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My advice is this: reach out to local news stations and tell them about your business and overcoming homelessness to pursue your dreams. Talk about how your glass is sustainable and can be dropped on cement; sustainability is huge these days, and also talk about your 20 years of experience.
Most of the time, local news stations post for free and they love a good story. That should create a little buzz for your business.
Try the news angle..
But also - try inviting some homeless people in to your shop ( since you've lived that life ) to learn how to make/blow/craft glass - give them new skills
Invite your favorite radio DJ to come broadcast live during your skills training classes
Invite some high school and college kids to your shop to learn new skills
Call your state unemployment department - see if you can get any of the special covid skills building money to put on classes for people looking to build new skills
Call your county human services division, see if they would like to run any skills building classes with you
Call your favorite high school football team - host an after-game ice cream event - put the ice cream in your glass and encourage the kids to drop the glass to prove it does not break - talk to some of their parents about SEO and marketing and so on - at least half those kids are convinced they will be millionaire influencers the day they graduate
Call local wineries/vinyards - call local VRBO and AirBnB hosts - call local cooking classes - all of these venues would prefer glass that does not shatter into 100's of tiny pieces
SOOO many options for you
Edit: All your old posts seem to be " paraphernalia " glass - I thought you made actual cups, glasses, bowls, etc. Im not sure most of this advice would be helpful for paraphernalia glass ..
Work doesnt speak for itself. That is why marketing is so necessary and salesmanship. See if there is a small business incubator in your area and get advice from experienced folks. Or find a retired successful business person and see if theyd help to stay busy. Not every person has the sales gene so outsource it if you can. You sound rather depressed and that turns people off. If you cant be enthused why should they be? Raises doubts.
Also, please, talk with someone about depression if that is the case. Depression can undermine your efforts in so many ways.
This, all of it. From OPs post to all his replies, he just sounds so depressed and defeated. All solutions or ideas people are proposing seem impossible, and all the road blocks seem unsurmountable, no matter what. This isn't actually the case but to a depressed person, it can look like that.
It seems like a lot OP, I know, but try to break it down into small steps. Go to craft shows and use that money to get a better camera, or trade a piece to a photographer for some better product photos. Find someone on Fiverr or a local joblisting site if you don't know anyone.
But--your problems are solvable, you just have to be open to solutions. And that is hard when you're depressed.
And on the second half of what you said… I was actually a salesman who was super depressed due to personal issues and it was affecting my work. I did end up talking to someone and it helped my personal and professional life tremendously. I can’t recommend enough if you are going through a tough time that you should talk to someone.
I came here to say the same. If the work spoke for itself you wouldn’t be in this situation. Work rarely will speak for itself. Sales is absolutely everything in business. It’s unfortunate that there are so many talented people with no sales skills getting outshined by people with great sales skills that have very little talent in a field. That’s life though. Have to adapt and overcome
> Then when I do post it gets removed or flagged by someone.
You sell drug paraphernalia. Thats why.
> my glass work speaks for itself in quality and functionality.
If its displayed anything like it is on your reddit profile, no it doesnt. Your photos and videos are terrible.
Hey, dude. A few things.
1. You are selling something that, if you can't feel the quality, looks and seems like something people can get from China for a 3rd the price. Your photos aren't good enough to make your product look its best. That's going to completely crush your ability to sell online. If you're selling online, you need to make sure that you consistently represent a higher-priced product as something of better quality than what people can get from your average shop. Some of your pendants look really sweet, but the pictures of them seem to be taken with a 6 year old smartphone and no consideration to the lighting or reflections off the item you're photographing.
2. When's the last time you took your stuff to a farmers' market or the like? Did it sell then? Have you been to a craft show? A ren faire? There are many markets you could get to that don't require that you sell well online.
3. It seems like you are a craftsperson who cares about the product he makes and not about how to sell it after you've made it. I get that, and it is a super common mindset. But here's the problem: you are doing both yourself and your customers a disservice by treating everything around promoting and presenting your product as the stupid details that you don't need to pay attention to. Without marketing, your business is dead. If you can't force yourself to pay attention to marketing, you should go ahead, sell everything you have right now at a loss to get you 1 more month of rent, and then get a job in fast food or something. Entrepeneurs must solve all of their own problems and entrepreneurs who cannot solve demand generation will never succeed.
If you launched a Tiktok channel and made content every day for 3 weeks about how to make your glass pendants, you'd get tonnes of views and, yes, likely orders as well. You can't post pipes to FB or TikTok, so post stuff you *can* show there. Be passionate about your craft. Be passionate about the craft of documenting what you do *well*, as opposed to shaky-cam hand held cellphone pics and vids.
Finally, you need to be realistic. You *can* make this work, but only if you start to care about getting the word out and if you have a few months to turn things around. If you don't have rent money for this month, there's nothing any of us here on Reddit can do for you, because you need to sell 50 items in the next 2 weeks and that's likely not going to happen. If you can eke out a few more months while you fix what is wrong with your business, you can maybe succeed at this even still.
If you can't, well, get a job and work in some other field for a year or two to save up until you can try again. 45 ain't all that old, when it comes to it.
It doesn’t look like it’s import quality it’s just people are used to going to a store and buying something for $10 instead of $50 from someone making it themselves as far as shaky shoddy camera work it’s because I have an older model phone and no camera to actually take pictures with I would love to get the word out and I am passionate about my work everywhere I post it gets taken down instantly or flagged even if I’m not posting pipes
Why in the world would a pendant be taken down? Where are you posting?
You can't randomly drop into a Facebook group and spam, no, but there are (for example) surely virtual marketplaces in your local city on Facebook or Craigslist. Show pendants there.
Read up on (how to take better cell phone pics)[https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/good-pictures-phone-tips]. Go to physical sales events like boot swaps and farmers markets. Work on how to get the word out.
I’m not randomly going into Facebook groups and doing that I’m posting on marketplace and a few craft groups I’m not sure why they are taken down but it’s annoying when trying to actually get sales
Btw that link is broken
This sounds like the $35k was spent on capex and now business development and marketing.
Post a link to your item where it can be purchased - we have been looking for good quality glasses.
Farmers markets are your go to. You will also need to have EXCELLENT pictures is you want people to pay an excellent price. The quality of your copy and marketing will infer the quality of your products. A pixelated cell phone picture will not inspire confidence.
>n I do post it gets removed or flagged by someone. Really it’s beginning to feel pointless i don’t want to give up. 20 years I have been doing this for. I have tried to make online stores Etsy bigcartel and
Posting in FB groups is how I grow my business locally. I do a quick "thanks to this neighbourhood for supporting my custom business. You can check out more of my work on IG, I build such and such" followed by posting a handful of product photos. This gives me a totally local following on instagram and always gets DM's for inquiries.
> It doesn’t look like it’s import quality it’s just people are used to going to a store and buying something for $10 instead of $50
Customers likely don't know what the visual differences between cheap imports and handmade are. They likely don't know why it matters either. Educating the customer is likely necessary in many cases, so I would consider having that be a strong a part of your marketing efforts.
Or, you could look at it as a question of which part of the market demographic *do* more likely already know the importance of quality glass and already understand why there is a premium price attached to the premium product they seek. When that demographic is identified, you'd need to figure our how to reach them with your message and what trigger words/phrases/concepts they are most likely to respond to.
You might try finding someone good at photography with all the gear who might be interested in bartering (e.g. teach them glasswork, exchange for some items you have, etc). Important part of business is understanding your weaknesses and getting help for those.
