sales between shows. I am still trying to figure out how to become wealthy at this, but until that happens, I just keep plodding forward with a goal in mind.

Making bookmarks are like making cutting boards. It’s not difficult and its fun experimenting with different designs and wood types. With glued up blocks, it’s just a matter of slicing the strips on the bandsaw, run them through the drum sander, and put on a clear finish. I can usually crank out 50-75 a day. My original intention last December was to make up about 20, but they ending up being so easy and fun that I ended up with 100 after a couple of days. I gave away some and just put the others in a plastic zip lock bag and set them off to the side, not knowing what to do with all of them.

These were the first ones:

I did my first 2009 show in March. While I was packing the trailer the day before the show, I tossed in the bag of bookmarks as an afterthought. After everything was setup at the show I decided to put out some of the bookmarks on the table and set a $5 price on each one. An hour later they were all gone, so I dumped the whole bag on the table and all day long, bookmarks were moving out the door. Now I prefer to see sales of $50-$100 cutting boards, but $5 items add up to large numbers when they are selling quickly. I had one small show this year where I didn’t sell one cutting board, but I still turned a small profit because of bookmarks. I have now added bookmarks as a regular item to my booth and expanded them into exotic woods and more complex patterns.

My wife had a gaggle of girlfriends over to our house for desert and coffee a few weeks ago. I tend to take the safe approach and disappear to the basement to watch a blood and guts action movie when this happens. However, this time I waited until they were all in the dining room and I walked in and dumped all my latest bookmarks in front of them. In a room full of women, it only takes one to pull the checkbook out and, not to be outdone, the rest will follow. This was a quick way to sell 30 bookmarks and I didn’t even have to set up a tent. Most bought multiples for their kids to give as gifts for their teachers since school was almost out for the summer.

The first ones I made last Christmas were out of maple, cherry, walnut, padauk, and jatoba. I was in Rockler one day on an unrelated mission and noticed that they had a 20% off sale on all their turning squares. I am not a turner and don’t own a lathe, but after browsing the squares the light bulb came on. I picked up some black palm, imbuia, kingwood, and tamboti. These were 1.5” square by 6” and were the perfect size for my glue ups, and less than $20 total. Since then, I have found even better deals on Ebay for olivewood, Oregon myrtle, red palm, and cocobolo.

These are from the Rockler turning squares. On the left is Imbuia with Jotoba, the middle is black palm and zebrawood, and the right one is tamboti and jotoba.

I mostly buy 1.5 to 2” squares, but I have also found some real nice pen blank stock. I can get around 7 bookmarks from 7/8” pen blanks or 14 from 2” squares. I aim for a finished bookmark size of 1.5” x 6”. I glue up the wood with contrasting strips into a block, then cut strips on my bandsaw to about .075”. This leaves me enough meat to thickness sand them on the drum sander to about .065” and a final ROS sanding to remove drum sander marks. My finished target is .06” thick. I dip the bookmarks in General Finishes Arm-R-Seal, drain and wipe off the excess, and set them out to dry. The next day I lightly sand them with 600 grit and dip them again. After the second coat dries, I hit them again with 600 grit and they are done. It sounds like a lot of processes, but I can do about 60 a day without breaking a sweat. You just need to make sure the wood is dry. I did some olivewood one day and the wood apparently had too high a moisture content, so once the oil finish dried, the bookmarks twisted horribly. However, after clamping them between two pieces of wood for a couple of days, they finally straightened out.

My high-tech clamping jig:

Current batch drying after the clear coat. These are cocobolo, birdseye maple, oregon myrtle, olivewood, and some that I cut at 60 degrees and flipped. The birdseye maple ones came from 7/8” square pen blanks. All of these are 1.5”x6”. The cocobolo was just too pretty to add accent pieces.

I use a carrier to move the thin strips through the drum sander

Whether you sell them or just give them as gifts, everyone seems to like wood bookmarks because they are out of the ordinary compared to the run of the mill paper ones.

March is maybe too early for outdoor shows here in Atlanta. I have so far participated in three shows. The first one, the Conyers Cherry Blossom Festival, is the first big show of the year with average attendance of 50,000. I pulled my trailer over to the site Friday morning in a downpour. I think the fastest speed I could safely reach on the Interstate was about 40. It was raining so hard when I got there that I just dropped my trailer behind my booth space and went home. I didn’t show back up until 6 AM Sunday. Saturday was completely rained out. Some of the crafters that setup in the rain on Friday, no longer had a tent by Sunday because of straight-line winds and storms on Saturday. Sunday gave way to howling wind and temperatures in the high forties. I started the day out with a hooded sweatshirt and by noon the temperature had dropped so much that I added a fleece jacket on top of it. I was surprised how many people actually came out on Sunday. It was just enough to allow me to realize a small profit after expenses. Many of the crafters around me didn’t make their booth fee, so I felt real lucky. I keep thinking what it could have been with two full days and decent weather.

