EP 350 9 Things I Wish I Would've Known in the Beginning Stages of my Jewelry Company

8:38AM Apr 26, 2022

Speakers:

Tracy Matthews

Keywords:

business

people

jewelry

creative

growing

inevitably

book

learning

implement

hire

mindset

thrive

problems

creativity

pricing

boot camp

flourish

customer

tracy matthews

hard

The perception in the market changes based on what the consumer is being told. And that's why it can be really debilitating to be in this race for the bottom when it comes to pricing. So what's more important is how you position your product so that you can command a higher price point, while communicating the value of what you offer.

Welcome to Thrive By Design, the podcast for ambitious independent jewelry brands, looking to profit from their products, get ready to make more and sell more doing what you love, without spending every single waking minute doing it. Hey, and if you're a creative fashion or product-based business, I want to welcome you to the show. I'll be dropping big tips on launching, growing, and scaling your business. So you can spend more of your precious time using your creativity to make money. You ready? All right, let's do this.

Welcome to the Thrive By Design Podcast, Episode 350. Hey there, it's Tracy Matthews, Chief Visionary Officer of Flourish and Thrive Academy. I'm also the author of the best selling book, The Desired Brand Effect stand out in a saturated market with a timeless jewelry brand. And I'm excited to be here today to talk about nine things I wish I would have known in the earlier stages of my business. And, you know, as an entrepreneur who's been around for 25 years, you know, now I've had several businesses, these are things that you know, even now, when I'm starting a new business have to go back to this list and be like, remember, okay, do you have all these things set up? Are you following the plan? Are you acting like a business person, all the things.

And I think it's really powerful. Because after mentoring, I think we counted recently, like over 8000, like 8000, like 121 people at this point. And through our programs, and obviously a lot more in our larger community. It's been interesting to see the same kind of themes come up over and over and over again. And that's exactly why we've created programs like Laying The Foundation for people to help them get that foundational aspect ready of their business before they've hit that six-figure marker in sales or for people who are in the process of scaling and growing in our momentum program. So I want to talk about some of the things I wish I would have known. And these are like one of those things, they say Hindsight is 2020. Right? Well, here's my hindsight for you that might help you grow your business.

And if you are in a place where you're trying to position your brand, and you're not sure if you're doing it the right way, and you'd like some support, I'm hosting a free boot camp. Again, we're bringing on the Encore of the Jewelry Brand Makeover Bootcamp, we're doing this tighten right this time starts on May 2, if you'd like to participate, it's a four-day boot camp. And we have our group open for about a week to get support from me and my coaches for free. And I'll walk you through the core branding principles that I teach in that boot camp that are pulled directly from our Laying The Foundation program. And you're gonna learn a lot of things about positioning your brand in the right way, identifying some of the things that matter to your dream customers, which gets to underlying like, what gets them to buy. And then also to help you work on one of the things I'm going to talk about today, which is mindset. So if you're interested in learning more about that, all you have to do is head on over to flourishthriveacademy.com/makeover, and you can RSVP and save your seat right there today. I'll also have a link to RSVP in the show notes.

So this episode was inspired because I feel like we get a lot of the same questions over and over again. And a lot of people have the same misconceptions about what it really takes to launch a business to grow that business to get to a place where you're making consistent predictable sales, and to feel really good about what you're doing. Like inevitably, lots of people get stuck in a plateau or they get to a certain point and they're making some good money, but then they just can't get beyond it. And they're kind of scraping by In fact, I had a designer reach out to me the other day. And she's kind of stuck at this one point in her sales. And she's been there for about three years and is really struggling to get to that next level. So I want to really help you kind of take a look at what needs to happen in order for you to show up as the best jewelry entrepreneur you possibly can. All right.

So the first thing or lesson that I wish I would have known was that growing a business is going to take more time than working a full time job in the beginning. So if you're currently working a 40-hour work week job, or you're thinking, Oh, I'm going to start this business to be flexible and you really have big goals, right? Then what ends up inevitably happening is that a lot of times people are working a lot more than full time hours to get their business started. And that's because in the beginning there was a lot of figuring things out, and you're likely not going to have the money and the resources to be able to hire people to do the parts of your business that are unfamiliar to you. And if you're anything like me, you're probably not very good at tech. And you might have to be doing tech things or setting up email automations, or doing the things that are harder for you, because you're not naturally inclined to it.

