And I, you know, I was just ready. And I know that you follow a little bit of like Abraham and and Esther Hicks. And so she always says, you know, getting ready to be ready to be ready. And I think that's just what I've done for years and then I was ready and I said, Okay, this is where I want to go and I'm ready to invest. And I just knew that you and and Laying The Foundation was the program was was sort of where I needed to go in terms of trying to figure things out.
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 384. Hey there, it's Tracy Matthews. Welcome to today's episode. If you are building a jewelry, business and retirement, I think you are going to love this conversation today. With one of my students, Rena Lubin, we had a blast talking a little bit more about her business and how she participated in one of our boot camps called the jewelry brand makeover boot camp last year. Plus, she also talks about our experience taking our program, Laying The Foundation, and how her business grew. So I'm excited to interview Reena because she's going to talk about how she's selling out of collections, how she really up, leveled her website game, and started getting random strangers to buy from her online and so much more. You're gonna love this episode today. And before I introduce Reena, though, I wanted to just talk a little bit more about the jewelry brand makeover boot camp. We are bringing it back this year. It we are getting started on Monday. And I'm very excited about this because this is our once a year bootcamp, we really put our heart and soul into it. And we already have some really great community happening in the Facebook group. And this year, one of the reasons why I'm very excited is because uplevel the content, and added two additional trainings that are super valuable, we're going to be helping you really map out your year and thinking through what needs to happen in order to reach your goals. And I'm going to be walking you through how to stand out in a saturated market with a timeless story brand, so that you don't have to spend all your time on social media, or ignore your kids or think that you just have to throw another sale in order to get people to buy from you. This is really about your branding your messaging, setting attainable goals and taking the actions that are going to help you reach those goals. So if you're someone who wants to get more traction this year, and really build their business and go all in, whether you're in retirement are just starting out either way, then we are here to support so head on over to flourish & thrive academy.com forward slash makeover and let's do this that's flourish. & thrive academy.com forward slash makeover. I'm also going to have a link in the show notes so you can capture it on the blog, or wherever you're listening to this podcast. So I'm gonna dive in to this episode, I love chatting with Reena, especially because, you know, I know a lot of people have had a career for their entire life, right? And then they're getting ready to retire. They have this passion for design and making jewelry and they want to go all in and actually make some money in their retirement. And so if that's you, or you've even thought about starting a jewelry business or you're in that phase of trying to grow your jewelry business, I think you'll really enjoy this interview with Rena but before I dive right in, I'm going to share a little bit more about Rina story. She's always been an artist and she started making jewelry. After a girls night out at a local boutique where they were making crocheted gemstone jewelry and acquaintance insisted commissioning other pieces for gifts from home. One thing led to another and she enrolled in a metal smithing class and fell in love. She lived in Alaska at that time and her husband was having health issues. Spending time hiking and in nature really helped me cope and then I realized that we're in nature and mountain inspired jewelry helped me cope when I didn't have the opportunity to be in nature as much so when they left Alaska, they moved to Florida and now you'll see her pieces inspired by oceans themes as well. So let's dive in to this episode with a Rena Lubin. Well I'm really excited to be interviewing another Laying The Foundation student I have Rena Leuven here of pure whimsy jewelry Rena, welcome.
I thank you, Tracy. Good to be here. I'm really excited
to talk to you today a little bit about your journey into the jewelry into jewelry. And to learn a little bit more about your path and To share with people who are listening who might be thinking about joining Laying The Foundation, just a little bit more about how you benefited from the program. Does that sound cool?
Yeah, yeah. So, first of all, I will say that I've followed you on your podcast for years. Like a long time, on and off, not like straight through, I would always sort of come back to it and then go away. I was working as a physical therapist, and then a little bit over here almost a year and a half ago, I retired. And, you know, listening to the podcast, and just feeling like I was spinning my wheels. And I was just ready. And I know that you follow a little bit of like Abraham and and Esther Hicks. And so she always says, you know, getting ready to be ready to be ready. And I think that's just what I've done for years. And then I was ready. And I said, Okay, this is where I want to go, and I'm ready to invest. And I just knew that you and and Laying The Foundation was the program was was sort of where I needed to go, in terms of trying to figure things out.
