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The Real Nitty Gritty

1/10/2018

11 Comments

 
For those of you who like reading about the geeky details of running a pottery business, this post is for you. This is probably completely uninteresting to anyone else. Every year, after my holiday sales events and before a new year of production begins, I rewrite my to-do lists. In every two days in my studio, I will complete one of these lists. I have eight of them total. When factoring in the days spent glazing the pots, and some regular days off, it takes me five weeks to complete all eight of the lists.

I do this every year to adjust to my output to the sales that I saw the previous year. I increase quantities for pots that were always selling out. For pots that didn't sell well, I lower the quantities or eliminate the item altogether. I usually introduce some new designs at my holiday open studio. The ones that were well-received are added to the plans, with hopes that I will figure out the right quantities and price points this year. 

I also pay attention to labor hours. Last year, some of my to-do lists resulted in really long work days. And some of them were easy three hour days. I tried to spread out the workload more evenly. I pay attention to kiln loads too, and tried to create sensible kiln loads. I factor in "how many fit on a kiln shelf" when making quantity decisions. 

My next show is ACC Baltimore. I consider this a "big" show, and for a big show I will take all of this inventory with me. For a "small" show, say a one-day show, I will take half of this amount. Most of my shows fall into the "medium" category, for which I will pack about 3/4 of this amount. 

In terms of planning, if I have two medium shows plus one small show, in three consecutive weekends, I will finish all of the to-do lists twice. That's enough for two mediums and a small. This means I need ten weeks of studio time before this stretch of shows begins. 

The first photo shows my first draft of the new lists. As you can see, I tweaked and tweaked it until everything added up sensibly. The second photo is my final plan for 2018. I might make some edits during the year. Then I will revisit them comprehensively at the end of the year, when the 2018 book has been written. 
Picture
Picture
 
​What's the point of doing this? I wrote about this in my Art Festival Plan series of blog posts. By paying careful attention to the quantities I'm selling, and adjusting my inventory to match those numbers, this is how I end up nearly selling out my booth at many shows. I more-or-less know what people are going to buy. Every box of pots packed has a cost, in heavy lifting, space, and time. Repeating that effort to bring unsold pots home is inefficient. My goal is to bring home less than one box of pots from every show, and I achieve that most of the time.

​Other artists will sometimes look at my near empty booth and say "you should have packed more." I shrug and think "no I packed just the right amount." They don't see how much I brought in the first place. And I tried it a few times, to go back to an almost sold-out show with a few more boxes of pots the next year. It didn't correlate to better sales. Sometimes sales were better, sometimes they were worse. On average, it was the same. The limits have been reached. And besides, for a "big" show I can't fit any more pots into my van anyways.

​
Yes, this means I sometimes leave sales behind because I've run out of popular items. That's why the to-do lists get rewritten every year. But overall, if I did my best to maximize my sales, I'm not going to fret about the few sales I missed. I'd rather have a light workload for packing and going home. 
11 Comments
Teena
1/11/2018 03:59:52 pm

Thank you very much for sharing your experience and insights in preparation. Great advice and appreciate the help. Lovely work.

Cheers, Teena

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Margaret Forbes link
1/11/2018 04:05:48 pm

Thanks so much for this article. I am a newbie to running a production studio and lean towards nerdy planning. Love your systematic approach You have inspired me to go back to my sales records from past shows Try and pull together a similar work plan!

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Linda Bloomfield link
1/12/2018 05:21:21 am

Very efficient. However, I always find that my bestselling product changes from year to year, so if I sold out of mugs at a show last year, I will bring a lot of mugs to the same show and sell hardly any mugs but sell out of jugs instead . I have now started to do mainly trade shows where I make to order after the show.

Reply
Mea
1/15/2018 07:27:37 am

This is absolutely true on a show by show basis. What sells great one year can be different from the next year. But if you do enough shows per year (I do 10 to 12 per year) it all averages out.

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Lis Allison link
1/13/2018 03:30:46 pm

Hi Mea. I love your work, and also love your blog, but this latest post has me a bit baffled. Am I misunderstanding, or are you really able to make all that in one day? If so, can you talk about what you do that allows you to be that efficient? I work hard and steadily, but I couldn't begin to produce that much work. When do you trim, load kilns... all the overhead stuff?

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Mea
1/13/2018 05:05:14 pm

There are 8 lists on that page. In every two days, I complete one of those lists, not the entire page. I throw on the first day, and trim on the second day. In other words, I throw a about 30 pots in one day, then trim them all the next day. How did I learn to throw this much volume? By doing wholesale work for many years.

If you follow my instagram (@goodelephantpottery) you’ll get a good idea of my day-to-day workflow. I just posted a photo there of the pots I threw today, about 30 pots.

Reply
Lis Allison link
1/14/2018 05:36:45 am

Whew, I feel better. I was starting to think I was a real slowpoke! I usually work in batches, maybe 20 mugs, 12 bowls and so on. A full day's throwing means at least a day's trimming, maybe more. I also make a lot of flat slab dishes, they go fast. But they take longer to decorate so it all evens out. Now I don't feel so lazy!

Chris
1/15/2018 08:04:23 am

Love your work!! Just out of curiosity, when you run out of a popular item, do you take special orders to be shipped when you get home? Or do people not bother to place an order outside of a show?

Reply
Mea
1/15/2018 08:15:10 am

I used to do that, but not anymore. I used to feel guilty about it, or feel like I need to please people, but I've outgrown that. Now I explain to those customers that they can pick a future show and ask me to hold it for them. These days I usually have a few reserved orders for every show. It just makes way more sense to pack up the items and exchange money when I am already planning to do that all weekend. And packing pots into a shopping bag, to hand carried home by the customer, is so much easier than shipping. In between shows, I don’t have time for any of this. I have too many pots to make!

Reply
Maisie Christiansen link
8/12/2018 12:59:39 pm

Hi Mea, I found your blog through Clay Buddies. Right now I make mostly shutters from wood and sell through Etsy, but want to make the transition to pottery as I only have 3 or 4 orders of shutters per month, therefore not making a living at it. And cannot work many times in winter as I don't have a heated garage. I'm looking for ANY advice on going into pottery I can find, the business aspect of it. My husband says we can't afford to buy a kiln, and there's no way I could ever make $1500 net profits per month from pottery.......am trying to find a way to do this as I know many potters are making a living from it. but can't find a good source of info about it, and find many people get squirrely when asked..........am looking for advice, anywhere to find such a thing? I'm not looking for my comments to be published, am just looking for more business side education on a starting a pottery business. BTW, found this page very interesting!
Thanks,
Maisie

Reply
Lis Allison link
8/12/2018 01:12:36 pm

Sure you can. You need to learn the trade first, but that comes fast. And you need equipment. You can start off getting someone to fire for you, but you really need your own kiln, wheel etc. Check with your local potters/guild/club, there is often good used stuff available. I took out a bank loan for my first kiln, IT CAN BE DONE.

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    Mea Rhee (mee-uh ree),
    ​the potter behind Good Elephant Pottery


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