Ron,
There haven't been many succesful conversations here on the forum about business. Not trying to discourage, it just seems difficult to get people to open up in such a public place. I know for a fact some of my clients have read what I've written here. Things that may be said easily sitting around at a Guild conference don't seem to be so easy to commit to the permanence and accessibility of a public forum.
That being said,
1)It's hard to say. I think you have to count on it taking several years and several different approaches to "get your name out there" to the point that people just sort of know about you and accept you as an established business.
2)Yes. I think you need both. The word of mouth jobs tend to be best for a lot of reasons.
3)Yes. This used to be very common a couple of years ago when so many people were building at (or above) the limit of what they could afford. This is an interesting topic. A friend of mine, Adrian Jones, wrote a letter in one of the last few issues of the Guild Journal dealing with this topic. His point is that we (timber framers) need to find a way to be actually be relevant, and not just purveyors of expensive eye candy.
4)Yes
5)Like any business -- keep overhead low, stay out of debt, make a solid plan and revisit and revise it regularly, make sure every customer is happy.
More specific to our company, we've tried to develop skills that are fairly uncommon even among timber frame companies. That's been a two edged sword, in that the market for some of those things is so small it often doesn't even seem to exist. But when a really funky project does come along that is a good fit for us we certainly have an advantage. While we've specialized within the timber framing world, we've also diversified recently by merging with another established family business that makes millwork, flooring, and furniture out of reclaimed heart pine. It's not a real change in that both businesses have operated out of the same facility for years and there was plenty of overlap (equipment, skills, even customers). Our main goal is to continue to sell more to each customer -- sell floors to a timber frame customer, etc. I think that is a good business strategy for when you have fewer customers than you used to.
6)Yes. Now more than ever.