That's so exciting. Well, thanks for sharing all that upfront. I love that. That's amazing. And I love that you talked about Esther Hicks and Abraham Hicks because I listen to them all the time on my commute over to my work office like this is kind of an apartment, but I use it to work out at second stage video. And it's awesome. I was I was just listening to an interview that she did with Reed, Tracy have Hay House. And it was right after Jerry passed away. Yeah, talking about this exercise. Do you hear that?
Yeah, I've heard I probably heard that interview a couple of times. It's quite a few years old. But it's yeah, the napkin, you know, and when she does that, when that's that's always like, my issues. Even even now it's so much better at Laying The Foundation is the time thing. You know, like, there's just, you know, you don't have enough time, or Oh, where you don't have enough of something, you know. So yeah, the
cool part about that is so explain what the napkin thing is because I just opened my journal this morning. It's funny that you say that, and I came up to a page. It's like, what can I take care of today? And what can the universe take care of, for me? Something along those lines. And it's just brilliant. Because anytime you're overwhelmed, you can identify like, what are the most important things that you need to be doing that just to make your day? Great? And then what can you just release and let the universe take care of for yourself? And that goes with, I think, with any problem that we're having, because sometimes, I truly do believe that sometimes big problems come up, like in business and life like, you know, it's it's funny how things keep, like, I've been in a really big cycle of shedding right now. And so it's like, things keep coming up. And I'm like, Okay, what is this teaching me? What do I need to learn? What how is this on purpose for my highest good, and like, how is this actually serving me? And so I'm glad that you brought this up. Because this is a great topic for us to talk a little bit more about on this conversation. Because, you know, things happen for a reason you're listening to this podcast for a reason you found flourish and thrive for a reason. And if you follow the threads and understand like, what the reason is, and start to like, let the universe unfold that for you. bigger things open up, which is really cool,
right? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
I'm so glad you said that. Like,
yeah, that's great. Yeah, yeah.
So what So why did you leave your job as a physical therapist? Was it just that you were retiring? Like you were done? Or was it something
I was done? Yeah, no, no, I was retiring. I was 32 years. I was done. It's a long time. It was great. It's a creative field. I need you know, but I've always been an artist too. I mean, painted and drew as, as a kid, and even into adulthood, you know, stained glass, you name it. I've done it for the most part. But when I found metal smithing, yeah, I just knew, you know, I, you know, and I have like, 1000s of dollars worth of, you know, 10s of 1000s of equipment now and, like, you know, I just knew, yeah, it's one of those things. So
it's so fun to play with fire to there's something about it, like in a safe environment, obviously, it's like, you know, with a fire extinguisher nearby.
Yeah, soldering can be frustrating, but it's one of my favorite things to do. Absolutely superb. Absolutely. Yeah,
I know. I've always thought like I finally got rid of my torch. I remember this specifically. I was moving out of my apartment in the West Village in New York City. And then I was moving to a new apartment in Hudson Yards and it was kind of like the I made it apartment. I'm like, things are going great. Like I've kind of hitting my financial goals and stuff like that. And I was cleaning out my storage and there was like all these jewelry tools and I remember posting it and live in her Facebook group for flourish and thrive. And one of our students came up and picked up my save she came in like another student came and bought like all my soldering equipment. Like I was really bummed to let it go but I'm kind of like it's been sitting here for like, seven years and I haven't touched it. I'm probably not going to set it Anything up anytime soon I miss it. But that was a chapter for me. So back to you. How are you currently selling your jewelry?
So I'm doing sort of a little bit of everything I started, you know, friends and family, more friends and family. I don't have a huge family when I lived in Anchorage. And then I worked up the nerve to go into a local gallery. And this is actually really cool. So I Yeah, and they took my stuff. And initially, it's this is all sort of part part of that learning curve. I would sell maybe two pieces a month, but I started when I drop off new stuff, I really would start to talk to the gallery owner and we became good friends to anybody in Anchorage. Can Can I say the name of the gallery? Yeah, sure. Okay, so Joe smanos Gallery, and Cara, and Kara is one of the owners and just wonderful and you know, she really knew her clientele. And then gradually, you know, like, I started selling 10 to 15 pieces a month, you know, versus two. And then I just threw up a website, you know, did a Squarespace so I already have a website, and I had been doing some some live show, you know, live things here and there. But of course, nobody found my website, I could barely find my website, there was no SEO on it, which at the time, I had no idea what SEO was, I didn't know. So the only people that went to my website are the people who were like, you know, specifically looking for me. So then I sort of ended up mostly selling in the gallery and just people would actually buy jewelry off of me, which was just awesome. Like, and then just, you know, people that I knew and I was in a bank once and a woman bought my earrings off of me I was opening I was actually opening up an account for my square for my charger for the reader. Finally, yeah, and she bought the earrings. So now I'm really my goal is to increase those website sales and to so now website is more so an Instagram. Those are other avenues. I definitely have made some nice sales and met some wonderful, wonderful people and clients that I would call friends on Instagram, as well.