I was whipped after this show. I have a one day show set up and a two day+ setup. The one day consists of an Ez-Up tent, all tables, and half of my product inventory. It’s real easy and quick to setup. My two day setup uses a Trim Line tent, a couple of tables, a large shelving system, and most of my inventory. It is real tough setting up and tearing down my two day package in one day.

The next show, also in March, was a one day Saturday show in a very affluent neighborhood in Atlanta called Virginia-Highland. Now I assume when the weather forecast is for partly cloudy, it also means partly sunny. I didn’t see any sunshine until after the end of the show. Here again, it was cold and a little windy all day with customers walking around in designer winter jackets. This show is at the corner of a major intersection and in the heart of the restaurant section, so there is normally a lot of foot traffic. Traffic was light all day and if I wasn’t working, I think I would have stayed inside most of the day also. Again, I was able to squeak out a small profit, but much smaller than I would have expected.

My recent two day show, the Smyrna Jonquil Festival, gave way to mid 80s and sunny skies all weekend. This show was a crafters ideal weekend. It had perfect weather, great location, and thousands of customers. My booth was packed all weekend. Everyone was blown away by my products, then they walked out without buying anything. It was the saddest thing I’ve ever experienced, and the worst Saturday sales I have seen to date. All the other crafters I talked to experienced the same thing. Sunday, however, was a different animal. I quadruple my sales from the previous day in the first 30 minutes of the opening. Still, total sales were disappointing considering the weather and how large the crowds were.

I’ve noticed that the Government is releasing a lot a press lately with “U.S. recession appears to be easing” or “Consumer confidence is increasing”. This is nothing but smoke and mirrors. People are still not buying. My closure rate on closets is still dismal. I have been fortunate that I have had a large basement remodel with a lot of custom casework going for the past month. I also just closed a sale on a very large multiple closet project last week. I just don’t have the continuous influx of jobs that puts me in a comfort zone. My primary local source for thermofoil doors just closed last month and I’m still getting bankrupt notices from the courts for builders I use to do a lot business with. It’s still brutal out there, but I somehow continue to survive.

I just went through a huge web site overhaul this week. It was a big decision to commit the time, but the results were worth the effort. When I started Appalachian Craftsmen last year, I needed to get an e-commerce site up rather quickly. I flashed back seven years ago when I spent a couple weeks hand coding my Closet Dreams web site and didn’t want to go through that again. So I went looking at options and found a neat web hosting company at www.pagebuzz.com. They had a quick and dirty solution with pre-made templates and a shopping cart that links to the major merchant accounts including PayPal. I had a fully operational e-commerce site up and running in a couple of days.

In the fall came my craft show business, DGM Woodworks. I just wanted a blog format so my existing and potential show customers could see what I’m doing and what new products are available. I signed up another host account on Pagebuzz to handle the content, but because they don’t have blog capabilities, it was a little tedious building a page for every entry. I just wasn’t happy with this process. I also was not fond of the template selections. They have a lot, but they all look too similar.

During this time I started playing with Blogger and Wordpress. I fell in love with the blogging software, and after using both for a while I decided that I preferred Wordpress. Blogger is a little simpler, but Wordpress is more powerful. The problem with the free Wordpress offering is that you cannot take advantage of the thousands of third-party templates and plugins that give you all the bells and whistles. The dedicated server-based version of Wordpress is needed to get to the next level. Fortunately, there are numerous hosting companies out there that provide Wordpress server based software. It’s included for free with the hosting account.

After searching through a dizzying array of hosting providers, I finally signed up with HostGator. It was just $9.95 per month, Linux-based, and came with Wordpress. I essentially did one click, and Wordpress was installed for me. I also got FTP and POP3 which I didn’t have at Pagebuzz. They also allow unlimited domain hosting so I can use the three domains I own on one server for one price. After Wordpress was installed, I pointed my domain at their servers, found some free template candidates from a web search, and I was up and running with DGM Woodworks. It was then just a matter of getting my content back up. I was previously running Google Analytics with all my sites, and as luck would have it, I found a Google Analytics plugin for Wordpress that I quickly installed on the site.

I decided that I wanted to move Appalachian Craftsmen over also. HostGator has a shopping cart and web building software. However, as with Pagebuzz, I couldn’t find a template that I liked. So one day I was searching the web for Wordpress plugins and I discovered an e-commerce plugin from http://www.instinct.co.nz. The plugin was free, but the shopping cart was $25. Ok, I’ll bite. It was everything they said it was.
Now, I can honestly say that this is not exactly a “plug and play” solution. Everything installed correctly, and without errors, but I had a couple small issues that I had to get their tech support involved in. Fortunately, they responded within 30 minutes to all my questions, and provided a solution for a few buggy issues. I was up and running in a day. It was long day, and I was mentally drained at the end of it. Of course. a little brown whiskey got me re-focused. I’m not a Linux person, and I had to dig deep to remember details from my UNIX days (It’s been a long time). I had to change the file permission on the folders to get my uploaded pictures to display. This was after I called my younger brother, who is a Linux person, for help. He promptly pointed out that I was either stupid or getting senile in my old age, then told me what the problem was. I also had to make some minor changes to some of the script files (PHP). I didn’t call him back on this one, because I figured I was stupid after all, and did a Google search for the answer.

