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How to start a handmade business - with Liz Cooke - Chester & Cooke
Today I'm talking to Liz Cooke from Chester & Cooke. Liz designs and makes country living products for the home, garden, horse, and dog. Liz shares her product business journey, and how she transitioned from a career in finance to starting her business and designing wooden products, which her husband then makes and they sell.
We discussed the challenges of pricing handmade products, the power of offering customisation to your customers, and the areas to prioritise learning about and investing in when running your own business.
Liz has also won quite a few awards, and had some great PR successes, including being commissioned by ITV show Love Your Weekend to make a welly rack. We discuss how these came about, the channels that Liz finds more successful in helping people to find her business.
Listen in to hear Liz share:
- An introduction to herself and her business (01:17)
- How and why she started her own business (01:44)
- Designing and making products from wood (03:38)
- Her expectations when setting up the business, and how these have grown (05:56)
- Their first product - a boot jack (08:34)
- The biggest challenges of setting up her own website (10:01)
- How to price handmade products (12:16)
- The power of personalisation on your products (16:24)
- How she achieved awards and PR success (18:25)
- Which channels work best for bringing in sales (22:11)
- Things to prioritise when you are at the early stages of your business (23:32)
- The importance of making sure your business doesn’t take over your life (28:17)
- Her number one piece of advice for product creators (29:24)
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