How Should I Deal With This?

[Denise]

I had most of a post written on this a few days ago and then deleted it thinking it sounded way too negative. But since you brought up the same points, Ray... In reading your initial post, I thought "Your first decision is whether you have employees or not." That would make a big difference as to what kind of space you need. A friend of ours was in a similar circumstance. He crunched the numbers and figured that he would need to turn out three times the amount of work he currently was doing to pay for one employee, so he decided to stay solo. (How he figured this out I don't know.) But besides the costs and paperwork, there is also the fact that "your" work is now not being done by you. And how comfortable are you with that? A huge consideration for anyone in that situation is "Will I make a good employer? Am I willing to give my employee the time to learn, the positive encouragement needed when they make mistakes and ruin leather (because they will!), and space to work without looking over their shoulder all the time?" Giving up control, even in the more mundane areas of work, is a hard thing for a lot of artisans. Our standards are high and trusting someone else to do the same quality of work is tough. And getting a person that cares that much ("Why should I when it's not my name on it?" is too common an attitude) is very tough. If you find such a person, they are worth their weight in gold. But if you aren't a good employer, or you expect to pay low wages, then you will have a revolving door of employees resulting in constant training time and increased costs in mistakes, wasted leather, etc. Being a good employer is a tough job, and a lot of us would rather do the work ourselves than be that good employer.

[JohnBarton]

This month has been something of a watershed for me. I have to make some tough decisions. Let me give you the background: 6 months ago I decided to drop my day-job and go it alone with the leatherwork. Okay, I had the cushion of some occasional well paid writing/training work coming in, but essentially I had to make a living beating leather. To cut a long story short, it seems to have worked. In fact it has worked so well that I'm now in a confusion and would appreciate some good advice.

Like most people, I have a workshop at home. Over the past year this has spread to cover approximately 400 square foot of space in three rooms on three floors. The heavy machines are in what used to be my old garage, The office and stores is a separate room and the main workshop used to be a spare bedroom. I'm very lucky to have the space but feel it is time to expand even further as I have a number of machines that I can't use because they are currently inaccessible and effectively in store. I simply don't have enough space to set them up ready for use. The main workshop is very cramped and I would like a much bigger cutting table, a larger space for dyeing and a proper leather storage area.

In addition to a fairly successful on-line business, I'm also facing an upsurge in larger orders that are hard to work on with limited space to store components, leather and finished goods. I have also run a couple of successful booths at local shows and found that the public like what I make. In fact, my inventory was so depleted by the last event that it will take me a while to replenish stocks.

Essentially, I feel it is time to expand but don't know what the next move should be. I could get an industrial unit, but I don't really want to become a 'full-on' manufacturer. I could get a 'store-front' and use the space to create a great workshop with a small retail capability. I could head for the retail sector,employ staff to make the leathergoods and sell direct to the public (not my favorite choice) or I could continue to struggle along in extremely cramped conditions that cost me nothing to run, making a reasonable living.

What have I missed?

Any thoughts? What would you do?

Ray

The beast must be fed.

Once you increase your overhead then you will be increasingly dependent on getting more and more business to pay those expenses.

I started three years ago in my apartment with one bedroom converted to an office, one room converted to storage and the living room used as the workspace. I had three employees. Three years later I have a 500 square meter shop with 7 sewing machines, a huge laser, and 13 employees. I have $20,000 tied up in leather and other supplies.

I FEEL it every month when the bills come due.

My advice is to wait until you really cannot stand it anymore and then go another six months beyond that. Do everything you can to optimize the space you are in.

I will never forget the time I was in Amsterdam and we went to a shop owned by friends of my father. Two guys who specialized in fetish and bondage gear. I walked down a flight of steps into a basement shop that was one little room in front and a larger room in the back - that's it. In the larger room they had on big cutting and work table - sewing machne on the wall and UP the walls they had hundreds of drawers full of every conceivable metal part known to man. Above that was leather storage. VERY efficient operation. I was a claustrophobic in there but impressed at the same time.

My advice is to stay put and horde your money - don't invest in expansion until you really must. On top of the expense comes the time in transit going to and from work.

Of course if it's critical now then do it. I love my shop but I HATE the 1 hour commute every day to get here and another hour to go home. (don't ask) I'd much rather be five minutes away at best.

[UKRay]

Okay, that all makes perfect sense and pretty much echoes what i was already thinking. I'm staying put a while longer, I'm not going to be employing anyone, Denise and I'm making some serious changes to the way I do stuff... I also hate commuting, John!

Thanks for all your suggestions, guys. I'm most grateful.

Ray