[TheForge] Making money

[Demon Buddha]

Dan Tull wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 11 Jul 2002 20:53:28 -0500 "Bob Ehrenberger"
> <eforge@marktwain.net> writes:
> > Dan,
> >
> > But what about us struggling professionals.
> >  I had a lot more disposable income when I had a salary/day-job and I
> > just  was a hobby Blacksmith.
> > Now that I'm blacksmithing full time things are pretty tight.
> >
> > Bob Ehrenberger
> 
> The first thing that comes to mind? is ....
> 
> 1.You are not charging enough for your work.

	Dan, I agree with you fully, in principle, and in fact this
	may be the case.  However, there area a million people out
	there who simply don't want to pay what we may be worth.
	Quality either means nothing to them or they expect to get
	the works of Michelangelo for only $19.95.

	When I was full time in Mesa, I wanted to strangle half the
	clients that waltzed through the door.  It made NO difference
	to most of them how much educating you did to explain why this
	work costs what it does.  They would just say "it's too much"
	and either we bit the bullet and made a $20 widget for $10 or
	the customer floated out the door to find something made like
	crap from Mexico that met their budgetary expectations.  It's
	their right to do so, but damn it makes this a tough, tough
	business to be in at times.

> 2.You haven't elevated your customer base.

	What do you mean by this?  We were doing work for the likes of
	Nancy Kitchell and several other big name designers.  They were
	at times, the worst of the worst in terms of penny pinching.
	At times we would get a great customer that would pay whatever
	was required, but those were few and far between, and even 
	though they loved our work, the market was such that not that
	many people were in the market for a $10K dining room table
	and I flatly refused to make suc a table for $500.  I made a
	cove style console, perhaps $3K worth for $600.  It wasa simple
	and elegant design that took me better than a week's worth to
	finish.  It was a tough job because of its simplicity; it had
	to be very straight and square or it would not look right. Well
	to my credit, I got this one dead on right and it was really
	very nice IMO.  I would rather beat the customer over the head
	with it than let then have it for that money again.  I felt so
	crapped on, doing all that work and seeing almost no money for
	it, but I didn't price the job out so I was kinda stuck.

> discussion:
>  1. Who else are they going to get to do it? How much would
> Nol Putnum charge? Kinda like "what the market will bear".

	The Mexicans.  Dirt cheap and built like garbage, but most
	folks don't care.

> 2. Doctors, lawyers, dentist , pilots.  Corporate CEO's, Sports
> celebrities. We want customers that "brag" about how much
> they spent on a Bob E. original.

	I've don'e work for people in Scottsdale who were personally
	worth hundreds of millions of REAL dollars and though they
	were in all cases very nice people, some of them were tighter
	with a penny than you could possibly imagine.  It was horrible.

> 3. old money vs. new money. How do you think it got to be old?
> They didn't spend it.  Ivan Bailey moved out of Savannah, Ga.
> to Atlanta for this reason.

	This does nothing to make me thing that this is a good way to
	make a decent living.

> 4. See #3. they will pay for quality. Take classes.

	Generally speaking, no they will not pay for quality.  It's
	just plain weird.

> 5. One man shop, not healthy, utilizing apprentice help
> when he can get it. Hire someone who wants to work, instead
>  of a B/S, like Steve Kayne does.

	That's a good idea.  I also recommend paying on a %age of
	the job, like about 24% - 40%, depending on the job and on
	how good your help is.  Get a percentage in writing to them
	up front so there are no misunderstandings and if they
	screw the job, they don't get paid until they make it right.
	It works well.
> 
> Scope of projects comes to mind:
> For a long time I only made items you could hold in one hand.
> You don't know what you can do 'til you try.

	True.