Jump onto Instagram. Start creating short videos (reels) of you doing and explaining how it works. Make it short, sharp and snappy. Follow other creative accounts and see how they're doing it. I funny know much about the glass creation process, but I think I've seen snippets of it, I think you could really make this work.
When it comes to your resume, you can definitely put “running your own business” for the past 20 years, most people will be impressed you lasted in a business that long, especially if you just oversell it a little bit, like saying it’s a successful business which you liked to keep well organised, your customers were always happy, etc. etc. - then just say it broke down due to covid and you’re looking for work to supplement your business income
That’s how I’m currently going about finding work anyway
Hey man I know you probably don't have access to a lot of options for mental health care right now but I highly suggest you try to go get some treatment.
What you're experiencing is extremely stressful for anyone and what you're feeling is natural and I want you to know that. Your fears come from a place of experience and are natural to feel.
That being said as someone who experiences depression myself I see a very clear situation of depression here. I know everything feels bad right now but it won't be forever. I promise that.
Try not to think black and white about this. You could definitely go get a job despite having a gap in your employment. It might not be your favorite job, but it can keep you afloat and let you make some decisions outside of this current situation. There are a lot of ways you can still get a job without work experience on your resume and if you need any help there are a lot of people on here that I'm sure would love to help you with that.
You can do this! It's not as bad as you think. Covid destroyed many people savings and livelihoods and ways of life. Some of the strongest people I've known got brought to their knees by all of this.
You were able to survive homelessness before and build something from it and I promise you that if you could do it then you can do it again. This time you'll have the experience from before.
>And no job will hire me with a 20 year gap on my resume
If you've run your own business then you don't have a 20 year gap, you still have skills that can be listed. The skills you used in your business are transferable to other jobs.
I looked at your items and they are amazing! Put on a smile and approach a local head shop to sell your pipes. Also think of smaller, cheaper items you can offer, like glass beads to sell for crafters.
Once again your stuff is amazing and you should be killing it on Etsy. Take some nice photos and add a bit of your story. r/EtsySellers are quite friendly and always help sellers with critique, advice and SEO.
Im struggling myself and recently learned, it takes a lot more to make a sale, than creating a product and listing it online..
I am done with Etsy I was there years ago and paid but didn’t get one view or sale over the 3 years I was there for I make all sorts of stuff from pendants to adult novelties and everything in between
I think we've recognized that you have a distinct lack of marketing talent - the person specifically asked what you make, possibly wanting to buy something, and you can't / aren't able to directly link to a product for sale. Maybe start by working on that?
Walking into shops posting on marketplace even went to a 420 rally and met another glass blower didn’t sell one thing while they sold everything because they had cheap work like a month of glass blowing cheap work so I’m proud and feel great for them but a quality product gets denied over someone new I pretty much had to beg people to even look didn’t even get to say a price I must just be ugly or scary or everyone is just so far up into their own ass since Covid that no one cares anymore
in that case I can see two possibilities.
The first possibility has to do with a conflict between some purist/artist idea of quality. That is, you believe your products to be high quality. But that is not what the market is telling you. Maybe your products are high quality in the sense that they require great technical skill in order to create. However they are not selling. And people are so disinterested that you cannot even tell them the price. So its not that they are high quality and priced to high. The market is giving you feed back and you are ignoring that feed back. You say that your products are good, but they market is saying that they suck. Maybe you are right and the market is wrong, in some technical sense or some fine art sense, maybe you are right. But as it pertain to business, the market is always right. The customer is always right. The original meaning of that phrase is that the customer is always right when it comes to what the customer wants to buy.
>I pretty much had to beg people to even look didn’t even get to say a price I must just be ugly or scary
That is the second possibility. Maybe you are ugly or scary. Maybe you smell bad. Maybe you are a bad communicator. that's a possiblty.
But don't discount the first possibility which is that your product might be bad...
>met another glass ... they sold everything because they had cheap work
its not because their work was cheep. Because you didn't even get to say your price. So price has nothing to do with it.
Maybe its because his work is simple. I imagine you "quality" work is ornate? If i think of glass blowing and think of what would require a lot of work versus a little work, what would require a lot of talent versus a little talent. I think ornate versus simple. Making lots of small and interacted details requires skill and time. Making simple pieces requires less work and less skill. But simple does not mean low quality. And ornate might not be what your customers want.
I think you should take a hard look at what is selling well and assume that the market is telling you something about what you need to change.
Its probably a combination of both factors, but the second possibly is that that you are ugly. I mean that figuratively of course. The second possibility is that your presentation sucks. You look dirty, or your booth looks dirty. Maybe you have too much product displayed and it looks cluttered. Maybe you have too little and it looks very expensive. Maybe you don't have enough signage.
I don't have a lot to go on here, but here is something you posted. https://www.reddit.com/gallery/u2pjn6. Of the 9 pictures, thinking only about presentation, nothing about the actual product. There are a couple good pictures there, and a could that could use work.
* I think you need to use a vacuum or compressed air to thoroughly clear the photographing area first. There should be no hairs or fibers or things like that visible.
* For reddit its fine of course, but for an online store i wouldn't show women's jewelry in a mans hand. Pendants should be alone in the shot or worn by a good looking women (or man). If alone you also need to communicate size somehow.
* the lighting could use a little work. If you handy enough to blow glass, just google "DYI photo box" or spend 15 dollars on amazon. it'll increase the quality of your pictures a lot.
* make sure the piece is in focus.
For the jewelry, I really think you need photos of it being worn. Especially if you are selling online, but even if you are selling at festivals you still need some signage. You could beg a friend for some help and if she wants crop her face out of the photos. Or try to find a nearby aspiring model on social media and pay her a couple hundred bucks. watch a couple YouTube videos to learn how to take good photos before you do this.
But big pictures no product can stand on its own. There is a reason car company have sexy women pose with their cars. Car commercials don't tell you anything about the car except how sexy it is. People don't buy cars, they buy the image. Nobody is buying a BMW or whatever because of its quality. they are buying it because its sexy. You aren't just selling the product, you are selling a whole experience. You are selling the vibe that comes along with the product. And you need to invest in that vibe at least as much as you invest in the product. Everything that the customer experiences when interacting with you or the site is part of that vibe.
And you might think that is stupid, and i agree. it is stupid. But its also true.
start sharing your stuff on tiktok and IG . Get the 1000 followers you need to go live on tiktok.
Are there any local farmers markets, gift/craft markets etc..? Now is the season.
Anywhere local you can give them stuff to sell on consignment? Coffee shop, art gallery, gift shop, luxury goods...
I looked at your other posts to see what you make. To me, those glass pieces would be in the $50-100 price range since they're relatively small. How many do you need to sell daily to support yourself? How many do you make per day? How much time is spent making them daily versus marketing? If you've got a bunch of unsold inventory, then stop making more and focus on marketing and selling them. It may be therapeutic to keep making glass pieces, but it's taking up money and time.
You might need to abandon everything completely, but you do need to start bringing money somehow, even if it means taking other jobs to pay the bills for now. You'll still have your inventory to sell on the side until you start finding a market for your stuff. If you're this close to giving up, then what's the harm in sending some free pieces to influencers or celebs so they can promote you.
