Running it like a business

[tzonoqua]

R Funk has hit it on the nail for me.

When I started out here, I began by thinking, how much time it takes + materials etc, to give me an end price. There are lots of good formulas out there to begin to try to value your time and costs etc. which is good to have an idea of what your hourly and daily rate should be. When I am pricing up things like say Hooks or simple candlesticks, and other work like gates and handrails etc, I tend to use this pricing structure, and compare with other Blacksmith's work, just to make sure that I am NOT the cheapest out there.

Then I went to see a specialist arts business advisor, who pointed out to me what he called ''Top down pricing'' rather than the former ''bottom up pricing''

As in - how much can you get away with charging for something, how much will the market bare. I do a lot of fine art sculpture, that just is impossible to price with a ''bottom up price''.

There is the old saying that if you have to ask how much it is you can't afford it in the first place. I LOVE the handful of my customers that walk in and just WANT this or that item I have sitting there, or sometimes before I have finished pieces they have already sold, as I give these people the full treatment, they get a tour of the workshop and cups of tea. Perhaps it is a bit mercinary, but they don't even ask for a price, they just get their chequebook out. It doesn't mean I rip them off- it just means I can actually charge what I want to for my skills and my 'artistic vision', and they are very happy to pay. I wish I had more customers like this as they are the ones who buy the fine art sculptures- which is the why I got into blacksmithing in the first place. In a perfect world I would only do this kind of work, but these customers don't come into the shop every day, or even every month sometimes, so the other stuff is filler in between! The only problem is that too often I find myself busy with the ''filler'' and having not enough time for the fine art stuff...

[jayco]

One of the problems of 'pricing', ( in my opinion, anyway), is that old traditional capitalism is largely a mechanical system.....based on numbers and measurements.
It doesn't take into account the 'beauty' of a hand forged element, but is rather good at breaking things down into pounds, gallons, inches, etc.

The original tenets of capitalism would hardly recognize much difference between a pound of 1/2 in. rebar and a beautiful handmade rose that weighed one pound.
Much of that kind of economic thinking is still with us.

I guess the larger question is: How do you put a price on Beauty?