For over fifteen years I had a shop here in Brown County Indiana. Brown County draws people who are interested in the arts.

Artists from Chicago discovered Brown County in the early 1900's and that began what is today an art colony. Nestled in the forested hills and valleys is this sleepy rural county that has become the perfect place for artists and craftspeople to create.

The little town of Nashville has about 700 residents but 300 shops which cater to tourists from near and far.

It’s been ten years since I had a shop, and each spring when the tourists begin arriving, I think that I would like to once again open a shop and exhibit my metal sculptures.

A reality check tells me that I already have enough going on.

Which brings up another point, which is that since I started making a full time income doing metal sculpture back in 1973, I have always been on the lookout for new opportunities to sell my work. Looking for new opportunities becomes a habit which for me still persists even though I have more than enough work to keep me busy.

There are pros and cons with having your own shop, but looking back it is mostly with fond memories.

Your own shop allows you to display many different types of your work. In my shop I had large leaf sprays, candle pieces, barns and covered bridges. A full line of bicycle sculpture and selections of natural and realistic table sculptures.

If I wanted to experiment with something a bit unusual, I had a place to display it and get peoples reaction. For example, in my shop modern pieces sold, but very slowly. The space in my shop was like real estate. What could I hang on the wall that would turn over the quickest? A modern piece my take a month or more to sell, but a leaf spray would probably go in a week.

It was simply the fact that when people come to Brown County they are in a nature mood or country mood but not in a modern sculpture mood.  They don't relate the rustic mood of Brown County with modern sculpture.

I've always liked the photos of galleries with walls and pedestals painted white with open spaces. Well, that didn't work in Brown County. I found that the more I could hang on the walls the more I sold. When my shop wasn't full, sales dropped off.

Displaying a variety of pieces at different price point’s means that you can appeal to many different tastes and budgets. This is in stark contrast to doing an arts and crafts show where you have a limited amount of space for display.

I learned about titling the different pieces. People like titles! It gives them something to relate to. Brochures which tell something about the artist or craftsperson are important. I know when I buy a handmade gift I like to have something to include in the package that tells about the person who made it and the processes they used. Hang tags or gift tags are also good; they give the buyer one more reason to make a purchase.

Brochures and gift tags are inexpensive, especially if you do the layout on your computer and then have them copied on quality paper. For gift tags I have them printed on card stock, for brochures I use 24 lb paper and print them out on a laser printer in black and white.

More on this in the Chapter "Brochures, Price Cards, Card Holders".

A hard lesson for me to learn was that just because I am ready to sell, people are not always ready to buy. When things are slow it is time to sharpen your tools. In other words, make sure that the shop is clean, well stocked, printed material is up to date and especially that you have some new pieces to hang on the walls.

Here is an interesting phenomenon; Being in my retail shop day in and day out, I would get tired of the way it looked. I would take a day or two and rearrange displays and re-hang all the wall sculpture and move the table pieces around. As soon as I did that, business would pick up. It never failed! My conclusion is that by rearranging everything, it made a difference in me. Maybe I was more engaging to customers which in turn gave my work an extra sparkle. Trying to reason this out is pointless, but the main point is that business always picked up.

In the shop I had a welding table and the necessary equipment so that I could be productive and still mind the shop. If I had a slow day, meaning that there was very little traffic, I would still get a lot accomplished.

If you are doing some of your work while in the retail shop, some of your attention will be devoted to what you are working on, which means that you are not watching the customer's every move. Customers like to browse and don't like to have someone hovering over them. Plus, almost everyone likes to watch the "craftsman at work".

When business is slow, it was sometimes hard to motivate myself to keep producing. But experience has taught me that it all sells in the end, so be ready for when the business is there.

As mentioned, in a shop you have much more room to display your work, compared to an arts and craft fair. I learned that I had to have pieces for all price ranges and for all tastes. The person that buys a $5.00 butterfly today may come back and buy a $300.00 piece next month. 

In time people will begin to take an interest in you and your work. This is ideal, meaning that you have created a following.

In real estate they talk about "Location", "Location", "Location". It is certainly true in the location of your shop. My first shop was on a side street in an area known for working craftspeople, craftspeople that were actually doing some of the work in their shop. I did well there and made a living.

Later I moved into a shop with an artist (painter). It was a small shop and I had about half the space that I had had before. But, because it was on the main street, I did twice as much business.

There are all kinds of tourists. Some want to see all the shops so they get a motel and stay for three or four days. Others are there for just the day. If they are there for just the day, they will only hit the main street shops. If you have a shop on the main street, no matter if they are there for a day or for several days, they are going to be in your shop. The more people that come into your shop the more you are going to sell.