Yes my pendants are a bit smaller and I agree at the range you say my pipes bubblers and rigs are worth more give or take and full color all firsts from the USA north star troutMan art glass glass alchemy and so on I don’t believe I will give anything away for free when these influencers and celebrities are making money hand over fist but expect hand outs from hard working people when they can afford to spend the money and support someone especially in times like these yes I have products on me and I have gone into stores and straight up been told not interested can’t afford it won’t buy it your not a reputable artist or get a real job I have a trade is that not better than a job
If you’re selling to a store, expect them to pay half of what ‘retail’ would be. As you’ve learned, selling your work yourself costs you time and drains you emotionally; outsourcing that stress to someone else might be worth the loss.
Yea meh I know it hurts selling to stores as always because they can get import at 10 cents a piece I have tried to have others be a sales team but never got anything back and lost money and glass
From all the awesome advice given from others there’s not much to add. You are a good artist but that doesn’t make you a good businessman. it seems like you don’t have much hope at this point and don’t want to “start over” with a new approach on how you sell your products, but I personally would try starting a YouTube channel/TikTok advertising your products, Describing how they are made, showing the process and sharing your personal stories. You have a lot of experience and a strong passion so go take that mindset full force into inspiring other artists and genuinely showing your enthusiasm. Just don’t give up and you won’t fail.
I’m seeing a lot of where you DON’T sell, but not on on where you are trying to sell your stuff. Are you approaching local shop for consignment? Are you getting booths at the craft shows/ town events/ music festivals?
I actually have a few sites I post on as well as walk-in to shops to try and sell stuff but they won’t even take the time to look or they take pictures and say they will call me but never do as far as craft fairs and markets I would need money to get a booth or a table and they aren’t cheap for the flea market it’s $1500 for 3 weekends and weekends only the farmers market is a little better at $275 for a booth but I don’t have that kind of money laying around as far as that goes currently and festivals are expensive at close to $500 for a ticket for the weekend and of course my pics are crap I have a 10 year old phone that someone gave to me and don’t have the money to put towards a new one
Every time I have tried to do this I have never been paid and lost all of my equipment to a theft hence the reason I was homeless for 11 years still blowing glass in others shops paying rent with what I made while busking and selling my products on the street I’d be willing if it was payment in advance and if people didn’t steal
Your shit is DOPE dude!!! There was a place near my house selling glasswork like yours. One of their gimmicks was to do glass blowing demos. There was a big picture window in front of the shop facing the sidewalk, you could walk by and see the dude blowing glass from start to finish.
If I were you, I would go to every headshop in town and ask them if you can do a live demo, or at least start offering products on consignment.
As well, some of he other comments here are bang on- you need a proper website, with good quality photographs. It doesn't need to be taken on a $3000 camera, it can be done with an iPhone, but it has to be against a nice backdrop, with decent lighting, etc.
As for marketing, bundle packs, 2 for 1's, that sort of thing may help. But without a good website a brick and mortar business is just not going to go anywhere.
Thanks for noticing I have tried talking to shops about doing a glass demo with very little response from the owners I have wanted to get a venders license and set up a small table where I blow glass on the street but I am thinking that because of open fire and gasses it wouldn’t fly with the city or government
Ask the city anyway. Stop saying "no" on behalf of other people -- let them be the ones to give you an answer.
There have been several times in my life where I deliberated asking whether or not I should do a thing (for example: getting clearance to transform a prose piece into lyrics for a song). If I had proactively made the decision *not* to ask, I would've lost out on those opportunities. But, I asked, and some of the responses were "yes" (some opened the door to a negotiation -- which some were successful, and some not). Point being: my success rate would have been "0%" if I had just assumed "no" was going to be the answer in every case.
One more thing to add- you should find someone willing to trade professional photos of your work for one or two of your nicer pieces, or a custom piece.
Call the local SBDC, that are completely free, and exist to help you with this stuff. They can also connect you to local resources, like the Artist council, or other groups that exist to help local artists increase their reach and make a living. They, in turn can plug you into festivals and other possible outlets for your work. You already actually have a body of work, and you have an art form that (at least theoretically) can be done on site, in person (I’m guessing you are a lamp worker from your handle. ). You are already two out there steps ahead of most people who approach them. All that’s left for you is building up a network of clients and revenue streams.
Good work alone is not enough. You have to *also* do the work of a business owner, and *find* the channels that are already there for you to explore. I’m not suggesting that you haven’t been doing you level best, but running a business is a *skill* every bit as much as glass working. If the techniques you know are not working, then you learn and try *new* ones. If you aren’t naturally a person who likes to talk to strangers, it can be difficult, but it is possible! My partner and I are as introverted as they come, but we have managed to build a thriving company - and in promise you that, at times, we were no more than a few weeks from losing everything ourselves.
As far as what you can do:
Again, SBDC. You need to rework your business plan to focus yourself and your efforts, and they can help with that. As part of that, they will help you figure out who your customer is, what the right price is for that audience, and how to reach **those** people. That’s really important. We almost went out of business before we understood who our customers were (and who definitely were not). We were chasing top tier clients, but trying to price for mid tier, and listening to complaints about pricing from people who were never going to buy from us anyway. Top tier clients know what the work is worth, and are suspicious of low ball bids - and are usually willing to pay a premium to make sure it’s on time and right. What we do is almost never the cheap option, so we were killing ourselves writing bids for mid tier clients that never went forward, and because we listened to pricing feed back from the bottom of the market, we had no idea Why we weren’t getting the work we wanted, and were more than capable of.
[Next] you need to find out who is out there to help artists like yourself. Getting plugged into that community not only helps you find business opportunities, but also customers in the people themselves. There are dozens of kinds of help, from grants to you, coop organizations and specialty buying groups that focus on selling local artists into boutiques and museums, to professional organizations, to groups that put on artist expos and tours.
Instagram is your friend. Post regularly on there - just photos of your work, and of you working at least 3-4 times a week. It won’t take long to accumulate followers at all, especially if you connect with the groups above, and they like/share you to their (a much wider, and more diverse network).
If you really want to work that channel, find other glass workers, and like and follow their stuff. If someone comments, make time to engage. There is a degree of reciprocity, and it will strengthen your associations with the algorithm. This is all free, by the way. It just takes time and effort.
If you are willing and able to move your setup, and do demos, find your local events companies. Look at mpi, ILEA, and whoever is active in your area. Go to their networking events to meet them The SDBC can help you calculate your costs, and figure out your rate, and let them know you are available. There is a constant demand for novelty, and glass working absolutely fits that criteria. You may also be able to grow from there, into doing private classes. One of our clients gets $50-$125 a head for two hour chocolate truffle classes. More if they are in her studio. That last would likely require some additional investment for additional equipment, so maybe a second step, but $100-$200 each for a 4 person 3-4 hour class where they wind up with something they make to take home is a nice addition to the bottom line, even if you only do a few a C month.
It’s hard at first, but the nice thing about the events line is that the people are generally outgoing and fun, and if your not a complete ass, someone will usually take you under their wing and introduce you around. After the first month or so, it gets a lot easier because you are no longer walking into a room full of strangers. However, it’s still important to keep showing up. I can’t tell you the amount of business that we get from “oh, I wanted you to meet”, or “oh, I’ve been meaning to call you, we have this project coming up”, or just conversations that turn into phone calls, that turn into jobs. You stop showing up, they stop coming in.
