Christmas season

[wickedinhere]

I was just wondering how everyone's season is going so for? Orders have been ok but slower than years past for this time of year. I am hoping it picks up after this week.

[michmetalman]

I am always slammed around Christmas. This year is no different!

[Cracker Red]

I haven't found the "niche". I keep trying because until I quit I have not failed. My stuff is quality, well put together, and designed well. A lot of people around here seem content with buying chinese garbage. I will not try and compete....

[CNCCAJUN]

I haven't found the "niche". I keep trying because until I quit I have not failed. My stuff is quality, well put together, and designed well. A lot of people around here seem content with buying chinese garbage. I will not try and compete....

Where are you located... do you sell online also?

Steve

[Cracker Red]

Florida. Not much of an online presence except for a FB page....not that it nets me much if anything . I have an ETSY store as well, but again maybe 1-2 sales per month. I go out to the local famers market, and some days have 4-500 in sales...others nothing.

I NEED a website for sure, but can't spare the 1000$ or so I've been quoted to get one up and running.

[Shane Warnick]

Cracker ,

Not sure how long you have been doing the farmers market or where you are. Hang in there I started out doing the same thing. Same deal some Saturday's would be $1500 others maybe $25. Lots of sales calls and word of mouth and it will grow slowly but surely. Don't cut your own throat and cut cheap and don't worry about the people that wanna beat you up on price. Unless you need practice or wanna help a friend out they either wanna pay or they don't. I will say being a good steward to the community always pays off. Help out if you can by donating to local fundraisers but only if they will furnish paperwork so you can write it off. Ffa, 4h, Girl Scouts, church, high school band football basketball boosters, rotary club, lions club, join chamber of commerce and cut their seal and donate it etc. Get some stickers made with your info. Nothing goes out the door without a sticker (on the back obviously), it will eventually pick up. Don't be put off with people that tell you oh we already have someone. Tell them you are fine being the number 2 call, please just file my card and info away and call me when the other guys is too busy to get to you just keep me in mind. Only one place to go from being a good strong #2 and that is #1.

As far as a website, Dropbox is free and you can upload images to a file and put the link to the file on your FB page. Great place to start and customers and potential clients can see your work.

Hang in there
Shane

[AnotherDano]

In the gangster movies, eventually somebody says; "I know a guy...".
Be that guy.

It's easier in a small town but if you get around enough, your name will get dropped sometime, somewhere, and you'll cash in. Listen to Shane. Pass some stuff around in the right circles and your efforts will be rewarded.

In my case, it was bumping into the coach of the girls golf team. She called a YEAR later and ordered 38 tee-markers for their tournaments. The Wyoming Bucking Horse, of course. She was so proud of them that soon, everyone in the field house had seen them - including the university booster club (Cowboy Joe). They ordered 40. Then the university owned golf course ordered 42.
Then came a call from a member of the board of trustees who wanted a few for his financial services clients as Christmas gifts -- 60 of them.

'This is what the golf team had. They got bent up, paint peeling and a few 'grew legs' and rode off into the sunset. Theirs were 9" from hat to hoof. Mine are 11"

Bucking horse on teebox [640x480].jpg

I made mine with 3/8 x 12" spikes welded on the back - from 14ga. Powder coated, of course, for durability and that 'extra something' that it provides. The gals swooned over them and I sold out of the 'extras' I'd made. Always make extras and have the customer count them. When they tell you there are more than they ordered, give them an 'Oh well, looks like your wife (husband etc) gets a freebie" ~ with a sly wink. Those are the ones that really bring in their friends, to see what else you can do.

IMG_0067 [640x480].JPG

[Cracker Red]

Thank you for the words of encouragement! It can be tough at times but you are right. ...no point in cutting the bottom out of it.

[CNCCAJUN]

I know a guy in my area that him and his wife both paint.

They put paintings in mid-level & up scale locally owned restaurants with the price on the back.

The restaurant's love it since they end up with free "local art" that is constantly changed and you get to sell a few pieces. . .

