Start & Run a Craft Business. William G. Hynes

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      A craft business can give you a great measure of personal independence.

      In fact, this book will show you how to start no matter what stage you have already reached. It covers topics such as —

      (a) acquiring the skills you need,

      (b) identifying a marketable product,

      (c) setting up a production crafts workshop, and, above all,

      (d) making your business profitable to achieve financial independence.

      The value of financial independence has never been greater. Inflation, high unemployment, and general economic uncertainty are going to be with us in the foreseeable future. Rapidly changing technology is making many jobs redundant, and more and more people are succumbing to a feeling that their lives are being altered by economic forces they can neither understand nor control.

      A craft business can give you a great measure of personal independence. You can be free of the nine-to-five grind, the pressures of cranky bosses and unpleasant coworkers, and the constant threat of layoffs. You can be your own boss and set your own working hours and conditions. You can make substantial profits.

      Another big advantage to a craft business is that it is almost totally recession-proof. This is partly because handcrafts are high-quality, durable goods and, equally important, they are perceived by the public to represent quality and durability. Consequently, crafts are seen to be exceptionally good value for money. This helps keep sales up even in times of recession. In addition, the relatively small size and unique flexibility of craft businesses allows them to adapt to changing conditions more quickly and easily than most other kinds of business.

      In addition to all this, a craft business gives you the chance to express yourself creatively, turning out high-quality, aesthetically appealing products.

      But you don’t have to be a creative genius to start a craft business. In fact, you don’t even need to be particularly creative. Many successful craftworkers produce all their work according to traditional designs. Others modify traditional designs to serve their own purposes.

      You can produce hundreds or thousands of “production line” crafts (i.e., multiple copies) of the same design. Or you can concentrate on making one-of-a-kind craft pieces, where each piece is a unique design. There are good markets for both kinds of products in just about any craft medium. Whether you want to work in wood, clay, fiber, glass, or any one of hundreds of natural or synthetic materials, the markets for good-quality handcrafted products are large and growing.

      What about business experience? Perhaps you feel more confident of your craft skills than your ability to market your work, to deal with the business side of things. What if you have no business experience at all?

      Some of the most successful craftspeople around started out with little or no knowledge of business. Many of them even felt that they were not really “business types.” Craftspeople come from the most diverse backgrounds. They are former teachers, plumbers, office workers, truck drivers, nurses, homemakers, just to mention a few. Most had no previous business experience and few would lay claim to any inborn “business sense.”

      What these people had was the desire and the determination to succeed. Most of them learned about business by actually doing business. In the beginning they made mistakes. But these were the kind of mistakes from which they could easily recover, then go back and do things right the next time.

      This is another big plus in starting a craft business. You start out small, so that your mistakes are on a small scale. But if you start a craft business today, you probably won’t make very many mistakes at all.

      This is because times are better than ever for starting a craft business. Anyone starting out today has the benefit of the knowledge and experience of those who have gone before. The pioneers of the craft movement had to learn the hard way. In the early days there were no books like this on craft businesses. The only business books available were theoretical treatises written by academics and books on other types of business that had little or nothing to do with crafts.

      The Internet has also created new opportunities for craftspeople. More and more of them are going online in search of information on techniques and new product ideas, to find suppliers, or to market their work.

      Are there the same opportunities in crafts today as there were a decade or two ago? Isn’t there a lot more competition these days? Yes, it is true there are a lot more craft businesses out there. There are also vastly greater opportunities than ever before because the growth of craft businesses in North America has expanded and increased the public’s awareness of and demand for handcrafted products. As public demand has increased, so has the number of opportunities for craftspeople. One side of the equation fuels the other and there is no end in sight to this exciting trend.

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      How To Get Started

      Perhaps you are already making handcrafted products as a hobby and you want to turn your hobby into a business. Or perhaps you have had no previous involvement in crafts, but have experience in some other kind of business. Either way, you have already acquired some of the knowledge and skills necessary to set up a successful craft business.

      But what if you have never made anything handcrafted? What if you have had no previous business experience of any kind? What are your chances of successfully setting up and operating your own craft business?

      Your chances are as good as anyone else’s. If you are prepared to work hard at mastering the techniques of your chosen craft and if you go about the business side of it in a professional way, you are almost certain to succeed.

      a. What to Make

      Even if you have no previous experience in crafts, you may have definite ideas about what interests you. If certain types of handcrafted products have a special appeal to you, or if you feel that you have a special flair for something, that’s the obvious place to start. You may feel a strong attraction to a particular medium such as leather, stone, or wood. Perhaps you are interested in a particular field such as small gift items, clothing, toys, or tableware, but have no really clear idea about a medium. Wherever your interests lie, there are opportunities for selling your work in most of the traditional and contemporary craft fields.

      Start out with what most interests you.

      If you have no previous craft experience and haven’t the faintest idea of where to start, make a list of your skills or talents, your hobbies, and your job experience. You’ll very likely discover that you are more versatile than you first thought.

      Think of the things you’ve built in your basement workshop: the furniture for the children’s rooms, the bookshelves you made last winter, and all the other bits and pieces you’ve made for the house. You’ve always liked working with wood in your spare time. With a little more experience, you could make almost anything in wood.

      Or perhaps you enjoy knitting and crocheting and are pretty good at it. Think of all the things you make for the children or as Christmas gifts for friends and relatives. Why not try offering some of your fine handknitted sweaters for sale? You’ve seen similar products in craft shops at prices of anywhere from $100 to $250, and many of them were not half as nice as yours.

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