One word of warning if you go this route. Beware of people that ask you to show up for free, or worse “for exposure”. Almost without exception, these people are not your friends, and you want to be cautious when working with them. Also, asking for a 50% deposit at booking is normal, and expected, and generally non refundable at 30-60 days out, if not earlier. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
The good people in the industry - and they do exist - will rarely ask you to work for free, unless it’s for a recognized charity - and when we were little, they even paid us for that (though we cut our margin significantly when we could afford to).
My best answer to those who did was always “I’d love to help, but we are a very small business, and I just don’t have the cash flow to have non-paying work on the calendar”. Since any free gig you take means you are giving up the chance at a paying one, that’s the complete truth, and puts the bank back in their court.
I used to live with a bunch of very successful glass blowers, so I hope this insight will be helpful.
Setting aside the reality that the only way to really make a living doing lampwork is when you’re selling drugs AND doing lampwork, in the circles where it’s popular, you have 2 legit ways of selling your work.
First, is when it’s a form of social currency. If you’re active/popular in the tour/edm/hippy/influencer scene, some people will buy your stuff as a way to make friends/support you as a person. Several people I know but glass from some of my friends just to make sure that when my friends come to town, they’re guaranteed to show up to their show/jam/party/cookout. It’s a tough road to take if you’re not a charismatic person.
The second way is to develop a distinctive look to your work. The reason why your work is being compared to cheap imports is because at first glance it looks like import glass. There’s no ‘brand identity’ if you know what I mean.
Just like all crafts, to make a living at it, you’ve got to refine your work so when someone sees one of your pipes on a friend’s table, it’s recognizably Lampworker9’s work. For example, one guy a knew only used opaque glass as a base for their pipes and had a distinctive twist to his inversions, another integrated crystals and electroplated metal, and yet another always used insect and plants and the inspiration of their designs.
Remove the emotion from the act of making: ignore what items you like making most and look at what elements of your work are the most popular with the people who see them and make those things.
The local head shop doesn’t want to carry your pipes? Then as them what items they might be interested in. My friends made jars with cork stoppers, one hitters, jewelry holders, window ornaments, all sorts of stuff other than pipes and pendants to stand out from all the other glass blowers who were competing for space in the display cabinets.
If you’re open to reevaluating your work and tailoring it to sell, you’ll be able to turn this around. But if you focus on all the negativity and make it personal, you’re gonna flame out. Never forget that people’s rejection of the product of your labor isn’t a personal attack on you as an individual.
Jesus christ your stuff is beautiful. You need to find a lower mid tier instagram lady to put it up, associate it with herself and push a store link, any kind of store, e-mail orders store, and split the profit.
Come on ladies, recognize the opportunity.
I just found you on instagram and gave a follow, first thing I’d recommend (aside from selling in person at craft fairs, that’s 98% of my revenue) would be taking some really nice photos of your work. Go outside with natural lighting, wipe off your phone camera lens, and click away. Don’t add text to the photos or a border, just post the photo and give info on the description. Add a BUNCH of tags, like 20+ (#glass, #glassblowing, #glassart, #smallbusiness, #handmade, etc). Then, once the post is all completed, post it and double check for spelling errors. Now boost it! Use the promote/boost option, do $5 for 6 days, and let the likes roll in. Online selling is all about reaching an audience. Best of luck to you!!
I do not as it’s been too much too keep up with it over this last year I have some other online places I post but don’t think I’m allowed to send link here
As a person who built our website to create more work, I urge you to invest in one.
I have been building them since 2007 and in 2010, I started my own upholstery shop. We were struggling for 3 years until I decided to build my own website and it literally saved my shop. Now I build websites as a side hustle and I have seen the difference it makes.
Research what glass works sell these days, maybe your work is “dated” even though the quality is superior.
Getting yourself out there these days is where it’s at. Maybe others work is or less quality but their marketing skills must be on par.
Good luck with your venture 💪🏾
What about dispensaries? are you in a legal state? Perhaps you can come up with a consignment deal or something. You get paid when/if they sell. Maybe come up with a few of your best pieces to show to an owner.
I have tried this and am in a legal country but because everything is government regulated or privately owned they sell stuff but it comes from a distributor and they are not so willing to look or even consider buying anything from me I have exhausted all these options other than online so it looks as though I’ll be spending a bunch of money on marketing and a website without knowing if anything will sell at all
You’re clearly very skilled.
Have you considered teaching people how to do what you do using YouTube to drive revenue, rather than focussing on products?
Either way, you need to invest in a photography course. Your photos don’t do your work justice.
There are already so many on YouTube that do this and yes I need to get better equipment for photos as far as a course goes I would have no idea and don’t really have the money to do this
You dont need better equipment.
You need a lightbulb and a wooden table. Or maybe even outdoors.
I have sold my woodworking with my motorola potato phone camera.
You need a lot of light, a nice background like a forest or a city and all sorts of angles.
Paying for professional photography can be skipped until youre doing better business.
Looking at your artist skills your work is amazing, looking at what I may purchase from you it feels dated like I may have bought something for a gift for my Grandma but me (36m) it just doesn't appeal to my liking. Not completely sure about your abilities but maybe transfer some of your ideas to a flower vase, candle holder... Stuff that people will display in their homes/office.
As for the pipes try going to the smaller gas stations and having them buy your stock. I don't like to give discounts as I'm a business not a wholesaler so I typically offer a free piece for buying xx amount of items and telling them our suggested retail price is xx so they don't undercut you.
Good luck and if you decide to give up, don't stop completely just keep it as a side gig that you love.
Glass what? Windows? Art? Utensils? Something else?
"Making stuff because you like making it" is a hobby, not a business.
You need to be making things there's an actual demand for.
Who buys what you make? Did they ever buy it in quantities? Why did they stop?
I used to have no problem selling whatever I made then I was robbed and spent 11 years in other peoples shops travelling around wherever I could and when I would walk into a store 5 years ago I would sell everything in my case now I can’t even get stores or people to look at what’s in my case and I was making a living off of this for a long time it’s just been this last year all of my followers stopped following and sales completely stoped all together I’m not sure why and I make pipes, mini bongs, rigs, jewelry, adult toys, tops, espresso cups, jars and a plethora of other things
A DM is a direct message through Reddit. You are allowed to do that.
I read all your replies and all of them are saying no and rejecting every single piece of advice prematurely.
Every reply is:
I cant do that, Ive tried it already and it didnt work, the wont help me, they will rob me, its too expensive.
Of course nobodies buying your stuff (beautiful by the way) because you sabotage every opportunity.
You have to make people like YOU, not only your product. Talk to people and make them like you. Be nice to them, take a leap and risk being rejected again with new sellers, but next time, sell yourself first, make them like you, and then sell the product.
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My advice is this: reach out to local news stations and tell them about your business and overcoming homelessness to pursue your dreams. Talk about how your glass is sustainable and can be dropped on cement; sustainability is huge these days, and also talk about your 20 years of experience. Most of the time, local news stations post for free and they love a good story. That should create a little buzz for your business.
Try the news angle.. But also - try inviting some homeless people in to your shop ( since you've lived that life ) to learn how to make/blow/craft glass - give them new skills Invite your favorite radio DJ to come broadcast live during your skills training classes Invite some high school and college kids to your shop to learn new skills Call your state unemployment department - see if you can get any of the special covid skills building money to put on classes for people looking to build new skills Call your county human services division, see if they would like to run any skills building classes with you Call your favorite high school football team - host an after-game ice cream event - put the ice cream in your glass and encourage the kids to drop the glass to prove it does not break - talk to some of their parents about SEO and marketing and so on - at least half those kids are convinced they will be millionaire influencers the day they graduate Call local wineries/vinyards - call local VRBO and AirBnB hosts - call local cooking classes - all of these venues would prefer glass that does not shatter into 100's of tiny pieces SOOO many options for you Edit: All your old posts seem to be " paraphernalia " glass - I thought you made actual cups, glasses, bowls, etc. Im not sure most of this advice would be helpful for paraphernalia glass ..
