EP386: How to Make Time for Learning and Marketing Your Jewelry Business

10:39PM Feb 1, 2023

Speakers:

Tracy Matthews

Keywords:

business

people

program

coaching

laying

grow

jewelry

brand

teach

learn

content

sales

invest

foundation

learners

different learning styles

develop

step

flourish

implement

Do you want to be in the same place at this time next year? Or do you want to do something different? 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 386. Hey there, it's Tracy, chief visionary officer over at Flourish & Thrive Academy. And I am coming up off a an exhilarating week over here at flourish and thrive. We just spent an entire week in our jewelry brand makeover bootcamp, we opened up enrollment for our Laying The Foundation program on Monday. And I'm so excited to chat with you today about how to know when the time is right to get coaching in your business. You know, a lot of people like not sure, like, is this the right time? You know, is my business too small? Or am I too advanced for this or when is the right time, you know, to really invest in myself and my business. And so I'm going to actually cover a couple of topics on this episode. Today, I'm also going to talk about how to fit in coaching or a course or a program, or any sort of learning in your business as well. And talk about the types of learners that are out there, which is super helpful, so that you can see how this might work for you anytime you're considering a program like our Laying The Foundation program, or you know another program or coaching for your business. So with that being said, obviously our Laying The Foundation program is open for enrollment. So I would love to invite you to join us for our 12 week signature program that's designed to help you get consistent predictable sales and grow a six figure jewelry business with our desire brand effect methodology. By working that methodology. We have helped over 8500 people in our community launch grow and scale successful jewelry companies. And we want to help you do the same. So I want to ask you a question. Do you want to be in the same place at this time next year? Or do you want to do something different? Now during this boot camp, I declared that I wanted to help 1000 jewelry designers this year, grow a business by 100 or two $100,000 in annual revenue this year. So if you're someone who's already got an established business, and you'd like to add an extra 10k a month, I'm here for you. And if you're someone who would like to get your business off the ground and grow to $100,000 this year, I'm here for you. So I wanted to mention that if you're interested in learning more about how I can support you, in our Laying The Foundation program, head on over to flourish, thrive academy.com, forward slash LTF. And check out the program right there. I also want to mention this, that I know a lot of you listening to this podcast right now have been considering coaching or a program like Laying The Foundation, and you're just not sure that it's right for you. And you just want to talk to someone. So I would love to encourage you to book a concierge call with someone on my team. This is a no pressure call, where we're just going to talk about your business and help you make the right decision for your growth and to help you you know, decide if it's right for you. So at least you know, and you're not sitting there just wondering like, is this the right time? Or is this program going to really help me based on my specific situation. So if you'd like to learn more about that, all you have to do is check out the show notes or head on over to flourish & thrive academy.com forward slash concierge. And you can just book a time right there, one of the people on our concierge staff will jump on the phone with you. And who knows, it might even be me you never know. Because I'm going to take in some of those calls too. Anyway. So let's talk a little bit more about when is the right time to get a coach. Now, I love this question. And I love talking about it. Because you know one of the things that kept coming up in our jewelry brand makeover boot camp was that a lot of people were afraid that if they fully bet on themselves, this is what i i basically the question was like, what if I'm afraid of success or whatever that is? I think that's just more something a little bit deeper. It's people are afraid that if they go all in and they bet on themselves, what if they fail? Well, what if you succeed? Is a better question. And the reason why I say that is because you know, we have limited time on this earth and a lot of people put off what they can do today until tomorrow and then it that ends up being a month, two months, three months a year. And then time goes by and they're frustrated because they're in the exact same place or people will say like, oh, I want to invest in coaching, or I want to get help with my marketing when my business starts making money. And I can completely understand it. But if the goal of a program or working with a coach would be to help you to make the money that you need, because you're learning new sales strategies, marketing strategies, and tactics, they're going to help you grow. Wouldn't it make sense to invest in the program or the coach or the course or whatever it is, so that your sales would grow? And I'm mentioning this? Because is it really better to wait until you have the outcome that you're trying to create? Or would it make more sense to invest now, so that you can get the outcome that you desire? So I saw this meme, and I thought it was great. Everyone looks at the cost of a book coach or program, Nobody considers the cost of being in the same place one year from now. So I've seen my friend Kathy Heller posts this a few times, and I've reposted it, and I just recently reposted it on our feed. Because this is like the death of entrepreneurship. And creativity is like putting your dreams on hold. And so one of the things that I really want to do is to support people on their journey to follow their dreams, but to give them a proven path and a system that is going to help them with step by step strategies that take them to their next level. And so, here are a couple of ways to know if coaching is right for you, and where you are. So before I dive in, I just wanted to mention this one thing, too, is that a lot of people would not even flinch, to spend 10s of 1000s of dollars a year to go to take a university curriculum, right? That doesn't give them life skills or business skills that they can actually use in the real world. I was having this discussion with someone in an entrepreneur group, and he has a child that's in or an adult, I guess, his son is actually in business school right now. And he's like, I wish that there was a college alternative out there or something that would teach my son how to actually be successful at running a business because he's in a business program. And everything that they're teaching him is completely antiquated and has no relevance to what is going on in the world of business right now.