Steve

[exceptional]

That is the story I want to be telling in a year. I've been in business about 5 months and man is business slow. Doing craft fairs almost every weekend and usually walk away very disappointed. Made a whole $17 on my last event. Didn't pay for half of the entrance fee. I like the ideas and another problem I'm having is working a job and trying to make this a go on weekends. It's a lot of work but I love it, would just like to break even some times.

[michmetalman]

Keep plugging away. Nothing worth doing is easy, and competing with thousands of others doing the same things is tough. I remember the first time I saw a guy selling metal art at a Farmers Market about 4 years ago, and I knew I wanted to do it...and I knew I would be good at it. I remember my first "like" on Facebook, and now I am 10 "likes" away from 24,000
I started my business by painting everything, and soon had my brother (who was unemployed at the time) buy a cheap powder coating gun and start powder coating all of our stuff. I found a niche and started growing very quickly. We now are ready to upgrade our equipment because we cannot keep up with demand. We also sell wholesale to about 30 stores, and we don't even need to ask most of the time...they contact me! Plus we are hoping to open an actual storefront in a year or two.
Like I said, keep plugging away, make a good quality product backed with AWESOME customer service. Go out of your way to talk to people..not just sell them something and thats it. If they like your product they may be back, but if you leave a good impression on them as a person....they WILL be back. To me this may be the most important part of any successful business.
Good luck!

[wickedinhere]

Yeah i use to do all markets and craft shows but i only did really well at one show. Most people want to customize the piece that they order. The one thing i hated about the craft shows was having to guess what people might buy and i found that after a couple of shows that stuff started getting damaged or scratched no matter how careful i was. I just cut to order now some people complain that i cant ship out within 10 minutes of them ordering. I stopped bending over backwards for customers and just work at my own pace. I had a lady that wanted to buy a gift certificate but wanted me to drive and meet her 1.5 hours away because she was only going to be in town for a few hours. She got mad when i told her no. she couldn't understand why i couldn't do that for a 50.00 gift cert. I told her i can mail it but she refused to use a cc to pay for it. I sit in my recliner and answer my phone and take orders then design,cut,finish the piece. I package them and my wife mails them for me so i don't have to leave my house very often. I started by using Facebook and that works well but this year i had a website built and that has helped keep the order's up.

[michmetalman]

I do not do any craft show or Farmers markets...haven't in the 4 years I've been in business. I know many people love them, and they can be good money makers and a way to get your product out there, but in my opinion...you are guessing what people want, so you have to make a variety...unless it is say an all Jeep show or something. I would prefer to spend my time growing my Facebook. You have to spend all your time making stuff you HOPE will be bought, packing up...unpacking, hoping for sales, packing and unpacking...uhhhg! I did all that when I made cement statue molds and sold the statues..hated it! (but good money most times)
I have a rather weird strategy. I want people to hear about my products and come to find me. I don't want to be just another "vendor" at a craft show or farmers market. I have hundreds of people ask me to do them, or if I do them. I like the fact that they will not find me in the mix of vendors. One day I will do a few a year, but only when I have a truck with my business name and a trailer with my business name wrapped all over it, and even then it will only be a few BIG shows...like the Traverse City Cherry festival we have here in northern Michigan. I could clear $20,000 in a week easy there, so worth my time and effort.

[wickedinhere]

I agree Facebook is great, I normally try to do a new design every week and i will sell a few then i will have people that want to change up the design some and then in normally turns into 8-10 pieces sold. I have very little overhead and i am a one man shop so that is plenty of work for me.

[beefy]

Seems a lot of you guys use Facebook to promote your art. I don't know how the "likes" thing works but here is something I've just read:

This week the Wall Street Journal reported that, come January, Facebook "will intensify its efforts to filter out unpaid promotional material in user news feeds that businesses have posted as status updates."

What that means is, if you've been collecting "likes", then updating your status on Facebook, confident that your likers will see your post and buy what you're promoting...well, those days are over.

If you want your posts to be seen, even by those likers you worked so hard to cultivate, well, you're gonna have to pony up the dough first.

Facebook wants its cut.

