Welcome to the thrive by design Podcast, episode 402. Hey there, it's Tracy Matthews, chief visionary officer, every now and then I love to answer your questions. And, you know, just talk a little bit more about your business and how we can support you. So last week, I did an Ask me anything q&a. And we had some great questions that are very different than most of the Q and A's idea. We got a lot of questions about manufacturing, hiring, how do you figure out when to outsource, like all those things? So we're going to go with it today. Right? Let's do it. So this is a different kind of episode asked me anything. And there are some great topics in here. So I'm going to talk dive into that in a moment. But before I do, we are in open enrollment for our train your customers to buy from you online program, we get started on April 18. And we'd love to invite you to work with us in our 12 week Sales Accelerator program, specifically to help you grow your online sales. So if you're someone who would like mentorship, accountability, feedback, and basically the little nudge that you need to get your online sales going, and you'd like to see a financial reward at the end of it, because I will tell you, the people who implement what we teach, make their money back within the first couple of weeks, and end up increasing their sales, upwards of 20 3040, double triple like really depends, like, people are really scaling online. So if you're someone who'd like to do that for yourself, we'd love to help you. So head on over to flourish, thrive academy.com, forward slash T yc. And get your free application in today. Once you fill out that application, we'll give you an approval, typically within 24 hours. And we'll let you know if you're approved into the program. If you have any questions about if it's a right fit, you can talk to someone on our team, no big deal. And we'd be happy to support you. So head on over to flourish thrive academy.com, forward slash T yc. And get your application in today. So you might be wondering some of the results. So why don't I share those with you, Morgan, when she joined the team YC was in an extreme state of burnout. She joined the program because she needed a little kick in the pants and a move in the right direction to get her creativity back. She claims that she made her investment back in the first week after the first training. And she recovered from burnout to get creatively inspired again, it was like I interviewed her a couple of weeks ago. So make sure that you listen to that episode. Emily, the year that she joined the T YC grew her online sales, in addition to her studio sales from $2,000 a year to $60,000 a year. So she had was making maybe a couple 100 bucks a month. And she was at the end of it making $6,000 a month in additional revenue online. mela and never joined the T yc. And only about 7% of their sales came from online business. After taking the program they were able to leverage their in person shows and now 25% of their total sales comes from their online website sales. Carla grew her business significantly just by implementing one of the trainings and now she has collection drops every single Wednesday that typically sell out in just 45 minutes. So if you're wondering if it works, the answer is yes, but I'll leave it at that. Anyway, if you'd like more information head on over to flourish & thrive academy.com forward slash T YC and fill out your free application. So let's dive in to this asked me anything q&a. This is a great one you might want to take out a notepad we go in depth into a lot of different topics that hopefully this is helpful. 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 could spend more of your precious time using your creativity to make money. You ready? All right, let's do
this. Ali from Sondra Dermott adornment says is it okay to have your Instagram linked to products on the IG Shop Channel? Or should you only be sending people directly to your website? So I think she needs how there's the shopping option on Instagram now.
Yeah, the shopping option I Chelsea, have you ever used the shopping option on Instagram?
I don't and when it pops up, if I'm looking at somebody's site, I just go to their website and find the item because I don't trust apps sometimes. That's my answer.
I tried to shop on Instagram and every time it's like that they cancel my payment they canceled the order. I don't think it's a bad idea. But here's the trouble with it. It's like Instagram was trying to be like Shopify, I think what you always want to having it up there and tagging your products and trying to use Instagram to sell your stuff is just another way like, it can work, it can be good. I was talking to Jennifer Dawes a while ago. And she said, like, I've had my Instagram shop up forever, I have never sold one piece, everyone just goes to my website and either reaches out to me to talk about the piece, or buys it, mind you, she has pieces that are $7,000. So sometimes people just want to, they want to talk to someone and know that they're, you know, it's a different type of market. So I don't think I can hurt but what I have noticed is anytime I've ever tried to shop on someone's Instagram shop, my order has been cancelled. And I don't know why maybe there's like a mismatch with the ABS or the shipping address. And then they just cancel the order. And I'm like, where's that makeup I ordered from? Og or whatever, and it never ends, then I see like something in my shopping email that says, Oh, this order was canceled due to like, they need your code or something like that for your. And so then I didn't even know. And it's three weeks later, and I was annoyed. And I'm just like, forget it.
And then you think it's the customer service of the brand when really adds glitch in the Instagram shopping. So I've only had experience with a Facebook meta shopping and it works fine. So Instagram might work. But always driving people to your website is best, especially because then you can get them on your email list and everything else.
Yeah, some people aren't doing well with it. They're saying 50% checkout directly on Instagram and Facebook. This is something that you need to test like if it's working, use it, test it. But also I pay attention. Like if they have instances where you can see like, if there's abandoned carts or people not check finishing the checkout, I would really pay attention to that, because that that might give you some information. Let's see question,
your suggestions on advertising Google business without a brick and mortar store? Do you have any insight on that?
My understanding is that for Google My Business, you need a physical location. So you're gonna have to put your home or your studio or something in there. Isn't that right, Chelsea?
Yeah, we have our studio listed. So you have to have a physical address, because they need to show the outside of the of the facility.
So if it's your home, like that's the only thing like if we don't have a separate thing, it can become a thing, like it's not the best, safest, because you don't want people just showing up at your home, you want to have that safety and security, but you can link your website there. And you also can put like, by appointment only, or whatever. So if you have, if you don't have regular office hours, you want to make sure people know, however it can be a really great tool. And like people, we have someone in our momentum program right now who has like 400 Google reviews, that are five stars for a brick and mortar jewelry store. And he wants to change his name for his online store. He has like some there's some weird legal issue with that. And he's worried about losing those reviews, we found out that you can change the name and not lose the reviews. But the most amazing part about it is that he says those Google reviews are the thing that brings brings him a ton of sales.
I have a this is a good question, because I think it really correlates with exactly what TYT is about how can I get people to my website when my only customers so far have been family and friends?
