Business of Woodworking sub forum?

[Phillip Mitchell]

I know that statistically most here are likely hobbyists and not woodworking for a living (smarter than me :D) but certainly I’m not the only one here that’s thought there could be some value in a sub forum that focuses more on the in and outs of the business of professional woodworking, all its pitfalls and traps, and the potential rewards of such pursuits.

I have done plenty of reading over the years at WoodWeb, which can be a great resource, but it’s not that active compared to this place.

Has this come up before and been shot down for a good reason?

[Dan Chouinard]

Good morning Phillip,
As you know, I am a finish carpenter who has transitioned into cabinet making. Started banging nails and my left thumb in 1982. However, I could not sell bananas to a monkey. Align yourself with someone who can find and sell work to well heeled folks. Then stay in the shop and do what you are passionate about and listen to music.

[Phillip Mitchell]

Dan,

Good to hear from you. There are certainly many days that I feel that way and some others where I feel more successful selling bananas to monkeys, but it’s definitely the biggest hurdle for me personally. I’m introverted and love being in the shop, making sawdust, plugged into my music so I can completely relate. I also love interacting one on one with clients, getting to know them and what they want and being able to give them exactly what they want (or what I help guide them towards in some cases.) I really have a hard time selling and marketing in an aggressive way.

I, like many woodworkers I’m sure, simply want the quality of the work to speak for itself and in turn bring in more work, which is does to a point, but often times this is not enough by itself. I have a website, I participate in social media to let folks know what I’m doing, and am always trying to make local connections with others I run into in the field, but I’ve yet to really find a consistent alliance with someone else in the field that sells something close to what I build. I think part of it is the local market I’m in having a dominant specific design aesthetic that I don’t typically align with, combined with a somewhat saturated market of woodworkers that already do that type of work and limited visibility on my part in other markets further afield, though there have been small steps and successes in that direction.

I have mixed professional woodworking with carpentry / timber framing / project mgmt over the years out of necessity to provide a stable income for my family and am more than ready to position into more woodworking and less carpentry.

Im trying to find the balance between the number one rule in business of have a product/service that people actually value and want and creating a demand and value for the type of “creative” work that I already do and have had smaller, less consistent success with. I’m stubborn and want to actually enjoy and like some of the work that I build and not just only build arbitrarily just to build. I know it’s conflicted and somewhat unrealistic and of course will do what I must to feed the family, but am constantly pushing to find a more balanced path forward that has some creative satisfaction.

Anybody been down this road and back again and cares to share, I’m all ears.

[Keith Outten]

I don't think that anyone has ever asked about a forum for professional woodworkers but we will consider it internally.

Marketing is the key to success in any business IMO. It also helps to have a unique product line that reduces your competition.

[Kevin Jenness]

I will offer my experience such as it is. I started carpentry working summers for my father, then realized after four years as Joe College I wanted to be a woodworker. Worked a couple years in several small shops and decided like many half-formed cabinetmakers that I was ready to strike out on my own. Moved to VT, by chance fell into work with an upper crunch contractor. Built my own house and shop, waited for the phone to ring, kept busy and learned the trade the hard way. I still struggle with pricing, and in those early days I made peanuts but I did at least develop a reputation for quality work.

I was able to keep afloat with the help of my frugal, hardworking wife- you would laugh at our combined incomes back 25 years ago but we were surviving, raising two sons, living in an unfinished house and slowly improving the shop.

My wife had been working at the local school while getting involved with refugee work, and when she decided to follow her passion and volunteer full time I decided to throw in the towel and take a "real" job.

I wound up working for a local custom design-build residential contracting outfit, which turned out to be a good thing in several ways. I was making good wages, had the cameraderie and opportunity to learn from a talented group of colleagues at a time when my adolescent children were making home life hell, and got to observe one way a successful business can be run. The show grew from about 20 people 20 years ago to maybe 50 today. They have a design group that regularly wins AIA awards and a couple of principals who locate, woo and massage the upscale clientele. They have ins with real estate people and stay on top of potential projects to keep the work flowing. Aside from a dry spell in 2009 they have kept busy with challenging projects as long as I have known them. The woodshop has a bit of a struggle to keep work steady by bringing in outside work to balance the in-house construction cycle, but that seems to be the nature of a "captive" shop.

