How to Start YourOwn Woodworking

Business

Table of ContentsGetting Started.................................................................................................................................................5Setting Up Your Website...................................................................................................................................7Make More Sales On Etsy.................................................................................................................................9How To List Your Business In Online Directories.............................................................................................11Should You Start A Part Time Business ..........................................................................................................12Where to From Here.......................................................................................................................................13

Welcome to How to Start YourOwn Woodworking Business

Welcome to How to Start Your Own Woodworking Business. I would like to start by offeringwhat might seem like a challenging statement but one I believe to be absolutely true.

That is the single best time in decades to start your own Woodworking business. Right now it is notonly possible but in very achievable to create your own six figure woodworking business providedthat you do to things market to the correct audience and brand yourself in the right way.

So what are the factors that are creating these huge opportunities:

Number One: The demand for artisan goods (which definitely includes handmade wood products)is going through a renaissance. People are sick of mass produced goods and want to purchasesomething which is authentic and individualistic.

One of the best examples of this is the Whole Foods grocery chain. Think about Whole Foods for asecond. If you have ever visited a whole foods store you will be familiar with this experience, theycharge more money (sometimes much more) for less food, and people love it! Some people refuseto shop anywhere else and they will tell all of their friends about how much they love Whole Foods.

This is because there is a perceived value to be a whole foods customer. You are not justpurchasing a product you are purchasing a lifestyle. A creator of artisan wooden products you willbe tapping into this same desire. Competing on price is a losing game and unnecessary if youmarket yourself correctly.

Number Two: The explosion of the Internet means that it is now possible to reach morecustomers more easily than ever before. And even this is an under exaggeration. The fact is that itno longer matters what the state of your local economy is like. You can be selling to customers inSweden, Australia, Germany, Canada, Japan.

The truth is no matter how much you grow your business you will never be able to satisfy thisdemand. The reason that many woodworkers believe it is tough to run a woodworking business issimply that they are not reaching the customers which have money. If you are only selling into yourlocal market you will always be severely limited in the people you can reach and how much moneyyou can earn from your business.

Don't know how to reach those people? That's what this manual and the WoodworkingBusiness Success Secrets is all about changing.

If you want to see an example of how powerful this strategy can be, a case in point is DoDo Case.DoDo case produce handmade leather iPad covers using artisan book binding techniques. (youmight be thinking but thats not woodworking, but the principle is EXACTLY the same). Thiscompany did over $1 million in sales in under 3 months, starting from Zero. Thats the power of

positioning yourself correctly. Also bear in mind that they only produce ONE item. There is nothingabout this success story that you could not repeat. You can see an interview with the owner here:

http://mixergy.com/dodocase-patrick-buckley-interview/

Trust me it is not hard to repeat what these other people have done, you don't need to bea technical genius, you don't need to spend a lot of money, you just need to THINK. If youhave found this guide which is only available in digital form, I already know that you havethe technical skills required to meet this market

In this book I will first explain my story and how I got to this point. I will then explain the basic stepsto establishing yourself in your woodworking business. I strongly recommend that when you aregiven an action step that you put the guide away and go and do it and then continue to followthrough.

One of the major reasons that people fail is that they don't take the first important steps whether itsdeciding what product to sell, finding the information that they need to succeed, getting started onthat website they know they need to reach the right customers, or making that first phone call.Simply reading is not enough you need to take action!

Getting Started

In this guide we will not be covering the nuts and bolts of how to be a woodworker. If youare reading this guide you probably already possess the basic skills required to performbasic woodworking tasks. And teaching the skills required for woodworking is a wholeother book in itself!

Instead in this guide we will be looking more specifically at how you can find high quality,repeat customers for your business.

Finding Your Customers

This may sound like an exaggeration but I believe it to be absolutely true and that is thatthere is no shortage of customers who willpay well for the products that you produceand that there is in fact very little seriouscompetition for these customers if youmarket yourself correctly. So how do youget these customers:

First, you must produce a product that

is currently in demand. Second, you

must go where your customers are.

Lets have a look at the first one producinga product that is in demand. Mostbusinesses, and woodworkers areparticularly guilty of this, decide on aproduct that they want to produce first and then they try and find customers for thatproduct.

You may have had this thought yourself, along the lines of this. Perhaps you decided thatyou would like to produce bar stools. By itself there is nothing wrong with this peoplemay very well need barstools.

