Advertising includes all the means of communication for getting your product or service’s marketing message across to potential customers in your target market in order to attract attention, recognition, legitimacy and sales.
There are many types of advertisements. The most obvious are messages you see in print in newspapers and magazines. You also see ads on TV or on computer monitors, or hear them on the radio or streaming web broadcast. You pass by billboards, murals, banners, flags, and people twirling signs along the roadway. You may be reading articles written with subtle but intentional slants about a particular brand.
You may hear a jingle, perhaps staying in your mind as an ear-worm. Or read a slogan, perhaps repeating to yourself because it has some rhythm or metaphor that resonates with you.
Ads may involve some recognition of sponsorship for an event or program. They may be found on signs posted in stores, on lawns, on telephone poles, just about everywhere.
You might come across a social media post or pop-up or review or comment. Or several. Maybe hundreds.
You may have seen product placements in TV programs, movies or on YouTube.
The average person is exposed to over 5,000 advertisements every single day.
Ads communicate.
They influence and persuade.
They remind, reassure, explain, guide.
They focus on customer needs, benefits, problems solved or to be solved.
They may be generally targeted, narrowly targeted, or specially targeted at one individual.
Someone has to have paid for them in some say.
There is no-one-size-fits-all advertisement. In fact, you will probably be using several different kinds of advertising channels to get your message across. Go slow, however. Be deliberate.
Advertising can be expensive. So, similar to all the other business and promotion activities you do, you always want to build in an evaluative component. Given the cost of a particular ad, are you getting a sufficient return on investment? What is the unit cost of an ad — that is, what is the cost per person reached? Per person who responds to the ad? Per person, in response to the ad, actually purchases something?
If you have in any way begun to establish your business as a brand, all advertising becomes much easier and more effective.
Conversion Tunnel
In any of your campaigns, you most likely will want to plan for a series of ads. Collectively, the ads in the series build upon one another. They serve to gradually tighten up the message and narrow the target audience.
The first in the series will be very general, and the last in the series will be a very specific call to action.
Basically, you can’t hit your customer over the head with too much information, and you cannot expect your customer to respond to your ad the first time they see it. Hence, you develop a strategic series.
· Awareness: Your first ad: Gain customer awareness of you and your product.
· Interest: Second ad: Guide the customer into recognizing how you and your product meets one of their major needs.
· Desire: Third ad: Entice the customer to want to buy your product.
· Action: Fourth ad: Turn your potential customer into an actual customer.
Writing Promotional Copy
Your promotional copy should be simple, obvious and direct. It should focus on the benefits to the customer, not the features of your product or service per se. It should validate how your customer thinks about their needs, desires, problems, and potential solutions. Don’t give the customer a laundry list of things. Be sure to anticipate the customer’s level of awareness.
Jewelry purchase needs include,
· Fill out a wardrobe
· Match a dress
· Something for a special occasion
· Feel good about themselves
· Make a power statement
· Compete with someone
· Signal that you are a bona fide member of a group or culture
· A memento
· A reward for a job well done
· Make yourself more attractive
· Connect with a mate
· Wants an heirloom
· Remember a special event, moment, date, occasion
Visualize, as you are creating your promotional copy, that you are talking to a specific customer. Tell them what they need the most, and how you are the right person, business, event to fulfill that need. In your ad, validate their thinking / feelings / understandings / desires.
Next, reinforce what you just wrote. There is an important need. Yes, the customer is thinking about this need. Yes, the possible solution is an idea shared by both you and the customer. Yes, you are there to meet this need when, where, and how the customer needs you to meet this need. Again, you want highlights, not an exhaustive listing.
Print vs. Online Advertising
Online Advertising Channels
SEO Optimization
Content Marketing
Social Media Marketing
Affiliate Marketing
Radio and Web Streaming
Influencer Marketing
Email Marketing
Your own website
SEO Optimization
SEO stands for search engine optimization. All the search engines, like Google and Bing, send out robots constantly to search the internet for information that can be categorized — identified, ranked and rated. Your online presence may extend to Facebook, Instagram, a personal website, Etsy, a blog post, a comment on a post, and just about everywhere in cyberspace. But you are nothing — not known, not seen, not heard, not acknowledged — if you don’t get indexed by the various search engines.
You want to be well-indexed. This means you need things wherever you are present online which are indexable. These include things like,
· Keywords and keyword phrases
· Captions for images
· Comments on posts
· When you/your business is tagged or hash-tagged
· Links back to your website
· Listings of your business in directories
· Reviews of your business and your products
This increases the chances that when someone searches for products like you carry or businesses like your own, you are more likely to be found.
71% of online jewelry sales begin with a Google search!
Selecting Keywords and Keyword Phrases. Do some research here. You can plug in a keyword into a search engine search bar. Typically, a drop down menu will appear that shows other words that come up when people look for that keyword. These become keyword phrases. Keyword phrases (2–3 words) will have better visibility outcomes for you than single keywords. That is because as you add words to a phrase, you begin to narrow down the relevant possible sites that might get flagged and presented.
Check the key words your competitor is using. Look at their websites and what words/phrases them emphasize. Plug their name into the search engine search bar, and see what comes up.
Content Marketing
Here you write an article or review or response to an online post, or create images and videos, and place these somewhere online. This might be a social media site, a site specializing in hosting articles, your own website, or a blog. You include somewhere (top, within, or at the end) links back to you and your website or your products listed online.
With this content, you are trying to educate the reader in some way. Your content in some way is providing a solution or answer to a problem or question the reader might have.
The better connection between you and the reader, the more likely the reader is to create a link to your content. More links to your content means greater SEO optimization.
Another type of content is when you are presenting one of your products or a type of jewelry product, and you do a soft-sell. You explain how to wear it, how it was made, interesting facts about it, how it fits with current fashions, or other interesting characteristic about it. Don’t list a price. List a link to where the reader can find more information about it.
As with most things, this is not a one-shot, one-time approach. You want to post content on a regular basis, probably daily.
Social Media Marketing
You can leverage the power of various social media sites, like Facebook, Tik Tok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube and Instagram.
These sites have
· Pages you can set up a profile on (for your personal page as well as separately for your business page)
· Postings you can place.
· Postings you can respond to.
· Events you can participate in or create.
· Groups you can join or set up.
· Targeted Ad programs you can take advantage of (You might be able to target your audience by location, language, education, work, age, gender, birthday, relationship status, likes and interest).
In some cases, you can tack on a short commercial message or signature to the end of your posts. In other cases, commercial messages may be forbidden, but you can create a signature that generates enough interest and curiosity so that someone might link back to your site.
Some social media sites limit how many places or times you can use the same ad-copy-post. That limit might be 3 places or times. If you want to do more than that, you will have to modify your ad-copy-posts.
A lot of the advertising tactics you use here are free. It just takes a lot of time.
Other tactics will cost you. Targeted ad programs let you send a message to some demographically limited group which you define. You set a budget. You either pay for the number of click-throughs (someone has clicked a link in your ad), or the number of impressions (someone has visited the page where your ad appears). Some jargon: PPC for pay for click or PPI for pay for impression. You may also want to measure the click-through rate (5% is great, below 2% is not great).
You can use both your personal page as well as your business page to tell your story and get your products seen. Soft-pedalling the message will work better than any hard sell. For example, creating seven consecutive posts following you as you create a piece from inspiration to finish — of course with images — will get you better responses than creating what looks like a magazine ad for a specific piece of jewelry. A friend posted an image of her wearing a piece of jewelry she just made with her hair all messed up. She gave the image a simple caption: Bad Hair Day — What Do You Think? And sold 43 pieces in response. People feel more connected when they feel you are sharing your life with them.
Images are important. Short videos are the best.
If someone responds to any of your posts. Thank them. Always repeat their first name in your response.
You can use your personal and business profile pages to have conversations with your customers.
Think about reposting your customers’ pictures wearing your jewelry.
Or, create a branded hashtag (or two or three) and always list this at the bottom of all your posts. Think of something like: #warrensgems, or, #jewelrybywarren, or, #warrendesigns.
You want to post at least one thing every day. Most likely this is physically impossible time-wise to do this for every social media site. So, create a presence on as many social media sites as possible. Then concentrate on two of them with your daily posts.
Keep your ads short, and the messages well targeted to your intended audience.
If paying for ads, the social media site should also have some statistical information you can access to gauge how well your ads are doing.
Affiliate Marketing
Here you invite another party — referred to as third party — to drive sales for your business. This might be an influencer, a thought leader, a celebrity, another shop which sells accessories or clothing. You rely partly on the reputation and networking of some other business to advertise and advocate for your jewelry.
You might work out a co-marketing arrangement and split costs. You might pay them a commission or a percent of the sale.
Radio and Web Broadcast Streaming
Radio has always been an effective channel for advertising jewelry. It is a lot less expensive than TV, and has a loyal audience. It is very targeted at a local audience. Today, however, you might use the internet to place ads similar to the ones you might have used for radio.
Webcasts offer you an on-demand and more targeted connection to your intended audience. They allow you to reach a broader and more internet-savvy audience.
Influencer Marketing
Rely on one of the many influencers in fashion and jewelry to promote your stuff. Most established influencers have media kits to share with you so you can get an idea of the kinds of things they promote and who their target audience is.
Or, make yourself into an influencer. Create an online audience on one or more social media sites which follows you and pays attention to your recommendations. The key to becoming an influencer is to establish a clear brand identify for yourself. Create a branded hashtag. Encourage your customers to use your hashtag when sharing images, videos and advice from your own feed.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the most effective marketing methods in existence. It keeps your business in front of your customers on a regular basis.
The key is to grow your email list. So you need to make your emails special in some way. Your emails might include what is called gated content. They might include special discounts. They might present advanced notice for sales or other special events. They might include content that your customers may want to save, such as explanations about what certain gemstones mean or how to clean sterling silver jewelry. You might give first access to a new product.
Be sure you have secured permissions from each contact on your email list. You can create simple forms that can be posted online on your website or blog, and simple print forms to hand out to people.
Emails are effective, but you do not want to overdo them. People get annoyed if they get too many emails in their box.
I suggest using an email service like MAILCHIMP. Not only do they make creating and sending emails easier, they offer some tracking and analytic services, as well.
Your Own Website
Build a site that supports your business. Be sure it is optimized for search engine indexing. Decide whether your website serves primarily as a billboard — a place to find you. Or decide whether you want to include a shopping cart system and make your website an ecommerce site for your jewelry.
You can have your own domain name, or be part of a larger web-hosting company which may or may not allow you to use your own domain name.
Having your own website gives you credibility. It allows people to more easily find you and contact you. It gives you another channel for selling your jewelry.
Be sure to add an analytics package to your site. Some will be available for free. You always want to build in evaluative components with whatever you do.
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FOOTNOTES
Arias, Aaron. Six Ways to Advertise Your Online Boutique. 12/7/21.
Designers need to get the approval of and payment from their clients. That means the client has to recognize and share the choices the designer made when creating the piece of jewelry. It all comes down to two aspects of marketing: persuasion and influence. Marketing is about creating persuasive arguments which can influence a person’s beliefs, attitudes, motivations, intentions and behaviors. Influence comes with knowing what the best outcome that the marketer should seek. Persuasion includes the tools you use to get there. Persuasion can take many forms. The marketer’s success depends on a handful of persuasive factors. Marketing strategies follow one or more of eight universal principles of persuasion. Information within any successful persuasive argument is best presented in a certain order.
Influence and Persuasion
Marketing is about creating persuasive arguments which can influence a person’s beliefs, attitudes, motivations, intentions and behaviors. The marketer wants to be able to persuade the client to focus their attention on the jewelry product line, to approach it, touch it, try it on, buy it, exhibit it, share it with others, then, moreover, to further persuade these others (thus making the marketing message contagious) to want to buy it. Influence comes with knowing what the best outcome that the marketer should seek. Persuasion includes the tools you use to get there.
When we are trying to persuade someone, we might be trying to get them to change their mind about something. We might want them to change the weight, ranking or priority they give one thing over another. We might want them to see the interrelationship among two or more otherwise unrelated things. We might want them to re-evaluate the cost and reward calculus they use when deciding to make a purchase.
When trust is present, influence increases and persuasion ends in more positive outcomes.
Persuasion can take many forms. It can be…
· Coercive, done aggressively through direct commands, threats, fear mongering, shaming.
· Informational, spread as biased in some way towards a particular position or idea.
· Leveraging a belief by appeals to logic and reasoning.
· Leveraging a belief by appeals to feelings and emotions.
· Establishing a high level of credibility or character.
A marketer or jewelry designer is not born as persuasive. It is something to be learned, practiced, applied and applied again. The strength of the marketer’s influence centers on a handful of persuasive factors, such as:
1. Commonalities: People like people like themselves.
2. Logic and Rationality: When you see data, it tells a recognizable story.
3. The Target Audience’s Needs, Wants, Values and Desires: It is important to pay attention and hone in on these.
4. Attractiveness: Attractive people are more persuasive.
5. Confidence / Charisma: Confident /Charismatic people are more persuasive.
6. Preparation: Learning, Practicing and Preparing are how you place yourself in a powerful, persuasive position.
Persuasion and Marketing
Persuasion in marketing involves the ability not just to influence people’s actions, but their attitude as well.
Persuasion is a matter of establishing mutual trust or shared understandings. You develop that sense of trust in your client. That means, they believe that you will deliver on any and all your promises, and that your product will solve their problems, needs and/or desires. The marketer presents some type of evidence which the client must interpret as relevant and valid for themselves, whatever that might mean.
Marketing campaigns are various strategies attempting to influence, direct or change client behaviors by eliciting reactions. Marketing campaigns rely on imagery and word associations tied to emotional responses.
To be persuasive, the marketing message must have value and relevance for your target client. She or he might see a reward or a minimization of costs and agree to change their behavior. She or he might be trying to shield themselves from anything which refutes their sense of self and self-esteem. She or he might derive pleasure when they can align their self-concept with that of the emotional message associated with the product. She or he might find that they can meet their needs for understanding and control by finding out more information about your product.
In response to any marketing campaign, the client can do one of three things:
1. Accept
2. Non-commit or remain indifferent
3. Reject
And it is important to think of persuasion as a continual process. You might be able to persuade someone to purchase your product once, but will they purchase your product again?
The Designer As Marketer Should Have A Detailed Familiarity With Everything Involved With Consumer Behavior
What causes clients to purchase certain products and brands, and reject others? It is important to begin to document client shopping behaviors, motivations and their psychological and sociological underpinnings.
The marketer will want to get a handle on the target audience in terms of
· Psychological Factors: How assumptions, perceptions, understandings, values and desires affect responses to the marketing message.
· Personal Factors: How demographic characteristics, such as age, culture, profession, gender play roles in forming responses to the marketing message.
· Social Factors: How socio-cultural groups, such as income, geographic residence, education level, affect shopping behaviors and responses to the marketing message.
How Can Marketing Affect Client Shopping Behaviors? The Eight Universal Principles of Persuasion
Persuasion works when the client feels that, by purchasing your product, you and your product have made a positive contribution to their life. There are different ways or principles marketers follow for establishing that sense of positivity.
There are eight universal principles of persuasion the marketer can resort to in order to influence client shopping behaviors. These are,
1.Reciprocity
2.Commitment
3.Consensus
4.Authority
5.Affinity
6.Scarcity
7.Visibility of Consequences
8.Information Exposure
Reciprocity
If you do this for me, I’ll do this for you.
People tend to feel the need to return the favor. You offer or remove incentives and play with client’s natural tendency to be grateful and want to do something for you in return. You might offer them discounts or a free sample. You might put them in a frequent shopper rewards program. You might do a special customization. You might offer them a gift. You might offer something special to first time buyers or to clients who register for your email list.
Commitment
I am a loyal customer.
Once someone is engaged with something, they are more likely to stick to it and commit. They become loyal to the designer, the designer’s business and the designer’s brand. The marketer would do those things which enhance customer loyalty. You might have a special showing or trunk show. You might include them on your email list. You might make them aware a way ahead of time of some deals or opportunities.
Consensus
If it’s OK with them, it’s OK with me.
Sometimes this is referred to as the herd response. If the client sees others doing it, they are more likely to do it as well. The marketer here would demonstrate the popularity of their products with other clients and client groups.
Authority
If such-and-such expert tells me it’s OK, I’ll think it’s OK.
Clients are more likely to listen to an expert they trust, than anyone else. The marketer would have the marketing message put forth by trusted experts who could be seen as authority figures. These authority figures are seen as having already established proof of their knowledges and beliefs. Authority might be actual or implied. Thus, their advice is recognized as trustworthy. You might seek endorsements from well-known figures. You might create an ad where the expert is delivering the message. You might rely on influencers online to spread your marketing message.
Affinity
She bought it, and she’s a lot like me, so I’ll buy it as well.
The client is more willing to follow through on the marketing message and goal if she or he knows someone who is similar to themselves who bought the product. Similarly might be by gender or age or economic class. Similarly might be people who belong to the same church or shop at the same store or attend the same events. The marketer would emphasize shared interests. The marketer would present reasons why conformity is the best choice here.
Scarcity
I better get it right away, if I’m to get it at all.
People tend to want what they think they might not be able to have. When something is scarce, clients tend to assign it more value. Defining the context becomes very important for this principle of persuasion. It might be something that is exclusive. It might be in limited supply. It might have some sense of rarity. It might be subtle clues provided in how the products are displayed to make it seem like you are running out of stock (such as, a very large container with a few items left in the bottom). The product might not be available from any other competitor. The product might be temporarily on sale or only available for a limited amount of time. The marketer might emphasize that this product does what no other product can do. The marketer might emphasize that if the client doesn’t act quickly, the likelihood that they could ever purchase the product will be very low.
Visibility of Consequences
I know what will happen when I purchase and use this product.
The client is more likely to purchase a product if they can anticipate the consequences of their choice. Every purchase is a risk. Will it work? Will it hold up? Will it be appropriate? Will I get the reactions I want? Here the marketer would highlight evidence which makes the consequences obvious, and then more evidence which minimizes the likelihood that any risk and uncertainty might occur. The marketer might emphasize the positive results, and minimize any negative ones. They might point to past successes of this or similar products. They might present the pros and cons and comparative imaging of future outcomes. They might present the pros and cons by comparing antecedents. They might explain that the client will have emotion regrets of they don’t make the purchase.
Information Exposure
I was told it was important now to act.
Clients often have to make choices when they have more limited information upon which to rely. How and when the client is exposed to certain information, prompts, triggers and cues may affect their choice whether to buy a product or not. The client might be distracted. There might be time / timing / seasonal considerations where they pay more attention, say to holiday merchandise during Christmas season, than at other times of the year. Some information may have increased salience, depending on the context. For example, what the jeweler says when standing behind the jewelry counter may have more salience than what that same person says about the same product when randomly meeting that person on the street.
The marketer might present or withhold information based on timing considerations. The message might be different presented during the day from presented during the evening. It might be different in the Spring from the Fall. The marketer might try to connect positive emotional information the client already holds to the product the marketer is trying to sell. This could be a positive memory such as a song or image or experience. The marketer might stress how even with this limited information the client can still anticipate a level of success. The marketer might emphasize negative information about a competitor or competitor’s products. The marketer might use popular phrases and words that have a particular emotional or cognitive association with the target audience.
The Persuasive Argument
Whatever principle of persuasion the designer follows, the presentation of information in their persuasive argument follows a pattern. That is, informational content, when presented in a certain order, makes for a more persuasive argument. This order is presented in the table below.
A Few Cautions
When marketing your products, you have a professional responsibility not to cross the line between influence and manipulation. You might be successful in manipulation in the short term, but this will probably spell disaster for you mid- and long-term. People are willing to be influenced and persuaded, but resent getting manipulated. And if manipulated, they usually find out.
Don’t present yourself falsely in any way. Don’t claim to be an expert when you are not, for example.
Last, don’t over emphasis economic factors — price, discounts, and the like — in your marketing messages. Rely more on one or more of the universal principles of persuasion where you play towards emotions, perceptions and desires.
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FOOTNOTES
Abelson, Herbert I. Persuasion: How Opinions and Attitudes are Changed. Spring Publishing, 1965.
Clements, Jon. The Power Of Influence and Persuasion in Business.
Typically, an art gallery is a small business which exhibits and sells art. Galleries attract different kinds of clientele. Some people who purchase art might want to have something to hang in their home or business. Others would be considered art enthusiasts and collectors. They purchase art as investments. The profits the gallery takes in need to be sufficient to cover the cost to run the business, and have money left over to live on and play with.
The gallery owner, in effect, curates what is shown. The gallery will want to have some variety, but also some consistency in what is shown. Galleries tend to have reputations around what they specialize in. The gallery owner is typically very knowledgeable about art and how art connects with the current culture. Many galleries are biased against jewelry because jewelry is not understood universally as an art form. When you research galleries, you will want to document which ones would be more amenable to carry your jewelry pieces.
Most galleries have physical store spaces, but with a website presence. There are also digital galleries and online sales platforms. Some are open to all artists; some specialize in gallery shop membership. There are auction houses both physical and online. Also places like Amazon and Ebay have fine art and collectibles sections. Most sales are conducted in physical spaces, but more and more online.
Before you approach any gallery, be sure you have answered two important questions up front:
1. Does your work and your needs fit the gallery? Do some research. Look at the lines represented, the artists represented, how things are organized. Contact some of those artists and ask about their experiences with the gallery and how exhibiting there works for them.
2. What benefit(s) does your work offer the gallery, in other words, why should they represent you? It is important to establish and define your professional relationship with the gallery. Determine what the gallery needs from you to make things work out for both of you.
When you work is represented by a gallery, regular communication is important. Be on time with deadlines and materials needed. In a big sense, your relationship is a collaboration.
Gallery representation will increase your reputation, credibility and legitimacy. It will lead to you getting higher prices for your work. It will increase your visibility. It will enhance your brand.
Your Goals
The gallery needs to represent and promote you when you are not around. They will need to know a lot about you, and feel good about you as a designer and as a person.
That means your goals will be to:
· Research galleries which are a good fit between you, your jewelry, and their clients.
· Research artists/designers they represent and visit their websites; make note of their selection, styles, pricing and possible pricing formula they might have used.
· Create a strategy for presenting yourself and your work.
· Make your pitch to the gallery.
· Place your jewelry in a gallery for sale, priced so that you receive a good return.
· Create a collaborative relationship with the gallery owner around how best to serve the gallery’s clientele and collector base.
· Maintain good and frequent communication.
· Create jewelry for the gallery which has a high degree of consistency and coherency with you as a designer and the brand you are promoting.
· Have a high enough level of productivity so that the gallery can be confident you will always have enough jewelry (usually 30–35 pieces available at any one time) for them to sell, particularly if they want to replace pieces which have sold.
First, A Self-Assessment: Is Selling In A Gallery Right For You?
Step back for awhile and answer these kinds of questions about you as a designer and your work. Be honest with yourself.
1. Is your jewelry consistent and cohesive? Have you developed a distinctive designer style and is this consistently reflected in the jewelry you want to place in a gallery?
2. Is your jewelry made of quality materials?
3. Have you implemented the best standards of technique, technology and craftsmanship?
4. Are your pieces appropriately finished from end to end?
5. How marketable are your pieces? Which are most marketable?
6. How should you refer to your jewelry style and aesthetic in marketing when talking with galleries and collectors? What labels would you give these? How accessible are these labels to galleries and collectors?
7. Where should you concentrate your efforts to find galleries and promote your jewelry to them?
8. Would your pieces fit in the highest-quality surroundings?
9. Are your presentation materials — portfolio, artist statement, business card, jewelry displays — professional and engaging?
Do this simple exercise. Imagine who the typical collector of a particular gallery might be. How does your jewelry look through their eyes? What would the collector think and feel and see when trying on a piece of your jewelry? What are their needs and desires, and how does your jewelry help them to meet these?
Make a good list of anything you can do to improve.
Also, you might get an objective opinion, say from another jewelry designer, or even a gallery representative. What kinds of things do they see which could enhance the appearance and marketability of your work?
Build Consistency Into Your Work
Consistent work makes it easier for the gallery owner to represent, market and sell your work. It makes it easier for the collector to connect with your body of work and purchase it. Consistency means that your jewelry is immediately recognized as designed by you.
Consistency can mean many things. If you are consistent on 3 or 4 factors listed below, then you have some wiggle room with the others.
Consistency can be conveyed by:
· Color, pattern, texture
· Use of point, line, plane and/or shape
· Theme
· Forms
· Rhythm, balance, volume, size/shape distribution
· Medium
· Materials
· Techniques and technologies
· References to history, time, place, situation, culture
· How your pieces are finished off
· Signature elements, like a certain bead or tag, included with your pieces
· Comfort, movement, drape and flow
· Predominant silhouettes
· How your pieces feel and look when draped on the body
· Size adjustability
· Selection of clasp and design of clasp assembly
· Display and presentation
Getting Your Portfolio and Presentation In Order
You will be bringing several pieces of information with you when making your pitch, whether in person, through email or online. At the lease, these will include an Artist Statement, a Portfolio, and a business card or resume or biographical profile, and sample pieces and or images.
Some pointers:
1. Everything should be well organized and reaffirm your designer style and brand
2. You should have very clear images of your pieces; in a few of your pictures you want to demonstrate the scale of your pieces, such as sitting them next to a recognizable object or being worn on the body or laying on your work bench as you construct it
3. You want to have up-to-date information about pricing and sold works
4. In your portfolio, you may want to include current prices, but you also may want to leave off dates; track the dates for yourself in other records not to be shared with the gallery; always refer to your prices in retail values, not wholesale
5. Your pricing strategy should be consistent from piece to piece; it should be based on both the cost of creating a piece as well as your current brand value; it should be based on a simple formula that can be explained to others.
6. The images in your portfolio should represent you as a jewelry designer today
7. If visiting in person, you want to always have samples of your work with you. The samples should be representative of the kinds of things you would want to place in this gallery.
Have A Clear Image About The Typical Buyer Of Your Work
You should be keeping good records of your buyers.
Who are they?
· Average age
· From particular neighborhood, city, area
· Buying for a business or for personal
· Situations in which they wear your jewelry
· Price points they favor
· Income / wealth
· Married / single
· Male / female
Why would your buyer come to a gallery rather than another setting to purchase jewelry?
Why would they come to this particular gallery you are targeting?
Some Notes About Pricing
Use a formula. Keep it simple and explainable.
Don’t undersell your piece. You need to make a profit.
Don’t underprice your piece. This disvalues it.
Keep your prices competitive with those of other designers you are competing with.
In a gallery setting, you want national or international prices. If you live in a lower cost locale, you do not want to base your prices on their expectations.
Don’t overprice. You won’t get repeat business that way. Keep your prices competitive.
Review your pricing regularly.
As you make more and more sales, adjust your prices upward for all your pieces accordingly.
It is better to suggest pricing to the gallery owner rather than ask their opinion of what prices to set. In this way, you come across as a more established, experienced designer. Depending too much on the gallery owner to set prices might make you come off as a novice with unproven market value.
Finding Target Galleries
Do online searches. Ask other jewelry designers.
Begin with galleries that are nearby to you. Do not limit yourself to the most prominent galleries. If at all possible, visit each gallery in person.
You want to answer for yourself these kinds of questions:
· Is the location good, bad or indifferent?
· Are the staff friendly and approachable?
· Are the staff knowledgeable about the pieces in the gallery?
· Do I like the way the pieces are displayed and labeled?
· Would the gallery be a good fit for my work?
· Does your work fall out of the general pricing of other jewelry in the gallery?
Making The Pitch
You can make your pitch by email, phone, online, or in-person. In-person is the best, if possible. Creating a personal connection with a gallery will make them more likely to want to work with you. Getting recommended to the gallery by an artist, designer or collector can often open doors for you.
Emailing:
Start your emails by asking them if they are currently seeking new jewelry designers.
In your first email, do not include attachments. This makes it too easy for them to reject you. Instead, use this first email opportunity to establish a personal connection. If you get a positive response, follow-through with attached documents.
Galleries can be overwhelmed with emails, so this is probably your weakest strategy for contact. It is easy for the gallery to send a thanks-but-no-thanks form letter in response to an email.
Online Submission Through Their Website
The gallery will present you with guidelines and a form to fill out. This helps them weed out designers who might not be a good fit. This helps the gallery discourage designers from approaching them. It may get you some attention, but do not depend on this approach.
In-Person:
Make sure ahead of time that the gallery is a good fit for your work. Otherwise this will be a waste of time.
If feasible, you might shoe-horn yourself into their operations. Be around. Visit the gallery. Attend their openings. Strike up conversations. Talk to the designers they represent. Ask them how they came to be represented by the gallery. Talk to the clients walking around the gallery and looking at the pieces, particularly the jewelry. Ask them what they particularly like about the jewelry they are viewing. Casually mention you are a jewelry designer looking for galleries in which to place your work. Don’t be sales’y. Perhaps email them after a visit thanking them for the showing or giving your take-aways about the show.
If cold calling or making a specific appointment, be sure your portfolio and presentation are in order. Make the talk very conversational. Try to elicit things which connect you and your experiences to those of the gallery owner. Be prepared with several questions. Also ask the gallery owner for feedback on your work and on your presentation.
NOTE: It is easier for the gallery to reject you if you try to make an appointment by phone, and more difficult to ignore you if you cold call.