Great? Well, this is this is one of the things that we teach you how to do and the T yc. Basically, we have a strategy where you use grassroots marketing efforts to create a friends and family networking Blitz. And we teach you how to leverage your entire network and build your email list that way, start driving traffic that way and then start getting referrals. And then from there, have them share it with their friends. So it's really like a referral strategy. So that's, that's the best way to start. There are a million ways to get traffic to your website outside of just friends and family. We're gonna help you do that in the entire program. So Pinterest strategy, social strategy, but it's has to be strategic, you know, the way that you're actually doing it to get there. So someone here on Instagram is saying like is the TYT the second parts at Laying The Foundation? The answer is yes, it's the next step after Laying The Foundation so a lot of people take Laying The Foundation, which is our foundational program that really gets you into like more your brand messaging voice. We teach you the foundational aspects of marketing and sales and all those things. It's great for brands who aren't at the six figure mark or yet. And T yc is the next step and you don't necessarily have to take Laying The Foundation to join the T yc. But if you have taken Laying The Foundation, it is a great next step because we take everything that you learned in Laying The Foundation and it's like LTF on fire and it's an actionable sales and marketing program. So if you're if you're on Insta round when you want to check it out, head on over to flourish & thrive academy.com, forward slash T yc. And that we have the link right there and you can join. It's an application process. And that's on purpose. Because we know that people who aren't ready for this program, there are some foundational pieces that need to be into place. So if you have zero sales, and zero customers right now, it's not the best place to start. We'd rather have you start with our Laying The Foundation program. It's great for people who have some sales, even if they're just friends and family in something to leverage in, bounce off of to help expand, expand on, I guess, is the best way to put it. This is
a really cool question and comment. It says, Hi, Tracy. I've been working through the book and slowly implementing the things that I've learned from it. I just started my official business in January, and I've already hit my first 4000 Month $4,000 month. Wow, I know all I can do. Wow, that's great. Yeah. So Ashley, I noticed that she says I'm feeling a little bit lost with scaling because now she's at the point where she doesn't have enough time to produce the products for all the shows that she participates in, and is trying to find a bench jeweler to hire a contractor. She's not sure if maybe she should try cutting back on her work, or hiring a contractor to help him create the pieces would be the way to go. You're a smart lady. You made her so comfortable. So fast.
Alrighty, well, here's the thing. She read chapter one, and she knows that she's adopting a CVO mindset, right outside the gate. I love it. So as far as getting support to scale, you might I don't know what kind of jewelry you make. So it would really depend there are lots of options. Honestly, if I was starting over with a jewelry company, and I was starting from scratch, my first hire would be someone to help make the jewelry it always because I love marketing. I love sales. I love the craft of designing and making like the first piece but I don't like the reproduction part. And there are a lot of people who are very good engineers who love that repetitive process, who over time, like just would be able to help scale. So my first hires and everything. I've always been either outsourced contract labor or people to come in on my team to help make the product. So the answer is yes, I think that's a good place to start. But depending on the type of jewelry that you make, it might be that you have peace workers who come into your office or work from home like Chelsea Does. You hire art students, you teach your method and they come and do it. Or you find someone who depending on the type of jewelry who can make the jewelry and in their studio because it's if it's like they're working with a torch or it's like that kind of labor cast, it might be a better fit.
Yeah, it is just mainly, I definitely think someone could do it in their home. It's just like handmade handmade sterling silver jewelry with like pretty basic components.
Is it like wire wrapping or is it heat?
Or you know, just like bezel like basic basil were Oh, okay. Well, kava Sean's and?
Okay, yeah, so if they had a home studio, they could definitely do that. Otherwise, you might want to bring them into your studio. If they don't have a home studio, you can hire a jeweler, or you could definitely find a manufacturer to do it. I think the best place to look for something like this is fine, a jewelry arts program close to you. Where they're teaching this or a school art school. Where do you live?
I live in Fairbanks, Alaska. And I actually work at a university where one building away there's a jewelry studio. And I've thought about maybe recruiting a student.
To me that would be that's where I would start if the work isn't very hard. I mean, I would train them and test them out. All of my initial basically, I call it a production team came from art schools, great place to start, and then I would just pay them either an hourly or a bi piece.
Okay, I think this is a good question for a lot of people who are good at getting started that might be thinking of joining GYC also, Lindsey says I'm pretty new to selling and I'm just starting my website is an LLC required to start selling online.
No, you can have a sole proprietorship. I mean, it just depends on I mean, there's some barriers like in our Laying The Foundation program. In the first module we walk you through, like some of the things to consider on how to structure your business, you can always upgrade your offering later. Like we have a company that we work with called prime Corporate Services, and they'll help you set up your LLC or corporation if you want to incorporate something like that for free. You have to pay the child filing fees, but they'll help you do that for free. And the thing that I would say about that is like every business is different. Like I had an accountant who had me stay as an S or as a sole proprietor up until I was doing over like she won Didn't something 1000 A year, he didn't even want me to clarify, it was an LLC. But other legal advisors would tell you something different. So and you can also set up an LLC. And eventually as your business grows and your revenue grows over a certain threshold file as an S corp, for if you're in this isn't if you're in the United States, obviously, file your taxes as an S corp without incorporating as an S corp. And there's a better tax benefit to that. But all of these things like I always defer to someone who is a legal expert, because it's different everywhere. And I am not the expert in that. So I can give you the high level and then I refer you to my, to our partners. To help with that.
Yeah, perfect. This is from Maria. She says, Hi, Tracy, I'm based in the UK. And I would like to know if there's anyone in your team that specifically knows the European market.
We have a lot of Europeans in our programs. What do you mean by that? Like we know the buying trends of the European market?
I think they're wondering if it's like universal probably like if what we're teaching is universal across other markets?
The answer is yes. It is universal across all Mark markets.