When my health took a wrong turn I decided to go back on my own for whatever time I have left in the field. I am no better at the business side of things than before but I have a different perspective. I I am more choosy about the jobs I take and as one guy put it "For fun or profit, nothing else".

What have I learned? It's about relationships and delivering quality work. Get to know the people who want what you can do, which these days includes social media as well as old-fashioned schmoozing. Do it the best you can, keep making it better and let people know about it. Manage the clients' expectations and stay on top of the money. Hire the best you can get and don't be afraid to fire the ones who aren't working out. If you are managing, keep a sharp eye on what goes out of the shop. Always be marketing. And don't expect to get rich. As the saying goes, "If you want to make a small fortune in woodworking, start with a large one."

[Phillip Mitchell]

Thanks for the reply, Keith.

I agree that marketing is key. Marketing can loosely encompass a lot of things and be a lot more than traditional advertising. I guess part of my quest in business is to find ways to market myself (or have someone else do it!) that feels authentic and represents my “brand” and at the same time reaches the folks who can actually afford and want the work that I do. There are so many ways online these days for potential customers to find businesses, but the flip side of that coin is that anyone and everyone is out there and “in competition” and there is just so much information and options.

My main intention for starting this thread wasn’t actually to start a therapy session for my business struggles (though I welcome advice) but more to start a conversation about the likelihood / mutual desire for a sub forum to exist to go deeper into these topics. Thanks again.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Hi Phillip, I've been there to a degree. Curious what you build? Probably slightly different goals, but faced/facing the same type of issues here too. All of us in business are really. When you said you want the quality of the work to speak for itself, I hear you are proud of the quality of work you do, and you believe it is better than the competition, yes? You are probably right and it will sell itself, however...

The biggest obstacle to selling is getting noticed. How many people really see your work? 100 followers on social media, half of which are probably relatives who would expect a highly discounted rate if they commissioned something? Love them, but that's the way my company's FB friends demographics look. The customers you want likely don't even use FB, because face it, who with disposable income is hanging out there? Yes, it can generate leads but you need a LOT of views there to get one actionable lead. I personally love the analytics that the various web based advertising options can give. I get feedback from our company website (wix), FB, and a couple local news/radio stations that I use. More importantly, when I get a call, I ask a few questions as to how they heard about us. Put that all together and you can get a pic of how customers find us. Turns out that for us, our pretty website generates sales leads, FB generates clicks to the website, one of the local new outlets is a waste of money, and the other develops nearly the same # of click throughs to the site as FB. The biggest lead generator though is word of mouth or if someone notices us working somewhere. We had a 100' crane towering above a jobsite a couple months ago, best advertising ever. Sold half a years worth of builds just from curious people figuring out who we were.

My point is, it's all about the sales, and there is no one way to generate them, you have to get in frond of lots of different demographics. I am the companies sales team and I have personally come to really enjoy that role. Didn't at first, thought I'd just hang the business card in a few places, start small and word of mouth would keep me busy. Dang near starved. You have to sell, sell, sell. Never stop selling. The answer to my question earlier in my case was yes I expected the quality of work to sell itself. It did, problem was very few people actually knew about it, I saturated that market very quickly, and didn't figure out that I had a sales scope problem util I didn't have new work to do. We're booked years out now, but there were some bleak times to begin with. One bit of advice, if you want to focus on a certain thing, like built-ins or cabinets or whatever, team up with the best home builder in your area, and never say no when they ask you to build some crazy project. You will find that what you want to build, and what the customers want to buy are usually two different things.

I like the idea of a business subforum, but sometimes those are where subjects go to die. Good luck in your venture!

