Importance Of Effective Marketing Strategies For A Wood Marketing Company
Steve Larosiliere
April 24, 2024
This episode is brought to you by Jobber – getjobber.com/ethan
Welcome to Building a Furniture Brand with Ethan Abramson, the show that talks about the business behind the furniture business. In this episode, Ethan sits down with Mark Peacock, owner of the North Wales-based furniture company, Deer River Craftsmen.
Mark went all-in on his dream of having a furniture company. He even built his own shop. But he also knew when getting into this business that his dream wasn’t always going to be a good dream. To build a business, you need to weather the good dreams and the nightmares in this industry.
That’s why, along with growing his furniture-making skills, he worked hard to develop his office skills simultaneously. So he could learn from the mistakes he would inevitably make and grow from them instead of them becoming the end of his road. Follow along as Ethan and Mark discuss developing balance in your workday, learning what should go into your pricing model, how not to get burned by your past mistakes, and much more.
Mark’s journey starts, like many other woodworkers, with his father’s influence. His dad was a firefighter, but he had a second job as a builder. This side job meant that Mark often helped his father out from a young age with tasks like building extensions or fitting kitchens
Alongside his father, Mark has two uncles who work in the trades. One specialized in sailing, maintaining, and building traditional wooden boats, and the other had a business making traditional wood stoves. Mark notes that the latter uncle taught him how to weld and helped him pick up many joinery skills while living with him for just under a year.
From that point forward, as Mark grew up, left school, and moved into corporate life, making things was his hobby. Over time that hobby coalesced into making furniture when he and his wife purchased their first house.
“It grew from me making my own furniture to doing furniture for family and friends. I would say about seven years ago, it turned into friends of friends asking me to do things. I decided at that point that I was enjoying it enough that I wanted to start turning it into a business.
But I knew there were a number of steps that I had to take before I could make it a business, such as having a professional workshop and trying to get a portfolio of work that I felt comfortable giving to prospective clients.
So I built my workshop from the ground up on the site of an old barn that we have here on our property. And that was the key lead to this being more of a trade-based commercial workshop outfit, as opposed to doing it on the side of other work.”
As someone who is currently working another job in addition to his own business, Mark acknowledges that his advantage is that he is quite a long-term planner. He describes himself as the sort of person who has five-year and ten-year plans, and he carefully plans his finances and other elements of his life to ensure that he will be free from owing a mortgage to a bank.
Mark explains that he believes that people are often very eager and impatient to turn something they love into their sole focus. Especially if they dislike a corporate job, for instance, however, he believes that patience, planning, and having a safety net are vital to enjoying that experience properly.
“I work seven days a week, and I’m happy to work seven days a week. Honestly, I probably would be happy to work seven days a week if it was the full-time furniture business because I’m someone who sort of sees that way of working and running your own business as a lifestyle choice as opposed to it being my job.
I think it’s an important thing for me to be a very client-centric or very customer experience-focused kind of person. Some of your clients will want to talk to you about stuff on a Sunday afternoon when you might want to have dinner. And if they want to talk to me on a Sunday afternoon, I’m going to talk to them on a Sunday afternoon.
Because if your client is someone who does have a Monday to Friday, sort of nine to five, they’re thinking about building their dream property or their dream piece of furniture on the weekend. So you need to be there on the weekend to think about that with them. That’s the key thing; I’m never switching off from doing that. Therefore I embed it as part of my lifestyle.”
One of the things that Mark is most passionate about with his business is delivering something that the client is passionate about as well. He wants it to be high-quality and an authentic experience for them. If they reach out initially, he sets up a consultation via Zoom or phone and then generally does a home visit to help them assess the exact details of what they want for their home.
He has found that this approach is very valuable for his customers, especially those who don’t know precisely what they’re looking for. If they only have seen photos on Google or Pinterest or the like. From there, Mark goes over the expectations regarding him using their projects for his social media and then ensures that he is the right person for the job.
“I still get people that say, “I need exactly this, can you do exactly this?” And what I will often ask is, “Why have you come to me if you know exactly what you want?” And they’ll say because I want it six inches longer, rather than what we can buy out of the furniture store. But I’d be quite honest to say they may be able to do it quicker and perhaps even cheaper with someone else than I would.
I try and give myself a different niche sometimes, but I’m really happy to do the work for that type of client as well. I’m just very honest about what I see my skill set doing and what else is available out there for them. I find that the clients are drawn towards you more because you’re demonstrating a great amount of transparency and honesty in that process.”
Website: https://deerrivercraftsman.com
Instagram: @deer_river_craftsman