She said, the customers are different in the US. Like,
Why don't she come up here? Or we can coach her? Because like, yeah, having like a big thing, Maria, if you want to another mindset thing or not? Because I know a lot of UK brands sell online,
it might be
do you want to unmute yourself when we can chat about it? I see a question about Laying The Foundation here from Joan. Joan. If you're stuck in like a module or something, this is a great opportunity for you to get support on one of the LTF focus support calls. Because that's exactly what those are for this is more like a general business question. things. So if you have a question outside of like, something that's happening in the program tagged on in the Facebook group, and she can help you with whatever it is that you're stuck with, or Nicole, and our LTF coaches are there to support you in that. Okay. Awesome, perfect.
We have a current issue. She here.
Did you unmute yourself? What's your name?
Maria. Maria,
do you want to unmute yourself?
Hi, um, can you hear me? Yes. Okay. All right. Sorry. I'm, I'm hopefully my English is good enough. I know, my question is a bit weird. But I've done a previous cause with someone in the States as well. And I loved it. And I'm kind of implementing some of the things that that you advise, which are great. I'm very much into email marketing, I think it's the best thing ever. But I do find difficult like I'm, I'm in Spanish, obviously, Spanish customers are very different from British and very different from American. So I'm just thinking if in the causes anyone? Well, it kind of Yeah, knows about the European market, I find it hard to hear
that. So do you have? Have you defined the shopping habits of like your Spanish customer? Like what do you do? You're saying they're different? How are they different? I can identify herself?
I think it's more how you address them, like when you communicate with them, social media or email, email, mainly, how they are what they need, and what how are they they are, I think, I think britches are quite like not very fussy, kind of I find them good customers as American or Spanish or the European kind of harder. But, yeah, I'm very interested in the cause. I'm just thinking, I hear all these successful stories. And they all seem to be from us. And I'm thinking of, is it something that happened to me because Nigeria is a bit different, very different. Very niche.
So, to me, there's a combination of things going on here. It's, there's a slight mindset issue here. And I don't mean to be like, to sound disrespectful or something. Because what I mean by that is that you can reach any customer that you want, in the way that works for the end consumer. But what we need to start with is like, what are their buying habits? Because saying that they're fussy, that to me just means that you're going to have to give them a little bit more hand holding and communicate with them. Maybe if the Spanish customer is not as much of a point and click maybe it's an they're more opportunity based, like they will respond to an email but you have to get on a call with them. And then they'll buy is that worth it to you like to make a sale?
Yeah, and I yeah, thank you for what you're saying you're not free. Anything is really good. I think, I think in a more segmentation, yeah, instead of just treating everyone the same, or just assuming that everyone's gonna react the same Yeah,
yeah. And so as far as like buying consumerism and buying behavior like, that is all stuff that you're gonna have to measure on your end about what happens, I don't necessarily think it's different from like, it's like saying someone who is living in an urban area who has like, or a city like a big city who has a very high disposable income versus someone who lives in the country who is living paycheck to paycheck, and like, they have different buying habits. And like, the person who's living in the city, who you think might have be more high maintenance probably isn't even going to blink twice about buying something online, where the person who's living in the country who has just very little disposable income, is probably going to be a lot more high maintenance, because that's all the money that they wouldn't have to spend on that product. So they're going to need more information. And so it's just really understanding the your customer. And I would have a hard time believing that every single person in Spain is No. It just might be the people that you're attracting. Or it might be your price point. I don't know, what's your price point? You said it's very special jewelry? Yeah. Is it high price point
is not high? is not high at all. In UK, it would be high in Spain. Yeah, it depends.
Obviously, Spanish people, really your customers, or maybe you target just people in countries wouldn't be so expensive.
I love to target everyone. I'll be moving back to Spain in a couple of years. I had business for 10 years. So I know them very well. But I think what you're saying is making me think more Yeah, is really helping me. I'm gonna think more of a strategy then. Yeah, so I'd love to do the course.
Yeah, we'd love to have you I can't say that. We're gonna say like, oh, there's specific, different training for the European market. What we will tell you is we'll help you like work through some of these issues and the coaching. Does that make sense? Yeah, it
does. It does make sense. Yeah. Yeah.
Thank you so much for being brave and coming on. Because the really big thing about this program is, we could turn this into a standalone online sales program where you just take a course and stuff like that. And we actually did try to at one point, because it, let me how do I say this? Nicely. It's not an easy program to deliver. Because we do we have other live programs, and we're running them simultaneously, it is a lot of work for me and the coaches to show up live twice a week, and run the other stuff that we're doing at the same time. But what we do know is that when people are, have their feet held to the fire, and they're coming in and getting coached on a weekly basis and learning something new, and then being encouraged, because I can't say forced, but like encouraged to implement it, it moves you into action, and you get a lot more done than just doing a standalone course, because the mentality is that, oh, I can just learn this, but I'll come back to it later. Versus like, Oh, I gotta get this done by Tuesday, so I can get the feedback on the work before then. And it, it works. Like, I would love to scale this model. And what I mean by that is to be able to, like, bring more people in and get more coaches to, like, support us, because it does work so well. And that's why, you know, we had the panel yesterday, or two days ago, whenever we had the panel. And the students were like, everyone had kind of a different result. And the students were all like, yeah, I would do it again, like even the ones who may be like their business grew to 25%, which is great. I think it's fantastic. Because we just ended the last round a couple months ago, it hasn't even been like a year we we did it in though, in the fall last year. But what they say is like, you know, the mindset moving into action, like being held accountable to do the work, like changed everything for them. And it snapped them out of these bad habits that they were experiencing where they were just like putting off success cedar door, play design the saying that's what I need. Yeah, well apply to the program, then head on over to flourish, thrive academy.com forward slash T yc. And that's really the beauty of this. It's like we are moving you into action.
It's a weekly accountability partner, it doesn't get much better.
And we also have accountability groups and all that stuff, which is amazing.
