Nathan Logsdon: Logsdon Woodworking

Welcome to another incredible episode of the Woopdreneur Podcast with your host Steve Larsoliere, and today’s guest, Nathan Logsdon of Logsdon Woodworking. This episode is brought to you by Uneeda – the leading abrasive company for Woodpreneurs. Go to www.uneeda.com and use promo code Woodpreneur15 to save 15% of any order!

Currently, Nathan is on active duty in the Coast Guard and started his woodworking journey when he was stationed in North Carolina. At that point, he was separated from his wife and kids as Nathan’s daughter attended a school in Maryland that she couldn’t move from and Nathan was pretty bored as he was only able to visit on the weekends. So with the newfound free time, Nathan stumbled into woodworking. His first project was a reclaimed cooler.

One thing led to another and Nathan sold the cooler and started making all sorts of great projects, now it’s an entire side business.

Nathan’s day job in the coast guard is as an aircraft maintenance technician working on everything from helicopters to cargo planes. While Logsdon Woodworking is technically a side-business for Nathan, while he was in North Carolina, he was working 40 hours a week at work, and then he was also working 40 to 60 hours a week in the shop.

Since moving to Jacksonville, things cut down a lot in the shop because the family time was able to increase, and now Nathan’s wife is working in the shop with him. She’s working on scroll saw art and other projects that keep her busy in the down-time too and lets them spend more time together.

What Does the Business Look Like Now?

For Nathan and his wife, they have just bought a new home and intend to focus more on the content creation side of the business including upgrades and DIYs, and then their Etsy store is now functioning as their official storefront with coasters, cutting boards and other smaller projects Nathan can tackle while still balancing family time and his full-time coast guard duties.

The content creation side was inspired in some ways by the “One Room Challenge” which Nathan had heard about from a woodworking friend who has a page curated purely of builds. While Nathan appreciates that business model and aesthetic, he really didn’t want his page to be pigeonholed. He wanted it to be a place where he and his wife could show their personalities and the things they were working on without it having to be necessarily just a wood-branded page.

Steve mentions that one of the things that he learned is that people tend to post the same thing over and over and it doesn’t allow them to grow. Both in terms of business and self-expression, and with social media it can get stale and boring for the followers when that happens. Unfortunately, that makes some creators or small businesses think social media doesn’t work, but really, it’s just that content is cyclical. Moreover, your goal as someone posting on social media is to earn people’s attention, and you can’t do that if you get stuck in a rut of not posting new or interesting content.

Nathan agrees and says that he got tired of doing the same thing, and when you’re tired of doing something, your motivation starts dipping. Something for Nathan that makes him excited and motivated is getting to experiment and do different things.

Nathan and his wife have now started making their bedroom furniture and the vision is a fresh, clean, mid-century modern style. Even this project alone explains the passion for Nathan. First, they went to Eco Relics in Jacksonville to find a high-quality alternative to costly wood like Walnut and walked away with a beautiful haul of Purple Heart.

Next, Nathan had to learn a whole new style of furniture creation he was unfamiliar with in terms of the mid-century modern style. It’s the challenge and the thrill of learning something new that really drives Nathan in his work.

Another great learning experience for Nathan was when he experienced severe cupping in his wood overnight after a 20-degree dip in temperature. The first thing he did was put a call out on social media looking for advice from others. The Woodpreneur community is so incredible in that way because it’s not just a business. You become part of a community and then you have access to knowledge, you have access to resources and support, and that’s an amazing thing.

How To Define Value

Nathan talks a bit about how he had to decide what to price his products as when he was starting out, and how he sold things at a discounted price because he wasn’t confident enough in his ability or how to value his time. Fortunately, his wife told him to stop undervaluing himself and his work and that was a big wake-up call for Nathan.

Nathan would say that one of the hardest things for those starting a business is to figure out what their time is really worth. Sometimes there is this thought process of, “Well money in is money in.” but the real moment that a business becomes a business is when you value your time appropriately because that is how success comes. It’s not worth struggling and underselling yourself for years, to just lose your business because you’ve been under-charging.

Another way that Nathan created more value for his business and his customers was through his marketing ventures. When asked about his proudest Milestones Nathan says it would have to be his first craft fair. He notes that he didn’t make a lot of money, but he met a lot of people and had the foresight to bring a catalog of all his larger offerings that he couldn’t bring to the fair. In fact, at that point what he was making primarily was larger items, so the smaller offerings like cutting boards he brought to the craft fair were something he had made specifically for that event.

The best part is that the catalog of his larger items was a great conversation starter as he had that book right on the center of the table. So folks would look at the items he had available and then also look at the book and ask him about bigger projects. One big thing he would do was give them a business card and use his wait time as an advantage. Giving people the option to think about things for a week or two was actually incredibly helpful to the business model.

Steves Marketing Corner

Nathan says he just hit 5000 followers, which means people have started slipping into his DMS and so it becomes a question of, who do you work with, what opportunities are good and where is the line and balance between sponsorship and being too much of a salesman or annoying the community he’s cultivated.

Steve says that really between 10,000 to 50,000 is considered a micro-influencer and below is more of a micro-micro, but that there is nothing at all wrong with that. A lot of people seem to think that you need a lot of followers to have a good business, but you don’t, you just need an engaged following of the right types of people. So it becomes a question of who you want your customer base to be, and then a commitment of building out the brand, providing consistent content, giving more personality, and then building that trust with your audience before you start bringing on a lot of partners or sponsors.

Nathan’s advice to the Woodpreneur community is to not get comfortable. Stepping out of your comfort zone and learning something new is invaluable. Steve also points out that another great inadvertent piece of advice Nathan offered was that $15 investment of a product book or catalog for craft fairs. Nathan says that one book landed him about 15 jobs, so the power of that extra step, that conversation starter is key.

To see more from Nathan, check out the links below!

Instagram: @logsdonwoodworking

Link Tree: Logsdon Woodworking