Competition for a Homegrown Business
Combo Weekly Blog and Newsletter from the DustyNewt Workshop ~ 10/23/2024
Today’s “17 Step Commute” Dashboard…
Temp: Currently 75 degrees. High of 84 today 😎
Humidity: 3 on the “Soup” scale. (1=light broth, 5=thick chowder)
Today’s Playlist: Rolling Stones shuffle.
Conditions: Our Autumn
Estimated Travel Time: 18 seconds
Food: Egg-in-the-Nest and some grapes
Coffee Level: 1/4 Tank
On the Workbench…
Today is my first attempt to combine my usual Monday blog with my Friday Newsletter. I am doing this to ease time constraints caused by incoming orders. Please let me know if it’s arrangement works for you (or doesn’t). I am open to suggestions. I selected Wednesday afternoon to publish.
The “Sneak Peek” slideshow follows the blog below, this week with 16 orders.
Yard clean-up continues in between work and home life.
Subscribe Now for FREE!
I now publish every Wednesday. Please subscribe to get it sent directly to your email as it is published.
If you enjoy what you read and would like to support my habit, I will still happily accept “Paid” subscriptions and tips through my “Buy Me a Coffee” account. I appreciate the encouragement.
Competition for a Homegrown Business
Admittedly, I am not a competitive person. I play games for fun and am unlucky in gambling.
Similarly, in business I am the same. I do not concern myself with how other makers do business, as long as they don’t step on how I do mine. Working from home is not a race. Crafters need to compete with themselves first and other makers secondly. I regularly encourage folk to try their hand at carving the Keychain names and shaping the Chopsticks I sell, knowing that I do it faster and more efficiently. But then, I have been carving names for over 40 years.
I conduct online business as I would want to be treated as a buyer. Quality value product, fast production time and prompt communications (with no spam afterwards) are what we strive for. These are aspects that we have direct control over. Shipping is another story. I touch on it here in “Building a Brand”.
As a woodworker and home business operator, I don’t mind sharing tips and processes to someone that is just getting their leg up, up to a point. When they start asking for suppliers and particular processes, I become suspicious of their motives.
I am in the camp of “what goes around, comes around”. Shady businesses come and go quite quickly. There are scammers out there who create clone storefronts/sites. They steal photos and descriptions to spoof the artisan’s (and manufactured) products. They pop up in searches and buyers that don’t do their own research will be disappointed with their purchase. These leaches are domestic and international. They get away with it until they are shut down, which doesn’t usually take long, but then another pops up. They then also have the buyer’s personal info which they sell to whomever wants it. It is a whack-a-mole game that I hope some brilliant geek will remedy one day.
I currently sell my work on Etsy and GoImagine ONLY. Make sure your clientele know where to find you.
You Must Do the Work
In a world of teams, corporations and governments blasting us everywhere with ads, claiming they are best, where do you fit in this free-market of capitalism? Your customers are looking for unique products with the personal touch of an individual.
Research and Development - Do your “due diligence”. When first contemplating your product and the potential for its popularity, before investing time and money into doing prototypes, you should see what similar items are out there, who is making them, their quality, location, pricing and shipping policies. Can you do better?
Identify - If your idea of your product’s worth jibes with “prices” in your research, you can go on and consider market saturation. Who are your potential competitors? Are there dozens (if not hundreds) of makers, already creating something similar? Or, just a few? Or, if you are really lucky, none?
The more makers of the product, the more of a struggle it is to be seen online. I believe that market saturation is greatest with jewelry and clothing makers. You are going to need something outstandingly unique with excellent SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to thrive in either of these markets.
Pricing - When creating a prototype to photograph and show the world, keep track of your material costs and time it takes to make. If you can triple its cost and stay below your target retail price, you have got it in the bag. If it is close, you can make legitimate cost cuts by buying materials in bulk and streamline production to shave time, if they prove popular after a test run.
To make it work for us, we shoot for a 65% profit margin (after all costs). It lets us pay our taxes, bills and eat. I go more into pricing in Pricing Your Product: Part 1.
Protected Processes - Industries protect their recipes and ways of doing things with trademarks and copyrights. With teams of lawyers and accountants, they jealously guard their secrets until time makes them give it up.
Artists and crafters rely on originality and technique to make their works unique and give value. Woodworkers, in my experience, are extraordinarily helpful to others struggling with the many facets of the craft. But they also have sensitive bullshit detectors, so if they feel taken advantage of they will cut you off utterly.
For me, I am protective over my letter style, which has evolved over the years with strength and readability in mind. I also protect my method of shaping my chopsticks, which allows me to be fast enough to reasonably price them in the market.
Persevere - So after doing your research and deciding to go ahead with your ideas, you will need to doggedly make it happen.
Keep quality foremost. As you progress, your process will naturally streamline. You will gain glimpses of how to improve your production, thus saving time and money.
Use fresh photos and videos in all of your listings and postings. I shoot a quick “Sneak Peek” of each order as I do them and share on my Facebook Page and this blog.
Learn your sales venue. Whether you choose to sell on Etsy, GoImagine, eBay, Amazon or your own website, learn their Terms of Service, and the capabilities of the platform. For me, it was easiest to concentrate on one before expanding to others. They are similar, but no two are alike, but the second and third will go much quicker.
Flood your “Business” social media page with links to your new enterprise. Try to keep it separate from your personal page, as you don’t want to burn out your friends and family. I may do a “Business” post on my personal page once out of 20 posts, just to remind everyone of what I do.
Advertise - Try to get as many free plugs as possible. Join like minded groups on social media and stick to their posting rules. You may not be able to include a link to your store, but you have a voice. Informed comments often result in someone looking up your bona-fides, bringing them to your “page” with links and ads.
There are also firms that claim to do this for you, to build up your following for a dollar amount. I am highly suspect of these and tend to rely on word of mouth, website reviews and other organic methods of gathering clientele. I do use “Etsy Ads”, but set my daily spend to $1.00 to $3.00 (depending on the time of year) to put my products higher on the visibility scale.
Home Life - Don’t forget the reason you are doing this. You set your own schedule with those that are important to you in mind. You should be able to organize your home life around your family and friends. Otherwise, why bother?
A flexible routine is paramount to a successful home business. Your personal life and home responsibilities must comfortably meld with your business. Make time for both.
Sneak Peek Slideshow
Here are the orders carved and shipped from my DustyNewt workshop this week.
DustyNewt World ~ A map of where I have shipped my woodstuffs. See if your town is represented.
If you are enjoying what you see… I like it hot and black. 😉
Great piece, my friend. While I am very competitive, I do align with you as far as being fine working alongside competition. Whether it was Fantasy content or Sports Card Collecting content, I've always been an advocate for "co-op-etition," as opposed to competition. There's plenty of customers to go around, and if we help each other, they win -- which means we win. (Btw, if there are any Sports Card creators out there, please reach out to me and we can do some guest posts!)