One of the many features of Wordpress is the ability to control user comments. I have it set so that I have to approve all comments before they are posted. The system emails me every time I have a comment on a post. Two days after I went live, I started getting emails on comments that needed to be approved or denied. The comments were spam from Russia trying to post porn sites. They would not display until I approved them, but the 10 – 20 emails I was getting each day was a little aggravating. So off I went, looking for a solution, which presented itself as another plugin. After a 30 second install, I set it to black list all emails with a .ru (Russia), and I haven’t received a comment from those guys since.

Overall, I am very happy with the results. I love Wordpress and I now feel that I have a setup that is very easy to manage. I have all the statistical information feeding into Google Analytics so I can see the traffic and where it is coming from for both sites. I also installed another plugin the other day that gives me far more control over picture grouping than the Wordpress default one. Call it what you want, but Wordpress is a pretty flexible animal. Web or blog? Who cares as long as it works.

Let’s face it; no one needs anything we produce. We live at the beckon call of impulse buying. The things we produce contribute to home décor or functional conveniences. Fortunately, people want these things in their home and they buy them on a regular basis. Unfortunately, their purchasing decisions are driven more by price than quality. So why would a middle class family pay $1500 for your coffee table when they could buy a whole living room suite from Rooms to Go for the same price? They don’t, so why market to them?

My average custom closet is around $2000. The largest single master closet I have done was $12,000, and my largest single whole house job was around $20,000. It sounds crazy doesn’t it? But these customers were patting me on the back and telling me how happy they were with the job while writing me a final check. I even had a guy write me a check for over $8000 for a final payment on a $16,000 job, then hand me a $100 bill and tell me to take my wife out for dinner. These are customers who have significant disposable income and put a premium on home furnishings. They want to feel good when they walk into a nicely organized closet, but they also want to surround themselves with the trappings of success. They are also targets in my marketing crosshairs.

Many years ago my first foray into part time crafting didn’t go so well. I would make nice and interesting items and attempt to entice my friends to become customers. After all the oohs and aahs, no one offered to buy them. So like many weekend woodworkers with the dream of turning their hobby into something more, I decided that I could not sell anything and resigned myself to making presents for family members. The reason they didn’t sell was because I was marketing them to the wrong people. These were middle class blue collar guys. It’s not that they couldn’t afford it, but they just don’t covet items like this. They can buy a good size bottle of Jack Daniels for the price of my widget. They don’t entertain often, but when they do, they prefer to show off their big screen TV or new bass boat rather than impress friends with unique and expensive home furnishings. Had I shown my items to their wives, I probably would have had more luck.

Regardless of closets or craft shows, 98% of my customers are women. I know I’m stating the obvious, but it helps to not only know who your customers are, but also why they are your customers. In my world, most men view a closet as a necessary evil and home décor trinkets or kitchen accessories are traditionally relegated to the ladies. Call me a Neanderthal, but this is my daily reality. I can’t remember how many times a wife asked their husband what they thought about a closet design and the husband replied “Whatever you want honey”. Men just don’t get real excited about that part of the house. There are exceptions, but not that often.

The same holds true with craft shows. My wife and I attend shows all the time. I like to look, and she likes to buy. I can’t recall myself ever buying anything at a show, but my wife cannot leave a show empty handed. It’s just not in her nature. We don’t need anything she drags home, but she always finds something to display in one of our rooms, or something functional for the kitchen. This is the reason most everything I do in woodworking is targeted at women. They get emotional about closets, pantries, and laundry rooms. They love to buy handcrafted items, if not for themselves, but as gifts. My male customers get excited about garage storage cabinets and workbenches, but I still sell closets 10 to 1 over garage cabinets.

Our customers don’t shop at Wal-mart, especially not for the items we make. I hear a lot of woodworkers whining about how they can’t compete with Wal-mart or China-made furniture. I don’t understand this thinking. If Wal-mart didn’t exist, these customers still wouldn’t buy from us because they can’t justify our price points anyway. I can buy an end grain cutting board at Wal-mart for $25. So why do people keep buying my end grain cutting boards for $100 or more? It’s because my customers don’t shop for these types of items at Wal-mart. There are people who buy from Rooms to Go and people who buy Thomasville and Stickley. These opposite extremes serve two different types of customers. The people who buy Thomasville and Stickley furniture are our customers. They appreciate quality, and though price is always a consideration, it is not as important to them. This is the type of customer who will commission pieces to serve specific needs.

