Customer Testimonial
This is part of a letter I received from a framing customer a couple of days back. It made me laugh out loud so I thought I would share.
John was unwrapping everything for me, while I was eating. He didn’t quite have the Roses undone and the wrapping fell off mid-bite. I dropped my fork and said “HOLY CRAP!” It was a good “HOLY CRAP!” I thanked Mary-Ellen just the other day for sending you my way. -Kathy H.
Framing and the art business
Even though I have been framing for over 20 years (my how time flies) I really don’t talk much about the framing aspect of my business. I suppose there usually is not very much to say. Of the three branches to Wild Faces Gallery (The Art, The Printing Service and The Framing) it is the framing that has the highest cost and is most labor intensive to profit ratio of all of them.
Much like the printing service, framing is something I do for my art business, so we just branched out to include it for other people. What surprises me is that I still occasionally get new non-local framing customers who ship me their framing projects from out of state. Kathy lives in a large city with dozens of frame shops and yet I am her framer now. I’ve done about a dozen projects for her in the past 12 months and she has gone on to refer me to someone else, who I have now done several projects for. Amazing.
My favorite framing story
It happens that every so often I do a project for someone which impacts them emotionally. Shadowboxing some memorabilia or preserving some family treasure.
A local person had some needlework she had done 30 years ago or so. Her kids no longer wanted them hanging in their homes and gave them back. She came in apologizing about even thinking that they were worthy of reframing. She has rheumatoid arthritis and at this point needlework was beyond her capabilities. I told her it was not my decision whether they were worthy to be reframed, but I thought they were in good shape. And despite their age they should frame up nicely. I instructed her in washing them and then reframed them for her, adding a few decorative cuts to the matting. She came in and was quite pleased. I was relieved because it was costly to reframe them and since she had reservations, I was a little nervous.
As I was helping her out to her car with the items. She turned to me, a little teary eyed and gave me a big hug. Now I’ve known this person for years but we rarely exchanged more than a greeting. A hug was a big surprise.
As we get busier I occasionally contemplate cutting the framing part of the business. But it’s those kind of moments that insure I will continue to frame.
Tags: framing
That is so really lovely about the hug Mona, what a wonderful story and testimonial, you must keep your framing service, it just completes your whole package. : )
Hey Thanks Mel. I really enjoy framing but the busier we get it just seems logical to think about cutting it from our services. We pondered hiring help, but truthfully I don’t trust anyone else to do the job perfectly. (Does that mean I have control issues?)
oh I completely understand, i am like that, that’s probably why i take on waaay too much as i like things to be done properly..and my way ; ) I think if you find a framer that you can trust it will work though, we found a wonderful framer who we trust implicitly and I find that I can hand over the artwork and not have to worry about that bit of it. We are still in control though as we (along with the client) decide on the moulding and then I get the framer to do the job! : )
What a lovely personal account Mona! (I was going to say story, but that makes it sound like you made it up!)
The fact that you still have new out of town customers coming to you shows the high standard of your work - and that people trust you to handle their pieces with care and respect. That would be the most important factor for me, and I’m sure it is for many others.
Hey UnD Our small town business couldn’t survive without the support of out of towners. Still a constant surprise though.
Gonna pop over to your blog to see how your event went last weekend.
Wonderful story — good for you! I would never have guessed that it had the lowest profit ratio of the three. It would be nice if you could get some help with it, though. You could do the customer contact and do your art while someone else did the actual work, for your supervision!!!!