UFC Fighter Turned Woodworker | "Michael Mayday McDonald" from Mayday Woodworks Q&A
Let me introduce you to our friend Michael from Mayday Woodworks. Mike is a viewer of our YouTube channel and recently reached out via email. We got to talking about building a woodworking business and I realized that this information shouldn't be confined to an email. He agreed to let me share his experience and knowledge with all of you and hopefully it will help you start/run your own woodworking business or side hustle. Michael is a former UFC fighter that found refuge in woodworking from an early age. He pursed that passion first as a side hustle, and then going into a full time gig post UFC retirement. He has an awesome story that I hope inspires you to get started or ramp up that dream you have. I have really enjoyed talking with Michael and writing this post. I plan to make this a weekly thing so please reach out via email if you'd like to be featured.
"Michael Mayday McDonald" on TOPPS Card
Michael dives deep into dealing with clients and more below
"My biggest mistake was trying to please the client in the immediate, instead of trying to please them in the long run."
Michael McDonald
Who or what got you started in woodworking?
“My grandfather initially got my interest peaked in woodworking. When I was a child, he would build Christmas presents for the whole family. I also remember walking into his woodshop and smelling the freshly cut lumber. I always wanted to work with him in the shop but I was too young and he died before I could do any kind of work with him. When I got to high school, I was able to take an elective class. They had woodshop as an option, so every year of high school I was able to take woodshop. Toward the end of my high school duration, I was making oak steamer trunks, CNC engraved cutting boards, jewelry boxes, and other small pieces of furniture. After high school was over I wanted to keep woodworking, so I volunteered as an unpaid outside assistant to the woodworking program, so I was able to keep using the shop to build things and teach students after I was out of high school. I used my high school woodshop until I was able to build a 10x16 shed on my parents property and start buying my own tools. I was 19 when I built the shed and started my own shop, and officially started selling wood works to friends from church. I guess you could consider this to be the unofficial start of my part time (at that time) business.”
Are you a full time woodworker / if so for how long?
“I am currently a full time woodworker. It is my only income. When i was 19 years old i started selling wood works to friends and family, and as I was pursuing my career in mixed martial arts, I would wood work on the side when I had someone who wanted to hire me. The professional fighting world is a very inconsistent job. So I was able to wood work around my training schedule. I met a friend from church who was a professional cabinet maker. I asked to learn from him and for a few months I would go to his shop and work for free. He knew I wanted to learn enough to be able to build cabinets in my own business, and he had no problem training me in return for the free work I did for him. I was already a decent furniture maker when I learned how to build cabinets, so it didn't take too long for me to get up to speed. Once I learned how to build cabinets, I started taking more high paying jobs. I just started posting cabinets on Facebook that I made for myself and people started asking me to build things for them. Over the years of professional fighting, you never know when your next fight or paycheck would be, so woodworking was always a consistent income for me. By the time I was 26 years old I had built up a decent list of clients. At 26 I transitioned from my main source of income from pro fighting to woodworking, although I still did another year of fighting before I officially retired from fighting professionally and did full time woodwork. Last year I officially retired from professional fighting and I have been exclusively woodworking for income ever since. So long story made short.... I've been woodworking for money for almost 10 years now, but full time, only about a year.”
What has been the best way you have found to get new clients?
“80% of my clients are my friends or acquaintances before I ever do work for them. I have made friends in the martial arts industry, the woodworking industry, the church industry, and just by generally being kind to the people I meet. Only about 18% of my work has been word of mouth. In other words... 18% of my clients have never met me before seeing my work, and they seek me out because of the work they have seen me produce. 80% of my clients already consider me a friend or acquaintance before I show up to talk to them about woodworking, and maybe 2% of my clients have been from advertisements like newspapers and Facebook. I personally use Facebook to communicate with clients and friends who already know me and have seen my work, but I really don't use it to specifically gain new clients. I'm not interested in getting employees, so i'm satisfied with the amount of work I have now. Just enough for me and my wife to complete well without pulling out our hair in stress or having to cut back on quality.”
Where are you located?
I am in Turlock, California.
Do you rent a commercial space or work from home / How big is the space?