You can buy the components to build a custom closet from the borg for a fraction of what I charge. People do it all the time. So why do people pay four times more for my product? There are a number of reasons. They are not DIY’ers, they don’t have the skill, they are too confused about what they need, they are too busy and have no desire to mess with it, or they recognize the quality of this stuff is pretty cheap. The latter is the most mentioned by my customers who looked at the borg solution. They could tell immediately that the quality was far less than what I provide. In many cases people will pay more for perceived quality. This trait transcends all income levels.

There are wealthy people living in $200,000 homes and not so wealthy people living in $500,000 homes. This is reality, but in more cases than not, the exception. Most of my customers living in $200,000 homes generally have to think about my proposal for a few days. This is a huge purchase for them and it is 50/50 whether they will buy or not because they are more focused on the price, rather than the quality and convenience. With these customers, price gets in the way of the design and product, and the sales effort can quickly spin out of control. Many times the end result is no sale, a couple wasted hours, and a few dollars in gas. I close more sales when I get into the $300,000 and up range. The customer is more interested in the quality and gets real involved in the design process. These customers reach for their checkbook quicker, so this is where I focus my efforts.

I’m not saying that the middle class are not our customers. Everyone is a potential customer and the middle class represents the largest customer group for our products. However, your product and price point will determine who your customer really is and where you should focus your efforts. Taking the time to make this determination, will reduce your frustration and help you to be more successful.

So what’s a lead? A lead is a potential customer to buy your product. Leads come in different forms. It can be a window shopper who has no intention of buying anything. It can be someone who would like to buy, but is not yet convinced that they need it. Of course the best lead is the person who has decided to buy and is just trying to decide from whom. A lead does not necessarily turn into a sale. In my best years, I enjoyed a 70% closure rate. This means that 70% of the leads I talked to bought my product. This is a very high closure rate since 40% is thought to be acceptable. When I first started in business, my closure rate was about 10%. I did not exactly drip confidence and probably had “dazed and confused” stamped on my forehead. As time went on and I started making a few sales, my increased confidence contributed significantly to my increased closure rate. When I am working to close a sale, I now focus more on selling myself, than the product. I’m more successful with this approach.

A lead can come from anywhere. It can be a referral, response from an advertisement, a LJ project photo from a Google search, or someone walking into your craft show booth. It doesn’t matter where it comes from, but what does matter is what kind of lead it is. The American consumer is very good at wasting a small business owner’s time. Time spent talking to someone who can’t afford your product is just wasted time on your part. This is the reason you need to qualify the lead.

A qualified lead is one that convinces you that this customer is truly interested in your product and most importantly, can afford your product. Anything less is a waste of your time. I take the time on the first phone contact to determine if it’s worth my time meeting with the potential customer by asking a lot of questions. The biggest warning flag to me is when they start the conversation by asking how much my closets cost. Yep, if they have to ask, they probably can’t afford it. This happens all the time. I once had a lady call me and asked “the question” right out of the starting gate. I told her that my closets average $2000. She said “Oh I can’t afford that. But do you charge for appointments?” I replied “No”. “Well I can’t afford to do it, but come over and do a design for me anyway”. What audacity! I promptly told her goodbye and hung up. Don’t let the tail wag the dog. It took me a couple of years to figure out when to walk away from a lead. I have done it many times when I felt that I was getting jerked around by someone. Your time is valuable and there are other potential customers out there.

We get our leads from numerous sources and the type of product will generally drive the potential sources. I got my start by advertising in homeowner association newsletters. It is cheap advertising and allowed me to target the correct demographics. My typical customer lives in a $300,000 and up home. I went to those subdivisions, got a copy of the newsletter and contacted the publisher to buy an ad spot. Ads usually run $25 to $50 per month.

My best source for a lot of leads in a short amount of time has always been home shows. Atlanta has one in the spring and one in the fall. Each show runs four days. It costs $2000 for a 10×20 booth or $1000 for a 10×10, but after four days, I usually get 75 to 100 qualified leads. You don’t sell anything at the show. You just promote your product and essentially conduct presales with a confirmed appointment to meet later with the customer at their home. It is not uncommon for me to close $20,000 in sales from one show in the first week after the show with more sales coming throughout the year from people who kept my card. This is a great platform for someone who does custom furniture because this type of show is attended by homeowners looking for furnishings or the latest home improvement trends. There are window, home theater, and kitchen cabinet companies to name a few, but there are always a few custom furniture people with everything from high quality rocking chairs to quarter sawn mission sideboards. A home show is a lot of work because it is all about presentation and that means a high quality booth with real walls, slick brochures, and putting your best salesmanship forward. But for some woodworking categories, it is worth the effort.

