The 6 Steps We Followed to Start and Grow 2 Woodworking Businesses! [full guide]

So we're going to take you on a journey. See, the way we have this set up is it works for total beginners or people who have sold their work before. It's basically a roadmap to your first $11,000 in your business. Building a business is not about learning 10 tips and tricks or finding out the best 5 products that sell for somebody else's business model. It's not even about building the highest quality work in the entire world. It's actually a very simple step-by-step process. It just takes persistence and there aren't really any shortcuts you can take. But once you know that process, once you get the missing information, it's a very straightforward path to success. This video is a bit different for us. We usually don't make these types of videos because they don't perform very well because they're so information dense. But we felt like the world needed this video, so we're making it anyway. If you've been watching our channel for a while, you know that we've been working on a big project over the last few months and we want to share it with you. So if you watch till the end of this video, you'll understand why we're so excited about it. Let's talk about how we would start a woodworking business this year if we had to start all over again. Whether you're thinking about how to start your own business or you've been selling your stuff for a while and you want to figure out how to grow your side hustle into something real, this is for you. And we know this because we have started 2 profitable businesses from our home in 2 different areas selling 2 completely different products under completely different business models. It's a very simple step-by-step process. There are no shortcuts. As special and different and unique as all of your products are, the model for running a successful business selling them is pretty universal. You're someone who makes things, whether it's woodworking projects or leather craft or knitting or whatever your craft is. You like to make things and people have probably told you that you should sell your work. Maybe you've even sold some of your work before. But you want to know more. You want to know how to find customers who will pay a fair price for the work that you do. We followed this formula twice. Admittedly with a lot of trial and error to figure it out. We also have over 100 people in the stud stack who have followed this recipe in some form or fashion to grow their business. This is not a compilation of tips and tricks like you'll find on other YouTube videos. You cannot build your business on a foundation of tips and tricks. That is not a good foundation. What's better is for you to transform into a business owner. If you can learn how to run a business and make yourself and your skill set the foundation, that is going to bring you success. By practicing sales, by learning how to solve a customer's problem and by refining your product, that's how you're going to become a business owner. This is a transformational process and these are the six steps to guide you through that process. The single best piece of business advice we've ever received. This is just a bonus, okay? This is not part of the video. This is just an extra special thing on top. The best piece of business advice we ever received was to only take business advice from people doing what you want to be doing. You want to start a woodworking business this year? Take advice from someone running a woodworking business this year. You want to learn from someone who's actively selling a product very similar to the one that you're selling. Things change really fast in the business world and the last thing you want to be doing is taking old outdated advice that doesn't work anymore. If you find a good mentor, they will understand that there is plenty of money out in the world. You guys are not in competition with each other. You can multiply your efforts together instead of learning apart and isolated from each other. So let's get into it. The first thing that we would do starting a maker business this year if we had to start all over again is set a goal. That is your number one step, set a goal. Think about it. You don't get into the car and just drive around aimlessly. You pick a destination. Maybe you even pick some activities that you want to do along the way. In the same way as a road trip, your business needs a goal and a direction. And honestly, starting a business can be a little tough. So your goal is what's going to pull you through sticky situations and not make them as difficult. You want to set a goal that's big enough to scare you but small enough so that you can see and track your progress along the way. So that's the first thing we would do is we would set a really big goal so that we were able to determine what success looked like within our business. So the second thing we would do after we picked a really big goal and we're hyped up and we're excited is we would pick a great product. And there's a couple different things that go into picking a really great product. The best products solve a problem. If you want to sell a lot of what you make, it needs to solve a problem for somebody. Not everybody. It doesn't need to solve everybody's problem but you need to find a set market with a very specific problem and solve it for them and show them how your product solves that problem. So once you figure out what problem your product solves or could solve, then you need to make a list of everything you know about that customer who deals with that problem. And keep that list handy because we're going to use it later. It's important to double tap here that you do not need to build the best product in the world either. There's a customer at every quality level, at every price point out there. There's more than enough money in the world. You just need to have a product and then go find that customer that wants it and needs it the most. You don't need to get self-conscious about the products that you make. I promise you that they're good enough. I know that all you see are the flaws in your work and that's great and you can continue to build and master your craft as the years go by. But there's always somebody who would love to have what you made even if you think it's your worst one yet. You need to share your products with the world. You need to share your creations with the world. They want them. They're willing to pay good money for them. Don't keep them from it. You need to bring it to them. And that's one of the joys of running a business. Alright, so we are hyped up. We are excited. We're in the process of getting this business started. We have set a goal. We have picked a really great product that's going to solve a problem for our customers. Now what we need to do is choose a name for our business. Do not overthink this. Keep it easy and choose very common words. We see so many people get hung up on this step when it's not all that critical. You just need to choose a name and get started. We made our first $30,000 by being just us. Just Jenny and Davis. We didn't have a set name for our business. And you can always change your business name later. What's important is to just pick a name and start building a portfolio and get moving. Now I would spend time setting up a pricing structure for my product or line of products. You want to make sure that you're pricing at a profitable level. We hear from so many people who get stuck here because they don't think that their work is good enough to justify a price point where they can make a profit. I promise you, your work is good enough. Don't worry about what you think about the price. Don't worry about what you think others might think about your price. There is plenty of money out there. There are plenty of customers. If your product is solving a good problem for somebody, they will pay very good money for that problem to be solved. So don't doubt yourself. Don't doubt your work. I promise you're good enough. Just figure out your pricing strategy so that you know you're going to make a profit. Because if you sell things and you don't make a profit, that's not a business. That's called a hobby. So we follow a very simple pricing formula for all of our products when we first