Why Amish businesses don’t fail
By Geoff Williams, contributing writer  May 4, 2010: 10:57 AM ET
(CNNMoney.com) — Want to find America’s most successful entrepreneurs? Skip Silicon Valley and Manhattan; head to the rural Amish enclaves.
It’s a statistic he backs up with a variety of academic surveys, drawing particularly on 2009 report by Elizabethtown College sociology professor Donald Kraybill. Studying several Amish settlements, Kraybill found failure rates ranging from 2.6% and 4.2%; interviews with loan officers, accountants and industry professions in other Amish regions yielded additional anecdotal evidence of closure rates significantly south of 10%.
Compare that to the average five-year survival rate for new businesses across the United States, which hovers just under 50%. So what’s the secret?
Wesner, who worked in business management and sales before immersing himself in all things Amish, thinks it lies in the culture, which emphasizes “qualities like hard work and cooperation.” Networking through Facebook doesn’t exactly have the same community-building pull as teaming up with neighbors to build a barn, and few Americans these days can point to a childhood where they awoke regularly at dawn to milk the cows.
Another key advantage is that Amish business owners tend to stick with what they know.
“Everything about the Amish says things like ‘rustic,’ ‘traditional,’ ‘handmade,’ so they tend to play to those strengths,” Wesner says. “Would consumers trust an Amish cell-phone dealer or an Amish computer repair guy to know what he’s doing? It’d be a pretty big mental and marketing hurdle to get over.”
If you ask an Amish entrepreneur why they’re successful, don’t expect a lot of soul-searching or reflection on what they do right. A group known for being unfailingly polite and modest, the Amish will likely pin the praise on anyone else but themselves.
Certainly, Myron Miller, an Amish businessman in Millersburg, Ohio, near Akron, would be a good role model for other entrepreneurs, although he would never tell you that. “I run my business according to God’s way and plan,” Miller says.
The Almighty has been a good business coach for Miller, a 40-year-old father of six. He started his company 15 years ago and now has two separate entities: Four Corners Furniture, a retail furniture-making operation open to the public, and Miller Bedroom Wholesale, which sells directly to distributors. Miller employs 12 full-time workers and two part-timers.
Not bad for someone with an eighth grade education, which is where the Amish routinely end their formal schooling.
Miller thought about starting a farm when he was just beginning his career, but farmland was scarce and expensive. “They were all being used,” he says. “So my thing is, I saw all the tourism coming in — we’re blessed to be the number one-tourism attraction in Ohio — and so I thought I’d try to go into that, selling furniture to the tourists. Then I realized that was just the tip of the iceberg. I thought I’d spread my wings and market the furniture elsewhere.”
Miller now works with 75 dealers, who sell his wares across the country. He banded together with other Amish owners to create a hardwood furniture guild, which helps market their products — an important publicity channel since Miller’s businesses have no website. He uses terms like “out of the box,” routinely reads business books (especially those with a religious business bent), and has attended seminars by motivational and performance training guru Zig Ziglar.
Even if most people’s idea of an Amish businessman is someone selling homemade cheese transported by horse and buggy, Miller isn’t an anomaly, according to Kraybill, who has become one of the nation’s leading academic experts on the Amish. He estimates that there are at least 9,000 Amish business owners across the U.S, which he divides into two groups: “caretakers” and “entrepreneurs.”
“Caretakers generally have smaller, at-home or near-home businesses with five or fewer employees, and they don’t want to grow, but simply sustain income for themselves and a small number of employees,” Kraybill says. “The entrepreneurs are a different breed. They have larger businesses and somewhat want to grow, and they are more aggressive in marketing, trying new ideas, and are willing to take risks.”
Risks like buying a failing business and trying to turn it around. Two years ago, in Glen Rock, Penn., Ben Riehl purchased a flagging food stand at Markets at Shrewsbury, a gathering spot for Amish vendors. He turned to entrepreneurship as a way out of what he calls “somewhat of a dead-end job,” working in the metalworking and machine shop at a plastics company.
Riehl renamed the shop the Country Style Deli and enlisted his wife, Mary, and their two sons to help him work the stand, which sells local and imported cheeses, homemade breads, and subs and sandwiches. They also employ four other people part-time.
But Riehl launched just as the Great Recession went into full swing. Customers that once spent $25 on a visit to the stand cut their purchases in half. Country Style Deli is managing to turn a small profit, Riehl says, but it’s not enough yet to allow him to leave his full-time job.
But he sounds like any other entrepreneur with a plan and dream when he talks about his startup. “We work hard to give customers quality product at a reasonable price, and we strive to give courteous and competent service,” says Riehl. “We want the customers to have an experience that is different than pulling things out of a self-serve case and using the self checkout. We try to make it interactive and personal.”
Clinging to values
Amish business owners face more restrictions than your typical entrepreneur.
Wesner says that while the Amish have made allowances and will, for instance, make products that they don’t use themselves — like designer-label leather clothing or high-priced toys — they won’t touch any business “that may be seen as morally questionable.” Don’t hold your breath waiting for an Amish-owned casino, liquor store or debt collection service.
But modern touches are creeping into the business scene. Some Amish retailers use electricity in their shops, more as a nod to customers who expect air-conditioning and credit-card machines. They’re often fueled with alternative energy sources, like solar and wind power.
In his field research, Wesner found some Amish entrepreneurs conducting business using cell phones, fax machines and even e-mail. It’s still a sensitive topic — not because the Amish believe it’s unethical to use these devices, but because they can have a subtle, adverse impact on the entrepreneur. Miller struggles with it himself, in ways that will sound familiar to any CrackBerry addict battling for a word-life balance.
“The smarter you get, and the more technology you use for your business, the more impact it has on families,” he says. “For instance, there was a time the farmer would be in the parlor milking cows, and everyone was there, singing songs, and it was work, but it was also family time. Now, an Amish farmer is likely to be milking forty cows, and the children are at school. That’s practical living, and you’ve got to keep up. But at the same time, it takes away from that balance, and you have to ask yourself, ‘How far do you let technology affect your business?’”
Miller answers his own question in the next breath: “I guess you just have to stay true to your convictions and draw your own lines and not overdo it where you lose the values and your way of life.”

