Do any of you not take orders?

Hi Guys,

I'm not a knife maker. I am by some people's opinion a fairly successful business man.

Some of the things I try to always keep in mind.

1. Do what you love. Period
2. Never under estimate your self worth.
3. Under promise, Over deliver.
4. Keep your word No matter what. ( So be very, very careful with what you promise.)

Finally, as a business man you must understand the laws of supply and demand. You guys have a businessmans dream situation. 8 month to 2 year backlogs. That is awesome. But from my experience this presents a basic problem. YOU GUYS DON'T CHARGE ENOUGH!!!

You want to control your demand pressure and still make it financailly rewarding simply charge more. Alot more.

The pressure comes when the rewards don't equal the efforts.

If your stuff is good enough to have people willingly wait those time frames for your knives believe me you can charge as much as double or more what your getting and you will still have plenty of custom work at a manageble quantity.

You will make more money have more time and improve the quality of your life.

Just my 2 cents worth from a different point of view.
 
Sounds like alot of you guys are, or were, experiencing the same issues I am. Thank you all for taking the time to post and share your experiences and advice.

Mr Lovett, I have to admit when I read your original post, it threw me a little bit. When you said we were not professionals, it did not sit well with me. You see, I have 30 years of experience working as a machinist, welder, power plant mechanic, and millwright. Knifemaking is not that different from any of those trades, in which I consider myself quite proficient. I thought "just because someone does something part-time does not mean they are not a professional". What about someone semi-retired? A Doctor perhaps, or a retired teacher who only subs now? Are they not still a professional though only employed "part time"? I approach everything in life with a professional attitude, and a desire to do my very best. This is the case no matter if its my job, my family, or a hobby. I don't half-ass anything I do.

I decided to wait a day before responding, and I'm glad I did. After you and Kevin clarified your post, and your use of the word professional as you meant it, I understood exactly what you were trying to say. Thank You for your input. Packaged correctly, you could have alot to offer both new and experienced makers. You definitely have the experience. Congratulations on your accomplishments. I'm sure it was alot of work earning a reputation as such an accomplished knifemaker.

I truly believe most of us part-time makers approach knifemaking as more of a second career than a hobby, and take it VERY seriously. I know I do. It is a second profession, and a second career that helps pay the bills. I consider it a business, my business, and approach it as such. A hobby, for me anyway, is hunting, fishing, shooting and building motorcycles, etc. Very different stuff.

To keep on track here, my original question was from a business standpoint. Can a maker be successful and not take orders for knives? In other words, can he just make what he is inspired to make, sell those knives, and make a living/be successful (full or part time) at it. I was hoping to hear from some makers who have done it this way and were successful, as well as maybe some who may have a differing opinion on the subject. After reading these posts from some very talented makers, I am convinced it is not only possible, but preferable, at least in my case where I admittedly have a very low tolerance for people's bullsh_t. Like the saying goes, "Know Thyself".


Tballetta, I thank you for your post as well. Lots of wisdom there, and I appreciate your point of view as a businessman. It helps to get a different perspective on things.

Thanks again men,
Scott
 
Scott you are welcome.

As further emphasis on doing what you love I submitt this short poem a friend once sent me.

The clock of life is wound but once, And no man has the power To tell just when the hands will stop At late or early hour.

Now is the only time you own. Live, love, toil with a will.

Place no faith in time. For the clock may soon be still.
 
All my orders are based on what I sell. This way I do not get behind on orders. It helps when you are doing your own designs. When I sell one I replace it with another one. I like staying one step ahead if I can. Its working at the present time, but who knows things change all the time. What works today may not work tomorrow. ------------:thumbup:
 
Mike,

Thanks for your clarification. You don't know me, either, and I really resented being called a hobbyist. By your definition I am a professional cutler and I am proud to be one. I spent years as a hobbyist, but most assuredly depend on my knifemaking income at this point.

Maybe one day we can sit down over coffee and discuss the various business aspects of knifemaking.

I just got the new toilet in and the old one out, so now I can get to knifemaking.

Geme
 
I take two or three orders a year, no more. These are always for one of my large knives. These orders are, always, from out of the country.
I do this for several reasons, one is, I like to communicate with people who are culturally different from myself; with the love of good knives being the common thread. Once I take these orders, I go, all out, trying to build a good rapport with the client. In the beginning, I send e-mail photos of the material being forged and follow these up with periodic pics as the knife takes shape.
I explain my processes and techniques. When the knife and sheath are complete, I take great care in packaging and presentation.
I want this to be a great experience for the buyer. My hope is that, they will look upon Americans, with a certain fondness and appreciation, knowing we will go "all out" and that our word can be taken as honest and true.
This may seem overly indulgent or even infantile, to some, but in todays world I believe each person that views this country as honest and respectable in it's nature, is a person that might be called friend and not enemy. WE can use all of these we can get.

