How to Collaborate Effectively

Let’s talk about collaboration. Collaborating can be an excellent way to grow your audience and get your work in front of fresh eyes. It is an excellent marketing tool and an excellent way to make some great friends too.

Collaboration can look like a unique one-of-a-kind piece that you create with a fellow pyrographer, or a mixed media piece with artists from other fields, or a collaborative effort with companies. I have found success with all three. Click here to check out my collaboration pieces I have completed with other artists as well as companies I have partnered with.

When you get other people and other accounts talking about your work, it will grow your feed much faster than if you are the only one talking about it, and this is why I believe that collaboration is so fantastic, and why I attribute my past collaborations to a lot of my successes.

Collaborations can be scary and difficult to navigate, but I have some suggestions for you.

1. It needs to be a win-win-win situation. Be sure to set it up that way so that it is worth it for the person you are collaborating with for them and for their audience. It needs to make sense for all parties involved. If you are approaching someone with an idea, make sure you are clear on what it is you are asking of them and what it is you will be doing/providing.

2. Lay out all the details and agree to them before you continue forward. How are you dividing up expenses and profits? Where are you posting it? For how long? This should all be discussed before anything is made.

3. Communication is key. Have a backup form of communication if possible. If you are: running behind, have questions or concerns, don’t like something, or have an idea, I encourage you to speak up. Communicate your concerns and ideas with your collaboration partner. It will allow everything to run smoother.

4. Keep their aesthetic in mind when you are deciding if they are a right fit, and when you are coming up with your design/idea.

5. Workout your marketing strategy ahead of time. How many times will you post? How will you talk about it? Will you do a joint LIVE?

6. Follow through. Nothing is more frustrating than working on a group project with someone who is not pulling their weight.

But HOW?

Series/Collection Sale: Sell a collaborative collection on one person’s site, while the both of you promote it. Collaborative collections are fantastic, because you put in all the work for a collaboration and only have to ship one time, but create several pieces.

• Use whoever’s platform is larger to hold the sale whenever possible.

Giveaways: These are fantastic. This is a great way to motivate followers to follow the other members of the collaboration. Make sure the item(s), the rules, the photo, and the text are all very clear.

• Have people entering interact beyond tagging friends. Ask them a question, connect with them. It will feel more genuine for everyone, because it will be. Ask them to share about it too, to spread the word.

Auctions/bidding: Doing a blind/silent auction is also a great way to have a successful collaboration. You can also raise money for charity/cause. This raises awareness of the charity, but also of you, your art, and your values as a small business.

• A piece of mine that sold for the highest amount was from a blind auction sale. Don’t discount them, but do know that you need to promote them a lot; well before, and during the auction.

Promoting Products: Collaborating with companies can be a great way to make some extra money, get some great products, and extra exposure.

• Know what is expected of you. Read any contracts, and be carful of exclusivity. Only choose brands that make sense for your brand. Do your research.

I hope you consider bringing collaborations into your business as a regular practice. I think you will find the many benefits that that can come from them.

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Let’s work together!

Are you a business or an artist that would like to collaborate with Wood Burn Corner or with the wood burning community? We would love to hear from you!

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Looking for more creative business tips & tricks?

For more pyrography tips and tricks and to learn wood burning at your own pace from your home consider The Wood Burning + Business Toolkit

Grow with the community: Learn more about Burn Club+, a place where you can ask questions, and get the full answers, a place of fun and learning.

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5 Revenue Streams for your Wood Burning Business

Having different avenues of revenue will strengthen your business. If Instagram were to disappear tomorrow, or Etsy or Facebook, would your business survive? Or, more realistically, you can no longer do in person craft shows or teach in person, are you set up online to sustain your business?

This is why it is so important to have several different revenue streams in place.

Couple additions to the video:

1. Craft Shows - See if any of the in-person craft shows you would normally participate in are pivoting to online, and if so, join them! Search for other online art/craft fairs that you can participate in. It will increases exposure and sales.

2. Selling Online - Artsy, Saatchi, Artpal, Society 6, Etsy, Singulart, VISUAL (art prints). People can’t buy things if they don’t know they are for sale.

3. Instagram - Also consider a LIVE sale. Set it up as you would an in-person booth, and walk the shoppers through it all, be sure to give everything prices and labels. You may sell some live, but you can leave it up for 24 hours and sell more. Don’t be afraid to sell customs that way, too!

4. Teach - I also want to suggest teaching online. You could do a pre-recorded class, or a burn together/live zoom style class.

5. Facebook - Share specific art pieces with the right audience. If you have an anteater piece, search for an anteater lovers facebook group to share there. Selling art is all about getting it in front of the right people’s eyes.

Check out the Passive Income Ideas for Artists blog post to learn how to make money while you sleep!