So great. I love that I'm going to dig a little bit deeper in that in a moment. But are you just selling in the one gallery or do you have other galleries
that you sell? So I have I have I have quite a few and Alaska. So we've since left Alaska. My husband wasn't doing well. He ended up getting diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and it just Yeah, it's he's doing great. The environment was just a little too tough. Yeah, the coal, the dark the ice, like they don't plow their roads for the sidewalks or the roads. Yeah. So you know, it was just time it was time to leave. But yeah, so I have like, you know, I've had some of come some have gone, you know, five to six galleries in Alaska. I've got a gal in New Hampshire, and then Jackson Hole, also one and then I'm working on something here to co op gallery. i It's one of those things that I've been invited to join. I just have to decide, you know, am I ready?
Yeah. Where do you live now?
No, I'm in Gainesville, Florida. North Central Florida. It's more of the country club life. Right? Which is good for my husband. You Yeah, it's been good. It's been good.
So how did you build momentum in the beginning when you were just starting? Because it sounds like you kind of were like winging it as you were going like what? Yeah,
I was winging it. I was totally winging it. And that's that was part of what we finally got me to sort of make, you know, it was a financial investment to make that investment in Laying The Foundation. I had sort of made the commitment to my jewelry. I was spending a lot of time on Instagram, I was working on my website. And still for the most part. Well, I was making a start being to build sales on Instagram, not on my website. Not really, and most I mean, some nice, still nice sales on the galleries. They really are what kept me going in a lot of ways. And I just, there were a couple of things. I felt like a I was spinning my wheels wasting a lot of time. IE, I just wasn't really proud. Like, I wasn't like I looked at my business and it wasn't what I wanted. I mean, I feel like I've been artistic. I felt like I'd heard you talk about collection times and I felt like my work was a bit all over the place. And so I wasn't happy with that, you know, you know, just just sort of all of that. I just didn't really have a roadmap. I didn't have clarity. And so it didn't feel good. You know, it just didn't feel good. And I finally just again, I was ready to be ready. And I finally just said eff it. I don't care if I make this money back. I I need to do this For me, you know, not not so. I mean, obviously, if you want to make your money back, because then I also paid somebody to do my website. And and it's paid off it has but you know, I just needed to feel I wanted to feel good about everything I was doing. So okay, so
it sounds like you were like, you just kind of didn't have a lot of direction and what you were doing Yeah, spending a lot of time trying to figure things out. And you just wanted someone to point you in the right direction.
Yeah, yeah, I needed clarity. So I needed that roadmap, that clarity, you know, how do I make this work and not waste a lot of time? I wasn't wasting money. I'm really good about that. I'm good at not over keeping inventory and all that stuff. That's great. Yeah, yeah, I had. So I have an amazing studio, which I don't it's, we have a mother in law suite that's attached to the house, but not in the house. It's got a full bath. So I don't pay rent on my studio, which is very helpful. But it's a it's a full studio. So So I was okay, there. But yeah, I just knew I, I, this was my business. I wanted to own it. And I wanted it. I wanted it to be something I was really proud of.
