Being Proactive

Finding work

I’ve sat on this idea for a while now. At first, I thought I was too negative. I held off because I may be in a funk (It happens at times. Good writing does not happen in a funk - at least encouraging writing doesn’t happen). But I don’t think I’ve been in an overly grumpy mood. The idea seems balanced, even if a little discouraging.

My title for that post: “Custom Furniture is a Mirage”

And the premise was this: early career makers often want a small shop or studio where they do the work and the orders come in. Somehow this is an expectation (I once held it). As I visit woodworking schools, I catch a glimpse of it in the hopes and expectations of the students.

There’s a feeling that once the maker has the skills, and puts in the hard work, that the orders and opportunities will find them.

I’m sorry. It doesn’t work that way. At least it didn’t for me. And I can’t find anyone where it did. At least early in their career. Custom furniture is a mirage.

Custom furniture, best I can tell, comes along as a by-product or as a supplement to other shop work. It’s not the main course, at least not for establishing makers. The main course may be kitchen cabinets, or carpentry, or a furniture line, or web design, or accounting, or any other consistent-paycheck-money-making-venture. But it’s not custom furniture…not if paying bills are at stake. I don’t know where that myth originated or how I got it in my head. Or how it keeps finding it’s way into the minds of new makers.

(It goes without saying that every person’s financial situation, and financial needs, are different. There’s a reason many furniture makers attempt to keep living expenses to a bare minimum. It’s an easier bar for furniture$ to clear.)

I recently had lunch with a couple of friends. Both relied on furniture orders for their primary income until recent years, where they took steady full-time work in a woodworking field. Both are much happier now. They expressed their experience, which ran parallel similar to my experience with it…that doing custom furniture works on occasion - the work flows through, the job gets paid, things line up - but that’s only some of the time. The rest of the time was a scramble. It seems like it should work out all of the time but it doesn’t. A job takes too long. An unexpected expense. The work doesn’t line up properly. Chasing and lining up the next jobs take time. There are a million reasons for it not to work.

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I’ll provide one example. I’m making a Shaker stand. It’s a beautiful, common piece of furniture, and it’s available on the market. Other makers sell them.

The order counts as custom furniture to me. It’s the first one I’ve made. Not “unique” custom, but “new-to-me” custom. So, under the set price, I should (and I enjoy doing these…it’s a part of why I enjoy in custom work):

• research the piece

• draw/design

• make a pattern or two

• make forms or record the work (in case it comes my way again)

• estimate the job as if I do it smoothly, without any back-tracking (not that I ever back-track)

• go get the materials and get started

Who pays for this? Sure, the customer should, but the $numbers$ get pricey fast. Or the hourly rate drops.

Here’s the other thing about custom work. You only get one shot to get it right. The first shot (unless you remake the piece). One best effort.

With the chairs I make, there is a continued evolution between one chair and the next. I make minor changes, over time, to refine the design. That doesn’t happen with custom work. There’s one chance to get it right.

It’s a fun (and often stressful) challenge.

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I think, starting out, that I thought the work would find me. That if I did good work, built a reputation, and worked long hours, that eventually things would fall in place.

I built a website, uploaded professional images of my work and waited for the orders to come in.

Nothing happened.

That’s not exactly true. I received a bunch of spambox messages and junk emails. And a friend prank called me asking to place an order for a “Victorian birdhouse.” Local organizations found me to ask for donations or contributions. But nothing that paid found its way to me.

Looking back, I thought of furniture making like other trades. Take plumbing, for instance. I can’t find a plumber to work with me. I’ve called six or so in recent years. They don’t want my business…they’re too busy to accept the small work I have here. My point is that there’s plumbing work, and I am trying to connect with a reputable plumber. I’m seeking them out.

But that’s not the case with custom woodwork. Sure, it’s a trade (or a craft, or an art…I’m sidestepping that discussion here), but there’s no force pushing people to reach out. It’s possible to be excellent, to be incredible at furniture making, and still the phones remain silent.

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Also, I haven’t noticed makers getting work based on technical brilliance. Maybe it happens.

Artistry attracts customers. Beauty attracts customers. Form draws people in. But technical precision, without these other attributes, only goes so far.

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I notice a common trait to busy shops. “Busy” is a vague term here, only meaning that there’s paying work on a maker’s bench.

In nearly every instance, the maker is proactive in selling the work or engaging with customers. This is where plenty of furniture makers struggle (myself included).

How are they proactive? From what I see, each maker does it differently. For some it may be social media. Or old-school marketing efforts. Or craft shows. Or a gallery show. Or a brink-and-mortar show room. Or networking with antique dealers, or interior designers, or the arts network.

In short, the makers are not passive, waiting for the customers to find them. They make the effort to find the right customers. To engage them. And, often enough, furniture work follows.

I’ve only met and interviewed two people who did not put energy into marketing and/or advertising. One doesn’t have contact info or a website. It’s purposely hard to contact him. The other, an Appalachian chairmaker, doesn’t have a phone or use the internet. Both have full schedules with plenty of work. They appear, to me at least, to be outliers.

Most makers are proactive.

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I’ll finish with this. It’s not a perfect fit here (in a rambling post about the business side of furniture), but it’s my favorite quote about getting started into furniture. I like to revisit it at times. I think it’s a helpful perspective.

From Issue II of Mortise and Tenon Magazine, in an interview with Dave and George Sawyer.

Question, from M&T magazine, following a discussion about Dave’s career in chairmaking and green woodworking and living in Vermont:

Q: What would your advice be to somebody who went to college for a job in the corporate world and is now considering the idea of leaving that path and going and trying to pour themselves into handcraft and homesteading?

Answer from Dave Sawyer: “Just be prepared for poverty because you probably wont strike it rich. If you like the life then the benefits outweigh the poverty because it allows you to do what you really want to do in life.