We know one thing for sure. And for certain that no matter what things are going to change just as you get really good at something, it's going to pivot. 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. Welcome to the thrive by design Podcast, episode 404. Hey there, it's Tracy Matthews, chief visionary officer of Flourish & Thrive Academy, and the host of the show today. I'm so excited to be here we have over 400 episodes, I don't even think I really celebrated the fact that we had a 400th episode, which I should probably do. And I want to thank all of you who have been listening to this show for so long, I get messages all the time from people saying I've been listening to your show for years, and it just thrills me. So thank you for letting me come into your earbuds every single week. And I'd appreciate it right now if you just pick up your phone or wherever you're listening. And on that platform, whether it's Spotify, whether it's Apple podcasts, whether it's stitcher or one of the other platforms, if you wouldn't just mind giving the podcast a rating and review your ratings and reviews help get this show in front of other people. And it keeps me motivated to keep doing this once or twice a week, every single week. So today's episode is going to be a shorter episode. And I wanted to talk a little bit more about what your objective is with selling online or with your online strategy. And the reason why I want to talk about this is because last week, I interviewed Alexandra Camacho. And she was talking a little bit more about how Instagram has changed, and how she has used the platform to really leverage other modes of growing her business. And this leads me into the number one trait of a successful entrepreneur and business owner, which is operating out of a resourceful success mindset. Because we can say to ourselves, that won't work for me, or that's not going to help me grow, or that, you know, hasn't worked for me in the past. Or it's not working for me in the way that it used to. Or we can think differently about how we approach our online sales and the objective around online sales. Because we know one thing for sure. And for certain that no matter what things are going to change just as you get really good at something it's going to pivot. Case in point. Back in 2008. A lot of jewelry companies were wiped out during the Great Recession, including me. And I say this is because at that point in time in history, many of us were heavily reliant on wholesale. And online selling was a new thing back then not a lot of people did a lot of it. And even though I did have some sales on my website, during that time, only about 5% of my overall sales ever came from direct to consumer means. So what that means is that, at that time, like people were just really buying out of retail outlets. And wholesale partners were very, I don't know, let's say territorial and protective about jewelry designers selling direct to consumer. So sometimes it would even be a caveat of their contract with you that if they were going to sell direct to consumer that sometimes they wouldn't pick up your line because they didn't want you to competing with them. Now, I think that's silly, because, you know, I don't really think that there is competition because of someone let's say someone's a fan of Eliza page. And they're shopping a jewelry brand at Eliza page, because Eliza has done or Elizabeth who owns Eliza page has done a great job promoting the products that she sells in the store from her own collections to the designers that she carries. And they're seeing a great benefit from that then and the sales are coming in. Of course, she's got her own customers that aren't necessarily going to be shopping on individual brand websites. And so it's really about you as a jewelry business owner whether you have a retail store, whether you are just a solo designer, doing it all yourself whether you're doing a lot of direct to consumer sales, in person at shows or online, you need to think about how your online strategy is really playing in to an opportunity to grow all of your sales channels. So in the case of Eliza page, they're an amazing store in Austin. I just went in there. Obviously, I've been following them for years. And I went in there when I did was on a recent trip to Austin and bought some jewelry from the store. And they have a really solid online presence. And they do a ton of business online. But they use their Instagram, they use their advertising, they use their SMS messaging, all of those things, to help draw business into the store. And then once you will buy in the store, they have ways to help get you back to buying on their website. So in this case, it's a retail store that's using Instagram and other digital marketing methods to create a loop of ongoing like funneling each sales channel into the next. And it works. And so I hear a lot of people saying like, Oh, I do great at shows. And I have so many students. And if you're listening, please take this to heart who say, I do great, it shows that whatever I've tried to sell online, it's just not working for me. I would want to push all of you who are saying that to yourself. Number one, have you given it enough time? Number two, are you really trying to sell online? Are you using your newsletter and your other social means to just drive traffic to more of your shows? And are you up to date on what is actually working to divert social followers, email newsletter, subscribers, SMS subscribers, and people on your physical mailing list? Are you doing what you like? All the things that you can do to leverage all those channels? Not only to make more at those in person shows? Because I feel like that's the first touch point. But to build the other sales channels later on? And if the answer is no, or you don't know, then that's something to look at, because it's a huge missed opportunity. So what I want you to think about right now is, how are you most successfully selling your products? Is it online? Is it through Instagram? Is it through your website? Is it through a Facebook group? Is it through in person shows? Is it through your retail store? Is it through some other channel? Is it through wholesale? And then there's a bunch of other channels do but like list out where you're getting the best result? And then I want you to be honest with yourself to think through like what are some of the areas that I've wanted to try where that I haven't fully let myself dive into to push it a little bit further to continue to grow my audience. Now over the past couple of weeks, we've been talking a lot about online sales, because we just are training your customers to buy from you online program is starting actually this Thursday, and this episode drops on a Tuesday. So the reason why I'm saying that is because when I'm always surprised at when people take this program at how what their result is because everyone's result is so different. Like we we share at least 15 to 20 different strategies. They're not all done in the live trainings, but at least 15 to 20 different strategies. And everyone gets something a little bit different out of those strategies. And everyone gets something a little bit different about how their business results. In fact, like one of the students who had a great result last time, she just, I don't know, she had a like five, mid five figure month, which is huge for an individual designer. It's huge. Like that's what most people do in a year in sales, who are in a startup phase. And she did that in one month. And she had a Pinterest pin. She never even tried Pinterest before. She followed a strategy that we taught in the T yc. And she had one pan that went viral. And she sold out of a piece of her product like literally in a couple of days. And so you just never know what's going to work for you until you start testing things and continuing to
iterate, adapt and align with your overall objective of the reasons why you're doing this in the first place. So that's my little short episode for today. Hopefully you got some value from that. And I just wanted to mention that if you would like help and support growing your jewelry business, that we are here to help so head on over to flourish thrive academy.com forward slash discovery call and I'd love to invite you to just fill out a quick application booking a discovery call with an expert on my team. And let's talk about your business and see how our programs coaching or consulting can help you reach your jewelry business goals. Thank you so much for listening to this short episode. Aude it today this is Tracy Matthews, signing off until next time, and I also love getting to know who you are. So if you're up for it, just shoot me a DM on social media or take a screenshot of this episode and post it in your story and tag at flourish underscore thrive, or you can even tag me or at at me that's hilarious at Tracy Matthews NY on Instagram and shoot me a message let me know what you're enjoying about the show and tell me a little bit about your business. Ciao for now. See you soon
