These boots were made for walking . . .

If you were to go to mapquest.com and pull up a 50 mile diameter map, with your shop being the very center point. From that point attache a string equal to 25 miles in scale on the map. Now draw a circle. Inside of this circle is all places within a 25 mile distance, any direction from your shop.

Now go buy yourself a pretty pair of turquoise boots and start walking. OK, so you don't have to buy new boots (though that would be fun) and you can drive instead of walk, though walking is healthier. Begin looking for other shops that offer ceramics. You will need to look around as many are in backrooms and basements with no outside signing to speak of. Most do not have phone numbers in the local phone books or signs on the street advertising their shop. But none the less, they are out there.

Mount your map on a piece of cardboard. Now create a legend (that's cartography lingo for guide). You might use red pins for other ceramic shops, blue pins for other ceramic teachers, yellow pins for places that sell brushes you can use on ceramics, green pins for places that sell paints you can use on ceramics, and so on. Resources are not always where you think they might be. Knowing what is available local is always a good thing.

When you venture out take a stack of business cards ( you can find them free on the Internet almost anytime) and some flyer's or brochures about your business. As you visit them collect their business card and make note of what they offer that you can use in your business. If its something you don't stock, and don't plan too, tell them you will be referring your customers to them when they need "such and such" as you do not carry it. This whole action of visiting and sharing will go a long way in developing relationships. Your competition is not your enemy, they are part of why you stay in business.

So step out, and make the first move.

Be on the "EDGE", and move ahead

You might be wondering why there is a picture of the cover of Good Housekeeping in this blog entry. So let's play detective:

It's the first cover of 2010

It's one of Americas most respected women's magazines

But here's the real reason . . . the cover is color coded in Turquoise - The PANTONE color of 2010.

Some people who seem to know far more than the rest of us, say sure CAG, yadah, yadah, yadah. . . . no one cares about colors or themes of the year. No one cares about SMART marketing or what words like sustainability mean. You prefer to say "We just want to make a ton of money again in ceramics."

So that being the case, Good Housekeeping and over 75% of the other popular newsstand magazines are just in rare coincidence that they are using Turquoise as a theme color for their 2010 first issue as well.

If we visited your shop tomorrow, would it scream 2010 we are here and ready to serve our customers. If you have a storefront and someone is walking down the sidewalk, do they feel you are a the place for them to stop in for 2010? Are you more concerned about blowing some left over Christmas bisque, or enticing them to come in and create a "LOVE MACHINE" of ceramics for their sweetheart? If you have a web page does it scream, "I'm the one for your needs in 2010!"

Good Housekeeping didn't just play into this cover design by happen chance. And the flow throughout the inside follows the 2010 color schemes. So now you say OK we get it, why so much emphasis on color? Ceramics is a color based art/craft form. Color means something in this industry. The proper use of color is vital to a quality piece.

the ceramic studio that will build a sustainable business in 2010, will have to be learning how to bust out of the box of tradition, and conform to the brilliance of creativity. Let us know if your shop is in the box or bustin' out!

The SHAPE of 2010 for ceramics . . .

I wish I could hear all my reader's thoughts. I am sure when they first see many of the graphics I post in this BLOG they say, "what is he up to now?" But I am actually glad I can't . . .I mean that would be just wrong. LOL

So how does a dress form have anything to do with slipcast ceramics? Well it's the thought process, not the product. Do you see all the white circles in the dress form? Well each of these circles allow you to dial up or dial down the various measurements of the form. What we do with various aspects of the ceramic art/craft will determine it's SHAPE in the ensuing year. This form will take you from a petite to a full figured form. However it is not done in ONE ADJUSTMENT. It will take many adjustments from the dozen or so dials.

Your business or relationship to the ceramic industry is handled the same way. There are many dials to adjust to get a balanced sustainable feeling to your craft. And one size does not fit all. Each person has their own "things" they would like to see happen. So instead of adjusting the hips, waist and chest dimensions as you would on this form, try thinking of the adjustments as; promotion, creativity, competition, visibility, sharing and so forth.

How will we bring this concept home to you in 2010? Well this thought has been in our plans since the beginning. If you look at our main logo shown to the right; It's not just designed to look pretty. The center "flower looking" design actually represents eight over eight over one business principles that will help you shape the "form" of your ceramic art/craft. We will begin sharing these concepts in the January issue of "BLUEPRINT".

So until then start thinking about how you would like the SHAPE of your ceramic art/craft to be.

"Please raise your hand if you enjoy ceramics"

OK, so the ceramic hands is a little campy, but I like it.

I was just thinking this morning. We have probably 50,000 people connecting with ceramics through the CAG. This is rough math based on 40,000+ homes reading CERAKANVAS and figuring there are probably more than 1 person in many of the households reading the mag. This being the case, what if all of those people who enjoy ceramics, raised their hands so to speak.

What if Michael's Crafts Stores received 25,000 requests for bisque, small casting molds, slip in a box, cleaning tools, etc. I think they would see the waving hands and respond. Supply and demand, it's the oldest concept in marketing. If we showed stockists that there was demand for product, they would supply it. Please understand I would rather see new ceramic shops opening. But as a marketer I have to be a realist. It would be easier to convince a store like Michael's or JoAnn's to stock something, than to get people to open a business. But if the sales were being generated at these stores it might inspire people to open shops in cities that are not being served anymore. Then this will allow a rebuilding of the distributor/dealer network that once existed.

If we don't speak up! Then all we do is complain. If we aren't being creative on ways to get supplies back into accessibility, we are not really trying to grow the industry.

So raise your hand, and let the shops know in your area that you want ceramics, you want greenware, you want glazes, you want kilns, you want molds, you want bisque, you want brushes and supplies. But then if they oblige you, SPEND YOUR CERAMIC DOLLARS IN YOUR COMMUNITY!

Bridges . . .

Bridges can be an incredible feat of engineering genius, or a simple board stretched across a rift. But no matter what the design, the purpose is always the same; to help connect two points for the betterment of both. In the business world people often burn the very bridge that helped them gain prosperity in the first place. Then when things change you suddenly realize you need that bridge again, but the other side still can't understand why you destroyed the last one that you both labored so hard on in the first place. Some of you about now are probably saying, "How does all this have anything to do with ceramics?" In more ways than you might imagine it has everything to do with the industry as a whole.

A bridge allows us to share our uniqueness with other people. Ceramics is, and always has been, a cottage industry. During the last "explosion of the ceramic biz" people got zealous. Money and immediate profitability consumed the scene. In the cottage industry it is sustainability that must remain at the forefront. A classic example would be mold companies that had existed for decades selling their line, while enjoying subtle increases in sales. Then BOOM, the demand explodes, as ceramic shops opened on nearly every street corner. Founders of the companies saw it as a golden time to retire and pass it on to family or sell the business. But the new owners only knew that heightened level of demand, not the consistent flow of the stable times. The industry began to change (as happens over and over in all the craft industry) The intricate and important manufacturer - distributor - dealer connections became blurred. Sales began to return to a normal status quoe.

Today the industry is without question stabilizing nicely. It is returning to the cottage industry it was intended to be. This is a good thing. Those of you who are looking for the opportunity to build new bridges , they exist. A fair amount of "nastiness" existed the last 10-15 years in the ceramic industry. Because of it many treasured parts of the industry became lost. But all of that is history, and we can not change history. Let us each be a part in connecting this wonderful industry and open up the land with many new bridges.

What bridge are you working on to help connect the ceramic industry?