Are your marketable woodworking skills going unused? Become your own boss with this beginner’s guide to starting a woodworking business.
Are you thinking about starting a woodworking business?
Maybe you’ve made some incredible pieces for family and friends and they encouraged you to start a woodworking business.
Starting your own business is an admirable, and sometimes scary venture. There are risks involved, as only 20% of businesses survive their first year.
How can you be sure that you’re not another addition to the failure rate of small businesses?
Read this guide for tips on starting a woodworking business.
Write a Business Plan
Many business owners overlook writing a business plan because it takes too much time to do. Others figure that they don’t need it because they’re not looking for funding.
Don’t make the same mistake. Without a business plan, you are running a business flying by the seat of your pants. Sure, that may sound like fun, but in order to create a professional, sustainable business, you need a plan.
A business plan will help you see potential pitfalls in your business and take an objective look at how to overcome them. It also serves as a way to create benchmarks for growth and success.
A should have an executive summary, description of services, a competitive analysis, and your mission and vision statements.
You need to have a firm grasp of your financials and how you plan to market your business, too.
The most important areas are covered in-depth below.
What’s Your Niche?
One of the keys to starting a woodworking business is to know what products you’re offering and why.
Choosing a niche will help you communicate what you do and for whom. It will help you separate qualified leads from people who will waste your time.
For example, you might specialize in custom kitchens or bedroom furniture made from recycled wood.
Business owners fear specializing in one area because they’re afraid of locking out potential business.
A niche helps you market better, which is critical at the outset. Once you have one niche established, you can always expand to another niche.
Take a look at American Fabric Filter. This is a company that sells custom filter bags and transfer fees. You’ll notice that they serve many industries, too. They’re not stuck with one product or one industry.
Identify Your Target Customer
Knowing who you serve is another important step to creating your business plan. This will also help you in your marketing efforts. You want to know who you’re selling your products to so well, you’re able to speak directly to them.
You want to know who they are, where they live, where they shop, why custom wood products are important to them. You want to be able to speak to their values and challenges in finding quality wood products.
That will make you more relatable. If you can relate to your potential customers, the more likely they are to trust you. The more they trust you, the more likely they are to buy from you.
Financial Projections
Financial projections may be the last thing you want to do, but when you’re starting a woodworking business, this can be the most important.
Did you know that most businesses fail due to lack of profits or cash flow?
Start off by noting all of your . This should include your time to make products, the cost of goods to produce the item, marketing expenses, and office expenses.
Next, write down your sales projections.
Entrepreneurs are confident people. It’s just in their nature. Sometimes, that confidence can get in the way of creating sound financial projections.
Take the emotion out of your finances and be realistic when you’re writing your financial projections.
Marketing Your Woodworking Business
There are countless ways to market a business. The mistake that business owners tend to make is that they’ll jump on the latest shiny object that some marketing “guru” talked about. They’ll try it for a few weeks, won’t get the sales fast enough and then jump to the next shiny marketing tool.
That’s not a way to start a woodworking business. Your marketing should be consistent with the marketing message down to your daily marketing tasks.
Develop the Right Relationships
Any good business is built on relationships. You need to have relationships with people in your community, vendors, customers, and employees.
To build long-lasting business relationships, focus on what you can do for others. If you focus too much on what others can do for you, you miss out on the opportunity to build a quality relationship.
That business relationship is just another transaction, and if every relationship becomes a transaction, then you’re going to cycle through people.
That’s not a good way to start and build a sustainable business.
Build a Website
A website can be so much more than five static pages of information about your business.
You can use your website as a way to capture leads, sell products online, and tell the story of your business.
Social Media
Social media can be a powerful tool to show off your handcrafted products. People love images, and the more visual you can be, the better.
There are at least a dozen social channels where you can appear. You don’t have to stress yourself out by posting on every single one.
Pick the top one to three channels that your ideal client is likely to use. Then focus on mastering those channels.
As for content, you can post stories about what inspires you to create certain items, give behind the scenes look at your shop, or demonstrate how you work with clients.
Starting a Woodworking Business One Step at a Time
When you’re starting a woodworking business, there is an endless amount of work to do. You have to market your business, sell your services to customers, and make sure those customers are happy customers.
That’s how you get repeat and referral customers and build momentum for your business.
Then you can scale up, add employees, and continue on an upward path. It’s not easy, as it takes focus and discipline.
It also takes having the right systems and procedures in place. That’s where At Your Business can help.
Check out our for starting your business today.
