3 Strategies To Start Making Money W/ Your CNC Machine, CNC Business - Garrett Fromme

hi i'm garrett with idc woodcraft and i want to thank you for coming to this video where you and i are going to be discussing three strategies that you can put in place today to start making money with a cnc machine now it doesn't matter what kind of cnc machine that you have or interested in a router a cnc laser cutter etcher plasma cutter 3d printer vinyl cutter glass etcher any kind of cnc machine that you create things on you can absolutely make money with and you can do very well the thing is you need to have a strategy in order to make it work so what we're going to cover today is what a strategy is why it's so important to have one why people who don't employ strategies struggle and ultimately fail now we're going to talk about the three strategies you can start using now to start making money with a cnc machine and then we're going to get into what strategy works for you and what you can start to make to sell and along the way i'm going to share my experiences my failures and my successes and how i've adjusted my strategies in order to make it work now before we get into this i want to share something that's actually really exciting i have been on the prowl to find really good quality router bits that you can get at reasonable prices that are made in the united states and i finally found somebody has got a really good reputation and they've sent me some bits i'm going to be testing them out so watch for a video that's going to go through these bits and we'll see okay so let's get into this whole strategy thing first of all what is a strategy ultimately a strategy is a plan of action that doesn't let you divert into different areas so we're talking about making things on a cnc machine and ultimately selling it so in order to start selling something you need to start making something within like a limited space when i started off i was making all kinds of stuff i didn't have a strategy i didn't know i want to tell you that's okay you know it's experimenting when you first start out but the strategy when you actually start getting into the money making thing is you want a plan of action where you can actually measure the results how the market is responding to you are they buying are they not buying what advice are they giving back to you the market will always tell you i want to give you a little example of lack of strategy i am a jeep person cheap wrangler and so i know that group and so i started to make things around that group like this christmas ornament and these little refrigerator magnets and this wall hanging the thing was i didn't have a strategy to get it out there and i tried multiple different strategies at the same time etsy facebook youtube and i wasn't making many sales and the reason was is because i didn't have the strategy now a strategy like i said is a specific way of doing something where you don't go outside of it so the strategy had to change to am i going to sell this on etsy am i going to dialogue with people in facebook am i going to get involved in groups and start talking to them it has to be one strategy until you get it refined and understand how the market is responding and what the market wants that's what a strategy does it gives you good solid feedback as to whether the direction you're going into is good or not it allows you to correct your course when you don't have a strategy you'll run into the problems like i did i've got a couple hundred of these things and they're still sitting around so it's forced me to re-evaluate step back look at me what am i doing wrong and refine my strategy tone it down and come up with one strategy and selling these cheap products so the way i've redefined that is by getting involved in jeep groups and starting to dialogue with them but we're going to cover that one in just a minute the point is is if you don't have a strategy you're going to be all over the place and what happens with that is without strategy you don't have clarity in what you're doing and that lack of clarity that you have within gets projected out to the marketplace and so the marketplace gets confused as to what you're doing and what you're selling so that's why it's so important to have strategy i mean that's why i get into business coaching now i take my experience and i help you get into a strategy determine measurables see how the market's responding and get make corrections along the way and we also come up with accountability plans and i hold you accountable so if you're interested in business coaching and making money with the cnc machine you'll want to get on my email list there's a link down below that email list that'll give you access to free files discounts that i get and it'll give you priority into the business coaching thing and other things that come that are coming through the pipeline which uh i got quite a few things coming so the reason people fail in in with a lack of strategy is when they're throwing darts all over the place we set up expectations too high i'm going to try this i'm going to try it all over the place and the market doesn't respond because a lot lack of clarity and strategy and we give up our expectations were higher than the reality of how the market works so the other thing with lack of strategy you don't get feedback from the market as to what the market wants you're guessing at it and you're not giving it enough time for the market to respond to you so that's the other thing a strategy does it gives you a time frame to start to see your results or lack thereof without strategy you don't have guidance that you follow it's like a business plan at a very simplified level being a beginner cnc or just getting into making money with the cnc machine you want to keep it simple and toned down and that's why i'm giving you these three strategies so people fail because they don't have strategy and their expectations are too high and they give up too soon so let's step into these three strategies and i'm going to talk about why they work and why they don't work along the way the first one is organic now with organic that's friends family co-workers so you buy a cnc machine let's just say a cnc router you start making some amazing stuff off of it and you start to show people what you're doing let them know you're dialoguing with them what that does is first of all they're intrigued with what you're doing but it also makes them think about you can do that maybe you can do this for