Hand the gallery owner your portfolio. Give them space to review it. Don’t do a running commentary as they page through this.
Always make eye contact. Don’t be shy. Don’t look away or look down when you are speaking with someone. Use their first name and repeat it during your conversation.
The gallery owner, if interested in your work, will ask you a series of questions. Always be upbeat in your answers. Keep your answers short and to the point. Often the style of how you answer will be just as important as the content of your answer.
Depending on where your target galleries are, you most likely will be making your pitch in all these different ways. So your materials have to be adaptable — file structure, size, both digital and print files.
One thing the gallery, if representing you, will want to do is tell your story over and over again. Part of your pitch will be some subtle introductory training of them towards this end. Your story should be easy to understand and easy to repeat.
Emphasize the consistency in your work.
Show how your work will fit with other designers the gallery represents, yet at the same time offer something different and special. Tell them how your work can be distinguished from your competition.
Demonstrate your in-depth knowledge of their clientele and their needs and desires. Explain how your jewelry will meet their needs and desires.
Demonstrate that you are serious about your work, and are always striving to improve your technique and further hone your style.
Even if you get a positive reaction to your work at one gallery, do not stop approaching other galleries until you have a firm offer.
Be persistent.
After each interaction, send a thank you note.
Now Your Work Is In A Gallery What Do You Do Next?
Maintain frequent communication with the gallery.
Keep the gallery informed of your new work. New work often sells best.
If your pieces are in more than one gallery, rotate them from gallery to gallery.
If you have ideas for the gallery, such as changes in displays, offer them as suggestions, not demands.
Frequent thank you notes are a good strategy.
If your pieces are getting a lot of positive responses, you might ask the gallery owner to do a show or special event for you and your work.
Ask the gallery for a letter of recommendation. The gallery owner should mention how great you are to work with, how buyers appreciate your work, and how sales of your pieces have done for them.
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FOOTNOTES
Denter, Carlin. Between Commerce and Art. About Galleries and Market. Art Jewelry Forum, 01/29/2019.
Horejs, Jason. A Post For Gallery Owners | How To Work Successfully With Artists. RedDotBlog, 10/4/2021.
Horejs, Jason. “Starving” To Successful. The Artist’s Guide to Getting Into Galleries and Selling More Art.
Your competitive advantage (one or more) is what influences someone to buy something from you rather than one of your competitors. Do you make something of higher quality? Or less cost? Or especially noteworthy. Or use rare materials? What is it that sets you apart, or as Heather Bunker puts it, what is your secret sauce?
Competitive advantage is your ability to outperform your competition. It is you way to design, create, produce, distribute, market and/or sell products and services better than anyone else. It is something that cannot be easily replicated, or, if it is at some point, you can build back better.
There are all types of competitive advantages. Businesses might emphasize one, or several. Some examples of competitive advantages that jewelry design businesses might claim:
1. Authenticity and honesty
2. Rarity
3. Individuality, tailor-made, custom
4. Material quality
5. Technical prowess
6. Access, Location, Visibility
7. Timeliness
8. Special occasions (ready for those …weddings, etc.)
9. Financing, payment plans
10. Innovation
11. Extensive knowledge about materials and techniques
12. Environmentally friendly, sustainable
13. Socio-culturally friendly, sensitive
14. Prominence / reputation of designer
15. Mass quantity production
16. Service Orientation: repairs, custom work, style consultation
17. Pricing, discounts
18. Concurrently maintaining both quality and prices
19. Use of technology
20. Unusual designs
21. Brand loyalty
22. Ownership of copyright
23. Where differences from your competitors, such as different product mix or material use or better craftsmanship, might make you appear superior to them
Why Is Having A Competitive Advantage Important To You?
Competitive advantage is what makes your products and services more desirable to customers than any of your rivals. When you customers recognize these competitive advantages, you are more likely to make sales and more likely to be profitable. You are more likely to grow your business and enjoy greater customer loyalty.
The jewelry design business is very saturated worldwide. On Etsy on any day, there are over 6,000,000 (that’s 6 million) pieces of jewelry for sale. Don’t see this as a defeat. See this as a challenge. Your competitive advantage will help get you that edge, and make you more memorable.
Your competitive advantage is something that you can repeat or allude to in your business name, how you name your jewelry and jewelry lines, your tag line, your elevator pitch, your domain name, your marketing and branding strategies. It might influence how you design your products, distribute them, and put boundaries around your target market.
What Are The Components Underlying Any Competitive Advantage?
You use your competitive advantage as a means of communication. As such, to establish any competitive advantage, you must know 3 things:
1.VALUE PROPOSITION
2.TARGET MARKET
3.COMPETITION
1. Value Proposition
You must clearly identify what attributes of your products or services make them desirable to your customers. What is the value to them? Why does this value motivate them sufficiently to touch, wear, buy and/or collect your jewelry? What things might further get them to show off and talk about your jewelry to their friends, acquaintances and relatives?
2. Target Market
Your advantages will not be seen and understood equally by all people. And you don’t really care about all people. You care specifically about your more narrow market audience or market niche focus. What does your advantage look like to them? Why will it motivate them? What evidence are you using to know this?
You might take the time to ask some of your customers why they buy from you and not your competition?
3. Competition
Your competitive advantage is always in reference to some other business or designer. It is comparative. It differentiates you. It influences a choice of you over others. You competition might be traditional. It might be non-traditional. It might be emerging.
How does your competition look like from your customer’s viewpoint?
How Do You Determine Your Competitive Advantage(s)?
First, think about your strengths.
Second, think about the strengths and weaknesses of your major competitors. These competitors might be in your same geographic location, or they may be online.
Search on Google and Etsy for jewelry makers. How do they present themselves? What qualities do they emphasize? What competitive advantages do they claim? Based on what evidence? How do they link their idea of competitive advantage to their assessments of customer needs, wants and desires?
Last, list what things you are better at than your competitors.
____________________
FOOTNOTES
Bunker, Heather. What Is Your Handmade Business’s Secret Sauce — Or Differentiator? 5/6/2020.
The ultimate goal and priority for any successful business is branding. Here your clients have an emotional connection to your work as a designer. They immediately recognize your style. Your choices in design. Your sensibilities. Your value and desirability for them. Branding is about what your customers perceive about you, and how you make them feel.
Your brand has ingredients; many moving parts which consist of the following:
The quality of your product or service
How it offers more value (for example, better quality, easier access, and/or lower price) than your competition
The speed at which you deliver it
The support you give your existing customers
The tone/look/feel of your product, copy, and advertising
How many different contexts and situations in which it is used
Jewelry designers who are successful know how to build your brand. In this chapter, I discuss this in more detail.
What Is Branding?
Branding is your product’s personality. You. Your voice. Your message. Your commitment. Your look. Your artist’s hand. But always remember, with branding, consistency is the real driving force behind it.
Your jewelry will have a personality. It may project one or more of these characteristics: handcrafted, artistic, sophisticated, human, enduring, novel, playful, versatile, fashionable, well-constructed, noticeable, enviable. These are the kinds of things you think your customer wants, desires or needs. These are the kinds of things customers buy jewelry for — to make their life a little better, a little bit more fun, a little bit more authentic. These are the kinds of things your customers want to feel when purchasing and wearing your jewelry.
Your brand is the name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies your product as distinct from those of others. Brand is often the most valuable asset of a company. As such, it needs to be groomed and managed carefully. Good branding will result in higher sales and greater longevity for the business. Good branding can make it easier to introduce new products. Good brand management seeks to make your product or service relevant to your target audience.
Your brand will be used in several contexts — in a store, on stationery, on websites, in posts, as signatures in email, with image captions. As such, it should be what is called scale-able — that is, it is flexible and adaptable enough to function in many contexts.
I am often asked: What if you want to make a lot of different kinds and styles of jewelry? If they are so different that they feel like they are different brands, you will either have to narrow your interests, or develop separate branding strategies for each set of products.
If you want to sell other types of products along with your jewelry, if they feel like a part of the same brand, then your branding strategy should be something that encompasses all the variations in products available. If they feel like separate brands, then you need a unique branding strategy for each one.
How Does Branding Differ From Marketing?
Businesses often make the mistake of talking about marketing, advertising and branding interchangeably. So people often confuse them. This confusion is unfortunate.
Marketing is what you do. Marketing efforts make people aware of you.
Advertising is a tool or technique. It is one of the many, many things marketers do.
Branding is what you are. Branding efforts create an emotional and enduring connection to you.
You cannot do effective marketing without a clear idea of your brand, and the words, look and feel needed to convey it. Branding should both precede and underlie any marketing effort. The brand is bigger than any particular marketing effort. The brand is what sticks in your customer’s mind about your product or company, whether they purchased your product or not.
Marketing may convince someone to buy. Branding will convince someone to be loyal.
Marketing will unearth buyers. Branding will make them advocate for you.
Why Is Branding Important?
Everything you do will have the effect of either inspiring or deterring your customer. Every thought, price, design choice, marketing promotion, merchandising decision, product placement — all of these lead up to your customer recognizing (or not) you and your jewelry as a brand. Branding is the essential foundation to a successful jewelry design business.
You should be in brand-building-mode from day 1!
Your Successful Branding Campaign
What drives you? Passion? Values? Purpose? People who create great brands are usually seeking to fulfill some inner longing of their own, some dream of how they want to live their lives.
How do you want your customer to perceive you? What is your long-term vision? What will your business look like when you are done? Can you track your progress? Can you create clear milestones to help you know if you are on tract? Why would someone do business with you rather than someone else?
Most successful brands use very human strategies in their communication and relationship building. You need to see and understand your business in relationship terms, not transactional ones. Give you brand an aura. Inspire your customer. How will you serve them? How will you solve their problems through the jewelry you design? What do you stand for? What differentiates you from your competition? What types of products and services can your customers expect from you?
A successful jewelry designer would not merely say “I make jewelry.” She would be more focused, more specific and more enthusiastic. She might say, “I create beautiful works of art to adorn people.” She might say, “I make people ooh and aah!” She might say, “I help people find that right décor accent they have been looking for.”
Your customer needs to know:
1. What you have to sell
2. How your jewelry changes something in their lives, and
3. What they have to do to get one of those
Try to emphasis specificity and avoid generic statements.
Who Are You Targeting With Your Branding Campaign?
You want to target four key audiences with your branding campaign. These include:
1. New Customers
2. Influencers
3. Current Customers
4. Purchase Decision Makers
Your Business Name Should Reflect Your Brand
How does your business name relate to your product and brand identity? Does your tag line support your brand identity?
If you plan on selling more products than just jewelry, you do not need the word jewelry in your name. Anticipate the future of your business as best as you can.
Before you select that name,
· Settle on a tone.
· Research that brand names you want are available.
· English is not the only language option for you.
· Getting feedback is your best friend.
The Names Your Call Your Jewelry And Lines Of Jewelry Should Reflect Your Brand
Giving names to your jewelry and jewelry lines allows you to amplify your company name and brand, as well as their impacts and effects. But you must tie your naming strategies back into your primary brand identity.
Your LOGO and Other Graphics Designs Should Reflect Your Brand
Does your logo relate to your products and values? Does the logo help people remember you?
You want effective visual brand identity. Fonts, colors, images, packaging, displays, use of particular visual elements to create distinction all should support your brand.
Your ELEVATOR PITCH and TAG Lines Should Reflect Your Brand
Your Elevator Pitch and your Tag Line make it easier not only for your audience to understand exactly what your product is, but also gives them something easy and simple to share. Shareable information is spreadable. It can be posted, tweeted, texted and talked about. These give your brand a voice.
The Look of Your Pieces Should Reflect Your Brand
You play with shapes, colors, sounds, scents, tastes, movements, textures, patterns, compositions, silhouettes, packaging, displays, constructions — are all of these supporting your brand?
Your Website and Online Social Profiles Should Reflect Your Brand
Your website and online social profiles should look like your work — similar in look, feel and tone. Your work and your presence need to reflect on one another and be compatible.
Always include CALLS TO ACTION and/or LESSONS LEARNED throughout.
Your Portfolio Should Reflect Your Brand
If you have a varied set of pieces to include in your Portfolio, organize them in such a way that your brand identity still shines through. This might involve placement, naming, descriptive text, sizing and layout.
Delivering Your Message Clearly
It goes without saying that you can have a lot of things organized and in place, but the crux comes in how you deliver your brand message clearly.
Think about: Why do things catch on? Why do people talk about you? How do you generate a buzz?
Developing your marketing message, pretesting it, pretesting again, testing, testing again is very important. Your message needs to be consistent and coherent and resonate with people. Your customer should be able to anticipate that your brand is going to deliver the same essence of a thing each and every time.
It is very tempting to try to be everything to everyone. And you may have different kinds of customers. But, at the end of the day, they all should have the same impression of your values and your products.
Your core message needs to have both an emotional side and a rational side. Example: You make jewelry that lasts.
Your core message needs to be believable. Example: Your jewelry is worn by the queen. [True or not true?]
Your core message needs to be relevant. Example: I sell wedding jewelry. [Only relevant for people who need jewelry for a wedding; if that’s not your customer, this message won’t work.]
Your core message needs to be simple. If your customer cannot understand, remember or repeat your one thing, it is too complicated. It won’t stick in the person’s mind.
Give people things to talk about. Make things fun.
You will be using a multi-method approach towards getting your branding messages out. Advertising. Social Media. Attending events. Sponsorships. Selling in stores. Website. Donations. Packaging. Displays. You want your message to be reinforced over and over again from many angles and points of view.
Your marketing message should promise what you know you can actually deliver. Authenticity reconfirms actions, and in term, resonates well with customers.
Confirming Your Credibility
Tell and share your story in a way that creates a connection with your customer. Think about how things in your life led up to your success, how this relates to the brand identity you are trying to create, and, last, how the customer will relate to your story. You may find you have to re-write your story to meet your branding goals, and this is OK.
Your jewelry can be explained by your values and beliefs, your experiences and lifestyle. Put into words who you are, what your values and beliefs are, also your goals and how you approach the jewelry design process.
Show and tell the customer, in simple words and phrases, what the consequences (positive and/or negative) for them might be if they bought and wore your jewelry, and what the likelihood of any of these consequences occurring.
Offer any evidence that your assessment of consequences and their likelihood of occurring will happen.
People always trust word-of-mouth, so generating this is always important.
Commit to serving your customer over and over again, and they will learn to trust and rely on you.
Connecting To Your Clients Emotionally
Always work to market that emotional connection with your customers. Inspire affection. Create fantasy.
People need to see your business as a solution to their problems. So you want to make your competitive advantages (over all your other competitors) very visible and apparent. Show and tell them how you intend to minimize their risk should they choose your products to solve their problems. Not generic problems, but the actual concerns of your real and potential customers.
Customer concerns and problems may be one or more of the following:
· Want peace of mind
· Want to feel a part of a group or family
· Want to feel they make good choices
· Want to make life easier
· Want their questions answered
· Want to minimize any sense of risk or consequences
· Want to be the focus of attention
· Want to fit into a particular situation, context, event
· Want power and influence
· Want reassurance about something
· Want greater self-esteem
· Want meaning in their life
Listen to feedback. What are your better customers saying about your brand — positive, negative and everything in between? Show them that you hear what they are saying.
Always respond in meaningful ways. Follow-up on everything. The more you can repeat your customer’s first name in your follow-ups, the better their response.
Motivate Your Buyer, and Secure Your Customer’s Loyalty
Recognize loyalty. Reward and cultivate. Give them access to new products and services first. Involve customers in your business. Let them test your products. Turn them into brand ambassadors and encourage them to spread word of mouth. Get feedback on your marketing strategies. Give them a sense of brand ownership. Engage in conversations. Respond to needs. Make them feel good. Give out referral rewards. Encourage them to post reviews online, and then thank them for these. Feature them on your website or blog. Follow-up after purchases.
SUCCESSFUL BRANDING STRATEGIES
There are many types of branding strategies, and you will be using several of these. These include,
1. Making new rules
2. Marketing a belief
3. Creating connection and belonging
4. Enabling expression
5. Creating culture
6. Leveraging tension
7. Using scarcity
8. Encouraging play
Since a lot of your business will occur online, you will be doing a lot of social media marketing.
Anticipate Problems
Your brand loyalty can disappear in almost an instant. You have to be diligent in anticipating or dealing with after the fact, things like
· Service interruptions
· Too many options diluting the brand
· Mixed messages confusing customers
· Negative publicity or negative word-of-mouth
· New competitors or existing competitors upping their game
The jewelry market is always big enough to attract new competitors as well as provide opportunities for existing competitors to deliver better, faster, cheaper. Face the challenge to elevate your marketing and branding strategies and tactics and deliver more value.
Brands Evolve
As time goes on, things come in and go out of fashion. Styles, colors, silhouettes. Your customers might begin to get bored or even dislike your brand. Stay relevant and flexible. A well-managed brand is always making adjustments.
You want to be ready to deal with this kind of thing before it happens. That means, it is important to be ready to re-brand. It is important to seek out and enter new markets. It is critical that you be in touch at all times with your customers’ goals and values.
Periodically, reality test.
For instance, visualize someone else taking over your business. Could they succeed at maintaining your brand?
Did your product deliver the experience the customer was looking for?
Have you maintained quality standards?
Did your employees and sales staff and sales agents understand your brand and sound like they know what they are talking about when interacting with customers?
Did you respond to phone calls and emails in a timely manner?
Do you customers believe you have their best interests at heart?
Measure Your Effectiveness
It is always important to build in evaluative and feedback components to all your business activities. Branding is no exception.
How well is your business (you and your employees) inspired to execute all your proposed marketing and branding activities?
Given the time and money you are spending, are you getting that Return On Investment (ROI)?
Does your brand resonate with your customers? Does this translate into sales and profitability?
Plan to do some experimenting by testing out different ideas before settling on one. Be sure your ideas fit your brand authenticity and align with your strategies.
MARKETING / PROMOTION / POSITIONING: Social Media Marketing For The Jewelry Designer
Social Media Marketing For Very Small Businesses … That Works!
Today’s successful jewelry-designers and other very small business entrepreneurs maintain a very visible presence on the internet. You must have an online way for people to find you and your products. There are many options. These options vary in terms of who controls the site, the costs to be there and update as necessary, and what limitations are imposed on the site or because of how the site operates.
They may have a website that functions simply as a billboard or business card. They may list merchandise on their site, with prices, and information about how to order it. They may present their jewelry on Ebay or other auction houses, or on sites like Etsy or Supadupa. They may let someone else promote their jewelry on-line in exchange for a commission or royalty. They may post images or videos on sites like Instagram and TikTok. They may have a business page on Facebook, Google or Bing. Or they may have a fully functioning shopping cart system on their own dot.com.
Whatever their level of involvement online, they must put into place active and deliberate marketing strategies for creating visibility for their site and their products, and for maintaining and enhancing that visibility over time. It’s all about recruiting and retaining eyeballs, whatever it takes. Take advantage of social medias’ powers for networking.
Digital marketing is not one thing; it is a set of different strategies and pathways for connecting with and influencing people. While initially a lot of what you do will be hit or miss and trial and error, you eventually want to get very organized, developing internet marketing goals, objectives and encapsulating them into a coherent plan. You want to be represented broadly across many platforms, but concentrate your energies narrowly on perhaps 2 platforms only.
You want your website and any web presence to be:
· Optimized for search engines and directories
· Attractive
· Navigate-able and User friendly
· Enticing to first time visitors as well as repeat customers
· As broadly visible and findable as possible
· Broadly bookmarked and linked to
Successful marketing of any kind means:
· Getting Seen
· Getting Known
· Getting Your Competitive Advantage Recognized
· Making the Sale
Make them stop. Make them stay.
To achieve these marketing goals online requires putting into effect various internet marketing strategies, some technical, others not.
Towards this end, I provide insights about the following:
1. Conducting an initial marketing audit of your online presence
2. Optimizing your front door and landing pages
3. Choosing and placing key words and hashtags
4. Optimizing your social profiles
5. Site usability and navigation concerns
6. Intensive site placement and linkages
7. Inexpensive things you can do to get noticed
8. Social media posts marketing
9. On-line advertising
10.Generating an email list and conducting email campaigns
11.Creating visual images and video content
12.Garner online reviews
13.Getting customer feedback
14.Competitor surveillance
15.Establishing baseline site-activity indicators
16.Have a FAQ page which summarizes all your policies and procedures
17.Have a testimonials page
18.Create relationships with online influencers to market your jewelry
You want to choose the right tools and use them in the right way. If the wrong tools, you can waste a lot of time and money and find yourself serving the wrong customers.
1. Conducting An Initial Marketing Audit of Your Online Presence
1. Assessing current marketing materials, brochures, business cards, stationery, listings, keywords, descriptions, click through ad campaigns, email lists, efforts and activities,
2. Assessing current web-site strengths and weaknesses, from a marketing standpoint, that is, how you are in sync with target customer needs, wants, desires and shopping behaviors, and
3. Setting reasonable and attainable online marketing goals and objectives.
Do all your printed materials reference your website and/or your email address?
Is this information prominent and readily accessible, or is it buried?
Does it convey a sense of pride in your online efforts, or shame and embarrassment?
Do you routinely mention your website to your customers or clients?
Do all your emails end with a business signature, that includes your business name, address, phone, fax, and email?
Does your website clearly and concisely express what your business is all about, and how to contact you — particularly in terms of the information on the front page, any other landing pages, near the top, that would appear in the first screen that your customer would see?
Is your navigation bar/system/strategy easy to manipulate by any customer?
Is each link labeled clearly and strategically?
Does the set of all your links clearly and easily get your customer to each section of your website?
Have you minimized the number of links it takes to get to any one of your product pages?
Is your front page indexable by search engine robots?
Is there sufficient information on this page to index?
Is the organization of keywords on your front page presented to your advantage, or disadvantage, given search engine indexing schemes?
Does your front page load relatively quickly?
Have you kept your graphics on your front page to a reasonable amount so they don’t slow down page loading or obscure any keyword information?
Does your website have the kinds of things that will encourage customers to remain on your site more than a few seconds?
Is it relatively easy to keep your website up-to-date, such as changing information, uploading new images, creating new layouts?
Is your website responsive — that is, will load and be easily readable on any browser and any device, no matter screen size or preset layout parameters?
Now, GOOGLE YOURSELF. This way you have a starting point for how visible you are on the internet.
2. Optimizing Your Front Door and Landing Pages
Your front door page (or any landing page) is your most strategic website asset. It should be optimized in form and content so that it anticipates the indexing and ranking schemes (algorithms) of the major search engines. While these schemes get altered on a regular basis, there are some pointers which will be generally helpful all the time.
1. Don’t use frames. Try to use DIV instead of TABLE html commands. Try to use a CSS style sheet along with HTML5 (or most recent version) coding. Make your webpage responsive, so that it will load up perfectly no matter the browser or screen size of the device.
2. Don’t use a visually wonderful, but indexability awful splash page. You should settle for a slightly less visually appealing page, as a tradeoff for making it more indexable and rank-able.
3. You are selling things. The average person will have the average computer system or cell phone setup. That means, you can’t use the most up-to-date, exciting website technology available. Your pages won’t load up for everyone, some may take too long to load up, and some may even lock up your device. Save the best-of-current-tech for your personal home page.
4. If you are using a template-based host’s WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) website design editor, be sure the final result will be responsive. Also be sure your website will be easy to update and maintain.
5. TITLE: Your title should be about 9 words (not more, not less), with your most important key word first. Don’t repeat the same word twice in a row; separate it by another word. Use lower case letters for your key words.
For example: “beads, jewelry findings, beading supplies — Land of Odds” is better than “Land of Odds — beads, jewelry findings, beading supplies”. [Most important keyword is first.]
For example: “beads, jewelry findings, beading supplies” is better than “Beads, beading supplies, jewelry findings.” [Here bead is capitalized once, and appears as what would be judged as twice in a row.]
6. FIRST TEXT LINE: Your first line of the page (and this will appear after the BODY tag if you are hand coding), should be about 10 words, again repeating your major keywords, not putting the same word twice next to each other, and listing the words from most to least important. Never start the page with a TABLE or Graphic file. Start with words.
7. LINK AND PAGE NAMES: Be strategic in the names you give your active links and webpages. Use your keywords in these LINK DESCRIPTIONS (link-text) and URL ADDRESSES (url-text).
For example: Call your gemstone necklace page “gemstonenecklace.htm” rather than something like “AC402.htm”.
In creating the link descriptions on your page, write something like “Gemstone Necklaces” rather than “Products Page”.
8. PARAGRAPHS: Have about 3 paragraphs of text on your front-door page. Each paragraph might have 3 or so sentences.
Your major keywords should appear in this pattern:
– At the top of paragraph #1
– In the middle of paragraph #2
– Not at all in paragraph #3
If you don’t like the look of all those words on your front door page, you can always put the paragraphs at the bottom of your webpage.
9. IMAGES: For all your images, use the ALT tag. For the ALT tag, use your keywords to describe the image. By using the ALT tag, when someone places the cursor over the image, a yellow box will appear with the ALT tag words appearing. These are also very indexable.
Make your original images into .jpg or .tif or .gif files. The original images should be a minimum of 500 x 500 pixels and 72–96 dpi resolution. Within your webpage, you can adjust image sizes. Preference for using the percent (%) adjustment rather than setting particular pixel width and height sizes.
10.HEADINGS: Set up 2 or 3 heading on your front door page, and use your keywords in the heading text. Sometimes what you code as a heading is the first thing indexed, and sometimes the only thing indexed. On subsequent pages, use more headings, if these make sense for the page.
11.COMMENT TAGS: Put in at least one COMMENT tag using your keywords. In the HTML code, comments start with <! — and end with → . COMMENT tags cannot be seen on your page. They are hidden within the code. There is a 1000 character limit to COMMENT tags. Words in COMMENT tags are very indexable.
12.DOMAIN NAME: If you haven’t already selected a website domain name, you might try to create one using your most important keyword in the URL-text. There are many sites online that sell domain names. Compare their prices which can be all over the place. Compare the amount of space they offer you, any email limits, and whether you can add a shopping cart. For example, “beadsatlandofodds.com” would do far better than “landofodds.com” in search engine indexing.
You can also envision having more than one front-door or landing page for your website. You might have different kinds of customers, and may want to set up an entrance very tailored to each of them. From the search engine’s standpoint, they do not like to see virtually the same page used more than once. You will lose points here if this is your approach. But you can set up differently designed pages as front entrances, and based on how you get your site listed, you can use any of these as the link-reference point.
3. Choosing and Placing Key Words and Hash Tags
Generate a keyword list of 1000 characters. You can use a word processing program like WORD, which has a character counter. In this list, you would include variations on upper case and lower case spellings, as well as common misspellings.
Think about the words and phrases your customers might use to find you, to understand what you do as a jewelry designer, and how your jewelry will satisfy their needs and desires.
To research keywords, you can go to various search engines, plug in the major keywords you’re interested in, and check out what keywords other sites which pop up in the search engines search, have used. On each site’s front door page, review what words they see to use on this page. Also, you can use the browser’s VIEW button to bring up the Source Code image of a page, and check out what keywords other people have listed in their META TAGS (which are otherwise hidden from view). You can use Google’s ad words program to generate keyword lists.
Hash Tags
A hashtag is a word or keyword phrase preceded by a hash symbol (#). It’s used within a post on social media to help those who may be interested in your topic to be able to find it when they search for a keyword or particular hashtag. It helps to draw attention to your posts and encourage interaction.
If you are using a phrase, do not put spaces between the words.
You want to use hashtags that you think people will search on.
You don’t want to be too general and you don’t want to be too obscure. You can check out what influencers in your area of interest are using on their posts.
You should, if possible, include a branded hashtag, such as #yourname, #yourbusinessname, or #nameoflineofjewelry .
Different social media platforms have different expectations for the number of hashtags they view as optimal. Use that number, not more or less, if you can.
Facebook (1 to 2 at most)
LinkedIn (1 to 3 at most; place them within the body of your post, rather than at the end)
Instagram (10 or 11 is best, but you can use up to 30 hashtags)
Tik Tok (100 characters maximum)
Pinterest (1 or 2 at most)
I would suggest using hashtags in all your posts.
4. Optimizing Your Social Profiles
In various social media sites, directories and other places you list your business, you want to have a great, professional social profile about yourself. Think about…
Username: This is the identity of your business in one simple or compound word. If you have the opportunity to verify your name within any site, do so. This builds trust.
Biography: You want a short introduction to yourself and your business. [Refer to your Getting Started Story in an earlier chapter.] List important information about yourself and your business. Tell the reader how you and your design work solved problems for them. Establish some indicators of credibility and legitimacy. Make your business sound approachable.
Photos: Get a good headshot of yourself and another shot of your working at making jewelry. Get another image that defines your business, such as store front, store displays, or a group of employees serving customers. Last take some appealing images of some of the pieces you make and which represent your brand or style. Include photos showing someone wearing your pieces. Photos should be in .jpg format, 500×500 pixels minimum size, and 300dpi (for print) and 72–96dpi (for screen).
Headline or Tag Line: Usually you have an opportunity to add a short line of text after your name or the name of your business. 7–9 words is good. This line should suggest your keywords and hashtag words. This line should be catchy. Test out a few examples and see which ones get the best reactions.
Content: A lot of informative content on your profiles is always a plus. Research what other jewelry designers are posting on blogs and on Facebook for ideas.
