Recently I was shocked to learn about just how many woodworking businesses have failed over the last 2 years

1. Tips to help your woodworking business succeed P a g e | 1
Recently I was shocked to learn about just how many woodworking
businesses have failed over the last 2 years
Sadly, it really emphasized just how important it is for new Woodworking
Businesses to understand that it’s a tough market out there
One of the most important issues facing all woodworking business in this
current era is lower profit margins mainly due to the falling prices.
Many manufacturers have entered the woodworking industry and they are
going hard at it, causing the average price of wood products to drop
considerably and hurting the profitability of woodworking in general.
On top of that we can also throw in a worldwide shortage of lumber which is
causing a large spike in the cost of base materials.

2. Tips to help your woodworking business succeed P a g e | 2
Good news for the home woodworker.
The home woodworker though has got a huge amount of flexibility; you can
make whatever you want.
You don’t have to concentrate on only making a few particular products, the
home woodworker just needs to do their research and figure out what are
least commonly available types of products that appear to be very
worthwhile making.
To make sure you don’t over extend yourself it’s best to restrict yourself to
only a few products that you feel very confident about, make them with high
quality and then do some excellent marketing or get someone to help with
the marketing.
I would also suggest doing some research on the 8 wastes of lean
manufacturing; you’ll be surprised just how relatable that can be for a home
based business.

3. Tips to help your woodworking business succeed P a g e | 3
The planning phase
When first starting out, you need to have a well-thought-out plan or strategy
in place. For a few unique reasons, if you want to start a woodworking
business, having a clear and distinct plan is very critical to your future
success.
Set clear and exact tactics for consistently producing high-quality items with
the least amount of waste. These tactics could include things like
measuring properly every time and twice before cutting, cutting carefully
and without errors, maintaining all tools and equipment to high standards,
always checking for square, using the right tool for the right job in the right
way and lastly, proper storage and handling of base materials and finished
products.
A marketing strategy can and will help you make the most of any chances
that come your way, as well as identify any unusual or difficult-to-foresee
factors that could hold you back or possibly set you back.

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Your initial costs should not be 1 penny more than what they need to be, be
frugal but also think about the ‘what ifs’ for instance, ‘What if somebody
broke into your woodshop tonight and stole just about everything?’.
Get the best value for money security features in place before you start and
I’d be including a high quality alarm system and security cameras with that.
Get all your licenses in place before you start and you’ll need to check with
your local Council and possibly your state government as to whether you can
actually run a woodworking business from your home at your particular
address.
There might be provision for you to do so but only if you meet certain
criteria and I imagine noise pollution would be a big thing here, so expect to
do some rigorous sound proofing of your home woodshop before you get the
big green tick from the Authorities.
You’ve got no idea as to whether you’re going to do well at this or not, so
minimize the harm any threats you can think of could possibly do, how
would they affect your success, the family finances and your happiness? Get
all this thinking done now, before you get to busy.
You will have enough on your plate with the typical running costs after
you’ve been going for a while, so having a few dollars tucked away for a
rainy day could be handy.
In your spare time, do all that you can do build up what could be your sales
network, you need it to be a large enough audience to support your business
today and desirably, where you would like to be in 12 months time.
You’ll gain a lot of confidence from knowing you’ve got the people there
interested at what you’ll be churning out.
Be sure to take out sufficient insurances and if you’re going to have having
customers come into your home woodshop then you’ll need to be protected
against them slipping over and badly hurting themselves (public liability). If
you’re going to have some there working with you (workers compensation)
and also consider a ‘bad times’ insurance (income protection).
All of these insurances are in addition to the comprehensive insurance you
will have to put in place to cover replacement costs of everything (fire, theft,
flood, tornado, cyclone etc) make sure it includes all possibilities that could
take everything away from you in a heart breaking instant.

5. Tips to help your woodworking business succeed P a g e | 5
Get a good certified accountant; he/she should be able to help you with the
hundreds of reasons why, to me this is one of the top 3 things to do.
Review, Consolidate and Optimize
Once you’ve been at it for a few months and you’re into a steady routine, do
your best to work out how long it will take you to break even with regards to
your start up costs plus any other unforeseen overhead costs you’ve
incurred thus far.
This will give you a target to measure yourself against and as you may have
heard before, what gets measured gets managed.
If a year or two comes and goes and you’re still not doing anywhere near as
good as what you had hoped and if being honest, you are actually struggling
to keep afloat then, please consider visiting my website.
At GLZWoodworking I've spent a lot of time putting together a reasonably
large amount of information on what you can do to address these
unfortunate and hopefully preventable circumstances if they were to happen
to you.

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