We interrupt your regularly scheduled woodworking content to draw your attention to some of the business aspects of the craft. I recently connected with Mike Salguero, the CEO of CustomMade.com. For those of you that aren't familiar, CustomMade is a subscription-based service that allows artisans to post their gallery online and connect with prospective buyers. As my day job, I do product marketing for a software company, and Mike was interested in how I took what I do in my day job over to the craft of woodworking. Through a partnership with Rockler, the video just went live a few days ago. You can view the interview here:
http://www.rockler.com/custommade/mini/
Since Mike was kind enough to come all the way to my shop for the interview, I also turned that tables on him and recorded an interview I conducted of Mike as well, which I will post in a future blog entry. So stay tuned for that, and I'll get back to that cherry sideboard project when I get back from my summer vacation.
5 comments:
Rob,
Another great video presentation. Good luck with your marketing efforts.
Rob,
Nice to see things are really coming along for you. I have one question(as usual) for you. I guess I could say I am doing my first real piece for someone other then myself, I wouldn't really call it a commission because I am not charging a full price mainly material costs. The one thing that i am running into that you mentioned on the video is the persons perception of furniture they want the "Pottery Barn" look, fake aged, overly stained and to much finish. How do you try and deter them i guess from doing this and making the piece more to your liking. I am also doing this because I want to build my portfolio and dont want to make a piece that i feel wont look appealing in there.
Thanks
Guy
Guy, I just read your question and at the risk of sounding like I'm dodging your question, I think it's such a good one that I want to dedicate a full blog post to the answer. I don't think I can do it any justice in a comment response. So if you can hang on a few days, I'll get an answer to you on this. It's an issue I've dealt with a number of times, and have overcome with some reasonable success.
Rob,
Sounds good Rob Im Looking forward to it
Guy
I think it's amazing that Guy really wants to make a piece worthy of his craft, and something he really thinks that the customer will want. Now that is putting the customer before yourself. My mom has some custom made furniture and I am glad the person who made it tried to do there best. It always looks so much better in the end!
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