When you update your social profile, let all your followers know. This is a good way to keep them engaged with your business.
5. Site Usability and Navigation Concerns
How usable is your website to:
– New customers
– Returning customers
Websites need very clear Navigation systems.
Websites need strategies to keep them from becoming boring. After someone visits a site a few times, and it only takes a few times, the sites become stale and boring to them.
Websites need all your contact information — address, phone, fax, email — right on your first page. Or at least a very visible link/button to CONTACT INFORMATION. Don’t make your customers hunt for contact information.
Navigation System
There is a series of research about the Magical Number 7 plus or minus 3. When people are confronted with 7 or more choices, they psychologically need to re-categorize them, such as into one group of 3 and another group of 4, in order to deal with all this information. Otherwise they get paralyzed and stumped. People can easily handle 4 pieces (7 minus 3) of information, but start to get uncomfortable with 7 pieces, and can also be forced to deal with 10 separate pieces (7 plus 3) information, but that’s pushing it.
From a website design standpoint, you do not want to make someone have to travel more than 4 links to get to the product information they want. As the required number of links to click on gets greater than 4 clicks, your customers will begin to get paralyzed, and not make the next click. Wherever you find you have more than 4 clicks to get to a product, you can re-categorize, so you have fewer links to navigate.
For example, suppose it takes 5 clicks to get from your section on Jewelry to your section on Amethyst Beaded Necklaces:
PRODUCTS — click 1 to — JEWELRY — click 2 to — NECKLACES — click 3 to — BEADED NECKLACES — click 4 to — GEMSTONE BEADED NECKLACES — click 5 to — AMETHYST BEADED NECKLACES.
You might reduce the number of clicks the customer has to travel by reducing the number of webpages they have to traverse:
PRODUCTS/JEWELRY — click 1 to — NECKLACES/BEADED NECKLACES — click 2 to — GEMSTONE BEADED NECKLACES/AMETHYST.
On the PRODUCTS page, you list all your types of products. On your NECKLACES page, you list all your types of necklaces. On your GEMSTONE BEADED NECKLACES page, you list all the types of gemstones.
Avoiding Boredom
Websites get stale fast. Unfortunately, to keep things re-designed and very fresh takes a lot of time and effort. So, you want to come up with some simple, less time-consuming tricks that you can do to keep your website appearing fresh.
One trick is to put something on the page that moves. Build in some kind of “movement” on your front-door page. You can use a .gif animation file, or create mouse-overs and other simple fun things which move using Javascripts.
Another trick is to create a sense of Interactivity — forms, polls, message boards, chat lines, email sign-up, email link, contests, games, ezines, links/resources page listing other sites of interest.
A third trick is to run specials and/or have a What’s New section.
Contact Information
Preferably on the first page, include your address, email, phone, fax, and other important identifying contact information.
If you have a separate CONTACT PAGE, be sure that the link/button to the page is prominently displayed at the top of your front door page.
If you use a CONTACT FORM, I think it is also helpful to list your email address on this same page, as well. If concerned about robots collecting email addresses off websites to use in spam, you can write you email address like this: warren (@) landofodds (dot) com .
Many of your regular customers or clients will begin to use your website like a rolodex entry. Make it easy for them.
Caution: many anti-spam programs reject emails that begin with Info, Contact, Shop and other very generic terms.
6. Intensive Site Placement and Linkages
It is important that you get listed with all the major search engines, directories and social media sites, as well as specialty directories associated with your specific business.
To make this process go as quickly as possible, it is important to have all your information together in one place, where you can cut and paste the information into the online forms, as requested.
Besides having about 12–20 of your most important keywords or keyword phrases handy, also have about 12 hashtags ready. You will also want to create 25-word, 50-word, 100-word and 200-word descriptions of your site, heavy on keywords, but no side-by-side keyword repetitions. One more thing: have a 7 to 9-word part description / part tag line for your business. Make this catchy.
Do NOT pay for or use any of the multiple submission services. Take the time to submit your site to each search engine and directory, one at a time. A site submitted through a multiple submission service can get assigned a low ranking by the search engines.
You can use Yahoo or Google or Bing to find specialized directories. Get listed in as many as these as possible.
Many search engines and some directories now charge you for a listing, either as a flat fee, or as a click-through rate. You may not be able to afford all the opportunities, but you might want to follow through on the major ones.
Some search engines will let you buy key words. When someone searches on a keyword, a link to your site will appear. If someone clicks through on that link, you’re charged a per click fee. Google ad words and Facebook ads work this way.
Also, link up with web-rings, web-malls, and other affinity arrangements online. You might create your own affinity arrangement with others businesses you know.
There are many sites which list local resources. Get listed. Facebook’s Graph Search allows you to search for businesses both by location as well as friend’s recommendations. It shows you which businesses your friends have frequented. Yelp and Trip Advisor are critical for local businesses.
You can do a search on the URL web-address of your competitors, as well as on their names, to see where they are listed.
Some of your suppliers may list you on their websites. Some of your customers or clients may list you on their websites.
To get a high ranking, search engines do three things:
a) CATEGORIZE your site in relation to certain keywords, by indexing words on your site,
b) RATE your link-popularity, by checking how often someone clicks on a link to your site, and
c) RANK the link-relevancy of your site based on how long the person stays on your site, once they’ve clicked on their way there.
So, the more places that maintain a link to your website, the more likely someone is to click through to it. The better designed your website is, the more likely someone is to hang around awhile. The better indexed you are (called SEO optimization), the more visible you are in any search.
7. Inexpensive Things You Can Do To Get Noticed
There are many low-cost or free things you can do to increase your visibility online. Some suggestions:
a. Get reciprocal links — “I’ll list you if you list me.” There are your friends and personal associates; other similar businesses; affinity sites such as shopping malls, specialized directories, awards programs.
b. Create educational and information content. Share it with other sites in exchange for a link back to your site. In fact, there are Free Content sites online that act as a repository and exchange for free content articles. Submit your articles there.
c. Respond to people’s questions in forums, newsgroups, message boards, reviews and the like. Start each of your responses by repeating their first name. Include a business signature with a link back to your site at the end of your response.
d. Write articles for online ezines, newsgroups, forums, specialized portals and the like.
e. Join affinity groups.
f. Include a lot of explanatory and how-to information next to each of your products.
g. Run a contest.
h. Set up a group and form your own community within one or more of the social media sites.
i. Set up a business page on one or more of the social media sites, as well as the major search engines such as Google and Bing.
j. Create your own online newsletter.
k. Post images on all the social media sites.
l. Post short videos to You Tube, as well as other social media sites, particularly Instagram and Tik Tok. Videos will generate more interest than images.
m. Create a blog. Keep it active. You can also use micro-blogging posts to lesson your workload. Micro blog posts are short links to other websites or posts online you find of interest. Here you make a statement about why the reader should pay attention to this link. Write the link. Suggest that the reader come back to your blog and offer some feedback.
n. Create an email campaign for your email-opt-in customers.
o. Send birthday wishes to your followers; include an image of your jewelry; tag the follower.
p. Create both business and personal profile pages on various social media sites.
q. Run promotions and discount offers.
r. Bundle 2 or more pieces of jewelry and run a promotion.
s. Shine a spotlight on your employees.
t. Show off your space.
u. Run a contest.
v. Re-share content from other sites.
w. Recognize loyalty; feature your super customers in blog posts or posts on social media channels; give them first access to new products; create a brand loyalty program.
x. Invite customers to react to and test out new ideas before you implement them.
y. Reward referrals.
z. On social media, position yourself as a subject matter expert.
aa. Use social media to find cross-promotional partners.
One thing I do NOT recommend is to send mass e-mailings where your target audience has not previously opted in to receive emails from you. Mass e-mailings generate a lot of positive responses, but they generate a lot of negative responses, as well, from people overwhelmed with spam.
There will always be new tools every year to take advantage of. Sharing text, image, video and audio will always remain in style.
However, you decide to attract attention and increase your visibility, you will pay with either your time or your money. At first, you will probably take a shot-gun approach — that is, trying everything. But in the interests of time and money, you will want to narrow your efforts.
8. Social Media Posts Marketing
Post everywhere. React to other people’s posts. Answer queries. Suggest how-to solutions. Include an image with your post, 1–3 hashtags, and a link back to your website or online presence.
Create a presence on all social media sites, and post to them all. However, select 2 of them to concentrate your marketing efforts.
Things which improve responses to posts: touches of humor, quality of information, your excitement, something weird, something the evokes an emotional response, a feeling of connection.
Keep your posts short. Yes, you are marketing yourself and your designs, but more subtly. You do not want to sound salesy.
Engage your viewer. For example, ask “Which of these 3 is your favorite?” or “A and B are perfect together — Agree?”.
If at all possible, end each post with either a CALL TO ACTION or a TAKE-AWAY / LESSONS LEARNED.
Share photos of events. Share photos of what’s new?
If someone responds to your post, respond back to them. At a minimum, thank them for their post. Remember to cite their first names in your responses.
Pay attention to the number of responses you get, and whether you get more or fewer responses depending on the site, the day of the week or the time of the day.
Plan to make posts on a regular basis. You might plan to use the same posts on different media sites. If using the same post for placement on the same social media site, say in several interest groups on that site, try to limit the same post to, in this example, 3 interest groups.
Instagram has been especially useful, productive and responsive to jewelry maker posts. With Instagram, I suggest planning to post at least once every single day. Remember that those captions are important and you want to make them clever or very personal in some way.
Quality will matter more than quantity.
9. Online Advertising
There are many opportunities for online advertising. For each opportunity, you want to carefully think through the costs and benefits. How many impressions (# of eyeballs) will your ad achieve? For each impression, how many of those people will follow through (click-thru rate) and link to your site? What words, keywords, terms seem to influence people to click-thru more often? What is a reasonable cost per click through?
The first types of advertising you should do are the basic, cheap and obvious. Include your website address and/or email address on your stationery, business cards, business checks, brochures, other handouts.
You add some marketing highlights, address and email as your “signature” for all the emails you send.
You might send out a Press release to your local papers and magazines, or to regional and national publications pertinent to your business. You will want to approach them with a good angle, that you think would be of interest to their readers.
Many search engines, like Google, directories and social media sites sell keywords. You pay a certain amount of money for each click thru to your site. You can set a limit to how much you want to spend each month. It could be as low as a few dollars, or as high as you want to go. When one of their visitors does a search on the particular keyword (or keyword phrase), your name appears with the search results, with a clickable link back to your site. You pay when someone clicks on that link and visits your site. Using a keyword phrase of 2 or more words, rather than a single word keyword will narrow your target audience, but at the same time increase the chances one of these people will click through.
Instead of using keywords, you might also be able to target customers by demographic data, such as age, gender, and geographic location.
You might purchase a banner ad to place on other people’s sites.
You can also purchase ad space or sponsorship listings on various online ezines, magazine and websites.
You can place classified ads. Many search engines have classified sections. There are many specialized websites hosting classified ads.
In a similar way, you can post several of your products on Ebay or other auction sites. Marketing on Ebay is very similar to taking out an ad, but probably more effective.
Note: Social media sites and search engines tend to favor paid posts and ads. These sites probably have applications which help you narrow your target audience, thus maximizing your costs-per-click-thru.
10. Generating An Email List and Conducting Email Campaigns
It is critical to generate an email list of customers. You want them to very formally and visibly opt-in to the list. You can generate sign-up sheets, online forms, and the like towards this end.
You can segment your email list into smaller, targeted groups.
A monthly contact is reasonable.
Caution: many anti-spam programs reject emails that begin with Info, Contact, Shop and other very generic terms.
11. Creating Visual Images and Video Content
Images: Images get better responses than text. Make your original images into .jpg or .tif or .gif files. The original images should be a minimum of 500 x 500 pixels and 72–96 dpi resolution. Within your webpage, you can adjust image sizes. Preference for using the percent (%) adjustment rather than setting particular pixel width and height sizes.
Show images of your finished pieces. Of you at working making things. Of someone wearing your pieces. Of the inspirations for your pieces. Of works in progress. Of close-up details of your pieces.
Encourage customers to share images of them wearing your jewelry.
Create a slide show of a series of images to tell a story.
Infographics generate lots of discussion.
Write captions for all your images. Don’t just tell them what the image is. Tell them how and why what is photographed will be important to them. Try to use humor and irony. Make the captions authentic. Bring out your personality in the captions. For example: “The bracelet you always wanted to go with that blue dress,” or, “One of a kind necklace which will no longer be available after the 1st.”
More examples:
“My color-picking frustrations paid off this time!”
“Need to finish this ASAP. Didn’t even take the time to brush my hair today!”
“So tribal … What do you think?”
“I think I’ve made a necklace to match the picture I hung in my room. Didn’t even think about that. Or did I?”
“I made all this jewelry today, and now have to leave it to do some vacuuming. I can’t stop looking at it though.”
Videos: Videos are the best way to get attention on the internet. They catch the eye. They can convey emotions. They make demonstrations easy to follow.
There are many formats. The safest one to use is MP4. When you upload to a site, like You Tube, the sites convert your video to their format. Consider purchasing video editing software. For the most part, keep your videos short — either the 1–3 minute version or the 10–20 minute version.
Each social media platform has its own rules and pros and cons for hosting videos. Check out: Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, You Tube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tik Tok, Snapchat. Most require a screen resolution of 1920 x1080 pixels, and a widescreen (16:9) format. You would set up a page or channel on each site. It’s a good idea to create a short introduction video explaining what your page or channel is all about.
You Tube: Host all your videos. On You Tube, you can also live stream video. This is useful to make spot announcements, present new products, and the like. Videos available to everyone. People most often look for “how-to”, “demonstrations”, “product reviews.”
Facebook: Videos can only be seen by your friends and followers. People on this site want videos that are entertaining or inspirational. 85% of viewers watch the videos with the sound off. Video size recommended is 1280×720 pixels.
LinkedIn: People like career-oriented videos as well as corporate and business promotions and interviews and conference broadcasts.
Twitter: Videos are very, very short. Usually off-the-cuff remarks shared by cell phone.
Instagram: Videos are square by default. Optimal size: 1080 x 1350 pixels. You want your videos to tell a story, with a beginning, middle, climax, denouement and conclusion.
Pinterest: Similar to You Tube.
Tik Tok: The standard video length is 3 minutes, though you can go up to 10 minutes. Sound is essential. The orientation is vertical, so you want the size of your video to be 1080 x 1920 pixels.
Pointers:
· Keep the viewer in mind. Aim to meet their needs, whether seeking to solve problems, learn something, be entertained, or be inspired.
· In the first 5–10 seconds, be sure the video content is an attention-grabber with a solid hook. Get your name out and your purpose out. Viewership drops dramatically after 10 seconds.
· Make the video mobile-friendly. Make any text large enough to be seen on a small cell phone screen. Make sure there is good contrast between text and the background it is imposed on.
· Always add either a CALL TO ACTION or a TAKE AWAY / LESSONS LEARNED before the video ends.
· Add captions to your video throughout because many people view videos with the sound off.
· Embed all your posted videos on your own website as well.
12. Garner Online Reviews
Online reviews will always be important.
I widely post links throughout my online pages and emails to the various review sites like Google, Yelp, Facebook and Travel Advisor. Periodically I send out an email to my customer list asking them to post a review.
Respond to every single post, positive or negative. Always begin your responses by writing the reviewer’s first name. Real and authentic responses, rather than canned responses, keep the conversation going and allow you to glean more valuable insights from your customers.
Occasionally the reviews might be negative. I know it’s difficult not to take negative comments personally, but it’s only personal if you allow them to be. Still, even negative comments are opportunities for dialog. Respond to them in a sensitive, understanding way, perhaps suggesting something like, (a) a future discount or reward, or, (b) being grateful for calling something to your attention — that this will change your behavior in the future. Thank them for their review.
One contributing factor to a higher search engine ranking is the number of positive reviews for your site.
Make sure you have set up business profiles on Google and Bing so that your customers can see the reviews posted on either search engine site.
13. Getting Customer Feedback
It is important to get customer feedback about your website, your marketing efforts and your products/product mix. Regularly connecting with customers will help you retain them. It will help you keep their information updated. Asking for feedback will get them more invested in your business. It will help you uncover any customer issues which need to be resolved.
When people email or call you, you might ask some evaluative questions of them, while you have their attention. Also ask them how they found you originally.
You can set up a free poll or survey online. There are many websites that offer free online polls and surveys.
Ask your customers for leads.
14. Competitor Surveillance
The internet provides myriad opportunities for you to view your competitors’ marketing strategies. You can analyze specific competitors you know of in your immediate environment. Or you can focus on 3–5 competitors that are prominent in your business.
Think about what they are doing and their performance relative to what you are doing and your performance.
In the search engine locator box, you can:
– Type a keyword, and look more closely at the first 3–5 competitors whose websites pop up
– Type in the name of a specific competitor, and see which websites mention their name
– Type in the URL address of a specific competitor and see which websites maintain active links to them, or have reviews of them
You can:
– Analyze their website and product line
– Determine what keywords are important to them
– Find out who lists them and links to them
– Check their visibility and rankings
What is their business model?
What assumptions do they make about the market for their products?
Where do they think their customers are?
How do they think their customers will find them?
Where do they advertise?
What is their product mix?
What kinds of pricing strategies have they put into action?
Listening tools (from LinkedIn Share): Some online sites which help you monitor competitors, blogs, comments, videos, tips and the like:
Bing: Internet Search
Commentful: Monitors comments on blog postings
BlogPulse: Identifies daily blog post patterns
Complete Blog: Monitors how people use the internet
Cotweet: Monitors discussions about businesses and their brands on Twitter and Facebook
Digg: Members vote on which web content should be shared
Feedky: Scans and indexes video websites
FourWhere: Finds tips and comments on Yelp, Foursquare and Gowalla.
Google News: Highlights news items about businesses and brands
HootSuite: Customized analytics relative to various social media sites
Klout: Rates and ranks brands based on engagement levels in various social media sites
OpenBook: Searches real-time posts in Facebook
SamePoint: Enables you to connect your business to various social media sites
Sideline: Topic search application for Yahoo
Technorati: measures particular position and influence of any website
Trackur: Lets you watch your reputation, mentions, and promotional campaigns
Trendpedia: Monitors social media sites and what people are saying about you and your brand
UserrnameCheck: Find where your username has been registered
Website Grader: Measures the marketing effectiveness of your website
Yahoo Pipes: Helps you aggregate information from all over the internet
It is important to track the activity on your website, and to try to gauge whether this activity level is affected by any marketing effort you might launch.
There should be a statistics package that comes with your website. You can also link to Google Analytics or other available statistical packages online.
From this information, you should gather the following stats:
· # of unique visitors
· Average visitors per day
· Average length on site per vistor
· # of sales per week
· Average doll per sale
· Percent of unique visitors resulting in actual orders
· # of abandoned shopping carts
NOTE: You can easily find out similar information for all your competitors using many apps available online for this purpose.
16. Have a FAQ page which summarizes all your policies and procedures
Create one page, called a FAQ page, which summarizes those policies and procedures relevant to your customer base. Anticipate the kinds of questions your customers will ask you, and provide the answers here.
So, at the least, your customers will ask about:
· Ordering procedures
· Turnaround times
· Shipping time and costs
· Customization
· What to do about lost or damaged merchandise
· Repairs
· Returns and exchanges
· Backorders
· Copyrights, Trademarks
· Disclaimers
· Lead content or other information about materials
· Gift certificates
· Discounts
· Minimum orders
· Exchanging links
· International orders
· Security of site for online payments
· Other payment methods
· Sales taxes
· Wholesale orders or arrangements
17. Have a testimonials page (also can include pages for Press Articles, List of Retailers Who Sell Your Jewelry, Upcoming Events)
Periodically, gather testimonials from your customers who have purchased your product. Set up a webpage listing all these testimonials.
18. Create relationships with online influencers to market your jewelry
There are many people online that function as influencers. Many will market and promote your products in exchange for something. Sometimes this is money. Sometimes this is product. Sometimes this is some other reciprocal arrangement. [See chapter on INFLUENCERS for more details.]
They might share images of your jewelry. They might wear it. They will create a buzz for it.
Start by creating a relationship with an influencer who is relevant to your product line. Follow them everywhere. Interact with their posts. Show that you are interested in what they have to say.
Then pitch a collaboration.
______________
FOOTNOTES
Amin, Arshad. 16 Social Media Optimization Tips You Need To Know, medium.com, 1/18/22.
As a marketer, you will be developing and organizing a series of communication strategies and tactics. You will also be combining things into coherent marketing campaigns with defined goals and methods for collecting evidence from which you can evaluate success. This article discusses the importance of spreading word-of-mouth and some ideas towards this end. Also discussed are some additional marketing ideas workable for the designer.
Marketing Strategies
As a marketer, you will be developing and organizing a series of communication strategies and tactics. You will also be combining things into coherent marketing campaigns with defined goals and methods for collecting evidence from which you can evaluate success.
Your strategies will hone in on the 4 P’s: product, price, promotion and place.
· Product: serves a need not being met or provides a novel experience
· Price: set a fair price both to you as well as your customer
· Promotion: your marketing message and how you get the word out
· Place: where your product is available and your distribution arrangements
Whatever marketing strategies and tactics you resort to, remember this.
· You need to be different and refreshing.
· You need to do something your target audience(s) will talk about.
· You need to make your product approachable, accessible, and memorable.
· You need to enhance the emotional connection among client, product and designer.
· You need to be patient and focused.
· You need to be creative.
· You need to be authentic.
· You need to be market-driven, not product-driven. [It might be a great product, but there needs to be a market for it.]
Some marketing tasks you will direct and take charge of yourself. With some, you will work with an agency and turn over responsibility to them. You might rely on online influencers and bloggers. Some things will be in print. Some will be images and/or posts online. Some will be messages to your email followers. You might coordinate your marketing with similar or complimentary products of other businesses (called co-marketing). You might donate items to organizations which will publicize your donations. You will have business cards, brochures, jewelry name cards, guest books, packaging, letterhead stationery, websites, domain names. You might be able to get articles written about you or invitations to participate in podcasts.
You will find that, with jewelry, you will need to use a multi-method approach to your marketing. Any one particular approach won’t be sufficient to reach enough potential clients and influence enough buying decisions to keep you in business.
The Importance of Word of Mouth: The Biggest Source of New Customers
If your client has had a positive experience with you and your products, it is highly likely they will share this with someone else. This is called word of mouth. Word of mouth might result from a conversation. It might result from an online or print review. It might be generated from comments to an online post. It might be a mention in an article. Word of mouth usually accounts for 3 of every 4 jewelry sales in the United States.
Things which drive word of mouth:
· Thanking your customer
· Asking your customer if they get compliments on your pieces they wear, and if so, can they mention that in a review or post online
· Ask your customers to talk about you, such as mentioning you on Facebook.
· Offer a discount to a customer who refers another to you.
· Image and Video posts on Instagram and other social media sites, and concurrently responding to all LIKES and COMMENTS. Note: Always repeating the person’s first name in our response comments.
· Join social media sites groups, and comment on various posts.
· Hold a customer appreciation event.
· Do some co-marketing with similar businesses in town.
· Follow-up on sales to make sure customers are happy.
· Bring a friend campaign.
· Give out business cards.
· Show something special to clients which I know they will want to tell others about.
· In-store giveaways.
· Be involved in the community.
· Supporting nonprofit fund-raising events, usually by offering a gift certificate or a showy piece of jewelry
· Create how-to handouts and/or post videos online (or other educational content) you can give to customers for free.
Some Marketing Ideas
1. Educate with your content
2. Personalize your marketing messages
3. Be data driven
4. Keep your messages and content updated
5. Be visible in your community and online
6. Manage active and frequent email campaigns, along with implementing strategies to expand your email list
7. Rely on credible influencers
8. Concentrate on one, perhaps two, social networks only, and give it your all
9. Create opt-in offers
10. End all your marketing and promotional messages with a call to action
11. Be a strategic user of key works in webpage designs and promotions
12. Teach
13. Do repairs
14. Survey, listen and learn
15. Sponsor a charitable event
16. Donate products or services to a charity event
17. Co-market with other small businesses
18. Do presentations or webinars to enable your audience to get to know, like and trust you
19. Provide free consultations or demonstrations
20. Write articles
21. Build a website optimized for search
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FOOTNOTES
Coursera. The 4 Ps of Marketing: What They Are and How to Use Them. 8/10/2022.
Marketing is about creating persuasive arguments which can influence a person’s beliefs, attitudes, motivations, intentions and behaviors. Influence comes with knowing what the best outcome that the marketer should seek. Persuasion includes the tools you use to get there. Persuasion can take many forms. The marketer’s success depends on a handful of persuasive factors. Marketing strategies follow one or more of eight universal principles of persuasion. Information within any successful persuasive argument is best presented in a certain order.
Influence and Persuasion
Marketing is about creating persuasive arguments which can influence a person’s beliefs, attitudes, motivations, intentions and behaviors. The marketer wants to be able to persuade the client to focus their attention on the jewelry product line, to approach it, touch it, try it on, buy it, exhibit it, share it with others, then, moreover, to further persuade these others (thus making the marketing message contagious) to want to buy it. Influence comes with knowing what the best outcome that the marketer should seek. Persuasion includes the tools you use to get there.
When we are trying to persuade someone, we might be trying to get them to change their mind about something. We might want them to change the weight, ranking or priority they give one thing over another. We might want them to see the interrelationship among two or more otherwise unrelated things. We might want them to re-evaluate the cost and reward calculus they use when deciding to make a purchase.
When trust is present, influence increases and persuasion ends in more positive outcomes.
Persuasion can take many forms. It can be…
· Coercive, done aggressively through direct commands, threats, fear mongering, shaming.
· Informational, spread as biased in some way towards a particular position or idea.
· Leveraging a belief by appeals to logic and reasoning.
· Leveraging a belief by appeals to feelings and emotions.
· Establishing a high level of credibility or character.
A marketer or jewelry designer is not born as persuasive. It is something to be learned, practiced, applied and applied again. The strength of the marketer’s influence centers on a handful of persuasive factors, such as:
1. Commonalities: People like people like themselves.
2. Logic and Rationality: When you see data, it tells a recognizable story.
3. The Target Audience’s Needs, Wants, Values and Desires: It is important to pay attention and hone in on these.
4. Attractiveness: Attractive people are more persuasive.
5. Confidence / Charisma: Confident /Charismatic people are more persuasive.
6. Preparation: Learning, Practicing and Preparing are how you place yourself in a powerful, persuasive position.
Persuasion and Marketing
Persuasion in marketing involves the ability not just to influence people’s actions, but their attitude as well.
Persuasion is a matter of establishing mutual trust or shared understandings. You develop that sense of trust in your client. That means, they believe that you will deliver on any and all your promises, and that your product will solve their problems, needs and/or desires. The marketer presents some type of evidence which the client must interpret as relevant and valid for themselves, whatever that might mean.
Marketing campaigns are various strategies attempting to influence, direct or change client behaviors by eliciting reactions. Marketing campaigns rely on imagery and word associations tied to emotional responses.
To be persuasive, the marketing message must have value and relevance for your target client. She or he might see a reward or a minimization of costs and agree to change their behavior. She or he might be trying to shield themselves from anything which refutes their sense of self and self-esteem. She or he might derive pleasure when they can align their self-concept with that of the emotional message associated with the product. She or he might find that they can meet their needs for understanding and control by finding out more information about your product.
In response to any marketing campaign, the client can do one of three things:
1. Accept
2. Non-commit or remain indifferent
3. Reject
And it is important to think of persuasion as a continual process. You might be able to persuade someone to purchase your product once, but will they purchase your product again?
The Marketer Should Have A Detailed Familiarity With Everything Involved With Consumer Behavior
What causes clients to purchase certain products and brands, and reject others? It is important to begin to document client shopping behaviors, motivations and their psychological and sociological underpinnings.
The marketer will want to get a handle on the target audience in terms of
· Psychological Factors: How assumptions, perceptions, understandings, values and desires affect responses to the marketing message.
· Personal Factors: How demographic characteristics, such as age, culture, profession, gender play roles in forming responses to the marketing message.
· Social Factors: How socio-cultural groups, such as income, geographic residence, education level, affect shopping behaviors and responses to the marketing message.
How Can Marketing Affect Client Shopping Behaviors? The Eight Universal Principles of Persuasion
Persuasion works when the client feels that, by purchasing your product, you and your product have made a positive contribution to their life. There are different ways or principles marketers follow for establishing that sense of positivity.
There are eight universal principles of persuasion the marketer can resort to in order to influence client shopping behaviors. These are,
1.Reciprocity
2.Commitment
3.Consensus
4.Authority
5.Affinity
6.Scarcity
7.Visibility of Consequences
8.Information Exposure
Reciprocity
If you do this for me, I’ll do this for you.
People tend to feel the need to return the favor. You offer or remove incentives and play with client’s natural tendency to be grateful and want to do something for you in return. You might offer them discounts or a free sample. You might put them in a frequent shopper rewards program. You might do a special customization. You might offer them a gift. You might offer something special to first time buyers or to clients who register for your email list.
Commitment
I am a loyal customer.
Once someone is engaged with something, they are more likely to stick to it and commit. They become loyal to the designer, the designer’s business and the designer’s brand. The marketer would do those things which enhance customer loyalty. You might have a special showing or trunk show. You might include them on your email list. You might make them aware a way ahead of time of some deals or opportunities.
