Hey everyone! I’m a professional blacksmith and knifemaker; for the last 3 years I’ve been running my business full time and it’s been going quite well. Each year I’ve made over 100k in profit, about 70% of revenue coming from events and festivals at which I set up a booth. The remaining 30% comes from 10 small business retailers in the northeast, direct online sales (etsy), and to a lesser extent, custom work. (my website is spanglerforge.com if you want to understand my business more)
In the last year I’ve made some significant improvements and I’m running new numbers for cycle time and efficiency; materials are all purchased in bulk for max savings and things are good. Like really good. My numbers show that I can make my most popular line of 6" belt knives (sells for around $150ea) in about 25 minutes when batched with max efficiency. Extrapolating that data and accounting for around 20% in materials; assuming I work 7 hours a day, 4 days a week, means that I *should* be able to generate about $7k in profit per WEEK, or $360k per year which gives me a lot of room to lose margins to retail fees or marketing. The product is good and plentiful, customers are very happy, but I’m limited by how much I can sell. Those theoretical revenues mean I would need to make and ship 50+ knives per week.
So I need to find ways to expand my reach; Here’s what I’ve got so far:
- Invest in greater social media reach (i currently have about 2700 followers on IG) and SEO. True paid advertising is difficult because most social media prohibits knife advertisements as weapons, but I know I need to expand it somehow.
- Find more retailers- preferably bigger ones that want bigger volumes. I just started a campaign for more retailers; I’d like to increase to 20 shops across the US before the spring hit. But I’d really like to partner with larger retailers like BladeHQ or similar so I could send out one large package of 200 knives or similar. But thus far these larger retailers have been uninterested with little explanation.
So tell me what you think? What am I missing here? What pitfalls am i not accounting for? Thanks for the input!
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I’m not really a knife guy, but I have a business partner who is, and he is really hooked on the youtubers. He buys custom knives from them and etc. Their channels put out videos multiple times a week. By doing this you’re essentially creating a combo audience and customer base.
Hi mate! Your figures are pretty exciting considering you are running it all by yourself.
I know why big guys are not interested in doing business deals with you, because your social presence is not that optimized.
Remember, it’s all about how you present and social presence. I would suggest you to work on building your personal image so you don’t need to look for retailers, they should come to you.
If you require any advice on building brand value or social presence, you can always write to me. I will be happy to explain. Good day.
Start with data to figure out how to scale. Then do more of what works.
Thinking back to your in-person sales:
Who are your current clients in terms of occupation, age range, and hobbies/interests?
How many knives do they buy from you at a time, and what kind of customers are repeat customers?
How do they usually find you? What about your product appeals to them?