smell wood!
straight sawing tips for beginners
Train woodchucks with music
Import trees
make a book of your tips and only your tips, sell at stores that sell wood! make it like weekend projects, and do several common do-it-yourself projects. you could even plan the weekends out, have a new house by the end of the summer!!! 12 weekend long projects to get your house back up to speed
Save wood, give furniture
get into the schools - get the kids when young - taster sessions
Tape the sounds of a happy woodworker. The tap,tap, tap of the hammer, the whirring of the drill, the whistling of the woodworker
Use the powers of deduction to simplify the process
To build or not to build, or to hire a contractor, that is the question
Plant a forest, build a house
Plant a tree, build a table
Hey, let's save the forests from the big furniture companies
Hold a huge music concert, with proceeds going to charity, give everyone a tool and piece of wood, and have the audience "play" along with the entertainers
Hold DIY parties a la Tupperware
Get into all the category magazines websites and insert positive product reviews
create a CD/software to virtually "build" something online
Have a DIY stall next to an old furniture seller
Hold religious rallies with leading evangelists
Get Norm Abrahams to use the tool in his shop.
Stage woodworking demonstrations in shopping centers.
Show a father passing his new woodworking skills on to his young son.
With all the feeling of sentimentality and the need to pass on information from generation to generation.
create a specialized "workshop" facility for high school students
and/or dislocated, disadvantaged, jobless persons looking for work.
Create kits that create "Escher" like models.
Completing such works would create something that teases the mind, constantly feels unique and would give a sense of accomplishment that would build self-confidence.
These workshops could also have a connection to the workforce
where the skills learned are useful.
These "students" would become "billboards" for all channels
of distribution of your products. Think of them as the roots
or branches of the tree that is your business.
Provide different difficulty level examples in the magazines. Each kit offer a medium level, less expensive model to rise the spirits of woodworkers
Communicate graphically
Communicate about the success
Wood puzzles for adults... IKEA
fireproof wood products
coffin workshop
give away trips to disneyworld
how do you make wind chimes out of wood
how to make wooden wind chimes
Step by step plans for 10 (tool specific) projects for each (same specific) tool ordered from the manufacturer.
FAQ and e-mail support for completing those projects. Perhaps a start date for support to (eg) project #1 to create a sense of urgency. Perhaps get an on-line demo of project #1 by entering the code that you get when you purchased that tool.
Create a tool specific contest where the best project is determined by the best use of one particular feature of the manufacturer's tool. (A feature that the manufacturer has superiority in). Copies of the winner's plan to all that submit an entry. Top 10 get a copy of the other 9 finalists plans.
Create a contest for submitting the best project result created using the tool brand intended for promotion.
Make available the project plans for the top 10 to all those that submit.
Create a woodwork community in your neighbourhood
Invite people to assist to woodwork in a place they would deserve to go
Invite people to work on building a house for a homeless person. Provide a teacher and tools.
would write a novel about the magical nature of wood and would invite woodworkers to read his book
Show tips on how to chop the heads of the common people without damaging the wooden block
Have a home improvement show based on Yassir Arafats beseiged compound in Ramalah
Have an ongoing "add-on" project to build confidence. For instance: 1st project, woodworker creates a simple box. The woodworker can stop there, with a usable box, or can continue on to the next project, which incorporates the box and adds on to it to make another usable object (say, two boxes for a simple bookcase). Woodworker can stop there, or can go onto third project, which incorporates what was made before, and adds onto it for something totally new (like the two boxes with a board between them for a bench?) And so on - building confidence, getting immediate gratification, and ending up with something as simple or complex as you want.
McWood: Fast Fiberboard Projects
Making Wood Sing: Easy Wind Chimes
or
Making a Xylophone
Going Downhill: How to Make Sleds, Skis and Toboggans
Oops! Common Woodworking Mistakes and How to Fix Them
A Tuneful Gift: Musical Instruments You can Make Yourself
Dump to Delight: Fix-Up Ideas for Your Mountain Retreat
Show-Offs: Building Shelves for Your Model Collection
The Hard Suff: Working with Particleboard
Reinventing the Wheel: Turn Garage Sale Junk into Treasure
Wood in the Air: Combining Wood and Stained Glass
Alternatives to Cane: Save an Antique Chair Without Ending Up in the Poor Farm
Going with the Grain: Using the Right Wood for Your Project
offer free online courses for registered tool owners.
Woodworking catalog
Read "CarTalk" to see how Click and Clack look on paper, and add similar snippets of humorous conversation to your catalogue, maybe in cartoon form.
