Time on the phone is money lost in the shop. The maker must utilize voice mail, email, an answering machine or a secretary and choose his calls carefully. It is really easy to spend three or four hours handling phone calls, and that s almost half a day in lost time. By having good marketing practices and a dealer or dealer network, a maker can free up more time to devote to the construction of more product. By utilizing a dealer and advertising carefully, the maker gives himself greater exposure and thus creates a larger market for his knives.
Many makers fail to realize that the dealer plays a critical role in the makers continuing success.
It is the dealer who ultimately determines what the maker s knife is worth on the secondary market. I, as a dealer, have paid collectors more than they paid retail to a maker for a certain knife. There are many examples of this in the custom knife world. A couple that come to mind are the folding combat knives of Ernest Emerson and the fixed blades of Bob Loveless. There are many others.