Now, I would always say that as soon as you can hire someone to do things that aren't your skillset, definitely hire them out, whether it's part-time, virtual assistants, and stuff like that, because that literally will change your life and help you move a lot faster. But probably in the beginning, unless you have money saved, or you're supported by someone who have an investment in your business, you're not gonna be able to hire a team, because, you know, you're just ramping up, right? So this is just to remind you that it's normal, that if you're working like 24/7, in the beginning, hopefully not 24/7. But you know what I mean? That that's just the sign of working hard and growing your business. But what I do want to say is, if you aren't moving the needle, and growing or moving traction forward, then you need to start thinking about like, is what I'm doing, actually, are those things, actually the things that are going to help me grow my business, right? So growing a business is going to take more time than a full time job in the beginning.

Now, the second thing I wish I would have known is that building a business is like a crash course and personal development, I thought I was gonna show up every day and be happy and creative, and, you know, get to play and have so much fun, which yes, that's part of growing a business and I love being an entrepreneur. But at the end of the day, it is hard AF and I say that because you are going to be faced or put up against all your demons, all the things that trigger you all the things that are challenging for you to overcome. And it's presented to you for a reason. You know, we've heard about Darwinism and stuff like this survival of the fittest. While entrepreneurship is the same way, 95% of all small businesses fail within the first year. And a lot of the reasons that they fail is because they either run out of cash runway, or the owner just gives up because it's hard. And so just be prepared for that it's not, I'm not saying this to intimidate you. But you will come against up against things that are really challenging for you. And that's why in our programs, and in the Jewelry Brand Makeover Bootcamp that I'm bringing, we always have a lot of mindset work included, because that mindset work is the stuff that is going to help you overcome any bad habits, or any, you know, internal dialogues or stories that you're telling yourself that are not serving the ultimate goals of your business. And sometimes that's hard to overcome, especially if you aren't actively working on your mindset. And so I would really encourage you to adopt some sort of mindset routine on a daily basis, whether that's meditation, doing yoga, writing in a journal, or I don't know doing like some of the exercises that we give people about affirmations, flipping beliefs, mindset, work, all that stuff, it can be really, really helpful in a long-lasting tool that will continue to help you build confidence in your business, and to help you show up in spite of the internal challenges that happen inside of every single person.

Number three is understand how to price and position your products to sell. So we've been talking about pricing a lot on social media over the past couple of weeks, especially in April. And the reason for this is because inevitably, it is one of the things that people are completely baffled about. And pricing goes so much further than just the price of the product. In fact, in my book, and I grabbed this case study from my friend represses book, but in my book, I talked about a case study from Tim Caulkins of the Kellogg School of Management. He did some focused groups on pricing psychology. And he had a pair of 18 karat gold earrings. And he had three focus groups and the first focus group, he told them that these are just by an independent designer, and that they were 18 karat gold, what would you pay for them, and they came back with a pricing being $570. Then in a second focus group, they took the same earrings and said these are earrings by Tiffany, what do you think that they should cost Tiffany & Co? And the focus group said $871. And then this is where it gets fascinating. In the third group, they said these earrings are from Walmart, what would you pay for them, and the price point was $87. So you can see how the perception in the market changes based on what the consumer is being told. So you're not competing with Walmart and Target and all these big box, lower price point stores. And that's why it can be really debilitating to be in this race for the bottom when it comes to pricing. So what's more important is how you position your products so that you can command a higher price point while communicating the value of what you offer. And that's everything that we teach you in our Laying The Foundation program and in our other programs over here at Flourish And Thrive. Excuse my little bit of a froggy voice today. I lost my voice earlier this week and I needed to get podcasts recorded. So I'm doing my best here.

Number four, your customer is not everyone in the world. Now, you might have heard that you need to identify a dream client and have an avatar and you have a dream customer. And those are the people that are buying from you. But still, people are really hesitant to dial in or focus in on one dream client avatar because they feel like it limits them. And I'm telling you that the more specific you can get on the kind of people that you want to serve and that you do serve, the more that you will attract those people. It's when you're wishy-washy, or you're trying to sell to the people who aren't that person. And this is not that you're not going to sell to other types of people. Now, the interview that I did right before I'm recording, this is gonna go live next week, it's an interview with Amanda Wilde. It's a live coaching call, and we're talking about pricing. And she had someone come to our booth, and say something like, I would never pay this much for earrings like this. And then someone came in after and said, Oh, my gosh, I can't believe these earrings are such a great value, you should be charging more. And so I'm telling you this story, because those are two different customers, obviously the one who is saying like I would never pay this is not the right customer. That's not someone that Amanda should be selling to. But also, it's really about how people perceive and value work from artists. So if you're getting a lot of price resistance, maybe the wrong people are showing up, or maybe you're showing your work in the wrong place. Or maybe you know, you aren't priced properly. I can't tell you how many people I've coached on raising their prices, where before, when they had lower prices got a ton of price resistance. Soon as they raise their prices, they sold out a product immediately. This really works. It's not just about raising your price points, though. It's about communicating the value and understanding how to educate your customers about that value that you offer.

