Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Michael Laico. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Michael thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
My grandfather inspired my passion for woodworking when I was 12 years old, spending summers working with him in his woodshop. It came naturally and when I was in my twenties, I got serious about my woodworking.
I am a self-taught woodworker, wood artist except for learning how to turn on the lathe. Learning how to turn on the lathe was a skill I wanted to learn and in 2000, I was lucky to find a professional woodturner that was willing to mentor me. I spent 3 hours with him every Tuesday and Thursday for two weeks learning the basics from sharpening the tools, preparing the wood for turning, set-up the lathe and how to use each tool. The 18 hours I spent with him gave me the knowledge to learn more on my own. Since 2000 I have been wood turning and love it, and today I turn an average of 20 hours a week or more.
For any project I will research before attempting, look at design elements, sketching for hours, learn new skills and problem solving through practice and acquiring wood tools and equipment if needed. For me upgrading equipment and acquiring new large equipment was essential to the learning process. Learning the essential skills, design, joinery and how wood moves is critical to being successful and making beautiful pieces. Learning new skills, being creative and loving challenges has been strong in my nature.
I have loved woodworking all my life. It is very rewarding working with my hands to create both intricate and simple pieces of wood art. Woodworking combines creativity and skill, allowing me to unleash my artistic potential. Tackling a new difficult project has always been a passion for me. I am continuously designing and creating new pieces which often requires developing new skills and using different tools.
From beginning to end, I enjoy the entire process of working with my hands to create my artwork. It takes practice, patience, an understanding of wood, wood grain, how wood moves, wood moisture, how to use tools to shape the wood, and how to finish and care for the wood to make high-quality pieces.
Woodworking is mentally and physically engaging and also extremely rewarding. Seeing my completed pieces, which are both functional and unique, gives me a great sense of accomplishment.
Looking back, I feel like I could have speeded up the process by working with a master craftsman and a professional woodturning shop. The other piece of this would have been to purchase larger equipment. For my business I do a tremendous amount of customer orders, having the skill and the right tools is critical.
A culmination of a lifetime of woodworking, decades of craftsmanship, knowledge of wood and wood care came together to create handcrafted heirlooms.
I’m deeply grateful to all those who have supported my path and process over these very special years. To all of those who have purchased from me, store owners, the galleries, organizations and people kind enough to offer their support in what ways they can — thank you.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My name is Michael Laico, owner, designer, craftsman, wood artist and woodturner. It is hard to believe I have been woodworking for over 40 years. I found a passion for woodworking early in life and it came naturally. Michael’s Woodcraft is a small artisan wood studio located in northern Greenville, SC.
I initially started making high-end unique end grain cutting boards with mixed hardwoods, and furniture, bedroom suites, nightstands, tables, bookcases, coffee tables, end tables etc. Took on repairing antiques, making rocking chairs, and more as well as filling wholesale orders to various shops and galleries. I landed a contract to make benches and displays for grocery stores, making 100 benches a month. This contract lasted for two years. I also landed an opportunity to make sandblasted redwood signage for builders, entrance signs to large subdivisions, street signs and unique sandblasted mailboxes. Before I knew it, I was doing work for over 20 subdivisions that had over 2500 lots for homes, making 2500 mailboxes. Several builders reached out to me and gave me contracts for building cabinets. I was extremely lucky, my business kept growing and expanding. All of this business allowed me to acquire all the equipment I needed and to build a nice shop.
It wasn’t long before my hobby soon turned into a thriving full-time business.
What sets me apart from other woodshops is very simple. I use high quality materials and hardwoods that are sustainably harvested wood and I source wood from certified suppliers. When designing an item, I ensure that knots, bark inclusions and imperfections are avoided. Unique grain patterns found in burls and crotch wood are used for the patterns and character making each piece unique. All of my pieces are consciously created to ensure the most luxurious and sensational products and are designed to be practical and eye-catching. I only use food safe finishes.
Customer service and satisfaction is important to me. I offer personalized services, custom pieces, engraving, prompt delivery, helpful advice and quick response to emails, messages and phone calls. Every single item is handmade by me setting it apart from those woodshops that have automated machinery for mass producing items.
Freight cost for shipping furniture, signs etc. increase substantially which caused a decrease in orders, customers were not willing to pay for the shipping. While still making the furniture, signs mailboxes, etc. I expanded my work to include an array of items that I could ship worldwide and market those on my website and Instagram. All of these are unique, one-of-a-kind pieces that no one is making.
All of my items are handmade by me, many are mix-media, a combination of wood and resin. As I work in my shop, I am dedicated in handcrafting luxury artistic heirloom pieces for the kitchen and home that include cutting boards, charcuterie boards, ice cream scoops, pizza cutters, recessed wine bottle stoppers, acorn wine stoppers, acorn door stopper wedges, acorn coat racks, cheese knifes, bar knifes, bread knives, wedding cake knives, pie/cake knives, hand whisk, bottle openers, honey sticks, catchall trays, antique and vintage design hand mirrors, unique turned bowls, resin and burl tree light bulb ornaments, mini birdhouse ornaments, unique one-of-kind snowmen and more. Most of the items I make are niche pieces that no one makes.