[Jim Becker]

I would be supportive of a defined area for business practice discussion. I would hope, however, that discussion of woodworking techniques, tools, etc., would still be posted in the relevant existing forum areas because everyone benefits from that.

[Bruce King]

When I started my inspection business I underestimated the difficulty of getting agents to send you customers. There were only a handful of inspectors with websites so I used my downtime to build a website and put a listing on every site for businesses to list. This took months but jobs started to come in. Then I realized that the more I did the more word of mouth worked. I had trouble getting agents to stay around because they hate good inspectors. Good in their book means ones that don’t find problems. Then later I realized that out of the approximate 5500 agents in my area their were only about 500 that cared about their buyers. I was able to get 10 of those and that plus the internet was plenty. So you have to get into the right circles. Even rich people are tight with their money and don’t appreciate a nice piece when it’s more than a furniture store. A piece that’s already built in their minds should be $400 instead of the 1500 you want. I’ve seen some extremely good woodworking websites so you need to look at 50 or more and see what they are showing because that is what is selling. Don’t forget to put a general woodworking ad on CL etc because I did that in my younger days and snagged ongoing commercial storefront work. I can’t call it furniture because it was mostly laminate. I’m such a bad salesman I even told the guy he could get it done cheaper. He said their stuff peels off, yours don’t.

[Matt Day]

Lots and lots of threads on here about starting a business. I had one for a year or two before we moved to a place where, basically, there are less rich people who can spend a couple grand on custom furniture.

[Zachary Hoyt]

What has worked for me in starting my business has been having a market that is a niche of a niche, and products and materials that are small enough to be shipped easily. Also it has taken a lot of time, I started selling in 2004 and it wasn't till 2018 that I had enough income in a year from my business to live on. I don't know if a business subforum would be helpful, it seems like there are so many different kinds of businesses that there may be limited overlap among the different folks who would use it.

[Mel Fulks]

Lots of guys here who are in the business of working wood. I guess a new forum could cover taxes and codes, but there might be some
liability in those. I must add that everyone wants to do high-end. The title of “professional “ used by a tradesman is often heard as
“bumpkin” by wealthy buyers . I don’t mind it ,but I probably won’t be buying much.

[Larry Edgerton]

I have been in the business for 30 years, am a pretty good salesman, fair woodworker, but a lousy businessman. Anything to do with paper frustrates me. Learning how some of you deal with that part would be of interest, especially as from what I have seen in the real world those with an artistic bent such as myself are very rarely good at paperwork. The woodwork is fun and easy, dealing with customers can be difficult, and government/insurance issues are no fun at all in my world.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

When I started my inspection business I underestimated the difficulty of getting agents to send you customers. There were only a handful of inspectors with websites so I used my downtime to build a website and put a listing on every site for businesses to list. This took months but jobs started to come in. Then I realized that the more I did the more word of mouth worked. I had trouble getting agents to stay around because they hate good inspectors. Good in their book means ones that don’t find problems. Then later I realized that out of the approximate 5500 agents in my area their were only about 500 that cared about their buyers. I was able to get 10 of those and that plus the internet was plenty. So you have to get into the right circles. Even rich people are tight with their money and don’t appreciate a nice piece when it’s more than a furniture store. A piece that’s already built in their minds should be $400 instead of the 1500 you want. I’ve seen some extremely good woodworking websites so you need to look at 50 or more and see what they are showing because that is what is selling. Don’t forget to put a general woodworking ad on CL etc because I did that in my younger days and snagged ongoing commercial storefront work. I can’t call it furniture because it was mostly laminate. I’m such a bad salesman I even told the guy he could get it done cheaper. He said their stuff peels off, yours don’t.

In my opinion, rich people are harder to part from their money then "normal" people. They didn't get that way by spending!

[Mel Fulks]

In my opinion, rich people are harder to part from their money then "normal" people. They didn't get that way by spending!