But imagine this scenario you spend a few months perfecting your bar stools, you havethem just the way that you want them and you are now ready to sell them. BUT when youdo you discover that the market for bar stools is more limited than you would haveguessed and that other woodworkers also enjoy making bar stools and so there are plentyalready being produced. In fact the market is flooded with bar stools. This is actually afairly common occurrence.

Most woodworkers are men and so they produce things that they themselves would like.However the biggest purchasers of artisan wooden products are woman. Who might verywell not want another bar stool.

So what is a far better approach?

First you find out what the market wants and is not currently being provided. And then you give it tothem! Sounds simple right, but very few woodworkers approach there business like this. How canyou do this? You need to listen to your customers and ask them questions. Thankfully due to theInternet it is much easier than ever before to dig up intelligence about what your customer wants.Here is just one of the ways that you can find out how many people are interested in aparticular product. We are going to use what is known as the free Google KeywordPlanner tool. This tool tells us exactly how many people are looking on Google for aparticular product every month. You can access the Google keyword planner tool here:

Free Google Keywood Planner Tool

When you arrive you will see that there is a Word or Phrase next to an empty box. Intothis box write the name of the product that you are thinking of producing. For example if Iam thinking of producing bar stools (follow along with me to see how this works) I enterwooden bar stools and then click search.

I can then see that that there are 12,100 searches every month for this term. That meansthat every month 12,100 people are looking for this product. Can you see how powerfulthese kinds of tools can be?

You don't need to guess what people want to buy, they are telling you by what they writeinto Google and this is only ONE of the ways you can find out what people want.

The sites that you can visit to find out what exactly your customer wants will be covered inmore detail in later editions of the Woodworking Business Success Secrets emailnewsletter. But if you would like to get a head start check out Jim Morgans Woodprofits,where he actually lists the five hottest woodwork products on the market today.Click Here to Access Woodprofits Risk Free

Setting Up Your Website

It should come as no surprise that if you want to reach your customers then you need tohave a website. The is the 21st century and frankly if you don't have a website then youdon't have a business. If you are only marketing at fairs, to the local market or to yourfriends and family then you are missing out on 99.99% of the potential market. And you willalways be vulnerable to changes in the local economy.

Your customer is online. One of the great things is that most woodworkers are not so if youmarket correctly online you will find that there is very little competition. Some people havetried setting up their website before but failed to have much success and come to themistaken conclusion that it doesn't work. 9 times out of 10 though if you ask these peoplehow they promoted that website they will tell you that they did very little or nothing.

Its the equivalent of opening your woodworking business in your garage and notadvertising or even putting a sign up. How are people going to know you are in business.In the email newsletter you will learn powerful ways of driving tons of hungry customers toyour website so that you never have to worry about trying to make a sale again.

But to start with you must have a website in order to have somewhere for these customersto come to. That is what we will cover today.

I have actually found four videos you can watch which will teach you how to setup yourown website in under five minutes.

The first video shows you how to setup your hosting. Hosting is the company which hostsyour website, it's the location that your website is stored. These days hosting is veryinexpensive. Hostgator which is the world largest hosting company and the one I stronglyrecommend you use

has packages starting from $3.96 a month or about a $1 a week so there really is noreason not to have your own website. You can check out hostgators pricing plans here:

Click Here For Hostgator

In order to setup a website you need to have hosting first

The next video will show you how to setup your website (or blog as it is referred to in thevideo) and the next two videos will show you how to make changes to your website. Itreally is pretty simple. Just follow the steps as they are laid out in the video. Pause whenyou need to and you shouldn't have any problems.

Click Here to Watch the Videos

Couple of Key Points: When choosing your domain name make sure to select a .comor .net as your extension. If these are not available then change your domain name slightly

so that you can get one of these. A domain name for example iswww.BillHicksWoodworkDesigns.com I would recommend that you try and incorporate theword woodwork or something similar into your domain name as above.

In the video they refer to a blog rather than a website. This is because today virtually allwebsites are built on the wordpress blogging platform. It is very user friendly once youunderstand the basics which is why it has become the dominant platform. For ourpurposes blog and website mean the same thing.

Make More Sales On Etsy

One of the best woodworking opportunities currently available is selling on the craftwebsite Etsy. Many older woodworkers may be unfamiliar with this hip young upstartwhich is a competitor to sites such as eBay and Amazon.

While Etsy may not be as well known as some of these larger online marketplaces it stilldoes some serious business.

