Thrive By Design: Business, Marketing And Lifestyle Strategies For Your Jewelry Brand To Flourish And Thrive

Let’s start the new decade off with a challenge! I love January (even though it’s a slow month for us designers) because it’s an opportunity for a fresh start. Time to refresh your mindset, fast-track your sales, and create a repeatable sales system that you can use all year long.  Are you in?

What’s your money story? When it comes to money, everyone has different stories they tell themselves, including you - though you may not even realize it. Most people start out with negative money stories that take serious work to clear. They can be inherited from family, picked up in the media, established from experience, etc. No matter where it started, fear around money always stems from some form of scarcity mindset and will only ever get in the way of your success. Successful entrepreneurs put in the work to transform their money story into one that’s compatible with a growth mindset. And that’s what we’re going to do today.

Let Go of Stories that Hold You Back Sometimes you hold on to stories about the world and your place in it that hold you back from our true potential. Those stories will keep limiting you until you acknowledge them and do the work to clear them. Negative mantras that drag you down, like, “There isn’t enough money to go around.” can be reframed in the positive: “There is enough money to go around.” The first step is to identify YOUR limiting beliefs and stories. What it will take to clear them? Take Full Responsibility for Your Success Have you ever caught yourself playing the “Blame Game?” I know I have. Tsk tsk tsk. It’s easy to blame others for your problems and avoid taking responsibility, but it’s neither realistic nor productive. As a jewelry-preneur and creative visionary, you are responsible for your own success. Own it. And when those sweet moments of success do come, they’ll be even better! Always Operate from a Growth Mindset At times, it can be a challenge to stay positive and operate from a growth

Have you ever thought about the impact your brand has on the environment and in communities around the globe? There’s a shift happening in the jewelry industry right now. People all the way down the chain, from consumers to designers to miners, are becoming aware of the environmental and social impact of jewelry. The Chicago Responsible Jewelry Conference is an annual event dedicated to changing the jewelry industry for the better. It’s only in its third year, but its already making an impact. Director of Education Jessica Gebauer sat down to talk through the major takeaways from this year’s conference with Niki Grandics, founder of Enji Studio and the co-chair of marketing and communications for Ethical Metalsmiths. They talked about a few things YOU can do to start making a difference.

1) You Feel Overly Defensive of Your Biz Someone asks a critical question about your business or offers constructive feedback, and you immediately snap into defense mode. That’s a red flag. As the creative visionary, you may be too close to your biz to see some of the big-picture problems.  I get it, you’re passionate about what you do. That passion is what fuels your success, but it can also get in the way of growth if you let it. If you find yourself feeling overly defensive of your business decisions, that’s usually the first sign it’s time to get some outside perspective on things. 2) You’re Operating from a Scarcity Mindset You feel stressed because there’s not enough money to go around, not enough room in the marketplace for your work, etc. It’s not true. Repeat after me, and believe it: money is limitless, sales are limitless, your opportunities for growth are limitless. It’s only a matter of getting your head in the right space and putting in the work. The best cure for a scarcity mindset is to reach

Do you ever feel like you’re trying to do everything at once? This is a problem. When you’re trying to run a business and handle everything by yourself, it quickly becomes overwhelming and you end up focusing on menial tasks that aren’t actually moving your business forward. That’s why “Delegate to Elevate” is an intrinsic part of the Desired Brand Effect methodology. In this episode, I chatted with Krista DeJoseph, someone who really took “Delegate to Elevate” to heart.  As the creative behind Queens Metal, Krista has been at the helm of her company for over a decade. Designing and fabricating jewelry is her passion, and nothing makes her happier than smashing the hell out of a piece of metal. When Krista decided she wanted to take winters off to travel, she knew she needed someone to keep an eye on things while she was gone. This led her to “stumble into” (her words) hiring a virtual assistant. But she never expected what happened next.