Number 5, 75% of your time needs to be spent on sales and marketing until you get to six figures in for a lot of people probably a little bit more than that. And I say this unless you are completely overwhelmed with orders. And you can't keep up with capacity, because inevitably, one of the hardest hurdles to cross is from the $1 to $100,000 marker in a company because once you kind of have the system for sales, and it's working, it's easier to kind of scale that. They say there's a couple of markers. So if you think about it like this, it's really hard to go from $1 to 100,000, because you're trying to figure a lot of things out, then when you go from 100,000 to 300,000, you have to shift how you're running your business. So it's kind of like a new learning curve. And then once you kind of hit 300,000, you're kind of in this sweet spot where you can continue doing the same thing over and over again to get to like a million or 2 million or 3 million. And then once you hit that $3 million-marker, it becomes hard again, and you have to reinvent what you're doing. So there are these little targets. But in the beginning, when you're making only less than six-figures, usually, you don't have a lot of extra money leftover to invest in hiring a team. So you're going to have to be the salesperson, be the marketing person and invest that time and energy into that growth for yourself and your business. So I really want to encourage you to think about this, we call it the 75% rule and talk about it in-depth in our programs especially our Laying The Foundation program. And sales and marketing activities are called revenue generating activities. RGAs.

Number six, creativity thrives in structure, you need to schedule it. Now inevitably, over the years, so many creatives have come to me and saying like, I started to create a business because I want to spend my days being creative. And then they're frustrated, because their business isn't growing, how they want it to do or how they wanted it to, I should say. And the problem with this is that a lot of times, you're creative, but you haven't really been taught like how to structure your time or how to build a business. When you're working a job. You're told, basically, here's your responsibilities, and here's what you get done. But if you're creating that structure for yourself, it can be hard to really know what to do. So you need to treat it like you're creating structure for yourself. So if you want to spend time doing creative work, then you schedule creative time, usually bigger blocks of time. If you need to get on the business side of your business, then you should be time blocking and scheduling and creating time in your schedule. So that you can focus on the business-y the things. And here's the reason why. When you're context switching and you're going back and forth from creative work to business or more like analytical work, your brain is different sides of the brain and your brain can't bounce back. It takes a while to acclimate, especially when it comes to creativity. So if you're trying to squeeze creative work in between a short window like an hour of time, like by the time you finally start to get going, your time block is already over, right. So you need to start scheduling time to be more creative with what you're doing.

Now, number seven is to always be learning then implement. Now I mentioned this earlier, I mentioned this a lot of times not earlier necessarily on this show. But I've mentioned this a lot of times on my podcast, that it's awesome to learning. In fact, it always be learning, it's one of our core values over here at Flourish And Thrive, I require my team to learn, I always am consuming new information and content about business and other things that I'm interested in. Because I know that that helps me grow as a human being. But it's not just enough to learn, you need to implement what you've learned if you want to see results from that learning, right? And so a good example is there's this book called Traction, it's one of my favorite business books that I've ever read. And it took me years to start implementing the traction system in my business, I learned what it was all about. And I learned the power of being a visionary versus an integrator and the roles that they play in a company, and how to lead meetings and stuff like that, but I didn't implement it. And so I kept coming up against some of the similar problems that I had in my business. And it was frustrating. So I'm telling you that I'm not immune to it. And it's something that we need to always be thinking about. So if you take a program, you can't expect just taking the program, to be the thing that helps you get the result you need to implement, and then iterate and then test and keep refining and improving that process in order to keep growing. So you always have to be learning. But you also need to implement what you learn in order to get the result from that learning. Does that make sense?