So how do you feel about it right now? Oh,
so much better. So and it's and what I'm coming to realize is obviously always going to be evolving. I absolutely love my website. I'm excited for the website, review. I'm sure that there's still things but I spent a lot of time in Laying The Foundation on chapter or module six, a lot of time. It slowed me down, but in a good way. You know, partly I paid somebody. And so you know, they take longer than they say they took about two months to migrate. So I started on square which had no it literally had no SEO and then when they bought Weebly or combined with Weebly, I did weave the Weebly site, and they did have SEO, but still nobody really found me, you know, minimal. So that was the second investment. You know, I invested in the program. And I said, Okay, well, if I'm going to do this, and I want more direct website sales, I need to switch to Shopify. And it's been, I've loved Shopify. I really have. It's been great. And, you know, I never had an FAQ page. I never had a policy, like all those other pages. I never had any of that, you know, so I just feel like it's a really professional, beautiful site. So and I have fun with it. Yeah, I mean, it takes time, but you know, I enjoy it.
Not so great. Do you have a before of your site, I interviewed someone Oh, last week, and she sent me a before and after ever website after that years, I can tell you how to do it. Go to the wayback.
machine.org WayBack, machine.org. Yeah, I'll
send it to you after Okay, thank you shot of your previous website based on the date that before if you look for it the day before you transferred over. And if you if you're able to find it, send it over. And I'll post it in the blog post for this and we can pay for it after. Okay. Yeah, I wanted to ask so for anyone who was listening, and you're wondering what she was talking about module six, module six is all about website development and setting your website up the right way. We even offered have a bonus in there. If you want to shop do a DIY Shopify site. Lauren are one of our LTF coaches and desire brand coaches over here is a Shopify expert. And she created this training so that you can easily set up your own Shopify store and not have to stress out about hiring someone if you don't have the funds like and so we're we want to help you do that. And that's included in the program, which is awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. So my next question for you is so you joined Laying The Foundation you sounds like you got a lot of benefit out of it. I want to know like some of the specific results like how are you feeling now? How's your business doing? What's happening? And what was your experience while taking the Laying The Foundation program?
How is it different it's different in a lot of ways. I mean, I'm really honing in again, this will probably be something I'll always be doing but really honing in on collections. You know, the website was huge so probably no, oh gosh, I get actually now and it wasn't right at the beginning. I mean, it definitely this Christmas season. I definitely got organic traffic and I just even after Christmas I had a gal email me through my website. Oh, I see this is I do a couple of things that are just like you know, for Christmas season or just winter like some snowflakes and these little gnomes. Anyway, one of the gnomes I was a mistake actually on the website. It was out of stock, but I make everything for the most part to order like the bulk of my just regular stuff on the website and then I've got collection ones that are, you know, get launched. But anyway, so she got in touch with me and I'm like, oh, you know, I didn't tell her that was a mistake I just said you know, it's seasonal I'd be happy to make you I'm but I would never get any organic. I got another one you know, right before Christmas a man wanting to get sort of mountain ocean theme are my two big niches specialty mountain, but nature themed in general. Anyway, he did a custom mountain and bear pendant for his wife, you know, we met and so I would never get these just completely didn't find me on Instagram. Just random people finding you totally organic, like, which is what I want. Yeah, so I am super excited about that. That's like a huge thing. I've definitely gotten organic sales. And I just have a sense that that'll keep growing, you know, finally that start to go around. My sales overall have increased for sure. You know, 2020 30%. But enough, it's definitely been significant enough. And yeah, so So again, that's, it's paid off, you know,
so your sales have grown, as you mentioned, 20 to 30%. Since May.
Yeah. And not even since May really since launching? Well, a little bit before launching the new website. But you know, early on, you're those first months that you have to realize, I mean, you're absorbing this material, you're still figuring it out. But at least you have that roadmap. It's like, okay, what is what is my why, like, those are my favorite modules. What's my why? I mean, I can't say dream client was my favorite, because it's still hard. But it's so necessary, but I love the what's my why. And, you know, what, what am I all about? Why am I doing this? And I love though, like module two, and all those and then the website? So yeah, so you're still figuring it out? So it's really probably been maybe since August. Yeah. You know, that's maybe maybe a little earlier. Maybe July? Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. So the first three months? Probably not. But again, you're just implementing
so? And how was your experience with the coaching and the community?
It's good. It's good. I love the coaches. I just love them as people. They're just so dear. And they're great coaches. Yeah. So I try and get on as many calls as I can. And if I don't get on the call, just because the time is not good. I listened to I put my headphones in and just listen to the replay. So I usually can pick something up from that. Yeah, they're great.
