Getting my online store set up for Renew Turning has been incredibly fitful! My imposter syndrome has been working overtime. Early on I was rightly concerned that my workmanship was not up to par. My sanding and finishing techniques definitely needed improvement. Thankfully I had a large group of supporters (for another project from which I recently retired) who were appreciative when I gifted them an early piece. Their long-standing financial support made it an honor to give away items into which I invested much time. Simultaneously that time gave me experience needed to improve my skills and increase the speed with which I can now produce new pieces. At the same time I was able to protect the market for full-time turners!
Woodturning requires a significant investment! Lathes, tools, wood, sanding and finishing supplies can be expensive, not to mention the physical space these require. While I have done traditional “flat” woodworking since high school (I graduated in 1976), woodturning was desirable because of the beautiful work I was seeing and the possibility of getting the needed wood supplies at lower financial costs. But lower costs often require additional time investments.
Anyway, getting beyond the production challenges was only one-third of the challenge of feeling like a fraud! Another element for me has been the whole salesmanship hurdle. My dad was an insurance salesman for 38 years. He did it with relative ease and found my aversion to it unimaginable. He took my assessment (“I would rather dig ditches!” as something of a failure on his part and a criticism on my part. Selling always felt like pushing something on people who do not want it, for me. He saw it as helping people understand the value of what he was offering. The highest hurdle for me has probably always been the fear of feeling personal rejection when someone said, “No,” to whatever I might offer for sale.
Thankfully I found a low-cost option for selling my products in a face-to-face setting, after I had already received lots of compliments for the pieces I was producing as gifts. Getting a booth at the local Farmers/Artisans Market provided me a good outlet. There was the one week when my sales were abysmal! The waste of time was palpable. But the next time was my best ever! The randomness of who would show up is a significant factor. Many of my sales have come through friendships. But the people who only know my work seen on that one day, give me a special type of feedback.
The third hurdle has been the learning curve on setting up this website. I wanted to combine an ecommerce store with a blog. Since I had experience with WordPress as a blog, I naively wished I could use that format more easily than has proven true. After months of locking up emotionally over my failed attempts I hired a trusted developer to assist me. Regretfully, he was not as familiar with WordPress as with some other platforms. Thankfully he has been persistent and gotten me through the technical challenges. Imposter Syndrome is a real condition. Pushing through some of the emotional hurdles can make the actual “learning curve” to developing new skills. Hopefully you will find a piece you like enough to want to purchase, if not for yourself, then maybe for a loved one who “already has everything!” If not, maybe you will enjoy looking at them and reading the description, and/or find this blog entertaining. My goal is to mashup two of my passions–story telling and woodturning.