Number eight, act like a business owner and treat your business like a business. So it's really easy for creative types who are artists or are putting something creative out into the world to sell is just show up like an artist, right? Like I'm an artist here, and I want to sell my work. But if you don't treat your business like a business, and what I mean by that is like you don't have the proper business licenses, you don't have a separate business bank account, and you're pilfering from your personal accounting, you're not reporting your taxes, you're not doing bookkeeping, and doing many of the things that are required from a business standpoint, to have a legitimate business, then you don't really have a business, you just have a hobby, you might be collecting some money on the side, and that's okay. But you need to treat it like a business.

And then taking this to another level, you really need to be thinking about how you're optimizing and setting your business up for growth. Now, about seven or eight years in to my first company, maybe six, six or seven years, I can't remember maybe 2006 or something. I had a bookkeeper who said to me, Tracy, you need to read this book. It's called The E-Myth Revisited. And as a little bit, let's say triggered by the fact that this person said that I should read this book, primarily because it was an accountant. And I'd had grown as what I thought was a very successful business. But as in this stage of growth, or is experiencing some cashflow issues, and we were having to take loans out to invest in inventory, and stuff like that, and I was getting into highly leveraged situation, I'd recently had moved to New York City and my expenses, skyrocketed a little bit more than I was expecting. And he suggested this book. And the premise of the book is that a lot of times people start a business, because they're good at something like designing jewelry, baking pies, or whatever it might be. But then they realize what it actually takes to grow the business. And even though they get to some level of success, they end up having to go back to where they were like years before, and be the doer of all things or the technician in a business.

And so it's really important from the get go to understand what it is going to take to systematize and optimize your business, so that you can create something that's more turnkey, so you can hire people in positions, so that you can basically streamline what you're doing. So it takes like takes the reinvention of the wheel out of the business. And so that you can work more on your business instead of in your business. And when I read that book, I cried, I was insulted. But I cried, and I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is the missing link. And even though I knew that I needed to develop systems, and even though I knew that I needed to work on my business more and work smarter, not harder in the business, I wasn't doing it. And quite frankly, I was just spinning my wheels a lot of the time I was reactive, I have a tendency to be have more of an anxious personality type. So I'd be like, and like putting out fires mode all the time. My adrenals were totally zapped I was in flight or flight most of the time as I was running my business. And I just thought that that was normal, but it's not. So if that's you, you might want to read that book, but also think about how you're structuring your company so that you can grow. So act like a business owner and treat your business like a business.

And number nine, this is my last one is it's your job to solve problems. So if you are not getting The results that you want, what questions can you ask yourself to solve those problems, you need to identify the root cause of the issues that are coming up. You need to identify solutions to how you can solve those problems. And then you need to implement the solutions to the problems so that you can not have that problem anymore. And the best business owners are focused on solving issues or problems in their business. They're not focused on pointing the fingers at other people or blaming things on whatever their situation or their circumstances, they're focused on identifying those problems, and solving the problems. Does that make sense?

So these are the nine things that I wish I would have known in the beginning stages of my jewelry company, they are growing a business will take more time in the beginning than a full time job. Building a business is like a crash course and personal development. Understand how to price and position your products to sell from the get go. Your customer is not everyone in the world. 75% of your time needs to be spent on revenue-generating activities. Creativity thrives in structure, you must schedule it. Always be learning then implement what you've learned. If you want to get the result. Act like a business owner and treat your business like a business. And it's your job to solve problems.

Well, I hope that that was helpful for you, I would love to know what your key takeaway was. So if you had a good takeaway, and you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot and share it in stories on Instagram and make sure that you tag me and Flourish And Thrive @tracymatthewsny and @flourish_thrive. We would love to support you in this. And just to hear what your biggest takeaway. Also, I love hearing from you. So if you haven't done so yet, please follow me on Instagram. That would be great. But also just shoot me a direct message. I love chatting with you guys. So people are doing it every single day of the week. And I just love getting to know you and I'm here to help you solve your problems or help you get to a place where you're solving your own problems. So feel free to reach out and let's connect. Alright, this is Tracy Matthews signing off till next time and if you would like to, please join us for the Jewelry Brand Makeover Bootcamp. I'm going to have the link in the show notes. It's going to be a blast. See you next week!

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. It's my mission to help 1000s of creative businesses inside and outside the jewelry space use their creativity to make money. Make sure that you're subscribed to thrive by design on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and wherever podcasts are played. And we'd love to hear what you think. Please rate and review the show and if you're inspired please share this with your friends. Cheers to seeing you flourish and thrive!