Author: Handmade Business

6 Simple Tricks to Make Money and Beat the Economy

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Since the financial collapse of October 2008, artists no doubt have been more challenged to sell their work than any time since the Great Depression. The recent financial collapse was a low blow to all businesses, but was particularly damaging to the business of selling art.
Unfortunately, this happened in combination with the first wave of aging boomers deciding to downsize. Many are moving into smaller dwellings, while others are ridding themselves of acquired possessions. These factors alone would bring the sales of art objects to an all-time low, but add to it the annihilation of the middle class. This is the demograph­ic that has carried the United States economy for the past 40 years, and with its demise comes dismal art sales, mostly because consumers have been forced to shift their spending away from art purchases to pay for basic necessities. Many “middle-class individuals” are more concerned with keeping their home or putting food on the table, paying for healthcare or funding a retirement plan. All of these priorities trump buying art for the home or personal adornment.
As if all these factors combined were not enough, throw in the news media telling the nation and millions of viewers to be frugal and not to be a conspicuous consumer. We were literally told to simplify, downsize, go Green and recycle. Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of taking care of the environment, but this “new frugality” has had a negative effect on our art-based businesses.
Add it all up and the picture looks bleak for selling handmade objects. Most of what we hear about artists selling their work these days is pretty negative. Yet I keep meeting and consulting with artists who are doing surprisingly well and posting increased sales, while other artists are posting business growth despite the current condition of the economy. How can it be that some are doing well while others are faltering? I have been giving this a lot of thought lately and asking artists what the secrets are for their surprising success. Here are a few of the common threads I have sewn together to help you with your own businesses:
1 Only exhibit at shows that are worthwhile There are tons of shows across the county, but they are not all created equally. Some draw a crowd that buys art and others draw a customer base that is only there to be entertained. Shows are expensive to exhibit at, not to mention the required energy output, the time away from making product and the relentless setting up and breaking down. It is the same amount of work to do a show where you lose your shirt as it is to do a show that yields positive cash flow.
2 Refine your jury submission images To get into better shows, you need an impressive product line with a theme and focus, as well as exemplary digital images that project your professionalism. It is tragic to see how poor most artists’ images are. Sadly, it is the exception rather than the norm to see images for the jury that are professional and impressive. Sending in inferior images to be juried is not the formula to get into good shows.
Designing work that has a “visual impact” and getting it professionally shot by a photographer who knows how to create great jury images can be a challenge. Good art badly photographed will always gets rejected—a huge lost opportunity for the artist. One of the first ways to create a better business is to make better work and have it photographed so it has a focus with a strong artist’s identity.
3 Make what customers want Once you get into a good show, you need to be well-armed with an inventory of sellable merchandise. By sellable merchandise I mean the kind of merchandise that customers want to buy. Too many artists are creating work that customers might admire, but do not necessarily want to own! Herein lies the key: Make art that people want to own and your sales will increase. This seems to be what separates the wheat from the chaff and is the key factor in creating a successful creative business today.
Creating work that customers want to buy is a lofty challenge for sure, but it can be done because I encounter artists who are having good sales every week. A bit of trend research can help you get to the core of what people are buying and will help you make art that is easier to sell.
Ever since the ’70s, American consumers have wanted art and objects of adornment so much that they were willing to buy just about anything we made. At the Rhinebeck Show in New York, the first American Craft Council show, customers wanted what we made so badly they would go to the show office and have us paged if we wandered away from our booth for too long! That is unlikely to happen today.
Throughout this period, many artists adopted the “belief” that they were entitled to make anything they wanted to and customers were obligated to buy it. And at the time, there were enough customers to make that paradigm work. (Of course, an artist is entitled to make anything they want or to make art for art’s sake. But if you want to sell it, you need to consider the market forces or you will end up with a huge inventory of your own work.)
4 Create functional products One of the biggest trends currently affecting successful businesses is the trend for function. Items that have a use are just plain easier to sell than items that have no apparent purpose than to be decorative. Look at your current inventory with an eye toward what in your line has a use. Then you must be able to clearly articulate to your customers the benefits and functionality of your art.
If you take a hard look at what you make and find an implied function in that work, look your customer in the eye and say, “When you hang this on your wall, I hope it brings you the peace and joy it did for me when I created it!” Or, “When you see the light sparkling from that amethyst, it will make you happy.” Or, “This sculpture will be the focal point of the living space you place it in!” All of these comments have a benefit to the customer, and that is a function. For items that have an apparent function, you need to be very clear and verbally communicate that information to customers. To say, “This is a Brie Cheese Baker,” is not enough. Instead, say, “The advantage to a Brie Cheese Baker is that it keeps the cheese contained so it doesn’t run all over, but also keeps it warm throughout cocktail hour,”—this is a benefit customers can sink their teeth into.
5 Impress your customers It is easy to find function in functional objects, but it is a much bigger challenge to find function in decorative ones. People buy art because they love it and it makes them feel good, but an underlying reason why people buy art and handmade things is to impress other people. If your art is not impressive, it will be much harder to sell.
The best way to a better business is to make impressive art and learn to talk about it so it impresses the customer. It will be easier to sell and attract more people to your booth when your art is impressive. And whenever you have customers in your booth, they draw even more customers in.
6 Learn from what works Here is a short list of the kinds of objects artists are having success with:
• Art that is large-scale
• Impressive products
• Handmade products created or sold in sets—such as nesting bowls or groupings of objects
• Calming, serene and natural art
• Art that moves or is kinetic
• Products that relate to food, dining or food preparation
• Items that are for or related to pets
• Crafts that are for or related to children or grandchildren
• Works that are simple and elegant
• Brightly colored art that incorporates jewel tones
• Functional products
Take a look at this list and see how you can incorporate some of these product types into the art you create. You, too, will see, just like the successful artists I gleaned this information from, that it will boost your sales and you will see more people in your booth and better cash flow. Make what you love, make it “on-trend” and use these tips to help you sell!TCR

