When I tell people I only take five commissions a month, the first reaction is usually some version of, "Why only five?"
It's a fair question. I'm a new business and even though it's tempting to take every order you can get, build momentum, and worry about logistics later, I can't put myself in that position.
Here's the thing about the product I make. A custom pen-and-ink illustration of a home isn't something I can rush. Each drawing takes hours. Every roofline, every window, every detail that makes that house recognizable as that house. It's all done by hand. It's all done by me. The moment I start treating it like a production line is the moment the quality drops. And I understand that quality is the entire reason someone is paying for this instead of ordering a generic gift basket.
So the cap isn't a marketing tactic meant to make my brand feel overly exclusive, it's protecting my sanity and the quality you're paying for.
Five commissions a month means every single client gets my full attention. It means I'm not exhausted by drawing number four and cutting corners on drawing number five. It means the piece that ends up on your client's wall is as good as the first one I ever made because I treated it the same way.
It also says something about you as the agent ordering it. When availability is limited, you've got to plan ahead. Don't grab the first thing you see in the Williams Sonoma on the way to the closing. Be the agent who thinks (I mean really thinks) about your client. Place your order and you show up to closing with something that couldn't have been purchased by anyone else. That level of planning ahead and thoughtfulness is going to come through. Your client is going to feel it. And you know what, the type of professionals regular people decide to work with is always based on a gut feeling. Realtors, contractors, employers, everyone.
There's also something I've noticed about businesses that try to scale too fast on a handmade product. The word "handmade" stops meaning anything. It becomes a marketing word instead of a true description of how the thing was made. I don't want that for my business. I want "handmade" to still mean something real two years from now and the only way to protect that is to protect the process.
Five a month keeps me honest, sane, and proud of my work.
So if you're thinking about commissioning a piece, don't wait. Slots fill faster than you'd expect and once the month closes out, it closes out.
Why I Cap My Monthly Commissions at 5
When I tell people I only take five commissions a month, the first reaction is usually some version of, "Why only five?"
It's a fair question. I'm a new business and even though it's tempting to take every order you can get, build momentum, and worry about logistics later, I can't put myself in that position.
Here's the thing about the product I make. A custom pen-and-ink illustration of a home isn't something I can rush. Each drawing takes hours. Every roofline, every window, every detail that makes that house recognizable as that house. It's all done by hand. It's all done by me. The moment I start treating it like a production line is the moment the quality drops. And I understand that quality is the entire reason someone is paying for this instead of ordering a generic gift basket.
So the cap isn't a marketing tactic meant to make my brand feel overly exclusive, it's protecting my sanity and the quality you're paying for.
Five commissions a month means every single client gets my full attention. It means I'm not exhausted by drawing number four and cutting corners on drawing number five. It means the piece that ends up on your client's wall is as good as the first one I ever made because I treated it the same way.
It also says something about you as the agent ordering it. When availability is limited, you've got to plan ahead. Don't grab the first thing you see in the Williams Sonoma on the way to the closing. Be the agent who thinks (I mean really thinks) about your client. Place your order and you show up to closing with something that couldn't have been purchased by anyone else. That level of planning ahead and thoughtfulness is going to come through. Your client is going to feel it. And you know what, the type of professionals regular people decide to work with is always based on a gut feeling. Realtors, contractors, employers, everyone.
There's also something I've noticed about businesses that try to scale too fast on a handmade product. The word "handmade" stops meaning anything. It becomes a marketing word instead of a true description of how the thing was made. I don't want that for my business. I want "handmade" to still mean something real two years from now and the only way to protect that is to protect the process.
Five a month keeps me honest, sane, and proud of my work.
So if you're thinking about commissioning a piece, don't wait. Slots fill faster than you'd expect and once the month closes out, it closes out.