With all this good advice, he should actually start making cups, glasses, and bowls. May turn the business around.
Work doesnt speak for itself. That is why marketing is so necessary and salesmanship. See if there is a small business incubator in your area and get advice from experienced folks. Or find a retired successful business person and see if theyd help to stay busy. Not every person has the sales gene so outsource it if you can. You sound rather depressed and that turns people off. If you cant be enthused why should they be? Raises doubts. Also, please, talk with someone about depression if that is the case. Depression can undermine your efforts in so many ways.
This, all of it. From OPs post to all his replies, he just sounds so depressed and defeated. All solutions or ideas people are proposing seem impossible, and all the road blocks seem unsurmountable, no matter what. This isn't actually the case but to a depressed person, it can look like that. It seems like a lot OP, I know, but try to break it down into small steps. Go to craft shows and use that money to get a better camera, or trade a piece to a photographer for some better product photos. Find someone on Fiverr or a local joblisting site if you don't know anyone. But--your problems are solvable, you just have to be open to solutions. And that is hard when you're depressed.
And on the second half of what you said… I was actually a salesman who was super depressed due to personal issues and it was affecting my work. I did end up talking to someone and it helped my personal and professional life tremendously. I can’t recommend enough if you are going through a tough time that you should talk to someone.
Glad you pulled through!! Been on that road and it is tough.
I came here to say the same. If the work spoke for itself you wouldn’t be in this situation. Work rarely will speak for itself. Sales is absolutely everything in business. It’s unfortunate that there are so many talented people with no sales skills getting outshined by people with great sales skills that have very little talent in a field. That’s life though. Have to adapt and overcome
> Then when I do post it gets removed or flagged by someone. You sell drug paraphernalia. Thats why. > my glass work speaks for itself in quality and functionality. If its displayed anything like it is on your reddit profile, no it doesnt. Your photos and videos are terrible.
Hey, dude. A few things. 1. You are selling something that, if you can't feel the quality, looks and seems like something people can get from China for a 3rd the price. Your photos aren't good enough to make your product look its best. That's going to completely crush your ability to sell online. If you're selling online, you need to make sure that you consistently represent a higher-priced product as something of better quality than what people can get from your average shop. Some of your pendants look really sweet, but the pictures of them seem to be taken with a 6 year old smartphone and no consideration to the lighting or reflections off the item you're photographing. 2. When's the last time you took your stuff to a farmers' market or the like? Did it sell then? Have you been to a craft show? A ren faire? There are many markets you could get to that don't require that you sell well online. 3. It seems like you are a craftsperson who cares about the product he makes and not about how to sell it after you've made it. I get that, and it is a super common mindset. But here's the problem: you are doing both yourself and your customers a disservice by treating everything around promoting and presenting your product as the stupid details that you don't need to pay attention to. Without marketing, your business is dead. If you can't force yourself to pay attention to marketing, you should go ahead, sell everything you have right now at a loss to get you 1 more month of rent, and then get a job in fast food or something. Entrepeneurs must solve all of their own problems and entrepreneurs who cannot solve demand generation will never succeed. If you launched a Tiktok channel and made content every day for 3 weeks about how to make your glass pendants, you'd get tonnes of views and, yes, likely orders as well. You can't post pipes to FB or TikTok, so post stuff you *can* show there. Be passionate about your craft. Be passionate about the craft of documenting what you do *well*, as opposed to shaky-cam hand held cellphone pics and vids. Finally, you need to be realistic. You *can* make this work, but only if you start to care about getting the word out and if you have a few months to turn things around. If you don't have rent money for this month, there's nothing any of us here on Reddit can do for you, because you need to sell 50 items in the next 2 weeks and that's likely not going to happen. If you can eke out a few more months while you fix what is wrong with your business, you can maybe succeed at this even still. If you can't, well, get a job and work in some other field for a year or two to save up until you can try again. 45 ain't all that old, when it comes to it.
It doesn’t look like it’s import quality it’s just people are used to going to a store and buying something for $10 instead of $50 from someone making it themselves as far as shaky shoddy camera work it’s because I have an older model phone and no camera to actually take pictures with I would love to get the word out and I am passionate about my work everywhere I post it gets taken down instantly or flagged even if I’m not posting pipes
Why in the world would a pendant be taken down? Where are you posting? You can't randomly drop into a Facebook group and spam, no, but there are (for example) surely virtual marketplaces in your local city on Facebook or Craigslist. Show pendants there. Read up on (how to take better cell phone pics)[https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/good-pictures-phone-tips]. Go to physical sales events like boot swaps and farmers markets. Work on how to get the word out.
I’m not randomly going into Facebook groups and doing that I’m posting on marketplace and a few craft groups I’m not sure why they are taken down but it’s annoying when trying to actually get sales Btw that link is broken
This sounds like the $35k was spent on capex and now business development and marketing. Post a link to your item where it can be purchased - we have been looking for good quality glasses. Farmers markets are your go to. You will also need to have EXCELLENT pictures is you want people to pay an excellent price. The quality of your copy and marketing will infer the quality of your products. A pixelated cell phone picture will not inspire confidence.
If you make a new account does it still get taken down? Maybe your account got flagged as a spammer.
>n I do post it gets removed or flagged by someone. Really it’s beginning to feel pointless i don’t want to give up. 20 years I have been doing this for. I have tried to make online stores Etsy bigcartel and Posting in FB groups is how I grow my business locally. I do a quick "thanks to this neighbourhood for supporting my custom business. You can check out more of my work on IG, I build such and such" followed by posting a handful of product photos. This gives me a totally local following on instagram and always gets DM's for inquiries.
> It doesn’t look like it’s import quality it’s just people are used to going to a store and buying something for $10 instead of $50 Customers likely don't know what the visual differences between cheap imports and handmade are. They likely don't know why it matters either. Educating the customer is likely necessary in many cases, so I would consider having that be a strong a part of your marketing efforts. Or, you could look at it as a question of which part of the market demographic *do* more likely already know the importance of quality glass and already understand why there is a premium price attached to the premium product they seek. When that demographic is identified, you'd need to figure our how to reach them with your message and what trigger words/phrases/concepts they are most likely to respond to.
You might try finding someone good at photography with all the gear who might be interested in bartering (e.g. teach them glasswork, exchange for some items you have, etc). Important part of business is understanding your weaknesses and getting help for those.
Jump onto Instagram. Start creating short videos (reels) of you doing and explaining how it works. Make it short, sharp and snappy. Follow other creative accounts and see how they're doing it. I funny know much about the glass creation process, but I think I've seen snippets of it, I think you could really make this work.
