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Thread: Celebrity Sales

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Location
    Alexandria VA
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    15,890

    Default Celebrity Sales

    Best Delivery Story:

    One of my suppliers of hand-made furniture is a car collector. I was at his shop in New Hampshire picking up a full load of furniture in my Freightliner, and had to deliver a table and chair set to a customer in the next state over, in Vermont. I'm 12 hours from home, so its not around the corner to get up to his place and when I arrived I was not happy to find that the armchairs for this customer's order were still in the finish room and would be at least four hours after I had finished loading. Well, I'm not waiting around for four hours, so they promised to bring them to my customer in Vermont, which was a three hour drive west. I'd just take the table and sidechairs, and cupboard.

    I headed out in my big truck and stopped for diesel fuel, and lunch. Then lumbered along out to my Vermont delivery running about 45 to 50 mph on those New England backroads. I got to my customers home and unloaded the pieces I had and placed them in her home, and explained the arm chairs would be here the following day. Just as I was getting ready to leave, my supplier pulls up in his convertible Rolls Royce Corniche with the top down and the two armchairs in the back seat. Big grin on his face and windblown he'd driven 80 mph to get there with the top down all the way....

    My customer said she had never had furniture delivered in a Rolls Royce before and said she'd buy MORE if he'd bring it just like that the next time!
    Duane Collie
    Straight answers from thirty-six years in the business.
    My Private Messages are Disabled - Please ask questions here in the forum.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    Lakewood Ranch, Florida
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    Default

    Duane,

    With the price of diesel and the thirst of the Freightliner, maybe you can get your supplier to drop ship to all your customers and you can also save on the lunch tab.

    Cuse69

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
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    Alexandria VA
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    Default

    Most of the hand-made guys don't have any shipping capability, believe it or not. So what I do is line them all up to be ready on a certain day and make a blitz run in the truck and go see them all, basically a large swing through New England and/or Ohio.

    Even though diesel is expensive, and I absolutely detest driving the Freightliner in the crowded East Coast corridor, it still about 1/10 the price of having it commercially shipped/crated.

    I've made so many trips into New England the past 28 years in a truck that I don't even take a road map anymore. I know every weigh station and weigh station from here to Boston!
    Duane Collie
    Straight answers from thirty-six years in the business.
    My Private Messages are Disabled - Please ask questions here in the forum.

  4. #4
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    Lakewood Ranch, Florida
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    Default

    Maybe this reply moves us off topic and onto another thread but what sort of marketing information do you have available for your handmade collection?
    Short of visiting Alexandria, Va. how does one learn what you could supply via your network of artisans?

  5. #5
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    Default

    For the most part its all on my store website (which is always in need of updating it seems). There is a community of enthusiasts for the class of pieces I specialize in and there are not many stores nationwide that have it. A lot of those folks know all the stores and sources around the country as its a small industry that really goes well beyond the utility of furniture and into the Art of Cabinentmaking. Its not everyone's cup of tea, but for those that like it I have some of the best in the country. Interestingly enough, the history of the USA can be traced to its early furniture, so thats an aspect of it all that appeals to me as well.
    Duane Collie
    Straight answers from thirty-six years in the business.
    My Private Messages are Disabled - Please ask questions here in the forum.

  6. #6
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    Default The Patriot (Movie) with Mel Gibson

    I got a call out-of-the-blue one day from the Props Department at Sony Studios, they wanted to buy some furniture for a movie about the American Revolution with Mel Gibson as the lead. I have to say I was a bit shocked! I asked how they had found me and they said 'word of mouth'. Small world, indeed.

    They explained to me what they wanted and I feverishly wrote it all down. Many of the pieces were as I expected, standard household furnishings for a period home. Then they told me they wanted a group of unfinished rockers for the opening scene in the movie where Mel's character was building a chair in the barn, gets frustrated and throws it up against the wall to shatter it in frustration. "Make it a dozen of those, since we need them for re-takes". they told me.

    I told the props guy matter-of-factly. "These chairs don't break when thrown. They'll bounce right off the wall and come back at you like a boomerang. You better be careful!"

    Then he told me "And we need everything in sixty days time, delivered to South Carolina."

    SIXTY DAYS !!???!?! We're on a 6-month build cycle! Who can I get that can build all the pieces at one time, and is big enough to handle the job? I call my best supplier at the time for this class of furniture, D.R. Dimes in New Hampshire and explain what we want and when its needed.

    Well, Douglas senior balks at the job. He says "I'm not sure I want to do this, I don't like the idea of my chairs being broken up, Mel Gibson or not."

    Okaaaaaaay. Its a nice order, but they are running at full production already and if they don't want to do it, then I'll call another maker. A few hours later he calls back and says they'll take the job, as everyone else at the company was excited to be doing a project like that.

    Took a bit of to get it all delivered on time, but it did get there as promised. A couple of days after all the pieces land I get another phone call from the props guy "We can't get these rockers to break, they come right off the wall back at you like they're spring-loaded. Any suggestions?"

    Told ya.

    The only solution was to score the wood in several places, basically cutting through most the way of all the spindles, bows and legs. After that did that, they folded up like a house of cards, but its pretty 'hollywood' to see it in the film.

    When it came time to pay the bill, Sony Studios asked for a discount. I said "Will you put "Furniture from The Keeping Room" in the end of the movie credits? "No", they said....and then I told them "No discount, then!"
    Duane Collie
    Straight answers from thirty-six years in the business.
    My Private Messages are Disabled - Please ask questions here in the forum.

  7. #7
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    Default G. Gordon Liddy stops in the store

    Some of you may not remember G.Gordon Liddy, but he was one of the infamous Watergate Burglars under Richard Nixon, and after serving time in prison had a popular syndicated radio show in the Wash DC area for many years that still runs today.

    One Saturday I see this HUGE, bright yellow and chromed out Ford F-350 pickup pull up to the store. It was jacked up and had every aftermarket accessory one could possibly imagine on it. Looked like is was straight out of World of Wheels. Because it was so noticeable, I had to look and see who was getting out of this beast. Well, it was a little old man with a big bushy mustache. He wasn't very big, I guess about 5' 5" and probably didn't weigh more than 130 lb soaking wet. His wife who got out on the other side was definitely larger than he.

    He came in, and I asked him if he was Gordon Liddy, and he said he was. I shook his hand and he and his wife were very pleasant, and browsed the store as regular shoppers would. I'd half-expected a fire-breathing right wing radical since I'd listened to his show so many times, but he was just a regular guy. They didn't buy anything, and left soon after a bit, and I just couldn't get over this small man driving this huge customized pickup!
    Duane Collie
    Straight answers from thirty-six years in the business.
    My Private Messages are Disabled - Please ask questions here in the forum.

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