We’re about to take a DEEP DIVE into 5 essential tips for selling your CNC projects and scaling your business. When we see makers “get stuck” trying to grow their business, it usually comes back to these fundamentals!
Even if you don't plan on scaling and you just want extra money to pay off your machine or have a side hustle, these tips will keep you from making critical CNC business mistakes that will waste your time and money.
5 Tips for Selling Your CNC Project Ideas
Tip 1: Consider Your Business at Scale
Choosing the right CNC project for your business ties into choosing your niche. Consider the technicalities when you ramp up production. For example, Storing raw materials and finished goods. One of the benefits of CNC is that when you are getting started selling, you could just make products on demand. But as your brand really starts to take off this may become more challenging. If you know you get an average of 1000 sales per month, you may choose to over produce, to keep an inventory stock so you don’t experience a shortage if there is increased demand or if you run out of raw materials.
Owning a CNC business is like owning a factory. Make sure you are designing every aspect of the business to be capable of scaling. Product design, assembly line, logistics, customer service, and maintenance, all can be optimized to run smoothly. Choosing a CNC machine that can mill fast and had an appropriate size milling area will be critical.
CNC ONE MAX is built to be best in precision, speed, and power.
Tip 2: Media is Everything
When selling your CNC projects to consumers, volume of sales is fundamental. The better your media, the more people you will convert. Think of it like this: every company is a media company. You want to make media part of your business from the very start. Take the time to take incredible photos and detailed videos of your products, film your production process, discuss your design details, and most importantly: show your product in use!
When you are starting out, great media will do most of the selling by making your products stand out. But as you scale, it will be essential to begin sharing your brand’s story. Your media is your resume. It’s the difference between being perceived as someone working out of their garage vs. a brand that you can instantly fall in love with.
Tip 3: Marketplaces
Selling CNC projects online and in person marketplaces is already very popular. (Because it works!) Local farmers markets, Facebook marketplace, Etsy, and even Ebay and Amazon are fantastic places to start selling. Marketplaces are also a great way to test the popularity of new product variations and designs.
Remember, in a marketplace your product is compared directly with it’s competition, so it goes without saying, great media and unique design will help you win. This is also great way to validate interest in a product and get you started making sales before buying more inventory or running ads to scale.
The biggest problem with selling in marketplaces is that consistency is mostly out of your control. You may have a high ranking item getting many sales today, but one bad review or better competition could change that overnight.
In addition, it may be tempting to get carried away selling many different products on marketplaces just because you see others doing it. It's probably best to focus on providing a better version of your main product.
Tip 4: Branding
Branding is the relationship between your business and its target audience. How do you build a relationship? You for relationships with people you trust. Who do you trust? You trust people who share your values.
It is the job of your business to represent your audience’s values. This is the most critical step to escaping the side hustle stage of your CNC business. You are not selling your CNC Projects. No one cares about your projects. You are selling the lifestyle your audience desires to have.
FOR EXAMPLE: If you are making custom kitchen cabinets, your goal should not be to position yourself as “custom kitchen cabinets” and wait until someone needs new cabinets. Instead, you should help people understand the feeling of tearing out those ugly old cabinets and transforming the space into something beautiful. What is it like to wake up in the morning and enter the new kitchen for a cup of coffee? What is it like when you show off this new space to friends? Tell those stories.
If you can tell the stories of what life is like with your product, you can sell the dream of this lifestyle. And if you can sell the dream people will buy your product because they know you will give them the desired outcome, while everyone else is just giving them kitchen cabinets.
Branding is the core of scaling any B2C business.
Tip 5: Custom Orders
One of the unique benefits to selling your CNC projects is that you could customize each unit. One of the easiest ways to increase average order value is to give your customers an option to customize their order. A simple name engraving could go a long way, but with CNC the sky is the limit in what you can customize.
Obviously, the more customization per unit, the more complex production can be. When you are designing your products and production process, consider making customization part of the process from the start.
Another way to offer customization is to sell “limited time collections” of your product. For example you could do seasonal or holiday collections. Adding a unique twist on an otherwise standard product for a limited time could be exactly what it takes to get someone to finally commit to buying, due to fear of missing out.
Click to Read our tips on creating custom CNC products
Conclusion
Selling your CNC projects can be tricky if you're not prepared. But those challenges can be solved with the right strategy. Amazing media will make your product stand out, this will set you apart when selling on marketplaces. Marketplaces will help you bring in your first sales, test new products, and can even be a large source of revenue. Once you get better at developing your brand through your pictures, videos, website, and social media, you could re-invest the money you make from marketplace sales into running ads to drive traffic to your website. And finally, finding unique ways to increase average order value such as customization could help you scale much faster.
At the end of the day, the world needs more people who make things. The only thing better than making CNC projects people use and love, is building a brand people love. Brands tell a story, showing people what is possible, and the best part about CNC is that anything is possible.
Ready To Get Started?
Check out our CNC ONE MAX, it is the ultimate machine for starting a CNC business. It's extremely easy for beginners to get started using our included CNC ONE Academy. MAX is extremely precise and can mill though wood, plastics and metals. A powerful router like this will get you started, but will remain the centerpiece of your production as your business grows.
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