Yeah, okay, perfect. I think this is a good question. In general for like everybody that's listening. It says what is a reasonable repair and exchange policy for a small handmade business with limited or one of a kind pieces? I know you've spoke on this before, but I think it's always really helpful for people. Yeah, so I've been doing no returns or exchanges, but I also want to take care of the people and make sure that they Other pieces long term and trust our business,
I think that if you don't have a return policy, even like a seven day or two week return policy, you're going to really slow sales because like, what if it doesn't fit, like, so I have pretty big risks, like, I'm not a really big person, but I have like really big risk, I can tell you like how many times and my hands are really big, like, rings don't fit or they're not comfortable, or like putting a bracelet on, like, it's hard to get over my hands like, or like, it's really tight on my wrist because whoever made it has like a teeny tiny wrist, you know, it's like, there's a lot of things that don't fit right or like someone tries it on. And it looks cute on the model, but it feels tight around their neck, they don't like it. So I think not having a return policy with even if it's a short window is going to really work against you. You can have parameters around that. Like it has to still have the tags and like, you know, be packaged nicely like in returned in the condition that it was sent. But I think that is very important. First Second, a repair policy, I think, depends on the kind of jewelry you have. Like, for me I do custom work. People want really delicate things these days, diamonds fall out. So it's really at my discretion. If I replace it complimentary or not, like, if it's been years, then I usually charge the customer to replace the diamond. But if it was like three months, and they knocked it in, the little piece of one of the mele came out, I'll probably it doesn't cost me that much. It's like maybe, you know, 25 bucks or something and plus the setting fee. And I, I just replace it because that's the service I deliver, you know, and someone spends like 510 $15,000 on a ring like $25 to repair is not going to break the bank for me. And so I would have like a certain period, like maybe a six month repair period for complimentary and or a year I used to do a year when I had my production line. And then after that, you would still repair the pieces. But there might be a small fee, because jewelry is something that will break. And that's the communication that you have with your customers. And unless your DSP I call it desired sharing proposition is that the jewelry isn't going to break. Or if your DSP is that you have sweat proof jewelry, and it's not going to turn out and it tarnishes, then you're not like really standing by what you promised the customer the promise of your brand. So those are the things that you need to take into consideration. And Chelsea, what's your return and repair policy?
I was just going to tell you that because I feel like people get scared about offering something the banner on our website says that we have a 30 day money back, no hassle prepaid shipping label return policy, we might get two returns a year ever. And we have a high volume of orders. So just because you offer it, I think it just it makes people trust you a little bit more. But that doesn't mean that they're gonna like over utilize it. I mean, yeah, people can just request a free return label from me and they can send their business back if they like it. And it happens maybe twice a year out of 1000s of orders.
Yeah, they get a free so for people on Instagram. So they get Chelsea has a 30 day free return policy with a prepaid label, no hassle guarantee. She knows that they're not going to get that many returns when they offer that but it helps sell sell more because people aren't worried about it. Plus her price point, especially in her price point because it is a lower price point. People if they buy a $48 bracelet stock or whatever. They're like, Oh, it's just $40 like I was give it as a gift like that. It's like the mentality if they don't like it for
them, it really is.
And so there's a pricing psychology that if something's $300 And they don't like it, they're probably they might return it. So there, but that should be okay. Like it's shouldn't be a bad thing.
Yeah, I don't want people to keep something to hate. Yeah, like that's not my goal. Yeah,
exactly. Someone's asking, can I take Laying The Foundation and join T yc. At the same time? That's a great question. I would not recommend it. Here's why. If you think you need Laying The Foundation, I would take it first I will take the program, implement it dive in right now. Get it done. And then be ready for the two IC if we do it again. I could sit if I wanted to just make if I was in it to just make money I would say sure take both but you will be so overwhelmed and you'll be having meltdowns the whole time because it's a lot to do both. So I definitely recommend that you focus on one first implement it and then move on to the next.
Do you think free shipping is important to offer?
Do you think it's important to offer free shipping? So no. But it is if it doesn't cost you much to ship if it's only like $5 you can just add it into the price of the cost of your goods into your into your so let's say something you're pricing something at $50 Maybe charge $60 and offer free shipping cuz it's there's a value add to that. I don't I think like, but if you're doing free shipping, it should be the slow boat. And it I would say like five to seven days tell them it'll be five to seven days. A lot of people want it quicker and so they'll upgrade to priority or other types of shipping. And that's a good moneymaker as an upsell. Someone's asking, Is it beneficial official use Shopify pay, shop pay is the number one reason why I buy so much online. Same if you want to attract shoppers, they are here for convenience. And I, I was on another website where I had to pull my credit card out or remember my Pay Pal password for my personal account the other day and I abandoned ship because I was like, I don't, I can't do this. And I think it was the type of product that maybe that they weren't I couldn't use shop pay, but I think I didn't buy it from them because I was just like it looked like a Shopify checkout. But there was no shop Pay button. And I had to find my credit card and the thing and I didn't buy it. So I will tell you that your conversion rate will increase significantly if you accept shop pay. And I think you can even accept shop pay on different website platforms and embed it. I'm not 100% sure on that. But I have one of my private clients looking into that because she has great SEO on her website. And they've been thinking about moving to Shopify, because they're tired about some of the functionality. But they're, they're weighing whether or not it's worth it because of their SEO already on the website. And I said why don't instead you look into being able to use shop pay as a payment option. And that might solve the problem you're having. Because the checkout with shop pay is so simple.
There's a couple of questions that were like similar people who do like this person says I sell bridal jewelry and I've had people wear my pieces for the wedding and return it so I don't have a return policy now. And then somebody else does one of a kind custom pieces. What would you
whatever kind is different if they're custom. That's a different story. I wouldn't accept a return on that. Yeah,
we do. No returns on like, I'm not gonna take back a necklace with your kid's name on it.
