Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tom Olesindki. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Tom , thanks for joining us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

I am A CPA and in 2020 I had spent the last 15 years of my career as the CFO and CEO of one of the worlds largest ad agency network. After years of stress , I needed a break and left the agency world. I thought I would take a few months off and began spending more time in my home based woodshop. I had been a hobby woodworker for almost 30 years and had done a few commission pieces from time to time. It didn’t take long for a few friends and neighbours to ask me to build something for them. This was right during the period of Covid when more people were staying at home and entertaining at home, I started to get a lot of requests for Cutting Boards And charcuterie boards. After selling about 50 of these boards I realized for me to really make any money and a living at this. I would have to be able to produce boards in large quantities, but homeowners really only need one or two. This is when I came up with the idea for corporate gifting. In my career I had received and given lots of gifts to both clients and employees. Most of the gifts that we received were nice gestures, but were pretty useless. Baskets, alcohol, etc. These things are nice but they truly aren’t very personal. I started reaching out to corporations with the idea to sell them handcrafted products, including charcuterie boards for their client gifting purposes.. The biggest hurdle in my approach was that companies had a tough time, imagining what they would look like and it was a sale. It wasn’t until I started sending them samples of my products that things took off every time I would send a sample it almost led to a sale. My average was about 90% conversion, I invested in laser engraver to engrave boards with company, logos and names to make the product truly personal. I did the same thing for golf tournaments and started selling hundreds for golf tournaments member events and men’s.

Tom , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I really got into woodworking in my 20s and it was more out of necessity. I wanted to finish basement with hardwood flooring but didn’t have the money to do this unless I did it myself.. So that’s how I started. Back then there was no YouTube or Instagram or anything like that to watch how to videos so I read a lot of books, asked a lot of questions and got advice where I could.. slowly I got better and took on more and more challenging projects. as a CPA, I learned a lot about business throughout my professional career. I spent 25 years in finance in the industry of marketing and advertising. I learned how a strong brand means a lot to a consumer trust and quality or the two things that resonated very well with me. I learned to do what you are going to say you are going to do. Never promise, and under delivered to the opposite.. Because I have played competitive golf, my entire life I learned there was a very big hole in the industry. Having played in a lot of corporate events, the prizes and giveaways were often trinkets low of quality or really specific. What if you could give a gift that when someone came home to their partner after a long at a corporate event with a beautiful product that everyone could use it. If it was handcrafted, high-quality, and a product that would be used every day it would really make the individual happy, and reflect extremely well on the corporation completing the event.
Thomas Andrew design provides handcrafted products that are truly unique and one of a kind. Items that you will never see in a store. because of my business background coupled with my knowledge of golf, I was able to combined the two and ended up signing over for 40 luxury golf clubs for my products.. . Thomas Andrew design also makes a promise. For every charcuterie board or cutting board that we sell we plant a tree.. we are hoping other woodworkers will take notice. Thomas Andrew design has now planted well over 5000 trees..

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

When I first came up with the idea of branding, charcuterie boards with corporate branding logos and golf club logos, I thought it would be a no-brainer, and our relatively easy sell. After creating some brochures and an outline of my product, I started sending these to my targets. I had some very limited success, and was a little down thinking “can’t you see these products are so much more personal then most of other alternatives out there.

. However, I didn’t give up. in fact I double down, I started to make sample boards with company and golf club logos and sent to them directly. This all together. Once my potential targets saw the product and had them in hand, my sales went through the roof. My conversion to sale rate went to about 80%.. I actually had more business than I could handle, but I didn’t want to turn it away. That is a whole other story on how I addressed that business problem. As it turns out when you want to sell something creative, you need to really show people what it could look like as descriptions will not do you product justice. It is like a painter a painter could not just simply say this is what I intend to paint who wants to buy it.. People to need see, feel the procduct to really appreciate it.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Ultimately, the most rewarding part is seeing the joy on someone’s face when they receive your handmade piece of furniture or product. They know they have a true one of our kind piece that only they will have no two pieces will ever be alike because there are no two pieces of wood that will ever be alike.. when I am creating a piece, the most satisfying part for me is when the final finish goes on, and your vision has come to life. It really is never before that.

Contact Info:

• Website: thomasandrewdesign.com
• Instagram: Thomas and design
• Facebook: Thomas Andrew design