My largest single sales have always come from interior designers. Leads from these people are automatically qualified and I have a 100% closure rate from these leads. Customers who use interior designers have money and they always use who the designer recommends. It is not uncommon for me to have a $10,000+ sale from an interior designer referral. The average has been around $5000. You have to work hard to get their business and it takes time to gain their confidence, but once that is done, it is a wonderful thing. Here is an avenue for all woodworkers. Interior designer showrooms are full of fancy trinkets that they purchase at shows. Everything from candle holders to chest of drawers and wood sculptures are on display. It’s like a high-end flea market in some of these showrooms.

Direct mail comes in different forms. There are individual mailings of custom made post cards and there are coupon books like Valpak. Both are comparable in costs, but I never had much luck with Valpak. However, individual custom printed post cards have worked well for me in the past. I had four color cards printed up and bought a mailing list based on zip codes and certain demographics. The first mailing of 1500 cards resulted in no leads, but the second mailing the next month, to the same addresses resulted in about 20 leads and 15 sales. The third month resulted in about 10 leads and a few sales. This is a campaign that needs to be run at least a couple times per year.

The Internet is like one big window that attracts the largest volume of window shoppers for me. I really don’t know the best way to describe my Internet leads. I get leads because of my web site, but they are consistently low quality. I have never experienced better than 10% closure rate from these leads. It is so easy to window shop and click on a button to email me, that people must do this on impulse without thinking it through. I have had many emails from people asking to be contacted. I call them, leave a message, and never hear back from them. A couple years ago I paid a marketing firm $1500 a month, on a three month trial, to put my company at the top of the sponsored links on Yahoo and Google. It surprised me how well it worked because I started receiving around 75 leads per month with most of these appearing to be good quality leads. However, 200 leads and $4500 dollars later, I was only able to close one sale. The Internet tends to draw a younger crowd with eyes bigger than their pocketbook. The younger crowd also seems to have more time on their hands to waste your time. They live in big homes or fancy condos, but tend to spend their disposable income on flat screen TVs and fancy cars. Traditional leads (non Internet) tend to be a slightly more mature group, who have the financial ability and don’t waste their time window shopping. They tend to covet home furnishing and decorations more so than the younger crowd.

I have never advertised in the Yellow Pages. When I first started the business, Bellsouth would not list my cell phone number in the ad. They wanted me to buy a business land line. So I walked away from it. Some business owners I know swear by this method and some have mixed feelings. It’s expensive and a 12 month commitment. I also found other, more targeted ways that worked so I never felt like I was missing out. One friend of mine in the same business had good luck with the little regional telephone books. These books are much less expensive, but his cost per lead was pretty high using this method.

I have never had much luck with the newspaper. It may be because the Atlanta paper is so big that it is easy for ads to get overlooked. It’s expensive and is just thrown out there with no target, but with the hope to hit something. However, some of my best business came from one newspaper story a few years ago. I was doing the Atlanta home show and through just dumb luck, I scored a live TV interview at 7am one morning in my display booth. A local newspaper reporter picked up on the interview because she was planning a story on closet organization. The next thing I knew, I was the centerpiece of her story. I took her and the photographer to a customer’s house where I had just installed a $10,000 mahogany (melamine) closet. They photographed it and interviewed the customer who couldn’t say enough good things about me. When the article came out, I was on the front page of the Lifestyle section. My phone was ringing off the hook for weeks. I also picked up a few builders that provided work over the next few years. In my opinion, this type of exposure is the best you can get. It conveys to people that you are real, and it’s free advertising. Everyone likes a good story.

Then there are the referrals and repeat business. There is nothing better. This is my bread and butter and what keeps cash flowing during slow periods. If you do a good job and maintain a good rapport with your customers, they will tell their friends and the phone will keep ringing. This is also a free lead. I have not spent a penny on advertising in the past four years. I didn’t need to because people were finding me through word of mouth. Of course, this takes time to develop, but I view it as the payoff from busting my tail and spending thousands on advertising in the early years.

There is a big difference between advertising custom built services on the Internet and selling individual products through a shopping cart web page. The latter is so impersonal. When you get a lead for custom services from the Internet, you get a face to face opportunity with the customer to sell your product and yourself. Selling widgets through a shopping card is predicated on driving as much traffic as you can to your site with the hope that some percentage will buy. It’s kind of like filling your vehicle up by pouring gas all over the top and hope some of it soaks into the gas tank. Hit counters don’t tell me anything. Why was that customer looking at my product? Was it by accident? Did they look at it and read the description and my story, or did they spend two seconds and move on? This is the reason I prefer shows. I can see and talk to a customer. I get immediate feedback on the products and have the opportunity to close a sale. When a person steps into my booth, they automatically become a lead that I now know how to deal with. If they don’t leave with a product, I generally have an idea why.