In the month of October 2013 alone there were $115.2 million in sales sold bybusinesses on the website. That was a rise of 40.7% since since October 2012(http://www.etsy.com/blog/news/2013/etsy-statistics-october-2013-weather-report/).

Etsy restricts its businesses are those that produce handmade and craft goods. Thereforeit is the perfect place to sell your handmade woodworking products.

Check out this success story of Little Saplings Toys to see how people are making themost of Etsy and building thriving wood products businesses.

You can find out more about how you can become a success selling the woodworkingproducts on Etsy.

Tip #1 - Developing a brand

The importance of having a personal brand identity can't be overstated. If you are a babyboomer older male you may find it a little bit off putting at first marketing on Etsy given thepopularity of the site with the younger female demographic.

But actually this can be a major selling point if people want to purchase for someone whounderstands their craft. If you spent the last two decades woodworking when you want toinclude this information on your personal profile. Branding is about setting yourself apartfrom the competition so think about what makes you and your products unique.

Tip #2 Have quality photos

The importance of this point cannot be overstated. If you want to sell well on Etsy then youneed to have good quality photos and you need to have antioxidant. If a young mother isgoing to purchase a wooden toy for her child she wants to know exactly what it is, look likefeeling like and whether it is going to be safe. This means taking very detailed photos frommultiple angles. You want have at least five photos to each item that you're selling on thewebsite.

Tip #3 - Get your pricing right

When you sell on Etsy you need to know how to price your items properly.. This includesunderstanding how much time you are really putting into producing your wood products.Your labour is a cost and needs to be accounted for. This is particularly important whenyou're creating handcrafted products like you will be selling on Etsy.

Tip # 5 - Consider guest posting

Guest posting is when you write an article and contribute it to someone else's blogs. Thisis a great way to get exposure for your woodworking business for free. When you writeyour blog post you will include a link back to your Etsy store. You will tap into the audienceof that person's blog. In order to take advantage of this posting you need to understandyour customer demographic.

Who is buying your product? Once you answer this question you can look for blogs whichhave a similar audience. Find the contact details of the blog owner and send them anemail asking if you can contribute a post to this website. You are more likely to get afavourable response on websites that are already read accepting this post. The otheradvantage of this posting is what are called back links. Because you are linking from theguest post to your listing, in the eyes of search engines such as Google the importance ofyour store can become elevated.

Tip #6 - Answer questions, politely and promptly

As with most online marketplaces you need to make sure that your answering questionspromptly and politely. This can be sometimes a little frustrating when it is the 20th time youhave been asked the same question, but it is an important part of success on the site.Your customers are your most valuable asset and so you need to be sure that yournurturing them. You may want to include a list of FAQs on your listing to cut down onunnecessary questions.

Tip #7 - Thank your customers when they order

The moment that you receive an order in the mouth and email saying thank you and tellingthem when you plan to post the there would products. They will receive correspondencefrom Etsy but many people do not check these emails. A personal email from you can go along way to increasing customer satisfaction.

Tip #8 - Create a comprehensive listing

You need to make sure that you would products feel listings are as comprehensive aspossible. Think about how your customer is likely to use your wood product. Give adviceabout how it can be used. Make sure to include the dimensions including the size and

inches and centimeters. Explain how it will be packaged and why it is going to arrive attheir home safely. Also make sure to fill out the tags comprehensively as this can help toincrease the chance that your products will be found.

Etsy is a great opportunity for the woodworkers to sell the cross. Make sure that you intomaking the most of this opportunity and growing your business using this thriving onlinemarketplace.

How To List Your Business In Online DirectoriesMany woodworking business owners underestimate the benefits of having theirwoodworking business listed in local online directory. Listing in online directories is freeand can be a great source of customers. Below you can learn more about why you need to have your business listed in a local online very directories.What is a local online directory?A local online directory is somewhere that businesses can list their business for free. Below you can find a list of some of the more popular local online directories:

Yellow Pages City Search Yelp Yahoo! local listings Craigslist Local.com Bing local