Obviously, the better location is going to rent for more than the side street location. All things be equal, the better location will easily pay for the increase in rent. If a shop is renting for a low price, you should try to figure out why.

In Brown County, second floor shops will rent for less, but they have less traffic. Since there are so many shops to visit, if it is the least bit inconvenient, "why bother, there are plenty of other shops to see".

If there is a shop in your future, you'll want to visit a number of shops and ask yourself, why does this shop appeal to me more than other shops? Visiting shops can give you some ideas about how you plan to display your work. My wall pieces displays best on a beige cotton duck material I buy in the fabric section at Wal-Mart. This material presents a good contrast between the copper and brass in my work and the back ground. For the Magic wands, I use a hunter green material, which is a good color for copper to contrast against.

The hunter green material for example wouldn't be good for my wall sculptures because people usually have light walls, rarely a hunter green wall. Do some experimenting and see what backgrounds show your work off in its best light.

Whether it is in a shop or at an arts and craft fair, you want your work to be easily visible. Here's an example of how not to do it. Go to a flea market and they have everything on a table. Let's say it is cups, glasses, bowls and such. If everything is sitting on one level (the table) it's difficult for the eye to distinguish one item from another.

For this reasons I always used risers. It could be a heavy cardboard box covered in fabric. A couple of red bricks placed together with a small table sculpture placed on top. Anything that you can do to create different elevations so that they eye can distinguish one piece from another.

There's a creek which runs through my property with lots of flat rocks that make excellent display platforms for some of my pieces. The rocks also work well with some of my nature pieces.

Since you will be spending considerable time in your shop, constantly be evaluating your displays and trying to see them as the customer sees them. Asking yourself, what can I do to improve the displays so that my work stands out? Your displays don't have to be expensive, you can do simple things that have little or no cost.

If you don't have a creek like I do, go to the lawn and garden section of your local builders supply, like Menards, Lowes or Home Depot and select some patio stones. They have these in a variety of colors and sizes. You are a creative person, so use your creativity in displaying your work, just as you use your creativity in designing your work.

In having a shop there are monthly expenses such as rent and utilities. Your first obligation is to meet these expenses. When I first opened my shop in 1975 I had copper plant butterflies at $1.75 (which are now ($4.95). Selling a couple hundred of these each month took care of the rent, utilities with some left over. These are what I called my "bread and butter" items. I sold plant butterflies even on the slowest of days.

I had "stair stepped' prices. The lowest price being the plant butterflies at $1.75 and going on up to $400.00. The $400.00 pieces sold occasionally, the $200.00 pieces sold more frequently. The more expensive pieces help sell the lower priced items. An example;  I would like to have a Lexus, but I'll settle for a Ford or maybe a Buick.

"I'd like that $400.00 tress, but I think I will go with the $200.00 tree."

A good example of "stair step" prices is when I was doing bicycle sculptures I had a bicycle that was priced at $7.50. More bicycles which were stair stepped in price up to $275.00. Stair stepped prices went from $7.50, 15.50, 25.00, 50.00, 75.00, 95.00, 125.00, 145.00, 185.00, 225.00, 245.00 and 275.00. In other words, something for everybody's pocket book.

And speaking of bicycles, the first retail shop I had was where I got the idea for the Niche market for focusing on the bicyclists business. But more on that in the chapter Niche Marketing.

Which brings up another positive aspect of having a shop, you get to interact with customers and find out what pieces in your shop interest them. You can observe and begin to mentally catalog their interests and this will lead you into other subject matter for your designs.

As much as I like the internet I don't really know what people are thinking when they go to my web sites. If sales are good, then I can only assume that I am doing something right. In your own shop you can are continually doing informal customer surveys. 

If you find that customers really like one of the pieces that you don't particularly like making, then it's time to put on your engineering cap and figure out better and easier ways to make this piece.  At the same time you might want to raise the price a bit.

In a sense, your customers become your business consultants. You can sense what appeals to them and what doesn’t. There is a saying that I like, "tomorrow is going to be just like today, unless you do something differently". If what you are doing isn’t working, then change it!　

In addition to having appealing displays, you’ll want to make your shop interesting. One time I had small signs in the shop that each explained some of the processes I used. This was especially good for men. Men often get bored and want to be on their way while women want to continue to browse. The longer your customers stay in your shop, the more likely they are to make a purchase.