Consensus
If it’s OK with them, it’s OK with me.
Sometimes this is referred to as the herd response. If the client sees others doing it, they are more likely to do it as well. The marketer here would demonstrate the popularity of their products with other clients and client groups.
Authority
If such-and-such expert tells me it’s OK, I’ll think it’s OK.
Clients are more likely to listen to an expert they trust, than anyone else. The marketer would have the marketing message put forth by trusted experts who could be seen as authority figures. These authority figures are seen as having already established proof of their knowledges and beliefs. Authority might be actual or implied. Thus, their advice is recognized as trustworthy. You might seek endorsements from well-known figures. You might create an ad where the expert is delivering the message. You might rely on influencers online to spread your marketing message.
Affinity
She bought it, and she’s a lot like me, so I’ll buy it as well.
The client is more willing to follow through on the marketing message and goal if she or he knows someone who is similar to themselves who bought the product. Similarly might be by gender or age or economic class. Similarly might be people who belong to the same church or shop at the same store or attend the same events. The marketer would emphasize shared interests. The marketer would present reasons why conformity is the best choice here.
Scarcity
I better get it right away, if I’m to get it at all.
People tend to want what they think they might not be able to have. When something is scarce, clients tend to assign it more value. Defining the context becomes very important for this principle of persuasion. It might be something that is exclusive. It might be in limited supply. It might have some sense of rarity. It might be subtle clues provided in how the products are displayed to make it seem like you are running out of stock (such as, a very large container with a few items left in the bottom). The product might not be available from any other competitor. The product might be temporarily on sale or only available for a limited amount of time. The marketer might emphasize that this product does what no other product can do. The marketer might emphasize that if the client doesn’t act quickly, the likelihood that they could ever purchase the product will be very low.
Visibility of Consequences
I know what will happen when I purchase and use this product.
The client is more likely to purchase a product if they can anticipate the consequences of their choice. Every purchase is a risk. Will it work? Will it hold up? Will it be appropriate? Will I get the reactions I want? Here the marketer would highlight evidence which makes the consequences obvious, and then more evidence which minimizes the likelihood that any risk and uncertainty might occur. The marketer might emphasize the positive results, and minimize any negative ones. They might point to past successes of this or similar products. They might present the pros and cons and comparative imaging of future outcomes. They might present the pros and cons by comparing antecedents. They might explain that the client will have emotion regrets of they don’t make the purchase.
Information Exposure
I was told it was important now to act.
Clients often have to make choices when they have more limited information upon which to rely. How and when the client is exposed to certain information, prompts, triggers and cues may affect their choice whether to buy a product or not. The client might be distracted. There might be time / timing / seasonal considerations where they pay more attention, say to holiday merchandise during Christmas season, than at other times of the year. Some information may have increased salience, depending on the context. For example, what the jeweler says when standing behind the jewelry counter may have more salience than what that same person says about the same product when randomly meeting that person on the street.
The marketer might present or withhold information based on timing considerations. The message might be different presented during the day from presented during the evening. It might be different in the Spring from the Fall. The marketer might try to connect positive emotional information the client already holds to the product the marketer is trying to sell. This could be a positive memory such as a song or image or experience. The marketer might stress how even with this limited information the client can still anticipate a level of success. The marketer might emphasize negative information about a competitor or competitor’s products. The marketer might use popular phrases and words that have a particular emotional or cognitive association with the target audience.
The Persuasive Argument
Whatever principle of persuasion the marketer follows, the presentation of information in their persuasive argument follows a pattern. That is, informational content, when presented in a certain order, makes for a more persuasive argument. This order is presented in the table below.
A Few Cautions
When marketing your products, you have a professional responsibility not to cross the line between influence and manipulation. You might be successful in manipulation in the short term, but this will probably spell disaster for you mid- and long-term. People are willing to be influenced and persuaded, but resent getting manipulated. And if manipulated, they usually find out.
Don’t present yourself falsely in any way. Don’t claim to be an expert when you are not, for example.
Last, don’t over emphasis economic factors — price, discounts, and the like — in your marketing messages. Rely more on one or more of the universal principles of persuasion where you play towards emotions, perceptions and desires.
_________________
FOOTNOTES
Abelson, Herbert I. Persuasion: How Opinions and Attitudes are Changed. Spring Publishing, 1965.
Clements, Jon. The Power Of Influence and Persuasion in Business.
I’d estimate that 25–30% of my students are in the jewelry making /design hobby to make some extra money. Some see a way to supplement their income. Some see it as a retirement strategy. Others see it as a career transition. Whatever their goals, some have been successful, and others less so. Here are some of their stories.
Cindy
Cindy saw it as a career transition. She made and sold jewelry, went to craft shows and church bazaars, put her stuff on consignment all over the metropolitan area, did home shows, whatever.
After about two to two-and-a-half years, she took the giant leap and quit her full-time legal aid job to be a full-time jewelry artist/entrepreneur. She was successful because she knew how to promote herself, and was very comfortable at this.
Her designs were fashion-current, but not bizarre. One business that had her stuff on consignment told me how great she was to work with.
My only concerns were that she often short-changed some of the quality of materials, and perhaps pushed the pricing a bit too high. But I marvel at her success. if you stick to it, and are confident in yourself, you’ll get there.
Mona
Mona refurbished old pieces into new. She took old brooches, fixed them up, restored missing stones, polished or colored damaged edges. She turned them into pendants, and then created necklaces with the same sensibilities, colors, textures, bulk, and patterns to go with them.
Sold like hot-cakes. She took old, gaudy belt buckles, glued on Austrian crystal rhinestones, found leather belts to go with them, fashioned some tpe of bail, and voila! She had great stories to go with each piece. She also was great at self-promotion. She was very confident. And she got her pieces into all the major stores in the area. She also formed great connections to power-fashion-players, including many people in the music business.
Sharon
Sharon made lampwork beads, and turned these into necklaces and bracelets. She was shy. She tried to sell them to friends and family. She tried to get them into one store on consignment. She tried selling them on EBay. She’s still trying.
Yanxi
Yanxi made Native American style earrings mostly, but some chokers and bracelets, as well. She relied on traditional bead weaving styles of Peyote and Brick. She used traditional materials including Czech seed beads, beading thread, sinew. She used traditional colors and designs. She sold in stores. She sold at markets. She was doing very well for many years.
Until around the later 1990s. Chinese businesses began copying Native American jewelry, and selling their pieces at prices so low, that Native Americans could no longer afford to make a living at making jewelry.
Yanxi’s business faded away to nothing. She was unable to adapt to the changes in the business environment. She could have gone more upscale in the choice of materials and the elaborateness in the designs. But she did not recognize that as a pathway.
Veronica
Veronica made high-end clothing with an edge to her designs. At one point, with her clothing, she decided to create accessories, including jewelry. Necklaces out of old men’s ties. Bracelets out of leather suspender straps from Germany. Odd beads which always catch your eye dangling from old, antiqued, large-linked chain.
She had an acute sense of what jewelry women — of all shapes, ages, sizes, body shapes — could wear to empower themselves. Attract that kind of attention which borders on admiration.
At first, she sold her jewelry pieces to individual stores in various cities she visited. They sold her pieces very quickly. In response, she began working in more of a production mode. She sent these stores boxes of her pieces to be sold as special trunk shows. That idea worked well.
She then worked on setting up a shop-within-a-shop. Several stores were eager to have her store-within-a-store. She envisioned taking over a 6’x8′ area. She created display cabinets, display pieces, and an organizational plan for displaying her pieces. She went to hotel foreclosure sales and purchased old odds and ends to use for displays, such as old wooden clothes hangers which had the hotel logo or name etched in them.
Her jewelry lines overtook her clothing lines.
Debby
Debby made beautiful, elegant, dainty jewelry from bracelets to necklaces to eyeglass leashes. She put them in a few stores. She had been an airline stewardess, and frequently brought her jewelry with her to sell at get-togethers and conventions with past and current airline employees.
Everyone loved her pieces. Everything she made sold. She was reluctant, however, to place them in many stores. She was afraid people would copy her designs. One person, in fact, had copied some of her designs.
Debby wanted to mass-market her pieces to high end boutiques and department stores. She spent years making contacts and connections, which she was very successful at. But she couldn’t reel in the opportunities. Her fears overcame her — people would copy her designs, or they would not manufacture her pieces to her quality expectations, or the manufacturers wanted to make pieces with more mass appeal.
There was always something that got in the way of her making a living by making jewelry. She built walls. She couldn’t climb over them.
Larry
Larry approached Barneys New York about his line of jewelry. He had a personal connection there. He had a marketing strategy for them, which included explaining why the lines of jewelry they currently carried, were not working for them.
He showed them a very full line — jeweler’s tray after jeweler’s tray after jeweler’s tray of jewelry.
With each tray he showed them photographs of jewelry which were carried by their major competitors in New York, as well as fashion spreads in major magazines.
He kept making the point: His jewelry is better, and this is why. His jewelry is better, and this is why. His jewelry is better, and this is why.
Success!
Kiki
Kiki wanted to sell on-line. She knew she needed a web-site with a shopping cart. But she shied away from the $50.00 per month price tag. She knew she would have to hire someone to design her website, but again, the $500.00 quoted price seemed daunting to her. She spent year after year researching web-hosts and web-designers, each time finding something that made her more and more uncertain.
Virtual jewelry, virtual business.
Rosie
Rosie lived in the wealthiest part of town — Belle Meade. She custom made jewelry for the rich for them to wear at special occasions. Her biggest obstacles to overcome: many of her clients were not sure that anyone could actually make jewelry. Jewelry was something that you bought in New York. Not Nashville. Somehow it could only be made in New York and probably by machine. Her clients hesitated, not sure how anyone, let alone anyone local, could actually make jewelry for them.
She took their naivete in stride. She made the making of jewelry seem straightforward. She made the custom designing seem specialized and right up her alley.
She made a necklace and earring set for someone to wear at the Swan Ball.
She made a very unattractive, yet very appreciated by the customer, necklace to wear at a horse race. the colors had to match the specific colors in the horse’s blanket — navy, white and rose. The rose was a special color rose associated with some Queen’s rose somewhere. On the face of things, navy, white and rose don’t usually result in something rich, elegant and status’y looking. But Rosie did a fabulous job. She would not, however, have ever worn this particular necklace herself.
She made a lariat for someone to wear on a cruise. Plus, 5 different sets of earrings, each coordinating with the lariat. Plus, 10 different bracelets, each having a different clasp, and again, coordinating with the lariat.
Rosie’s willingness to adapt to the peculiar needs of her customer base made her a success. And to her customer base, money was no object.
Alejandro
Alejandro didn’t want to design jewelry per se. He wanted to find jewelry designed by others and find places that might sell this jewelry. His mom had gotten breast-cancer (she’s a survivor). And he had this brainstorm.
He visited the Dallas Merchandise Mart. He found about a dozen vendors who represented lines Alejandro thought would do well in the various fundraising events the state’s Breast Cancer Society sponsored.
From these vendors, he gathered information about the products, the minimum units which needed to be purchased at a time, the unit cost, and the suggested retail price.
He determined what kind of commission he needed to make this work and wanted to get.
He sat down with the marketing executives at the Breast Cancer Society. He showed them pictures of the various products and the numbers. He negotiated a deal and a plan.
This is what you call a Win-Win-Win. The vendor wins. The client wins. and Alejandro wins.
Getting Started In Business
You need to look yourself in the mirror, and be very, very, very honest with yourself. Getting started in business is a big step. It’s not all fun and games. There’s paperwork, repetition, tradeoffs to be made. Be honest with yourself.
Ask yourself:
o Why do I want to start a business?
o What type of business do I want?
o What kinds of things do I want to sell?
o What kind of time and energy commitments do I want to commit?
o Where will the money come from to get started?
o Where will I work — kitchen table? craft studio? at a store?
o What will I name my business?
o Where will I get my jewelry making supplies?
o Do I want to do this alone, or with a partner(s)?
There are many different kinds of jewelry you can sell. Necklaces. Bracelets. Earrings. Eyeglass leashes. Name badge jewelry. Rings. Anklets. Ear cuffs. Body jewelry. Jewelry for dogs and cats. Jewelry representing social causes. Beaded jewelry. Wire jewelry. Polymer and metal clay jewelry. Fabricated jewelry, such as with silver smithing techniques. Lampwork jewelry. Blown glass jewelry. Micro macrame and hemp jewelry. Jewel-decorated objects like pillows, lampshades, dinner ware.
There are many different approaches and venues for selling jewelry. these include selling to friends, co-workers and family. Selling at home shows. Selling at craft shows or trunk shows. Selling online. Selling in stores and galleries, either retail, consignment or wholesale. Selling in a truck, driving from city to city, parking, and opening your truck doors for people to come into your mini-showroom. Selling in print catalogs. Designing and/or selling for promotions and events, such as a fund-raiser for breast cancer. Doing repairs.
Whatever the approach and venue, you need to step back, and be sure it is on a solid business basis. This means delving into some bureaucracy and administrivia. You can’t get around this.
Yes, you can make money selling jewelry. But you have to be smart about it.
Before the pandemic, I was trying to arrange some Enrichment Travel tours. One was to Rome. This was part of the itinerary. If any group wants me to lead a Jewelry Discovery Tour to Rome or elsewhere, I would be happy to talk with you about this.
BARCELONA
1. BEAD STORE SHOPPING
There are about 11 bead shops very close to each other on Carrer del Call / Carrer de la Boqueria off the Rambla in the Gothic Quarter (Barri Gotic). Most of these stores specialize in gemstone beads, and some of these stores specialize in jewelry findings and stringing materials. Some have finished jewelry. Most allow retail sales, some are primarily wholesale, where I would use my wholesale license. (3 hour walking tour; less than 1 mile; begin at 3pm (any day except Monday or Sunday) when these shops are most likely to be open)
BARCELONA 2. ART JEWELRY GALLERY TOUR
Visit prominent art jewelry galleries in Barcelona, including those shown below. About 5 hours with lunch break. Need bus. About 6 miles between furthest points.
A. Masriera Gallery Passeig de Gracia, 41) (hours mon-sat, 10am-8:00pm)(
The Bagués dynasty has bejeweled Barcelonians since 1839. While they stock much that glitters, the Lluís Masriera line of original Art Nouveau pieces is truly unique; intricate flying nymphs, lifelike golden insects, and other easily recognizable motifs from the period take on a new depth of beauty when executed in the translucent enameling process that Masriera himself developed.
B. Klimt02 SL Gallery (Carrer de la Riera de Sant Miguel, 65) (Hours Tues-Fri, 5–8pm)
The gallery show in Barcelona the work of the best international jewelry artists; as well as showing it to the international community, thanks to our gallery website. Avant garde artists. It is owned by Amador Bertomeu and Leo Caballero and has become an influential and informative source of information for everyone interested in contemporary jewelry.
The other day, I looked up some quotes that Art Critics and Art Theorists have had to say about beaded jewelry and jewelry artists. What do you think?
(1)
“Anything done with beads is not art.”
Here the art critic equates “beads/beadwork” with the canvas of a painting, and not the painting itself. To the critic, beads are merely decoration. In this point of view, it is impossible to use beads in any way so that the finished project would be seen as art.
(2)
“Beading speaks for that branch of culture which is too homey, too functional, too archaic, for the name of ‘art’ to extend to it.”
To this reviewer, art is associated with clarity of choice and purpose, a sense of presence, and the evoking of an emotional response (or unleashing psychological content). To this reviewer, these kinds of things are not associated with beadwork and jewelry. In fact, to this reviewer, they can never be. Thus, beadwork and jewelry are not “art.”
(3)
“Beading as Art Brut — The work of children, asylum patients, and others untouched by artistic culture.”
My local paper in Nashville — The Tennessean — refuses to cover anything that is not fine art in their art pages. Many galleries and museums refuse to display bead art, often justifying this by saying there is no audience for bead art.
(4)
“Objects may only be valued as ‘art’ if they have a link to the academic setting.”
Many galleries and art critics only recognize the art of those artists with formal credentials. The reputation of the schooling of the artist is directly related to the judged “artistic” value of their work. However, there really are very few academic programs in beading/jewelry making. These are mostly involved with technical training, rather than theory and investigation. There are no professional journals where ideas and theories are proposed, discussed, tested and proven. In this model, beaders/jewelry makers stand little chance of getting judged as true artists.
(5)
“An object is ‘art’ if someone is willing to pay for it as ‘art’.”
In this sense, making a distinction between craft and art, or trying to blur the distinction between craft and art, becomes irrelevant. Within this definition, a lot of what gets sold as beadwork and jewelry, which many people would not value as ‘art’, will get included within the concept. When a piece of jewelry can get labeled as ‘art’, and retain this label, it becomes more valuable. It can sell for more. More people will indicate that it is good, rather than not good. It (and the artist) have more power.
(6)
“There’s nothing conceptual about jewelry. It’s mere hedonism.”
Jewelry is seen as visual spectacle. There are no self-reflective qualities to jewelry. There is no artist’ hand involved in its creation.
It seems that the more beadwork mimics painting or sculputre, the more it gets acceptable as ‘art’. A beaded tapestry or a beaded art doll is much more readily accepted as art, than jewelry.
(7)
“The object is ‘art’ if the object shows the artist’s process of conceptualization in its final form.”
Somehow, we must be able to recognize how the artist conceived of the piece, and how the artist implemented his/her conceptions. How did the artist tewst the limits of the materials — in this case, beads? How did the artist exploit the possibilities through the use of beads? How did the artist compose and design the piece?
Within this framework, all the parts of the jewelry — the center piece, the fringe, the strap, the bail, the surface embellishment — are critical to the appreciation of the jewelry as an object of art. Each of these elements of the piece of jewelry require the artist to exploit the possibilities of the material — the beads. Only with this fuller understanding of the piece in its entirety than Classical Art Theory would allow, can the artist, through the jewelry, create something where the whole is more than the sum of its parts. And this, then, is jewelry as art. In Classical Art Theory, the strap, fringe, bail would have to be seen to be subservient to the centerpiece.
Should I Still Call Myself An Artist… …If The Critics Say I’m Not?
Classical Art Theory is often at odds with my self-image as a jewelry artist and designer. It often denies the very essence of my artistic being, relegating what I do to some secondary status. Who is more right, I often ask myself.
Classical Art Theory holds that if, when talking about a piece, you talk or focus to much on ‘technique’, your piece is not Art. It’s Craft.
Craft is seen as having nothing to do with aesthetics. It is merely a creative engagement with materials.
With paint, the technique to apply it, is seen as virtually irrelevant. What matters with painting is what it says, not how it was made.
If the sense of ‘technique’ supersedes an object of art’s ‘statement’, then the art is really craft, thus a failure… and an embarrassment. Craft is an affront to art.
Art is exploring the expressive qualities of the medium, stoking the imagination of its audience. In fact, crafters supposedly do not play to an audience; art does.
Art critics would want us to talk about beadwork or jewelry making without speaking about technique. With a minimal reference to functionality. With a focus on the central part of the piece, not its strap or fringe or other noncentral embellishment. Apart from our audience as they are wearing our pieces.
The prominence of these are critics and their ideas and beliefs are some of the key reasons people are more willing to pay $5,000 for a painting, but not for most beadwork. They are why these critics see something special about the artist, but nothing special after the craftsperson. There is the pernicious assumption that the jewelry maker does not have to exercise judgment, does not have to worry about presentation, does not need to bring a high level of care and dexterity to the project, uses technique but not really skill, and does not need to take many risks.
Of course, I don’t buy into any of these Classical Art Critics and what they have to say. I know I am an artist. I know my pieces should be judged as a whole, and judged as the pieces are worn.
It is the process of linking the technique to the materials that is “art.” A successful process of jewelry making and design requires an understanding of the intrinsic values of the materials. It requires an understanding of how to manipulate the materials to elicit a positive response from others. It is expressive, intuitive and evokes emotions. The critical focus is not on the techniques. The critical focus in on the linking of technique and material to create something that others emotionally interact with.
At what point did I first begin to call myself a Jewelry Artist?
Coming out as a jewelry artist is similar, though not exactly the same, as someone coming out as gay. It is fraught with fear and dread. It means very visibly presenting yourself with a new public identity. It means preparing your ego to receive some negative comments, critiques, reviews, perhaps doubt or disbelief, and in some rarer instances, rejection or denial. It means asking others to accept and support you in your new role as Jewelry Designer.
There is a betwixt and between aspect to this coming out process — a rite of passage. And the unknown time and feelings and situations, between the before and afterwards, is often a span of uncertainty too great for many an artist to transcend. Many who want to be jewelry designers, are somewhat afraid to present themselves as such. These closet artists tell their family and friends such things as, “I dabble in this and that, including jewelry-making.” Or, “I consider myself a bank teller slash jewelry artist (and you can substitute whatever profession you are in for the words bank teller).” Or, “I’m making some things for fun or gifts, but not selling things.”
There is some hesitation. “I am a jewelry designer.” Can’t quite get the words out.
“I am a jewelry designer.” But I wasn’t trained and educated to be one. It was not my original passion, though I am passionate about it now.
“I am a jewelry designer.” Keep wanting to say “but” or add some qualification, so other people don’t say, with mocking and astonishment, “You’re a what?!@#$” “Can you make a living at that?”
“I am a jewelry designer,” you whisper to yourself over and over, but don’t tell anyone else.
When you step out of the closet, however, you show others you want respect. As a jewelry designer. You demand from others an understanding. As a jewelry designer. You present yourself as someone with self-esteem and confidence. As a jewelry designer.
After multiple levels of transition, I realize that the only thing that would diminish me as a jewelry artist is if I turned my back on it.
Translating thoughts, feelings, emotions into color, form, structure. Can never get enough of this. But where does all this creativity come from?
I remember in college — way back when — I took a physiological psychiatry class with a professor name Ina Samuels. Dr. Samuels was one of my mentors. She discussed what was new-thinking then, how the brain is this self-actualizing entity. Thoughts reside less in certain defined areas of the brain, and are more a collection of organized chemical-electrical pathways traversing the brain, all around and within it. Memories are more defined pathways that get traversed a lot.
The brain has the ability to invent, and re-invent itself. It is self-stimulative. The brain pleasures itself with creative thoughts over and over and over again each day. Sexy. Sensual. The act of creating is almost masturbatory. The brain discovers, organizes, reinforces and remembers.
Of course, I did not wax so eloquently on my final exam in Dr. Samuel’s class. She gave me a C, and I was embarrassed to have performed so poorly. I got carried away with creatively building upon my understanding of neural pathways, synapses, and thinking — too much so, that my thoughts were way off course. I carried the discussion to mechanics of three way connections and power boosters and revolving tracks — all ideas never before expressed in texts or classes or on final exams.
Yes, I let my creativity carry the day. While it didn’t earn me a good grade at the time, it sure was fun. To be wrapped up in my insights, imaginations, and good ole fashioned, solid in an organizing way, brain sex.
One of my clients, Jan, had taken a few of my classes, was very excited about beading and jewelry making. She began selling her pieces to the people she worked with. She was a traveling salesperson for a health care company, and met lots of people on her travels. And everyone wanted her pieces.
Week after week, Jan would return to the shop and buy a few hundred dollars of beads. and week after week, she enthusiastically reported that she was selling her pieces right and left. After several months, she remarked that she needed to take my Pricing class. As she continued to talk and elaborate about her pricing strategies, she remarked that she typically added $15.00 to the cost of her materials, and that sometimes, her prices were probably lower than the cost of her materials.
Hmmmm….
So if she paid $55.00 for the materials in her piece, she might price it at $70–75.00. A great deal for her customer. But not so great for Jan. I told her to raise her prices.
My niece’s 6-year old daughter told me the other day, “Warren, I wish I could get a job where I can make bracelets all day!” How cute! She definitely would have a lot of fun making jewelry. She most certainly could make money doing it. But I don’t think she was old enough to appreciate the amount of work, strategic thinking, and marketing and good business sense involved, in order to succeed.
But maybe she did. Jewelry making tapes into our creative souls, our artistic essence. The fact that you can make money at it, moreover, serves to heighten the experience.
Two girls — one 12 and one 13 years old — were determined to make money that summer. They had had some experience setting up a lemonade stand last year, but they were ready to make the big bucks. So they turned to jewelry. They created an attractive shelter along the side of the road, and posted clever signs — REFRESHING SPARKLES — to catch drivers going and coming in either direction. Instead of lemonade, however, their customers found cool earrings, and breezy necklaces, and yummy bracelets. And the two girls found success!
While there are many business challenges for jewelry designers, — young and old, alike — you can most assuredly answer the question — Can You Really Make Money Selling Jewelry? — with a resounding YES! It takes some planning. Some Moxie. Some start-up money. Some marketing. And some luck. But it can be done.
For people who sell their jewelry, their art is both a business as well as a source of creativity and self-expression. To be successful, they need to bring an understanding of business fundamentals to the business, and they need to find enthusiasm for business in similar ways to how they found their passion for jewelry. There will be ups and downs, as the economy changes or fashions and styles change. They will wear multiple hats — designer, distributor, manufacturer, retailer — and not always be sure which hat to wear when. They will need to understand marketing, pricing and selling. They will need to have a feel for reading and understanding people.
Successful jewelry design businesses today share several traits. They have a focus on what they do as a business model. They are comfortable working long stretches in a production mode — even though this can be very boring for the artist. They have some comfort level with both bricks and clicks. I don’t think you can have a successful business today without both a real physical presence somewhere and some on-line visibility as well.
Jewelry businesses today also must learn to quickly adapt to competition. This is not only competition from other local, regional or national jewelry designers, but from overseas, as well. Remember in the 1970s, when Asian manufacturers started selling low cost Native American jewelry, they almost put the Native American jewelry makers out of business. Today Chinese lampwork companies are wiping out the opportunities for low-end, simple, basic lampwork glass beads made in America. And adapt is the key word here. It may mean having to specialize in higher quality items, or relying on materials or designs unique to your locale. It may mean having to provide more educational and informational materials with your products to give them a competitive advantage.
Your market today may be international. if you have images of your pieces on-line, then someone in Taiwan or France can view posted images just as easily as someone in Nashville or San Francisco. They may buy your designs. They may copy your designs. Reality, what a concept here.
Successful jewelry designers keep their work fresh and relevant. They build in evaluative components into their business. They do a lot of product and ideas research. They experiment with concepts and other markets. They acutely know their competition. They strive to create a brand identify for their pieces. Branding not only best secures your client to you as a designer, but makes it that much difficult for other jewelry makers to copy your work and present it as their own.
How many times have you heard a jewelry artist say…
I can’t bear to part with my pieces.
My jewelry is too precious to me.
I only give a few pieces that I make away as gifts to friends and family.
I’ve never sold anything.
Selling would take the fun out of it.
And then, someone offers to buy a piece she is wearing, and the rest is history. A sale! Sold! They paid so much more than it cost me! Right off her wrist! Gotta make another! That was so fast! That was so easy!
My friend Connie used to make things only for friends. She always wore the things she made. At one point, she was repeatedly approched in various stores around town by women who wanted to buy the pieces aroundher neck.
At first, Connie quoted them, what she thought were outlandish prices. No one hesitated. Connie was awe-struck, but didn’t say No. I don’t know if she secretly wore a sign on her back — JEWELRY FOR SALE — or, somehow stuck out her cheek in such a way, as if asking to be kissed, that people came over to her, but she was getting quite good at attracting buyers. At TJMAX, at TARGET, at MACY’s, at DILLARDS, at SEARS, at KROGERS and PUBLIX. She kepy upping her prices each time, and no one had yet to blink!
Jona had made many things before, but had never sold anything. Then she had one of those weeks. It started in a Dalt’s restaurant. The waitress had to have them. She had to have Jona’s earrings. She had to have them now. Any price. So Jona suggests a price, the waitress laid the money on the table, and Jona slowly removed each earring from each ear, and said a silent Good-bye. Later that week, one of her friends was desperate. The wedding was this weekend. The piece of jewelry she had purchased for herself went lost. She remembered one of Jona’s pairs, and asked for it, and insisted on paying for it.
Elizabeth wanted to show her best friend at work the kinds of jewelry she was making. One day, she brought a box of jewelry in with her to work. At lunch time, they spread all the pieces out on a table. All of a sudden, the table was mobbed by other women in the lunch room. They were grabbing, trying on, and throwing money down right and left.
Ingren had a box of her mother’s jewelry stored away in a closet. She didn’t particularly like these pieces, and would never wear them, but knew they had some value. She took pictures of each one, and placed them on EBAY to see if she could auction them off. She sold all but one within a week’s time.
Those first jewelry sales can result in a big high. They are thrilling. Exciting. Very motivating. Selling that first piece feels like it can change your life.
But it’s that second sale that begins to determine if you can make a business out of it. Can you do it again? Is it as much fun? Now all of a sudden you have to think about record keeping, government forms, tracking inventory, maing enough product, adequately pricing your stuff, and marketing to recruit and retain customers.
The situation doesn’t seem quite the same anymore.
But believe me, it’s not as onerous as it might appear at first.
And selling your jewelry keeps getting better and better and better!