With all the different avenues for generating leads, it’s still voodoo magic to me. One source will generate a gold mine of leads for a couple of months, only to completely dry up for no reason. Sometimes you try something new and end up spending a couple thousand dollars and not generate one lead. The cost of a lead has to be managed. To me, a lead should not cost more than $50. Sometimes it goes as high as a couple hundred because the amount spent on the campaign didn’t generate as many leads as hoped for. I don’t mind spending $200 to get a $5000 sale, but if it’s for an $800 sale, I am working for free.

The most important thing in this magic and often confusing world of marketing is that you have to know who your customer is before you start spending your time and money. I mentioned before that my average closet is $2000. It would be a total waste of money for me to advertise in the ghetto. I go where the money is, or not at all.

So who is your customer? Stay tuned…..

I started my company seven years ago as a custom closet business. After 28 years in the telecom field, and the last five of that designing data networks all over the country, I was just about burned out. I figured closets would be a good change, but it morphed into much more over the years. Closets are still the core, along with pantries, laundry rooms, and garage storage cabinets. But, I also do projects that I never originally thought about such as entertainment centers, home offices, and built-ins. I have also done a few hardwood kitchens and commercial offices. I don’t advertise or seek the latter, but in this business opportunities arise just by association. Most everything is built in my shop, but I also outsource cabinet work occasionally to a local shop when I get swamped (which use to happen on a regular basis).

I’ll be the first to admit that working for yourself is tough. It can swing from feast to famine on a monthly basis, even in good years. Two thirds of my sales usually come in the last five months of the year. The other third comes in the first four months of the year, so even with a good year the summer can be real tough. My first year in business grossed $65,000 with a significant loss due to startup costs. However, every year brought significant sales increases over the previous year. I didn’t realize a profit until the third year. By the end of the fourth year I had hit $200,000 in sales and maintained that level over the next few years. I quickly found that $200,000 was about all I could do, short of killing myself, as a one man show. Between sales calls, designing, building, installing, and administrative duties, there is just so much time in the day. After years of managing people, my desire for this business was to not have employees. Been there, done that. I never wanted those headaches again.

So what was 2008 like? It was very ugly. I started seeing a decline in the last few months of 2007 and it kept declining on into 2008. I only survived because I have such a large customer base that repeat business and referrals kept me going. I also have three Lowes stores where I have full displays that generate a fair number of leads. Still, my business finished the year off about 50%. My biggest problem was a decrease in closure rates. The leads were still there, but people just were not buying as often. The size of my average sale was also lower than normal. About midway through 2008, I noticed that I was being outbid on projects by competitors that I normally would have beat by 20%. This was reducing my closure rate, but the final result is some of those competitors have now gone out of business. You can only give stuff away for so long before it catches up with you. Cutting prices and not covering your profit or overhead makes no sense. Desperation can drive bad decisions. I’m not normally content with just surviving, but considering the current economy and the number of similar businesses that have failed, I am content to just survive right now. I am fortunate that my wife is a school teacher and has excellent medical insurance or it would have been real ugly.

This is the reason I started doing craft shows to help offset my reduced cash flow, not to mention that I have a little more time on my hands. Doing shows and selling online during the last few months was a good decision. I didn’t get it started until October, but in the last three months of the year, I sold $4000 worth of cutting boards. This was more sales volume than the first three months of my first year in the closet business. Here again, I was clueless as to what would work and I didn’t initially know how to do shows. I’m still trying to figure out what works best, but I am satisfied that I’m moving in the right direction with this little venture. I’m coming out of the starting gate with a variety of products this year looking to increase sales and not being so dependent on just cutting boards. I think Christmas sales skewed the picture a little and may not truly represent 2009 in this economy, but this is something I am continuing to explore to see where it takes me. I feel that the only way to ride this storm out is to diversify into related areas with the goal to keep a reasonable amount of cash flowing. Craft shows don’t represent the volume of sales I am use to in the casework business, but if picks up the slack, then so be it.

Ok, maybe right now is not a good time to give up your day job, but you can make decent part time or supplemental income. You get out of it what you put into it. People are still spending money. If they weren’t, I would be out of business right now. We just have to work harder to find them. The most important question is how, and to whom, you market your widget. It doesn’t matter if you do custom kitchens, custom furniture, cutting boards, or wine bottle stoppers. Marketing, or lack thereof, will determine your success or failure. There is a saying “No leads, no sales”. If you cannot generate leads, meaning “interested customers”, you will not sell anything. This is something I am very passionate about. I had to learn it the hard way, but I have also recognized the importance of it. I have to generate leads, go on sales calls, and close sales to make a living. I don’t worry as much about closing the sale as I do generating leads. When my phone quits ringing, I starve. If you generate enough leads, you will eventually make a sale.