Agree, ...if you are selling ‘ door to door’. I’ve found them to be spenders IF they see something better than what they already have.
Ive loaded up some of them , and they loved it.

[Erik Loza]

I could write an entire book about this topic. You go into shops (both big and small) and see why some some are actually prospering while others seem to exist only to keep the lights on, talk with the owners, hear their stories, etc. Personally, I think such a sub-forum would be a greart addition here.

Erik

[Jack Frederick]

Probably 25 yrs ago I was seated on a flight from NO-Boston, next to a gentleman who for the first 1/2 hr of the flight was hammering away on his lap-top. When he put it away we began talking. Turned out he was the famous fly fisherman, Lefty Kreh. Inquiring on how he made his living he described how he had just returned from a trip to Indonesia. The Indonesia Tourist Board hired him to come to their country and fish. He then came back and wrote articles about it, which were sold to magazines, back when there were magazines. Asking how he ran the business he offered that, “There are many men who are better fishermen than I and also men who are better writers. The problem they have is that the better fishermen do not get out of the stream and the better writers don’t leave the office. I, on the other hand, do the fishing but also get the writing done. I found the balance.” It was the shortest flight I have ever been on.

[Jim Becker]

Jack, that is sage advice for sure.

[Steve Jenkins]

When I started my business I knew that I didn’t want to deal directly with the homeowner and all the time spent determining exactly what they want. At the time printed yellow pages were still commonly used so I wrote an introductory letter to every interior designer I could find. I sent out over 300. It was a simple one page intro to my business. More than one page probably will get tossed. I followed it up with a phone call over the next couple weeks to set a meeting.

[Brian Tymchak]

When I started my business I knew that I didn’t want to deal directly with the homeowner and all the time spent determining exactly what they want. At the time printed yellow pages were still commonly used so I wrote an introductory letter to every interior designer I could find. I sent out over 300. It was a simple one page intro to my business. More than one page probably will get tossed. I followed it up with a phone call over the next couple weeks to set a meeting.

Steve, how well did that work for you?

[Brian Tymchak]

As one who is contemplating starting a business, I'd love there to be a business focused forum.

[Steve Jenkins]

Steve, how well did that work for you?

It worked well. I only got a handful of in person meetings but some of them ended in commissions. I also joined ASID (American Society Of Interior Designers) as an industry partner. That gave me access to their annual meetings and workshops. Over the years the number of designers I worked for increased and I stayed busy. One advantage to working that market is repeat business from the same people. They get the clients and spend the time finding out as what they want then come to me with drawings.

[David Sochar]

I think a sober discussion of the in and outs of being a professional woodworker would be a valuable addition to the Forums.

Celebrating my 50th year as a professional, and 32nd year in my own business, means I have about seen it all. I have made every mistake one can make, and more than once. A forum for professional woodworkers would have been invaluable 30 years ago when I was stepping out into the business world. I could have arrived at the proper destination much sooner, with less pain and confusion.

I have noticed with some of my competition that they do not draw, do not price, certainly don't list specifications, never thought about a warranty, and really have no clue on the business side. They hear of a $100,000 kitchen and they already have the new truck picked out. This makes for a sad state of affairs in our chosen industry. We all seem to enjoy cutting our own throats to get work or cutting each others throats to get ahead. We at Acorn Woodworks have found quality work and doing what one says is more important than anything.

There will always be the "cheapest guy in town", no matter. But I would like to see my profession have some more honor and pride. Maybe even standards. An educated work force - educated not only in joinery, but also educated in tax planning or comparing leases - would be a step in the right direction.

By all means, start the section. You won't be able to shut me up.

[Michael J Evans]

In my opinion, rich people are harder to part from their money then "normal" people. They didn't get that way by spending!

Agree!
As someone who has what I call rich family member (more than 250k in income) They are very very tight with their money.

In contrast my poor side of my family would give a stranger the shirt off their backs to help, It's very odd having family on both sides of it.