moneySince the financial collapse of October 2008, artists no doubt have been more challenged to sell their work than any time since the Great Depression. The recent financial collapse was a low blow to all businesses, but was particularly damaging to the business of selling art.

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6 Simple Ways to Avoid Dumb Mistakes at a Craft Show: What You Can Learn From a Boy Scout

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You might be the most experienced craftsperson ever, but let’s face it: we’re all human. As such, we craftspeople are fully capable of making the most stupid mistakes around. These are never more apparent than at craft shows. Here are six simple ways to be prepared for your own slipups:
1Make a list One way to minimize the potential for making mistakes is to make lists—incredibly detailed lists. It might seem unnecessary to list even the most obvious of things, but as the following example illustrates, everyone has their “moments.”
This actually happened: My husband and I, early in our crafting career, arrived at a weekend Renaissance fair and began setting up our booth. It was a rare local event for us, no more than half an hour from our home. We set up our booth the day before the event, chatting pleasantly with the neighboring vendor on one side who was also setting up. Late in the afternoon, the other neighboring vendor drove up, tired and stressed from a chaotic day of packing his vehicle and driving for four hours.
We greeted each other, made sympathetic noises about his day (haven’t we all had them?), and I’ll never forget what happened next. He opened the back hatch of his truck camper and gave a cry of dismay.
He had forgotten his booth.
It seems he had a nicely decorated pop-up pavilion that he had modified beautifully in order to attend this Renaissance fair. But in the bedlam preceding his departure, the pop-up was left behind. It is seldom that you see a grown man fighting back tears.
With no other options, he got back in his vehicle and drove away. The next morning he was back, with dark circles under his eyes, setting up in the last few hours before the fair opened.
This man was an experienced crafts­person, yet he still made a horrible mistake—thus underscoring the importance of listing everything, big and small, you want to remember when exhibiting at a show.
Sometimes it’s not the big things but the little things that can make or break you…or at least make your vending experience a whole lot less fun than it otherwise might be. And that’s why it’s so important to start that list several weeks in advance…and to write down everything you think you’ll need.
Once upon a time, I went on a writer’s retreat. It was something I’d been looking forward to for a long time. I thought carefully about the items I wanted to bring. I made sure I had my laptop, some nice clothes and all the accoutrements writers need when they get together to collaborate for the weekend.
But it wasn’t until late in the evening of that first day that I realized I’d left behind one absolutely critical piece of equipment: my eyeglasses.
I wear contact lenses through the day but glasses in the evening and at night, and suddenly I had to go blind until morning (I have terrible vision when uncorrected). It was weird and disconcerting to try and be social with my fellow writers (not to mention trying to act professional) when I couldn’t clearly see a hand’s length beyond my face.
But it taught me a lesson. Now, when I’m preparing to be away from home for a conference, craft show or other event, I make a list of everything—every little thing—I know I’ll need during the course of the event… right down to my eyeglasses.
And that becomes the power of the list in preparing. Start that list far in advance (a couple of weeks is ideal) and add to it as you think about the things you want to make sure you don’t forget. The things you think you can’t possibly forget (like glasses! and your booth!) should be first on that list. List even the big things because, well, you never know what kind of mental lapse you’ll have in those last frantic hours as you pack your vehicle and prepare to depart.