That's amazing. So is there anything else that shifted for you since taking the program?
I think, you know, just those the the tangible things are, you know, really having guidance and clarity, although you know, that that's ever evolving, especially on the collections and making pieces and how to do some of the things I'm right now I'm really trying to work on. Okay, how do I create more urgency? I see. And I'm not comparing myself, but I see some of these other jewelry, people on Instagram, who just they do these collection drops. And it seems like they all sell out right away. Oh, that's something else. I've only started the collection drops since doing Laying The Foundation, I did ask some questions to the coaches. And one collection completely sold out. And others I sold probably at least half I'm increasing my emails, that's, you know, trying to get those, get those up and doing probably these two a month before I was doing one a month, and then doing the lead up. So I was fortunate enough. When I signed up, I got the email bundle as a bonus. So that was very helpful. For the lead. I don't do as many emails as you put out there on the lead up to a drop. I do like three, three, maybe four. So it's definitely increased my sales and then so when I say some of that I've done three collections. The other two collections, I sold at least half of them, you know, and one was eight pieces. Maybe I've sold four or five. Yeah. So amazing. That's yeah, yeah. So
So my last question for you before we wrap this app is what would you say to someone who's thinking about joining Laying The Foundation? And they're maybe on the fence?
Right? Well, the first thing you know, you they have to decide why they're joining why they would do anything. There's there's an investment, there's a financial investment, but there's a time investment too. So if you're not if you don't like you said, you know, you know, a million times if you don't do the work, then I mean the nice thing is the program's always there. I do see some on the community. People said oh, about this a year ago, I had to put it aside and now I'm coming back so once you have the program, you have the program and so that's always good. It will just give you great direction. I don't think you can go wrong if you do the work. You know, it will give you clarity. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure different People get different, different things out of it, you know, we all get different things out of it. So those are the big things for me that I'm sure would help other other people too. The other thing that I will definitely say, one of my hesitations in the, in the past was, well, I don't want to grow to the point that I want to hire people. That's not what I want. But I know I can make it, I know that I'm making a lot of jewelry that I'm not selling, you know, I wanted to be able to sell all the jewelry I can comfortably make. And I wasn't doing that, and feel good about it. So I'm definitely getting getting much closer to that now. So like, don't let that hold you back. You know, if you're not looking to make the six figures, if you if you're like a solo artist, that's okay, you know, took me a while to realize that like, oh, I can still get a lot out of this, I don't need to be this high end jewelry designer or fine jeweler or. And it's funny because also in the community. Now I see a lot of people, they might post their stuff or whatever. And they're doing beadwork, and they've joined you know, which which is fantastic. I mean, that's my point. Like you could be any kind of jewelry maker, you know, and anywhere on the journey and and your goals can be whatever your goals are. But that's why knowing why you would want to do it's important, obviously. Yeah. So
yeah, to clarify just a little bit more about what you said, you feel at the program is great for people who want to build a lifestyle business who don't necessarily want to go grow super big, right. And, you know, we use the marker of six figures, because I do believe that someone who, who you know, wants to put in the time and work everyone's at a different phase in your life, you're like, right, in, you know, you've retired from your career. And this is why you're doing as like a business that you're enjoying and stuff like that. But for people who do want to grow, it helps with that. But it also helps people just get like, increase their sales, create time structure structure in their business and help them with their branding and their messaging and all those things.
Exactly. Yeah, the branding was big, too. I totally rebranded love my branding, my new branding. Yeah. It's been fun. It can really like a lot of the stuff in the program. I mean, we're creatives, right? Everybody who would join this are creatives. And a lot of it is really creative work to do, which for me made it actually a lot of it was fun work, you know? So yeah,
that's fantastic. Yeah. Rena, thank you so much for being here today and sharing your story.
Thank you. So excited, I got to like, meet you and talk to you. That's very exciting.
Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to the show today. This is Tracy Matthews, signing off until next time, Rina is one of our graduates from Laying The Foundation. So if you've been considering the program, right now is an amazing time to take a look at it and join us because we're starting our next group cohort on February 6, and this is a great time to get coached by my team of mentors, and coaches and really take your business to the next level. And one of the things that I find when people take something like our jewelry brand makeover bootcamp or they join us for a program like laying The Foundation
