Becomng professional

[Chicken lady]

So, this is my third year doing an annual holiday sale at the large studio where I take classes.

it will also be my third sale this year.

A long time time ago I did some art shows, but those were different - sales of a small number of pieces selected by the show, so I am basically just getting off the ground here.

i had work at a local store for a while, which was ok, but she changed her consignment policy and it is too stilted toward her with not enough benefit to me, so I am done there. The spring sale was good, the fall sale was a waste of time, so I need to find a new fall sale, and I would like to find one early in the year (pre-valentines maybe)

things i I have learned (I already knew a lot about booth presentation and taking food):
Record everything you take to the show - style, color, size, price...so that you can take post sale inventory and know exactly what sold.
take a pretty notebook so people can sign up for your mailing list
get buisiness cards! (On my todo for this week. My graphic design kid made them, I need to print them)

things I know I need to do:
keep better records about time required to produce various items and material costs for pricing decisions. (What do you have to sell this for to pay yourself a reasonable wage? If it doesn’t sell at that price, stop making it or justify why not - hippos pay less than minimum wage but are often made while I am doing something else and they are fun.)

look into square
look look into becoming an actual buisiness (llc?)
look into etsy
make a website?

i would love feedback from people ahead of me on this journey or people who are craft/art fair customers and also company (Zoe girl?)

[Teacher Terry]

Both my Mom and a good friend sold items they made and said they didn't even make minimum wage for the effort. My Mom did it anyways because she was retired and enjoyed it. My friend quit after about 10 years because she also worked f.t. and her time was more valuable. This was in the Midwest where people just did not want to pay much for things.

[Float On]

We use to do 35-42 art fairs a year and even then wholesale was 75% of our business. We did 4 major wholesale shows a year. Pottery does well at art shows while the rest of us were struggling in the economic crash our potter friends thrived. I may have shared some websites with you another time this came up. Ill add those later, for now http://www.artfairinsiders.com/forum is a good starting place. Read thru the forums. Ask at library if they have any artfair guides for the state.

We incorporated....I'd stick with llc.
Etsy is a heck of a lot of work. I did well on it but it is constantly changing you have to constantly be putting new items on to stay in front of people. You can't just upload 12 items and sit back and wait. Look over other potters pages and study them. Read through the forums (don't know if you can have access to those unless you are a seller).
Website is good. Some people now find a facebook page for their business is what they update more often than their website. Weebly is easy.
How are your photography skills?
The business and marketing end of having a business are 80% of the work.

[Chicken lady]

Wow float on! This will never be more than a side thing for me! I teach. My current solid goal is to work up to 6 shows a year and my “stretch” goal is to learn to do the online thing.

i can handle the “business” (accounting, inventory, product analysis...) part. So far photography, tech support, and marketing design have been “free” as a reward for not eating my young. (As in I was running around at set up last night showing people my cool new business cards that my kid made)

Can you you have a Facebook page that is just a business and not have a personal page at all?

so, the sale is today and tomorrow. I am mostly set up, but I didn’t quite get finished because the “booths” are work spaces and the person who uses mine ignored the request to clean the booth before the sale. I spent almost an hour tucking their belongings away on their shelves and actually CLEANING before I could set up. (I don’t rent a studio space because I have a studio at home, this person isn’t doing the sale because ?) also I forgot my lamp and one of my backdrop cloths (we cover the shelves with backdrops and put out work on the work tables. It’s a nice set up - all the hardscape is there and each spot has an outlet.

so, I will go early and finish my set up and also inventory my booth - I meant to write down what I took and compare to what is left after instead of trying to keep track of what goes during the sale, but got too overwhelmed in the packing up. I will also take some pics of my booth for my own reference.

anyway, I am excited and I woke up at 4:45. Dh and I have a date tonight (he’s picking me up from the sale) so I will be dead tomorrow. My plan for that is coffee and sugar. (And hope the sale goes well!)

[Zoe Girl]

I can just speak to facebook, yes it can be just a business one. I have a friend who just is Joe Smith - author. He only posts about his books and writing.

I was hoping to do at least one type of fair this year or even just get my mailing list going but it is a lot of work. So good luck on this, I think it could be a lot of fun as long as your expectations are pretty clear,

[Chicken lady]

Can it be a business one that is just "pottery business name" and I don't have a "my real name" Facebook page?