Before the pandemic, I was trying to arrange some Enrichment Travel tours. One was to Rome. This was part of the itinerary. If any group wants me to lead a Jewelry Discovery Tour to Rome or elsewhere, I would be happy to talk with you about this. — Warren@warrenfeldjewelry.com
Some favorite sites and studios in Instanbul:1. Topkapi Museum, Treasury Section Guided Tour
Once the palace of the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire, Topkapi is a vast treasury of Islamic culture, jewelry, costumes, science and weaponry. This tour is of the Treasury section (7 Halls of Exhibits) of the Topkapi Palace Museum (3rd courtyard) where you will find masterpieces of Turkish art of jewelry from different centuries and exquisite creations from the Far East, India and Europe.(2 hours guided tour of Treasury Section; 1–2 hours free time for guests to wander other parts of museum on their own.) Open every day except Tues, 9am-4:45pm (til 6:45 in april- october) 2015: most of Treasury Section is under restoration and is closed; check back for when work is finished)
WALKING TOUR OF ARTISAN JEWELRY GALLERIES IN NISANTASI / TESVIKIYE AREA Nisantasi / Tesvikiye is one of the best shopping districts of Istanbul. It contains designer label stores, very nice restaurants and cafes, a beautiful mall, and a few outstanding hotels. It is home to several galleries showcasing the best of Turkish jewelry artists and artisan jewelry. The store hours in this district are typically 11–7pm Tuesday through Saturday. Need to verify Monday and Sunday hours.
Urart (abdi ipekci Cad. 18/1)
One of Turkey’s most established jewelry companies, Urart makes re-creations, and also chic interpretations, of ancient Anatolian designs and motifs, Hittite symbols of noblesse and glory, the arabesques of Islamic art speaking to the infinity, Seljuk tiles echoing the dreams of the Silk Road or fluid objects of modern life… Design commits to matter, not only the striking form but also the wisdom that abides at the heart of a culture.
İn her first years, Zeynep Erol was mainly inspired by nature and created forms with her own modern interpretation. İn later years however, her designs have become more geometrical. Zeynep Erol’s Jewelry reflects her spiritual inner world, affections, relations, feelings, desires and change in the philosophy of life. The main materials used by Zeynep Erol in creating her pieces are; green, white and red gold (18k) together with silver (950). The selection of the remaining materials and the precious stones are chosen differently for each particular theme she wants to get across. A wide range of materials such as coconut shells, pearls, brilliants, sapphire, ruby, emeralds, quartz, glass, rose cut and uncut diamonds, sandalwood and feathers are used by her as necessary.
Based in Istanbul, jeweller and sculptor Aida Bergsen creates jewellery with different themes that reflect traces of her hometown and its multi-layered cultural fibre. She Draws inspiration mainly from mythological heroes, organic forms and the human anatomy. Each of her wearable sculptures are meticulously crafted in wax then transformed into timeless jewels using traditional techniques.”I try to re-inerprate traditional crafts and skills in jewellery making in order to create a more contemporary approach. I like to have a play on the contrast between light and shadow as I believe it is key in capturing form at a deeper level.”Aida
Bergsen was awarded with the “étoile de mode” at BIJHORCA in Paris and she was named the first runner- up for the very prestigious Couture Show Las Vegas in 2011 and 2014.
ECNP Gallery is a contemporary jewelry gallery showing the designs and collections of Ela Cindoruk and Nazan Pak. Partners since 1989, Ela and Nazan’s designs and creative process have reflected their philosophy of ‘less is more’. The duo have participated in numerous fairs in Turkey and abroad; their works can be found in many museum shops and galleries. Ela has received the 2012 Red Rot Design Award. Same year, the creative duo was awarded 2012 Jewelry Designer of the Year Award of Elle Style Awards. On September 2014, the designers opened their new showroom and studio, on the 21st year work anniversary. The showroom also has a gallery under its roof, Ela and Nazan’s a long time dream, a reflection of their commitment to design and aesthetic and their ambition to this gallery hosts design exhibits and aims at becoming a meeting point for the design/art world.
SODA, founded in 2010, focuses on contemporary trends in art, particularly of jewelry artists. They are interested in showcasing the use of new materials and design concepts. Some permanent artist representations as well as rotating exhbitis.
7. Alef(Tesvikiye Mh, Haci Emin Efendi Sokak, No:4)
This goldsmith adapts classical goldsmith principles to contemporary techniques and designs. Alef’s founder, jewelry designer Yeşim Yüksek,
BoyBeyi is a family-run business that has been around for more than 100 years, their collection features many traditional rose-cut diamonds, as well as modern and colorful pieces, all inspired by the Turkish culture.
WALKING TOUR OF JEWELRY GALLERIES, JEWELRY AND BEAD SHOPS IN AND NEAR THE GRAND BAZAAR
This walking tour takes you in and around the Grand Bazaar, discovering jewelry galleries displaying works by local artists, as well as a myriad of stores in the Grand Bazaar which sell jewelry, beads and beading supplies.
Tiara(yavuz Sinan mah., rakip gumus pala cad. No; 69)
Antique jewelry, award-winning designs, modern designs that reflect trends in the world, some might find at Tiara Jewelry … Byzantine, Roman and Ottoman cultures, inspired by the collections, since the ancient civilizations in history has produced reflections of jewelry. Traditional hand-made items by craftsmen in the production of valuable, native jewelry lovers to win the admiration of the foreign guests
Widely considered to be one of Istanbul’s top jewellers, with several locations throughout the city. The cuffs are studded with precious stones, the necklaces are vintage-inspired, and the gold rings are topped with enormous yellow diamonds. The Bazaar outpost is Kafkas’ first store, and you’ll often find the owners presiding behind the glittering displays.
Sevan Bıçakçı has started his journey as a jeweler when he was only 12 years old as an intern in Hovsep Çatak’s workshop. His first personal collection that he created in 2002 was inspired by the historical Grand Bazaar — Sultanahmet area where he spends a considerable part of his daily life. Since then his unique designs that require intensive craftsmanship have been attracting the attention of collectors as well as some distinguished stores.
4. Walk up Nuruosmaniye Caddessi Past the heart of jewelry and bead stores in the Grand Bazaar
There are piles and piles of antique rings, bracelets, necklaces, and earrings from Central Asia, as well as walls covered in strands of colorful beads made out of precious and semiprecious stones.
OPTIONAL: 3 block side trip to http://www.haciburhan.com) aka Emin Bead Company, Sterling Silver Handcrafted Turkish Beads. Sell different silver jewelry, beads and accessories for silver jewelry. Wholesale. Eminsinan Mah. Yeniceriler Cad. Evkaf Sok. No: 15 (Formerly 9) Cemberlitas, Fatih (verify store hours)
5. Angel Old Jewellery (kiliccilar sok., cuhaci han No: 36)
When you’re visiting this tiny, poorly lit (the blindingly bright interior doesn’t do their products any justice) store, you will be transformed into a museum where you can purchase anything you want from a collection of princess-worthy jewelry. From tiaras to necklaces, brooches to bracelets, these elegant pieces are bedecked with intricate, precious stones like diamonds. This store has both antique pieces, as well as new jewelry that looks vintage due to a special ageing method they use.
In the Grand Bazaar’s Cevahir Bedestani, Bagus sells the proprietor’s own reasonably priced collection of handmade jewelry made with silver and semiprecious stones as well as intriguing pieces imported from countries including India, Nepal, Thailand, and Indonesia.
Before the pandemic, I was trying to arrange some Enrichment Travel tours. One was to Rome. This was part of the itinerary. If any group wants me to lead a Jewelry Discovery Tour to Rome or elsewhere, I would be happy to talk with you about this.
ROME 1. JEWELRY GALLERIES WALKING TOUR, ROME. There are several stores/galleries specializing in artisan jewelry, with both some very famous local jewelry designers, as well as some less known between the Piazza di Spagna (Spanish Steps) and Piazza del Orologi. This is a 1.25 mile (2.1km) leisurely jewelry shopping tour along ancient walking streets in the heart of historic Rome, where we discover the works of local jewelry artisans. (5 hour walking tour with dinner break; begin at 3pm (any day except Monday) when these shops are most likely to be open. Typical hours: open 10-1:30pm and 3:30-7:30pm).
Damiani, via condotti 84 (All Damiani collection jewels are exclusive and unique creations, combining the allure of Italian jewelry with the unmistakable, always modern and fashionable Damiani taste.)
4. Melis Massimo Maria, via dell’Orso 57 (ancient techniques reproduced in gold)
5. Studio Giorelleria R. Quattrocolo, via della Scrofa 54 (both antique jewelry and jewelry produced in their own workshop studio, including their line of micro-mosaics)
6. Alternatives, via della Chiesa Nuova 10 (Specializes in contemporary. Avant guard jewelry and is dedicated to the promotion of both newcomers and internationally established artists from all over the world)
7. Del Fina Delettrez, via Governo Vecchio 67 (Delfina Delettrez Fendi is a designer and jeweller based in Rome. Original use of figurative surrealism and natural iconography including hands, eyes, bees, and lips.)
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ROME 2. SHOPPING TRIP TO ARTISAN MARKET IN ROME. Visit to Mercato Monti, 30+ artisans selling fashions, jewelry and accessories, first 3 Sundays and last Saturday of the month, 8am-8pm, inside exhibit hall of Palatino Hotel, via Leonina 46. (4 hours)
Whenever possible, I suggest trying to get net terms with your suppliers. Net terms is a form of trade credit. Instead of paying upfront for your supplies, your suppliers will give you some predetermined period of time to pay for these goods. You get your supplies right away without having to pay until an agreed-upon future date.
Usually, you would get Net 30 terms, meaning you would pay within 30 days. Sometimes, if you have not paid within the terms set, you might get assessed a penalty fee.
To apply for net terms with any supplier, you would submit a Credit Sheet.
CREDIT SHEET
You will want to prepare a Credit Sheet which lists the following information. You give this sheet to businesses where you want to apply for terms.
When you buy things from businesses, you can pay cash (sometimes check or credit card) — this is considered Pre-Payment.
You can pay COD (cash on delivery), but there is usually an extra COD charge tacked on.
Or you can pay on terms or “on account”, usually signified as Net 30 or Net 10, where you would have 30 or 10 days to pay your bill. If you don’t pay within that time, the business may take away your privilege to buy on terms, or charge you a late fee.
Getting paid for your work can range from the straight-forward to the nightmare. People love your work, but often, you will find that people will be slow or resistant to pay for it. You run into this with consignment shops. you run into this with custom work for clients. You run into this with retail shops to whom you’ve offered net 30 terms. You run into this with contract and grant work, particularly with government agencies and non-profits. You run into this with people who pay you by check. (NOTE: I don’t accept checks for payment in my own design work.)
You need to get paid so you can move on to the next project.
No money, no inventory, no once-in-a-blue-moon fancy dinner.
Structuring Payments
If you are doing a lot of custom work, your clients will probably pay you in increments, say 50% up front, and 50% upon completion.
If you are doing a lot of consignment, the shops may pay for anything of yours that sells perhaps quarterly. Beware that often consignment shops are slow to pay their consignees.
If you are selling wholesale to other retailers, you might have extended them terms, say Net 30, where you expect to get paid at the end of the term period. If you extend terms to someone, get them to complete a credit application ahead of time.
For each piece sold, or for several pieces sold at the same time, you will be generating some kind of invoice.
Each month, you might also be following up with your customers with a statement form, showing what has been paid, and what still needs to be paid.
INVOICE or STATEMENT FORMS (2-part forms — one for you and one for your customer). You can get a blank pad at a local stationery store, or have these pre-printed with your business name, address and phone.
More Advice
1. Establish a clear payment policy, put it in writing, post it on your website.
2. Find out in advance when the client or business will pay you.
3. Ask if the client needs a W9 form from you in order to pay you.
4. Be clear on whom in the company is responsible for paying you, and be sure to send your invoice to that particular person. If there are also special procedures for you to follow, in order to get paid, get clarity on these right up front.
5. Don’t be shy about using a collection service — even if this means you’ll only receive a portion (say 50%) of the money originally owed you.
6. Invoice your customers promptly.
7. Stay on top of your receivables. If a customer is late, send a reminder note. If a customer is very late, assess a penalty, say 1.5 or 2% per month. Be sure if you charge penalties that these are clearly specified in your written and posted payment policies.
8. Don’t worry about losing the customer. If you are polite but firm, the customer will probably stay with you. If the customer is a dead-bead, then you do not need to continue to do business with them.
9. For large orders, you might ask for a deposit, say 25–50%.
10.Accept multiple payment options. If someone is having difficulty paying you on time, perhaps they can pay you with a credit card.
11.You might offer early payment discounts.
12.Do not payout any commissions or royalties to sales or design staff until the full invoice is paid by the customer.
Check out this new book by Warren Feld Ebook or Print
Doing craft shows is a wonderful experience. You can make a lot of money at craft shows, you meet new people, you have new adventures. You learn a lot about business and arts and crafts designing.
IF… you do your homework when selecting them, and verify all information
IF… you are very organized in preparing for them, setting up, selling and re-packing up
IF… you promote, promote, promote.
In this book, I discuss 16 lessons I learned, Including How To
(1) Find, Evaluate and Select Craft Shows Right for You,
(2) Determine a Set of Realistic Goals,
(3) Compute a Simple Break-Even Analysis,
(4) Develop Your Applications and Apply in the Smartest Ways,
(5) Understand How Much Inventory to Bring,
(6) Set Up and Present Both Yourself and Your Wares,
(7) Best Promote and Operate Your Craft Show Business.
Table of Contents
What You Will Learn, p. 1
Intro to Book and Acknowledgements, p. 3
LESSON 1: Not Every Craft Show Is Alike, p. 13
LESSON 2: Research All Your Possibilities, p. 27
LESSON 3: Know Which Craft Shows Are For You, p. 31
LESSON 4: Set Realistic Goals / Determine Break-Even Point, p. 39 LESSON 5: Get Those Applications In Early, p. 71
LESSON 6: Promote, Promote, Promote, p. 83
LESSON 7: Set Up For Success, p. 87
LESSON 8: Bring Enough Inventory To Sell, p. 121
LESSON 9: Sell Yourself And Your Craft At The Show, p. 125
LESSON 10: Make A List Of Things To Bring, p. 141
LESSON 11: Be Prepared To Accept Credit Cards, p. 145
LESSON 12: Price Things To Sell, p. 147
LESSON 13: Keep Your Money Safe, p. 151
LESSON 14: Generate Follow-Up Sales, p. 163
LESSON 15: Take Care Of Yourself, p. 167
LESSON 16: Be Nice To Your Neighbors, p. 169
Some Final Words Of Advice, p. 173
Helpful Resources, p. 175
~~~~~~~
SO YOU WANT TO DO CRAFT SHOWS 16 Lessons I Learned Doing Craft Shows
But when you think jewelry and speak jewelry and work jewelry, this is what you have become. This is your purpose.
Becoming a Jewelry Designer is exciting. With each piece, you are challenged with this profound question: Why does some jewelry draw people’s attention, and others do not? When designers turn to how-to books or art theory texts, however, these do not uncover the necessary answers. They do not show you how to make trade-offs between beauty and function. Nor how to introduce your pieces publicly. You get insufficient practical guidance about knowing when your piece is finished and successful. In short, you do not learn about design. You do not learn the essentials about how to go beyond basic mechanics, anticipate the wearer’s understandings and desires, or gain management control over the process.
So You Want To Be A Jewelry Designer reinterprets how to apply techniques and modify art theories from the Jewelry Designer’s perspective. This very detailed book, by jewelry designer Warren S. Feld, reveals how to become literate and fluent in jewelry design.
Section 1-JEWELRY BEYOND CRAFT, p. 19 1. Jewelry Beyond Craft, p. 21
Section 2-GETTING STARTED, p. 27 2a. Becoming the Bead Artist and Jewelry Designer, p. 29 2b. 5 Questions Every Jewelry Designer Should Have An Answer For, p. 39 2c. Channeling Excitement, p. 51 2d. Developing Your Passion, p. 65 2e. Cultivating Practice, p. 79
Section 3-WHAT IS JEWELRY, p. 97 3. What Is Jewelry, Really?, p. 99
Section 4-MATERIALS, TECHNIQUES AND TECHNOLOGIES, p. 113 4a. Materials — Knowing What To Know, p. 115 4b. Techniques and Technologies — Knowing What To Do, p. 143 4c. Mixed Media, Mixed Techniques, p. 175
Section 5-RULES OF COMPOSITION, CONSTRUCTION, AND MANIPULATION, p. 179 5a. Composition — Playing With Blocks Called Design Elements, p. 181 5b. The Jewelry Designer’s Approach To Color, p. 197 5c. Point Line Plane Shape Form Theme, p. 231 5d. Jewelry Design Principles: Composing, Constructing, Manipulating, p. 253 5e. How To Design An Ugly Necklace — The Ultimate Challenge, p. 289 5f. Architectural Basics, p. 309
5g. Architectural Basics — Anatomy of a Necklace, p. 335 5h. Architectural Basics — Sizing, p. 343
Section 6-DESIGN MANAGEMENT, p. 349 6a. The Proficient Designer: The Path To Resonance, p. 351 6b. Jewelry Design: A Managed Process, p. 377 6c. Designing With Components, p. 387
Section 7-INTRODUCING YOUR DESIGNS PUBLICLY, p. 407 7a. Shared Understandings and Desires, p. 409 7b. Backward-Design Is Forwards Thinking, p. 437
Section 8-DEVELOPING THOSE INTUITIVE SKILLS WITHIN, p. 445 8a. Creativity Isn’t Found, It’s Developed, p. 447 8b. Inspiration and Aspiration, p. 459 8c. Your Passion For Design, p. 467
Section 9-JEWELRY IN CONTEXT, p. 483 9a. Contemporary Jewelry Is Not A Look — It’s A Way Of Thinking, p. 485 9b. Contemporizing Traditional Jewelry, p. 499 9c Fashion Style Taste Art Design, p. 513 9d. Designing With The Brain In Mind: Perception, Cognition, Sexuality, p. 523 9e. Self-Care, p. 535
Section 10-TEACHING DISCIPLINARY LITERACY, p. 543 10. Teaching Disciplinary Literacy In Jewelry Design, p. 545
Final Words of Advice, p. 579 Thank You, p. 581 About Warren Feld, p. 583 Other Articles and Tutorials, p. 587
In this very detailed book, with thoroughly-explained instructions and pictures, you are taught a non-traditional Pearl Knotting technique which is very easy for anyone to learn and do. Does not use special tools. Goes slowly step-by-step. Presents a simple way to tie knots and position the knots to securely abut the bead. Anticipates both appeal and functionality. Shows clearly how to attach your clasp and finish off your cords. And achieves that timeless, architectural perfection we want in our pearl knotted pieces.
Most traditional techniques are very frustrating. These can get overly complicated and awkward. They rely on tools for making and positioning the knots. When attempting to follow traditional techniques, people often find they cannot tie the knots, make good knots, get the knots close enough to the beads, nor centered between them. How to attach the piece to the clasp gets simplified or glossed over.
Fortunately, Pearl Knotting doesn’t need to be this hard.
Pearl Knotting…Warren’s Way teaches you how to:
· Hand-knot without tools
· Select stringing materials
· Begin and finish pieces by (1) attaching directly to the clasp, (2) using French wire bullion, (3), using clam shell bead tips, or, (4) making a continuous piece without a clasp
· Add cord
· Buy pearls, care for them, string and restring them, store them
By the end of this book, you will have mastered hand-knotting pearls.
Abstract Balancing work and life is a challenge for everyone, but particularly for creatives. Designing pieces of jewelry involves a complicated process of finding inspiration and translating often-fuzzy images and ideas into aspirations and then finished designs. The designer usually creates each piece of jewelry over an extended period of time, often in solitude and isolation. Moreover, the designer, by the very nature of jewelry, must introduce their pieces to the public, opening the designer to feedback and critique. Balancing work and life can be very stressful, both mentally and physically. If in the business of selling jewelry, then there can be additional financial stresses. Suggested are a series of things the jewelry designer can do to manage the balancing act. These things have to do with acting, organizing, thinking, nourishing, and relating.
SELF-CARE
Finding Work-Life Balance
There is always one more thing to do. One more piece to make. One more component to buy. One more social media post. One more supplier to talk to. One more client to get. One more family’ or friend’s demands to deal with. It’s never-ending and can overwhelm you mentally, physically and financially. There is struggle. Slumps. Getting overwhelmed. Burn-out.
So the problems and resolutions depend on your ability to set boundaries. Limits on the use of your time. Allocations on the use your time. The places where you want to use any of your time. The people you want to interact with and share your time. Work-Life balance is never fully achieved; it’s a continual give and take. More a balancing, than a balance.
This requires a high degree of honesty with yourself. Some facing of the realities of limited resources. Some confronting of your fears to get them out of the way. Some feeding of your soul — your creative self.
We call this self-care. Self-care is a management strategy for managing the ever-present tensions between work and life. Everyone needs a plan and program of self-care for themselves. This can be very formal or informal. It means recognizing when the balance has tilted too far in one or the other direction. It requires a self-care tool box of strategies to employ to correct any imbalances. But you need that balance and a plan and program for maintaining it. You want joy from jewelry creation. You want productivity. You want people to want to wear your jewelry, perhaps buying it. Below I discuss some ideas that you might incorporate into your own self-care routines.
Because creatives love what they do, they may be especially vulnerable to putting in too many work hours. They may isolate themselves too freely or for too long. Yes, you might get a lot of projects finished, but you are also shortchanging yourself. It is not a positive thing to be unbalanced. You need enrichment. You need time to reflect and relax. You need to feel connected to others.
Self-Care Can Be Hard
Self-Care might feel like a long list of to-do’s. Eat. Take breaks. Phone calls, meetings and get-togethers. Time at the gym or salon. Adequate sleep. And so forth. This list might never get done to completion or satisfaction. It might feel burdensome. You might find yourself keep adding things to the list. This list, in and of itself, does not really resolved the tensions between work and life.
Knowing everything you need to do and should do is not the same as doing these. A more selective list where you can see the connections between your wellness and the activity will always make more sense.
Self-care takes work. It uses up time. It is one more thing to keep up with. Exerting effort can feel like a tall order — even when you know you will feel better after doing it. Again, a more realistic set of activities will be more manageable and effective.
For some people, taking time out for self-care generates a sense of guilt and shame. They feel they will be seen as avoiding work, instead of using self-care to enhance their work. Self-care should not be confused with an indulgence.
Handling Stress
One of the greatest challenges jewelry designers have is handling stress. There is the stress of finding inspiration. The stress of translating that inspiration into a concrete design. The stress of finding and selecting beads and other components, as well as colors, patterns and textures. The stress of placing mass within a negative space. The stress of construction. The stress of showing your jewelry to others. If you are selling your pieces, the added stresses of promotion, marketing, pricing and selling. You do not want all these stresses to add up to the point you become paralyzed — unable to start your project, finish your project or introduce it into the creative marketplace.
Stress can be both mental and physical. You need self-care for both.
Mental stress is often associated with doubt and self-doubt. Doubt holds you back from seizing your opportunities. It makes getting started or finishing things harder than they need to be. It adds uncertainty. It makes you question yourself. It blocks your excitement, perhaps diminishing it. You begin to question how to measure your progress and success, perhaps unfairly comparing yourself to other jewelry designers. You begin to fear criticism and rejection, whether real or imagined. While sometimes doubt and self-doubt can be useful in forcing you to think about and question your choices, it mostly holds you back.
Mental stress can be associated with pain. It begins to build and amplify when you think that mental and/or physical pain means you no longer will be able to make jewelry, at least the designs you prefer to make. Put a stop to these thoughts. With tools, physical aids and ergonomic solutions, and a good self-care plan of operation, you will be able to continue to design and make any jewelry you want.
The creative process can result in our feeling vulnerable. Not everything is clear at first. More fuzzy. More experimental. The creative process is messy. Nonlinear. A lot of back and forth iteration. Eventually creative ideas coalesce within a completed piece of jewelry. But this creative process may extend for long periods of time. Living with vulnerabilities is part of any jewelry designer’s daily process. It is something to get used to. It makes having that good support system all that more important.
Making jewelry can take a physical toll on your body. Physical stresses begin as occasional pain, but eventually become major flare-ups. You might find yourself using your fingernails as tools, such as opening a split ring, or forcing a closure, or opening and closing a jump ring. After awhile, your fingernails start to split and crack and break. You might be do the same physical operation with your hands over and over again, slowing getting repetitive motion injuries, where your wrists hurt, the joints in your fingers hurt, your elbows hurt, your neck hurts. Your fingers may cramp up. You may be sitting in one position for a very long time, and over time, you begin to develop neck and back problems and knee problems and leg and foot problems. You may hate to wear your eyeglasses when you make jewelry. You forget the maxim: If you need glasses to read, you need glass to make jewelry.
The immediate solution to physical stresses is to stop making jewelry. Give yourself a rest. Take time off. I know you want to be making jewelry, but you need to listen to your body. It is telling you it needs some time for healing.
The long term solution is to rely on tools and ergonomic furnishings. Tools are an extension of your hands (and other parts of your body). They reduce the stress on your hands (and other parts of your body). Ergonomic designs reduce the stresses and strains placed on your body and channel the negative energy elsewhere. There are ergonomic chairs, arm rests, arm rest and pulley systems, and the like. Also be sure seating is comfortable and lighting is good.
When returning to jewelry making, pace yourself. Take breaks. Do finger, arm and leg stretching exercises. Wear braces to support the wrist, thumb and elbow.
Solutions and Resolutions
How You Act
Work-life balance is really a balancing act.
Look for places to pause your work.
Train yourself to be able to put down your work before it is completed without the stress of leaving it unfinished or undone.
Leave the house. Change locations. Take a walk or a drive. Take the day off.
Take time off to relax and disconnect.
How You Organize
Good organization leads to more efficiency and effectiveness and better work-life balance.
Designate one area of your house for your creative work, a different area for business work, and yet another area for thinking, meditating, reflecting and relaxing.
Schedule sufficient times for creativity, times for business, and times for reflection.
Keep your work area neat and generally organized, but not necessarily perfectly organized. Remember: Perfection is the enemy of the Good.
Budget for things to go wrong. Don’t put yourself on such a tight financial rope that any mistake or any supply issue or other business related issue creates panic.
Plan for enough time in your schedule to acquire materials and supplies, learn a new technique if necessary, and communicate and work with clients, if this is part of your practice.
Keep your website (and other promotional venues) up-to-date.
How You Think
Applying your creativity and finding work-life balance are actually sets of thinking routines where you explore choices, narrow them down, and make selections.
Remember that creativity involves more than staying seated in front of beads and other jewelry components in your work space. Creativity also involves looking for inspirations. It involves thinking through all the options for translating those inspirations into aspirations and then into specific design.
Recognize that taking time away from work for self-care is a positive reflection on you. It is not something to hide or be ashamed of.
It is not hard to set yourself up for failure. Set your expectations that are reasonable and realistic for you.
Set attainable goals and objectives. Revisit these often as you work on any project.
Remind yourself periodically why you like to create and make jewelry.
Make sure you have something to get excited about — an activity or event, a book or movie, an exploration about jewelry design, exercising, yoga, whatever.
How You Nourish Mind and Body
A healthy mind and body will keep your creative juices flowing and make that work-life balance easier to maintain.
Don’t skip meals or avoid satisfying any hungry feelings when they occur.
Hydrate often.
It is difficult to make good jewelry design choices when you are tired. Be aware of times when you are overextended.
Exercise. Take frequent breaks to move around a bit.
Do some focused breathing exercises.
Meditate.
Go somewhere where you can let out your primal scream.
Take a nap.
Do something out of the ordinary for you. Make jewelry using your non-dominant hand. Stick your hands into a bowl of mud.
How You Relate
Most jewelry is created in solitude. Feelings of isolation may build up. If not careful, this can negatively affect your work-life balance.
Surround yourself with people who inspire you. Avoid people who are negative and toxic. Don’t isolate yourself for too long a period.
Spend time with real friends. Build up and maintain a supportive social network.
Don’t compare yourself and compete with others. Keep the focus on yourself.
Talk things out. With others as sounding boards and informers, help each other see what matters and what does not.
Attach yourself to a group, say an online jewelry making group, or a local artist community group. But don’t take up residence there. Moderation, moderation.
Detach yourself from the online world for awhile, if you are spending too much time living there.
Don’t take criticisms personally.
If in business, evaluate your pricing, selling and marketing strategies. Is the price you are getting for your jewelry reflective of your worth as a designer? Are your target markets in line with the styles and prices of your pieces?
If in business, keep your clients aware of your progress.
I am so excited to share my online video tutorial with you!
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Learning bead stringing is more than putting beads on a string and tying on a clasp.
Successful designers need to bring a lot of knowledge to bear, when creating a successful piece of jewelry — one which is appealing, functional, satisfying to the client, and durable.
Jewelry designers need to become skilled at making tradeoffs between beauty and functionality, and designer intent and client desire, Jewelry you make needs to be appealing, comfortable, move with the person as the person moves, and be appropriate for the situation or context.
Jewelry designers have to know some things about:
Materials
Techniques
Some architecture and physical mechanics
Some sociology and anthropology and psychology
Even some things about party planning
In my explanations about bead stringing and the various stringing techniques in how jewelry is made, I reference all these things. It is important that you have more insights and understandings about bead stringing and jewelry design.
