Both are highly specialized skills - marketing and woodworking/lutherie. Yes, to be successful commercially a craftsman has to acquire the marketing skills - a perfectly valid point. But some successful marketers could never acquire the knowledge, experience, patience and "touch" to be a craftsman. Would you disparage them for that failure? Then why disparage the craftsman who finds marketing equally as unfamiliar, foreign and challenging?Perry Ormsby wrote:People are willing to practice their woodworking chops to make a better product to sell, and provide them with a living, but throw their hands up in the air when it comes to marketing, because it's 'too hard'. So is honing your hand skills.
Offering encouragement, suggestions, tips, ideas, advice - all appropriate. Education in the case of someone mis-reading or mis-understanding their market can also be helpful. Castigating someone for their failure to master an unfamiliar and challenging professional capability is not. If you have been successful at developing a market for your product, you have my sincere admiration; either through natural ability or sheer effort you have accomplished something that can be very difficult. I have known many "artistic" people who have failed to make the transition to making a living from their creative skills. But be always aware that offering insights and guidance based on your own experience - both successes and failures - can be an invaluable contribution, much more so than simply finding fault in the failure.