1st day of the sale went really well. Taking notes, heading back for day 2 soon.

[Float On]

Chicken lady. I believe you can still do that ours was our business name, I can't remember if a business has to be linked to a personal page or not. It didn't when I set mine up.
Glad your first day went well.
We always took an inventory sheet. That way at the end of the year we knew we needed to make time in our year calendar to make what we'd sold the previous year and have an idea what sold better at what shows. Based on previous years we might take 12 boxes of sculptures and only 2 boxes of blown work or vice versa.

[Zoe Girl]

Can it be a business one that is just "pottery business name" and I don't have a "my real name" Facebook page?

1st day of the sale went really well. Taking notes, heading back for day 2 soon.

Yes i beleive so, or just not put your real name. I have one old email address that does nothave my name included for privacy too

[Chicken lady]

Going to go through what I brought home and tally up what sold this afternoon, but so far my first lesson is to take the regular bowls I made that didn’t sell because they were just pretty colors and silk screen cats on them. I have one remaining cat plate.

makes me think of portlandia....

[razz]

One customer's viewpoint...

I just attended the local potters' guild show this weekend. I was amazed at the prices that were being charged - $40 for a relish tray!
I do know and understand that one is paying for the expertise as well as the material and time but I declined to spend that much.

What I am willing to pay for is uniqueness and individuality expressed. EG: I needed a flower pot of a certain size as a focal point for my dining table. There was one delightful pot that had the tail curling around the lip of the pot with the head of the cat where a handle might be. I was very tempted but it was too small for my need and a bland gray colour. I saw so many mugs of all shapes, colours and sizes but the handles were hard to get my fingers into, they narrowed at the drinking edges(?), and my cupboards don't have much room for bulky cups. I have china cups that stack neatly. Teapots were very small but pretty.

I loved how some potters had their own style - everything was a combo of black and white or luminescent rainbows or floral features ...

[Chicken lady]

I have a lot of unglazed black and white work “painted with fire”, it’s part of what sets me apart from the rest of the show. Prices range from $10-$75. I had a few sales at each end, nothing in the middle this weekend. What I made money on was $10 trinket dishes that could have been made by a ten y.o.

Nobody actually wants to pay for time and skill. Everybody stops to admire. Then they buy a cat dish.>8)

i bought a small, flat rectangular tray (relish tray? Sushi? Hors d’ouvre?) And 4 matching little plates (saucer sized) for Dd for Christmas - $62 just the plates - assorted and unmatching ($30) for me, and 2 mugs ($18 And $20) not one of them had a cat on it.

[Tybee]

Nobody actually wants to pay for time and skill. Everybody stops to admire. Then they buy a cat dish.>8)



I am one of those stop and admire and then pick up something small. It is totally a matter of affordability. I want to pay for time and skill, but it is not in my fixed income retirement budget, so I just admire.

Customers can be limited in funds, or space, or both.

[Chicken lady]

What bugs me is that faced with a choice between a small $10 or $12 art piece representative of my work and a $10 item I knocked out in 15 minutes demonstrating to elementary school kids, they pick the $10 item - because it has a cat on it!

my Dd was appalled at the trinket dishes. Then a woman went by and said “oh! I can’t leave without a couple of these cute little dishes!” After she left Dd gave me an incredulous look and I just shrugged and said “they pay for the booth.”

As a person who loves beautiful things and knows broke - I try really hard to have enough low end pieces that I don’t run out. Maybe too hard - I can get the jump from $10 to $50 but not often from $10 to $15.

[iris lilies]

I am in the demographic where I can buy higher end pottery, and sometimes do, now that I have a use for it. I use it in floral designs for flower shows and etc. I buy a nice piece sbout every 2~3 years. The last one was $250. It had no cats on it. :). Flower show ladies like abstract stuff.

[sweetana3]

I stop at every booth or stand to see cat items. May or may not buy them but they stop me in my tracks. Sometimes that is what is necessary to get the other items attention.