Learn EVEN more ways to make money doing what you love with The Complete Wood Burning and Business Toolkit.

This toolkit has EVERYTHING you need to grow your business together in one place to guide you, so you can feel confident to go after your goals, with the right tools to achieve them:

Goal Setting

Finding Focus

Community + Collaboration

Productivity, Assigning Tasks + Accomplishing Goals

Artist Health 

Photography + Videography

Copyright Basics + Art Reference

Avenues of Revenue

Selling

Selling In-Person

Email Lists

Website + eCommerce

Social Media

Digital Prints + Licensing

Subscriptions

Book Recommendations

and of course in-depth knowledge about Pyrography:
Techniques
Surfaces
Burners
Transfer Techniques
Adding Color
Finishes
Pyrography Books

Looking to boost your Pyro business to the next level??

Grow with the community: Join Burn Club+, a place where you can ask questions, and get the full answers, a place of fun and learning.

Get some personal support: One-on-one coaching provides tailored support guaranteed to boost your business.

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Pricing Your Art

I want to discuss how to price your art. Specifically, pricing your wood burned art. However, you can apply this formula to pretty much any medium you are selling!

Pricing, oh pricing. The bane of any artist’s existence. Why is it so hard to price your art? Could it be because you feel like you are putting a price tag on a little bit of your soul? Probably. Could it be because you are having to do the humbling task of assigning value to your time, thoughts and passion? How are you even supposed to be neutral and non-biased in that situation? You know all the hard work, years of training and mistake making, time, emotion and thought that went into it. It seems like an impossible task to put a price on it, but in order to make money as an artist, pricing is a must. There are things you can do, and systems you can put in place to make it easier on yourself.

Will pricing still not be very fun? Yes, but I am hoping this helps to at least make it a bit easier and more systematic to calculate.

Formula for Pricing:

Overhead

+

Hourly Rate

+/-

Content

=

Price

Overhead Costs:

These are costs that need to be recovered.

• Materials: Let’s start with the easy stuff, materials. This is where you calculate the price of your materials. These are items where they were used entirely for this piece. The variation in size, type of wood, and price of the materials used goes here.

• Supplies: You have many items that you purchase for your business that you will utilize to make the particular piece you are pricing. You may not use the whole item or you may just put a little more wear and tear on it. Think paint, colored pencils, shipping supplies, finishes, glue, tape, printer paper, graphite paper, your wood burning tool, your computer, etc. Take note of ALL the supplies you use. It may surprise you how many items it actually involves. You are putting wear on those supplies to create this piece, and you need to keep that in mind when you are coming up with your pricing.

  You are obviously not going to be tacking on the price of a ream of paper, the whole wood burning tool, or the price of a whole tube of paint (unless you used a whole tube, then it goes in the materials category), you just want to think about what the cost to your business creating that particular piece actually had. A lot of people forget this part.

  I think it is easier to just tack on a set amount (example: $2-$5) to any piece to cover some of those overhead supplies used and costs for materials used.

Time:

• Hourly Rate: I personally think the easiest way to take yourself out of the pricing process is to make it a calculation. If you just have a set hourly rate, based on your experience, skill, and what you want to pay yourself, then it takes the guesswork out of it. Do include your time communicating, designing, burning, and packaging. If it is for that piece, and it is taking up your time, it should be added.

  Keep in mind your speed in which you burn and operate(if you are slow, then lower your rate and work on speeding up your process), your skill level and years of training, and what value you put on your time when coming up with your hourly rate. I can not suggest a number here. This is highly individual.

  Once you have your hourly rate number, then it becomes easy to just plug it into your formula.

  Start by keeping track of how long you actually spend on a piece. Set a stopwatch. Write it down on a piece of paper, and attach it to the piece of wood. Add to that number as you add to the piece. People tend to underestimate how much time they actually spend working on a piece, so this is a good piece of information to have. It will also help make it easier to price custom work, because you will have a much better idea as to how long it actually takes for you to complete a piece.

Content:

• Content: Content matter matters. A simple lettered piece will not be priced at the same spot as a detailed artistic piece, even if it took the same amount of time to make it. This is where adjustments need to be made. Once you have put in your formula, then you can look at the price and either add or take away from your total. Content also includes how how good the finished product is and it’s subject matter. All things to keep in mind when adjusting pricing.

Make Adjustments:

Doing this exercise will be incredibly valuable to making adjustments to how your business functions. If you are spending too much time on your pieces, and are having to adjust your price down every time at the content stage, then it is time to look at streamlining your process to find ways to cut time. If you are finding that you are constantly undervaluing yourself (maybe people have even said you need to raise your prices), then you probably need to give yourself a raise and up your hourly rate. Now, if you have figured out how to get faster, and still produce the same level of content or maybe even higher quality, I am not saying you should adjust your prices lower. Content really does help determine value.