It cannot be understated that the key factors are hard work, perseverance and attitude!

It’s easy Catherine!   Go here and just order online -you download onto your computer (then you can put it on a disc) or cut and paste  http://www.art-career-experts.com/Represent-Yourself-Audio.html

— In ArtistPaycheck@yahoogroups.com, “catherin” <catherin@…> wrote:
>
> Pat where do you get a copy from???
>
> catherin
> www.animalarthouse.com
>
> — In ArtistPaycheck@yahoogroups.com, “patmorris123″ patmorris123@ wrote:
> >
> > I ordered your “Representing Yourself” pdf file and audio last week and had not until this morning had the opportunity to listen to the audio. I am gearing up for the beginning of my outdoor show season in a few weeks and you did it again, you gave me fantastic tools…and I do prefer the audio version, it’s like I am there listening to you in person. I have done many outdoor shows and am thrilled that finally someone has some valuable advice for me; I have encountered all of the things you mention. If anyone who does shows has not purchased this, it’s the best $9.95 you can spend! What a deal!
> > Thanks, Theresa and Steve : )
> > Pat

> >

Theresa demonstrating her techniques for the DVD

The “profit” part comes from developing your style, speed and accuracy and then learning HOW to sell your art product to your clients.

Before you know it, you’ll be on your way!

It is hard enough to go to a show with a labor intensive art product and wait for prospects. It may have taken you 6-12 months to create enough art work to be able to participate in the show, yet just a few booths over you watch people line up at a booth with an apparent “slap dash” style and you begin to question why you are there.  If the need to add to your finances is not there, then perhaps this scenario would not bother you. But if the need is there, it is a cause for doubting your chosen field. On the drive home, with virtually no sales,  it becomes a cause for doubting the viability of continuing to create your particular art product.

