XYLEM CHRONOMETRICS
Some suggestions for success::: Discriminate your wood work as quite different from plastic, particle board, etc by advising prospective customers of true qualities of solid wood.
These include but are not limited to ability to repair, toughness, durability, cosmetic beauty, odor and ability to show handsome and random figure available from few other materials.
Wood also allows us to fabricate and ship repair parts, re-finish to like-new condition, and perform limited and quite reasonable maintenance even for heritage type products (like a cherry cradle I made 25 years ago). Further, you can FIX it !! Try fixing a plastic toy or chair or glass table !!
Then tell folks how you personally select your wood. Describe the trip and what you're looking for in wood materials. Most customers just don't know that we spend lots of time looking for quarter-sawn lumber and figure, arcs, rays, striations, birds-eyes, tight knots, fiddleback and on and on.
Counsel your customers that this fact alone ensures that each and every piece we make is so fully unique that you can guarantee there is no other piece in the world exactly like the one they are buying.
Next, qualify the buyers. Who buys your stuff? At one time I made kid's wooden toys. I ran ads in papers, attended Church sales, auctions and went to flea markets to market them. I had to sell them below cost or give them away!
Now, I make executive toys and I mean Executive. I sell Front Loaders 24" long made of exotic woods. Some include battery powered recordable and re-recordable messages, some include musical tracks. Some of my toys include both. Some include solar powered devices. I finish these so nice and smoothe..some with a french polish, that they are just incomparablel with what is on the market. People buy these for $ 450 and up.
My products all include a very visible and very neat brass tag with the owner's name as well as my name, email, link name "XYLEM CHRONOMETRICS " (translates to "wood clocks"), date of manufacture in Latin, Model and sequential Serial Number and lifetime warranty.
Now, I don't build a typical grandfather or mantle clock. Typically, I call these "unmatched stacks of spare wood." You can't compete with the prices available in discount stores. But a clock with the XYLEM name on it??? WOW !
I do build clocks that are unique to a family. I have even strategically searched for (and manipulated into design) the tight knots to spell out initials ! If you line up all clocks for a family generation and face them in the same direction and in sequential order, you will see on each horizontal piece, the common grain of the same piece of lumber across the complete line of 4 or 5 clocks.
These innovative clocks go to each residence of each family in the carefully chosen generation. I do not believe anyone else in the universe does this. I also believe no one in the universe is paid $ 18,000 for these 5 clocks...except me. This is a heritage set for very special families. The heritage set is invaluable, precious and virtually without duplication. Further, the set is really valuable and quite likely will grow in value consistently.
It is not difficult to imagine, four or five generations down the road, the heirs of these folks meeting and bringing their clocks with them to once again see the grain of the several pieces of lumber married together.
My advertising is primarily "Show 'N Tell" which results in word of mouth interloping about..."wait till I show you a precious piece of woodwork I was able to obtain for my study!" "It has pieces with sequential wood grain for each and every one of my children. This is the Stradivarius of woodworking!"
Try placing a sample of one of your products (doesn't have to be clocks) in a secured beveled glass case in a really exclusive restaurant, bookstore, hotel (like the Four Seasons in New York) as a decoration. Your stuff is so neat, the exclusive location will do this for free and your very visible brass plate is all the advertising you will EVER need.
Now, I won't tell you where my products are displayed or where they are sold, but if you are really serious about quality woodwork and quality timepieces (some with atomic correction features for pendulum clockworks exclusive to me) you can make some bucks.
Good luck. Hope this helps some of you!
Successful Selling of Wood Products
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