Tough love, an artisans experience.

You love making craft but sometimes experience tough love? Your friends, family and customers love your work but they want more and sometimes for less. They critique your work as if they are using a magnifying glass to look at each detail . Then there are the comments or requests. If you make jewelry you would hear questions such as: ‘can I get purple instead of blue, can you make it shorter and add some more colour.’ Sometimes this can be frustrating and you even wonder why the fuss. When the average customer goes shopping they buy as is, no changes, no special requests and the deal is sealed but when it’s ‘hand-crafted as oppose to mass-produced, the demands are more. Why??

People who love and support handmade may demand more because they appreciate the following:

Flexibility
The ability to have a product adjusted to suit their needs, an opportunity not afforded when purchasing most ready-made products.

Participation
They enjoy seeing their ideas come to life and bragging to friends their contribution to the finished product. It could be as simple as selecting the colour but participation increases ‘ownership pride’.

Personal Touch
Customers appreciate that the designer may incorporate customer favourites, special surprises and designer’s creative design skill. All fusing together to create magic.

So sometimes you will be faced with the demanding customer but when you are able to satisfy your customers, you build relationships, repeat business and referral opportunities.

As a designer you can set limits. Before starting a project discuss these with your customer so they are clear, especially when there is a high cost for the customer (examples: price or deadline time) and the artisan (examples: manufacturing time and material cost). During the design process continue to engage the customer to ensure expectations are aligned. This will limit errors and misconceptions.

Hope these tips help, if you have any comments feel free to share.

Happy crafting!

Tameika