The answers to the original post about “what to do? I am too old to worry about compromising my style. I simply need to earn some money, etc…..”  were varied to say the least!  But there was a pattern that emerged and it was divided into two camps.

One camp pretty much said “Sure, try something new and go for it!You have nothing to lose.”

The other camp said “No, do not change! You will be compromising your artist integrity, stay with your style!”

Both sides brought good suggestions to the table. And both sides were right in their own way.  The problems with offering advice and suggestions to another person about their direction in their career, is that none of us ARE that person. We do not have their background, their history, their experiences nor, their temperament. We may have had similar concerns, questions or challenges in our own lives as the person we are advising but because we are not a clone of that person, we can only comment on what WE would do.

In other words,feel free to share your opinions. But also encourage that artist to do what he/she feels is best for  HIM/her.  We are here to offer advice but above all, encouragement. And that is a powerful thing!

So what does this mean for you when it comes to pricing your art? It means that you have to believe in the value of your work. Do you believe that a painting that took you a day to paint is worth $2750. ? Can you say “This painting is two thou sand seven hundred and fifty DOLLARS” in a strong positive voice, not “it’s twentysevenfifty” said apologectically. You get the idea? The same applies if the painting is $100. As an aside, some of us will have trouble saying this no matter what the price. The solution is to practice. Say it out loud. Repeatedly. Say it until it comes naturally.

When you believe in the value of your work, communicating that value to your potential collectors is much easier.

Watching the video on my early education experience at the hands of my educators I remember them all.  Of course they are frozen in time, and those who later came into the world of the Internet turned out to create the same art that they told US not to create!   I am not quite sure why they were so adamantly pro “cutting edge” art at the expense of all other forms and styles of art. But as I  look back with a bit more wisdom, my earlier annoyance at their closed minds softens a bit. I realize that  they too were products and victims of the times.

And maybe they did me a favor.  Convinced that portraiture was indeed” prostituting my art” , maybe the years that I spent not creating art and running small businesses was the catalyst for what I also do now! Maybe that’s why I have been successful where others have not. Maybe, just maybe, those years as a single mom raising four children also added to my experience by forcing me to rethink everything I had been taught or was implied in the art world.

As a visual person it is real easy to see my art marketing education in a visual manner. Let’s visit this visual and see where it applies to your life!

I can see the ship on the ocean’s horizon that I need to reach.  The  waves keep me in or near shore where I can only splash around in one place safely.   Besides, I am reminded that there are dangers out there! Sharks, jellyfish…all sorts of things designed to keep me in safe waters. There are even some weights around my ankles that keep me from really swimming. But one day an undertow catches me off guard and I am pulled into deeper waters. After a brief struggle I let the rip current take me out into deeper water and then, rather than returning to safe waters, I start swimming for that ship. I might have to pause and tread water. I might have to avoid the jellyfish and hope the sharks circle someone else or maybe swim right through them. But I am heading for that ship!

And that has been my art marketing journey. Funny, that’s kind of how life goes too isn’t it!  SOmetimes you have to stop treading water and swim for your ship!

IT’S HERE!
That’s right! Our NEW AUDIO package!
The same great information you have enjoyed in our ebook, Art Marketing Success Secrets is now in AUDIO format as ART FOR SALE! A tremendous deluxe value package of both ebook and audio!
Steve and I are really excited about the audio. Professionally produced by Burning Oaks Studio in Raleigh, NC, it is more than repeated “information!” It is the invaluable ability to hear my (Theresa’s) voice inflections and the emphasis on the right passages that encourage and motivate you to “get out there and start!” OK, so I have a weird accent. But heck the content is priceless!
You can enjoy the advantage of listening and absorbing our information while you drive, work in the studio, even while you sleep! There is amazing value in repetition to help you digest all the motivational and practical information that we share with you!

http://www.finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/ArtistPaycheck/

Cheers!
Theresa