This series of video tutorials takes a comprehensive look at the things you need to know to string beads and make jewelry.
In this video tutorial series, I go into depth about:
Choosing stringing materials, and the pros and cons of each type
Choosing clasps, and the pros and cons of different clasps
All about the different jewelry findings and how you use them
Architectural considerations and how to build these into your pieces
On our bead stringing journey, I teach you several different bead stringing techniques. In particular, you will learn:
How better designers use cable wires and crimp
How designers use needle and thread to string beads
How best to make stretchy bracelets
How to make adjustable slip knots, coiled wire loops, and silk wraps
How to finish off the ends of thicker cords or ropes, so that you can attach a clasp
How to construct such projects as eyeglass leashes, mask chains, lariats, multi-strand pieces, twist multi-strand pieces, and memory wire pieces.
How does the wearer or buyer of jewelry know they have made the right aesthetic choice? What are the cues and clues people use when making these consumer choices? How does attention to fashion, taste, style, art and/or design help the wearer or buyer lower the risk for making the wrong choice? This article discusses answers to these questions for the jewelry designer. That designer must be comfortable managing these things as they play out in a process of innovation, adoption, and diffusion. That designer must be sensitive to the fact that the rules underlying good aesthetics may or may not coordinate those rules underlying a person’s desire for pleasure.
How Can We Know We Have Made The Right Aesthetic Choices?
Wearers and buyers of jewelry often look for a socially acceptable way to confirm they’ve made the right aesthetic choices. They may have picked a blue necklace, but was it the right blue? They may have decided upon a 24” necklace, but was this the right length? They may have gone with gemstones, but were they the right gemstones?
What are these cues and clues people use when deciding to wear or purchase a piece of jewelry? They could listen to the jewelry designer, if that person is present at the point of a transaction. But more likely than not, the designer is not. They could look at how this designer’s jewelry was displayed. Or the packaging. Or read the designer’s description. Or look at images on a website. Or check out other people wearing this designer’s jewelry. Yet, even if the designer were present, and all this other information were available, however, why should the wearer or buyer trust the designer? Isn’t there still a high level of risk for making the less than or more than right or wrong choice?
Our wearer or buyer is a consumer of aesthetics, when selecting a piece of jewelry. They are probably not experts in jewelry design or jewelry making materials and techniques. They are looking for something appealing, but concurrently socially and psychologically acceptable. They may want to feel part of a larger group. Or, they may want confirmation about a sense of individual identity and a way to distinguish themselves from the larger group. They may want reassurance that they are living life the way life should be lived, at least according to social and cultural norms. And there is a perceived risk here, should they make the wrong choice. We want to experience aesthetic pleasures, but our insecurities often mean we look for validation from other people around us, when consuming those aesthetic pleasures.
The actual ways and the actual clues and cues we look for to legitimize our aesthetic choices will vary from person to person. But we can look at five different ways to define the consumption of aesthetic expression and pleasure to begin to get a kind of understanding for the dynamics of what is going on here. Each is associated with a set of socio-cultural rules and consequences when acquiring products like jewelry. These five expressive-consumption modes are,
1.Fashion
2.Taste
3.Style
4.Art
5.Design
Let’s settle on some initial ideas about each of these, and then elaborate further through the remainder of this chapter.
Fashion: Often considered the substitution of someone else’s taste for your own, and is assumed to represent Good Taste. Fashion satisfies the needs of the person to feel connected to a group, to imitate a sense of good taste, and to adapt to changes around them. It considerably lowers the risk for any aesthetic choices.
Taste: A person’s ability to recognize beauty in whatever form she or he finds it, in our case here, jewelry. Good Taste is associated with how well principles of beauty and art have been applied.
Style: Will vary with particular cultures or events or historical periods or individual identities. Style communicates an expectation about meaning and its expression and what form it should take within a composition as seen by the outlook of the jewelry wearer or buyer. It might be referenced by terms like classic, modern, religious, Gen-X, casual, and the like. The principal forces in the creation of style are tradition and the experience of other jewelry the person is familiar with. Style on one level is the way a person applies their taste when choosing an aesthetic. Styles change and evolve in response to the influence of contemporary life.
Art: Represents beauty regardless of context. Regardless of whether it is worn or sitting on an easel. There are no pragmatic considerations involved.
Design: Represents the recognition of the most parsimonious relationship between beauty and function within any one piece of jewelry as it is worn. Jewelry requires that the piece not only satisfies the aesthetic needs of the person, but also fulfills a practical need.
AESTHETICS
What is the essence of beauty — what we call aesthetics?
When someone wears or buys a piece of jewelry, the choice of any aesthetic, as represented by that piece of jewelry, can become very problematic. The idea of aesthetics must be thought through by the person as she or he decides to touch or wear or share or part with some money or to walk away from the jewelry item.
But one person’s aesthetic sensibility is not necessarily the same as anyone else’s. There are few universal aesthetic ideas. Most things are so subjective and so context- or situationally-specific. Rules defining personal pleasure and rules defining beauty and appeal may co-exist, but they are not necessarily the same or in harmony. We know this because, from person to person, tastes, styles and fashions differ.
One response, where such differences exist, is to rely on fashion and art to define for us how pleasure and appeal should co-exist at any one moment in time. If we cannot find universally-accepted, common rules of aesthetics, then perhaps, we should let the social group or the social majority define it for us. Beauty, then, becomes not a property of the object per se, but an aesthetic judgment based on a subjective feeling. Our sense of good taste or fashion or style or art or design is a constructed one; it is not inherent in any particular jewelry design.
This brings us back to the idea that people want to minimize their sense of risk when making the right choices about wearing or buying a piece of jewelry. There is this inner need for validation. Part of that need is met by constructing and communicating a feeling or thought about what a consensus about taste might look like. Such a consensus, in reality, does not exist. But an idea of it emerges from preferences, assumptions, expectations, values, and desires. An idea of it emerges from how well the jewelry designer has managed the design process. That is, how well the designer has anticipated shared understandings of the various client audiences the jewelry is meant for, and incorporated these into the content of the design.
CONSUMPTION
Fashion, Taste, Style, Art and Design are each closely linked to the idea of consumption. These represent different ways of identifying preferences for certain types of jewelry and which directly affect the wearer’ or buyer’s choices in the marketplace. These preferences do not, however, necessarily trigger the wearing or purchase of a piece of jewelry. The interaction of these preferences with consumption is more complex and more depending on social interaction or personal motivation and strategy. People tend to emulate others (or distinguish themselves from others) or seek to reconfirm certain ideas which create certain habits and preferences, which in turn influence consumption of one piece of jewelry over another.
Yes, people want agency. They want to be free to choose jewelry that gives them pleasure. But they want validation and acceptance, as well. Most of that results from the understandings about the content of the jewelry. That is, how the content relays meanings through the aesthetic and design choices of the jewelry designer. We want the people around us to know who we are and what we have become. Jewelry makes a big statement here.
FASHION
Fashion is the socially acceptable, culturally-endorsed and safe way to distinguish oneself from others, while at the same time, re-affirming membership in a group. The person is allowed to be both an individual as well as a member of a group. With fashion, the individual can have both a sense of taste of their own as well as expect others to share it. Jewelry, from a fashion perspective, is embedded with the same values as our own. It is assumed that the community of fashion is the real community of universal good taste. That assumption means that the rules of beauty and appeal are understood as directly linked to and in harmony with the rules of finding pleasure.
Fashion may be thought of encompassing two things: (1) the jewelry object itself, and (2) the process of gaining acceptance for that object. That process moves from the designer to a client to that client’s audiences and public acceptance. That process extends from inspiration to aspiration to implementation to early adoption by fashion influencers and the diffusion of the jewelry throughout a particular social network. Eventually, though, there is a decline of acceptance over time.
The fashion object — in this case jewelry — must have discernable characteristics. These must be perceivable. They must anticipate how others will understand them. They must be communicative. These characteristics must show value; that is, something about them must be measurable in either relative (example, it’s better than what I have now) or objective terms (example, it is worth twice as much as my other piece).
Fashion denotes a broad social consensus about good taste. If a piece of jewelry is “not fashionable,” it means that, at least in a particular moment, it would be judged as boring, monotonous, unsatisfying or even ugly.
TASTE
Taste is an individuals’ personal aesthetic choices. Taste is how any individual judges what is beautiful, good and correct. These choices are influenced by social relations and dynamics.
Taste denotes preference. If a piece of jewelry is “not your taste,” this means you don’t like it.
STYLE
Style is about agency and choice. It is strongly influenced by broadly accepted social constructs, such as time period, geography, religion, class, cultural identify. Style suggests that anything can be acceptable as long as it makes you feel good and that you are showing your authentic self.
Style denotes the manner in which something is expressed. If a piece of jewelry is “not your style,” this means it does not present your beliefs in the way you want them expressed.
ART
Everyone wants a little art in their lives. They want beauty around them. It inspires them. It makes them feel good. They do not want to be encumbered with practical considerations in every moment of the day. Great color combinations and component arrangements are reassuring, pleasuring, uplifting. Jewelry communicates a sense of the designer’s hands that have touched it, the imagination that created it, and the work that has gone into it.
Art denotes the way the design elements and composition reflect principles of harmony and variety embedded in art theories. If a piece of jewelry is “not art,” this means it is not sufficiently harmonious.
DESIGN
Jewelry, however, is not a framed painting hanging in a museum. It is something that is worn. It is something that must continue to look good, even as the person wearing it moves from room to room, one lighting situation to another, one context to another.
Design denotes the way tradeoffs are made between beauty and function in the most parsimonious way. If a piece of jewelry is “not design,” this means that if you added (or subtracted) one more element to (or from) the piece, the piece would be judged more finished and more successful.
INFLUENCERS: Fashion Change Agents
Influencers are people positioned at the intersection of fashion, style and taste. They are fashion change agents. They are key to the dynamics of adoption and diffusion, coherence and contagion. They may play out these roles in an ephemeral, non-professional way, or, they may be prominent professionals in a community, a network or online. The jewelry designer is not necessarily positioned or skilled enough to adequately influence who wears or buys their jewelry. Today’s jewelry designer needs to get a good sense of how influence and influencers operate within the creative marketplace for the pragmatic purposes of managing adoption and diffusion of the jewelry she or he has created.
Influencers are one of the backbones of internet culture. Their business model centers on ways to shape everything we do in our lives from how we shop to how we learn to how we dress. Influencers are part micro-celebrity and part entrepreneur. They are opinion leaders and have been able to garner a large audience. They have proven themselves to be able to exploit how people distribute their time and attention.
It is important to get a handle on the change-agent role of the influencer. Specifically,
a) The influencer is probably not one of the earliest adopters of a newly introduced piece or line of jewelry
b) The influencer communicates using both visual and verbal representations of the jewelry, and usually needs some assistance from the designer with content
c) Influencers as people are usually more interested about fashion-style-taste than the general public they are trying to influence; they may not be up-to-date on all the current fashions, but they have the inherent skills to communicate and legitimate and instigate any fashion choice
d) Influencers have the creative skill to aesthetically and artistically assemble stylish jewelry presentations; they can articulate what good taste means in the context the jewelry as presented; they are often creators of accepted standards of good jewelry design and dress behavior
The influencer plays multiple roles from innovator, information transmitter, opinion shaper, knowledge base, social legitimizer.
It is estimated that 50% of the female population and 25% of the male population monitor fashion information on a regular basis, from surfing websites, perusing magazines, shopping, and talking about fashion. But it the influencer who best locks in their attention to any particular fashion item.
APPLIED FASHION: Inhabiting Your Jewelry
The jewelry designer needs to be sensitive to how this all plays out from the wearer’ or buyer’s point of view.
My clients and my students repeatedly ask about what the current fashion colors are? Did I see what so-and-so was wearing on TV or at an awards show? But usually, at least in Nashville, TN, a sense of fashion plays a small part in the day-to-day decisions most people make about the jewelry they want to wear.
Buying a piece of jewelry for yourself — a necklace, a bracelet, earrings, a brooch, something else — isn’t a task easily given to someone else. It’s often not a spur of the moment thing either. You just don’t rush off to the local boutique or the local Wal-Mart, grab whatever you see, and go home. I’m not talking about that impulse buy during your leisurely visit to the mall. I’m referring to purchasing those pieces of jewelry you know will have to do a lot of the hard work to accessorize your wardrobe and help you get the compliments and notice of your family, friends and co-workers you comport with and compete with each and every day.
No, buying a piece of jewelry for yourself is a multi-purposed moment, one which must be thought through carefully and one which must be savored. Lest you buy the wrong piece. That doesn’t really go with what you intend to wear. Or is over-priced. Or poorly made. Or conveys the wrong impression about status. Or is out of fashion. Or something one of your friends already has.
The jewelry you buy has to conform to quite a long list of essential criteria before you could ever think of buying it. It is something you will wear more than once. As such, it is your companion. Your necklace is not merely lying around your neck. Or your bracelet around your wrist. Or your earrings dangling from your ears. Jewelry can cause you to lose face with others. It can irritate or scratch your skin, or get caught up in your hair. It might weigh you down or stretch or tear your ear lobes. Jewelry can break without warning in the most unexpected and embarrassing of places. It can get caught on things, sometimes hurting you in the process.
Jewelry conveys to the world something about who you really are, or think you are. As such, jewelry is very personal. Your private, innermost, most soul searching choices made very public for all to see. As you caress it, as you touch the smooth or faceted or crevice’d beads and metal parts or the clasp or the material the beads are strung on, when you twist and move the piece within your hand, you are confirming to yourself the extent to which your jewelry is doing its job.
When you buy new jewelry, the dilemmas multiply. How will the new compare to the old? Will it be able to handle all these responsibilities — looking good, representing you, fitting in with your wardrobe, meeting the expectations of others? Like divorcing, then remarrying, changing your jewelry can take some time for readjustment. And you do not want to be seen as noncommittal to your jewelry. This would sort of be like going to a hotel, but not unpacking your suitcase while staying in the room.
Conveying some sort of social or psychological distance from your jewelry can be very unsettling for others. So you need to inhabit it. You need to inhabit your jewelry, wear it with conviction, pride and satisfaction. Be one with it. Inhabiting jewelry often comes with a price. There becomes so much pressure to buy the right pieces, given all the roles we demand our jewelry to play, that we too often stick with the same brands, the same colors, the same styles, the same silhouettes.
We get stuck in this rut and are afraid to step out of it. Or we wear too many pieces of jewelry. The long earrings, plus the cuff bracelets on both arms, plus the head band, plus the hair ornament, plus the 7-strand necklace, plus the 5 rings. We are ever uncertain which piece or pieces will succeed at what, so hopefully, at least some combination or subset of what we wear will work out.
In a similar way, we wear over-embellished pieces — lots of charms, lots of dangles, lots of fringe, lots of strands. Something will surely be the right color, the right fit and proportion, the right fashion, the right power statement, the right reflection of me.
And our need to inhabit our jewelry comes with one more price. We are too willing to overpay for poorly made pieces in our desperation to have that right look. The $100.00 of beads strung on elastic string. The poorly dyed stones which fade in the light. The poorly crimped and overly stiff pieces with little ease for accommodating movement and frequent wear. It is OK to inhabit our jewelry. In fact, it is necessary, given all we want jewelry to do for us. But we need to be smart about it. We need to learn to recognize better designs and better designers.
This need not be expensive at all.
Just smarter.
FASHIONS CHANGE
Every jewelry designer should expect that many fashion preferences and desires will change over time, sometimes very quickly. Consumers can be fickle. They can get bored with the old. They search out new novelties all the time. They try to keep up with trends and fads. As the economy moves up and down, so too do consumer abilities to purchase at a particular price.
New materials come out on the market. So do new techniques and technologies. Clothing and hair styles change silhouettes. Seasons change. The climate is changing. Popular culture changes. Social media goes in a different direction. Global trading opportunities change. Corporations come up with a catchy marketing campaign.
In contemporary culture, it also has become more okay for individual to develop their own sense of style and fashion.
THE DANGER OF HOMOGENATION
If fashion, style and taste lead to everyone wearing and buying similar things, we begin to lose the need for the jewelry designer. The designer becomes more a technician. The task of design becomes more mechanical, step-by-step, ritualized. More a the design process can be taken over by machines.
It is incumbent upon the designer to not lose sight of the essence underlying jewelry design. At its core, this is to create pieces which translate the designer’s inspirations in ways which resonate with others to be similarly inspired. Jewelry design is a communicative collaboration of sorts between designer and client. This will always lead to a wealth of variety and variation never diminished by fashion, style or taste.
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FOOTNOTES
Firat. Fuat A. 1991. The Consumer in Post-modernity. Advances in Consumer Research 18. 70–76.
Gronow, Jukka. “Taste and Fashion: The Social Function Of Fashion And Style,” Something Curated, Helsinki, 8/16/2017.
Hebdige. D. 1983. Subculture. The Meaning of Style. London & New York: Methuen.
King, Charles W. “The Dynamics of Style and Taste Adoption and Diffusion: Contributions From Fashion Theory,” Advances in Consumer Research Volume 07, eds. Jerry C. Olson, Ann Arbor, MI: 1980.
Noro, A. 1991. Muoto, moderniteetti ja ‘kolmas’. Tutkielma Georg Simmelin sosiologiasta (Form, Modernity and the ‘Third’. A Study of Georg Simmel’s Sociology). Jyvaskyla: Tutkijaliitto.
Simmel. G. 1950. The Metropolis and Mental Life. In K. H. Wolf (ed.), The Sociology of Georg Simmel. Illinois: Free Press.
Simmel. G. 1991. The Problem of Style, Theory, Culture and Society 8. 63–71.
Jewelry plays a lot of psychological functions for both the wearer and the viewer, so it is important to understand some things about perception and cognition and how the brain processes information. The jewelry designer plays with various design elements, let’s call these parts. The designer arranges these parts into a composition, let’s refer to this as the whole. The brain takes in information about, that is, attends to each part, and information about the whole, and assigns a meaning to these. The designer must anticipate all this, especially understanding Gestalt behavior. So the designer is not only dealing with aesthetic and functional considerations in their designs, but also the psycho-social-emotional triggers and filters these may represent. Some of these emotions may evoke a sense of sex, sexuality and sensuality. Last, jewelry designers must be very aware — metacognitive — of how they think through design, and be able to turn their experiences into thinking routines.
DESIGNING WITH THE BRAIN IN MIND
Jewelry plays a lot of psychological functions for the wearer, the viewer, and the buyer, so it is important to understand some things about perception and cognition and how the brain processes information. Jewelry is used to meet the individual’s needs for self-esteem and self-actualization. A sense of oneness and uniqueness. Or conversely, a sense of being a part of a larger group or community. A sense of survival and protection. A re-affirmation of values and perspectives. A connection to a higher power or spirituality. A sense of fantasy. An orientation to what is up and what is down and what is left and what is right.
The jewelry designer plays with various design elements, let’s call these parts. The designer arranges these parts into a composition, let’s refer to this as the whole. The brain takes in information about, that is, attends to each part, one by one, and then gathers information about the whole, and assigns a meaning to all these. Because of how the brain works, there may be several meanings that rise up to the surface, so the brain has to filter and prioritize these somehow. The resulting assigned meaning(s) results in some type of behavior. At its simplest level, the behavior is either one of placing attention or one of suggesting movement. The behavior, whatever it is, reaffirms for the observer that their goals are getting met or that there is some consistency and coherency with personal values and desires.
The designer must anticipate all this. So the designer is not only dealing with aesthetic and functional considerations in their designs, but also the psycho-social-emotional triggers and filters these may incur. Some of these emotions may evoke a sense of sex, sexuality and sensuality. Jewelry has sensual qualities. It has gender associations. It may symbolically represent what is safe and what is not to view or to touch.
PERCEPTION
Perceptions are ways of regarding, understanding or interpreting something. We perceive using our senses. We touch, we see, we feel, we hear, we smell, we sense positioning. Perceptions are subjective, and each person has their own subtle differences, even when responding to the same design or event. In fact, different people may have very different perceptions about the same design or event. Their assumptions, expectations and values may further color their perceptions.
Each person filters their perceptions with each move, each conversation, and each situation. Such filters may contingently alter perceptions. Perceptions are not fixed. They are very sensitive to the context and the situation. Any type of filter may result in selectively perceiving some things, but not others. In design work, our clients might selectively focus on brighter lights, louder sounds, stronger odors, sharper textures, silhouettes, proportions, placements and distributions, balance, harmony and variety. Selective perception can add some more muddiness to the interaction especially as designer and client try to find and develop the shared understandings necessary for success.
Adequately sharing understandings within a situation and among the people in it depends on the amount of information available to each person and how correctly they interpret it. Perception is one of the critical psychological abilities we have in order to survive in any environment.
The designer needs to be open to understanding how the client perceives the design tasks and proposed outcomes, and to adjust their own perceptions when the management of the relationship calls for this. There is no formula here. Each situation requires its own management strategy. Each designer is left with their own inventiveness, sensitivity, and introspective skills to deal with perceptions. But it comes down to asking the right questions and actively listening.
How does the client begin to understand your product or service? Can the client describe what they think you will be doing and what the piece or product might look like when finished? Can the client tell you how the finished piece or product will meet their needs and feelings? Can the client tell you about different options? How will they interpret what you want them to know? What impressions do you want to leave with them? Do they perceive a connection between you as a designer and your design work as proposed? What levels of agreement and disagreement exist between your perceptions and theirs? Can you get at any reasons which might explain their perceptions, and any agreement or difference? Can you clear up any misperceptions?
The jewelry designer needs to distinguish between how the jewelry is perceived when it is not worn from when it is worn. When not worn, jewelry is an object admired and perceived more in art or sculptural terms. When worn, jewelry is an intent where perceptions about the jewelry as object are intertwined, complicated, distorted, amplified, subjugated — you get the idea — with the needs and desires of the individual as that person presents the self and the jewelry as worn in context. Either set of perceptions may support one another, or they may be contradictory.
COGNITION
Cognition involves how the brain processes our perceptions, particularly when these perceptions are incomplete or contradictory or otherwise messy or unresolvable. Cognition focuses on how the brain takes in existing knowledge and creates new knowledge. Cognition is both conscious or unconscious, concrete or abstract, intuitive or conceptual. Cognition may influence or determine someone’s emotions. Metacognition is your own awareness of your strategies and methods of thinking and problem-solving.
The brain takes in a lot of information all at once. The brain looks for clues. It compares clues to information stored in memory. Typically different parts of the brain will simultaneously process (e.g., parallel processing) either different clues or the same clues in different ways. Some information will have greater relevance or resonance than others. Some information will be rejected. Some information will be recategorized or reinterpreted.
You can think of all these mental processes going on in the brain as a huge, self-organizing undertaking, but happening within minute fractions of a second. What happens is very context- or situation-specific. The goal is the creation of some kind of understanding. This understanding will have some logic to it. It will be compatible with and reaffirm the individual’s memories, assumptions, expectations, values and desires. This understanding will typically result in some kind of behavioral response. The response will most often be related to attention or movement. The understanding and the behavioral response will likely get stored in memory.
Attention
The cognitive process starts with attention. Attention has to do with how we focus on some perceptual information, and not on others. A key function of attention is how to identify irrelevant data and filter it out, enabling other more significant data to be distributed to other parts of the brain for further processing.
Picture a piece of jewelry. This jewelry will present many stimuli — color, placement, proportion, balance, volume, positioning, its relation to the human body, the context within which it is worn, perhaps how comfortable it feels, symmetry, and the list can go on and on. Which perceptual clues are most important to the person who needs to decide whether to wear or buy it? Attention is the first cognitive step in determining how to answer this, though the observer does not always consciously grasp the specifics of what is going on.
There are two types of attention: (1) Orienting, and (2) Directing.
Orienting Attention works more reflexively. For example, we are prewired in our brainstem with a fear or anxiety response. This helps us reflexively avoid snakes and spiders. This anxiety response has major implications for how people initially respond to jewelry as it is worn.
Say a stranger is in a room and wearing a necklace. You approach the entrance to this room. You see the stranger who is wearing the jewelry. Your brain has to instantaneously evaluate the situation and determine if it is safe for you to approach and continue to enter the room, or whether you need to be fearful and turn around and flee. Jewelry can play a key role here.
The jewelry signals the primary information the brain needs to make this judgment. Perceptions are filtered to the very basic and very elemental. First the viewer wants to be able to make a complete circle around the jewelry. Anything which impedes this — an ugly clasp assembly, poor rhythm, colors that don’t work together, uncomfortable negative spaces — makes the brain edgy. If the brain gest edgy, the jewelry will start to get interpreted as boring, monotonous, unsatisfying, ugly, and we can go all the way to will cause death.
After the viewer makes that complete circle, a second perception kicks in and becomes key to whether the brain will signal it’s either OK to approach or, instead, you better flee. This second perception is a search for a natural place for the eye/brain to come to rest. In jewelry we achieve this by such things as placing a pendant in the center or graduating the sizes of the beads or doing something with colors.
In slightly more technical terms, the jewelry draws the observer to a focal point at which they can sense an equilibrium in all directions. The viewer feels physically oriented. The jewelry composition presents a coordinated form which connects spaces and masses within something that feels / looks / seems like a unique harmony. The observer is made to feel, as she or he is attenuating to how mass relates to space within the composition, that not only is each element of the jewelry related to the ones preceding or following it, but that each element is contributing to the concept of the whole — the jewelry form is greater than the sum of its parts. There is continuity. There is coherence. Space and mass are interdependent. The distinction among parts is removed. The brain likes this. It searches for it. It makes it restful.
The full experience of the jewelry only gains its full meaning within its total expression. The significance of the total jewelry composition unfolds as the observer moves about its separate parts. This expression, in turn, as it relates to the attention processes of cognition, gets reduced to the confluence of the two clues of (a) making a complete circle, and (b) finding a place to come to rest. If the two clues are satisfying, the jewelry is viewed as finished and successful, and the immediate environment is seen as safe.
The jewelry designer controls the limits and the possibilities for attention. If jewelry design were merely a matter of organizing a certain number of parts, the process would be very mechanical and not at all creative. All jewelry design would be equally good (or more likely, bad). The purpose of good jewelry design is to express particular meanings and experiences for the wearer, viewer or buyer to attend to. Jewelry design is only successful to the extent these are fully communicated to the observer, and are fully sensitive to how perception and cognition play out in our brains. That is, how the jewelry, through its design, enhances or impedes perception and cognition.
Directing Attention, the other type of attention, signals to the observer the possibilities for or constraints on movement. It is more deliberate rather than reflexive. It can divide one’s attention so that the person can pay attention to more than one thing at the same time. Using our example, there could be several strangers in the room, each wearing a different style and design of necklaces. As our observer walks into the room, attention can be shifted from one person / jewelry to another, or focused on one person / jewelry alone.
Directing Attention determines the potential for movement, so that the observer can anticipate the possibilities, or conceive the limits. With whatever piece of jewelry is worn, how freely or easily can the person shift positions, stand, run, dance, lay down? Will any type of movement change the appeal of the jewelry as worn? Is there anything about the design of the jewelry which anticipates different kinds of movements and positioning? Will the appeal of the jewelry remain should the wearer move to a different type of lighted situation or into a shadow? How much ease should be built into the construction of the piece?
The aesthetics of mass and space, such as the interplay of points, lines, planes and shapes, are rooted in a person’s psychology in order to arouse predictable patterns of experience. There seems to be a constant human need to perceive and attend to spatial relationships which distinguish harmony from cacophony. This psychological response to form most likely is connected to a person’s mechanisms for balance, movement and stature.
On the simplest level, observers use jewelry to assist them in knowing what is up and what is down, and what is left and what is right. Jewelry is used similarly in this directing sense as the floors, walls and ceilings are used towards this end in a room, or the horizon, landscape and trees are used outside. Without any clues about positioning, a human being would fall down and not be able to get up.
Picture, for example, how you might feel when the person standing next to you has one earring stuck in a 90 degree angle, or is only wearing one earring, or has a necklace mispositioned and slightly turned around the neck. You most likely feel a bit uncomfortable, perhaps uncomfortable enough to let the person know the jewelry needs to be adjusted in position, or that they seem to be missing an earring. Or perhaps not so comfortable to raise the issue publicly.
GESTALT: The Whole Vs. The Parts
One mechanism of cognition is called a Gestalt. At its root, Gestalt means that the whole composition is more meaningful than the meanings of its individual parts. There is a chicken and egg type of debate within the field about whether the person attends to the parts first with a stronger emergent whole, or whether the person needs to understand the whole first and use this understanding to interpret the parts. But for jewelry designers, we do not have to get into the debate here. Jewelry designers need to recognize that the resulting whole composition should always be more resonant, more finished-feeling and more successful than any of the individual design elements incorporated into the piece.
At its core, people are motivated to recognize entire patterns or configurations. If there are any gaps or flaws or mis-directions, the brain, cognitively, has a tendency to fill in the gaps or ignore the flaws or mis-directions. Where perceptual information does not exist or is somehow incomplete, the brain will fill in the blanks, so to speak, using perceptions about proximity, similarity, figure-ground, continuity, closure, and connection. This all involves work on the part of the brain. The brain may generate resistance towards this end, unless somehow coerced or tricked by aspects of the design choices themselves.
