Importance Of Effective Marketing Strategies For A Wood Marketing Company
Steve Larosiliere
April 24, 2024
“I’m not trying to disrespect anybody who calls himself a woodworker. But I’m not a woodworker. I’m a businessman, my job is sales. In the shop [creating and working with the wood], that’s the easy part. It’s continually landing business that is the most difficult part.”
Today on the podcast we have Doc Wright, owner of the Dallas Texas-based furniture company, the Wright Edge. Docs furniture is all custom and made with live edge, exotic woods. He’s made furniture for celebrities, athletes, musicians, and I guess there are probably some regular people in the mix too.
All his pieces are custom. But the one thing they all have in common is that they are big, not even just big, we’re talking gigantic. These pieces are made from the type of wood you see, and can’t imagine where a table that big would even go. In this episode we talked about contracts, importing lumber, being arrogant in the industry, and learning your worth as a business.
When Doc started out he was working as a geologist for an oil company, which made sense with his degree in Geology and a minor in Chemistry. In terms of woodworking though, it was almost a random start. Doc rebuilt a neighbor’s patio and then had a friend ask if he could make a live-edge bench, by that point, Doc was pretty sure he could make anything and got to work.
Doc jokes that it wasn’t really his choice to get into furniture making, he hadn’t had plans for it or to pursue it, it just kind of happened. Back then, he was making smaller pieces, now he’s made a name for himself, and that name is big exotic wood furniture. As Doc says, now, he makes ungodly big stuff, and that’s his calling card.
Ethan notes that the business model comes with challenges, and that’s part of what made Ethan want to connect with Doc. For Doc, the first part of the process is similar to other wood businesses, it starts with finding the clients and doing the designs, but from there the process differs. Doc imports huge slabs because he can’t find the materials he needs locally as most wood businesses can.
Doc walks Ethan through the entire process he goes through to import the custom wood products he uses, including touching on the importers’ license and shipping container standards for pricing and transport. He uses the importing method because it is more cost-effective for both Doc and his customers. As Ethan says, if it’s working for your bottom line, then it’s working for your business.
Another thing that sets Doc apart from the other is that he just opened up a showroom, an actual brick, and mortar showroom in a time when most people are going online. For Doc, it was a good opportunity with minimal risk, and the idea of the showroom has transitioned over the years from a showroom to an office.
Ethan points out that even though the initial use of the Showroom didn’t pan out, at least it allowed Doc to see where his core audience lies and what their needs and desires are. In terms of how he attracts his core audience, Doc says it boils down to really good SEO, organic growth, and word of mouth as well as some media exposure.
Doc goes on to talk about the quality of his pieces and how he ensures that high-end standard through his 2-Year Manufacturer Warranty. With this quality assurance in place, and considering the effort and work he puts into his pieces, this is another reason Doc does not negotiate or do discounts. As Doc sees it, when you’re buying a piece from him, it is a functional piece of art treated accordingly. He provides the steps for care, what products are safe to clean with, and what is not safe to clean with and how to get the most out of the investment.
Ethan notices that Doc has something he’s heard in the voices of many successful business owners, and it’s actually a chip on the shoulder. That feeling that you have been burned in this industry before, and you’ve come out stronger with the knowledge to not make those same mistakes again. Ethan stresses how critical developing this mentality actually is because a lot of these mistakes and the ways the industry will try to burn you are business killers.
“Number one, if anybody’s going to start out doing this that wants to do this full time. Before you even start looking at like materials and things you want to make. Go online, go to Etsy, go to Instagram and go look at what everybody else is making.
Then try to figure out what you can make that separates you from the pack. Because if you’re going to be competing, there are two avenues to really get into woodworking, mass production or custom.
There’s a handful of companies that can do both because they have the financial backing to do it. Most of us don’t. So out of those two avenues. Those are two completely separate paths to go down. But I would still say figure out what everybody else is doing. And then what can you make that separates you from the pack.
The second thing, probably the best advice I would really try to say is to be extremely cognizant and aware of your material costs versus what you charge for a bill. I can’t tell you how many times a DIYer or Garage Warrior will hit me up and say “I made this table for $4,000.”
Awesome, man. Congrats. But, who made the base? Was it steel fabricated? Did you have to get it powder coated? That alone is another 1500 bucks. Then the big questions Are you factoring in your labor? Okay, after that, are you also factoring in 36%, for taxes being taken out of your final profit margins to pay yourself? So run all those numbers back in, and don’t forget about your disposable material costs, sandpaper, router bits, etc., plus overhead and factor everything in before you understand your pricing, it always comes back to pricing. That is one of the top if not the top thing that people talk about when they talk about running a successful furniture company.
Finally, the third thing I would never be afraid to say no. Not every client that hits you up is actually going to be a client. I think a lot of people when they first start out in this full time, feel like they have to just build a portfolio just to keep money coming in and out whether they lose money or not. They feel like that’s their obligation. Learn when to say no. Because you have to set your starting value that can never go down. It only has to go up. So once you set that value, do not move from that value. That’s your standard. Set that standard, live and die by it.”
