I have a friend who designs and builds clocks as his business. He is a typical artisan – highly skilled, extremely enthusiastic about his profession but not overly businesslike in his approach to making the business viable. One afternoon, at another friend’s party, he was complaining about the inability to scale up his business and improve profits. This got us talking and between us we came up with a few ideas he hadn’t previously thought about.
The biggest expense in clock making (in both time and money) is the construction of the clock itself. As he only has a finite amount of time each day why not concentrate on clock design rather than the physical building of the clocks? This would allow him to be working on a number of commissions at once. He has already built up a portfolio of designs that he could use as a way of helping customers to buy into his creative vision.
This then leads on to another opportunity. Once a design has been agreed he could then just let another clock maker build it, or, he could outsource it himself and project manage the whole process. By doing that he would retain a degree of control (important to him as an artisan) and at the same time take a percentage of the project cost for his troubles.
Skill-wise, there’s little difference between building clocks and servicing them and this is another possible profit avenue. Living in London as he does he has a huge potential market on his doorstep and it wouldn’t take much to build up a regular, repeat business in this area. The chances are once someone has had their clock serviced this year they will be quite happy for him to return again next year – all he needs to do is put it in his diary and call them up.
Many local clubs and organizations have meetings where they welcome people in to talk about subjects of interest. Putting himself out there as a local expert on clocks would undoubtedly gain additional commissions or repair work. As most of these events take place in the evening there would be little impact on his work during the day.
After an hour of brainstorming over a beer in the sun his mind was also a little brighter at his prospects as he realized that he had many more options than he thought. Like anyone running a business today once he has become a little more creative in his business thinking the profits will start to roll in.