Do you have some sort of talent? Maybe you’re good with your hands and putting things together. Have you ever thought of how to make money as a woodworker? If you have, then you’ve come to the right place. Here, you’ll know all the crucial details you’ll need and the factors you have to consider if you want to turn your hands into money-makers.
Important legal issues
Before you can plan or do anything, you first have to sort out the documents needed. As with any type of trade or business, woodworking has specific requirements you need to accomplish before you can legally set it up and start making money.
Check with your local government what documents you’ll need to provide to establish your business. Since different countries have varying rules and restrictions, you must know the details to go about your business smoothly.
These are some of the permits or licenses usually required:
- Business permit
- Occupational license
- Sales tax permit
- Doing business as permit
Ensuring quality
After you’ve dealt with the legal side, you’ll have to focus on your craftsmanship. Properly assess yourself and your skills with no bias.
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Ask yourself these types of questions:
- What level are you now?
- Can you produce high-quality woodworks?
- What type of woodworker are you?
- Do you be a specialist? Or an all-around crafter?
When you enter this type of business, you need to have direction. Moreover, you also need to know your capabilities. Your handmade goods will need to appeal to your potential clients, which means they have to be of high quality. So you should start with the products that you can make with confidence.
It may seem like a good idea, in the beginning, to provide as many choices as possible for customers, but you should keep in mind that quality is better than quantity. Just because you’re starting with a few pieces don’t mean you can’t expand later on. You should first showcase your best creations so that people will recognize you for them.
For example, if you excel in crafting chairs, then create the best chairs that you can. You won’t only be polishing your skills but also presenting high-quality products to your potential clients. If they only see your best works, they’ll associate your business with good craftsmanship. and when you’ve gotten used to the ins and outs of it, you can smoothly proceed to make other items.
Tasks as a woodworker
As a woodworker, you’ll be handling all sorts of woodworks, and therefore need proper tools and skills to work to the best of your capabilities. But it doesn’t merely end with you doing your best. You need to determine your actual capacity to provide an accurate estimate of your services and products.
- What’s the most complicated design that you can make?
- What is the easiest design for you right now?
- How many woodworks can you produce in a week or a month?
- How long does it take you to complete one product?
- Can you handle furniture repairs?
- Do you have a hard time when handling other people’s works?
Your answers to the questions above should more or less give you an idea of where you stand as a woodworker. Plan how to run your business based on your answers, and slowly change and adjust them as you become more skilled.
Furniture maker
If you’re more comfortable with crafting basic items, then you should start in this direction first. You’ll be making all types of indoor and outdoor furniture, from chairs, dining tables, up to all sorts of garden or patio furniture.
It’s also suitable for those just starting since you won’t have to make complicated designs yet. After you’ve mastered the basics and are more skilled, you can start creating more complicated furniture designs. Take some time and look up the kinds of handmade wood products that usually sell. (HANDMADE WOOD PRODUCTS THAT SELL)
Furniture repair
When you’ve honed your skills and have more equipment and experience, you can start accepting wood repair jobs. Repair jobs aren’t only limited to superficial damages, but to internal ones too. In some cases, specific pieces may need to have parts disassembled and replaced, which may be difficult for beginners. That’s why you have to make sure that you’re skilled enough before you accept these types of jobs.
Custom or commissioned work
Once you’ve mastered the basic and advanced wood-crafting skills, you can now accept custom or commissioned pieces. For these types of jobs, you will also need to have good communication skills because you’ll need to explain the process to your customers. There may be times when certain designs will need to change due to structural conflict and similar issues. When this happens, you’ll need to have sufficient people skills to break down the details so your clients can understand why. Besides that, you may also need to collaborate with them to develop the final design. So if you’re not good with people, you may have trouble accommodating special requests like this as they typically take more time.
Selling your products
Online Sites
The easiest way to make your wood products accessible to many buyers is to sell them online. It’s also vital that the photos you use for your products should show their quality. Only use clear and defined pictures so that buyers will see the product’s actual appearance. Include all measurements in the description and the type of wood used. Additionally, you should do a bit of research to know what kind of wood projects sell on eBay and other sites. (WOOD PROJECTS THAT SELL ON EBAY)
Some of the famous sites you should try are
Bazaars
Setting up a table or a stall in bazaars is a good way to introduce new businesses to potential buyers. People are likely to check out your products and buy them during bazaars because they’re able to see the items up close and personal. Any question they might have had online is quickly answered by touching the product and looking at it from different angles. You also get to hear their feedback directly, which will help in your future works. The only downside is that you need to pay to participate in bazaars, which might be troublesome for those on a tight budget.