What Facebook is, in essence, saying is that you don't own your list. You may have thought you did. But you don't. You just rent those likers from Facebook.

And the rent is now due.

I've always said you need to MASTER at least one source of PAID traffic. Never rely on a no-charge lunch. Because the no-charge lunch will eventually get swept off the table and you'll be left begging for scraps...IF you haven't acquired the skills to BUY that lunch for less than your competition.

This is business. You exchange dollars for what you need. You want cheap or no-charge education? You get what you pay for. You want cheap or no-charge customers? You get what you pay for.

Facebook is growing up. Are you?

Hope that doesn't have a negative impact on any of you. Like I say I don't know much about Facebook at the moment.

[wickedinhere]

Facebook has been doing this for the last year and a half. If people that like your page don't interact with your page(comment or like a post or picture)your update's will not show up on their timeline. I have paid to promote my site and will continue to do so on Facebook. The thing to do is post a picture of a popular item you sell and promote that post.

[exceptional]

I thought I would sell a lot of Holiday stuff but have only sold one piece. My gun stuff is still selling best and haven't sold as much as I would have liked to. First year so I don't have anything to compare it to.

[MetalheadRK]

Florida. Not much of an online presence except for a FB page....not that it nets me much if anything . I have an ETSY store as well, but again maybe 1-2 sales per month. I go out to the local famers market, and some days have 4-500 in sales...others nothing.

I NEED a website for sure, but can't spare the 1000$ or so I've been quoted to get one up and running.

We also have an Etsy and an Artfire store. Etsy has recently changed their marketing but with that being said the way to increase your sales there is to join a team. It is a little time consuming but having 100+ people help you promote your items will absolutely increase your looks and likes. We have sold about 800+ pieces in 2 years. Try it, if you do it correctly you will get results!

[tnbndr]

I have paid to promote my site and will continue to do so on Facebook. The thing to do is post a picture of a popular item you sell and promote that post.

How much do you pay, they always recommend the $30. and by promote are using the BOOST feature that keeps bugging me? How many days do you do it for.?

[wickedinhere]

I normally do 20.00 per day for 5-7 days and i will either promote my website or my Facebook page. I have also done the boost my post it works well. I am also going to go ahead and launch an Etsy store after the first i have it all ready to go so we will see what happens.

[tnbndr]

^^^^Thanks for the information.

[redduke]

I personally do A LOT of craft shows. I've found the ones that work for me, I won't go back a second year unless it was a good show the first year or if I felt that there was an unforeseen circumstance (snow usually). I've tried events that were "men" based such as hunting/fishing shows and they are total busts. Men do not buy for themselves! At least not in our market. They would comment about how much they loved it, it would look great in such and such room and then "but I'll have to ask my wife"... whom was never with. So I go to craft shows, garden shows. I DO NOT do flea markets as I feel it lessens the value of my art. I try to do 2 shows a month, some months I go every weekend. I build my business off of repeat orders from these shows and have grown from word of mouth. In 2015 I will expand to have a store that is open 1 weekend a month, though customers can come to our location M-F, and am building my online presence. I will often ask customers that I don't know where they saw me or how they heard of my business. This gives me a better understanding of where to focus my business. The nearest large farmers market was a bust so I will not do that again next summer. I do donate pieces but that has never generated more leads. I teamed up with a local school to do a fundraiser and that equaled 40+ pieces in just a few days and the kids sold them so all I had to do was make them. 90+% of my business is CUSTOM! Whether it be adding a name to an existing design or a new design just for them - people in our area love custom. I was a marketing specialist and graphic designer for over 15 years before I started this business so I watch the trends.

[CNCCAJUN]

I was a marketing specialist and graphic designer for over 15 years before I started this business so I watch the trends.

When you say trends . . . what do you keep your eye on . . .

I know it seems like a dumb question, but I can not tell you how many times I look at something do not have any idea what it is or what it represents. People look at you like you have been living under a rock . . . Maybe my age . . .

P.S. I'm getting my paint booth built, so maybe someday I will come close to your clear coat quality. . . (doubt it )

Steve