Reality-Checks

Written By: Gary on March 9, 2010 No Comment

I know there are some people who really enjoy doing jewelry shows. They enjoy the interaction with people at the shows, the preparation for a show, the setup, doing the show, the takedown and the travel time. It has been expressed to me; however, about the worry of how well the show will do financially.

I think sometimes we craftspeople do not take into consideration how much time we take for shows when we look at our bottom line. Obviously we want to at least break even on how much we spend out of pocket, but I think we are sometimes kidding ourselves when we don’t take into account our time.

I was talking with another jeweler at a recent show. Understand, I am one of those people who is not afraid to ask questions about how someone’s business is doing. She and her friend, who is her business partner, were very happy with the results of the show. They had covered the cost of their booth and other out of pocket expenses. They had also made $1200 dollars. She then went on to tell me how she and her partner had spent four full days preparing for the show and then spent three days at the show. Her jaw dropped when I advised her as to how much she and her partner had made an hour for the show.

Show hours… 20 hours X2 …………………………… 40
Show preparation 32 hours X2 ………………….…… 64

$1200 divided by 104 hours ……………………………$11.54 per hour.

But wait, I have not even calculated the time to produce each sold piece of jewelry! They estimated about 38 hours labor to create the items they sold. The additional time brought their hourly pay down to $8.45. Then there is the cost of the materials needed, which we did not go into as they had had enough of a reality-check for one day.

Oh one last thing before we leave the two ladies, they proudly told me how they had decided they needed to pay themselves $50 per hour to go into this business venture.

Reality-checks are so important for business people. Reality-checks help to keep us very humble and centered.

How often do you perform and good reality-check?