There’s money for some in making tables.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/business/energy-environment/08sustain.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=finding+new+life&st=cse
This is a good story, perhaps inspiring if you have or are starting a woodworking business – not all are starving artists. Obviously, they’ve found a way to get themselves established. The woodworking company Meyer Wells (http://www.meyerwells.com/), consisting of two partners and nine employees makes custom furniture from damaged trees or trees taken down in storms. Their revenue last year reached $850,000 and is expected to break one million this year. Coffee or dining tables go for roughly $3,000-10,000 and conference tables can easily top $20,000.
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Point taken.
I guess it would be different if it were my one-man shop. However, it is still reassuring they can sell tables for thousands of dollars. Gotta be in touch with your market.
I'll be a bit cynical too--I was a securities analyst in a former life.. I notice on the company's web pages that they have a number of items in stock and ready to ship. To me, for a business centered around custom woodworkiing to be carrying that much inventory, suggests that they may have had times when they needed to fill shop time with items they hope to sell than with items already under contract. Too much inventory, and paying for the space to store it, or display it, and the energy needed to sell it, can be a real albatross on a business trying to grow.
It's a perfectly sane business practice to use one's idle capacity for something, in this case building a little product for inventory. You can't lay off specialized workers like this company has the first moment the order books goes a little arrid. And personnel costs are far higher than harvesting blow-downs. Hell, they probably charged homeowners to remove these trees and then built tables with the wood. I'd guess the acquisition of the stock is at its worst, revenue neutral, and maybe even adds a bit to the bottom line.
Lay Offs
A business can lay off anyone.
It sounds to me like you're making the same mistake the business in question is making.
It's not my point to say that they aren't managing the business well, including not laying people off for slack period expected to be temporary, but what it does say is that there is slack time needing to be filled.
Good Press is part of any good marketing plan. Never mentioning anything but nice growing pains is good advice at all times. We all - as consumers/investors - expect a to hear about a little pain with growth, but we don't really want to hear about blood and guts.
We should realize that if we read about a company doing well, it is by design that the article is in front of us, not happenstance.
It is wonderful to see these small firms do well. It is important to understand why they do well, and to realize that the proof is over time. Where will this company be in 10 or 20 years?
These are not people that have ever written, or will likely ever write for FWW, much less teach at any of the various schools sprouting up all over. Yet they are living as close to the 'lifestyle' as anyone. Any flannel is purely incidental.
Below is a link to one company I know of that gets some great press and sells a fine product. Be sure to click on the NPR interview to hear the full story. A marketing masterpiece at 'telling the story.'
http://www.keithfritz.com/
Dave Sochar
Acorn Woodworks, Inc.
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