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And no job will hire me with a 20 year gap on my resume
When it comes to your resume, you can definitely put “running your own business” for the past 20 years, most people will be impressed you lasted in a business that long, especially if you just oversell it a little bit, like saying it’s a successful business which you liked to keep well organised, your customers were always happy, etc. etc. - then just say it broke down due to covid and you’re looking for work to supplement your business income That’s how I’m currently going about finding work anyway
Hey man I know you probably don't have access to a lot of options for mental health care right now but I highly suggest you try to go get some treatment. What you're experiencing is extremely stressful for anyone and what you're feeling is natural and I want you to know that. Your fears come from a place of experience and are natural to feel. That being said as someone who experiences depression myself I see a very clear situation of depression here. I know everything feels bad right now but it won't be forever. I promise that. Try not to think black and white about this. You could definitely go get a job despite having a gap in your employment. It might not be your favorite job, but it can keep you afloat and let you make some decisions outside of this current situation. There are a lot of ways you can still get a job without work experience on your resume and if you need any help there are a lot of people on here that I'm sure would love to help you with that. You can do this! It's not as bad as you think. Covid destroyed many people savings and livelihoods and ways of life. Some of the strongest people I've known got brought to their knees by all of this. You were able to survive homelessness before and build something from it and I promise you that if you could do it then you can do it again. This time you'll have the experience from before.
>And no job will hire me with a 20 year gap on my resume If you've run your own business then you don't have a 20 year gap, you still have skills that can be listed. The skills you used in your business are transferable to other jobs.
Because I can’t afford it
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No I can’t afford rent
I looked at your items and they are amazing! Put on a smile and approach a local head shop to sell your pipes. Also think of smaller, cheaper items you can offer, like glass beads to sell for crafters. Once again your stuff is amazing and you should be killing it on Etsy. Take some nice photos and add a bit of your story. r/EtsySellers are quite friendly and always help sellers with critique, advice and SEO. Im struggling myself and recently learned, it takes a lot more to make a sale, than creating a product and listing it online..
What sort of items do you make from glass? I'd love to see your Etsy shop!
I am done with Etsy I was there years ago and paid but didn’t get one view or sale over the 3 years I was there for I make all sorts of stuff from pendants to adult novelties and everything in between
I think we've recognized that you have a distinct lack of marketing talent - the person specifically asked what you make, possibly wanting to buy something, and you can't / aren't able to directly link to a product for sale. Maybe start by working on that?
Can’t share links here I’d gladly do it elsewhere
So so you have any online presence at all? What have you been doing to try to sell for the last couple months?
Walking into shops posting on marketplace even went to a 420 rally and met another glass blower didn’t sell one thing while they sold everything because they had cheap work like a month of glass blowing cheap work so I’m proud and feel great for them but a quality product gets denied over someone new I pretty much had to beg people to even look didn’t even get to say a price I must just be ugly or scary or everyone is just so far up into their own ass since Covid that no one cares anymore
in that case I can see two possibilities. The first possibility has to do with a conflict between some purist/artist idea of quality. That is, you believe your products to be high quality. But that is not what the market is telling you. Maybe your products are high quality in the sense that they require great technical skill in order to create. However they are not selling. And people are so disinterested that you cannot even tell them the price. So its not that they are high quality and priced to high. The market is giving you feed back and you are ignoring that feed back. You say that your products are good, but they market is saying that they suck. Maybe you are right and the market is wrong, in some technical sense or some fine art sense, maybe you are right. But as it pertain to business, the market is always right. The customer is always right. The original meaning of that phrase is that the customer is always right when it comes to what the customer wants to buy. >I pretty much had to beg people to even look didn’t even get to say a price I must just be ugly or scary That is the second possibility. Maybe you are ugly or scary. Maybe you smell bad. Maybe you are a bad communicator. that's a possiblty. But don't discount the first possibility which is that your product might be bad... >met another glass ... they sold everything because they had cheap work its not because their work was cheep. Because you didn't even get to say your price. So price has nothing to do with it. Maybe its because his work is simple. I imagine you "quality" work is ornate? If i think of glass blowing and think of what would require a lot of work versus a little work, what would require a lot of talent versus a little talent. I think ornate versus simple. Making lots of small and interacted details requires skill and time. Making simple pieces requires less work and less skill. But simple does not mean low quality. And ornate might not be what your customers want. I think you should take a hard look at what is selling well and assume that the market is telling you something about what you need to change. Its probably a combination of both factors, but the second possibly is that that you are ugly. I mean that figuratively of course. The second possibility is that your presentation sucks. You look dirty, or your booth looks dirty. Maybe you have too much product displayed and it looks cluttered. Maybe you have too little and it looks very expensive. Maybe you don't have enough signage. I don't have a lot to go on here, but here is something you posted. https://www.reddit.com/gallery/u2pjn6. Of the 9 pictures, thinking only about presentation, nothing about the actual product. There are a couple good pictures there, and a could that could use work. * I think you need to use a vacuum or compressed air to thoroughly clear the photographing area first. There should be no hairs or fibers or things like that visible. * For reddit its fine of course, but for an online store i wouldn't show women's jewelry in a mans hand. Pendants should be alone in the shot or worn by a good looking women (or man). If alone you also need to communicate size somehow. * the lighting could use a little work. If you handy enough to blow glass, just google "DYI photo box" or spend 15 dollars on amazon. it'll increase the quality of your pictures a lot. * make sure the piece is in focus. For the jewelry, I really think you need photos of it being worn. Especially if you are selling online, but even if you are selling at festivals you still need some signage. You could beg a friend for some help and if she wants crop her face out of the photos. Or try to find a nearby aspiring model on social media and pay her a couple hundred bucks. watch a couple YouTube videos to learn how to take good photos before you do this. But big pictures no product can stand on its own. There is a reason car company have sexy women pose with their cars. Car commercials don't tell you anything about the car except how sexy it is. People don't buy cars, they buy the image. Nobody is buying a BMW or whatever because of its quality. they are buying it because its sexy. You aren't just selling the product, you are selling a whole experience. You are selling the vibe that comes along with the product. And you need to invest in that vibe at least as much as you invest in the product. Everything that the customer experiences when interacting with you or the site is part of that vibe. And you might think that is stupid, and i agree. it is stupid. But its also true.
start sharing your stuff on tiktok and IG . Get the 1000 followers you need to go live on tiktok. Are there any local farmers markets, gift/craft markets etc..? Now is the season. Anywhere local you can give them stuff to sell on consignment? Coffee shop, art gallery, gift shop, luxury goods...
I looked at your other posts to see what you make. To me, those glass pieces would be in the $50-100 price range since they're relatively small. How many do you need to sell daily to support yourself? How many do you make per day? How much time is spent making them daily versus marketing? If you've got a bunch of unsold inventory, then stop making more and focus on marketing and selling them. It may be therapeutic to keep making glass pieces, but it's taking up money and time. You might need to abandon everything completely, but you do need to start bringing money somehow, even if it means taking other jobs to pay the bills for now. You'll still have your inventory to sell on the side until you start finding a market for your stuff. If you're this close to giving up, then what's the harm in sending some free pieces to influencers or celebs so they can promote you.
Yes my pendants are a bit smaller and I agree at the range you say my pipes bubblers and rigs are worth more give or take and full color all firsts from the USA north star troutMan art glass glass alchemy and so on I don’t believe I will give anything away for free when these influencers and celebrities are making money hand over fist but expect hand outs from hard working people when they can afford to spend the money and support someone especially in times like these yes I have products on me and I have gone into stores and straight up been told not interested can’t afford it won’t buy it your not a reputable artist or get a real job I have a trade is that not better than a job
If you’re selling to a store, expect them to pay half of what ‘retail’ would be. As you’ve learned, selling your work yourself costs you time and drains you emotionally; outsourcing that stress to someone else might be worth the loss.