And part of the reason why I developed Laying The Foundation is for that specific reason. In art school, if you take a jewelry or metals program, no one teaches you how to run a business, they teach you how to make jewelry, which is great, but they're not teaching you how to market and sell your work. Or if they do, it's like old school ways of marketing. I've heard this over and over again from people. And it's a huge disservice. So people leave art school in massive amounts of debt with no way to make living. They just know how to make jewelry. And or if you're self taught, you know, and you're in a different type of career, and you don't know marketing, and that's not your background or expertise. And you're not familiar with it. How do you expect to get your business off the ground if you don't learn how to do those things. And so that's exactly why our Laying The Foundation program was created is to help people get their business off the ground, keep growing, and to get their business to a level where they feel confident of putting themselves out there, they get the sales confidence, they have a step by step system to follow to know exactly what to do in those phases. So with that being said, if you see the value and saving time and having a step by step process to follow, and having real life business skills at the end of the day, then maybe it is the right time to get coaching. If you're someone who wants to grow a business, a successful side hustle, or a hobby business that actually makes money. So let's talk a little bit about that. Now, here's how to really determine if coaching or a program is right for you. I would say that if you're someone who's passionate, and you want to turn your creative gifts into a business, or something that you're actually paid for, that's a good indicator that coaching or a program like this is right for you. If you have a knowledge gap, for instance, you don't know what you don't know. Inevitably, a lot of people think that marketing for a business is like social media or online selling is getting on Amazon handmade or Etsy. There's so much more out there to growing a successful jewelry company that most people don't know. And so, you know, oftentimes people are like, Oh, well, I can google how to do XYZ. Well, if you don't know exactly what needs to be done, there's no way that you could potentially even Google it, because how would you know what you don't know? And so that's one of the reasons why investing in solutions where people have already done what you are trying to do is so powerful to get you results extremely, extremely cool. wickley Now the next thing that you might want to consider is that you aren't getting the result that you want. So maybe you're doing some of the things that you know you need to do to grow a business. And a lot of times, there is just a small little tweak, that will change everything for you. But if you don't know what it is, and you don't have feedback on your work, and there's no one to actually bounce an idea off or give feedback from, then you're going to kind of stay stuck in the same place and feel like you're spinning a wheel, like doing all these things that don't actually get you the result that you want. So a great example is people who post on social media, and they're hoping to get sales from social media, but they don't understand how to market and create a marketing calendar, which is a big thing, and how to filter content through a buyers journey, or they don't understand how to actually put strong calls to action on there. So that when someone is actually looking at that social content, that it's landing with them and resonating. So the next thing is, this is a big one, I think a lot of us who are creatives and artists don't understand the value of our time, we can teach you how to make money back like or an investment in a program or teach you how to invest in a coach and be able to make the money to make that investment worthwhile, right. But you can never get your time back. And so if you spend all this time trying to figure something out, and then it doesn't work, you have no one to talk to you, then you've just wasted a bunch of time that you can never get back. Whereas if you invest in a solution that works, then you have this opportunity to actually move a lot faster, and see where your gaps are, and what's missing in your business. And so this is a thing that is I think, really important for people who are thinking about working with a coach or making time for learning or investing in a program to be thinking about like, what's the value of my time? Like, where could I be spending that time that I'm trying to figure out what to do? If I were told exactly what to do. And I could follow a step, how much more quickly would I be moving? And does that make sense the time investment trade off, does that make sense to invest a little bit up front to make a lot more like 1020 3040 times that, you know, over the course of my career. And one of the key outcomes that people say who have taken our Laying The Foundation program and have worked with us for coaching and stuff like that is that they made their investment back nearly right away. And one of the ways that we do that is we help you move into action so that you're actually making sales right away. And that's like, my entire goal for everyone is to make their investment back within the first two weeks. And we support you with that. Now, another reason why investing in coaching or program might be a good idea or to know as the time's right is that you're someone who wants to move a lot faster, you want to get results, you don't want to be in the same place. Next year, you want to see your business grow. And there's something that you're doing that isn't working for you. And it's causing you to be overwhelmed. And so you want to figure out what that is, and to be able to move and grow a lot faster. Now finally, I think another thing to consider is if you're someone who prefers following steps that have already worked like a step by step process. And so at the core of all of our programs over here at Laying The Foundation, is our methodology, The Desired Brand Effect. And the way that Laying The Foundation is laid out is that it's basically like a reference tool. But it's in a chronological order of the things that you need to do in order to keep your business moving forward and growing. And so following a step by step guidance, this whole thing was developed because there was a point in my career where I was basically having a massive meltdown. And I kept saying to myself, I wish someone would just tell me what to do. I wish someone would just tell me what to do. And so I wanted to create something just like that, for people who are wanting to know just wanted to know what to do, because you are good at following instructions, right. And once you follow the instructions, you like seeing a result. So if you're someone who prefers to be told what to do, and you could just follow a step by step, then it might be a good time to invest in your business and invest in some coaching or a program.