2Have a dress rehearsal I strongly recommend doing a dress rehearsal before going to your show, especially if it’s been a while since the last time. Set up your booth. Set up your shelving or display units. Put all of your stock on the shelves. Put up your signage. If necessary, put on your costume (for themed events like Renaissance fairs). Pretend to process a transaction. There is no finer way to figure out what you’re forgetting.
For example, once a year I do an enormous four-day festival in a huge city two states away. It’s a ten-hour drive to get there, so it’s not like I can dash home if I forget something. I’m good at making lists, so I usually don’t forget anything important.
But one year I forgot to do a dress rehearsal, and boy can something like that throw you for a loop.
What happened was I had a new sign, a large 10-feet-by-4-feet banner that was supposed to attach to a PVC frame and be hoisted above the booth. This way the sign could be seen above the heads of the crowd for a wonderful bit of exposure for our product.
Except for one thing: The PVC rods we bought to frame the sign didn’t fit through the vinyl sleeves of the banner.
So there I was, a country girl in the big city, with no idea where I could find a hardware store to purchase the right PVC poles to complete the structure.
My saving grace was I had arrived a day early. After hastily consulting a phone book and then scouring my city map, I fought rush-hour traffic until I found a hardware store, purchased the PVC pipe and thus saved our signage. But the experience left me frazzled and exhausted, and more appreciative of the need for a dress rehearsal before doing a show.
3Anticipate the environment It’s impossible to determine everything you may need at a show or event, particularly with outdoor events. But it helps to be aware of the area and/or season.
My husband does a show every September held in the midst of a large mown hayfield. Through harsh experience, he’s learned to bring two critical items: allergy medicine and wasp spray. Both are self-explanatory but neither are items most craftspeople would think to include on their lists of what to bring. This is why advanced knowledge of where a show is being held is so useful. My husband’s allergies are likely to kick up in a hayfield, and everyone knows how much yellow jackets love to nest in holes in the ground, invariably right where you’re assigned to set up your booth.
What about things like sunscreen? A hat? Tissue or handkerchiefs? A small cooler for cold drinks or sandwiches? When you’re doing an outdoor event you’re essentially camping for two days, so prepare accordingly.
Indoor events can be just as important to anticipate. One year we did a reasonably local event held in a college auditorium. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, nothing was wrong per se, but after setting up I realized our booth didn’t have the warm, welcoming atmosphere it normally did. It took a few minutes to understand why. The harsh lighting, generic flooring and echoing nature of the auditorium made for a cold, unwelcoming ambiance no matter how beautifully ar­­rang­ed our products were.
After a hasty trip home for some props, we set out an area rug (to provide a friendly atmosphere as well as muffle the sounds), a floor lamp (for warmer lighting) and brightly colored sheets to drape behind our shelving units to provide a warmer, cozier feel. Not incidentally, it also made our vending experience more comfortable.
4Preplan ad nauseam The old Boy Scout motto of “Be prepared” applies to everyone, especially if you are a craftsperson who finds yourself far away from home for a vending event.
Did you remember to book a room in advance or make arrangements to stay with friends? One time we drove to a large city for an event and naïvely assumed it wouldn’t be a problem to get a room near the function. Country hicks that we are, it never dawned on us that there might be some monkey wrenches in this obvious plan.