I use sustainably harvested wood, and I source wood from certified suppliers to guarantee the domestic and exotic wood is always procured ethically and sustainably. Care is taken selecting wood with beautiful natural colors and figured grain that adds to the uniqueness of each piece. All of my pieces are consciously created to ensure the most luxurious and sensational products and are designed to be practical and eye-catching. I only use food safe finishes.
I care about the preservation of handmade wood art. No two pieces are ever exactly alike, even when I create a series of similar items. There are always slight variations in the grain, texture or shape making each piece one of a kind. Each piece begins with raw or seasoned wood which is hand shaped. The surface is meticulously refined and finished. I believe handmade wood art is cherished for its unique craftsmanship and the personal connection to the artist.
Each year I attend juried, invitational Art shows and Art Festivals in South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia. The art festivals help me increase my sales and customer awareness driving more business to my website, Instagram and for custom orders. The art festivals also allow me to promote and advertise my work. I also get the chance to network and engage with other artist that often leads to collaboration and inspiration. Winning ribbons at the juried festivals gives me a sense of accomplishment and dedication to continue to create. The ribbons are a symbol of excellence, recognition for my hard work and encourages me to continue to do what I love.
The workshop has become a place of solitude, working in complete silence allows me space for self-reflection and the power of bringing a project to completion from raw natural materials — believing there is great satisfaction to be found in work that engages one so deeply you’re able to forget yourself making handmade items.
When I am not in the woodshop you can find me hiking in the mountains of western North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia. I enjoy hiking and camping. Summit hikes 5000 feet elevation and higher are my favorite but also love waterfall hikes. I recently hiked 101 miles in 6 days on the Appalachian Trail.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
Social media is critical to my business. I created our first website in 1998 and over the years I have upgraded the website to platforms with additional functionality and themes. Keeping our website updated and refreshed with new images, content and adding new pages is critical. Making sure all links and contents is accurate with links to other social medial platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, etc.
Keeping Instagram updated and posting daily 5 days a week is critical to growing our audience and to gain engagement. We currently have more than 18,000 followers. We earned each and every follower organically and have never purchased followers. From Instagram we get dozens of inquiries and orders weekly. Art galleries and shops find us on Instagram too that lead to large wholesale orders.
Our strategy with Instagram is to post video reels 5 times a week minimum. I have determined the best time to post each day of the week that maximizes traffic and increase engagement. We have seen a 12% more reach per post on average. Writing the caption, tagging and using the correct hashtags is also critical. I like to collaborate with other Instagram creators, small businesses, tagging the small businesses, and my suppliers giving them credit when using their products. Typically, they will repost your post then the post is shown on both accounts, meaning followers of your collaborator partner will see the shared post.
I also worked directly with customers who purchased my products to get pictures from them using the product for posting and acknowledging the customer in my post. Many times the customer will repost driving more customers to my Instagram.
We have experimented with different types of post and video reels to boost our engagement and the educational videos reels where we show how we create our product we have seen a 36% more engagement than other types of post.
Responding and talking to your audience, followers in comments and stories you build a stronger sense of community and improve our brand reputation. Getting more Instagram followers isn’t just about adding new followers, it is also about maintaining your follower count, you don’t want to lose your existing followers because you are not responsive.
We cross-promote to increase our follower count. Adding links to our website, product packaging, marketing literature, business cards with QR codes, Art Festival table runners with QR codes, product care instructions, emails, networking events, etc.
Understanding your Instagram analytics is key to helping you increase your followers. Buffer is a great tool for Instagram analytics.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
There are many books but there are three books that I’ve used extensively for years that I still refer to and they have significantly impacted me and helped me running business. Those books are “Root Cause Analysis” by Max Ammerman, “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Steven R. Covey and “Start With Why” by Simon Sinex.
I enjoy reading Woodshop News, Furniture and Cabinetmaking, plus two woodturning magazines, Wood Turning and AAW American Association of Woodturners. All of these are great tools for woodworkers that help me get a sense of the new equipment and supplies that are available, woodworking techniques and tips, and what is trending with other woodworkers.
Every year I attend the IWF International Woodworking Fair in Atlanta. The IWF offers the largest showcase of woodworking equipment, materials, supplies and services in North American for woodworkers. The manufactures are demonstrating cutting edge equipment, tools and many other products live at the show. It is an opportunity to meet the exhibitors and build a relationship with them. Talking with the industry experts to learn new ideas that can help grow your business. The show offers education conference sessions teaching participants how to work more efficiently, how to improve products, through-put, expanding into new markets and expanding profitability.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.MichaelsWoodcraft.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michaelswoodcraft/
- Other: Pinterest – www.pinterest.com/michaellaico/
Please add my email address: [email protected]