me and they come back and ask you to make something like that uh whatever it may be that happened to me i was posting all my stuff on my private facebook feed and a friend of a friend approached me and said can you make this sign right here i said sure it's a 200 job it took me a lot of work and a lot of learning curve because there's some i found out there's a lot of little unique things in there i had to take into account that i didn't know up front but the point is is that was one of my paid jobs here's another one i almost hate to show this to you because this has to do with elections someone approached me by the way this is a defect okay this has to do with the 2020 election and my sister asked me if i could make four of these and so yeah i don't really engage with what this represents but i do engage with revenue right and so i said sure i'll make him ten dollars a piece that she paid for and she got much better quality than this one right here but the point is is had i not put it out there in facebook and just showed people what i was doing i wouldn't have had those jobs i've got another one in the pipeline because of that and uh actually two more so doing letting people know that what you're doing and showing them now that's family friends co-workers i want to take this to the next level if you are into social media if you are on facebook you absolutely 100 percent want to take advantage of your personal facebook feed and start posting what you're doing on facebook and ideally pictures of the finished product and you want to maybe put a little clip of some footage of it actually being made people love to watch things being made and they love to like see how that comes out in the end result and that is what i did that got me this business so facebook is the way to go now one of the things i want to talk to you about on this is what platform do you actually do this on i mentioned facebook but there's other platforms instagram there's pinterest um tick tock there's a number of them one place and one place only this is what strategy does it keeps you toned in one place my primary strategy focus for my business has gotten a little bit more sophisticated and my strategy is primarily youtube i don't try to get on instagram i don't try to get on tick tock pinterest and splatter myself all over the place it gets too confusing when i get confused i project that out to the marketplace the marketplace gets confused so when you do it on facebook just pick out your personal facebook page put your stuff on there talk about it don't try to sell people people don't want to be sold right they just they want to see stuff they will get the ideas themselves and start coming to you now when it comes to charging your friends family and co-workers that's a matter of you really want to charge what your project is worth this is a friend right it's been actually a family friend for uh since i was like a teenager right but it's still 200 i'm not doing a favor i'm giving them something that they want and in return they're paying me something like this has emotional value this is a big key i want you to understand i'm going to sidestep just a minute this is being made because it has emotional value this is a big deal because it had emotional value where i failed with this was i didn't incorporate emotional value we were going to talk about this in just a little bit so put it on your facebook the next thing to do within this first strategy is get involved in facebook groups again i'll use the example jeep wrangler there's lots of jeep wrangler groups out there and this in turn and this was one of my failures but i want to give you the direction the strategy to get into that group and how to make it work so you can start getting sales you get into the group you start dialoguing with people and share with them get let them get to know who you are what you're doing is you're building something called rapport this is vital for any business to become successful rapport trust and relationship without that it's very difficult to sell so get into facebook groups that you're interested in that has to do with in some way shape or form with the product that you want to make and keep your products nichey right don't don't make a whole bunch of stuff like i did in the beginning unless you're just practicing and learning make something that that group is going to be interested in and then slowly start to introduce what you're doing to that group and you will slowly start to make sales for it i've made some sales in jeep groups but i didn't focus my strategy just on the jeep groups and dialoguing with them enough so that's something i have to start working on once my other business aspect is up and running so i think we've covered this one friends family co-workers your personal facebook feed then start to build rapport in facebook groups people have a lot of success with this and doing these methods it's the first way you'll probably make money with a cnc machine through your own personal uh groups so in fact almost everybody who starts in this that's how they first make money so let's go to the next one that's going to take you a little more work but it's still easy etsy or facebook marketplace now i want you to pick one see i'm going to stop for a second of these strategies that i am telling you you have to pick one and one only i'm just giving you three that you can pick from so all right so let's talk about etsy and facebook marketplace i'm i'm gonna tone this to etsy okay a lot of people buy off of etsy and going into etsy this was another one of my failures by the way going into etsy you want to have a niche product that a lot of people are buying go into etsy see where the money is flowing what are people buying here's how you tell you pick a topic so we'll just pick the topic jeep christmas ornaments and you go in and see which ones have the most comments that means that's the ones or the ones that are selling the most stuff study what they are selling and why does it stand out from all the other products that are very similar christmas ornaments and i'll give you an excellent example here this don't follow me you won't make it jeep christmas ornament is fairly generic there's a lot of jeep christmas ornaments out there so it didn't move very well but the two that were moving were personalized in fact the top one was a hell of a lot cheaper made than this but what made it stand out were a couple of things it had the year on it and it had the color of the person's