Gaining exposure for your businessThe primary reason that you want to be listed in local online directories as so that it is easier for customers to find your business. If someone is looking for information for a local carpenter or wood worker then you want to be sure that you are listed here. One of the good things that many woodworkers are unaware of the likely potential of these online directories and so you may not face much competition in the local area.Search engine benefits of being listed in local online directoriesSearch engines such as Google tend to award local businesses that are listed in local online directories. When you are listed in the local online directory there will be a link from that listing back to your website. This shows Google that you are a real business in your local area. This can help your website to rank higher in the search engines.Which local online directories to list you woodworking businessThere are many different online directories we could potentially list your website. You wantto make sure that you focus your attention on the ones that are most likely to lead to customers. The way to do this is to perform a Google search and see which local directory appears first in the search engines. For example if you lived in Fort Worth you might enter into Google search terms either "Fort Worth Carpenter" or "Fort Worth Woodworking". On the first page of Google you should notice that there is at least one local directory. Make sure that your business is listed in this local directory first. You want to have a complete listing and include photos reviews or video where possible. The more information that you fill in for your listing the more likely that you are to rank highly in that directory. When someone searches using Google they will click through and usually check out the first results in that directory. You want to make sure that you have this premium position.

Should You Start A Part Time Business

Starting a successful woodworking business is not something you simply wake up onemorning and decide you want to do. It requires planning if it is to be financially successful.The major reason that people are unable to take their love of woodworking from a hobby toa business is because they have not educated themselves on how to do so. Here you willdiscover how to get started with your own woodworking business.The major reason that people start a part time woodworking business is because theywant to make more money each week and do so doing something that they love. Manypeople are trying to get by on a very tight budget and there is nothing left over at the endof the week for extras such as medical bills, saving for your childrens college, a vacationor even a few toys.Having a part time woodworking business is great because it is something that fits easilyaround the hours you are working in your full time job. You can work on your woodworkingbusiness in the evening or on the weekends. And the business can be as large or as smallas you want it to be. It really is up to you to decide how much work and much income youwould like to earn from it.Starting a woodworking business does not require a lot of equipment or even a lot ofspace. Provided that you have somewhere to work like a shed or a garage and a fewsimple tools you can get started. It does not even require a lot of technical skill because ifyou are selling wood crafts such as benches, jewellery boxes or walking canes the skillscan be easily learned.Another reason that people like to have their own part time woodworking business is thefact that it allows them to do work that they actually enjoy. Most people who start awoodworking business are already woodworking hobbyists. The opportunity to get paid forsomething that they already enjoy doing for free is difficult to resist. Few jobs are asrewarding creatively as they are financially as woodworking is.Finally selling wood crafts is something that you can do from anywhere. Thanks to theinternet it is now possible to reach customers all over the world. In 2011 the number ofeBay million dollar businesses increased by 25% and this was lead by the home andgarden section. Now is the perfect time to be growing an online woodworking business.

Where to From Here

In later issues of the Woodworking Businesss Success Secrets email newsletter you willlearn how to establish your physical business, attract customers and select your product.You will also discover exactly where to go to find high paying customers that will lover yourproducts. These kind of loyal customers will continue to buy from you which is the secretto a sustainable business.

In the meantime make sure to get your website setup so that you are ready to get startedwith the next steps

As for me business is good now but in retrospect I probably wasted about a year and halfwhen I could have had the life I have now. If I had someone telling me exactly what to do Iam sure I could have gotten that business to a thousand dollar in profits within a month ortwo.

I actually used a mixture of different resources, a few of my own Brainstorms and acouple of guesses to get my business going. It did work to some extent but there was a lotof wasted time and dead ends. If I was going to do it all over again I would have usedstraight away the resource that I am going to recommend now.

I didn't put together this resource together, my friend Jim Morgan who runs his own highlysuccessful woodworking business did and he is far more of an expert in these matters than Iam. Maybe in the future I might put my own resource together but probably not. Firstly Jim hasput together what is pretty much the most complete course I can imagine to get started in awoodworking business.

It has all the things I wish I knew when I was getting started and took me those eighteenmonths to learn. When I looked through the course there were plenty of tricks and tactics that Icopied for own my business that saw a serious upswing in my profits.

If you want the freedom of having your own woodworking business and the very goodgood money that comes with it. Don't do what I did and waste your time for a year and halftrying to figure it out all on your own. Get a copy of Jim's course and get started today.

You can try out the course risk free here:

Click Here For Jim Morgan's Wood Profits

He also offers one on one coaching which is great for people getting started as it reallyhelps to have someone who you can ask questions to as they come up.

Thanks for reading my story, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I liked having a chance totell it. Look out for my woodworking business tips in the free email course that I have puttogether for you.

Getting StartedSetting Up Your WebsiteMake More Sales On EtsyHow To List Your Business In Online DirectoriesShould You Start A Part Time BusinessWhere to From Here