Yeah, I mean, unless there was a faulty like, I don't I don't accept returns. Yeah, okay, mine, but everything I do is custom one of a kind, and it's expensive. So I don't like it's, but you know, here's a good example. I had a customer, I warned him against this ring design that he wanted. He wanted this inlay design. We aren't experts at inlay like stone inlay. And he wanted to use very soft stones Melkite onyx, like things that could break and in the design that he wanted, instead of it being like a signet ring like most men's inlay rings are that you see on the market, he wanted the inlay all the way around, and he wanted it in a certain way. We warned them several times that it was going to break first spring broke within a year. So I had warned him in advance that the stone might break. And if it breaks, I can't replace it. It's not my fault. Second ring broke. And I had to basically tell him, like, I'll redo it for you. I'm not going to he wanted a refund. And I said no refund. Here's why we warned you of the issue with this stone from the beginning. And you still want it to move forward. My jewelers warned me against it. And I tried to warn you and you kept pushing for it. So we did it. So what I offered him because he did each of the Rings was $4,500 that were very expensive, is that I would remake it. I mean, I'm not going to make any money on the second one, but that I would remake the ring in a different design that was not going to break. So I wanted to either recreate the idea with enamel or recreate it with a stronger stone in a different design or recreate it with knowing ammo are no other stones with just by metal. And so I'm going to replace the ring for him. Just a new ring. So I'm out but like at the same time, I designed his wife's engagement ring. And they've also referred me other people. So it's like more of a relationship thing. I'm out I'll be out several $1,000 But at the end of the day it's worth it to make that person happy. So the bridal situation that's a different story. Like yeah, also when is the bride buying their jewelry? Are they buying it like right before like the day before the wedding? Like maybe you offer a try it out with your dress for seven days and then return it kind of policy. But after that period, no returns like in and if it's worn like I would have something where it's like it's really tricky to get it like off the card or something like that. So if it's not returned in the same fashion, or there's something that they just really can't wear it. They may Like without taking the thing off.
Yeah, like babies zip ties, you could like use the tiny little like, jewelry ties and put your card on it. So it's obvious if it's been like removed. Gotta get crafty.
Oh, someone's saying I make them tell them me their wedding date there. Yeah, that's a good idea. That's
a great idea.
I've been doing white label pieces by working to develop my first collection. I'm no Goldsmith, unfortunately, I've been working with China, which is long and effective and hard to monitor. But I'm close to NYC, what do you recommend? As far as getting pieces done?
Yeah, I would love to get your thoughts. You know, I'm just trying to develop my first collection. I don't want to spend too much money. But at the same time, you know, working with China has been cost effective, but it's just not been the quality. And I'm just wasting a lot of time on back and forth. And you know, getting to pieces. They're not really super high end. Yeah. I mean, I would go to the diamond district and look for a manufacturer that can do small batch for you. I don't know exactly. Who's around. What kind of materials do you use? So most of the gold platinum? Why gold? Oh, so
real stuff? Check out Riva? Manufacturing. Riva? Thank you so much. Yeah, they're online, and they have Instagram and stuff like that. They could produce the samples. As far as during the production, they might, it might require quantity, but like, talk to them. And there are some other like maybe precision jewelers, or I would just look for manufacturers in New York City and go there and talk to people and ask who they'd recommend. So there's like all different sorts of people like, like Riva is actually a professional manufacturing house. So, but I'm gonna tell you it's developing samples is not cheap, in gold and platinum. So I definitely wouldn't use China for China wouldn't be my go to for fine jewelry, I would go to if you're going to produce overseas, I would probably produce that kind of stuff in in Bali or India, there are a lot of questions about return policies. What else do you have that you're saying for chiming
in? Yeah, um, this? This is a good question. Because it's, it goes into what you were just talking about. It says, How do you explain to customers that you have a team that helps you make the jewelry, and it's not just you? I think that's a really big issue when people are saying that they're the artist, and that they can make the pieces that they have a hard time finding the line between I make this but I have people helped me make this can you kind of explain how you would handle that?
Yeah, I would call yourself a designer. When I came on the scene, this homemaker thing was a very new thing for me, because like, we had always referenced ourselves as jewelry designers, when I started in, in the 90s, even the people who are makers like that you're a jewelry designer, like you're designing and making the jewelry. And so you position yourself like, I am like a maker at heart and a designer, and my business is busy. So I have other people helping me produce the pieces, but the designs that their designs are all originally made by me. In my opinion, people just like the jewelry, they like to know the brand story, they like to know what the messaging is. They don't really care if someone you're taught to make your style of jewelry, or you is making it if they like it, what they care about is sporting a small business. Now if it's being manufactured in China, that's like a different story. They might not like, want to like they might really care about buying things like in their country, or, you know, there was a big movement years ago to be like made in the US or the movement for handmade. Handmade is a very generic USP now and I call it a USP because everyone's doing it. It's there's nothing special about it anymore. It was maybe special 25 years ago when it was a thing, but now it's like people like everyone's Etsy destroyed that and like people call themselves handmade jewelry business owners that aren't even really doing can make jewelry. Like it's, it's, I don't know. So my opinion is that I would focus around having people support your small business, instead of like you being the person that made the pieces. And I think another way to position it to you is like you have a team of artisans, who, who you're employing to help reproduce your vision for your company. How does that feel? Because that all of that is good. It's like you're filling the economy, you're feeling creativity, you're feeling all the things that like keep movement going in the world, I guess is the best way to put it.