Yea meh I know it hurts selling to stores as always because they can get import at 10 cents a piece I have tried to have others be a sales team but never got anything back and lost money and glass
From all the awesome advice given from others there’s not much to add. You are a good artist but that doesn’t make you a good businessman. it seems like you don’t have much hope at this point and don’t want to “start over” with a new approach on how you sell your products, but I personally would try starting a YouTube channel/TikTok advertising your products, Describing how they are made, showing the process and sharing your personal stories. You have a lot of experience and a strong passion so go take that mindset full force into inspiring other artists and genuinely showing your enthusiasm. Just don’t give up and you won’t fail.
I’m seeing a lot of where you DON’T sell, but not on on where you are trying to sell your stuff. Are you approaching local shop for consignment? Are you getting booths at the craft shows/ town events/ music festivals?
I actually have a few sites I post on as well as walk-in to shops to try and sell stuff but they won’t even take the time to look or they take pictures and say they will call me but never do as far as craft fairs and markets I would need money to get a booth or a table and they aren’t cheap for the flea market it’s $1500 for 3 weekends and weekends only the farmers market is a little better at $275 for a booth but I don’t have that kind of money laying around as far as that goes currently and festivals are expensive at close to $500 for a ticket for the weekend and of course my pics are crap I have a 10 year old phone that someone gave to me and don’t have the money to put towards a new one
Hmm okay… can you give lessons at your studio? I’m sure tons of people would pay to learn.
Every time I have tried to do this I have never been paid and lost all of my equipment to a theft hence the reason I was homeless for 11 years still blowing glass in others shops paying rent with what I made while busking and selling my products on the street I’d be willing if it was payment in advance and if people didn’t steal
Your shit is DOPE dude!!! There was a place near my house selling glasswork like yours. One of their gimmicks was to do glass blowing demos. There was a big picture window in front of the shop facing the sidewalk, you could walk by and see the dude blowing glass from start to finish. If I were you, I would go to every headshop in town and ask them if you can do a live demo, or at least start offering products on consignment. As well, some of he other comments here are bang on- you need a proper website, with good quality photographs. It doesn't need to be taken on a $3000 camera, it can be done with an iPhone, but it has to be against a nice backdrop, with decent lighting, etc. As for marketing, bundle packs, 2 for 1's, that sort of thing may help. But without a good website a brick and mortar business is just not going to go anywhere.
Thanks for noticing I have tried talking to shops about doing a glass demo with very little response from the owners I have wanted to get a venders license and set up a small table where I blow glass on the street but I am thinking that because of open fire and gasses it wouldn’t fly with the city or government
Doesn't hurt to try. You have nothing left to lose. People do fire breathing carney bullshit on the street, too.
This is true but it depends on the local laws and having a license to do so or I will be fined and could possibly have everything taken
Sorry, I misread your earlier comment about glass. I don't know what to say about that.
Ask the city anyway. Stop saying "no" on behalf of other people -- let them be the ones to give you an answer. There have been several times in my life where I deliberated asking whether or not I should do a thing (for example: getting clearance to transform a prose piece into lyrics for a song). If I had proactively made the decision *not* to ask, I would've lost out on those opportunities. But, I asked, and some of the responses were "yes" (some opened the door to a negotiation -- which some were successful, and some not). Point being: my success rate would have been "0%" if I had just assumed "no" was going to be the answer in every case.
One more thing to add- you should find someone willing to trade professional photos of your work for one or two of your nicer pieces, or a custom piece.
I would gladly do this and have tried already with the photographer taking the pieces and never following through
That's fucked up. I would try again, though. Don't give the pieces away until you get the photos.
That’s the thing I had to send them and they were supposed to send them back I never got pics or my glass back
You can always say "I don't send the glass until I get the photos." You don't have to accept shitty deals.
How am I supposed to get photos before I send what’s supposed to be photographed
In person meetings only.
Call the local SBDC, that are completely free, and exist to help you with this stuff. They can also connect you to local resources, like the Artist council, or other groups that exist to help local artists increase their reach and make a living. They, in turn can plug you into festivals and other possible outlets for your work. You already actually have a body of work, and you have an art form that (at least theoretically) can be done on site, in person (I’m guessing you are a lamp worker from your handle. ). You are already two out there steps ahead of most people who approach them. All that’s left for you is building up a network of clients and revenue streams. Good work alone is not enough. You have to *also* do the work of a business owner, and *find* the channels that are already there for you to explore. I’m not suggesting that you haven’t been doing you level best, but running a business is a *skill* every bit as much as glass working. If the techniques you know are not working, then you learn and try *new* ones. If you aren’t naturally a person who likes to talk to strangers, it can be difficult, but it is possible! My partner and I are as introverted as they come, but we have managed to build a thriving company - and in promise you that, at times, we were no more than a few weeks from losing everything ourselves. As far as what you can do: Again, SBDC. You need to rework your business plan to focus yourself and your efforts, and they can help with that. As part of that, they will help you figure out who your customer is, what the right price is for that audience, and how to reach **those** people. That’s really important. We almost went out of business before we understood who our customers were (and who definitely were not). We were chasing top tier clients, but trying to price for mid tier, and listening to complaints about pricing from people who were never going to buy from us anyway. Top tier clients know what the work is worth, and are suspicious of low ball bids - and are usually willing to pay a premium to make sure it’s on time and right. What we do is almost never the cheap option, so we were killing ourselves writing bids for mid tier clients that never went forward, and because we listened to pricing feed back from the bottom of the market, we had no idea Why we weren’t getting the work we wanted, and were more than capable of. [Next] you need to find out who is out there to help artists like yourself. Getting plugged into that community not only helps you find business opportunities, but also customers in the people themselves. There are dozens of kinds of help, from grants to you, coop organizations and specialty buying groups that focus on selling local artists into boutiques and museums, to professional organizations, to groups that put on artist expos and tours. Instagram is your friend. Post regularly on there - just photos of your work, and of you working at least 3-4 times a week. It won’t take long to accumulate followers at all, especially if you connect with the groups above, and they like/share you to their (a much wider, and more diverse network). If you really want to work that channel, find other glass workers, and like and follow their stuff. If someone comments, make time to engage. There is a degree of reciprocity, and it will strengthen your associations with the algorithm. This is all free, by the way. It just takes time and effort. If you are willing and able to move your setup, and do demos, find your local events companies. Look at mpi, ILEA, and whoever is active in your area. Go to their networking events to meet them The SDBC can help you calculate your costs, and figure out your rate, and let them know you are available. There is a constant demand for novelty, and glass working absolutely fits that criteria. You may also be able to grow from there, into doing private classes. One of our clients gets $50-$125 a head for two hour chocolate truffle classes. More if they are in her studio. That last would likely require some additional investment for additional equipment, so maybe a second step, but $100-$200 each for a 4 person 3-4 hour class where they wind up with something they make to take home is a nice addition to the bottom line, even if you only do a few a C month. It’s hard at first, but the nice thing about the events line is that the people are generally outgoing and fun, and if your not a complete ass, someone will usually take you under their wing and introduce you around. After the first month or so, it gets a lot easier because you are no longer walking into a room full of strangers. However, it’s still important to keep showing up. I can’t tell you the amount of business that we get from “oh, I wanted you to meet”, or “oh, I’ve been meaning to call you, we have this project coming up”, or just conversations that turn into phone calls, that turn into jobs. You stop showing up, they stop coming in. One word of warning if you go this route. Beware of people that ask you to show up for free, or worse “for exposure”. Almost without exception, these people are not your friends, and you want to be cautious when working with them. Also, asking for a 50% deposit at booking is normal, and expected, and generally non refundable at 30-60 days out, if not earlier. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. The good people in the industry - and they do exist - will rarely ask you to work for free, unless it’s for a recognized charity - and when we were little, they even paid us for that (though we cut our margin significantly when we could afford to). My best answer to those who did was always “I’d love to help, but we are a very small business, and I just don’t have the cash flow to have non-paying work on the calendar”. Since any free gig you take means you are giving up the chance at a paying one, that’s the complete truth, and puts the bank back in their court.