start out. And we're going to give you free access to our pricing calculator. It's a little webpage that you can use absolutely free. The link is below the like button in the description. Or you can go to JennyDavis.com slash pricemywork and you can find it there. And that tool will help you determine what a good price is for your work. All you need to do is plug in your materials cost and how long it takes you to make one of those things. And it will spit you out a price that you should be charging. And that price is the bare minimum. But you also want to think about other things. If people buy in large volumes, if they buy a bulk order of something, do they get a discount? You want to think about these things ahead of time so that you've got room in your pricing structure to discount it a little bit for wholesale, but yet you're still making a profit. So, again, that pricing calculator is going to give you the bare minimum price. I would probably add 20-30% to that and make that my retail price and then use the pricing formula to give me my wholesale price if somebody wanted to buy a lot of what I was making. Alright, so step 5, go get known. Do you remember that list that we had you put together a little earlier about how you need to find people whose problems are getting solved with your product? Yes, this is the time where you're going to pull out that list and go meet these people and make yourself known to them. It's great that you have a miracle product that can solve all these people's problems, but if they don't know about you and they don't know it exists, they can never use it and they can never buy it. So you need to go out and physically get known. You need to meet these people. You need to talk to people in your community about who you are and your business and what you do. Talk about the problem that they need solved and talk about how you figured out an easy solution. So step 5 is where you're going to make your first couple of sales. It is probably the most exciting step, at least to us. This is our favorite step of this whole process. The best product in the world isn't the one that sells best. The best known product wins every time. The most available product wins every time. So don't focus on making a better product. Focus on making a better known product. Get out there and let people know that you're available. This is when you need to be learning, taking money, making sales, and getting yourself out there. What you learn here in step 5 is going to build your identity as a business owner. This is where you're going to say, hey, I can do this. I don't need the best product in the world. I just need to be able to solve a customer's problem. And the better you get at solving a problem for somebody else, the better business owner you're going to be. You're going to find that your entire community is going to support you. Imagine everywhere you go, people rooting for you and your business's success. It's an amazing feeling and we want you to experience it for yourself. But you've got to put your reps in. You've got to get out there, talk to more people, and make sales. I can't believe we have to say this, but go make money. Which brings us to step 6, which is making sales automatically. There's probably inefficiencies in your system. If you've made your first few sales here in step 5, you'll know that, hey, I'm wasting my time with cold calls. Maybe people don't answer your emails. They answer Instagram DMs better. So maybe you just implement that as your new strategy. You quit wasting time on things that don't make you money and you double down on the things that are getting you results. Maybe you want to hire an employee to manage your inventory and do the shipping for you. That's great. Hire them. Now you should have some cash flow that you can do those kinds of things. Maybe you strike gold. I mean, hopefully, that's the whole point of this process. Maybe you've got such a great product that you can't build it fast enough. And you know that, yeah, it's helping people in your community, but it could probably help people all over the country. That's when you would start an Etsy store. We see so many people start an Etsy store and start listing products before they ever even know if the product is going to solve a problem for somebody. And they don't know if they're not making sales because the product is bad or because the listing isn't perfectly optimized. But if you find a product that sells well in your local community, you can believe that it's going to sell well on Etsy. So you can list it there and focus on building your skill set as a salesperson and a marketer of your product. And you don't have to worry about if your product is good enough or if it's solving a problem for somebody. That's why we tell you to get known in your community first. Then you can go to Etsy. Or then you can go to Facebook Marketplace. Because if you do it that way, you are going to beat the snot out of everybody else on Etsy and Facebook Marketplace. Because you know your product works well. You just have to work on the presentation. And you're going to blow the competition right out of the water. We sold $50,000 in the first year while running our cutting board business out of our house by following this method. It's about becoming a business owner. See, this isn't a list of tips and tricks like you'll find on other YouTube channels. You can't build a business on just tips and tricks. If you do, it's not going to last very long. But by following this process, you will become a savvy business owner. You'll know how to write a business plan. You'll know how to solve a problem for somebody. You'll know how to optimize your product for sales. This is a total transformation. And this is the exact transformation that we're going to walk you through if you go to MyBasementBusiness.com. This is how we turn makers into savvy business owners by guiding you through these six steps. So for less than the price of a drill and impact driver, we are going to walk you through this entire process to start your own business and make money on what you build. You're going to make your first three sales. You're going to start making a profit consistently. And like we said, this program is going to help you make your first $11,000 in your business. We're going to go through it very slowly. And we're going to include a lot more information that we didn't include in this YouTube video. We're going to share stories of our mistakes and our slip-ups so that you don't make those same mistakes. We're going to guide you through the entire transformation from start to finish with our one-of-a-kind workbook. We're also going to include the story from start to finish of our business transformation. That's something we've never done anywhere else. We're just going to sit down at the podcast table and tell you the whole story. If you're still watching at this point, we're going to take a guess and say that there's something else that needs to be addressed. We get a lot of people that come to us and say, once I start making some sales, then I'll invest in one of your programs. And if you feel like that's the case for you, by all means. Lots of people keep their word, but the main concern is that's going to take you a lot of time. There are so many potential traps that you could fall into. There's so much trial and error that needs to happen before you learn how to do something pretty simple the right way. Trust us, we've made almost every mistake in the book. And you're going to end up spending so much more time and ultimately money on learning these things the hard way. Even if this program, worst-case scenario, helps you get your business started only one month sooner, it's going to more than pay for itself. It costs less than a new drill and impact driver. A lot of you woodworkers wouldn't even hesitate to replace that if those broke in your shop. It's way less expensive than an entire month of trial and error and wasted time. After COVID, a lot of people are starting businesses out of their home and you want to get ahead of the competition. If you want to hear from people who have done this, who have gone through our programs and started successful businesses, go to mybasementbusiness.com and check it out. We'll see you over there.