Do you recommend having a production assistant sign a nondisclosure agreement to help keep them from sharing your designs and work with other 100% 100%
Non Disclosure? I would also often sign a non compete although in a lot of states that's really hard to enforce, but the non disclosure and I would have an attorney look over it or write it down Should it be very clear that any proprietary design that they learned from working at your company cannot be reproduced for their own benefit or to work for someone else. There is a little convoluted line there because like if you're teaching someone how to solder and then go solder for someone else, that's not like a proprietary process, like millions of people know how to solder jewelry. But if you like, for instance, I can't remember this designers name, but she figured out some way to like slice open diamonds and put other diamonds inside it like it was this crazy thing. And she was one of the original people who did those kind of like shaker style pieces. And like that was literally a proprietary process. So like if someone went on and like, she had someone working for her, and they, they made it and reproduce it as their own, she could potentially sue them. So there is there is going to be like a fine line on what is actually covered, but just have them sign it to cover you. And I've shared the story before but one of my first team members, I did a lot of production, I hired a lot of people from art schools. And so they would be in a lapidary program or jewelry arts program or some sort of metal smithing program. And they I'd bring them in, and I wasn't even doing metal smithing at the time, but I would teach them my process. And they would help me produce the jewelry when I would get these big orders. They several of them wanted to start their own businesses after so I did mentor them. But one of them actually took a design technique that I taught her and incorporated that into her designs. And when I saw it because she was selling to Bettina Dunkin, which was like a store that I had sold to in the past, I was like, Oh my gosh, she knocked me off. But at the same time, I was like, three collections ahead of that one. And I wasn't doing that work anymore. So I just let it go. It didn't really bother me too much. Because I knew this girl wasn't really interested in growing a big business. Like she became a mom and then basically dropped stop doing her jewelry company for the most part. So it's not like it was a big thing. So you pick your battles, I guess is the thing I'm trying to say. But always protect yourself. Great question.
This might be a good one, at what point is it worth it to hire someone to help you in the studio,
I do not think that the highest use of a person's time is sitting behind the bench and making. And the reason for that. And this is if you want to continue doing that you can take or leave what I'm gonna say. The reason for that is bench work, jewelry making all of that stuff is a trainable skill. And it's easy to find people who you can pay an hourly wage, that's a wage that's affordable, you know, assuming assuming that they're good enough and pricing your product properly. It's easier to find that than like a really good salesperson. And people especially like wholesale accounts, consumers, they all want to buy from the designer anyway. So if you don't know how to market and sell and grow your business, you're not going to be able to like coach someone into doing that. themselves. For people who can afford it, I offer one on one consulting, it is very expensive. And I bring people and and I work with, they're usually brands that are doing like a million dollars or have or more or have plans to scale really quickly. So we got a an inquiry from a designer that I knew back in the day. And she had a very successful fashion brand. It scaled like she sold it probably made millions and millions of dollars from this brand. I knew who she was she didn't really know who I was. And she was but she was coming to me for help. Because the way she built her business was not in any of these ways that we're doing today. And she had an idea for a different kind of brand that was like more high touch, and personalized and customized like so like custom jewelry, but for a very specific niche. And she came on and she had an offer to work with a marketing agency. And she was basically like grilling me like hardcore, like, well, what are my deliverables from this coaching type of thing? And I was like, Well, I'm gonna help you learn how to like market and sell your company. And like, it depends on what your objectives are like, I have all these programs and courses that are going to teach you. But because she was like going back and forth about like, do I hire this marketing agency versus like working with someone else? Or learning how to do it myself. And the whole thing was interesting, because she thought that like she just needed this big social media presence and that was going to grow our business. And as we learned in this supercharger sales challenge, like that's a nice thing, but it's not going to be the thing that actually grows your business. The point that I'm saying here is that initially, this woman had a great understanding and approach of what to do next to grow. She understands that she needs to understand See on how the marketing works, whether or not she does it is another thing. And so in the beginning, you have to be you have to understand how everything how to get your business out there. Because if you don't, you can't measure the success of someone you hire. I mean, sure, you can look at sales, but they can gaslight you and say like, oh, this is an average thing like it should cost $58 to acquire a lead for your 50 $57 product. You know, you're losing money. And maybe that's true. But if you don't know, and you haven't tested anything, then how can you measure success, like I think everyone here needs to know, enough to make them dangerous, whether it's your skill set in business, like, I should not be the operations person in my company, I'm terrible at it. And we haven't had an operator, we're finally putting an offer into an operations manager today. And we've had someone kind of acting in the role, but she's also my project manager and helping with marketing. So we're slipped very thin. I should not be doing marketing. I know what needs to happen in the marketing department. But I'm terrible at it. So I've had to learn all these things. But that's not my highest and best skill set. And so the reason why I'm telling you this is that we're all going to have things that we're strong in and good in. And the crafting of the jewelry is important. But it is an easy skill set to hire out. So the way that I would hire and to answer the question succinctly is this, I would get enough sales to where I was at bandwidth with production, then it would bring find a production and manufacturing solution. So whether that's bringing in someone to work in your office, hiring it out to a manufacturer, or a piece worker, whatever it is, finding someone overseas, it really depends on your business, that's the first place I would start, the next place I would start would be finding an office assistant. So someone who can help with shipping, customer service, packaging the orders, and doing administrative work that is once again low leverage and not the best use of your time. And then after that, after you start growing, then you would determine at that point, as your business is growing, you would determine like, Okay, where do I need the most help? Is it marketing? Is it sales, is it some of these other areas, and then you evaluate at that point, there are times when you're going to have to push through really uncomfortable spots. Like if you don't have the cash flow or revenue to bring on team like you're gonna just have to do at all until you can. And so until you can hire on. So what I would recommend at that point is just get your business to a point where it's financially profitable enough that you can bring in extra team, because the purpose of bringing on team is not that it's an extra expense for your company. It's that it helps you grow. People like beautiful things. They love adornment. They love women love jewelry, there's a reason why there are millions of jewelry designers out there and jewelry makers, people love it, it's like, so don't feel bad for offering your products to people to buy, they want to buy it. And it's the same thing. It's like you're solving a problem for them. Maybe it's a confidence issue. Maybe it helps them feel better about themselves, maybe cheers them at maybe it's like something that goes with their date night outfit, like all of these things are real things that like add value to someone's lives. And so you're solving a pain point for them whether or not you think it's like a pain point or not.
I did several shows several trade shows that weren't very successful. i They wholesale sales, but not a whole lot. No, it was like treat pop up shops and retail trade shows.