[Phillip Mitchell]

Lots of good comments so far. Glad that some others out there could see the value in a sub-forum. My intention isn’t to make it exclusive in any way to those not in business, simply to have a consolidated gathering of business related content, much like all the other, more specialized sub-forums.

Just off the top of my head, I can think of several valuable subjects that range from sales and marketing techniques / skills, pricing strategies, overhead and cost calculations that can be specific to a woodworking business, CAD software, photographing your work, shop efficiency, and delivering / shipping finished work safely to name a few that are beyond the scope of actual woodworking tools and techniques.

[Erik Loza]

Just thinking more about this. If there was a “top three” list of factors I see that one-man shops run into as far plateauing or stagnating, it would look like this:

-Thinking you can do the millwork AS WELL as the bidding/client meetings/etc. What I notice is that no matter how good your work is, you’ll hit a wall at some point due to there only being so many hours in the day. Be honest with yourself: If you would rather be building cabinets than doing Quickbooks, then hire someone who will do that for you.

-Lack of willingness to invest in newer or more modern equipment due to lack of confidence in the market or in your own abilities. I cannot tell you how many shops I know where they just can’t seem to bring themselves to invest in a sliding panel saw, a new edgebander, etc. All the usual excuses: “I can’t afford it/I don’t have the room/timing not right/etc.” Well guess what? This has transitioned from being a hobby to being your BUSINESS. It’s like having kids: If you wait for when the time is perfect to have them, then you probably never will. It’s all fine that you feel this way but please understand that there are other cabinet shops bidding on those jobs, too, who didn’t think twice about investing in new equipment and and can do it just as good as you, in half the time.

-On that same note, this hoarder-type mentality of hanging onto older or outdated equipment that does not actually serve your business interests. I seem to run into this quite often here in Central TX. For example, there is a shop not that far from me that has a Martin slider, jointer, planer, and shaper. I walked in there and told the guy straight-up, “I thought I might be able to sell you something but never mind!”. However, what this guy does is a machine these speciality plastic pieces on an ancient CNC router that is barely operational. Apparently, he hasn’t done any actual millwork in years. I asked why he hadn’t sold all those Martins and then bought a newer/better router with that money. He couldn’t come up with a good answer. So, you aren’t actually running a business. What you are is a hobbyist with a private museum. But he was unable to be honest with himself about that fact and so, will probably continue to barely get by.

Erik

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Just thinking more about this. If there was a “top three” list of factors I see that one-man shops run into as far plateauing or stagnating, it would look like this:

-Thinking you can do the millwork AS WELL as the bidding/client meetings/etc. What I notice is that no matter how good your work is, you’ll hit a wall at some point due to there only being so many hours in the day. Be honest with yourself: If you would rather be building cabinets than doing Quickbooks, then hire someone who will do that for you.

-Lack of willingness to invest in newer or more modern equipment due to lack of confidence in the market or in your own abilities. I cannot tell you how many shops I know where they just can’t seem to bring themselves to invest in a sliding panel saw, a new edgebander, etc. All the usual excuses: “I can’t afford it/I don’t have the room/timing not right/etc.” Well guess what? This has transitioned from being a hobby to being your BUSINESS. It’s like having kids: If you wait for when the time is perfect to have them, then you probably never will. It’s all fine that you feel this way but please understand that there are other cabinet shops bidding on those jobs, too, who didn’t think twice about investing in new equipment and and can do it just as good as you, in half the time.

-On that same note, this hoarder-type mentality of hanging onto older or outdated equipment that does not actually serve your business interests. I seem to run into this quite often here in Central TX. For example, there is a shop not that far from me that has a Martin slider, jointer, planer, and shaper. I walked in there and told the guy straight-up, “I thought I might be able to sell you something but never mind!”. However, what this guy does is a machine these speciality plastic pieces on an ancient CNC router that is barely operational. Apparently, he hasn’t done any actual millwork in years. I asked why he hadn’t sold all those Martins and then bought a newer/better router with that money. He couldn’t come up with a good answer. So, you aren’t actually running a business. What you are is a hobbyist with a private museum. But he was unable to be honest with himself about that fact and so, will probably continue to barely get by.

