Business Hub · Getting Customers
How do I find work when nobody knows I exist?
Start with the people who already send work to upholsterers rather than with the public. Antique dealers, interior designers, furniture restorers, auction houses and established upholsterers with full diaries all have jobs they cannot or will not take. Set up a Google Business Profile the same week, photograph every piece you finish properly, and ask every satisfied customer for a review while they are still standing in front of the chair. Advertising is rarely the answer; visibility and a portfolio are.
The trade knows where the work is
The public does not think about upholstery until they need it, which might be once a decade. The trade thinks about it weekly.
So the fastest route to a full diary is not the public at all. It is the people who routinely encounter furniture that needs work:
- Antique dealers. Constantly buying pieces that need recovering before they can sell them.
- Interior designers and decorators. Specify upholstery on nearly every project and need someone reliable.
- Furniture restorers and French polishers. Do the wood, do not do the covers, and get asked for both.
- Auction houses. Both for their own stock and for buyers who have just bought something shabby.
- Other upholsterers. The most underrated of all. Established workshops turn away work constantly — the wrong type, the wrong size, or simply too much of it.
Approach them as a supplier, not as someone asking a favour. Turn up with photographs of finished work, be clear about what you do and what you charge, and be extremely easy to deal with. Trade customers value reliability over price to a degree that surprises people.
Do these three things in the first month
Google Business Profile. Free, and it is how local people find any trade. Complete it properly: address or service area, hours, and photographs. This is worth more than any advertising you could buy at this stage.
Photograph everything. Every piece, before and after, in decent light against a plain background. Not a phone snap in a dim corner of the workshop. This is your entire portfolio and it will still be earning you work in ten years.
Ask for reviews on the day. When you deliver a piece and the customer is visibly pleased, that is the moment. A week later they are busy and it will not happen.
One good photograph of a finished chair is worth more than a page of description. Nobody reads about upholstery. Everybody looks at it.
Making the quote easier to say yes to
Early on you will lose jobs simply because people cannot picture the result and do not yet have any reason to trust you.
Showing them helps disproportionately. The free fabric visualiser puts their own piece in the cloth they are considering from a photograph, which converts "I'll have a think" into a decision far more often than a sample book does. For workshops quoting regularly, <a href="https://pro.learntoupholster.com/">Visualiser Pro</a> does it in volume at £39.99 for 100 images.
What not to bother with
Paid advertising before you have a portfolio. Leaflets. A large expensive website. Vans with elaborate signwriting.
None of these are wrong forever, but none of them work before you have finished work to show and people willing to vouch for you. Spend the money on materials and better tools instead, and build the portfolio.
The slow part
Word of mouth is the main engine of this trade and it takes eighteen months to two years to start turning properly. That is not a sign it is failing. Every job well done and photographed is compounding, quietly, and the second year looks nothing like the first.
Tools for this
From Learn to Upholster
Do you work at the bench? The State of the Upholstery Trade survey collects rates, bench hours and lead times from working upholsterers worldwide, so the next person setting a price has something better than guesswork. Anonymous, about three minutes. Add your workshop.