There are over 6 million people living in Colorado, and I think it is a fair bet that a significant portion of those people have purchased furniture for their homes and will purchase a few more pieces throughout their lives. As a custom furniture maker who builds handcrafted furniture, I am also fairly certain that 6 million people would be too many clients for me to handle. So when it comes to my competition in the handcrafted market, I believe that there should be enough work for all of us, and we don’t need to be jerks towards each other.
However, as time has gone on, I am far less friendly with my competition and sometimes downright petty. You see, most days, I mind my own business, working peacefully in my shop, building furniture for my clients. But then the phone rings, and it is someone who follows me on social media and is interested in starting their own handcrafted furniture business. For some reason, because they follow me, they feel that they are entitled to my time and feel it’s okay to interrupt my day, as they don’t ask if this is a good time to talk. They start firing off questions, very aggressively, about how I price my work, what finishes I use, or where I get my wood from. They may feel like they know me from social media and this is an okay interaction, but to me they are total strangers. This interaction feels very rude; there was no foreplay; they just forced their way into my day. As business owners and humans in general, our time is our most valuable asset, and we should guard it as such. When I am working in my shop, phone calls in general are inconvenient.
Now, this is not to say that I am not willing to share my knowledge, but there is an appropriate time and place. I share what I do through many social media outlets, such as YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, podcasts, and blogs. So if you are a true follower of mine and want to know more, it would be appropriate to ask your questions in the comments on those platforms. Then I can respond when it is convenient for me, and mostly you will get a more in-depth response as opposed to interrupting me when I am in my shop trying to get a project done for a client. You can even invite me on your podcast or to come speak at your event. I have accepted many invitations for such; each year I’m invited to speak at Red Rocks Community College’s Woodworking Program. Those are more appropriate ways to ask questions about how I run my creative business and how I build my furniture. Much more so than raw dogging me on the phone.
But it gets worse than an unpleasant, unexpected interruption to my day. Some people play games. One day, I received an inquiry through my website from a potential customer. Not to call anyone out, let’s make up a name and call this person Hannah Poopalany.
Hannah Poopalany says she has a customer in a Colorado mountain town who wants an artist-style handrail made and asks if I would be interested in working on the project. She gives little to no other info about the project. I am, of course, interested in building art, so I reply and ask questions to help me understand the project better. Like, how long of a run needs to be installed? Is it a handrail around a deck, or does it go up stairs? You know, the kind of info one would need to price a job.
We emailed back and forth a few times, and each time Hannah Poopalany replied, it was very vague, and if I asked two questions in the same email, she would only reply to one in a vague manner. I started to wonder if this person was for real. She says she has a customer, so I assumed she was an interior designer, but she did not offer up the name of the firm she worked for. Her email was simply HannahPoopalany@gmail.com, not a real business email like Hannah@InteriorDesignName.com. This situation started to feel like a scam, or like she was just fishing for information, so I Googled her name to see if I could figure out what interior design firm she worked for, or who she was. Turns out, she owns a custom furniture company similar to mine in a neighboring city. So obviously, she was fishing for information, and if she wasn’t and truly wanted my help, this wasn’t a good way to go about working with someone.
A better way would be to say:
“Hi Brian,
I’m Hannah Poopalany from XYZ Furniture Company. I have a client in a Colorado mountain town who wants a handrail. We don’t do many handrails at my firm, so I was wondering if you would be interested in working with us to build it. I would like to bring you onto the project as a subcontractor if you are interested. Here are some details about the project.
Kindly, Ms. Poopalany”
But that’s not how it went down, so I emailed her back and directly, but politely, told her to piss off. I had not heard of her company before this interaction, so now I wondered how many cool artistic handrail and furniture projects I was missing out on in that area. So, to see what kind of interest there was for my kind of work in that area of Colorado, I wrote a series of blog posts about furniture and art in Boulder, Colorado. I now pick up a fair amount of work out of the Boulder area. So I guess I should thank Hannah Poopalany for playing games, or I would have never thought to target that market. On the petty side of things, as a result, when you Google her business name, one of my blog posts comes up in the list right under theirs. So the moral of the story: if you want to know more about how I run my business, ask in an appropriate, friendly way. If you want to play games, be prepared to be beaten.
So yeah, I still do believe there is plenty of work out there for us artists who make handmade furniture, and we don’t need to be shitty to each other. But when it comes down to it, competition is competition, and I do what I need to do to get my name to the top of the list to be considered. If I’m at the top, I can pick and choose the coolest projects for my studio.
I’m the owner of Benham Design Concepts, a Colorado-based Custom Furniture design and fabrication studio. I design and build custom furniture that resembles works of art, using materials such as wood, glass, stone, and metals. The furniture I produce serves not only as practical items but also as works of art, infusing character and style into any space.