And so obviously, I'm a huge proponent in this I invest in myself all the time. I'm always working with a coach and I often invest in programs that helped me grow my business and helped me with other things that I'm interested in life because I see the value in saving time. Knowing that a small investment upfront now in the long term is going to have a huge impact later. And knowing that if I just followed those step by step, I'm going to save a lot of energy, I'm going to move a lot faster, I'm going to get what I want, I'm going to have a better result in a year from now. And I'm going to see my business growing, because I'm intentionally moving forward. And so I want to remind you that if you're someone who's feeling stuck, and you're not in the place where you want to be with your business, and you can't see a way out, you probably need a separate set of eyes on your business. And I'd love to invite you to get support from us, especially if you're someone who's trying to grow to six figures. Because I really want all of you listening to this podcast, to think like, you know, hey, I want to be one of Tracy's 1000 people that she helps grow their business to are by six figures this year. And I'd love to help you grow, you know, build a successful business that's aligned with whatever success looks like to you. So let's talk about fitting in coaching, or a program. And I think this is a big thing that comes up, because there's all different types of learners out there. And there's all different types of people. But the one thing that I think is common is that we're all busy, especially those of you with children, especially those of you with jobs, and growing a business on the side is 100%. Possible while you're doing all these other things, it just really comes down to fitting it in. And so how do you fit it in. So the first way is to make it a weekly priority. So I would commit to figuring out how much time you have to work on a program like Laying The Foundation. And I would basically put time in my calendar, and make that an appointment with myself to focus on learning. So you can make it a weekly priority, and work on it every day, whatever works for you, and commit to the work by investing in yourself. And this is just beyond the financial investment, it's just investing the time that it takes to work on your business, instead of just reacting or putting it to the side, right. So I want to encourage you to really invest in yourself by taking the time out to work on your business, because this is how you will grow over the long term. So make it a weekly priority, commit to a schedule, so put it in your calendar, and then get accountability. So let's say you know, one of the things that we offer in our Laying The Foundation program is access to our diamond insiders community. And what we're going to be doing when the cohort starts is to try and hook you up with accountability, buddy. And when you have an accountability buddy, or accountability, buddy, as my friend Kim says, then you can stay on track together. So we're really trying to help you get that accountability through community through our coaching and through mentorship. Or you know, I'm sure this is the same if you're considering another mentor or coach as well. And the other thing that I really want to mention is that we realize that there's always people are going to learn in different ways. And so there's not a one size fits all Way number one to grow a business. But also there's not a one size fits all way to learn. And so there's a lot of people learn at different rates, and they have different learning styles. And so there's a couple of different learning styles that I kind of want to address and share with you how a program like Laying The Foundation supports that. So in our program, we give lifetime access to anyone who joins the program. So that just means that whenever you join the program, you have access to all of our program upgrades you have access to. Anytime we make a change to that core content, which we are always doing so that it's updated, you get access to that, which is awesome. But most importantly, we understand that people have different learning styles. So some people consume content better when they read. Some people consume content better when they visually see it like on a video. Some people consume content better when they listen to it. So there's all different types of learners. So the program is rolled out. In video audio in, we have a transcript, we have Cliff's Notes. So if you just want to skim the content, and get through it so that you have the high level of what is involved in each of those things. Plus, we give you exercises and worksheets to solidify the information so that you can implement it in your business. And so with that being said, some people who join this program are really fast learners, they love to consume content really quickly. We call those the binge watchers, I would put myself in that category. I like to go all in and just consume everything I can and get it going. So if you're someone who is a binge watcher, then I'm right there with you and the way that we have this program set up so that you can go through things quickly. If you learn And while you're moving and stuff like that you can listen to or watch the videos at the gym, or while you're taking your you can't watch a video while you're driving. But while you're taking kids to school, I have a tendency to learn better when I'm in movement than when I'm just sitting in front of a computer, depending on what it is. And so I want to help support you in the way that you learn best. There's also systematic learners, these are people who like to methodically go through content and implement as they go, these are probably the people who get a really great result in the program, because they're moving through the content throughout the 12 week period, and implementing as they go. And they're really systematic about how they're approaching the content. So this is a great way for people who want to get a fast result, and also implement quickly and see that results for themselves. And then they're the people we call the slow and studies, these are the people who just