While chainmaille itself is still somewhat niche (although we can probably all agree it has been growing by leaps and bounds in the last few years!), the craft world is actually quite large—a $29 billion industry. It’s for this reason that we’re always so surprised how little benchmarking information is available for craft businesses. With little collective information, it can feel like you’re reinventing the wheel sometimes when it comes to making business decisions, whether you’re an individual or the owner of a shop.
We’ve decided to take this matter into our own hands.
With your help, we plan to do a series of benchmarking surveys on jewelry-making/teaching/crafting/craft stores/supplies, etc. and publish the results for everyone’s benefit. The way we look at it, knowing things like how much other teachers charge for classes or inventory turnover rates for shops across the country can only help us all in our quest to make the world a more creative place. Here’s how we hope this will work:
Throughout the year, we’ll create and publish surveys here on our blog and promote these surveys through social media channels and emails to our peers. If you see a survey that applies to you, take it and share it with your peers as well. If you feel the survey doesn’t apply to you, send it to your favorite craft supply store and encourage them to participate. Make sure they know that we’ll publish the results for them to use as well and you can even send us their contact information to [email protected] so we can make sure to share the results with them specifically.
Sound good? Let’s do this!
Our first two surveys (links below) focus on jewelry classes and teacher pay because this is the number one question we are asked by instructors when people start teaching. Everyone always wants to know “How much should my teaching fee be?” New craft stores also sometimes are unsure how to pay instructors for classes. It can be a difficult question to answer, because the fee will vary greatly by location, type of class, type of location and instructor experience. We hope that doing a survey like this will be enlightening and provide some benchmarking information for various demographic groups. The survey also touches upon other areas, but payment is the main focus.
Everyone wants to know about money, but no one wants to talk about it! Hopefully this survey can help in that regard!
We have two separate surveys – one for jewelry instructors and one for locations that host jewelry-making classes. Please do take note these surveys are intended to gather information about jewelry-making classes only, no other crafts for this round.
INSTRUCTORS:
BEFORE filling out the survey, you may want to take some time to gather the following information:
• How many hours you teach in an “average month”?
• What are your busiest teaching months?
• How are you paid for your classes (per student, per hour, or some other way)?
• How much are you teaching fees?
• What have been your positive/negative experiences regarding payment and interaction with a hosting location?
• What items/equipment do you expect the hosting location to provide?
• Additional questions will be asked, but those are easier to know answers to on the spot, which is likely not the case for the bullet points above
The instructor survey is 26 questions, with 13 required questions. Allow 15-30 minutes to complete the survey, depending on how many non-required questions you answer and how much detail you provide for open-ended questions.
Survey for instructors – http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e6fnk4r0h7ksbpmt/start
HOSTING LOCATIONS:
BEFORE filling out the survey, you may want to take some time to gather the following information:
• How many hours of class instruction do you offer in an “average/typical month” (for year-round locations, not for one-time or quarterly bead shows)?
• What are your busiest teaching months?
• What percentage of offered classes run? (an average for the past 2 years)?
• How do you pay instructors for your classes (per student, per hour, or some other way)?
• How much do you pay instructors?
• What have been your positive/negative experiences regarding payment and interaction with instructors
• Additional questions will be asked, but those are easier to know answers to on the spot, which is likely not the case for the bullet points above
The survey is 31 questions, with 16 required questions. Allow 15-30 minutes to complete the survey, depending on how many non-required questions you answer and how much detail you provide for open-ended questions.
Survey for hosting locations – http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e6i35xbsh87gce25/start
We plan to publish the results later this year, so check back here on our blog if you’re interested in this information (and we hope you are!) Also, if you have requests for other surveys you’d like us to conduct, let us know! Leave a comment or send us an email at [email protected].
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