And so it begins.... The grand ol honest blog of premium toppers! My goal with this blog is to teach non business types (like myself) who are creative individuals about my experience in playing business man these last few years. This blog pays homage to those of us who are makers at heart but who haven't necessarily followed the traditional "making" path in school that business grads, engineers and the like have taken. Let me clearly state that I haven't yet "made" it in the successful financial sense that most consider. I'm 30 plus, I don't have my millions yet and I currently work a 9 to 5 day job and dabble in playing businessman on week nights and weekends when my wife and children will permit.
The purpose of this blog is to follow my personal experience in learning business, following potential avenues of revenue as well as making quality cake toppers and figures for people. Starting with that first sculpture I made for my wives uncle 4 years ago. At that time I was dabbling in traditional sculpture and to put it bluntly; struggling immensely. I had just gotten laid off from a great job as a texture artist at a film studio and we had moved in with my in laws to re group and pursue a more practical career of some sort. I had acquired a part time job as a security guard working graveyards and began sculpting a lot in my free time. During this time my wife was pregnant with our first child and I was also pursuing a career in the military. While meeting with recruiters and awaiting an opening for the military job I wanted, I began polishing my 3D modeling portfolio and had re-kindled a deep love for working with clay. From my earliest years I remember making my own wire skeletons out of hangar wire and consistently growing that giant gray ball of non-air drying clay that had lint, hair and probably a few small hamsters living in it. The real casualty was my parents hard earned carpet; bless their ever enduring hearts...
Back at the inlaws I had began sculpting using a clay called super sculpey; a polymer based clay that wouldn't air dry but that could also be cooked in a conventional oven. my first sculpt was Hellboy and was really a lot of fun. I look back on it now in embarrassment but I remember being pretty proud of my creation. It wasn't soon after that my mother in law enlisted me in an endeavor that would begin a whole new career path for me. She wanted me to sculpt her brother inlaw flying his kit plane which was absolutely terrifying because 1: It required attaining an actual likeness in his face and 2: It required an actual likeness in his face. Likeness for me is terrifying but I undertook the challenge and went to work. I acquired several photos of him and ultimately the end result was a sculpt that actually somewhat resembled the guy I was attempting to depict! I was as surprised as anyone and the wheels began turning at this point. I began researching and came across a blog of a guy that was making wedding cake toppers that looked similar to the couples and I thought to myself "Self, I could make toppers that look better than his and would also include props and poses that were expressing the personalities of the couples themselves". I wanted to provide something that people really valued. I thought back on my own wedding and tried to imagine which items we had at the wedding that we still had with us a few years later. The summary of what we had rested with one thing and one thing only; photos. It seemed silly to me that all we had was photos and short video clips of us on the biggest day of our lives! I believed in these cake toppers because they would be a constant reminder when all the gum drop dreams wore off and the bride and groom realized that sometimes marriage was just full on work. Don't get me wrong it is absolutely "worthy" work but work none the less. And maybe when someone looked at one of their toppers in a time of this realization that they would remember that on that day they were 100% committed to marriage. They believed in it and would stick it out through thick or thin.
By this time I had began working the factory lines of Stouffers full time and I began sculpting cake toppers of various family members for free so I could display them at a bridal show I had registered for that summer. The response was extremely encouraging! Nearly every person that stopped by caught the vision the same way I had. There expressions and words exclaimed "FINALLY! something other than photos to hold on to when it's all over!". It wasn't much longer that I went on the local news and pitched my custom cake toppers to the early morning viewers. I hadn't taken 10 steps out the front door of the studio after the interview and my phone began ringing consistently for days on end. I had booked nearly a years worth of work within a few months and was well on my way to being gainfully self employed.
Here are some examples:
While I hate to change the tone completely from the previous paragraphs I did however intentionally neglect to mention my business experience during this time. Again this was intentional as the short answer is that I had ZERO experience running a business and assumed that as long as people liked my product, I'd find success. I figured the product was my business and would do well if it was in high demand. To all of you and the entire galaxy I want to express that no one could have been more wrong! This truth was brought to me on a silver platter by a man who contacted me early one morning to express his love of my products. Half asleep, I listened as this gentleman proceeded to tell me about how great my toppers were and that he'd essentially like to mentor and help me develop my business know how for free out of the goodness of his heart! It turns out this man was very close friends with my cousin so I called him to verify who this supposedly successful businessman really was. "If he wants to mentor you, I'd listen" my cousin urged. It turns out he had done very well in his line of work in Canada and so I took my cousins advice to heart. The following months were deeply enlightening as he and I skyped each week he'd tell me to "take notes, because people paid a considerable amount of money for my guidance and direction" he'd say. He wasted no time instilling in me that making quality product was very important. He showed me the works of Rene lalique in an attempt to instill in me the care and quality that went into each and every glass sculpture that the artist of lalique added to each individual piece.
Here are some works of Lalique:
He then began to instill in me the more important ideas that were completely foreign to me; the idea that there was something more than just a product coming to fruition here; this was becoming a business. And a business that would essentially fail unless I could make things run more effectively. He taught me of scaling a business and the basics of figuring out how to manufacture using molds and resins and hiring out labor all while knowing my margins and accounting for every penny coming in and going out. He taught of marketing myself to a niche market with prices that were more favorable as opposed to marketing myself to a major corporation and seeing the quality of my product go down hill. Mostly he taught that my hour was the most infinitely valuable of all hours and that this is something that "the laborers" seem to completely lose site of. They think by working harder and longer they are providing for their families more efficiently when in fact they are only neglecting them and missing the moments in life that make people better and happier. In summation, "work smarter not harder" was the principle I now understand that this great man was trying to instill in me. Unfortunately at that time, these lessons weren't applied as they should have been because I was inundated with demand of the product as I was currently making it (the hard way). "I was taught to be a hard worker", I thought to myself and as a hard worker I'll make tons of money, or so I thought. It wasn't that simple and about 9 months later I'd be completely burned out with cut up hands from armature wire and I could barely stand the smell of the clay which I had formerly adored so much. I...was nearly completely burned out. I did a few more bridal shows each time earning several months of work and working consistent 12 to 15 hour days in an attempt to meet deadlines and ship toppers on time all while making minimal money because I was advertising to poor college students in a state that spends a fraction of the amount on weddings that every other state spends. And the worst part of all this was that my former love of sculpture was now hanging by a thread and my family was neglected for just pennies.
The reason I felt the need to firehose you with my story to this point was to make you aware of the experiment as I am performing it now and to document my processes as I come up with them. The end of the story of my first business is a somewhat sad one at first glance. It was a dying business only because I felt there was no real value in researching how to actually make a functioning business that doesn't completely suck the light out of your life. BUT it wasn't a total failure! The number one thing I can take from that year and a half is that there is a demand in a niche market for something different. A high quality product that people could keep with them AFTER the greatest day in their life! I learned that people didn't necessarily care about the likeness being there as much as the fact that the topper was high quality and reflected their interests. I've only come to these realizations recently through the help of some really great people who are successful in their own businesses and have seen the value in my products as well. I have been very lucky to meet these people and I am only now finally attempting to listen to what they've had to say. In summation this story is a story for the laborer turned businessman and it may be a bumpy ride but even so, its time to give it another shot...
