A note from Murray Sluys.
Hi FVWG folks,
Our meeting for February 11 will be a discussion amongst members on how they market their wood turnings with the current Ministry of Health restrictions for COVID 19 eg gathering size, 6′ between people and masks etc. For example there are no Craft Markets or any other events where people gather in numbers; so what can we do to sell our products while complying with the Health Order?.
This topic precipitated from a discussion at the Demo committee meetings where it was noted that some members have been discouraged from turning as there is no apparent outlet for their work and they don’t want to go out anywhere in public due to health concerns. What’s the point of just accumulating inventory? We were looking for a meeting topic that was relevant to the current situation we are in.
What we need from you, the member is to tell us what’s working for you and what’s not working. We could get a marketing professional to give a talk but we think our own group has some good ideas. Are you doing any of the following? Without giving away your secret let us know if any of these have worked for you?
Instagram or Facebook?
Website sales?
Etsy sales
Market Place?
Craigslist?
Giving them away, not interested in selling my work.
Family orders?
Corporate orders?
Word of mouth
Selling out of your driveway?
Selling through a retail outlet?
something else?
Send Al Timms or Murray Sluys an email with some of your thoughts. .
We will feature 4-5 members ( 20 minute talk plus questions) who have found methods that work. Others can add to these mini presenters with their own experience. The emails you send will be used to select presenters and topics to touch on. I do not have all these people identified as this email may help find these people. I will attempt to moderate this so everyone has an opportunity to be heard. Pictures may be useful.
Some of the discussion may be around some basic principles in marketing, That’s ok. How does a random person in your area of influence find out about your work?
It would be unproductive to focus the discussion on all the things we can’t do at this time. We are interested in what works in the next 6 months.
Thanks for chipping in. Please send your responses by January 20th.
Keep Turning. Keep getting better.
Murray Sluys
604-791-2436
murray.sluys@gmail.com