Fred
 
Very forward thinking Tballetta! Sorry I ruffled feathers here. It isn't my intention. But rather to show the plight of a a full time maker. One can conduct ones self in a professional manner, with being a professional. The very definition of profession, is what one does for his of her livelihood. As to going up on prices, The Loveless Shop has tried this, ( Hee, as you all know), but the strange thing is, every time they raise prices, the orders just poor in. It has backfired But in a very lucrative manner. Same has happened to me. As your work becomes more and more well known, you will have more and more customer who want slothing just like their friend got from you a couple of years back. It is the nature of our business. In order to only make none ordered knives full time, you must have something very unique. Enough so that there will always be a demand at anytime, anywhere. And hopefully, when you need the money!!! Haa! ( Believe me on this one. We have already done the starving artist thing.) And I hate ramen noodles now. Mike and Manuela
 
I take orders but they may be a little different than some. What I basically have is a running wait list. Some guys dont want them when I get to there name so its no problem.....some guys jump on the order like they havent waiting over a year for it. What I do is only offer some handle materials I can keep on stock easily or cut myself. I find that if I dont communicate with customers my sales will.............stop

SO, I keep answering emails and trying to do what I can.
 
dang look out here's my 2 cents:D
this should put a lot into perspective for a lot of guys or it should if the ears are open to working on self worth..and concern for the future.

I'm full time making and have been for a bit of time now , and have been in business in the logging and small engain trade trade for many years, over 20 and got burned out of that,
I told myself I wouldn't do that with knives. now with a 3+ year back log and with some knives that I'm not being push to hard on, for 5-6 years now,, this concerns me,,and well should, I'm feel it again..now I tell the my new customers, lets make your order and I'll give you a price when I get with-in a year of the job. even that concerned me because we just can't see into the future. and heath is a concern that is catching up with me..you just don't know..

this one thread has really struck me at home.. I do believe you all are right basicly because it's what you all want from yourselves and that may just change with time, it has with me I know that.. there is no right or wrong in the way of what you'd like from this bizz it's how you chose to go about it.. and can handle it , I'm not talking about how to treat your customer but how to treat yourself..

That poem should live in the hearts of many. thank you..
 
I think a maker could do well not taking orders. However, it would limit the number of customers that would be interested in purchasing knives from him/her. I'm not sure how many prospective customers a maker would lose by doing business in this manner, but I would be one. I am only interested in knives that I have had some input into. I know that others feel the same, but I don't know how many.

It is my opinion that a maker should do business in a way that makes knifemaking an enjoyable avocation. If you don't like it, then don't do it. Remember though, even if you don't take orders, you will have to deal with customers. You will still have service issues, and people will want to send knives back for changes and touchups. That means that you will still have to deal with timetables for getting this work done and getting the knives back to the customers. No matter how you cut it, makers are always going to have to deal with stressful situations. It is all part of owning your own business.
 
Mr. Tanguay, I know you asked the other makers, but in case you want another buyer’s perspective, I offer one here. For me much of the fun of buying knives is discovering what the knife maker has come up with. I love to explore the maker’s and the purveyor’s web sites to discover what are available.

I have designed only one knife, and one of my favorite makers, Eddie Stalcup has accepted my order. Of the makers who have posted in this thread, I have only bought from one, so far, Tracy Mickley. I bought his 10” black ash burl. That knife is absolutely stunning. It is a true work of art. There is no way I could have ever come up with that design myself. That is why I like to see and buy what a maker has already made.

So anyway, from one buyer’s perspective, yes, I believe you very possibly could sell just as many knives making what you want.

Best regards,
Allan
 
Keith Montgomery said:
No matter how you cut it, makers are always going to have to deal with stressful situations. It is all part of owning your own business.
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That is surely a fact whether you own the business or not. The upside is that as makers you guys have the power over those sutiuationschoices. Plus, you will keep a lot more of what your product is worth. I bet you all know how it feels to bust your hump and watch your boss get rich :(
 
A large percentage –perhaps the majority – of fulltime Makers in the more or less tactical folder market don't take orders for custom pieces.

The reason isn't stress... it's profit margins. I coresponded with a number of these experienced guys and they pretty much all said the same: making single, custom folders for individual customers is a money looser unless the custom orders are a lot more expensive.

I did some cost accounting myself for 2006 and all I can say is... Those other Makers were right.

However the entire situation is radically different for when talking about hobby/part time Makers as oppossed to Fulltime Makers. I'm using the term fulltime Maker here to mean the same as Professional maker used by Mike Lovett... maybe Fulltime Maker won't piss people off!

Customers ordering knives from a part time Maker should also understand the guy is making knives part time... this means his J.O.B. will always come first. The knives are made in the guy's spare time. I think it's unreasonable to expect the same level of service from a part time Maker that one should expect fro a Fulltime Maker. I'm not saying the quality of the finished prduct will be different, just that the level of service may be different. Emails may not get answered as quickly, deadlines may not be met, etc.

Customers should also expect to pay more for a knife from a Fulltime maker than one from a part Time Maker. I see a lot of knives being sold by Part Time Makers where I can't for the life of me think that there is any profit in the peice at all. And that's like working at a job and not getting paid. Ouch.
 
