Business

[Lobo]

For what it might be worth, I think that you have to have a market niche. I started making holsters, belts, and accessories as a young policeman on a limited salary raising two kids. Anything that I made was needed and appreciated.

My little hobby/business/sideline remained that way for many years. After I retired, I discovered the internet. I made and sold firearms-related items on several auction sites, started receiving follow-up orders and referals, built it up to a pretty fair part-time business. I also have a couple of sporting goods stores that display my products, take orders that I complete, and collect from the customer (for which they receive a reasonable percentage).

Mama put her foot down, told me she was tired of having supplies, materials, inventory, etc. underfoot all the time, and demanded that I get it out of the house. So, I leased a small space and set up shop. Next, I put up a webpage to display my products, and promoted the webpage in every way that I could.

Now, I am at the point of having to make a decision as to whether or not to take it "full-time", as the orders that I am receiving are eating into time that I ordinarily work at another business. I'm receiving e-mail inquiries at a rate that requires 1 to 2 hours per day to respond to, and I am making and shipping 20 to 30 orders per week, which requires 20-plus hours at the bench every week.

I have shipped to every state in the US, most Canadian provinces, and 5 other countries to date. Approximately 1 in 5 purchasers send in a second order, and quite a few have ordered several times.

I think that I have found my niche. I hope that you will find yours.

[CitizenKate]

But how about you? Are you just plain lucky, and the flood of customers is coming in, or are you just pluggin' away at it.

I'm a firm believer in "Build it, and they will come", and so far, it is semi working for me. I'm bouncing around a lot, I don't have a niche like the western saddlers, or the "floggers". I find myself doing biker stuff one day, cowboy stuff the next, and in between other stuff like guitar straps, or portfolios. I don't have a local reputation enough to draw them into my home shop yet, so I go out to fairs and such to get the word out. I've tried a little etsy, web sites, etc, but the bread and butter is still networking, and word of mouth. There is nowhere near enough money coming in to branch out, or even take a wage yet, but it's steady, and possibly growing

How are you handling your startup?????

C'mon people, there's got to be more than a handful of us in this profession, trying it full time.

Well, I gather that I'm not really qualified to respond, since I'm not yet one of the almighty few who have made it to the point where leather work provides for all of my income. But I'll share this anyway, since it took a lot of hard lessons for me to get to the point where it's bringing in 50% of it.

I do not believe at all in "build it and they will come". It may "semi-work", but it's not enough just to be good at leather work, no matter how talented you are. Some will come. Most will not even know you exist. If you really expect to make a living at it, you can't afford to just let the sales come to you. Find places to show your work where the right people are going to see it. That is, customers who not only will want what you make, but also have the money to afford it. Skip the flea markets and garage sales, stay away from the bargain hunters (unless you really don't care how much you make for your work - personally, I would rather sell nothing at all than to sell it cheap). Go instead to the more high-end craft markets, even juried if you're good enough. Learn how to explain to potential customers what value your items will have in their hands.

I also don't believe in "luck" per se, but a lot of opportunities will present themselves out of the blue. Sometimes these opportunities will take you on a course you didn't expect, so sometimes it's a challenge to learn to recognize them and be prepared to take advantage of them.

If you're going to run a one-person shop, you need to be good at everything: Marketing, selling, merchandising, IT, accounting, inventory management, production, customer service... until you master all (or at least most) aspects of your business, it will never be much more than a hobby that may or may not pay for itself. As I said before, eventually, you have to find ways to get other people involved, at any of a number of different levels. Employees, vendors, resellers, contractors, service providers, whatever. This will allow you to use more of your own time doing what you are best at: doing leather work.

To niche, or not to niche? If you can develop a specialty item that is unique from what the crowd is doing or very original in some way, that will give you a market you can have a very large share of. The more stuff you do that is the same as what everyone else does, like wallets, key fobs, belts, etc., the more other leather workers you have to share your market with. I've seen people be successful in either mode. I have a niche that has done very well for me, but I've also had to expand to do more "common" things you see done in leather, just so I can provide a more diverse offering (both function and price-wise), and has worked well, too, from a marketing/merchandising standpoint. I believe there is an infinite number of possible niches. Finding one just depends upon your own creativity.

I'll check back in when I've made it to that rarefied place of getting to leather work full-time, and let you know what more I have learned on the way. Meanwhile, I hope someone finds this helpful...

Kate