Okay,
so I have a lot of inventory, I have a lot of inventory, because you know, to set up a table and I make the bracelets and statement necklaces, out of beading and things like that. So I wanted to know, the best way to sell it online is that, you know, I don't want to just plop it all on there. It's gonna be confusing to the customer. So do successive collections, or like break it down into, you know, some other way?
I mean, that would really depend on like, the variety, the variations on the stock, like, I'd have to look at it. But like, at a high level, there's a couple of ways that you can do it. I mean, obviously, we would teach you how to do that. And then at YC. But if you have reproducible items or things that are you have more than one of I would put them on your website, you could do a collection, you could release them in collection drops, you could host a live virtual selling event or trunk show. I mean, these are all where you in the supercharger sales challenge. I would work on all those strategies, I think. But if you don't have I think the issue though is if you don't have a list of people to market to, it becomes that becomes a challenge. So there I would do a grassroots initiative to reach out to your network of alumni. And we treat this as like one of the first trainings that we do. It's a grassroots initiative to build your email list and to sell product to alumni network for free Social Network, friends and family network like everyone you know, and try to build your offer and audience off of that and then build your list because, I mean, you need people to market to you. That's like, the big problem. If you haven't been focused on that, then that's something that you need to start with.
Okay. Okay. And my second question is, you know, all this inventory that I have, it's, I also want to go in a completely different direction, but I want to offer more like wire wrapped and more metalworking pieces. Is that something that I can also Like, say I did the my bead bracelets in, in a collection online? And in addition to like, the trunk shows and things like that? Can I drop the metal? The, the, the collection that contains more metal? At the same time? Or should I wait?
Yeah. I mean, if it works with the other pieces, like beaded jewelry, wire wrapped jewelry, like all that stuff, like wire wrapping, I think like beading, they kind of all go together, I don't think that it's they're really separate categories. So I don't think that that's going to be an issue for you, Camille, releasing those products in at the same time. My concern is you probably have like way too, too many ideas or too much like it's it might not be focused enough, I don't necessarily know without looking at it. The focus piece is really important. And so if you do have a lot of inventory right now, I would just work on maybe hosting some events where you can get people together either in a virtual in person or other type of setting where it's people who are coming to shop your jewelry and offload it that way. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. And as far as the design goes, like, I think that those things go together.
I do think it would be good for you to go over what the requirements of T YC are, since some people seem to possibly be more LTF versus t yc. So phi that again, I think that that would be helpful.
Okay, awesome. I'm gonna answer a question on Instagram, then I'm gonna go to your question, Chelsea. And then we have another one that just popped in the chat. Jess is asking, what would be a good starting point for finding manufacturer to start your jewelry business? So most of the people, most people start by manufacturing their own products that we support.
The last one that came in it says, Tracy, how do you feel about joining with a known investor mainly to increase brand awareness, I'm nervous about potentially having to split my profits down the road, or involve the investor and business decisions that could possibly end up in a legal battle.
I think getting an investor in your business is not really a smart idea, unless they're really going to scale your business and be an active partner in your growth. If they're just, there's so much to it, it's not an easy answer. We're working with someone, we were coaching someone in the fall, who took on an investor early on, and they gave, they invested like maybe 250,000, the person sold like millions of dollars of worth of jewelry, and at this point, but now she's having this, she has this very awkward relationship with this person who owns half of her company from an early stage investment, and they're not doing anything to help her grow. So my question to you is like, what is the objective for this? And like, are they going to be actively helping you grow? Or is this something that you're gonna continue doing the same thing, I would rather just have you take out a loan for your business or something like that, and have you own it, and hire consultants or work with us or something like that to help you scale the business. So I have another business idea. And like, I might take on an investor for that. But that's because it requires like a massive physical location, that would be millions and millions and millions of dollars to buy. And the concept is huge. So there's different objectives for it, but I don't know that I would necessarily want that person to be active in the growth of the company. So you have to really think through all of what you're trying to do. Like, how is that partnership going to help? And if you're already thinking about, like, the legal battle you're gonna have at the end of the day, like, is it really worth like, is the objective there? And if they're gonna blow you up, like you say, they have the brand awareness, what have they done for other people that you've seen who they've invested in? So Amanda's asking, I have $100,000 email, 100k emails from a work that from my work that weren't used source from a few email companies. Do you recommend doing anything with that list? Or is it a big no for brand building? Someone who has not raised their hand and said they wanted to be on your list like, you can try marketing to them, but like, how many of you have ever gotten an email from like, a random email from like, footlocker and you're like, I've no ever bought anything from footlocker
so angry when I unsubscribe, I'm like, how did you get this?
They're not gonna it's not going to be a higher quality lead. Another designer we worked with she was part she participated in this bridal show her jewelry, which I didn't really understand cuz she was designing like resin and really bold jewelry that didn't really seem like part of the bridal industry like it didn't like there was no connection for me with those two things. And she participated in this bridal show, apparently, the show went well, but part of being in the show was that she got to have the 8000 email list of the attendees. She's like, Oh, I have a massive email list. But no one's buying from my email. I'm like, Well, what's going on? She told me that and I'm like, Yeah, because they didn't opt in, to want to buy your jewelry like it's. So she has this massive email list that she's paying for each contact. But it's like she has a less than a 1%, like open rate. So it's not, it's not necessarily helpful, like if you want to do something with them. I mean, there's there are also a lot of restrictions against just adding someone to your email list who didn't opt in these days. Stacy saying I'm not sure if this is something you can touch on. But I want to start buying materials wholesale. And I don't know who is reputable or not. Where do I start? Well, if you're in one of our programs, we give out vendor lists of people that we've sourced from other companies. But do you have friends who are in the jewelry industry in Canada, I don't I don't know off the top of my head, a lot of like startup people to buy wholesale materials from in Canada, we do have them on our vendor list. But in the US the wholesale companies that people buy from in the startup phase are typically Rio Grande, Nina designs and Halstead. So if you're in the US, those are great places to start. Cindy asked two questions that I think are helpful, what's a good open rate for your emails, open rates are really hard to measure right now, because of the iOS updates. So a lot of people are seeing like 60% open rate, which isn't a real indicator of the open rate, because the way it works now is if an email lands in an inbox, and someone literally opens their phone and sees the email without opening it, that counts is an open rate. So even if they just delete it and never open it, so they're a little bit harder to track. So what I would rather have you do is measure that, but just see what the open rates are and then measure click through rate. So click through rate, and average click through rate is typically about 3%. So if you're getting higher than that, it's better. And what I want is good. So Toby, one of our previous students in our, in our programs, Toby has been doing some email marketing for her and she's getting upwards of 9% Because she's a 9% click through rate, because she's been regularly in a marketing cadence with her emails. And she doesn't get upset when people unsubscribe, she's really focusing on nurturing that list. And she's getting like 9%. Now when asked Chelsea because she has like she's like an anomaly and has raving fans. What are your opening? click throughs?
