Originally posted by Jay H:
[QB] ...If you were to ask me I count about 2 business classes, 4 that have a very liberal definition of the word "business" and 3 fantasies....QB]
Business is a pretty broad topic, Jay. Some classes just fit better there than in other categories. What exactly do you feel is missing from the lineup? Accounting? Buying? Employee relations? Dealing with suppliers? Negotiating a lease? Site selection? Any one of those topics could fill a 2-hour class, but would framers attend?
...Thankfully two years ago I was able to take classes by Carter, Markoff, Bluestone, and Goltz in one show!...
If you can keep up with the classes these four continue to develop, I can't imagine you would be missing much in the "Business" category.
Courses scheduled are those that make money for the organizers. They do it for profit, not for fun, and the instructors have to at least break even. Framers have been clamoring for more business courses for several years, and the education providers are trying to respond. But I guess new business classes are inhibited by reasons like these:
1. The existing instructors and their classes are very good -- a hard act for newcomers to follow.
2. Credibility is everything in that category of courses. Business gurus from other industries are available to teach, but their classes are often too general and do not sell well. Framers do not respect them, as they do the successful business instructors from within the industry.
3. The successful business instructors are successful business leaders, and accustomed to making money. As such, they may command a higher price than typical instructors in other course categories. To put it another way, it costs more for them to step awqay from their routine business activities to teach.
4. Good technical courses attract corporate sponsors who make or sell the products involved. Business courses attract fewer sponsors, because they may be more costly and less obviously beneficial to the sponsors. Kudos to the few corporate sponsors who understand that framers who operate better businesses will eventually buy more of their stuff.
5. The pool of potential business instructors is small. Of the four you mentioned above, I think only Mr. Markoff has daily work in the back room. The others concentrate on running the business, and leave the hands-on framing work to their technical people.
...I don't feel that the execution of quality framing is rocket surgery and yet I counted 44 technical and sales lectures.
Rocket surgery? I love it!
Quality framing is either like that or brain science, I guess.
Seriously, Framers traditionally are good technicians, and are naturally attracted to the topics they can relate to. That's where framing education started about three decades ago. The prevailing wisdom was that better, more creative framing would most directly result in building a stronger, more profitable framing business. To this day, it's easier to strike up a conversation among famers about mat decoration than about cedit card discount rates & fees.
Those traditional framers are not necessarily good business operators, and until the past five years, that didn't seem to matter much. They just threw out the "OPEN" sign and customers flocked in. Times change, and many of those traditional framers are retiring to more profitable or relaxing adventures.
Today's successful frame shop owners, the newcomers and those who are staying in, are more concerned and knowledgeable about running profitable businesses, because the industry has evolved in ways favorable to the better operators. That may explain the relatively new demand for business courses.
[ 06-21-2006, 04:06 PM: Message edited by: Jim Miller ]
