Free Scrapbooking 3

Yes, we’ve all heard the anecdotes. “There is a lady that did scrapbooking albums for a professional sports team for $10,000 per album.” “Hey! Did you hear about the lady that did scrapbooking for Oprah/Bill Gates/J Lo…and made the equivalent of $200 a page”. OK, sure. As with most businesses, “bluebirds” happen. But you can’t base your business plan on the unpredictable, the infrequent and the unexpected. You need to set up a plan that you makes you stretch but is still realistic and achievable.

One of the realistic factors in Scrapping For Others (S4O) is that you won’t make an average of $200 per page. In fact, the average price per page that we tend to see ranges

from about $10 to $20. Yes, you can get more than that, and if you successfully differentiate your services (more on that next month) to the right target customers, you can potentially do that.

But let’s assume for a moment that realistically speaking, you’re only going to be able to charge a market price of $10 page? Given the amount of time that many of you spend on a page-yes, I know, it’s a labor of love-how do you make money at it? Particularly, when a good page might take anywhere from somewhat less than an hour to 2 hours, and since you want to do quality work you might be using supplies that aren’t cheap? Of course, then you

have to add in other costs-your time to shop for supplies, your time to market your business, and your time to deal with the administrative part of the business. When all is set and done you might end up making far less than minimum wage.

So, what’s a girl to do?

As a “scrapbook artist” one of the most enjoyable parts of your work is likely the joy of creating a scrapbooking work of art. Unfortunately, there’s nothing so common as poor, struggling artists. Why not have the best of both worlds-the joy of creating works of art, and the satisfaction of doing work that is financially profitable?

Here’s how:

First, be an Artist. Spend some time creating some great

layouts for different occasions-birthdays, anniversaries, vacations, real estate agents and so on.

Second, be a Business person. Take those layouts and duplicate them. What if instead of “create once/make once” why not “create once/make many”? In other words, once you’ve generated your art, then use that as template to do the same page for multiple customers. Mass produce it! For example, if you have multiple customers that want you to scrapbook their 4th of July pictures, why not use the same template for each of them? As with anything, the more you practice the faster you will be at reproducing a given page. How are those customers ever going to know (or care) that you did similar pages in other’s

albums? If you attend a concert or play, you will be just as thrilled to see it as the people were who were there the night before. You certainly don’t expect the artist to customize each night just so people who attend Saturday don’t have to be subjected to a “used” show because someone saw it already on Friday. And, after months and months of practice, the artist(s) can do the show in their sleep and need very little continual practice once the show opens.

Third, buy wholesale. Since you will be using the same base materials for the page you will be able to buy in bulk and get your materials more cost effectively. Also, since you are buying

once and then using those materials for many duplications of the same layout, you will spend less time shopping for materials. Just be sure to charge your customers for the retail price of the products you use. Invoice the materials separately from the labor - just like any other service business would. It’s not always cost-effective to buy wholesale, but do it where you can. For instance, cardstock is good at wholesale because you can always use it. But, say, Dog stickers might not be good purchased at wholesale since you may not have more than one client wanting a dog album. Use your brain and make smart wholesale purchasing decisions to increase your bottom line! Your customers have to get their scrapbook products from SOMEWHERE. That somewhere might as well be YOU!

Some of you are saying, “Yes, but I want to create something original for each customer.” Well, first keep in mind that to that customer, whatever you create is “an original”. But if you really want to customize each one-fine! Here’s how. Have your standard layout where the core elements-perhaps even the colors are all the same. Perhaps you have a book of page sketches with scans of layouts you’ve made using that sketch that you can use for inspiration. Now remember the adage “accessorize, accessorize, accessorize”. You can add or re-arrange a few embellishments and make the same page look different. You can even take a

square page and get many looks out of it just by rotating and/or flipping it. AND, remember, your customers are probably not “scrappers”. They will be absolutely THRILLED with just about anything you do. If they knew how or had the time to scrap, then they would do it themselves. But, you are working for people who like the look but don’t know how to perform the “magic”.

So here’s the summary:

Create beautiful works of scrapbooking art.Use that page as a template (or create a sketch) to make similar pages for many customers.Of course, purchase your materials in bulk at wholesale prices.

These steps will drive down both the average time to produce a page as well as the

average cost for the page materials.

Bottom line: your customers get great pages and you make more per hour. What could be better?

Lastly, there are two final benefits to this approach. Because you are taking less time per page, you will be able to get pages or albums back to your customers quicker, and this will help to improve their satisfaction with your work. Just let them be surprised. They don’t have to know that you haven’t been working day and night to get their album done. Second, because you will be dramatically decreasing your time per page, this will give you the flexibility to really spend some extra time doing some totally custom pages for your customers without

having to charge them an arm and a leg for it. Again, this will help them to be happy customers and generate good word of mouth advertising for your business.

Kim Guymon is the founder of ScrapBiz and is considered one of the foremost experts on starting and running a business in the Scrapbook Industry. Since 2001, she has helped hundreds of entrepreneurial scrappers realize their dream of owning a scrapbook business. She has also introduced the wholesale side of the industry to the idea of non-traditional retailers. Kim can be contacted at [mailto:Kim@ScrapBiz.com]Kim@ScrapBiz.com or you can view her website at http://www.ScrapBiz.com or her business blog at http://www.KimGuymon.com