grampa dan
New Member
A was visited by a fellow from Ontario last week. He was on vacation visiting family in the city. He had been an industrial designer, but with the decline in the economy he had changed to landscape design. He loved what he saw in my shop and not so quietly wished he could do something similar. It’s a wish I hear a lot. I asked him why he simply didn’t do it. (the same thing I say to every similar wish I hear) His answer was also similar to the answer I’ve heard before many times. He said that he felt there was no market - no one willing to pay what it was worth.
His comment made me smile. And disagree. Then I let him know why.
The truth is there has never been a better time to be in business. But it can’t be a half hearted try. It has got to be the absolute best we can do. It also can’t be a business that offers what everyone else is doing. Unless you want a business that is based on the lowest price you had better think of something few others can do - a niche market. Modern technology allows us to spread the word and get out there like never before. Modern tools and materials allow us to do things we could previously only imagine.
The fellow from Ontario was amazed we were so far from the city -as he put it “out in the middle of nowhere”. He asked why. I told him we had carefully chosen our location after exhaustive research and planning. Where else could we live on a small acreage, surrounded by farmland, and yet in the center of a small town. Better yet we are close to family and have gorgeous views that surround us. And we also live far from the hustle and bustle of the big city - on purpose. The land is big enough to have my studio and shop out back and a whole herd of miniature horses too. My new friend agreed it was a nice life style. Then I went on...
The internet allowed me to present a face to the world, to show our wares in an attractive fashion. Our work, spread out far and wide brought us repeat and new business as well. I explained to him how we had purposely downsized our business over a decade ago, going from more than twenty full time employees to only a handful of part time ones. We were currently marketing our second seasonal business, planning to simplify things once again. We were not seeking to grow our business in a traditional way, but rather focus it towards better and better work over time.
I explained to the fellow that it was all a gradual process begun more than four decades ago. I likened it to throwing a pebble in a pond. The splash is small, but the rings spread quickly. As we all know, if you pick the perfect rock and throw it just right the rock will skip, bouncing many times as it flies over the water. Instead of one set of rings, there will be many. The same small rock can cause a much bigger effect. This is exactly how we are seeking to currently grow our business. I’m looking for those nice flat, smooth, perfectly balanced skipper stones. The carefully planned, highly imaginative projects are the ones I am seeking, promoting and taking on. They don’t have to be large but rather the right fit for us at this stage in our career. They have to be of award winning quality, good enough to be featured in magazines. We are finding them too. And amazingly as we go on they are finding us. It is extremely exciting - especially as we turn the corner into 2011. It is an exciting time to be in business.
If you are looking for me I’ll be out at the edge of the pond teaching Phoebe to throw rocks...
Happy New Year to everyone.
-grampa dan
His comment made me smile. And disagree. Then I let him know why.
The truth is there has never been a better time to be in business. But it can’t be a half hearted try. It has got to be the absolute best we can do. It also can’t be a business that offers what everyone else is doing. Unless you want a business that is based on the lowest price you had better think of something few others can do - a niche market. Modern technology allows us to spread the word and get out there like never before. Modern tools and materials allow us to do things we could previously only imagine.
The fellow from Ontario was amazed we were so far from the city -as he put it “out in the middle of nowhere”. He asked why. I told him we had carefully chosen our location after exhaustive research and planning. Where else could we live on a small acreage, surrounded by farmland, and yet in the center of a small town. Better yet we are close to family and have gorgeous views that surround us. And we also live far from the hustle and bustle of the big city - on purpose. The land is big enough to have my studio and shop out back and a whole herd of miniature horses too. My new friend agreed it was a nice life style. Then I went on...
The internet allowed me to present a face to the world, to show our wares in an attractive fashion. Our work, spread out far and wide brought us repeat and new business as well. I explained to him how we had purposely downsized our business over a decade ago, going from more than twenty full time employees to only a handful of part time ones. We were currently marketing our second seasonal business, planning to simplify things once again. We were not seeking to grow our business in a traditional way, but rather focus it towards better and better work over time.
I explained to the fellow that it was all a gradual process begun more than four decades ago. I likened it to throwing a pebble in a pond. The splash is small, but the rings spread quickly. As we all know, if you pick the perfect rock and throw it just right the rock will skip, bouncing many times as it flies over the water. Instead of one set of rings, there will be many. The same small rock can cause a much bigger effect. This is exactly how we are seeking to currently grow our business. I’m looking for those nice flat, smooth, perfectly balanced skipper stones. The carefully planned, highly imaginative projects are the ones I am seeking, promoting and taking on. They don’t have to be large but rather the right fit for us at this stage in our career. They have to be of award winning quality, good enough to be featured in magazines. We are finding them too. And amazingly as we go on they are finding us. It is extremely exciting - especially as we turn the corner into 2011. It is an exciting time to be in business.
If you are looking for me I’ll be out at the edge of the pond teaching Phoebe to throw rocks...
Happy New Year to everyone.
-grampa dan
Very well put.. to some people it may not seem that easy. The work is out there. For the people who have put there time in with quality products and have repeat clients...good marketing can keep new clients coming to them.
