Verdaccio
MGF, Master Grumble Framer
"What I know now..."
My latest compressor failure has set me to thinking about the things I did not know when I started my shop, and my "evolving knowledge" of how to do this business properly - primarily about equipment and things I bought that I frankly did not need, and ways of buying that are smarter. I thought it would make a for a good read to those who might be considering getting into this business if we all chipped in some of our learned knowledge...
I would ask that these should be read as "evolving truths" for the individual and their situation and business - they won't apply to everyone, nor will everyone's opinions on the items be the same. It should also be realized that we are all running running running to keep our shops alive and sometimes things that seem so simple or basic slip past us until something happens that calls them out...
Here are a few from me, three-years on:
1. Take care of your compressor...and thereby your underpinner and your CMC if you are fortunate enough to have one. If the compressor fails, you will likely have oil in the lines to each of the other two and you will have to replace filters and such on the other two and check them out thoroughly for damage. Having any one of these out of commission can put your shop out of commission and you scrambling over say...Christmas weekend...as I just have been doing.
2. Pick five mouldings, and buy them by the box, discount them slightly, and sell them to any customer who states an issue with price. Have the samples right there on your design table...explain that you buy them by the box and that thereby you can sell them for less. People love to get a deal and those mouldings can be sale savers.
3. Buy five boxes of 5/8ths Vnails, and one box of two other sizes...not five boxes of each size nail. I find that 95% of the mouldings I use will take a 5/8ths Vnail and two nails in each corner will suffice. The only other one I ever seem to use is the 3/8ths...and that only very occasionally.
4. Build smart organization for your remnant mats and framestock, and know what you have and use those remnant pieces to lower your costs. It is easy to start out with nothing and get into that "just buy" cycle and take like two years to really begin checking every board and moulding against what you already have in stock before you order. My COGS has reduced by more than half over the past year. Seems like logic that only a fool would not recognize as a key to this business...but I did not realize it nor value it until I was drowning in remnant matboard and mouldings. I don't generally consider myself to be a fool...but I sure wish I had learned that lesson closer to the end of year one when I had built up enough stock to begin using it effectively to lower my COGS.
My latest compressor failure has set me to thinking about the things I did not know when I started my shop, and my "evolving knowledge" of how to do this business properly - primarily about equipment and things I bought that I frankly did not need, and ways of buying that are smarter. I thought it would make a for a good read to those who might be considering getting into this business if we all chipped in some of our learned knowledge...
I would ask that these should be read as "evolving truths" for the individual and their situation and business - they won't apply to everyone, nor will everyone's opinions on the items be the same. It should also be realized that we are all running running running to keep our shops alive and sometimes things that seem so simple or basic slip past us until something happens that calls them out...
Here are a few from me, three-years on:
1. Take care of your compressor...and thereby your underpinner and your CMC if you are fortunate enough to have one. If the compressor fails, you will likely have oil in the lines to each of the other two and you will have to replace filters and such on the other two and check them out thoroughly for damage. Having any one of these out of commission can put your shop out of commission and you scrambling over say...Christmas weekend...as I just have been doing.
2. Pick five mouldings, and buy them by the box, discount them slightly, and sell them to any customer who states an issue with price. Have the samples right there on your design table...explain that you buy them by the box and that thereby you can sell them for less. People love to get a deal and those mouldings can be sale savers.
3. Buy five boxes of 5/8ths Vnails, and one box of two other sizes...not five boxes of each size nail. I find that 95% of the mouldings I use will take a 5/8ths Vnail and two nails in each corner will suffice. The only other one I ever seem to use is the 3/8ths...and that only very occasionally.
4. Build smart organization for your remnant mats and framestock, and know what you have and use those remnant pieces to lower your costs. It is easy to start out with nothing and get into that "just buy" cycle and take like two years to really begin checking every board and moulding against what you already have in stock before you order. My COGS has reduced by more than half over the past year. Seems like logic that only a fool would not recognize as a key to this business...but I did not realize it nor value it until I was drowning in remnant matboard and mouldings. I don't generally consider myself to be a fool...but I sure wish I had learned that lesson closer to the end of year one when I had built up enough stock to begin using it effectively to lower my COGS.
] fellow at the Franks Fabric booth, and got to know him {his name is Baer and he lives in Oregon}. I ended up taking some classes of his through PPFA, and I have also used him as another unofficial mentor. I'm not sure he even knows how much of a help he has been.