I know our open rate, because I looked at it last week, I think it was like 8.9 or 8.7 or something.
Okay, so it's measuring it more in a real that's your click through? That's my click
through sorry. Yeah, I don't know if it we just started using the Shopify email, and we're switching. So you don't know if it actually shows me. Okay. It was high. Whenever you asked me to look at it, then I knew it was
high. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if it was like 60%. Yeah, as well. You also
have trained people to how like on your phone, you can make it like a alert, tap or like almost pop up like a text on your watch on your phone. When somebody emails you like you start with your emails do that to me. We've we've trained our customers to star our emails so that they never miss an email.
Oh, wow.
Hi, yeah.
So do you recommend taking out a loan to fund your business and to get it off the ground? It's really up to you. I mean, I think the best way to fund your business is through cash flow. So start making sales. I would take loans out to fund your business with caution. I'd have a plan on like, what is the business right? What will this money helped me make? And think about it that way.
And not from a startup point because you hate to put money into something that could not result in sales?
Yeah, I mean, if you wanted to put like five or $10,000 into like starting your business, that's not gonna like make or break most people who are making at least like 50 to $75,000 a year in a corporate career. So I mean, it might take a little bit of time to pay off but like 25%, but also what's the interest like 25% interest is high. So you got a 0% credit card for a year, and it had a $10,000 limit, and you could use that too and you use that money to grow your business but you paid it off within the year like something like that, to me would be worth it, but you have to be very careful about paying it off. Someone's asking, I'm hard. I'm set up on a couple of wholesale marketplaces. I've been directing my customers to those sites because they were linked on my wholesale interest page. Is it bad to mention another business on my platform? You're paying? I'm sure you're playing that other wholesale companies like a percentage of your sales for them to be on the platform? Why wouldn't you just take the wholesale order? I would do use other platforms as a way to collect people who just find you not as a way to send your traffic. So they're already inquiring to you. You take that wholesale order, get on the phone with them and show them your product. Do you like a virtual appointment? Don't send them somewhere else. Yeah, someone's saying Bella findings in jam packed in downtown LA is great for findings. They have a website, Bella finings is one of the places that I used to buy from all the time when I was doing that kind of jewelry.
I did want to point out, Danielle said that they use their tax return to start their business. I think that's a really great, it's a great idea. That's a great way to use money that you already weren't really accounting for to go ahead and dive into something.
The wholesale places are Rio Grande. We just had a Bella findings here JAM PACKED CGM. Some of them will be harder, they have like higher quantities that you have to buy Rio Grande Hall stead and Nina designs. And then someone put some Canadian brands in here, Lacy tools working silver, European design. And just when Canada All right, you guys, I am super excited. I want to remind you get your application in by today or tomorrow, if you want to get in on Early Bird bonuses for the T yc. If you apply by today and join by the 31st, you will get a 497 website, one on one website audit by our website, conversion specialists. And they will take a look at your website. And they'll pick it apart and tell you all the reasons why people are bouncing, why they're not shopping and all those things so that you can fix it, which is awesome. And then ADK is asking what if we aren't ready for the T yc? Should we wait till you announce the next one? Well, I would get the application in because I feel like sometimes think that they're not people think they're not ready. And it's really more of a fear thing. Like if I have to commit to myself, like what's gonna happen. And honestly, I mentioned this earlier, we're not 100% Sure, if we're going to run the T yc. Again, we say this every time, we are in a lot of talks about how we're restructuring the business this year, it's our main focus about streamlining our offerings. Over the last four years, we've retired a bunch of programs and courses. So we're, we're always in the evaluation phase. And we won't know if we're going to run it again until after the session is over. So you can wait. But I can't guarantee that we'll do it again. And in fact, we did retire it for a while. And we were retired it for an entire year and then brought it back. So that's your choice if you want to wait. But if you're not sure, just get the application. Oh, Ali saying Does the TYT keep you in the diamond insiders Facebook group when LTF ns? No, that's a separate thing, Ali, but you can join the diamond insiders. After tea yc is over, you're gonna get a ton of support. We do that to YC community and slack instead of Facebook. Because we have more control over the conversation. And we feel like people get distracted when they're on Facebook. And we want to keep you focused on the content so but you can join the diamond insiders after the T yc. Or you can join and do both. It's up to you. Because the community of the of the diamond insiders is pretty awesome. So Jocelyn saying I would love to join but I'm still doing Laying The Foundation, fill out the application and we can talk with you. If you're not far enough along we would recommend completing Laying The Foundation first. Like if you're only a module tool, too, I wouldn't start Tmic but if you're close to the end and you can kind of move through quickly it might be okay. So it really depends on where you are. Alright guys, thank you so much. Ciao. Have a good one. Thank you so much for listening to the show today. This is Tracy Matthews, signing off until next time, if you'd like more information about our train your customers to buy from you online program. You have about a week longer to apply, you can head on over to flourish thrive academy.com forward slash T YC to get your free application in today. I'll see you next time.