jeep and it was niched down to my first jeep and then i had the name of the person who owned the jeep extremely nichey personalized so personalization is really really important so i have to study that i have to redirect a bit maybe i'll start etching names in here which was the original plan i just didn't do it i got into it a little bit late so next year i'll be ready look for what's selling now we're going to take this to the next level when you find something that has a lot of money is flowing let's take something like a disney character a lot of money flows the disney characters look at that as a whole and think what are people making but what aren't they making for that disney character perhaps it's a christmas ornament of course there's a bunch of disney uh christmas ornaments out there but what if there wasn't you're seeing all these other disney characters and you had this one area a christmas ornament that's not made or maybe you can title the mirror dangly that's what my friend patrick did he looked on etsy found a little niche where products were moving and he looked at what wasn't out there that the little angle you can come in at and he did the christmas ornament thing and he couldn't keep up with the orders he had to take that down so he could get all his orders caught up the next thing is in the etsy thing get with the times my daughter bought a virus ornament right i mean really but it's what people are buying so etsy is the second place to go to or facebook marketplace but you pick one or the other okay and that's your strategy or your personal facebook page so we have three different directions you can go in the one thing i want to say with all this is keep your products toned down to a niche area don't make too much stuff until you understand the market the next one is go to craft shows see what people are selling at craft shows and you look for the trend from not just what one person's saying that you like it but look for the trend in the bigger realm go talk to the the sellers at craft shows and and just make friends with them and talk about what what they seem to like to sell what seems to sell best for them and over time what you'll do is you'll get a feel for that and then you start producing products in that area and then sell them at the craft show now given the times it's a little trickier but they still have these craft shows so it kind of goes along the same way what you're doing is ultimately finding out what people want in various niches and you're building relationships with people so that's uh yeah so that covers the three things the three simple ways the easiest is the organic friends family co-workers your social feed on facebook and uh getting involved in groups and getting no people in the groups the second one is etsy and facebook marketplace etsy is a little bit easier a lot of people sell on there but don't feel like you're in competition i think this is where a lot of people struggle they think that they're in competition with other people you're not you just create what you want to create to see what the market says and then adjust along the way and then we talked about the craft shows so let's talk about the foundations of why these different strategies work and why they don't work this is like the really important part now i've talked to you a little bit about the facebook aspect the friends family and coworkers you have rapport with these people so they want to buy from you just like you want to buy from people that you know and trust and have relationships with who want to deliver to you in value ultimately that's what all sales comes down to building rapport building relationships and giving value first so it's like me the i'll talk about a little bit about the strategy that i use in my business that works how i've adjusted along the way has brought me to creating videos like this for you to to so you can become successful my success depends on your success and that depends on the quality of content that i give you am i giving you the true nuts and bolts of making money with a cnc machine or am i just trying to sell you on the idea that you can make anything and make money i have to be very honest here very personal thing when i watch videos this comes from business perspective okay as a business person when i watch videos on youtube where people promote five things you can make on a cnc machine that you can sell and they talk about these five things they show pictures of their machine running around and making it and talk about a couple other things but they don't talk about how they're selling it where is the market that they're selling to how do they approach the market and and and what are their struggles how do they fail how do they succeed how do they change those videos i have a problem with because they're just trying to entice you with the money thing without giving you the real meat of the matter of strategy how to actually make it work and so that's why i put these videos out here because i just can't find videos that's really giving you the meat so by the way if you're finding this helpful please give me a thumbs up and a comment down below of what your thoughts are of what i've been giving you so far i always dialogue with people who make comments because um you're you right you're a person instead of a number or a dollar figure that's the other thing right i'm building relationship with you i have to build trust with you in order for my business to grow so when videos like that give you the shallow information the underlying foundation the trust just isn't there so one of the things i want to point out here is given the change in life today most income is going to come from the online space so you have to tap into it in one way or another like etsy or facebook or some of the other platforms but i'd just start with that to your facebook getting back to strategy for just a minute i really want you to get this why strategy is so important strategy gives you tunnel vision into it one particular way to go about earning your income with a cnc machine and keeps you from diverting off track or trying too many different things you need to become an expert in that one area first and to understand what the market does how it responds and become a master in that one area and once you're like that then you then you can expand out so relationships are important feedback feedback is ultra important this goes back to my strategy when people leave comments on my channel i always talk back to