If you have started your woodworking business, then congratulations! You probably bought the right equipment and learned what you need to learn to produce amazing pieces of wood and art.
What’s not to love? It’s very exciting. I understand that you are really driven by your passion. This is all well and good but here’s the problem.
If you don’t pay close attention to the commercial side of your hobby, it’s only a matter of time until you’re living room, garage and other rooms in your home will fill up with your wooden art objects.
So, if you have started a woodworking hobby and you really get into it, you probably would be practicing all day every day. You can’t wait to get home from work because you have an idea about a wooden piece of art that you just can’t wait to turn on your leaf.
You get that done and that inspires yet another idea, so you produce that and so on and so on. Before you know it, you quickly run out of storage place for all this amazing wooden art that you have been producing. People visit your home, and they’re just flabbergasted by the tremendous range and versatility of your wooden art.
This is satisfactory but the problem is you need to dispose of these. It would be great for you to make more space for even better arts. You probably knew that when you’re learning your first few products or results, they’re not going to be as good as your most recent output.
That’s just the truth. So, you have to have space for these. It’s not like you’re going to break them apart and burn them in the back somewhere. In the end, the best way to dispose of your surplus output is through local arts and crafts fairs or a hobby show.
Here’s an inspiring story on how to get started with woodworking:
Do The Legwork Online
The first thing you need to do is to check where these events are held. You also have to pay close attention to scheduling.
How often do they hold these arts and crafts fairs? How extensive are they? What kind of audience they normally attract? These are important questions because, as we know, a lot of these events are really just glorified or just large-scale flea markets.
There’s nothing wrong with selling stuff to a flea market, but chances are, the kind of people you attract at a flea market or garage sales is going to be different from the audience that would normally go to a woodworking or wood art show.
There is no dispute. This much is obvious. So, make sure you pick the right events to go to otherwise just might be wasting your time.
You can meet people might be impressed by your artwork but none of this amazement would translate to dollars and cents because they’re not there to buy wooden works of art. That event is not specific enough for whatever it is you’re selling.
Test It Out First
I understand that it’s very tempting to just go to the next arts and crafts event in your neck-of-the-woods and just unload your whole output. After all, you have your garage to clear out and you have so many wooden art pieces in your living room.
It would be nice to just load up a U-Haul to take care of the problem once and for all and it doesn’t work that way. It may well turn out that the event, as specific as it is to woodworking arts and crafts, might not be the perfect fit for whatever it is you are offering. You might just be wasting your time.
So, it’s a good idea to just start out small, offer many types of wood items and refrain from bringing too much. Once you notice that there is a healthy level of demand for your items, then you can gradually scale-up.
Start With Cheaper Pieces
I know you probably already have a rough idea of how much to price your offerings. After all, you put in a certain amount of time and perhaps spent a certain amount of money on the materials and equipment that produced your output. Indeed, you might want to stop thinking in terms of dollars and cents for the time being. Instead, just focus on cheaper items and see if there’s a market.
Most importantly pay attention to how the market behaves. If it turns out that the people in the event that you go to are constantly asking you for discounts, then you might be targeting the wrong ground. The event that you’re trying to sell is simply attracting the wrong kind of people because these people are looking to nickel and dime you.
They’re really not looking for art pieces that they’re willing to pay top dollar for. I hope you can see the difference.
Think In Terms Of Package Pricing
Really successful hobbyists don’t think in terms of one-time sales. Believe me. It’s tempting to just adopt a one-time big-time approach. I mean who wouldn’t want a few thousand dollars here and there, but there’s a conflict.
You have to have a long-term game plan if you want to develop a brand in this industry. What’s the point of selling an item for $1,000 but the next time you sell a similar item is going to be years from now?
Therefore, if you were to average the amount of money you made over this period of time, which will turn out that you only made a few dollars every single day. So, think in terms of realistic pricing.
In addition, make your pricing reflect or embody the brand that you are trying to create. This takes a bit of research. This also requires a tremendous amount of comparison between your wears and your track record of wooden art objects and other pieces with your competition.
Hence, with the right adjustments in the right tweaks, eventually, you will get it just right and you will be able to get paid what you’re worth.
I’m not saying that you should look at these events as your ultimate payday although they can be. Instead, you should look at them as essentially just laboratory so that, you can do some experiments and tweak the different elements of your overall woodworking brand in order to finally come up with a product that can sell reliably.
This way you can make a living off your personal passion.
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