Jewelry will have a lot of gaps of light throughout. The individual beads and components do not blend into each other. They are distinct points of information. Instead, from the brain’s point of view, there are the equivalent of cliffs between each one. The brain, in effect, is asked to jump each cliff. It may be resistant to do so. The brain wants harmony. The brain wants to connect the dots into a smooth line. Or, if the composition were separate lines, the brain wants to connect the lines into a smooth, coherent plane. Or, if there were several distinct lines and planes, the brain wants to integrate these into a recognizable shape or form. But again, all this is not automatic. The brain will resist to do any more work than necessary. The designer will need to make smart, influencing, persuading choices in the design. The Gestalt mechanism is a set of these kinds of choices.
The brain needs to be sufficiently motivated to make the effort to harmonize the pattern or configuration. Gestalt is one of the cognitive, motivating, innate forces the brain uses. In music, when the brain hears part of a melody, it not only hears the notes, but also something else, let’s, for simplicity, call this a tune. This something else allows the brain to anticipate how the melody will continue. If the melody at this point changes key, the brain anticipates how the melody will play out in the new key as a similar tune but with different notes before it is played. How the brain interacts with a piece of jewelry has parallels.
One obvious example is the use of color simultaneity effects. Here the color of the next bead is affected by the color of the previous bead. Place a grey bead next to an orange bead, and the grey bead will take on some orange tones. Both beads get perceived as blended or bridged, even though, in reality, they are not. The observer generalizes the relationship between the two stimuli rather than the absolute properties of each. Take three beads, one emerald, one olivine and one grey. You would not normally find these two greens within the same composition. Place the grey bead between the two greens and, because of simultaneity effects, the two greens will harmonize as the grey forces a blending or bridging.
Jewelry designers need to learn the basic principles or laws of Gestalt. This allows them to predict the interpretation of sensation and explain the way someone will see their compositions. It allows them to anticipate how their jewelry will arouse predictable patterns of emotions and responses in others.
These laws can be used as guides for improving the design outcomes. They can be used to influence what design elements should be included. In what forms / volumes / placements / other attributes these design elements should take. How design elements should be arranged. How construction and function should best relate to aesthetics. How the jewelry should be worn. How the jewelry might coordinate with other clothes and accessories or contexts.
These principles are based on the following:
Principle of Proximity: In an assortment of elements, some which are closer together are perceived as forming groups. Emphasizes which aspects of elements are associated.
Principle of Similarity: Elements within an assortment are grouped together if similar. This similarity could be by color or shape or other quality. If the assortment is comprised of many elements, some similar and some dissimilar, the brain will sort this out so that the similar ones, no matter where placed within the assortment, will be perceived and grouped together.
Principle of Closure: People tend to perceive objects as complete, even when incomplete, rather than focusing on any gaps or negative spaces. When parts of the whole are missing, people tend to fill in the missing parts. The brain is preset to attempt to increase the regularity of sensation or the equilibrium within an experience or event.
Principle of Symmetry:The mind perceives objects as being symmetrical and forming around a center or focal point. Similar symmetrical elements will be grouped as one. The brain will attempt to make something which is asymmetric be perceived as symmetric as best as it can. The brain equates symmetry to coherency.
Principle of Common Fate: Elements are perceived as lines which move along the smoothest path. We perceive objects as having trends of motion. In jewelry design, think about something like rhythm. The beads are not moving in reality, but we perceive a direction and a quality of movement.
Principle of Continuity: Elements of objects tend to be grouped together, and therefore integrated into perceptual wholes, if they are aligned with an object. If two objects are next to each other or overlap, the brain tends to see each object distinctly as two separate wholes, if the elements within each object are aligned and continuous. Picture a 2-strand necklace. The brain will be primed to see these as 2 separate strands or wholes, rather than one whole necklace. Objects with abrupt and sharp directional changes will less likely be perceived as a whole.
Principle of Past Experience: Under some circumstances, visual stimuli are categorized according to past experience. Especially when faced with unknown or unfamiliar objects, the brain will resort to using past experience as a means for interpretation and whether to group elements within the objects as a whole.
DESIGNS CREATE EMOTIONS
There is a growing body of knowledge of the mechanics of sensory processes in cognition. A good design creates positive emotions for the viewer, wearer and/or buyer. Jewelry designers need a deeper understanding of types of emotions and their psychological underpinnings. People develop emotions with jewelry on three levels: (1) visceral (intrinsic), (2) behavioral (behavior), and reflective (reflection).
(1) Visceral (wants to feel): attractiveness, first impressions, feelings
(2) Behavioral (wants to do): usability, function, performance, effectiveness
(3) Reflective (wants to be): meaning, impact, shared experience, psycho-socio-cultural fit
METACOGNITION
Metacognition is an awareness of your own thought and problem-solving processes. It involves a search for patterns and the meanings behind them. It involves a lot of reflection. It involves a sensitivity to the choices made when confronting any unfamiliar or unknown situation. It concerns an awareness of why some choices worked better than others, or not at all.
For jewelry designers, it is important to take metacognition one step further. It is important to turn your experiences into thinking routines. These routines are fix-it strategies you bring with you when overcoming difficult or unfamiliar situations.
SEX, SEXUALITY, AND SENSUALITY
As a jewelry designer, you have to be very aware of the roles jewelry plays in sex, sexuality and sensuality. The act of sex. Everything leading up to it. Eroticism. Sex, however, differs from sensuality. Sensuality is how the jewelry brings out the sensual — the gratification of the appetite for visuals, sounds, tastes, smells and touch. Sensuality always makes jewelry desirable. But perhaps no two people experience the sensuality of a piece of jewelry in the same way.
These sex-sexuality-sensuality roles include,
(1)The Peacock Role
(2)The Gender Role
(3)The Safe Sex Role
One sexual role of jewelry is the Peacock Role. People wear personal adornment to attract the viewer’s attention. This means that the jewelry not only needs to be flashy enough, but also must contain culturally meaningful elements that the viewer will recognize and be sufficiently meaningful as to motivate the viewer to focus his or her attention on the jewelry and who is wearing it.
These culturally meaningful elements might include the use of color(s), talismans, shapes, forms. They clue the viewer to what is good, appealing, appropriate, and to what is not. But the jewelry must also provide clues to the individuality of the wearer — her (or his) personal style, social or cultural preferences, personal senses of the situation in which they find themselves.
Another of these sexuality roles — The Gender Role — is to define gender and gender-rooted culture. Certain jewelry, jewelry styles, and ways of wearing jewelry are associated with females, and others with males. Some are used to signal androgyny, others polyamory or gender fluidity. You can easily label which jewelry looks more masculine, and which more feminine. Some jewelry is associated with heterosexuality, and others with homosexuality. I remember when men, in a big way, started wearing one earring stud, it was critical to remember whether to wear the stud in the left ear lobe (hetero) or the right one (gay). For engaged and married women, it is important to recognize which style of ring is more appropriate, and which hand and finger to wear these on.
One of the most important sexuality roles, however — The Safe Sex Role — concerns the placement of jewelry on the body. Such placement is suggestive of where it is safe, and where it is unsafe, to look at or to touch the person wearing it. The length of the necklace, relative to the neck, the breast, or below the breast. How long the earring extends below the lobe of the ear. Whether the person wears bracelets. The size of the belt buckle. If a person has body piercings, where these are — the navel, the eyebrow, the nose, the lip.
Jewelry calls attention to areas of the body the wearer feels are safe to view or touch. It’s like taking a sharpie marker and drawing a boundary line across the body. Jewelry gives the viewer permission to look at these areas, say above the line, and not others below the line. Jewelry may give the viewer permission to touch these areas, as well. The wearer may want to call attention to the face, the neck, the hands, the ankle, but also to the breasts, the naval, the genital area.
We know that certain areas of the body are more sexually arousing than others. We know that different people are more or less comfortable with these areas on the body. But how does the wearer communicate that? How does the wearer communicate her (or his) personal views of what is sexually acceptable without having to physically and verbally interact with someone in order for that person to find out?
Jewelry. How jewelry is worn is one of the most critical and strategic ways for achieving this Safe-Sex goal. The linear form of the jewelry imposes a boundary line on the body. Do not cross it. And make no mistake, this boundary line separates the permissible from the impermissible, the non-erotic from the erotic, the safe from the unsafe. In a similar way the centerpiece focuses attention as if it were an arrow pointing the way. Jewelry is not just a style preference thing. It’s a safe-sex preference thing, as well.
When news of the AIDS epidemic first burst on-stage in the 1980s, you witnessed a very dramatic change in jewelry and how it was worn. Right before the AIDS epidemic, large long earrings were style. Remember shoulder dusters. But as awareness of AIDS spread, most women stopped wearing earrings for awhile. Then gradually, they began wearing studs. Then very small hoops. It wasn’t until around 2004 that some women wore the new chandelier earrings, and you saw longer earrings on actresses as they paraded down the red carpets of one award show after another.
Prior to AIDS, the necklace style was for longer necklaces — 24” to 36” long. The necklaces were full — multi-strand, lots of charms and dangles. Again, as awareness of AIDS spread, the necklace profile changed rapidly to no necklace at all, or to thin, short chains and chokers. You would typically find ONE charm, not many, on a necklace. Attention was pulled away from the genital area, the navel and the breasts, all the way back up to the face.
Prior to AIDS, necklaces and earrings were the best-sellers in my store. After AIDS, it became bracelets. Holding hands. Not necking. Not fondling. Not sexual intercourse. Holding hands was now the acceptable norm. This was safe.
Body piercings came into major vogue during the 1980s. And look what typically got pierced. Noses, belly buttons, eyebrows, lips. This of this as a big Body Chart for safe sex.
As society became more understanding of AIDS and how it spread, the jewelry became larger. It extended to more areas of the body. People wore more of it. But in 2009, it was still restrained, when compared to what people wore before the 1980s.
In the sexual hunt between the sexes, jewelry plays an important boundary-defining role. Let’s not forget about this. Jewelry, in some sense, is an embodiment of desire. Jewelry communicates to others how the wearer comes to define what desire might mean for the self. It communicates through placement, content, embellishment and elaboration.
Jewelry does not have to be visibly erotic, or include visual representations of sexual symbols, in order to play a role in sexuality and desire — a role that helps the hunter and the hunted define some acceptable rules for interacting without verbal communication.
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FOOTNOTES
Canel, Melissa. The Role of Perceptions in Conflict. April 9, 2016. As referenced:
Finding A Job Which Utilizes Your Jewelry Making Experience
There are actually many career pathways for people who have backgrounds in jewelry making and bead working. Besides the obvious pathways of making jewelry to sell, or teaching jewelry making, there are still many job and career opportunities for you.
You may have to do a little more leg work, and a little more tree-shaking. Don’t assume, however, when the linear pathway is blocked, that all pathways are blocked. They are not.
Some types of jobs/careers which might use your talents….
There are a lot of private companies, nonprofit agencies, government agencies, and foundations and philanthropic agencies that work with disadvantaged groups, and need people to provide technical assistance to these groups. These groups might be inner city. They might be rural. They might be overseas.
Very often, projects these businesses and organizations work on have a craft-angle to them. They may need people to teach crafts, to teach people to transfer their craft skills into marketable skills, or to assist people in applying for loans to start up businesses, usually small loans and usually things associated with selling crafts.
Banks
Banks have found it profitable to make “micro-loans”. These loans are very small amounts, and usually given to women in developing countries, to help them leverage their skills — often craft skills — to make a business out of them. Banks need personnel to
o Develop loan forms, documentation and procedures
o Find opportunities for making these loans
o Working with people to teach them how to apply for these loans
o Working with people to teach them how to be more accountable with loan moneys
o Working with people to teach them how to translate their craft skills into marketable skills (called transfer of technology). Often this means helping them find resources to get materials, make choices about materials and what would be most cost-effective, and how to market their products
o Working with people to find markets for, and otherwise promote, their products
o Helping people form cooperatives so that they can buy materials more cheaply, and sell and market their products cooperatively
Government and International Agencies
Government and International Agencies need people to….
o Determine where — what communities, what demographics — they can most likely leverage local talents to better people’s lives. Crafts, particularly beading and jewelry making, provide very useful talents around which to leverage
o Evaluate local technologies — and these include all craft technologies — in terms of readiness and/or capability for cost-effective technology transfer
o Do some community organizing to make local people aware of governmental assistance (or other assistance), and to help them complete applications for this assistance
o Evaluate these kinds of programs to determine success, and make recommendations about how to increase these successes
o Document craft technologies, particularly among native, tribal, or isolated groups that are in danger of becoming extinct
o Similarly, to create ways to preserve craft technologies which are in danger of becoming extinct, or which became extinct a long time ago, and which be restored. A good example is how South Korea restored the art of celadon pottery making, or China’s work at preserving Yixing Tea Pot making.
Military
Military Agencies do similar things as governmental ones, except from a slightly different perspective. They want to know, in an anthropological sense, how people value different local technologies — including craft technologies –, and which ones can military and related civilian advisors assist the locals with, to improve their economy and security.
Philanthropy
Philanthropic Foundations have many missions. One mission is to improve and secure the health, welfare, and social economy of particular areas or population groups. Crafts are one way of accomplishing this, particularly if working with disadvantaged populations or areas.
Crafts are things people do all the time, that are attractive as products (and services if you are teaching), improve the quality of life, and form the roots of good businesses — especially start-ups.
Another mission of Philanthropic organizations is to pre-test different strategies for social and economic development. Again crafts, and beads especially, can form the basis of many strategies for business development, empowerment of minorities and women, assistance for the elderly, technology transfer, and the like.
Philanthropic organizations need people who can…
o Develop grants, rules and applications
o Find community organizations to apply for these grants
o Evaluate the success of grants
o Work with academics and consultant experts to generate experimental ideas to be tested through grants
o Work with local, state and national government agencies to find cost-sharing ways of testing out these “ideas”
o In similar way, find and negotiate public-private partnerships towards this end
Information Technology and Website Development
Information technology and website development companies, with Google a prime example, are in the business of translating reality into tables of data that can easily be accessed and assessed. These types of companies need people who can
o Translate craft terms and activities into categories for which data can be consistently collected, organized, stored and analyzed
o Work with museums and galleries which buy, own, exhibit, store or display crafts, to develop ways to collect and categorize routine data on these collections and their importance to different types of people and groups
o Sell the use of these craft-specific databases to companies or individuals that will use them
o Work with craft magazines, museums, schools, galleries and the like to help standardize some of the terminologies and valuations associated with various crafts, to make it easier to collect and sort data about them
o Assist craft artists in development of websites
o Assist craft artists in marketing their websites, especially through social media sites
o Develop blogs
o Develop advertising and marketing materials
o Develop packaging and branding materials
o Digitize images of craft items
Museums, Galleries and Libraries
Museums, Galleries and Libraries employ craft artists to…
o Catalog and digitize collections
o Document quality of items
o Restore aged or otherwise damaged pieces
o Write brochures and promotional materials
o Organize exhibits
o Raise funds for exhibits
o Advocate for funds among government agencies and philanthropic groups
o Organize a “crafts” section where none has existed before
o Promote fine crafts
o Organize a craft show to raise money and/or awareness
Many museums, galleries and libraries have tons of things in storage that have only loosely been documented, and need much more documentation and organization.
Non-Profit Groups, Agencies and Institutions
Non-Profit Groups employ all kinds of people with all kinds of backgrounds. They always need help with many fund-raising or program-targeting things. Your craft knowledge can play a very useful role here.
For example, take your local breast cancer society. Think of all the kinds of craft-type things you can make, and for which they can sell, to raise money. You could organize a craft brain trust among your friends, and turn out item after item with breast cancer awareness themes and colors. Or you could scour the internet for breast cancer awareness craft items, and make them work for you. And you could repeat this success for many other local nonprofit groups.
One of my friends went to the Atlanta Gift Show, and identified vendors that had products that could easily be adapted for breast cancer awareness. She worked out with each one what the minimum orders would be, how much lead time would be needed between placing an order and receiving the merchandise, and price. Then she went to local breast cancer groups and presented them with the options. She added 15% to the prices as her commission. These organizations fund raise all the time, and are in major need of new things to sell and promote. My friend had to lay out very little money — basically the cost of a trip to Atlanta, some phone calls and paperwork — and generated a very lucrative business for herself.
I remember spending some time in Sloan Kettering Memorial Hospital in New York City. This hospital specializes in cancer treatment. I was observing patient activities. One of these activities involved volunteers pushing a cart around with various craft activities for patients to do.
Most of the patients in the rooms in the Ward I was on could barely move their bodies, arms and hands. They were very medicated, and had many needles and IV’s stuck into them during their stay. All the craft projects on these carts required considerable manual dexterity — knitting, beading with seed beads, crocheting. The volunteers would cheerily come into the room, announce themselves, and ask if the patient wanted any of these fun crafts to do. The patients would shake their heads No, and grunt. The patients could barely move. And the volunteers left the room, unconcerned.
I took a trip to FAO Schwartz — the toy store — and came back with sets of interlocking building blocks. The blocks were made from different colors of plastic. They were different shapes. A patient could easily hold one or two pieces in their hands without requiring much manual dexterity. The pieces fit together easily by interlocking two pieces, where a slot had been cut out in each. These were a big hit on the Ward. They allowed creativity, without much manual dexterity. The pieces were large enough, that the patient could manipulate them with their hands, and not worry about losing any, if they dropped to the floor.
In hospitals and health care settings, I’ve helped create programs to assist occupational therapists with improving manual dexterity with the elderly, therapists with improving attention spans with children, conducting memory agility tests with patients, and many more programs, utilizing crafts materials and technics.
There are plenty of social and community problems to solve, many different kinds of businesses and organizations responsible for solving these problems, and many solutions which require crafts — materials or technologies which are workable, do-able, saleable, and implementable. There most likely won’t be advertised positions for these kinds of things. But you would be surprised how easy it can be to create your own job opportunities and ones which utilize your craft experiences and knowledge.
When Approaching These Potential Employers and Consultants, Be Sure To…
1. Be able to clearly define how your craft knowledge/experience can help your prospective employer solve some of her/his (NOT YOUR) problematic situations.
2. Research prospective employers, their websites and marketing materials. Identify the key words and buzz words in their materials. Be sure to include these in your written and oral presentations to them.
3. Approach the prospective employer by phone or in person first. Then follow-up with a resume and cover letter. Don’t assume that, because you can make the intellectual link between job and solution, that the employer will see this link when reading a resume. You’ll probably have to educate the employer a bit. This really doesn’t take much effort.
4. Cite examples of what kinds of things you can do. If you can identify other programs or individuals with success stories, do so.
5. If you make your “job search” also a “mission to educate people about crafts”, you’ll be surprised how much energy and excitement you bring to the job interview situation.
One of the most difficult things I have to do as a designer is say Good-Bye! to my pieces. I make something. I put it out there for sale. Someone buys it. I will probably never see it again. Yes, I can make another one, but that’s not the same thing. That’s not the point.
I submitted the necklace piece pictured above to a Swarovski Create Your Style Contest in 2008. The theme was be naturally inspired. My inspiration was this sunrise image of the Grand Canyon.
Grand Canyon at sunrise
I was selected as a Finalist. I was invited to their offices in New York City to attend the awards ceremony. I was so excited.
I had poured my all into this piece. Hours upon hours upon hours perfecting the stitching. Experimenting with using the stitching in a 3-dimensional way. Creating a curvature along the upper sides where normally it would be a sharp edge. Selecting a 5-color scheme and figuring out how to create sharper boundaries between colors when using Swarovski crystal beads. Varying the shape, size and type of beads used within the stitch. Designing a clasp assembly which I hoped looked like a mirror of the rising sun. None of these were easy tasks. Because the fully completed piece took about 100 hours to do and contained over $1500 worth of parts, I did all this experimentation and trial and error using 3″ long samples.
I had to send off my piece to New York prior to the ceremony. And from there, my piece would be flown to Innsbruck, Austria to reside in their Swarovski Museum.
I was proud. Got the big head and paraded it around. Shared my news widely, of course.
But when the day came to pack my piece up, … not a good day.
This day actually dragged on for a week.
First, I started with one jewelry box to place the piece in. Not satisfied. So another box. Not satisfied. And another box. Still not satisfied. I combed my jewelry packaging catalogs, and found 3 more choices I thought would work. I ordered these and had them shipped overnight.
Success. One of the three was perfect.
Next, I had to put this jewelry box into a larger shipping box. Easy to find a box. But my stupid brain could not come to grips with how I wanted to place the jewelry box into the shipping box. How much filler would I need? What type — paper, styrofoam, bubble wrap. Normally, I do not have difficulty making these kinds of choices. But not this time.
I would line the shipping box, sit the jewelry box in one direction, then stop. I would remove the jewelry box, change how I lined the shipping box, replace the jewelry box in another direction, then stop. I would remove the jewelry box, again decide differently how it was to lay in the shipping box, then try to line the box, cover the jewelry box, add some paper work, and seal the shipping box. Plastic tape or paper tape? Another delay while I decided.
I did not want to let go of my beautifully designed piece of jewelry. I let my next choice create a particularly high barrier. Which shipper?
The postal service was less expensive, but less reliable.
UPS was very expensive, more reliable, but what if they weren’t? It was going to New York City. How does any shipper reliability ship to New York City?
FedEx? Maybe, but I was not familiar enough with them.
Insure the package? For how much?
Certified? Signature required?
I struggled considerably over each choice. And I never struggle over these kinds of choices.
Well, at this point, my piece was in its jewelry box. My jewelry box was in its shipping box. My shipping box was sealed. I took my jewelry cum jewelry box cum sealed shipping box to UPS. The clerk had to pull it out of my hand.
And there it went.
Good-bye!
Don’t worry, it arrived safely.
I traveled to New York City for the ceremony. There was champagne and hor d’oeuvres. There were the other finalists mostly from America, but from other parts of the world, as well. There was even the Brazilian consulate general there to represent an artist from Brazil. We were all packed in the very, very bright and sparkly offices of Swarovski.
There was my piece. My Canyon Sunrise. Sitting pretty among the other pieces. Reassuring it was still there. It was in good company. I enjoyed listening to the comments of people as they admired it. I learned a lot from speaking and sharing with the other jewelry designers.
Canyon Sunrise won 4th place.
And, I had a chance to say Good-bye! one more time.
When I returned home, I immediately went to work on recreating my piece, but this time with another challenge. I took the same 5 colors I used in the original piece, and shifted the proportions around. I did not add a pendant drop in the center, nor did I recreate the elaborate clasp assembly in the back. But I had a physical piece — a cousin — to put on display with my other jewelry pieces. I could show people more than a photograph of the original piece. This was very satisfying. I was ready to move on to other projects.
Canyon Twilight, necklace by Warren Feld, 2008
Relinquishing Your Jewelry Design To Others: A Rite of Passage
One of the most emotionally difficult things designers do is saying Good-bye! to their designs as they hand them over to their client or otherwise expose their work publicly. The designer has contributed so much thinking and has spent so much time (and sometimes so much money) to the project that it is like ripping away an integral part of your being.
This is the moment where you want to maintain the conversation and engage with your audience, but look at this from a different perspective. Your relationship with your design is evolving and you need to evolve with it. Its innate intimacy is shifting away from you and getting taken over by someone else.
But you still have needs here. You want that client to ask you to design something else for them. You want the client to share your design with others, expanding your audience, your potential clients, your validation and legitimacy as a designer. And you want to prepare yourself emotionally to take on the next project.
Relinquishing control over your design is a rite of passage. At the heart of this rite of passage are shared understandings and how they must shift in content and perspective. Rites of passage are ceremonies of sorts. Marking the passage from one status to another. There are three stages:
(1)Separation
You pass your design to others. You become an orphan. You have made a sacrifice and want something emotionally powerful and equal to happen to you in return. Things feel incomplete or missing. There is a void wanting to be fulfilled. You realize you are no longer sure about and confident in the shared understandings under which you had been operating .
(2)Transition (a betwixt and between)
There is a separation, a journey, a sacrifice. The designer is somewhat removed from the object or project, but not fully. The shared understandings constructed around the original project become fuzzy. Something to be questioned. Wondering whether to hold on to them or let go. Pondering what to do next. Playing out in your head different variations in or changes to these shared understandings. Attempting to assess the implications and consequences for any change.
These original shared understandings must undergo some type of symbolic ritual death if the designer is to move on. Leverage the experience. Start again. As simple as putting all the project papers in a box to be filed away. Or having a launch party. Or deleting files and images on a computer. Or accepting payment. Or getting a compliment. Or having a closure-meeting with the client to review the process after it has been completed.
(3)Reincorporation
The designer redefines him- or her-self vis-à-vis the designed object or project. The designer acquires new knowledge and new shared understandings. There is some reaffirmation. Triumph. This usually involves a new resolve, confidence and strategy for starting new projects, attracting new clients, and seeking wider acceptance of that designer’s skills and fluency in design.
The designer has passed through the rite of passage. The jewelry or other designed object or project has been relinquished. The designer is ready to start again.
But as a designer, you will always be managing shared understandings. These most likely will have shifted or changed after the design is gone. And new ones will have to be constructed as you take on new assignments.
Financial management includes all the things you need to do in order to determine your Return On Investment (ROI). It mostly involves a system of data collection, monitoring and analysis methods employed by any successful business. This system relates risks to rewards. Activities in this kind of system include things such as general accounting and bookkeeping, inventory management, and record keeping. These include things you do to establish and maintain formal relationships with employees, independent contractors and suppliers. These include things you do to secure your money, such as with banks, financial institutions, and even such things as crowd-funding online. This is a lot of numbers and activities, and often, when we look at why people fail in business, it is often because of a generalized fear of getting in control of all this. Successful business people and successful businesses need to foster a culture which promotes a growth mindset. Simply this is a culture where you have permission and encouragement and confidence to take risks.
A Focus On Your Return On Investment (ROI)
You put a lot of time, effort and resources into designing pieces of jewelry and building up your business. This all has a cost to you in time, money, and even relationships. You want a Return On Investment (ROI). You want to see some benefits that exceed your costs. Joy, happiness, contentment, money, security, less stress, more opportunities and more challenging opportunities to be creative, more fulfilling relationships.
When you take your creative endeavors and turn them into a business, the core focus primarily rests on increasing your returns on investments (ROI’s) through smartly and strategically managing your finances. You want to set into place various management structures and routine data collection procedures to assist you in managing risk and maximizing rewards. You want to minimize the effects of uncertainty on your business.
Sometimes, creative people think that some people are born to take risks, manage them and live with them, and others are not. This is not true. Having a business sense is not something innate or genetic. It’s something that is learned over time, often with a lot of trial and error, many failures, but key successes, as well. There is no reason, if this is something you want to do, to shy away from thinking about or attempting to monetize your jewelry as a business.
Towards this end, you want to get a good handle on such things as:
Understanding risk and reward
Tracking your costs and revenues
Tracking your inventory
Other record keeping
Employees and Independent Contractors
Banking, Insurance and Credit Card Processing
Getting Terms
Getting Paid
Crowd-funding
Fostering a Growth Mind-set
a) ROI: Understanding Risk and Reward
It is important to understand risk and reward, and how to manage these. Part of managing these is putting into place systems which collect necessary data – primarily about costs and revenues – and evaluating the data and its desired impact on everything you are trying to achieve in your business. Anyone can do this. But jewelry designers who foster a growth mind-set are often better at managing risk and reward.
What Is Risk and What Is Reward
Risks and rewards are gambles. They are probabilities. Chances. They help define the likelihood for determining whether what happens next will hurt you or help you.
Risk is the likelihood that you will lose either or both tangible rewards (money) and intangible rewards (success, happiness).
Rewards are the profits, again tangible (money) or intangible (success, happiness), you receive from taking risks.
Usually, the greater the risks you take, the greater the rewards earned. But this is not a guarantee. Losses can occur, usually resulting from the failures to properly manage the relationship between risks and rewards.
Risk management is important in every business because without it, that business cannot clarify what goals it needs to set, and what steps it needs to take towards meeting those goals. There are more things to do on a day-to-day basis than you could possibly do and get done. Risk management helps you narrow down the tasks to those most likely to have the greatest rewards.
Risks and Rewards must be managed in a deliberate, rational, and day-by-day way. Routinely. With fore-thought and organization. This means collecting data. This means analyzing data. This means closely looking at risk and evaluating whether it makes sense, or not, to continue doing what you are doing, or what you want to be doing. Is it sufficiently rewarding or profitable? What is the opportunity cost? That is, you could be expending the same amount of resources (time, motivation, money) doing something else that might have a greater return.
Any business is fraught with risk. If it were easy to start a business, everyone would do it. But it is not. Again, it requires routinely collecting and evaluating data. It takes you out of that creative mode and way of thinking, and plops you down into a very different administrative one. In order to sell a piece of jewelry, you have to begin to deal with things like marketing and promotion, production, distribution, inventory management, investments in tools, parts, displays and equipment. You need to closely track all your costs and all your revenues. It means taking chances you might lose money or fail. This is scary.
When managing risks, it is important to remember:
Don’t confuse Risk with Fear. Fear keeps you from doing things. Risk aids you in asserting some control over uncertainty.
Simply be aware that both Risks and Rewards exist. Where there are greater rewards, there are usually also greater risks.
Yes, risks are risky, but should not be reckless.
Make decisions based on the relationship of risks to rewards. It is not the number of pieces of jewelry you make. Rather it is theaverage return you get from each piece of jewelry you make, given the costs and investments you made in order to finish that piece of jewelry and sell it. This type of information will clue you into such things as what might happen if you too aggressively seek rewards, or too timidly accept risks.