I think what alot of potential buyers forget too is you are not only paying for the knife but most important, the makers time to make the knife. Every maker is at a different skill level and some can grind faster then others thus produce a knife more quickly. The amount of money that goes into quality materials and equipment is high. We have to maintain that equipment plus all the other expenses that go with making knives. As a stock removal maker, grinding belts alone are very costly. I can drop anywhere from 3 to 4 hundred dollars each time I order belts and that's a few times a year. If I have to replace my atmospheric heat treating furnace, i'd be looking at 4 grand. Parts alone for it are high in price.
Scott
 
I think it depends on the customer.

I'm used to knifemaker schedules, especially part-time ones.

Especially with full custom designs (like I seem to do.)

Either it will get done in the first 2-3 months, or I pretty much expect it to take a good 1.5-2 years, which seems to be par. I'll follow up every couple of months, just to see how things are going.

I know it's a skill and talent set that I don't have and will likely never be able to attain, so it's a privilege to work with someone who can.

Also, like Kevin says, I have a good feeling that any custom work is a money-losing proposition. Pretty much every single knifemaker I've worked with on a custom design (and has bothered to talk to me about it!) has expressed that they do that kind of work because they're bored with churning out the same piece day after day and are tired of customers only wanting the same old design that they gained attention with. Certainly the time it takes to keep tweaking something until it works right is a loss in time and revenue due to the opportunity cost!

For every collaboration I do, I try to find a maker whose prior work has similar principles, either in build materials and process, or in design schema. I usually have a very specific set of ideas and principles that I'm applying to the problem (which often results in some rather strange designs) but I will always defer to the design and build recommendations of the maker.

I like to hope that it becomes a -collaborative- process, less than an "ordering" process.

Just my $0.02 as a consumer of custom work.

-j
 
This is a topic that parallels nicely with the other topic, "Taking Deposits," I think.

I'm of the mind, that us part-timers (albeit professional in every sense of the word), and full timers, should approach this much differently.

I learned knifemaking at a later stage of my life. After the kids were gone, my war was fought, my new wife gaining seniority, and the drone of paying the bills were mostly past. IF, I started this on a career path, (and some here have), then I would now be a mini-factory, and I would make some serious money.

I submit that neither maker is superior in his finished work. The full-timer (for want of a better word), would probably have a superior predictability in his blades, having done it more often. The part-timer (again, we need a new term), would excel in one-off designs.....again probably). It's simply the nature of the beast.

I think this is what happens already in this field. The high end production knives all have their following, the custom maker his. If I need a specific knife right now, I have numerous places to order one, and get it right now. I can rest assured that it has been tested, it works, and has ample peer reviews.

The custom maker has his reputation from satisfied (or not) cutomers, but will never serve the masses. He won't live long enough. And, this is the basis for the collector market, me thinks...

AND, this is the decision we all make (given enough back orders), Which path to take? Sometimes it's made for us (we are older, we don't work much, we love the art too much), or we have backorders (and bills and it's our full-time job). Neither is the correct path, but I believe, early on, that we need to choose, or it will be chosen for us and it will be too late to change.

One more thing...........can somebody come up with another "title" rather than "full-timer" and "part-timer"? It just doesn't fit, does it?
 
Well said bodfish :thumbup:

Can't think of any other names to replace "full-time" and "parttime". It is what it is :)
 
bodfish said:
us part-timers (albeit professional in every sense of the word),
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The word "Professional" has no bearing on competence or skill.

According to the Oxford english dictionary, most hobby and some part time makers are not professionals. A Professional is one who engages in an occupation (in this case knifemaking) as a trade, or for monetary reward as opposed to someone who makes knives as an amateur or as a hobby and is unconcerned with making a profit from their endeavors.

Now don't get upset: A part time job is still a job!

In fact many knifemakers engage in several occupations on a professional level... making a decent living just producing custom knives is very, very difficult. Only a small minority of people actually manage this!

Operating a profitable knife factory – however small – is also no walk in the park, particularly if you are trying to produce goods in the USA, Western Europe or Japan where labour costs are very high. Look at how many have gone belly up in the last few years alone.

Personally, I still do art direction, primary in the field of corporate communications but I also do some technical journalism and general machine shop work.

I don't have time for a hobby!

The important dividing line in knifemaking is between Makers who engage in knifemaking for profit; as a profession; to put food on the table and between Makers who make knives as a hobby or in their spare time and are basically unconcerned about whether they realize a profit or not.

There are part time/hobby/amateur Makers who have vastly higher skills than many professional Makers, and vice versa. A professional knifemaker may make crappy knives ... it's just that he makes crappy knives for a living.

Skill levels and professionalism are unrelated.
 
Kevin Wilkins said:
The word "Professional" has no bearing on competence or skill.
Click to expand...

The best definition I have heard for "professional" is this:

The amateur works when he feels like it. The professional works no matter what.


I suppose that's about right. So I define myself as an amateur, and would like to keep my status.
 
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