Provide a feedback avenue for woodworkers who have bought one of your products and who have followed the directions and who see a way for the directions to be improved. For anyone who sends you revisions for your directions, send them a coupon or free merchandise.
Most often, the people who experience problems can be part of the solution, if they are given a voice.
This company needs to present opportunities for people to get their hands on the equipment and try it out. Ie. loan/give some to community education groups then advertise that they did so giving open 'studio time' for people to come in and try it.
use the color green well
work with wood as a metaphor. present woodworking projects graphically in gradual stages: starting with "seed" ideas, seedlings, some growth, trees.
Create a character, Woody Woodchucker
Help people to market what they make
Create a juried competition
Create an annual convention
Start clubs in key areas of the country
Send out sample pieces that show how something is supposed to look
Lend equipment out or lease it to allow people to become used to it before buying
Sell projects with complete plans that begin at the basics and gradually progress to higher skill levels. Customers will pay for both lessons and kits.
Set up a free user's forum online. Keep it free of ads and popups. Monitor it only to help users solve problems.
Line up with musical-instrument makers and stores and lead woodworkers to instrument making, repair, etc.
Market within local superchurches. Here you have large, receptive captive audiences on Sunday.
Start woodworking seminars in large-sale cities at places where your tools are sold. The seminars would be led by experts and they would use your tools, and offer them for sale with a summary of the project presented
Develop videos on specific projects taking the woodworker through step-by-step; tie in the specific products needed to do the project; perhaps package, for instance, a "corner hutch" with tools & video, or in the video package say exactly what tools are needed
Find a way to give your customers discounts at wood suppliers in their area. Should be attractive to suppliers, as these woodworkers will make great customers.
A Wooden Thumb award.
Help newest woodworkers find a woodworking buddy in their neighborhood.
Brochure on how to protect children from accidents in your shop with, for example, tool and machine locks.
Seasonal woodworking guides.
Make it easy, via online application, for woodworkers to make greeting cards that feature images of their work.
Woodworker's calendar. Features projects of star members. Marks important dates in woodworking (including introduction of our products), and other seasonal-based information for woodworkers.
Sell, give away, or award a "made by" or "from the shop of" stamp that burns in the signature of the woodworker on produced items.
Call for "how to" videos from woodworkers. Reward the best with production and distribution of a professional "how to" based on their entry.
Create a line of wood-fragrance enhancers that make woods retain and enhance their natural aromas.
Send members email updates reminding them of required maintenance for their tools.
Advance the category of miniature woodworking for people with really limited space, like apartment dwellers. Sell smaller versions of tools and machines.
A computer application for designing woodworking projects.
Find the next radio superstars like Click and Clack on Car Talk. Sponsor the show. Make it a morning show and call it "Morning Wood."
Set up an annual woodworking challenge to make a specific kind of item. Item should be themed to current issues or events or trends in woodworking.
Is there a channel for disposing of and possibly recycling sawdust? Should there be? If so, how can we get involved advantageously?
Help woodworkers sell off equipment they want to replace when they upgrade to our products.
Internet site helps member woodworkers share ideas with each other.
Run a Internet-based contest that collects and shares woodworking ideas from all over the world.
Get major product company (like Louisville Slugger) to allow qualified woodworkers to earn money performing some part of the baseball bat manufacturing process.
Louisville Slugger has competition from a home-based bat maker. Woodworkers like this would be an inspiration for amateur woodworkers. Feature this entrepreneur on a website, get his endorsement on products, or let certain woodworkers visit his plant.
Set up simple shops stock with our products in cities and towns, run by a representative woodworker, where local woodworkers can meet and learn from each other.
Give away your most basic products to woodworkers who support your cause. Aprons, hats, protective goggles, etc.
Make and give away posters with wall-hang quality that illustrate basic woodworker data... like trees and wood facts, cutting and boring speeds, decimal equivalents...
Build a website bulletin board to discuss "controversial" topics like "going metric."
Get behind causes important to woodworkers... maybe wood conservation, chemical preservatives, safety features on products...
Website should lead woodworkers to important information and should be kept more current than any other site on the Internet. Allow membership to recommend updates.
Advise woodworkers on issues that may not yet have emerged... the effect of machine noise on hearing, for example.
Profile great heroes of woodworking that woodworkers can emulate. All the way up to Frank Lloyd Wright.
Offer rewards for product-improvement suggestion that we can actually use.
Create a traveling road show to demonstrate techniques and sell the equipment
Set up regional woodworking showcase events that build to a national show.
Find a leading woodworker in every town, supply him or her with tools and products in exchange for being a a resource for other local woodworkers.
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