I constantly hear woodworkers complaining that they can’t find anyone to buy their product, or that no one is willing to pay them a reasonable price for their product. I guarantee that if it is well made, there is someone, or an entire group of people out there who will buy it. You just have to find them. Building widgets is the easy part. Finding the right customers is the challenge. For example, many LJs saw and commented on that crazy walnut cutting board in my projects that was the result of the weird sapwood. I put that board up for sale on Etsy at a price much higher than I normally sell that size board. After three weeks, it had not sold and I removed it because I was going to take it to a show which I decided not to participate in at the last minute. A week later I relisted it at the same price and it sold within the week. That customer happened to be a park ranger in the Yosemite National Forest. I knew there was someone out there who would pay my price for that board.

One thing I truly believe is that marketing is voodoo magic. What works this month, may not work next month, but some of my successes and failures in this area may give you some ideas to explore. I am always looking for new angles to generate leads so I hope other Jocks will share some of their fortunes or misfortunes in this area. Let’s talk about how to find people to buy our products by people who are actually selling products.

I guess the best way to summarize my science project is to say it has been an interesting ride this year. It all started in January with a cutting board I made for myself which somehow turned into craft shows and shipping products all over the country from Internet sales. I’ve gone from exclusively cutting thousands of feet of melamine, to my shop having red, purple, and dark brown dust all over the place from padauk, purpleheart, and walnut boards. A pint of Titebond glue use to last me a year. I have gone through five gallons so far this year.

I spent most of the summer building inventory, analyzing the craft business model and learning about craft shows and online sales. The first of my three shows this year didn’t start until October and I only got into three because I missed the application deadline on most of them (I was a no-show at one due to weather). I won’t make that mistake in 2009. I have a stack of applications right now with deadlines clearly marked on my calendar.

In March, I joined Etsy and set up a shop. I also created another web site with shopping cart that I promote in different places in cyberspace. I didn’t make my first online sale until June on Etsy. In fact, I had three sales in June. It then went quiet until around Thanksgiving. From Thanksgiving to the week before Christmas, I sold 25 boards, some candle holders, and coaster sets between Etsy and my Appalachian Craftsmen web site, with the majority coming from the AC site. I was surprised at the sudden activity on the AC web site. The referring URLs were coming from Flickr, Google, and my craft show site (DGM Woodworks). Just about every day resulted in one or two sales. I have spent a lot of time this year posting pictures and blogging all over the place, including getting mentioned in others blogs. I think some of this exposure is starting to pay off. However, it is still a bad economy and I think online sales are going to continue to suffer until we get out of this funk.

Packing and shipping was another learning experience. I found out the hard way that when you wrap a board with bubble wrap, it grows in size by another couple of inches (duh!). I had bought a bunch of boxes from Uline, only to have to buy more to accommodate the larger size requirements because of padding. Styrofoam peanuts and bubble wrap add a lot of bulk to an item. I also didn’t anticipate people ordering multiple items. I had a customer order three large boards and another order four dipping boards. I had to go to Office Max and get boxes big enough to accommodate multiple items.

Most of my items ship via UPS with the occasional small item going through USPS. Shipping via UPS is very simple when you have a UPS online account and order their free printer labels. I originally bought 8½ x 11 labels at the office supply store, but if you have an account, they will provide free labels. I just slap a label on the box and drop it off at my local UPS store. Shipping via USPS is just about as easy, however you have to download and install their shipping software to do the same thing. Unfortunately, I cannot pay online because I need a special printer to print the postage label, so I just print the mailing label and take the package to the post office and pay for it there. USPS is a little cheaper and will deliver to post office boxes, but I hate standing in lines, which seems to always cost me about 15 – 20 minutes.

One surprising side benefit of the craft shows is the few “after the fact” sales. I had a couple of people call me before Christmas from a card they picked up in my booth during a show. These were local, so I just delivered them myself.

My inventory took a huge hit because of all the sales in December and I had planned to try to replace as I sold, but surprisingly, my closet business all of a sudden increased making December my best month this year. I had a lot of repeat and referral customers buying new homes and so I worked on installations up until a couple of days before Christmas and started back at it the day after Christmas. This turn of events put me back into “melamine mode” for most of the month. Working on two fronts in December made it really intense. Fortunately, my next show is not until the last weekend of March so I have time to get my inventory caught back up. I also have just finished some jigs for a new product line I will be offering this year. I’ll be posting those projects soon.

So, I am anxiously looking forward to the 2009 craft season. Now that I have gotten past the initial startup shock and have a little experience under my belt, it’s not as scary or confusing to me. So far, I have found that I really enjoy doing the shows and feel confident that I have desirable products and the right price points. It feels good to get instant feedback from perfect strangers and that people are willing to buy my products. – Later -

Well, it was bound to happen. After receiving notice about three weeks ago that I had not been accepted in the Atlanta Sugarloaf Festival, they called three days before show set up and tell me that I’m in. It was a difficult decision, but I turned them down because of the short notice. I completely zoned out and didn’t hit a lick the whole week of thanksgiving because I knew I didn’t have anymore shows. Had I known earlier, I would have had time to get ready for it. I have been selling quite a bit online over the past couple of weeks and I haven’t taken the time to start replacing inventory. While I was talking to the promoter I took the time to ask the details of the show and was kind of blown away by the final cost.

