Opening New Studio

[Christyn Mattson]

Hello everyone! After attending Warm Glass Conference in DC I came home to Iowa and knew I needed to expand what I was doing. There's nothing like rubbing shoulders with other obsessive glassers!

Anyway, I am in the process of opening my first commercial studio and gallery. It will be on a very small scale and located at our local mall. I'm so excited and scared to death at the same time. I have been working fulltime in glass for 2 years out of my home studio and decided to give a true retail space a shot for the next 6 months.

Any words of wisdom or tips for success would be much appreciated! I'm opening on Wednesday and am still waiting for little details to be delivered like my cash register manual.........my sign to be made........ oh, yeah..........and my shelves, you know, to put my glass on. Whew! So much to do! I'll keep you all posted on my progress and will have pictures of the new studio soon! Thanks for all your support!

Christyn

[Cynthia]

Best wishes to you Christyn. I had a retail / gallery space for a year where I sold my work, the work of other local arists and taught classes along with hosting classes in lampworking, fusing, and glass related projects classes. It was a great deal of fun.

No tips for you, but what I learned is that you will be married to the place, and you won't have as much time to do your own work as you are accustomed to. I had trouble with the days when no one was coming in the door, and even more trouble with the days that I was being constantly interrupted in my work. I loved talking to people about the work, I loved the teaching and I loved having a lot of lovely local hand crafted and unique kiln formed glass for sale along with the clientelle I developed. It was a wonderful experience and I hope that your experience is even more rewarding and fruitful.

I decided to go back to a private studio situation, but still wish I had my retail space too. The grass is always greener.

[Gale aka artistefem]

Good luck Christyn with your new retail biz.

There are several curves to anticipate as your open to the public business becomes known and as you develop clientelle.

1. Regular posted business hours are a must in the retail trade. Nothing worse than a disgruntled client who has driven several miles to come see you and arrives to discover your business doors are locked. This results in "bad word of mouth" which can hurt your business.

2. As Cynthia said, you will have days where all you get done is visiting with customers (and lookers) and it's important to visit with these people to develop good customer relations. Even the lookers will come back to buy if they've had a pleasant experience with you. This is a big time-eater when you operate a combined studio/retail sales space - so you'll have to figure out how to get your work done.

One solution to this challenge can be to make the decision to take on apprentice or to hire an experienced helper. Another solution is to work "before or after hours" when the biz doors are closed. I find this quiet time is the most productive art time I have in my business day.

3. You will also learn to gauge how much hands-on help a customer will need. It's not a bad idea to set your studio up so the customer can see you and you can see the customer. Some of the time, I just continue working on my project and visit with the customer at the same time, letting them know that I will bring the jewelry out of the cases if they'd like a closer look or a try on. You need to stay observant and when you recognize a real interest in a piece from the customer, then stop your work immediately and go physically assist them.

4. Another biggy to address right from the beginning: make sure you reserve a certain amount of time each week/each month to create new work or develop new product designs. Hopefully, you'll be so booked up with orders that this will be another of your good challenges.

5. An important part of retail is PR - do as much advertising as you can afford. Develop co-op ads with other people in your business area. Do a grand opening and get your local newspapers to do an opening coverage article. Everytime you squeek, rattle or roll send a press release to your newpapers. Utilize your local PR freebies - host an open house every so often with free announcements run in your local cultural happenings papers and on the public radio & TV listings. Develop up close and personal relationships with your PR people so they'll work effectively for you.

Running this type of business is a 24/7 commitment especially during the initial start-up years. Actually I know few "hands-on" successful business owners who aren't involved 24/7 even after the start-up period. It just goes with the job and with the territory. Maybe you'll get a vacation every third year or so - wink!

The incredible plus trade-off with this type of work situation is being able to work for yourself - even with all the challenges and responsibility. You get to make the biz decisions, lay out your work day, choose your projects, set the tone of your business and bring in the profits. It's hard work, but it may also spoil you for ever wanting to work for anyone else again - LOL!

[Christyn Mattson]

Thank you to all who have been reading my post and offering words of wisdom. You have all had such great suggestions and some ideas are new to me and I can't wait to try some of them out. I officially opened yesterday and have had little traffic but I'm not discouraged because I'm so backed up on orders I'm totally busy getting those done. Then I'm constantly thinking up new ideas to work on when I have the time. I'm really enjoying it and so far the best part has been getting my phone hooked up! FINALLY I have contact with the outside world!
Thanks again for everything. Keep the great ideas and experiences coming! I love it!
Christyn