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Craft Sector Business Support · 8 Weeks
The craft is working. The business side of it is more complicated
Pricing that accounts for your actual time. A clear picture of what your workshop can realistically produce. A view of what comes next, and who learns what you know. This engagement addresses those questions directly.
What This Engagement Delivers
A costing model that reflects how your workshop actually runs
Most makers arrive at their prices through a combination of what the market seems to accept and what feels reasonable to ask. Neither of those things has much to do with whether the business is sustainable. This engagement builds a costing model from what actually happens in the workshop — the hours, the materials, the time between pieces — and shows what prices that model requires.
Beyond pricing, the engagement looks at what the workshop can realistically produce, what route to market fits that capacity, and what is involved in passing skills to the next generation of staff before that knowledge walks out the door.
Duration
8 weeks
Investment
¥34,000
Suited to
Makers & workshops
The Situation You May Be In
The work is good. The business does not yet reflect that
Prices that do not account for your time honestly
The price of a piece reflects what similar things sell for, what the materials cost, and a sense of what the market will accept. What it often does not reflect is every hour that went into it — including the hours between pieces, the setup, the finishing, the things that cannot be rushed. A costing model that omits those hours produces prices that cannot support a sustainable practice.
Uncertainty about whether to sell wholesale or direct
Wholesale offers volume and a degree of predictability; direct sales offer margin and a closer relationship with the customer. The right answer depends on what your workshop can actually produce at the standard you want to maintain — and that number is often different from what feels like the capacity.
Skills that live in one person's hands
When the knowledge of how to make something well exists only in the person who has always made it, the workshop is one step away from that knowledge being lost. Thinking about succession — who learns what, and when, and in what order — is something that benefits from being done before it becomes urgent.
Our Approach
Built from what actually happens in your workshop
The engagement begins by understanding the workshop in detail — what is made, how long it takes, what variation there is between pieces, where time is spent that does not appear in the final count. From that understanding, a costing model is constructed that reflects reality rather than approximation.
The same approach is applied to capacity: what can the workshop produce in a year without compromising the standard it holds? That figure becomes the basis for thinking about sales routes, and whether the volume required by wholesale is actually within reach.
A costing model built from actual hours
Not a formula applied to material cost, but a model constructed from the actual production hours for the things the workshop makes — including the time between pieces, preparation, and finishing. The model shows what price each piece requires to sustain the practice, and where the current pricing departs from that.
Capacity, assessed plainly
An honest assessment of what the workshop can produce in a year at the standard it maintains. This figure is often lower than intuition suggests, and understanding it clearly is necessary before deciding whether wholesale relationships are viable or whether direct routes make more sense for this workshop.
Skills succession, begun in time
A plain view of what is known, who would need to learn it, and what a realistic succession of skills to the next generation of staff would involve. Not a training plan, but a picture of what is at stake and what the first steps toward addressing it might look like.
How the Work Proceeds
Eight weeks in three phases, each building on the last
Weeks 1–3
Understanding the workshop
Conversations and observation focused on understanding how the workshop actually operates — what is made, the time each piece takes from start to finish, the variation between individual pieces, what determines how much can be produced in a given period, and how decisions are currently made about pricing and sales.
Weeks 4–6
Costing model and capacity assessment
Construction of a costing model based on what was learned in the first phase. The model is shared with you for review before the capacity assessment is produced, so both can be read together and tested against your own understanding of the workshop.
Weeks 7–8
Sales route view and skills succession picture
A written view of the trade-off between wholesale and direct sales given the workshop's actual capacity. Alongside that, the skills succession picture — what knowledge lives where, and what a first approach to addressing its succession might involve. Both documents are delivered at the close of the engagement.
Investment
¥34,000
For the full eight-week engagement
This fee covers the complete engagement — the initial understanding phase, the costing model and capacity assessment, and the written views on sales routes and skills succession. The documents produced belong to you and can be used however you see fit after the engagement closes.
Payment can be arranged as a single amount or in two stages across the engagement. That is a practical matter to discuss before work begins, and it can be written into the scope document.
What Is Included
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Observation and conversations to understand how the workshop actually operates
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A costing model built from actual production hours, including time not currently priced in
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An honest assessment of realistic annual production capacity at your standard
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A plain view of the trade-off between wholesale and direct sales routes given that capacity
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A picture of where skills knowledge currently resides and what succession of it might involve
Suited to
Makers, workshops, and small producers who have an established craft practice and are working through the questions that arise when that practice needs to operate as a sustainable business. The engagement assumes the craft itself is not in question — only the business structure around it.
Why This Approach Works
A costing model only works if it reflects what actually happens
Generic formulas for pricing craft work produce generic results. The costing model in this engagement is constructed from the specific production profile of your workshop — the pieces you make, the time they take, the variation between them. That specificity is what makes the model useful rather than illustrative.
What the documents contain
A costing model you can use and update as the workshop changes. A capacity assessment that reflects the actual constraints of the practice. A written view of the sales route question. And a skills succession picture that names what is at stake and what a first approach to addressing it might look like.
Realistic expectations
Eight weeks is enough time to understand a workshop in the necessary detail and produce documents that are genuinely useful. It is not enough time to implement changes to pricing or restructure sales relationships. The engagement produces the information and analysis you need to make those decisions — the decisions themselves are yours.
The volume-standard trade-off
One of the most common findings in this engagement is that the volume required to make wholesale viable would require compromising the standard the workshop holds. That trade-off is not always obvious from inside the practice. Having it stated clearly, in writing, makes it easier to think about deliberately rather than by default.
Confidentiality
The details of your practice — your production hours, your pricing, your relationships with customers and suppliers — are treated carefully throughout the engagement and destroyed when it closes. We do not reference past work in other contexts or carry it forward in any form.
Our Commitment
Documents built from your workshop, not from a template
We commit to producing a costing model and supporting documents that are specific to your workshop and your practice. If, at any stage, the work is proceeding in a way that does not reflect what was agreed in the scope, we want to know — and we will address it directly.
If you find in the first week that the engagement is not suited to your situation, we will discuss it honestly and determine together how to proceed, including what is fair in terms of the fee.
No-obligation initial conversation
We begin with a conversation about the workshop and the questions you are working with. If the engagement as structured does not seem right for your situation, we will say so. No charge, no obligation.
Written scope before work begins
A written description of the engagement — what will be observed and discussed, what documents will be produced, and when — is agreed before any work begins. The scope does not change without your agreement.
How to Proceed
A short description of the workshop is enough to begin
If the situation described here is one you recognise, write to us with a brief description of what you make, how many people work in the workshop, and the questions that are on your mind. That is all we need to determine whether this engagement is a sensible next step.
Write to us
Use the contact form on the homepage or write to info@vault-zonedrift.com. A few sentences about the workshop and the question you are working with is enough to start.
Contact FormInitial conversation
We will arrange a conversation — in person in Kyoto, by phone, or by video — to understand the workshop and the situation in more detail. This carries no charge and no obligation. If the engagement does not seem like the right thing, we will say so clearly.
Scope and start
If we both feel the engagement makes sense, a written scope is prepared for your review and agreement. Work begins once the scope is signed. The eight weeks runs from that date, with the written documents delivered at its conclusion.
Craft Sector Business Support
The craft took years to develop. The business structure around it deserves the same care
A short description of your workshop and what you are working with, sent to us in confidence, is all that is needed to start the conversation.
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