Knowledge is power. That’s why knowing how much time you are spending, how much money you are spending, and where will help you and your business to run smoothly, pricing will be less of a headache, and you will be able to make positive informed adjustments to your business.

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6 Things to consider when coming up with your pricing formula:

1. Where are you selling? What is the cost of living where you are selling? Selling in person in San Francisco is not the same as selling in a small town

2. Who is your target audience? If you are selling high end, you better have those high end prices

3. What is the subject matter?

4. How big/detailed is the piece?

5. What is it worth to you? Some pieces mean more to ourselves than they do to other people, and it just will never feel right to sell it at the price people would buy it, and that is ok. Just hold onto that piece

6. How much would you pay for it? always a good idea to step into the shoes of your buyer.

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Other Pricing Tips:

Still don’t want to price your pieces, consider having a trusted friend suggest prices for your work. Make sure they fully understand what goes into it, the market, your target audience, and material costs.

Watch the market. Go and look at what other artists of your skill level are charging. This will give you many points of reference. Keep in mind that most wood burning artists out there are not charging enough for their work. As a community we need to work together to get paid what we deserve for our work.

Keep documentation of what pieces sold and for what amounts. Take note of what is working, and what isn’t. What sells quickly, and what doesn’t. Then make adjustments.

Lowering the price, does not necessarily mean that something will sell better. Sometimes, raising the price, to match the value of it will actually help it sell better. People don’t want to buy something that isn’t quality. If you lower your prices too much, then people will assume that they are getting a lower quality item, will pass and spend their money elsewhere.

Don’t compromise on pieces with sentimental value. Make sure you aren’t selling it for less than what you are actually willing to part with it for.

Be sure to leave a little wiggle room for sales, and unexpected costs.

Add shipping into your price for ease of shopping whenever possible.

Going one dollar less than a rounded up number works. People look at $49 as significantly less than $50. Use that.

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Pricing your art is just one piece of the puzzle

Choosing the right platform, location to sell, the right description, taking the right photo, and making it easy to find are also really important. If you don’t get your piece in front of the right audience, it won’t matter what value you place on it.

Learn how to boost your business and take the right steps to getting paid for creating artwork with the The Complete Wood Burning and Business Toolkit.

WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT WOOD BURNING AND BOOST YOUR CREATIVE BUSINESS??

Grow with the community: Join Burn Club+, a place where you can ask questions, and get the full answers, a place of fun and learning.

Get some personal support: One-on-one coaching provides tailored support guaranteed to boost your business.

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To-Do List and Ta-Da List

These two lists are part of the secret to become more impactful, to stay on task, and accomplish more as well as feeling more accomplished.

I am a big believer in lists. I think getting your thoughts and ideas out of your head and on paper is incredibly powerful. It makes space to think about other things.

To Do Lists:

I am constantly making “To-Do” lists. I make them for household chores, tasks for my business, daily activities, events, and so much more. Any time there are a lot of moving parts, writing them down makes such a big difference. And anyone running a business knows there are plenty of moving parts.

8 Reasons Why To-Do Lists are Necessary!

1. They are time savers because you can more easily stay on task.

2. They keep you organized.

3. They keep you motivated and moving forward.

4. You can easily see what is left.

5. It gives you a place to put your ideas. Get’s them out of your head and on paper.

6. They make it easier to prioritize tasks.

7. You don’t forget something when it is written down and is waiting to be crossed out.

8. Crossing things off lists is so gratifying.

But, let’s talk about Ta-Da Lists, because I think they might be even more necessary and beneficial for our success and for our mental health.

Ta Da Lists:

There is an interesting phenomenom called the Zeigarnik effect. It is described as “a psychological phenomenom where a tendency to remember interrupted or incomplete tasks more easily than tasks that have been completed.” This means that our To-Do list, our incomplete, unfinished tasks are what we remember. How sad is that?! This is where Ta-Da lists come in.

A Ta-Da list is your antidote. A Ta-Da list is your way to overcome the Zeigarnik phenomenom. When you write down your accomplishments, and have them up for your viewing, you are more likely to feel satisfied, happy, and accomplished. And don’t we all want that.

equally important.

Write down your to do list, but don’t just cross them off. Cross them off then add them to your Ta-Da list, and you will surely feel better about your accomplishments.

Need some help clarifying what you should be putting on that to do list and how to efficiently and effectively grow your business?? Complete the Focus 5 Exersize to help you find clarity and guidance on your next steps.

WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT WOOD BURNING AND IMPROVE PYROGRAPHY SKILLS?

Learn everything you need to know at your own pace from your home with The Complete Wood Burning Toolkit.

Grow with the community: Join Burn Club+, a place where you can ask questions, and get the full answers, a place of fun and learning.

Check out my one-on-one creative business coaching to boost your business in the right direction.