In the six months since Peggy Houchin, the designer behind Peggy Houchin Jewelry started Laying the Foundation, she’s increased her online following by 75% and doubled her sales from last year! I brought her on to talk about the changes she made in her biz that brought her such raving success. You won’t believe what she’s accomplished with a few simple tweaks! Listen to episode #227 of Thrive by Design to get your all-access pass to How One Skeptical Designer Doubled Her Sales This Year By Taking Our Advice

Authentic Connection I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - faceless brands are dying. As sales move to the online sphere, social media is shaping buying decisions more than ever. People buy from people. At the end of the day, sales is about building relationships with your customers. Gone are the days of target demographics. In an oversaturated online market, it’s all about dialing into the specifics of your Dream Client and standing out in a sea of faceless brands. The connections you make - through messaging, branding, pricing, customer service, web copy - are what set you apart from the crowd. Connected Conversion As a jewelry designer, you may feel afraid to sell.  It’s okay to admit it; I was too, in the beginning. It took years of flexing my confidence muscle to feel comfortable converting a prospect into a buyer. Even if you’ve built an authentic connection with your Dream Clients, the sales won’t be rolling in if you’re sitting behind your bench all day. It takes consistent outreach and excellen

I have the amazing Lisa Lehman here from Studio Jewel with me to talk about her very successful Facebook live sale! The girl made $7,000 in just two hours using Facebook live, like, are you kidding me? Seriously she’s awesome! She has been in our mastermind for a year and is all signed up for our SOS Accelerator as well. We love Lisa, and I know you will too once you hear her story! Listen now to hear all about how she did it. It’s All About the Pregame It’s super important to build up anticipation for your event! Social media is an awesome tool to create a buzz. Start posting well in advance and often! Make an event on Facebook and send out invitations. Seriously, people will love it and totally show up on the day of your live sale! Send out emails! Your email list is another great way to get people excited for a live event. Listen now to get more awesome tips from Lisa for your email list! Don’t Forget Friends and Family I hear designers say all the time they want to move past selling to their friends and f

I’m often asked: what does it really take for an emerging jewelry brand | designer | maker to successfully sell jewelry online? It requires 4 things: Strategy Resourcefulness Creativity A Can Do Attitude Here’s why: There’s a lot of strategy “conversion nuance” involved in getting customers to actually buy from your jewelry website or online channels. Because of that, you’ve gotta be creative in your approach to selling online, take action to implement your ideas, and resourceful, especially when, things don’t go your way!. Typically, designers try something once and think: ‘that doesn’t work for me!” Instead, they should be thinking: “how can I tweak my strategy to make this work for me?” So, when I hear people out there saying, “I sell jewelry online” – I’m ready to show them how it’s done… and proof that with the right strategy and actions, you can sell WAY more than your dinky holiday shows…. (I’m not dissing shows…they’re good too!

Creating online content for your product-based business doesn’t have to be a headache if you have an effective strategy. I’d like to introduce you to two incredible ladies who have been working with brands just like yours to launch innovative products and gain visibility online. Meet Minna Khounlo-Sithep, owner of Lil' Labels, LLC, and Jacqueline Snyder, owner of Designer Consulting Coop. They’re both business experts with years of experience and knowledge. Together, they formed the Product Boss Podcast for high-achieving women who own product-based businesses. One thing their demographic has in common is a struggle to create online content. When you own a product-based business, you might hope your product will speak for itself and you can sit back and watch the sales flow in. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. In this day and age, people buy from people. If there’s no face to your company, there’s nothing for your customers to connect with. So, Minna and Jacqueline came up with their 3 Pillars P

Running a business is a full-time job. There’s so much to keep track of, and it takes serious focus to stay on top of everything. Now imagine running TWO! Introducing, Mary Ann Saville… Mary Ann owns two different businesses, Vedeli Designs, and VDI Jewelry Findings. She started our Strategic Online Sales Accelerator (SOS) at the beginning of this year, and her sales are already up by 40%! She anticipates that the number will be closer to 75-80% by the end of this year. Talk about record growth! When I heard about Mary Ann, I was so inspired, I wanted to get her on the podcast pronto. I’m always going on about how great SOS is, so I think it’s about time I had someone on who can talk about the benefits firsthand. And who better to conduct the interview than F&TA Community Director and SOS Director Jessica Gebauer?! I met Jess three years ago when she applied to Flourish & Thrive Academy. At the time, she was fed-up with the archaic way most of the jewelry industry operates. I was so impressed by her

If you’re struggling with social media, read on… You can have a strong social media presence and an online community of raving fans without having millions of followers. What’s more valuable than numbers is how you engage with your following and how they engage with each other. Having 100 active followers is so much better than having 1,000 that never say anything. And you don’t need a huge team of social media managers, copywriters, and marketing experts for your online accounts to succeed. With the right strategy, you can build a flourishing community around your brand. Introducing, Chelsea Farmer. She’s the founder of Horsefeathers Gifts and one of our very own SOS coaches! I’ve worked with her for a while now, and let me tell you she is such a gem. Her bubbly and magnetic personality translates well to her social media, and she’s cultivated quite the community of die-hard supporters for her jewelry brand. With a private facebook group of over 1,000 happy customers, you could say she’s a bit of a socia