Another side benefit to having a shop is that you’ll meet a lot of different people who can be a big help in many ways. For instance, there was a gentleman who ran a company that produced copper metal products and offered to give me their scrap copper. Another man suggested a tool that I had never heard of that greatly helped me in my work. People will tell you about shows that you might be interested in. In short, I derived a lot of help from people that came through my shop and become interested in me and my work.

Back in the mid to late 70's there was a lot of crude oil production in Southern Illinois. At that time we seem to get large numbers of people from that area. Someone suggest that I do some oil related sculpture. This resulted in oil derricks, and oil field setting. This continued for about five years until the price of Mid East oil fell and it was no longer viable to pump and explore for oil in Illinois. It was a cycle, it came, it stayed and it went. Not only did I make some good money doing oil related sculpture, but I also learned a number of new skills for my craft.

Another type of consignment came from a contact while I had a retail shop. A woman came in and said that she gave home parties and wanted to know if I sold on consignment. She came to my shop a few days before her home party and would take a number of pieces with her. After the party she would bring back what she hadn't sold and pay me. This continued on for several years until she found something she liked to do better.

Another example of getting new and different types of business through the shop was a woman who lived in an exclusive section of Northern Indianapolis. Each year she had a one day Christmas sale in November right after Thanksgiving. I would drop my work off the day before and come back the day after and pick up what hadn't sold along with a healthy check. She did that for a number of year’s eventually going big time with her own line of wood products.

Often opportunities like these last for two or three years and then the individual's interest move elsewhere. But, as the saying goes, "when one door closes another door opens". This has been my experience and nowhere are the opportunities going to be greater than when you have a shop. With a shop you are in a fixed place, people can get back to you. They know where you are.

There are some "opportunities" that didn’t work out at all. I am very leery when people have grandiose plans. "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is". I can’t think of any of these that I became involved in, but there are probably a few and I’ve just suppressed them.

At an arts and craft fair, you are there for a day or two and then you are gone. But a shop gives you a fixed geographical place in people's mind. This is especially true when they see something they like in your shop but for one reason or another they don't make a purchase. If when they get home they decide they want that particular piece, they know where you are; they can come back and make the purchase.

There have been numerous customers that on the drive home the husband or wife says to the other, "I wish we had bought that", well my shop was open and they knew they could return and make their purchase.

A case in point is that during the season here in Brown County which is about May 1st to the 1st of November, the streets are often packed with tourists and finding a place to park can be a challenge. Often time’s people will visit sometime during the season, and then drive to Brown County sometime in November when there are fewer people and it is easy to find a place to park.

They'll visit the few shops they want to see, make their Christmas purchases and head home. They know where the shops are and they can return as opposed to an arts and crafts fair, where you are here today and gone tomorrow.

As I write this I begin remembering more and more experiences like this.  I better end this soon or I will be opening a new shop come spring. Before you make the leap, talk to some current shop owners in the area you plan to open a shop to get a feeling if this is right for you.

Here in Indiana, Brown County has a good draw for tourists and people wanting original art and crafts. It is the only place in the state that has the number of shops and the diversity of work. It was a top place to visit in the 70's, 80's and the early part of the 90's. Since that time other towns have tried and succeeded to imitate Brown County. This has drawn some of the number in regard to tourists away to other places. Currently Brown County is making a resurgence, and since everything moves in cycles, it will once again emerge as one of the top places to visit.

For an area that you may be interested in, you'll need to do your research. October is the busiest month of the year in Brown County, people come to see the autumn colors. Unfortunately, some people come to Brown County in October and see all the tourist and think, "hey, with all these people I can open a shop and be very successful". What they don't see is all those months when there is only a 20% of that October traffic. Landlords and utility companies expect their payments, whether times are good or bad.

The only downside to having a shop for me was I felt tied to the shop. I was there five or six days per week from 11 to 5. Pretty good hours you might think, but either before 11 or after 5, I was in my work shop at home producing work. In the busiest times I would spend long hours working in my work shop in addition to being in the retail shop.

Another downside is "tourist burnout", with hundred of people coming through my shop on the busiest days, talking to people and answering their questions can become a bit much. 99.9% of the people are very nice, but that one tenth of one percent could drive me up a wall toward the end of the season. But, this is a minor problem when one looks back at the totality of the season.

A shop is a serious commitment, such a serious commitments that you should not take my word for it. Do your research! Having your own retail shop is well worth the effort if it is right for you.

All things being equal, meaning that you have the right location at a rent you can afford, your own retail shop will provide you with the business you need plus the most spin off opportunities of any of the sales venues..

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