“I have had every kind of shop in the past. I have had a 6x12 expandable/collapsable space in a garage, I have had a 1200 sq ft commercial building with employees, a 1000 sq ft building with just me, a 1 car garage, a two car garage, and a 3 car garage.... Today I have a 450 sq ft insulated and climate controlled detached garage for my woodworking, 2 8x10 sheds for storing painted pieces of woodwork, I have a 6x12 cargo trailer next to the shop that the pieces go in after they are made, an office, and 2 interior rooms for business storage. So we have a 4 bedroom house with a detached garage. My wife and I live in the master bedroom, master bath, kitchen, and living room. Everything else on the property is used for business purposes. This is by far my favorite shop setup and I am not interested in changing it any time soon. As long as I have the cargo trailer and storage space to place uncommon tools (like scaffolding and large cabinets installing equipment) and built cabinets ready to install then the 450 wood shop area is sufficient. The storage space is crucial. If you are gonna built enough cabinets to fill a kitchen then you need at least a full kitchen in free space to place the cabinets before you install them. The shop only needs to be big enough to efficiently build 1 cabinet at a time if I have an efficient setup.”
What is your most popular request from clients?
“My commissioned builds are pretty diverse right now. My 5 most recent jobs were as follows- current job is a 1931 woody car remake. Before that was a commercial cabinet job working with laminate, and matching the previous cabinet style. Before that was a custom farmhouse style table with construction lumber and poplar. Before that was a custom cutting board, and before that was a 13 ft tall and 16 ft wide set of walnut bookcases with raised panel doors and a rolling ladder. Although my workload is very diverse, cabinetry is the profitable heart of my business. My hourly rate is the same for anything I build, but the simple size and quantity of cabinet work really makes it the most important part of my business. An average table might be worth $2500 but an average custom kitchen could be around $15,000. So the sheer area coverage with cabinetry is what makes it so expensive.”
To build off the last question, what kind of work do you do on a regular basis?
“Cabinetry and cutting boards are probably my most common builds. But I honestly enjoy taking on work that is novelty and strange. I don't plan on ever just sticking to one single product like cabinetry. Even though I could probably make the most money in my business if I just stuck to cabinetry, as a passionate woodworker I love taking on new challenges and I look forward to the unique jobs. It keeps me on my toes and prevents me from getting bored with my job.”
Do you have any advice for dealing with clients? Have you had to resolve any problems and how did you handle it?
“Absolutely. One particular job I did years ago was a complete and total failure. The product was beautiful, and I even charged enough money for the job. But at the end of the job me and the client were looking forward to never seeing each other again and I actually lost money on the job. My biggest mistake was trying to please the client in the immediate, instead of trying to please them in the long run. For example- they asked me if I could install the lower cabinet bases first, and then do the doors, hardware, and uppers afterward because they wanted to get the countertops on ASAP. I wanted to please the client so I said yes, and it gave me so many problems that it cost me maybe an extra 3 weeks in work. I didn't know when to tell them "no" for their own good. And there were many times in the job where the client asked for a change in the plan after I told them the price. I didn't train my client in change orders. I wanted to please them so I bent over backward for them and I didn't want to charge them more money because I didn't know how to talk to them about that... and because I indirectly communicated that they can change anything they want and I won't charge them for it, it turned into being a very unhealthy work environment when I had finally had enough and started to say "no". Today I try to have fantastic communication with my clients and politely tell them immediately when I don't think they have a good idea. I explain the positives and negatives of their choice, and I let them know if they don't like it then they can hire me to change it for them. I build the product on Sketchup, and write the job quotes in incredible detail so the client knows exactly what they are buying from me and they have proper expectations of how I will do business with them from the start. Today I try to live by this business philosophy- "The only way I hurt my clients is through their bank account" charge enough money and get that out of the way, so that once the job starts you can give the client grade A treatment. The price can hurt... but after you get that out of the way, I strive so that my clients can finish the race and say "Wow, that was pleasant. He was here when he said he would be. He was honest, clean, trustworthy, respectful, and I got exactly what I paid for."”
Having a background as a UFC fighter, has that helped you get business?
“Yes, but not the way most people would assume... I dont get more clients because i was a semi-famous UFC fighter. But during my training and my career I have made friends and gained peoples trust through relationships. You can make relationships and win people's trust anywhere. You don't need to be famous for that. You can meet people at church, at the golf course, a book club, a bar, restaurant, or through mutual friends. Though there is another benefit of me fighting at the highest level in the world. I got to the highest level of mixed martial arts competition by becoming an expert in my craft, working hard, being consistent, and by making strong relationships. I had to have good and mutually healthy relationships with my trainers, training partners, sponsors, managers, fight promoters, fans, and bodily recovery staff. These "rules" I followed to be successful in MMA fighting are the same "rules" I need to follow to be successful in running a woodworking business.”
Lastly, how can people find you?
“If people are interested in seeing some of my work, asking me a question, or dropping in for a chat they can find me on facebook at facebook.com/maydayswoodworks . My fight name was "Michael Mayday McDonald"... Hence "Mayday's Custom Woodworks" lol”