I am just beaming today, m’dear! My team and I just wrapped up our quarterly SOS Live Retreat in NYC… and it was incredible! When I was just getting started in business, it was mastermind sessions with peers that were the most groundbreaking for my professional growth. I think getting together and brainstorming is one of the most valuable things we can do as a community. After all these years, I’m so happy to be hosting a quarterly live retreat for the students in my Strategic Onlines Sales Accelerator program (SOS). I’m still riding the high from working with so many brilliant designers to help them plan out their goals and build their dream biz. So, I thought it would be fun to go over the top 10 takeaways from the event for anyone who couldn’t be there. Let’s dive right in!

Have you ever noticed that grocery store layouts are all pretty much the same? The bakery is near the front, where you’re met with the comforting aroma of fresh bread. The dairy is in the back, so you have to walk through the whole store just to buy milk. The candy is by the register, a tempting and effective upsell.  This is not by accident – in fact, there are professionals who get paid a lot of money to map your journey through the store in a way that gets you to buy more stuff. The psychology of profit has been of interest to owners of grocery stores and supermarkets since, like, forever. So why wouldn’t we apply the same principles to online stores? That’s where Erin Alexander comes in. Founder of Alexander Design Co. and our very own SOS coach, Erin specializes in website and conversion design for e-commerce businesses. When it comes to web design, this gal’s been thinking 10 steps ahead the whole time. She sat down with me to discuss the common mistakes she sees on jewelry designer’s websites – and h

I am constantly blown away by the resilience and creativity from the designers in our community. Twyla Dill is one radiant example. While living in Turkey, Twyla learned how to make Oya, a delicate lace crocheted from thread. With plenty of inspiration, but no background in jewelry, she set to work creating pieces that blended the Turkish lace technique with a modern aesthetic. Eventually, Twyla Dill Designs was born. In April of 2019, Twyla’s second year in business, her mom passed away after years of battling Multiple Sclerosis. Needless to say, it was a tragic loss for Twyla and her family. Balancing business and grief is no easy feat, but Twyla navigated it with grace and was even able to increase her sales from the year before. She sat down with me this week to share how she did it.

We both know that selling at shows can be back-breaking work, m’dear. And it doesn’t get easier as you get older… trust me. Plus, what would happen to your biz if you had to take a break and couldn’t attend shows? Would it still function and make money while you were away? When I quit my day job to focus on building a business full-time, it was a real struggle. It was impossible for me to walk away because I did not set myself up for success. I realized that I had just created a new job for myself, not a business. Here’s the difference: A job requires you to be constantly working to generate revenue A business generates revenue on an ongoing basis, even when you’re not actively working. If you’re relying on live shows for your primary source of income, I hate to be the one to tell you but… you have a job. Don’t get me wrong, shows aren’t all bad when you leverage them right. But I don’t want you to be dependent on one stream of revenue. So, if you’re feeling stuck in the trunk show grind and sacrificing too

What makes a jewelry designer successful? Is it talent? Hard work? Luck? Not even close! If being talented and working hard was all it takes to make it in the jewelry biz… most jewelry designers would be successful. In-demand designers succeed because they know what to do, ditch, and delegate to scale sales and work on their business. This is much easier said than done! You might catch yourself thinking, “No one else can do what I do.” But… that’s just not true m’dear! Like many designers, I didn’t want to let go of production when my business started taking off. My mind changed when I got a really big order from a wholesale customer that I just could not fill by myself. I hired a local jewelry arts student to come in and help with production. After that – there was no turning back. This an inevitable part of scaling a business. But as your business grows and you find yourself running short on time every day, how exactly do you figure out what to do, ditch, and delegate? That’s what I’ll be talking about toda

Are you struggling to come up with content ideas for your brand? I’m here to help… When someone buys from you, it’s your chance to build a relationship and gain a loyal customer. Content is an empowering way to do that – and it can be repurposed over and over! I know, I know… You (like many designers) are probably thinking “I don’t know what to write! I don’t know how to write! What do I do?!” Okay, take a deep breath. Making content is actually pretty simple once you get the hang of it! But I get why it’s so intimidating! When I was starting out, the thought of making content felt so daunting. I thought, “Do I really need this?” The answer is a big fat YES! And here’s why…