This is a big indoor show and the booth cost is $425, but they estimate around 20,000 attendees. However, I didn’t know that they require, but don’t provide, pipe and drape for the booth. This was going to cost me an additional $200 for a total show cost of $625. I’m not sure which scenario changed my mind, the short notice or cost, but I just cannot justify in my mind that kind of cost for a 10×10 booth for three days. I may just stay with outdoor shows next year for this reason. If the weather is good, there is much better value.

Anyway, my online sales continue to hold steady. There’s no doubt it’s because of Christmas. I have a lot of people ordering multiples of the same item, so you know it’s for gifts. I finally got started building my inventory back up this week, so I have lots of glued up boards sitting around the shop waiting for glue to dry. I also have a couple customers who have bought new houses (I didn’t know people were still doing this), and need their closets done so I’ve got to leave a warm shop this evening and go on appointments on the other side of town. Hopefully, they are big $$ closets.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

To make matters worse, I got turned down for the Sugarloaf festival in December. This was going to be my first big indoor show. It seems that they felt they had enough woodworkers represented in the wood category. I didn’t think you could ever have enough woodworkers. I have never understood why there are always a few woodworkers at these shows, but four times as many jewelry crafters. It must be a conspiracy.

At least the whole week wasn’t a total loss. I had around $600 in online sales this week from Etsy and my Appalachian Craftsmen web site. Most all of it was cutting boards and a couple votive candle holders. It’s funny that I am now on a first name basis with the UPS store people since I have made so many trips there this week. I hope this is an indication of increasing sales as we get closer to Christmas. There is a lot of anticipation with Etsy sellers right now about cyber Monday. I had never heard of this, but apparently the Monday after Black Friday is suppose to be heavy with online sales, so we’ll see.

I have no more shows this year so I need to concentrate more on my online sales to make up the difference. Up to now, Etsy had been a disappointment. I have had a store with them since May with some sales, but considering the volume of traffic at their site, I expected more activity. It’s a great site, well conceived and easy to use, but it’s become so big that things tend get lost and shoved down to the bottom of the heap due to listing volumes. I think 98% of the products on Etsy are handmade jewelry. The forums are a good source of information and can sometimes be entertaining. I have never seen so many women whining because they have not become millionaires in the two months they have been selling on this site. Everything aside, you can find discussions on any craft subject, except for woodworking. Of course, that’s what we have Lumberjocks for. Lumberjocks’ own Woodmosaics has done very well on Etsy, so it can be lucrative with the right products. I also have stores at shophandmade.com and handmadefuzion.com.

Shophandmade.com is only about a month old and has a very professional appearance. It’s free, but they ask for an optional donation as a percentage of each sale. You determine the amount as you list each item. It interfaces to PayPal and with time, may be a good alternative to Etsy. I’m not sure how they are driving traffic to their site, but since it’s so new it will probably take a while for all that to settle in.

Handmadefuzion.com caught my eye a few months ago before they opened. They billed this site as a juried site and everyone had to fill out an application and submit pictures. I was selected and had the first wood products listed. I thought this would be real good since it was juried and should eliminate all the flea market stuff that is listed on Etsy under the woodworking category. Their fees are similar to Etsy with a listing fee and 3% of sales. The site is clunky and has a low-tech look, so I elected to list one item and wait for them to fix the bugs and see if they would do a better job on the interface. Unfortunately, they seem to be allowing junk on it. Now I am usually the last one to criticize another crafter, but taking a piece of wood and painting some stupid slogan on it is not woodworking. This is flea market stuff. So I am no longer active on this site. I also tried handmadecatalog.com for a while, but dropped it after a few months. They charge a monthly fee plus a percent of sales.

The most consistent sales I have had online have been on my Appalachian Craftsmen site. It was initially dead for most of the summer, but when I started posting my pictures on Flickr groups, traffic increased significantly, as well as sales. Even Marc Spagnuolo has commented on some of my boards on Flickr. My web page stats also have shown an increase in traffic from Facebook. I have an account with pictures posted on my page. I also have a lot of friends and family that are very active on Facebook. They in turn, have friends, and their friends have friends, and everyone sees my pictures when I periodically post one on my wall. It’s kind of like a huge, growing spider web.

So what’s my point? Most online handcrafted stores don’t differentiate between flea market and quality wood products. Flickr is cool. Facebook is good if you have lots of friends that use it regularly. Your best online site will probably be your own site as long as you work constantly to promote it.

Oh, and it’s still cold outside…….