You guessed it, dusk found us driving in an ever-widening circle around the event location, desperately searching for a “vacancy” sign and finding nothing. We finally parked on the street near the function and slept (badly) in the car. It wasn’t until the next day that we found a room many miles from the site (I manned the booth alone for a few hours while my husband searched for a motel). This was in the days before cell phones and it underscored—duh—the need to be prepared to the best of our abilities before leaving home.
The following year, as soon as our application for this same show was accepted, we booked a room in a mid-grade hotel a mere block from the event and have used the same facility ever since.
5Follow the “rule of three” Sometimes there are things you can’t anticipate or control when doing a craft show. That’s why it’s nice, whenever possible, to have one or two backup options for critical functions (like financial transactions). A prepared neighbor calls this “the rule of three.”
An example of this occurred when my husband exhibited at a large outdoor event in central Oregon. Thankfully, he applied the rule of three when it came to running financial transactions (the whole reason for doing a show, after all).
There was a glitch in the show production and the electricity to his booth was not available. That meant his bank-issued credit card machine, which recorded information and batched files, wouldn’t work.
So my husband fell back on option two, calling in individual credit cards to the bank using his cell phone. That’s when he learned cell phone service wasn’t available at that location. So he fell back on option three, manually running credit cards using a “chunk chunk” machine. That worked perfectly.
As my husband is fond of pointing out, modern electronic devices are great conveniences until they don’t work. As it turned out, his forethought to bring the “chunk chunk” machine and a stack of old-fashioned credit card slips saved the day for us financially.
6Use a calendar Despite all of our lessons learned, by far the most embarrassing—and costly and stupid—mistake we ever made was to forget the date of a show. Seriously!
No kidding—this is a true story. We had applied to a huge wholesale trade show, were juried in and accepted, paid our $1,000 booth fee and then forgot to write the early-January show date on our calendar. We knew it was in the first month of the year, but what with the holidays and coping with winter snows and dealing with livestock (we live on a farm), we just sort of, well, forgot. Vaguely in the back of our minds we knew we had better start building stock and getting ready, but somehow kept putting it off.
On a Wednesday after Christmas, my husband turned to me and said, “Just when is this show, anyway?”
I located the paperwork, saw the date and my jaw dropped in horror. The show was that weekend. In order to travel to it, I would have to leave the next day.
Needless to say, we weren’t ready. Not even remotely. We had no stock, no order forms, nothing in place that we could throw into the car and make a dash for it.
Swallowing our pride, I confess I called the show producers and lied. I said we were snowed in and would be unable to make the event. It was a year of rough weather, so our story was perfectly believable (in fact, the producer said quite a number of vendors had canceled because of regional flooding), but we had to forfeit our $1,000 booth fee and say good-bye to any potential business the show might have brought us.
Remember, we’re only human
This humiliating experience illustrates that, no matter how experienced a craftsperson you might be, things can go spectacularly wrong due to a lack of preparation. Do yourself a favor and be a Boy Scout in your crafting efforts. Be prepared.TCR
Is there a craft business subject or question you would like to see addressed? Feel free to e-mail me at plewis@rezmail.com.
Patrice Lewis is the author of The Home Craft Business: How to Make It Survive and Thrive (tcr.bz/patrice_lewis).

boyscout_armYou might be the most experienced craftsperson ever, but let’s face it: we’re all human. As such, we craftspeople are fully capable of making the most stupid mistakes around. These are never more apparent than at craft shows. Here are six simple ways to be prepared for your own slipups.

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