Erik

Wow, good summary Erik. I'm so guilty of that first one myself. Finally fixed it, but it took a year to convince myself that it was a problem big enough to need dealt with right now.

[David Sochar]

I don't think 250K annual qualifies as rich. But I agree, people in that niche do not spend easily. They usually are very good at making others think they are rich. I learned long ago to only give them so much time, because they never buy.

Several years ago, I was proposing a pricy bit of millwork for a new house, and the owner was stalling. His wife came over glanced at the drawings (for his paneled home office), casually asked how much. I replied about $40,000 (1994 dollars). She said - Just go ahead, what is that? A good morning in the market, and you've had several of them lately. He agreed, got behind it, and it came out nicely.

Then there are the truly rich - old money, in the billions if you add up all the trust funds, etc. They have no concept of what money buys other than more investments. They are the easiest sell there is.

I have had sneaker, sweat pants, t-shirt clad buyers spend 4 times what the designer clad did.

[Kevin Jenness]

One house I worked on was for a vp at Goldman Sachs. There was a cylindrical tower in the center that was essentially a skylight well as originally designed. Someone suggested putting in a circular stair and a small office in the top of the tower, but the client was reluctant due to the added cost. His wife got her way, reportedly saying, "Oh Bill, it's just a one time expense!"

[Patrick Kane]

Cool story about Lefty. I used to fly fish a ton and read many of his articles.

I like the concept. I especially love reading about people's opinions on tools. For example, i am in the transitional zone between high end hobbyist tools and industry standard stuff. Its hard for me to get honest feedback on these machines, because like you said, the professional forums arent that active. Less applicable to me, but i still find it interesting to follow people's advice on when its appropriate to upgrade to a 4 sided moulder, or a SLR, or whatever other tool.

I dipped my toe in my 20s. Made a fair amount of coin to buy all my tools and pay off student loans. It's also nice to have a skillset in your back pocket to make extra money when you need it. I never earnestly wanted to pursue it full time as a career; however, maybe one day ill pick it back up.

[William Hodge]

A business section could encourage people to talk about making the financial and management sides of their shops work better.

Being able to copy what works well for others is invaluable. The inverse is also true.

I set up my business as a project to add value to raw materials through manufacturing. So far it has worked. I buy wood for $5.80 a board foot. The last job I got, last week, was priced at $233. per board foot. I do some stuff to it between the time that Holt and Bugbee delivers it, and the contractors come get it.

Being able to pass on lessons learned would be interesting to many. Being able to share among cloistered woodworkers, on a large scale, is what makes this forum unique. Some lessons should be obvious, but I spent years learning them. Having others help teach would be great.

I worked in one shop for ten years. The most valuable lessons I learned there would be easy to pass on here.

[Brian Holcombe]

It’s very useful to have a basic understanding of business finance so that you can practice good decision making with how you invest your money.

Outside of that, good to have an understanding of sales. I worked in sales for about eight years before starting a business. Getting over the fear of walking into an interior design or architecture office and pitching is hard to do but it’s extremely valuable experience. Most woodworkers shrug that one off, but in times when I’m not busy I’m either on the phone calling people, sending emails or walking into offices and pitching.

[Joe Calhoon]

Steve Jenkins has some good advise about keeping the same customers. I think this really is the key in custom architectural woodwork. I’ve found the first job with a new customer is always a bit rocky and usually not the most profitable. Once you figure out what’s important to them a good relationship and trust can be had and it makes everything easier. Less drawing and meetings on your side and knowing what to expect makes the jobs flow easier. It works both ways you have to deliver what you promised also.
I started in 1976 with no business knowledge and at that time my area did not have much of a market for custom woodwork. The good thing about that it forced me to know my costs and keep overhead and debt low. Around the late 80s things really took off here. A lot of new shops started or moved in from elsewhere. It was more competition but the good thing it forced the prices to be up where they should. The funny thing is all those shops went under when the big slowdown hit in 2006. A lot of them had the latest and greatest in machinery but were in debt up to their ears.
It’s a different world now but sound business practices, keeping debt low, and finding good customers is important.