them and sometimes it's overwhelming sometimes i forget that i've talked to somebody and i'm i'm so sorry i did it with uh dan right i i just forgot that i had talked to him and i asked him the same question later and he said i already told you and i had to go back and say oh yeah and apologize to him because there's just too much information coming in but the feedback is so important your customers are going to tell you whether they like what you're doing or not and when they give you feedback you want to adjust with that feedback what is the common thread in there that they're looking for so if you're making a product let's just say you're making a sign and your sign looks great to you but your customers are tending to not black but blue will say you need to adjust with that that's why you have to listen to the feedback from your customers or from your from your uh the people who are watching you focus on a single simple product so let's go into which method is best for you the first one is if you don't really care for social media don't have a good feel for it then obviously the facebook thing is not the way to go you have friends family and coworkers so that's that's really easy that's why i encourage you just to start off that way most people make their first buck that way if you're not comfortable with that go with the second one start working off of etsy do the research on etsy find that niche in that see that's that the money is flowing and find the angle that people aren't making a product in and hit that angle um then the markets right they go to the the craft shows and set up a booth after you've made some stuff so what do you sell this is where it gets really good i can't emphasize enough sell words so that may sound kind of funny so this will send the message home what does every single almost every single house have on it a welcome sign in fact i did a video not too long ago of walking around a friend's house and seeing what they had in there to get an idea what people sell or buy that person had four welcome signs inside their house so words sell and i want you to think about this the ones you see most are welcome and home but i want to take you into the other room of my house and show you something this is above my laundry of course this was on the wall when i moved here people like to label their rooms so words like kitchen bathroom laundry these are words that people buy get into the welcome thing again i have a welcome sign in the front of my house here's another one let me get this this is one of mine favorites now i made this but this has to do with a sense of prosperity love is another word i i have a whole list of words that you can make to sell and if you want that list i only give it to people who are serious about uh their cnc the journey or you can make these words on on uh routers lasers 3d printers whatever i have a list that you can have for free down below is a link where you can sign up to get it you'll have access to free files that aren't available to the public and you'll be the first to know about other stuff that i that comes in down my pipeline so if you want a list of the top 50 words that sell then sign up for that and then you'll have access to that the word welcome is one that you almost can't lose on this welcome sign i put the um i put the vector file on my etsy store there will be a link to that by the way my number one selling on seller on etsy is this vector file i designed it up and i've sold quite a few of those vector files my friend tasha has asked me to make a welcome sign out of this this is an old weathered fence post that came out of her yard so i'm going to put welcome right down that sign i've got another thing here this is htc which is for an organization that i have been learning under people like words so pick a strategy get words go find what people are buying or figure out what they're buying and and find the angle they're not in and start producing your stuff build the awareness get your stuff out there tell your family friends co-workers so to wrap this up i want to give you a little advice coming from integrity in business if you're simply out to make the buck without understanding that there's people on the other side that want to be treated like people that you are going to struggle this business is a craft where you create things with emotional value for others and you want to understand what that value is and that only comes from your heart to want to help other people it's like my value is i want you to succeed there's no greater joy in what i do than when i see you succeed that's why i've started business coaching if you are brand new to cnc and you want to get educated on it sign up this channel if you want to understand a lot more about cnc entrepreneurialism sign up this channel i talk about both of these things i train with vcarve and i have the cnc entrepreneurs facebook group so you can get masterminding with other people get the ideas of what you can sell and how to approach the market from people who have been there and work with other people that are at your level so you can buddy up you'll be amazed at the kind of friendships you make and the ideas that you get i hope this video was helpful again if this was give me a thumbs up i'd love to see a comment from you what your thoughts are and if you're business oriented and you understand what i've been talking about throw down your suggestions that other people may want to see so there you have it three strategies that you can start with today to start making money with a cnc machine and i hope that you got something out of this video that will truly get you in the right direction so you start earning revenue doing something that you love to do this is garrett with idc woodcraft and i hope your day is awesome and tomorrow is even better talk to you later

Channel: CNC Routers, Beginners & Beyond - Garrett Fromme

Views: 10,379

Keywords: cnc for beginners, cnc router, cnc, cnc laser, vynil cutter, 3d printer, how to make money with a cnc machine, cnc projects that make money, cnc router projects, cnc laser projects, how to make money with a cnc, make money with cnc router, making money with cnc, plasma cutter, milling machine, cnc machine, cnc tips and tricks, how to make money, cnc projects, how to, how to start a business, shapeoko, avid cnc, xcarve, bobscnc, sainsmart, business, easy cnc projects, money

Id: aNI-h9f8R7Y

Length: 30min 23sec (1823 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 26 2021