Importance Of Effective Marketing Strategies For A Wood Marketing Company
Steve Larosiliere
April 24, 2024
Steve Larosiliere
“It’s really a simple thing you have to think about. Do I want to do that work? And if you don’t, you have to say no.”
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 Scott MacKinnon, owner of the Oakville Ontario furniture company Urban Reclaimed.Â
Scott has been in the industry for a while since the early 90s. He has been renovating houses and building furniture and has been involved in every part of the furniture business you can think of over the years, along with honing his craft. He has also honed the type of business he wants to run, from general contractor to custom furniture maker.Â
With that switch has come a different way he builds furniture and a different way he operates his company. Follow along as they talk about the importance of saying no, what type of edge being on TV gives you in the industry, pricing for things that don’t exist, and much more.Â
“Prior to me building furniture, I got a degree in Philosophy at a university here in Canada. Between you and I, philosophers and chariot drivers have a little trouble getting work these days. So I had done a few things: I painted houses, I painted during university, I was always busy that way, and I was a good painter.Â
I’ve always been busy, and since I was a kid, I was always industrious. I always wanted to fix a fence, paint the back steps, or fix a broken window. So, at some point, someone asked me about building a blanket box. So I built it, and it was well-received, but that was more or less a gift. But someone else saw it and said, Could you make me a corner cabinet? So I’ve always had a problem saying no, and which we’ll get to later on.”
When Scott was starting back in 1991 in the pre-internet era, he borrowed books from the library to learn the techniques he would need later on when building furniture. He then went out and purchased tools to build the requested corner cabinet. He was able to make three or four of them and sold them all, which led him to conclude that he would build furniture in the future!
“I would say to people starting out; never over-promise. I don’t know about under-promising but certainly don’t over-promise because if you don’t meet the client’s expectations, including the timeline, the money, the quality, and your attitude, they’re not going to be happy.Â
They don’t care if you’re behind. If there’s an emergency, they can wait a day or two on an install or something. But they don’t want to hear excuses. They want you to tell them a day that you can do it and do it on that day and do what you say you are going to do. I think that’s why, especially with TV, I get called season after season and show after show because I do what I say I’m going to do.Â
We’re going to do a project. I say, ‘Okay, I think it will cost this much.’ Then I do that so that they’re always happy and it’s done on time. So I think that translates to anything if you do what you said and do what you promised timewise, money-wise, everything. I think that would be number one for any business.”
Website:Â https://urban-reclaimed.com
Instagram:Â @urbanreclaimedfurniture
