Author: fitz

You never know where a comment on an Instagram or blog post may take you. In this case, a comment by woodworker Adam Godet was the impetus for a seminar in our nation’s capital.

“Great post!” he wrote. “Love your work on this topic…have you ever thought of doing an in-person class on this topic? I would love the opportunity to go in depth on this stuff, imagine others would too…”

Undeterred by my reluctant reply, he contacted me a few days later. I’m sharing most of his note here, with his permission, because it’s the best way I can convey what this event will be about.

There is a charge to attend; part goes to the owner of the venue, and part will go toward the cost of the extra day away from my shop required for me to put this on.

Ms. Hiller,

I am following up on our brief correspondence on the LAP blog regarding my recommendation for a class on the business of woodworking. I did not respond sooner because I wanted to go back and look at the blogs and your book and make sure I wasn’t just being lazy and missing things.

While I can always learn more from reading things multiple times, I do know that I learn better when I’ve discussed the ideas and tried to apply them (especially if that application takes place in classroom and not in real life). That is how I think a class on the business (and life?) of a professional woodworker could be most helpful: simply taking the ideas you’ve written about and taking a group of students a little bit further with them.

I’m imagining a seminar in which we go through several modules…each student brings his/her own experiences and together, we discuss how we could best handle situations and talk about shared challenges.  You could perhaps frame out some general overarching principles to all of the experiences you’ve shared.

A few topics I’d love to cover:

1. Difficult customers has to be one…your writing on this hilarious and I know there must be details that haven’t made it into print. While helpful and entertaining to read those stories, I think people could benefit from trying to discuss how they would handle a situation, and perhaps share how they have done it in the past.

2. Pricing. This is the biggest challenge for everyone I know doing this kind of work. I’d love to hear how you do it, in detail, and discuss with a group when to use fixed prices vs. time/materials, how/if you negotiate prices, etc. Do you have spreadsheets or other technical tools you could share?

3. Accounting tips. Again, this is a big challenge…and information is available in other places on the general concepts, but working through your experiences and discussing class member’s approaches could be useful.

4. Marketing/Scaling…you talk in the book about the aversion to having an employee…I think many feel that and want to do everything (except maybe the literal heavy-lifting) on their own. How do you market to get more work and then what do you do when you have a long backlog (and have a life)?

5. Work-life balance. Woodworking in a time-intensive profession…how do you extricate yourself at the end of the day? How do you organize your day–splitting up writing, woodworking, client meetings, etc.

6. Social media…how do you do it effectively and still get pieces out the door on time. Is it actually beneficial to your bottom line?

I actually read Making Things Work twice, and then bought more copies to give away. To me, this class would be an extension of that work and help some of dive deeper into the topics you’ve laid out there.

Why I think this is a good idea:

– You already have a ton of material

– It does not require a woodshop, so it could be anywhere.

– Much of the book focused on opening the eyes of daydreamers…this class would take the next step of helping those of us who read your warning, but are hurtling forward anyway 🙂

If you are interested in pursuing this further, I am ready to help with whatever I can offer to help get it off the ground.

Adam has gone above and beyond to make this event a reality. I’m really looking forward to it.–Nancy R. Hiller, author of Making Things Work

Every so often someone contacts me to ask for advice about quitting a day job and going into furniture making as a full-time endeavor. They’ve taken some classes and built some pieces — sometimes eye-poppingly impressive ones — on their own time. Some have had paid commissions and amassed a months’-long backlog for more paid work that leads them to think it’s time to take the plunge. Inundated by images of other woodworkers on social media — usually without any indication as to which ones are making furniture for a living, as distinct from in their spare time, or those who work at it full-time with support from a well-employed partner* — the people who contact me with this deeply existential inquiry seem to feel they’re missing out on the #selfemployedandlovingit lifestyle.

I invariably ask about their circumstances. Do they live alone? Have a family to support? Is there a partner with a regular source of income and benefits such as health insurance (which, depending on your age and other factors, can easily cost more per month than a mortgage)? I also point out that the good times can’t be relied upon to last; when your household income depends entirely on making furniture — a product that most people consider desirable, rather than necessary — economic downturns can be devastating.**

But self-employment is not the only option. In the past month I’ve heard from three furniture makers who are looking to hire.

Running my own furniture business was my dream, too, when I completed the basic City & Guilds furniture training in 1980. Luckily for me, I was disabused of that dream by my first woodworking employer, Roy Griffiths, who paid me to learn what full-time professional woodworking might mean. (I say “might mean” by way of acknowledging that every woodworker’s situation is different.) I followed that experience with work in another English workshop, then came back to the States and learned a whole new set of techniques and lessons about the business side of furniture making at Wall-Goldfinger in the late 1980s. To be clear, at no time during those years did I view myself as jumping from one employer to another in order to learn; I’m portraying my employment experiences in terms of learning here because I now have a sense of the invaluable education I obtained by working for others.

If you’re contemplating going pro, consider the traditional route — that of working for an established woodworking business. You will learn a ton of new techniques (trust me; every shop I’ve worked in has done things differently) in addition to gaining insight into what making furniture or cabinets on a daily basis really entails. You will also learn about the business of woodworking in the most real-world way. And you will be paid for this learning!

— Nancy Hiller, author of Making Things Work

*Save your outraged comments. I mean no disparagement to anyone. I’m simply pointing out that curated images on social media lead to inferences that in many cases do not match the underlying reality.

**Stay tuned for my interview with Aimé Ontario Fraser, who speaks poignantly about her own experience during the Great Recession. Also check out Paul Downs’s book, which is an excellent read.