want to take it at their own pace, you know, they might be through three modules by the time that 12 week is over, because they have a tendency to get more overwhelmed, and or they just want to take their time with it. And that's totally fine. And so that's another benefit of the lifetime access. So even if you don't complete it in the 12 weeks, you can just work at your own pace, and implement when the time is right for you. And then there are the scheduled learners. These people love to join when there's community around and they playful out in the community while they're involved in it. But they actually wait to take the content later. So they want to just kind of absorb what's going around them. And so this is great for people to get in, where maybe they want to schedule their learning during like a winter break, or a time when they have a week off or something like that. And so if you're a scheduled learning style, this is a great opportunity for a program like Laying The Foundation to get in, and to really put it into your calendar and schedule the time to get it done. Which is super fun. So there's a lot of different ways to learn. And we've made this super easy for that. Now, I want to talk a little bit more about productivity, because one of the ways that you're going to get the most out of a program like Laying The Foundation is to focus on the learning instead of context switching. And so if you're someone who wants to get a great result in a program like this, that I want you to really commit to the time to work on it, and lean into the community. And just focus on that one thing while you're learning. So if you're context switching, and you're trying to you know, check your text and your social media and all those things. At the same time, while you're trying to learn, what's going to end up happening is that you're not going to absorb the information as well. It's known that the first time we learn something, we only absorb about 20% of what we learn. And so we've made this program really designed like a reference tool, so that you can get in and out anytime that you'd like to refresh, you know, maybe how to optimize my website better for conversions and all those things. And so if you're thinking about Laying The Foundation, I'm just going to walk you through a little bit about what we teach in that program. It is designed number one to get your head in the right place. So we do a lot of mindset will work with you to help you develop more confidence in your business. And to clean up some of your money stories and the things that are preventing you from getting the success that you want. This all happens in Module Zero. We love it so much, then we help you set up your business foundations and the branding aspects of your business. So by the end of the first three modules, you're going to have your the best business model for your brand. Even if you already are running a business, we're going to help you really think through how you're selling your jewelry to make sure that you aren't wasting time on a sales channel that's not really good for you, then we're going to be helping you dig deep into who your dream client is. And figuring out how to message to those people and how to overcome the objections that they might have in buying your jewelry so that you're more confident and you get in front of them more often, aka that helps you get more sales, then we're gonna help you dial in your brand voice and your messaging. So that you're really crystal clear on all the things that need to happen from a messaging standpoint so that you're getting in front of people and developing your brand voice and your brand story in a way that sets you apart because that is the one thing your story is the one thing that is going to change everything. Then we're going to help you with your brand assets. These these are things like your collection, your pricing, all of your packaging and the assets that you use to market your business. We're going to help you dial those in we teach you merchandising techniques. Most people aren't taught those things in school. We teach you how to price your products so that they fly off the shelves. We're also going to teach you how to develop things like line sheets catalogs, lookbooks, pick the right packaging for your brand and so much more. But the best part about the brand assets is really the website module. So module six, we walk you through it Everything that you need to do to develop a high converting website and we're even dropping an extra bonus there, where on that high converting website, we're going to be teaching you how to basically do it yourself a Shopify site. So if you're someone who wants to get online and have a website that is high converting, Lauren is going to walk you through how to set up your own Shopify store, which is a huge bonus and asset. And we want to remind you that this is just part of the program. So when you join the program, you get that. And then in the last three modules, we're going to walk you through exactly how to market sell, and develop great experiences for your customers. So that you get repeat customers coming back to you, aka true fans over and over again to buy your jewelry. So we really cover a complete business system to help you generate consistent predictable sales and repeat revenue, so that your business is always growing. And so with that being said, I would love to invite you to join our Laying The Foundation program,

I hope that you feel like the time is right for you. If you have any questions and you're wondering if it is right or not, then I'd love to invite you to book a concierge call. It's a 30 minute call with my team. All you got to do is head on over to flourish thrive academy.com forward slash concierge book in a time and we'll just chat about your business and discuss if it's right for you. It's a no pressure call. We just want to help you make the decision that's right for you. And then when you're ready, head on over to flourish & thrive academy.com forward slash LTF and join us for the Laying The Foundation program right there. Thanks so much. You guys. I'm looking forward to supporting you. And this is Tracy signing off. Until next time