[Phillip Mitchell]

It’s very useful to have a basic understanding of business finance so that you can practice good decision making with how you invest your money.

Outside of that, good to have an understanding of sales. I worked in sales for about eight years before starting a business. Getting over the fear of walking into an interior design or architecture office and pitching is hard to do but it’s extremely valuable experience. Most woodworkers shrug that one off, but in times when I’m not busy I’m either on the phone calling people, sending emails or walking into offices and pitching.

Thanks for the bit of sales advice, Brian. That’s my biggest struggle for some reason, though it does get easier as time goes on and the more I do it.

Out of curiosity, in this day and age of online everything and in person interaction being less and less common (even pre-COVID) have you noticed a difference in closure rate among the difference forms of pitching you mentioned? Meaning do you have a higher sales/closure rate with any particular form of communication compared to the others (walk in / in person, phone calls, emails)?

I have experimented with cold emailing design firms and following up with phone calls at times (and need to do a lot more of it), but in person walk ins are fewer and farther between as I live in a rural area where the firms I’m interested in working with are 2-3 hrs away and not usually a quick drop in.

[Keith Outten]

The decision has been made to create the new forum.

[Zachary Hoyt]

Almost all of my customers reach me through email. I don't publish my phone number, since I am not usually in reach of the landline phone and my cell phone is spotty here. If a customer wants to talk on the phone they send me their number and when would be a good time to call them and I call then on the landline. Repeat customers are great, that way I know that they know what my work is like in person rather than just seeing pictures and videos. Sometimes someone will say "I saw the banjo you made for my friend and I'd like to order one too" or something like that, and that's always nice too for the same reason. As time goes by and more of them get out there the chances of someone having tried one before ordering should only go up, in theory. In a normal year 90-95% of what I sell is shipped to other parts of the country or other countries, and last year it was 98% or more with COVID.

[Rick Potter]

Adding this new Pro forum is a great idea, most of us duffers would enjoy reading it also.

One suggestion along the same lines. How about labeling all pro's by adding 'Pro contributor' to the name line rather than the current 'Contributor' title now used. This would help all members to understand the background 'mindset' of answers to various threads. Of course this would be voluntary.

[Brian Holcombe]

Thanks for the bit of sales advice, Brian. That’s my biggest struggle for some reason, though it does get easier as time goes on and the more I do it.

Out of curiosity, in this day and age of online everything and in person interaction being less and less common (even pre-COVID) have you noticed a difference in closure rate among the difference forms of pitching you mentioned? Meaning do you have a higher sales/closure rate with any particular form of communication compared to the others (walk in / in person, phone calls, emails)?

I have experimented with cold emailing design firms and following up with phone calls at times (and need to do a lot more of it), but in person walk ins are fewer and farther between as I live in a rural area where the firms I’m interested in working with are 2-3 hrs away and not usually a quick drop in.

Im too busy to do any cold calling right now and haven’t needed to for a few years. Like most things, use your best judgement for what will work best for your situation.

My point is that your job is primarily sales as a sole operator, so you’ll want to find a way to get into contact with prospective buyers.

We’re typically focused on machinery, which is very important, but it doesn’t do anything to expand capacity if you can’t fill the current capacity. I prefer to overload the current capacity and give myself reason to become more efficient.

[Mike Kees]

Excited about this new forum. I have found where I live that repeat customers are huge. I am a carpenter with my own business for the last 25 years. In a rural area with the nearest town being 30 km away. I have customers now where I am working for the sons or daughters of people that I started working for years ago. Many ,many of the things I have figured out have been learned the hard way. I had no mentors helping me along. This Forum will be awesome.