Hello! What’s your name and what do you do?
My name is JJ Ryan, and together with my brother Alf we are the woodfashioners, makers of bespoke furniture, interiors, events and exhibition stands (when there isn’t a global pandemic happening).
We work with design agencies, interior designers and building contractors to manufacture and install stunning fitted furniture, marketing activations and exhibition stands that are anything but standard.
We specialise in the unique, so any wardrobe, home office, library or bar we make is different and every exhibition stand we build really stands out from the crowd.
Sustainability is a core part of our business, that is why we only use FSC certified wood, our workshop is powered by 100% renewable energy and 95% of our waste is recycled.
Where does your passion for bespoke wood furniture come from?
It’s safe to say that my brother was always the creative one, and I was the more academic one. School and sitting behind a desk was never his passion. So after a brief stint working for a marketing company and making a few bits of furniture for friends and family on the side, he quit his job and started working as a carpentry apprentice for a friend that needed a hand. It ignited a passion in him that 15 years later burns as bright as ever.
When did you decide to turn it into a business?
After working as an apprentice and building up his knowledge, Alf went solo 10 years ago and started his own business trading as “the woodfashioner”. The company grew and grew, and really took off when he fell into making bespoke items for events and exhibitions all over Europe. Seeing an opportunity for growth is what prompted him to reach out to me to help take the next step and grow the company from a one man band to a 6 person team today – the woodfashioner, became woodfashioners.
What’s your favourite part about running your business?
I think the variety is what makes it so appealing – no project is ever the same, which means that no day or week is ever the same. There are always new challenges to solve on each project, and new things to work through as the business evolves and grows.
Do you have a team or are you planning to have a team?
We used to be a team of 3 which grew to 10/12 for several months during big events and then back down to 3 for the rest of the year. Since we have had to shift to primarily working on fitted furniture all year round, we have had to grow the team. Right now we are a team of 6, including 4 full time carpenters, 1 full time office role and 1 part time designer funded through a government program. We are hoping to bring on another trainee carpenter through the same government funded program in the coming months.
Who are your customers?
Our customer base has completely changed pre, during and post Covid.
Pre covid we worked mostly with marketing and design agencies who would design weird and wonderful exhibition stands that we would build and install all over Europe.
During covid we were forced to pivot to working on residential fitted furniture and so our customers became home owners looking to improve the houses that they had been stuck in during lockdown. This was good, but quite labour intensive sales wise.
Post covid (if we can call it that) we are working with 3-4 high end interior designers and building contractors who used us for a one-off project, or have seen our work, and who now send us regular work that is keeping us booked out for 3-4 months, making planning, budgeting and growth much easier. We do still work with individuals, especially customers that return as repeat business, which happens quite a bit.
How long did it take you to breakeven?
From becoming woodfashioners ltd, it took us 12 months to breakeven, and 18 months to be making a healthy profit. This was helped by an EU funded start-up growth grant which matched funding put into the business by myself to help kick start the business.
We were riding high 24 months into the startup and then covid hit. It wiped out 95% of the order book, and we were forced to pivot away from events and exhibitions to focus on residential fitted furniture.
We took 12 months of losses through lockdown and as we made the transition, we have now begun to breakeven again, and are building up to profitability again 24 months after covid hit. It’s been a rough time, but finally there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Let’s talk about the digital side of your business. When did you establish your online presence and what made you do that?
If I think back to when we started in 2018, we had what I would describe as a website that looked like a tree with no leaves on it. It looked nice and not a million miles away from how it looks today in terms of style, but it was bare bones and far too generic in that it was casting a net too wide.
The same could be said for our google my business profile – it was there, but it wasn’t really doing anything for us because we were not really doing anything with it. Not many reviews, hardly any pictures…
How was that change possible?
All of that changed when I saw a post by Giulia on Facebook saying that she was going to pilot a DIY digital marketing course for friends and family that own their own businesses. It was perfect timing. Covid had wiped out our main business and we needed help in generating new business as we pivoted from events and exhibitions to residential fitted furniture.
So, I immediately signed up and it was one of the best things I did in 2020. Through a combination of expertise dished out piping hot by Giulia every month and the sharing of learnings, troubleshooting and support from a wonderful group of entrepreneurs, our digital presence went from a bare stick with no leaves to a bushy tree of assorted content, great reviews, helpful blog posts and highly targeted information that would speak directly to our ideal customer, not every passer by.
Every month I would make tweaks and changes to our online presence, and every month the number of enquiries would grow, from 1-2 random enquiries a month to 10-15+ high quality and easy to convert enquiries a month.
Today, how much of your business is traditional and how much of it is digital?
Our business is inherently a traditional business in terms of the design and production of the fitted furniture. But we have digitised more of our back office, from marketing to finances and project management.
Do you have a chief marketing officer or a dedicated digital marketing/tech team?
As the business focused founder of a small family company – I take on the responsibility of marketing and sales myself.
Before joining the pickling club that seemed like quite a daunting activity, but having put in the ground work during covid, and through a combination of digitisation and regular updates, the marketing is more or less taking care of itself and we are getting more leads then we can handle at the moment.
So much so that we have stopped any paid advertising with Google (we were only paying the minimum of £1.5 a day) and on social media.
What digital activities do you do to grow your business?
We primarily focus on SEO through a combination of blogging, new content and social media at the moment. We were paying the minimum per month for Google Ads, but stopped it earlier this year as we were starting to get too many leads through our website. That is still the case despite stopping the ads. But should we need to push for additional growth we would likely start email marketing and could look to re-start Google Ads in the future.
What learning resources would you recommend to someone in your industry to get “more” digital?
Join The Pickling club – simples!
What tools do you use in your business?
We use Squarespace for our website, mainly because it’s super easy to use and we are not managing an online shop or anything sophisticated. We use Dext to process our receipts and Xero as our accounting software.
What’s your advice for someone in your industry who wants to modernise their business?
It doesn’t matter how much you invest in digitisation and marketing, you have to have the right product and service that will inspire your customers to say good things about you, or better keep coming back for more and more work.
