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Stephen Mullins | Episode 439
Stephen Mullins is a potter and business owner in Sheridan, Wyoming. Stiphen received his BA in Arts Ed 2012, and BFA 2013. In 2018 Stephen Mullins opened his first brick and mortar store in the heart of Sheridan, Wyoming’s historic downtown. Stephen now runs a production house and Community Clay Center during the day, and teaches community classes in the evenings.
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What is the key approach to finding a customer?
I think when I started one of my big things is I wanted to make pots for people who don’t normally buy pots. For me, as someone who loves ceramics and pottery, I know exactly who I am going to look at for inspiration and whose work I want to buy,. That is really important to me, but someone who isn’t that into pottery and handmade stuff, why would they come in and spend money on a handmade piece of pottery if they aren’t normally into that. So I reach out to those who are normally not interested and I get feed back like, That is my favorite mug to drink out of or I have coffee out of this mug every morning. Thank you for the great work. So for me I think it is two things of making sure people know that you are out there, but then having the best work that you can have at the time.
How important are goals for starting a business?
I think they are really important but I haven’t sat down and written out where I want to be in two years or where I want to be in five years. Just because right now I am just starting out so right now it is, what do I want to have in two weeks. I do have big goals in the back of my mind, let’s say I want to be the number one producing potter in this region in like 5 years. I would love to be that person and maybe employ a couple of people to reach that goal. But mostly I focus on what I need to do right now and scramble to get it done.
How do you plan your week?
So right now I plan it in terms of , right now is really busy with wholesale orders, so the last two months, I start my week by saying, Okay what orders do I need to get done by next Friday because it takes me about two weeks to do a good turn around time.
Do you have a to do list?
Yeah. I have like five to do lists because I will lose one and I will write another one. Then I put them all together once I find them all crumpled up in my bag. That why I’m like, someone should invent an app for this kind of thing.
There is an app for these things!
I know. (laughter)
Do you have a to don’t list? Like in the back of your mind do you have things you’ve decided are not profitable enough and you won’t do them?
Yeah, I do really struggle with saying no. That is one issue for me I have to learn how to do that because I am not very good at it. So I have started saying no, where I can’t work on this type of work right now…when I get some more free time…which is tough for me because I enjoy the more process oriented work. But you can’t spend time on those things right now because you have to get this stuff done. Just being aware of what is important at that moment.
How do you divide up your time with making versus doing other things?
I used to work on my work after work. So I would work all day and I would go home and hang out, like I said we have a two-and-half year old and we have our second kid coming in October which is way exciting. So having time for family time is really important. So when everyone went to bed that is when I would get most of my work done. Now that has shifted because I am doing this full-time. I do my work during the day and I still have that time with family and then in the evenings I try to get online and do that stuff. It is super important that your online presence is there.
Do you see your website as a full-time employee?
What do you mean?
The employee that never tires. It is always ready to work for you.
Yeah, I really do. That actually came from watching these other business that aren’t in the ceramics world. They reach out to a national audience. that is where they find what they are doing, so just watching them and how they operate, I mean it was all online. They have a really good social media presence and a really good website and user experience. They really put out awesome content but they also make sure their experience online is unique and really cool. So I do think that is really important.
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