1. Make a simple plan listing the Pyrography items you want to sell and the prices you aim to sell them at. If you are unsure of the mark up price, then think about how much you would be prepared to be paid per hour to do this work. Next factor into your equation the price of the raw materials used = Price of materials + how many hours it took to produce your piece of work (what you decide is a fair hourly rate of pay.) I recommend you do your research at craft venues etc. to find out how your competitors are pricing their pieces of work. You will not know how long it took them to produce their Pyrography but it should give you some idea about whether the cost of your work is going to be wildly under or over priced. Remember your aim is to sell but don’t down rate the time and effort you put into it.
2. Purchase a file to keep all your customer orders and letters (in date order) and also a writing book with lined paper to record the day to day transactions for your bank/building society account.
It would probably be wise to have one account designated to your new Pyrography business, this way you will easily keep track of all incoming and outgoing costs. Label up your new exercise/writing book clearly with the name of the account and its number.
Draw four lines from the top to the bottom of the first few pages in your book.
Label the 1st column with [date], 2nd with [+ credits], 3rd with [- debits] and 4th with [balance]. Use a red pen for your [- debit column]. and a black pen for the credit column.
Subtract the amount you have spent from the balance and enter your new balance underneath. (I’m sure you already know this and you might think it long winded to write it all down but memorising everything is far more difficult when your busy! You may prefer to keep records on your PC).
Your book will help you to provide any financial information required for tax purposes should they be required once you get your business off the ground and also keep your receipts for the same purpose. Staple together your receipts in date order. Keep every receipt that pertains to your Pyrography business including all purchases:- equipment- nibs, points, masks etc, materials -wood, leather, paper etc, colours – paints, pens, inks and varnishes.
3. When you get your monthly statements, check off each transaction to make sure they are correct. This may all seem a bind when you can possibly just phone or look up details on the internet, however, this method will keep you very aware of your spending from day to day as you are starting off as a small Pyrography business. You will then be up to date with the amount of funds that you have available.
4. If you are aiming to sell your work and you have rented a stall or are advertising your wares via a shop or over the internet, then perhaps one of the best ways to attract attention to your work is to display Pyrography articles that are connected by virtue of their design and colour. It is important to try and make your display stand out from the rest of the crowd. For instance you may have three or four objects that are totally different in design but are all decorated in varying shades of blue. You can produce a striking show of your Pyrography work if you exhibit them in a single colour setting. You might choose to add a couple of items of a strongly contrasting colour to set off your work. Another idea is to select objects of a similar theme that you may have borrowed or are from home to simply give your display a boost!
5. If your Pyrography has a secondary purpose such as a decorated picture frame or a candle holder then don’t forget to do the obvious and display your items with a picture in or a candle in the holder to illustrate their usefulness.
6. Consider the use of re-decorating old furniture. If you find an item you’d like to work with, then this could be a very stimulating little project. It offers you an exciting challenge of re-vamping and refreshing it with your own individual Pyrography design. You could display your larger piece of furniture as a centre piece to several smaller groups of household items decorated in your own unique way!
7. Here are a few suggestions of where you might sell your work? Craft stores may display some of your items, craft shows may have stalls, village fetes, coffee morning at church etc, car boots, school fetes, hire a market stall (they can be quite reasonable) or photograph your Pyrography and sell on Ebay. You might like to try approaching small coffee bars or eating places and see if they would like to display a selection of your work for a percentage of any sale.
8. Very Important – don’t forget to advertise yourself as a Pyrography business. Make sure your business has an appropriate name that can be burned onto your own individual sign board that you will display where you sell your work. Make up personalised Pyrography business cards and hand them out at craft fairs etc. Leave a few on your display for people to pick up. Advertise yourself by as many means as possible. Put an ad in your local paper and link it to a theme e.g Christmas, Easter, Birthdays. The region that I live in has a news bus that stops in communities to do a live broadcast. They encourage people to come on board and talk to them. This could be another way of advertising yourself and getting more people interested in Pyrography as a hobby.
I wish you all the best of luck with your new Pyrography Business!