[Float On]

A tip from our accountant he always told us every year to get rid of the bottom 10%.
Funny about the cats what we always heard was "do you make a glass cat?" or "oh I'd love to buy this but I have a cat." We actually did have another glassblowing friend who ended up having a pretty successful career with her little sleeping cat sculpture and I knew of a couple of ladies I'd run into in Philly at the big wholesale show who's entire line was blown cat vases. I actually did buy a really nice pottery little bowl and plate set this summer....for my feral cat. Darn possum pulled the plate off the porch the other night and chipped it.
I think my most expensive pottery purchase was a large vessel that looks like a woven basket for $800. But I also buy a lot of pottery star ornaments for $5-6 each. I like to put them on christmas gifts as part of the wrapping bling. Are you making star ornaments? People love little misshaped pottery bowls so as silly/boring as you think they are I'd still make a bunch of them and as you say they are the bread-n-butter and pay the booth fee. They are great for candles, sauces, rings, etc...
Part of the price point thing is the type of show it might be and the time of year. October was always still personal shoppers - people adding to their collection. November was getting into the buying inexpensive for others gift crowd.

[Zoe Girl]

I just went to an art show. lots of amazing artists. My sister bought a wreath she really liked and talked with the artist. I bought a bracelet for a friend made out of stones I liked. I saw a lot more I liked but not really anything I could use in such a small apartment. However I tried to talk to artists when I could.

I saw a lot of junk, a million snowmen that looks more like mas produced stuff from China than handcrafted. That kinda bothered me, but I assume that is what people need to do to pay for the booth. I wish I had made a list of things I was looking for so I could buy some things, however we did pay a small entrance fee to support.

[Chicken lady]

Oh yes, I will keep making the cat plates. Even though I feel about them like the snowmen that were mentioned. I will not make little Japanese tea bowls anymore because they don’t sell well at a price that pays for my time and effort. And they are too small to put cats on. I am going to put cats on my fiestaware colored bowls that are just plain (The already made ones) because they are definitely my bottom ten percent. And then not make any more of those also. The heavier earth tone bowls sell better.

the booth next to me had a lot of flower themed things which didn’t sell well because of time of year, but she also had tons of snowflake and star ornaments, so she was pretty much selling those and showing off her other work and getting a mailing list for spring shows.

I do have a signature ornament that sells pretty well, and that will be in the studio gallery for the next four weeks. the hippos are trending right now as well.

[nswef]

How wonderful Cl that you are seeing a pattern of sorts and are able to make plans for what to produce next. Paying the booth rent is valuable even if the objects aren't your favorite.

[Teacher Terry]

I think that this time of year people are looking at small items as gifts for co-worker's, etc so don't want to spend a lot of $.

[Chicken lady]

So, I checked through my remaining inventory,and assuming minimal or no shoplifting, it was my new best sale! (Yay cat plates!)

I got an e-mail from the store I used to have pieces in telling me someone had asked if she would have my ornaments at her open house this year. I had to tell her no. I like her and appreciate the opportunity she gave me, (which I told her) but her commission is too high. (Which I also told her less directly)

she prides herself on how on how much she does for her consigners, but she changed her consignment policy because “I really want to help you all, but I am just not making enough money. It’s a business decision.” Her thought is that she has rent, advertising, and credit card processing fees, plus she has to keep track of the sales (using her personal complicated system which requires me to put an invidual numbered inventory sticker on each item, write it on her paper form, and wait as she personally checks each line item and initials it)

i live ten minutes from her store. I put my e-mail and mailing address on her list. I drive past her store to shop at a feed store two blocks from her that has a community bulletin board and a local business advertising table. I am not on Facebook. I didn’t know her open house was this weekend until she asked about the ornaments. Awesome advertising!

She also hands out coupons for her special events (available at the register) giving ten percent off and doesn’t let you opt out or take that from her share. So I had to mark the ornaments up to $15 in order to gross $10.50 or $9.45 after coupon. The ornaments cost about 80 cents in materials and take almost an hour total to make.

at the studio where they are currently hanging in the gallery, I drop them off in a box labeled with my name and the price. (13.50) I gross $10.80 each and sell more.

i pretty much told her it was unfortunately a business decision because the current location is already a stop in my schedule and has a more generous consignment policy.

If she wants the ornaments, she can ask what I would be willing to work out ($11 each for me and she can price them) I also told her she was welcome to give my e-mail to the person who asked (she probably won’t. I would have. A personality difference that keeps me from feeling the gratitude she seems to expect when she gushes about how much she does for her consigners - it’s transactional, not personal.)

[nswef]

Good for you CL, making decisions wise for you! congrats on having your best sale ever!