I wanted to get your thoughts on how important it is to have a large showroom. Can you be a blue ribbon winning taxidermist get top dollar for for deerheads and be successful having your showroom in a small area? I once visited Marcus Zimmerman who lives close by. When I stepped into his showroom I was impressed as a taxidermist myself. Not so much with the quality of the work. Which is I must say world class. But the size of his showroom high ceilings sheep standing on rock ledges african lions etc. Any customer customer walking in there would have to be in awe. Whether he knew what a nicitating membrane was or not. You have to wonder does the quality of our work make that big of a difference? I realize their are other factors cus. realtions,sticking to a time frame advertizing etc. If Animal Artistry just did so-so work would it a make that big of a diference in there bottom line? Is it just all about the museum style showroom.
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is that you have to have a good customer relations first. You can always be improving your work, if you have the work. I know a few "hackidermist" that stay wide open but do some terrible mounts, but are great with people. A great big showroom with the best work in the world is useless if you can't talk to someone without pi$$ing them off. In my opinion, Marcus must have a good relation with his customers. Again just my 2 cents
There is no doubt that Marcus is world class and Marcus attracts world class customers. BUT there a lot of intangibles most of us don't comprehend there. He's in the middle of nowhere, but "if you build it, they will come". Marcus set his goals and did not waiver in achieving them. HOWEVER, Marcus runs a FAMILY BUSINESS. He's Menonite and his brother works closely with him as do all the members of his large family. He works 6 days a week but will be quick to tell you that those 6 days have some very short nights in them. He is also able to barter services that most of us don't have contact with.
That's not intended in anyway to cast aspersions on this very talented and superb man and his dedication to his work. It's just stating facts. MOST OF US are one man/woman operations. Few of us have time to keep up to date work in a showroom IF WE HAD A SHOWROOM. Our showrooms are the works going out the door.
Years ago, I might have envied the lifestyle that Marcus and many others live, but no more. I have other things in life I enjoy and they recieve more and more attention each year. More power to the Marcus Zimmerman's of this world and I'll stand up and applaud each one of them, but that's not me and I'm not sorry for it.
Theres absolutely no doubt that Marcus has a unique situation there, and its helped him get a great start in business. But, he HAS earned it, just the same, and more importantly, has lived up to, met and exceeded the start he had. He is successful because of a heck of a work ethic to match a talent he shares with those who work with him. His success is what gets the clients in the doors to see what a great place he has.
See the point here? You can have a gymnasium sized showroom, but you need to give the customer a reason to come see it. I know great taxidermists, who put out beautiful work, with pantry sized showrooms. In some areas, guys actually have little or no showroom, but instead display their work at a local shop or sporting goods store.
To me, sure, a modest to good size showroom should impress those who visit, but GETTING them there is EARNED...by hard work and good reputation.
Nine times out of ten, when a new customer walks into my studio they have the specimine in their hands and have allready made up their minds to contract for my services. I only do deer heads and have over 20 examples of my work on display. Those examples typically only serve to give them ideas on the mount style to choose. In my opinion, a huge studio is not necessary to bring in business.
Here is a quote worth remembering "Never wish you were someone else, they have more problems than you will ever know." My opinion is this on showrooms; A nice clean showroom and office area and clean floor with your best work updated as much as you can is more important than its size. Its the first impression of your professionalism and the shops cleanliness that matters most. That must be tied in closely with a good reputation and a good attitude toward the client and his trophy, like light from a flame.
I believe it is important to have an impressive showroom, but they have to come over to see it. A few months back a guy from the LA area saw my web site and e-mailed for a quote on a very large order of African game, many life-size mounts in the request, after sending him the quote I heard nothing for several months until I got a call from him late one evening when he was crossing the border from Mexico with 2 coues deer and 2 mulies. He had to take take them to a USDA approved taxidermist and saw that I was closest to him so he brought them over, as soon as he opened my door he let out a gasp and his jaw dropped. We did business and he then told me that he wish that he had sent me his african skins but he had already sent them to some guy in Alaska, he had a disgusted look about his decision,(myself included) but I feel that now he will be a repeat customer and perhaps will bring friends. He came to my shop out of necessity but my showroom won him over. So yes, an impressive showroom is important. Also, in the past my showroom was mostly birds and I was frustrated when I had hunters tell me that they took their big game to someone else because they thought I only did birds. I changed that by purchasing african skins and horns to mount and together with my own trophies sought out to make impressive mounts and not common mounts.
Sure you will get some shoppers that browse, they dont know what a good mount should look like.
I would choose a showroom of my best mounts and post prices according.
I can show you a showroom full of crap and a rude, maybe the rudest taxidermist I ever met and he has plenty of work, several years behind, high prices.
So maybe its all about building a name for sending out the best mounts.
His current mounts are very very good, but some of the junk in his showroom really sucks.
I also know several taxidermist who dont have any showrooms. These guys are high priced and have huge business.
I change out all the mounts as a five year period rolls over.
My oldest mounts are five years and they are replaced as I use Thursdays, just for my stuff.
...and the ones who usually say this, are the ones with small ones...I'm just sayin-lol
Been there, done that, didn't need the T-Shirt. Read Jim Marsico's reply. Whoever you are, I'd like to have you match up with what Jim does in basically a one man operation. "People who think up dumb analogies usually are." How's that one?