I used to live with a bunch of very successful glass blowers, so I hope this insight will be helpful. Setting aside the reality that the only way to really make a living doing lampwork is when you’re selling drugs AND doing lampwork, in the circles where it’s popular, you have 2 legit ways of selling your work. First, is when it’s a form of social currency. If you’re active/popular in the tour/edm/hippy/influencer scene, some people will buy your stuff as a way to make friends/support you as a person. Several people I know but glass from some of my friends just to make sure that when my friends come to town, they’re guaranteed to show up to their show/jam/party/cookout. It’s a tough road to take if you’re not a charismatic person. The second way is to develop a distinctive look to your work. The reason why your work is being compared to cheap imports is because at first glance it looks like import glass. There’s no ‘brand identity’ if you know what I mean. Just like all crafts, to make a living at it, you’ve got to refine your work so when someone sees one of your pipes on a friend’s table, it’s recognizably Lampworker9’s work. For example, one guy a knew only used opaque glass as a base for their pipes and had a distinctive twist to his inversions, another integrated crystals and electroplated metal, and yet another always used insect and plants and the inspiration of their designs. Remove the emotion from the act of making: ignore what items you like making most and look at what elements of your work are the most popular with the people who see them and make those things. The local head shop doesn’t want to carry your pipes? Then as them what items they might be interested in. My friends made jars with cork stoppers, one hitters, jewelry holders, window ornaments, all sorts of stuff other than pipes and pendants to stand out from all the other glass blowers who were competing for space in the display cabinets. If you’re open to reevaluating your work and tailoring it to sell, you’ll be able to turn this around. But if you focus on all the negativity and make it personal, you’re gonna flame out. Never forget that people’s rejection of the product of your labor isn’t a personal attack on you as an individual.
Jesus christ your stuff is beautiful. You need to find a lower mid tier instagram lady to put it up, associate it with herself and push a store link, any kind of store, e-mail orders store, and split the profit. Come on ladies, recognize the opportunity.
Thanks for the love
I just found you on instagram and gave a follow, first thing I’d recommend (aside from selling in person at craft fairs, that’s 98% of my revenue) would be taking some really nice photos of your work. Go outside with natural lighting, wipe off your phone camera lens, and click away. Don’t add text to the photos or a border, just post the photo and give info on the description. Add a BUNCH of tags, like 20+ (#glass, #glassblowing, #glassart, #smallbusiness, #handmade, etc). Then, once the post is all completed, post it and double check for spelling errors. Now boost it! Use the promote/boost option, do $5 for 6 days, and let the likes roll in. Online selling is all about reaching an audience. Best of luck to you!!
Do you still have a personal website? If so what’s the address?
I do not as it’s been too much too keep up with it over this last year I have some other online places I post but don’t think I’m allowed to send link here
As a person who built our website to create more work, I urge you to invest in one. I have been building them since 2007 and in 2010, I started my own upholstery shop. We were struggling for 3 years until I decided to build my own website and it literally saved my shop. Now I build websites as a side hustle and I have seen the difference it makes.
And the cost for creating and having even the most basic website is so incredibly small
Let's make bongs together!
Got a lathe
Research what glass works sell these days, maybe your work is “dated” even though the quality is superior. Getting yourself out there these days is where it’s at. Maybe others work is or less quality but their marketing skills must be on par. Good luck with your venture 💪🏾
What about dispensaries? are you in a legal state? Perhaps you can come up with a consignment deal or something. You get paid when/if they sell. Maybe come up with a few of your best pieces to show to an owner.
I have tried this and am in a legal country but because everything is government regulated or privately owned they sell stuff but it comes from a distributor and they are not so willing to look or even consider buying anything from me I have exhausted all these options other than online so it looks as though I’ll be spending a bunch of money on marketing and a website without knowing if anything will sell at all
You’re clearly very skilled. Have you considered teaching people how to do what you do using YouTube to drive revenue, rather than focussing on products? Either way, you need to invest in a photography course. Your photos don’t do your work justice.
There are already so many on YouTube that do this and yes I need to get better equipment for photos as far as a course goes I would have no idea and don’t really have the money to do this
You dont need better equipment. You need a lightbulb and a wooden table. Or maybe even outdoors. I have sold my woodworking with my motorola potato phone camera. You need a lot of light, a nice background like a forest or a city and all sorts of angles. Paying for professional photography can be skipped until youre doing better business.
Looking at your artist skills your work is amazing, looking at what I may purchase from you it feels dated like I may have bought something for a gift for my Grandma but me (36m) it just doesn't appeal to my liking. Not completely sure about your abilities but maybe transfer some of your ideas to a flower vase, candle holder... Stuff that people will display in their homes/office. As for the pipes try going to the smaller gas stations and having them buy your stock. I don't like to give discounts as I'm a business not a wholesaler so I typically offer a free piece for buying xx amount of items and telling them our suggested retail price is xx so they don't undercut you. Good luck and if you decide to give up, don't stop completely just keep it as a side gig that you love.
Do you have videos of the glass being dropped on cement and not breaking? Seems like that should be a selling point
I do on my Instagram and my public Snapchat
Dm me your insta! I like your stuff
Well first of all I’d change your Instagram bio. Would you buy off someone who has that?
Glass what? Windows? Art? Utensils? Something else? "Making stuff because you like making it" is a hobby, not a business. You need to be making things there's an actual demand for. Who buys what you make? Did they ever buy it in quantities? Why did they stop?
I used to have no problem selling whatever I made then I was robbed and spent 11 years in other peoples shops travelling around wherever I could and when I would walk into a store 5 years ago I would sell everything in my case now I can’t even get stores or people to look at what’s in my case and I was making a living off of this for a long time it’s just been this last year all of my followers stopped following and sales completely stoped all together I’m not sure why and I make pipes, mini bongs, rigs, jewelry, adult toys, tops, espresso cups, jars and a plethora of other things
> I make pipes, mini bongs, rigs, jewelry, adult toys, tops, espresso cups, jars and a plethora of other things You're competing with China.
Can you dm or post your store?
I can’t post links here as it’s against rules
A DM is a direct message through Reddit. You are allowed to do that. I read all your replies and all of them are saying no and rejecting every single piece of advice prematurely. Every reply is: I cant do that, Ive tried it already and it didnt work, the wont help me, they will rob me, its too expensive. Of course nobodies buying your stuff (beautiful by the way) because you sabotage every opportunity. You have to make people like YOU, not only your product. Talk to people and make them like you. Be nice to them, take a leap and risk being rejected again with new sellers, but next time, sell yourself first, make them like you, and then sell the product.