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Diversify the types of jewelry you make, designs you do, parts you use, markets you seek to exploit.
Keep things simple. There is a lot of data, systems and subsystems of information to manage. Things which help keep things simple:
standardization of forms, collection procedures, the ways data are organized
use of summary indicators like totals, averages, means, mediums, rates, trends
routines developed for procedures and administration
How Do You Measure Risk and Reward
As a jewelry designer, you will be measuring risks and rewards in a few different ways.
Measuring Risk and Reward: General accounting
Measuring Risk and Reward: Financial Management
Measuring Risk and Reward: Inventory Management
Measuring Risk and Reward: Pricing
Measuring Risk and Reward: Impression Management
1) Measuring Risk and Reward: General Accounting
You will set up a General Ledger (G/L) to track your revenues and expenses, and liabilities and assets. This is like setting up a giant table or spreadsheet. You enter every piece of information into this table or spreadsheet that represents some kind of expenditure to you or some kind of revenue received. Below I go into more detail about setting up a General Ledger.
2) Measuring Risk and Reward: Financial Management
Here you try to reduce things you do to a series of rates and trend-lines. It is NOT the number or dollar amounts of your sales. Instead, it is your rate of sales. Your rates of inventory reduction and replenishment. Your accumulated debt to earnings. Breakeven analysis. Trends in gross profit and net profit.
For some rates, management means maintaining a constant velocity or turn in the rate. For example, if you need to sell a minimum of 6 pieces of jewelry each week to breakeven, are you able to maintain at least this rate every week in the year? If not, for those times in the year where the velocity of this rate might slow down, what else can you do instead to maintain your business at least at the breakeven point?
For other rates, management means maintaining an upward trend or trajectory, even though some weeks the data may decline. Especially when you first get started in business, your gross profit and net profit might be low or even negative numbers. The trend line is more important than the specific monthly numbers.
Leverage. A related concept in financial management is leverage. This is the degree you leverage someone else’s money to make money for yourself. You might be paying for some of your inventory, equipment, furnishings or other business expenses using a credit card or relying on a bank loan or leasing where you do not have to front all the costs all at once. You might be listing your jewelry on someone else’s website or marketplace where they are paying internet and website maintenance costs. You might be co-marketing your jewelry with someone else who sells a product which can be integrated with yours where you thus are sharing the costs. You might be buying inventory on terms, say NET 30, where you do not have to pay for the inventory for 30 days. You might maintain bare minimums of inventory items, where you depend on your suppliers to provide just-in-time shipments, thus having your suppliers foot the bill for a lot of storage costs.
In each case, someone else has made investments in things that either you do not have to, or you do not have to all at once. Sometimes, you pay for some of these over time. Othertimes, the synergistic effects create payments for all parties above and beyond what each could do on their own. All of this is called leverage.
We have to monitor leverage, as well, to be sure the rewards we get do not exceed the risk we undertake to get those rewards.
3) Measuring Risk and Reward: Inventory Management
There are three important things to understand about inventory up front:
Inventory is a placeholder for money. You paid for your inventory, and you get that money back when you sell it.
As a jewelry maker and designer, you will have a bi-furcated inventory, a) an inventory of finished pieces ready for sale, and b) an inventory of parts and pieces of jewelry not ready for sale.
An inventory of digitized files and applications.
Holding inventory ties up a lot of money. This money is in the form of parts, perhaps restricting and constricting you in what colors, styles, materials, components and the like you will be able to use when designing a piece of jewelry. Too much or too little of inventory – or the right inventory for the moment – can break your business.
This all means that inventory is something that needs to be monitored and managed. Your goal is to minimize the cost of holding inventory. This involves figuring out ways to know when it is time to replenish inventory, change out and update inventory, or buy more materials to manufacture inventory. After all, you want to prevent these kinds of things from happening…
Lose sales
Hurt cash flow
Buy too many things which don’t and won’t sell
Create storage problems, including prevention of deterioration, such as plated finishes which fade over time
Needing cash, but it’s all tied up in inventory – you can’t eat beads
Reduce your profitability
Reduce your resiliency – that is, an ability to adapt to fashion, style, demand and culture changes
Losing that balance between efforts directed at inventory management with efforts required for general administration, marketing and promotion
4) Measuring Risk and Reward: Pricing
The price you set for each piece of jewelry has to be based on all the costs you incur. Not just the costs of the parts. Not just the time you put in. All the costs. These include, parts, labor and what is called overhead. Overhead is everything else: electricity, heat, rent, business travel, wear and tear on tools and equipment, and the like. It is not cost-effective to have to track each and every one of these overhead costs separately, so we typically estimate them using a formula. From a management standpoint, this formula needs to make sense and come close to its approximation. It has to be defensible.
5) Measuring Risk and Reward: Impression Management
Much of what we do these days is digital. We promote and sell our pieces on line. This might be directly through a website. It might be through social media. It might be through an auction site.
In the digital world we track and manage impressions (often referred to as eyeballs). Measures of risk in the digital world include concepts like Costs Per Click (CPC), Costs Per Impression (typically 1,000 impressions)(CPI), Adds To Cart (ATC), Cost Per Add To Cart (CATC), conversion rate (relates number of visitors to visitors who actually buy something), costs to maintain current conversion rate, and so forth.
Given the velocity or trends in these rates, and the returns on investments for you (such as costs of maintaining a website, marketing and promotion, supporting an inventory, handling money and credit cards, costs of shipping), you ask yourself questions about your various business and marketing strategies, your user experiences, and user impressions. What is it costing you to persuade people to take a look and to buy?
Some of these analytics will be provided to you in stats packages you can integrate with your site. Others will involve collecting data yourself, and analyzing them, usually in spreadsheets you create.
Next, you need to translate your understanding of risks and rewards into systems of data collection and analysis, beginning with the basics of tracking the flow of money in terms of costs and revenues.
b) ROI: Tracking Your Costs and Revenues
You set up an accounting General Ledger to track revenues and expenses, and assets and liabilities. Your goal here is to adequately account for your expenses and revenues, and your liabilities and assets.
What are business revenues? Business revenues include all the money coming into your business, including payments for products and services, interest on bank accounts and investments, rent you charge others to use your space or equipment, royalties you get from intellectual property.
What are business expenses? Business expenses are ANYTHING THAT HAVE TO DO WITH OR RELATE TO OR CONTRIBUTE TO MAKING A PROFIT.
You might want to secure copies of IRS publications that define each business expense and how it should be accounted for.
What are business assets? Business assets are the current values of your physical property, from desks to chairs to computers to printers to major software packages. These are things which depreciate, that is, lose value over time.
A key asset is your inventory. If you are selling finished jewelry, your inventory will include all your works-in-progress as well as your finished pieces. For some jewelry businesses, it might become a little confusing to differentiate between your supply of parts and your jewelry, especially if you only assemble pieces after orders are made. On a yearly basis, the IRS only lets you deduct the costs associated with finished jewelry pieces sold. The rest of the inventory is treated like it is cash. You will need to decide what exactly you call inventory and what other supplies you call supplies. (See COST OF SALES section below).
What are business liabilities? These are things the business owes money on, from short term net-30-day payments to suppliers to long term credit card bills and bank loans and leases.
BUSINESS USE OF A HOME: Many jewelry designers work out of their homes. While these expenses are red-flagged by the IRS, tax courts have consistently ruled that Congress intended to be very liberal and kind to these expenses.
You would compute the proportion of “business use” space in your home relative to your home’s total space. This space could be a whole room or part of a room. This space must only be devoted to business, not personal use. Based on this proportion, you allocate your mortgage or rent, your heating, A/C, water, sewer, and other maintenance costs to your business expenses.
Example: Your home is 1000 sq ft. The room you use for your business is 100 sq ft. So your business “use” expenses would be 10% of your rent/mortgage, 10% of your utilities, 10% of you lawn maintenance, 10% of repairs, etc.
For some expenses, you cannot use the straightforward proportion percentage. If you use a computer, it is a better idea to have a separate one that you use for business, than for personal. If you use one for both, you have to maintain a use log, and, based on “time the machine is used for business vs. personal”, you allocate the costs and depreciation of the machine to your business. Telephone costs are allocated based on the proportion of business calls to all calls each month.
Don’t be shy about what to call a legitimate business expense at your home. Picture a real store. If they have to mow the lawn, you would have to mow the lawn at your home. If 10% of your home were devoted to business, then 10% of your lawn mowing expenses would also qualify. Home repairs, fixing the roof, mortgage, insurance and the like would be legitimate. At the same time, if you have little income, do not declare these expenses with the sole purpose of gaming your tax liability.
SETTING UP A GENERAL LEDGER (G/L):
When you are just starting, you can set up a spreadsheet to track your expenses and revenues or even use a ledger book bought at a local office supplies store. Or you can purchase some inexpensive software apps. Many accounting apps have been moving to a “rent” rather than “purchase” model, where you pay a monthly fee to use their apps.
With a General Ledger, you are basically creating a giant table for the year. The rows are the days of the month. The columns are your revenue and expense categories. You also build in some summary formulas, such as the total Revenue for each month.
There are single-entry accounting systems and double-entry accounting systems. If you are just getting started and using a ledger book or spreadsheet, using a single-entry system where you record revenues and expenses only is fine. If you are using an accounting application, these typically are set up as a double-entry accounting system. Here, part of the ledger accounts for revenues and expenses and the other part of the accounting system will duplicate this information in the form of assets and liabilities. When you are making $6,000 – 10,000 per year in sales, you will want to graduate to the double-entry system. It is a straightforward step to evolve a single-entry to a double-entry system.
IN A SINGLE-ENTRY ACCOUNTING SYSTEM, you set up a spreadsheet, and track each of all your revenues and all your business expenses. The rows are days of the month and the columns are your various revenue and expense accounts. Each different revenue and cost is referred to as an account (or line item). All together, these accounts get assigned unique ID codes, and get organized into a Chart of Accounts. Each revenue or expense entry gets tagged with a specific ID code, and entered into a General Ledger (of Accounts).
Picture your G/L as a very large table. Again, the columns of the spreadsheet are these revenue and expense accounts. The rows are the days of the month. You should compute subtotals for each column at least once a month. If your business is a busy one, you should compute subtotals for each column weekly. You should also keep a running subtotal of year-to-date information.
Revenue-Sales
Revenue- Classes
Consumable Supplies
Telephone
Rent
1/1/18
0.00
12.00
1/2/18
63.00
35.00
6.00
1/3/18
42.00
1/4/18
190.00
29.00
1/31/18
43.00
150.00
750.00
Jan Totals
338.00
35.00
47.00
150.00
750.00
Jan Avg
67.60 (/5)
7.00 (/5)
9.40 (/5)
4.84 (/31)
24.19 (/31)
What Accounts and How Many Accounts Do I Need?
You set up a sufficient number of accounts in order to satisfy two sometimes competing needs. You should be able to glance over your general ledger each month and come away with some good understandings of how your revenues and costs relate to your business strategies and programs. This is called good financial management. If you have too many accounts, financially managing them becomes more and more difficult.
You also want to anticipate issues of IRS auditing. You want clear categories, and maybe more categories than is easily managed from a financial standpoint. The IRS will suggest specific categories. You are not required to use them. You can use some of them, all of them or none of them. For example, I use one category I call OCCUPANCY, where the IRS has separate categories for INSURANCE, UTILITIES, MAINTENANCE.
Examples of Accounts a) Revenue (sales, rents, royalties, teaching) b) Cost of Sales (special packaging, shipping inventory to you, commissions) c) Employee (wages, benefits, federal taxes, state taxes) d) Other Expenses (supplies, travel, marketing, fees, shipping things to others) f) Assets (Cash, Inventory, Bank Accounts, fixed like computer or table) g) Liabilities (Credit card debt, bank loan; money you owe your suppliers)
REVENUE ACCOUNTS The IRS has one revenue account. From a financial management standpoint, I like to have several revenue accounts. I like to be able to look at the numbers (and the rates of change) and be able to figure out if any of my revenue-generating strategies is working well or not.
COST OF SALES
This is the most confusing part of the general ledger, because you have to make some rules and be clear about what you are calling “Supplies-Jewelry Making” and what you are calling “Inventory”.
As a Jewelry Making business, you wear many hats – you are the manufacturer, the distributor and the retailer. The tax laws are written in a way that assume you are one or the other – not all three at the same time.
At this point in the ledger, you can calculate the first of two Magic Numbers – Gross Profit. If using a spreadsheet, you can put the formula into one of the cells of the table.
MAGIC NUMBER (Gross Profit): Your REVENUE minus COST OF SALES equals GROSS PROFIT.
If your GROSS PROFIT divided by your REVENUE is greater than .50, then you’re doing well.
With the Magic Numbers, you have some easy to access and interpret information to help you financially manage your business. You look at month-to-month and year-over-year trends. When you first get started, some of these Magic Numbers might be on the not-so-good-looking-side, but again, pay attention to trends.
EMPLOYEE EXPENSES (These are the minimum number of employee line items you will need to be able to fill out all the Federal, State and Local payroll tax related forms. You can always add more categories than those stated here.)
If you have employees, it may make sense to pay for a payroll service, that both cuts the checks and does your quarterly and annual payroll taxes.
EXPENSE ACCOUNTS
Your expense accounts are how you track what happens when you spend money.
Sometimes it gets a little confusing how to enter credit card expenses into your general ledger.
Now you are positioned to calculate the next Magic Number – Net Profit.
MAGIC NUMBER (Net Profit): Your REVENUE minus COST OF SALES minus EMPLOYEE EXPENSES minus all other EXPENSES equals your NET PROFIT.
You want this to be a positive number. However, for your first year or two, it might be negative. Again, it’s most useful to look at trends.
NOTE: There is NO IRS rule that says you have to show a profit in 3 of the last 5 years, or any rule about the frequency of profit. As long as you a trying to run a business as best you can, even if you are failing miserably, there are no consequences for showing continued losses.
In a double-entry system, the other part of the general ledger will account for
a) ASSETS b) LIABILITIES
Example: You buy $10.00 of beads.
Debit Inventory by +10.00
Credit Cash by -10.00
(increases inventory total by 10.00)
(decreases your cash by 10.00)
Assets are things you own and have value for your business.
ASSETS 501 INVENTORY (See discussions of inventory above) 502 PREPAID EXPENSES 503 PEOPLE WHO OWE YOU MONEY 504 NON-COMPUTER EQUIPMENT 505 COMPUTER EQUIPMENT 506 FURNITURE 507 ACCUMULATED DEPRECIATION
Liabilities are things you owe to others, which until these are paid off, decrease the value of your business.
LIABILITIES 601 PAYROLLTAXES 602 OTHER TAXES 603 SALES TAXES COLLECTED 604 GIFT CERTIFICATES OUTSTANDING 605 NOTES PAYABLE – BANK 606 CREDIT CARD #1 607 CREDIT CARD #2
You now have in place a system for gathering information about money costs and money revenues. You need to expand this system to gather even more detail, specifically about your inventory.
c) ROI: Inventory Management
The Kinds Of Things You Want To Be Doing In Inventory Management
Monitoring and managing inventory involve several interrelated activities. These activities will place time and cost burdens on you. Luckily, much of this can be computerized. There is inventory management software available, some of it specialized for jewelry. If you are selling things online, your shopping cart system will accommodate a lot of this.
These activities include:
Par Levels
Storing and Tracking FIRST IN, FIRST OUT
Supplier Relationships
Resiliency
Auditing
Prioritizing
Forecasting
Timing
To the extent that you can systemize all this, relying on a central, computerized database, the more efficient and effective you will be. Ask yourself, as well, whether your inventory management system will grow with you as you continue to develop and expand your business. You always want to have the right stuff, in the right place, at the right time, at the right cost.
Inventory Management: Establish Par Levels
What is the minimum inventory needed on hand at all times? For example, when doing craft and art shows, you will need to have 4x the amount of inventory from what you want to sell (thus, $1000.00 of inventory to sell $250.00 of merchandise).
Do you have a tickle system signaling times to reorder?
What have you based your par levels on? Sales rate? Time it takes to acquire items?
If demand changes, do you have strategies for adjusting your par levels?
Do you need to maintain any samples of your work which never get sold, but are used for displays, promotions, or photography?
Do you need to have finished pieces on hand, or will you make pieces to order on demand?
Inventory Management: Storing and Tracking your FIRST IN, FIRST OUT (FIFO)
You want your oldest stock to get sold first.
Are your things stored and displayed to meet this principle? Do you have adequate storage space? Containers?
What is it costing to you maintain your desired storage levels?
When stock doesn’t sell within a reasonable time, what are your plans? Deconstruct finished pieces and re-use the parts? Discount or write-off dead parts inventory?
Inventory Management: Maintain strong relationships and communication with your suppliers
What is it about some suppliers that you like, or that you dislike?
Will they accept returns?
Can they handle special orders?
If something is not currently available, can they tell you when it will be in stock again?
Will they work with you to waive minimums?
Do you have back-up suppliers in case your primary supplier can’t come through?
Inventory Management: Maintaining Resiliency and Doing Contingency Planning
You need to actively and continually do What If Analysis.
What if…
An item becomes especially popular?
You run out of cash?
Storage becomes an issue?
Your tracking and data system somehow goes awry?
Parts become unavailable or are discontinued?
Parts or merchandise are damaged or spoiled?
Customer wants, needs, demands, desires or shopping behaviors change?
Other unforeseen circumstances?
Do you have any part of your inventory set aside for use in case of an emergency?
Inventory Management: Auditing your inventory on a regular basis.
Auditing will include a mix of big, scheduled activities and some spot checking. Auditing means establishing a baseline. It means identifying current inventory challenges. It means evaluating your current procedures and data systems, and identifying their strengths and weaknesses.
Inventory Management: Prioritizing Inventory by Value.
Some value might have to do with how much something contributes to revenue and profitability. Items with higher mark-ups would get more attention.
Some value might have to do with the rate of turnover. Items more popular and sell faster would get more attention.
For management purposes, it might be useful to establish 3 groups of value. Group A might represent things contributing 50% of value. Group B might represent things contributing 35% of value. Group C might represent things contributing 15% of value.
Inventory Management: Forecasting.
You want to be in a position where you can predict future demand, perhaps over the next year or two. You want to be able to define seasonality fluctuations. You want to anticipate the impacts of any upcoming promotions or advertising. Much of forecasting involves tracking your orders/sales and relating this back to inventory.
Inventory Management: Timing.
What time issues/management would be associated with maintaining the lowest inventory possible to meet your demand. Here you tried to understand if you can shift the costs of storage and securing supplies over to your suppliers. Customers these days often demand immediate satisfaction, so shifting some costs to supplies may be problematic for you.
The systems you have built to track, maintain and analyze your money flows and your inventory are sustained by a whole set of receipts and administrivia related to banking, insurance, credit card processing, travel, and working with employees and independent contractors.
d) ROI: Other Record Keeping
You want to keep all your receipts together for each calendar year. You do NOT want to keep all your receipts stored in a shoe box. File your receipts, say in an accordion file, organized alphabetically by company.
If part of the transactions listed on any receipt are personal and some are business, then circle the business related ones and write something like “business” next to these.
If you did not get a receipt for something business related, write out your own receipt, with the date, purpose, description, and amount.
You must store these receipts (and your other business documentation) for 10 years. Some places list 7 years, but you will need to store these for 10 years.
Don’t rely on paying an accountant to sort through all your receipts in order to calculate your tax liabilities each year. The cost of this would be prohibitive. You yourself need to do that kind of leg-work, and being very organized will help you do this efficiently and effectively.
You probably will also be generating these kinds of forms and documents in the course of doing business, and you need to maintain files of back up copies:
Purchase orders
Invoices
Packing slips
Order sheets / line forms
Catalogs
Checkbooks, and copies of checks written or check requisition forms with check numbers of checks written documented
State, local and federal tax documents
Leases / rental agreements for property and equipment
Account numbers and agreements with each of your suppliers and creditors
Travel logs
General Ledger entry forms
TRAVEL LOG
All your business travel is deductible, but the IRS has different rules for how you handle various business expenses. So, you keep separate accounts of
– Auto expenses (gas, depreciation, mileage, car maintenance and repairs);
NOTE: On your income taxes, you can use either a standard mileage rate or actual expenses allocated. You pick which method of expense tracking you want to use. You have to use the same method all year. You can, if you want, change the method from one year to the next.
– Meals while traveling; – Lodging while traveling;
NOTE: Within any calendar year, you can only use one way to calculate these expenses. You can change from year to year. Either use Per diem (IRS maintains allowable food and lodging rates for every city in the US) or Actual expenses (whatever you spend).
NOTE: IRS RULE: You should be able to live your life on the road the same way you live your life at home. If you have a personal trainer come to your home 3 times a week, then you can have a personal trainer come to your hotel 3 times a week, and this would be a legitimate Travel-Other expense. If you don’t, it’s not. If you purchase the New York Times each day at home, you can purchase it while away, and declare this as a legitimate Travel-Other expense. If you don’t, it’s not.
Keep a travel log in all your cars, and record: DATE, BEGIN MILEAGE, END MILEAGE, subtract to get TOTAL MILEAGE. Write down the business purpose of each trip.
For example, if you’re in business selling beaded jewelry, you can deduct all your mileage for all your trips to any bead or craft store, any bead society meeting, any bead-related or jewelry-making classes, any trip to a museum to see jewelry on display, any trip to a store to do research on jewelry, check out the competition, mail bills at the post office, go to the bank to make a deposit, and the like.
BUSINESS CARDS A must!
LOGO This can simply be how you print the name of your business – font choice, layout, positioning of words. Or it can be a fancy image.
There are Logo-Maker apps online that you can try.
Once you get your logo, you will want to place it on all your forms, documents, marketing materials, and online webpages.
You will want to trademark your logo.
e) ROI: Employees and Independent Contractors
Sometimes you need to work with help. You might hire part-time or full-time employees outright. You might pay someone on commission or per piece where that person works as an independent contractor rather than an employee. You might barter and trade teaching someone some skills in exchange for some work, like hiring an unpaid intern or apprentice.
In these situations, you will need to anticipate if, after paying someone, and with employees also paying additional taxes, you can still make a profit.
Some forms to pay attention to:
With hired employees: forms W-4 (when hired) forms W-2 and W-3 (annually)
With independent contractors: forms W-9 (before contract gets implemented) forms 1099-MISC and 1096 (annually)
f) ROI: Banking, Insurance and Credit Card Processing
BANKING
BANK ACCOUNT: It is better to have a separate bank account for your business than for personal. If you use a personal bank account for your business, it is a good idea to have your bank-checks printed up in the business-check size. If you are a solo proprietorship, you would print your name on the checks, and under your name, you would print your doing business name as (DBA), as in: Janet Jackson DBA Retro Jewelry Designs.
If you have employees, it is useful, from a financial management standpoint, to have a separate business bank account that is dedicated to all payroll expenses (salaries and taxes).
Whether you are using a personal or business banking account, be sure to print your checks using the Business Check format. On your business checks, it is a good idea to have checks with your business name on it. You can either open a Business Checking Account, or have your business name printed on your Personal Checking Account checks. If printed on your personal checks, then again, you list your own name (which is your official business name) on the check, and under your name, you list “DBA, Your Business Name”, where DBA stands for Doing Business As.
INSURANCE
At some point, you will need to purchase business insurance to cover liability and theft or loss of property (inventory and equipment) issues and medical issues (you or an employee getting hurt in the context of the job). In most places, running a business out of your home violates local zoning codes. You may not qualify for a company’s business insurance package if you are violating these laws.
REMEMBER: When working with any insurance agent, that agent is professionally obligated to report any violation of the law, including these zoning laws, to the authorities. This is true, even if your insurance agent is your sister!
So, when you discuss insurance with your insurance agent, you will need to pose your questions as “What If?” questions – “What If I were to start a business in my home” — rather than indicate you already have or absolutely intend to locate a business in your home.
USE OF A CREDIT CARD: It is a better idea to use a separate credit card for your business than for your personal uses. If you do use one card for both personal and business, be sure to mark all original charged invoices as to which use they refer to.
CREDIT CARD PROCESSING
Whatever location your business is in – home, storefront, craftshow – you will need to be able to take credit cards. Very few customers use cash nowadays. You will need to be able to accept a lot of different credit cards: Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express. Ideally, you want to use a processing company that lets you accept all these cards.
You will need to be able to swipe a card, insert a card to have its chip read, as well as manually enter a card number without the card present. You might need to be able to let someone touch their phone to your credit card machine to do the transaction.
You may want to open a credit card processing merchant account. Or you might use a company that doesn’t require you having your own merchant account. In this case, you would be using that company’s shared account. Some prominent companies which do shared accounts include PayPal and Square and GoPayment and Stripe. With the internet, competition for credit card services has gotten so fierce, that many of the rates and combined costs have been converging. Using a company with shared accounts will reduce the various certification and reporting requirements associated with having you own account.
Check your options online and do some serious comparisons here. Comparisons will not be straightforward because different companies which offer credit card processing services make their money in different ways. They will be inexpensive on some things, and more expensive on others. Some companies make money by leasing equipment. Others by charging you a fee for each sale (per transaction fee). Others by charging you a rate per dollar volume of each sale (discount rate).
Sometimes you can get used/rebuilt equipment very cheaply on line. But how cards are processed can change frequently, sometimes necessitating the purchasing of new equipment.
If you are locked into a multi-year lease on equipment or on credit card processing through a particular company, you will be liable for the expense through the end of the contract, even if you close your business before then. No-contract options are very appealing. One-year contracts are OK. Three-year contracts start to get risky, but may be an appealing option, given their whole package.
It is a good idea to check whether the credit card processing company has credit card scanning attachments that connect to your phone or tablet or operate with Wi-Fi. This is especially important if you are doing sales off site, like at a craft show.
Data systems are in place. Procedures are in place. Basic business relationships are in place. Now you need to create mechanisms to secure all this, that is, to secure the in-flows and out-flows of money so that you are taking the risks you want to take and achieving the rewards you believe you should get in return. These mechanisms include formal and informal arrangements and contracts, such as getting terms, getting paid, and crowd funding your business.
g) ROI: Getting Terms
Whenever possible, I suggest trying to get net terms with your suppliers. Net terms is a form of trade credit. Instead of paying upfront for your supplies, your suppliers will give you some predetermined period of time to pay for these goods. You get your supplies right away without having to pay until an agreed-upon future date.
Usually, you would get Net 30 terms, meaning you would pay within 30 days. Sometimes, if you have not paid within the terms set, you might get assessed a penalty fee.
To apply for net terms with any supplier, you would submit a Credit Sheet.
CREDIT SHEET
You will want to prepare a Credit Sheet which lists the following information. You give this sheet to businesses where you want to apply for terms. When you buy things from businesses, you can pay cash (sometimes check or credit card) – this is considered Pre-Payment. You can pay COD (cash on delivery), but there is usually an extra COD charge tacked on. Or you can pay on terms or “on account”, usually signified as Net 30 or Net 10, where you would have 30 or 10 days to pay your bill. If you don’t pay within that time, the business may take away your privilege to buy on terms, or charge you a late fee.
h) ROI: Getting Paid
Getting paid for your work can range from the straight-forward to the nightmare. If you are doing a lot of custom work, your clients will probably pay you in increments, say 50% up front, and 50% upon completion. If you are doing a lot of consignment, the shops may pay for anything of yours that sells perhaps quarterly. If you are selling wholesale to other retailers, you might have extended them terms, say Net 30, where you expect to get paid at the end of the term period.
For each piece sold, or for several pieces sold at the same time, you will be generating some kind of invoice. Each month, you might also be following up with your customers with a statement form, showing what has been paid, and what still needs to be paid.
INVOICE or STATEMENT FORMS (2-part forms – one for you and one for your customer). You can get a blank pad at a local stationery store, or have these pre-printed with your business name, address and phone.
i) ROI: Crowd-Funding
Crowd-funding is when you seek funding from angel investors, government grants, loans or crowdfunding campaigns online, like with Kickstarter, to fund your creative pursuits. Crowd-funding creates financing opportunities. You might be looking to start a line of jewelry and mass produce and distribute it. You might be looking to franchise your business. You might have a product idea that you believe has great market potential. Jewelry products can be costume, semi-precious stones and metals (bridge jewelry), or fine jewelry.
Other crowd-funding platforms include Indiegogo and Ivylish. These provide a great opportunity for upcoming and small jewelry businesses who have an especially marketable idea. Each site has rules, requirements and fees. It is important to research what types of jewelry projects are most successful and least successful on each site.
The most popular crowd-funding campaigns offer a reward to the backers. This could be in the form of product, money, or an opportunity to participate in an event.
Crowd-funding gives the designer an opportunity to pre-test his or her ideas and how the market will respond to these ideas.
Some pointers:
Pitches with video presentations work best
Have clear and concise goals; any potential backer should be very clear about the parameters of your project and what their money should be going towards
You want your audience to be able to visualize your project; show them in images what you have done before, and what you hope to do with this project; make them want it
Reach out to your inner circle first, and evidence of their backing will legitimize and validate you and your project as you reach out to the larger market; enlist them as deputized marketers, asking them to spread the word, increasing your visibility and exposure, through their own social media connections
Name your donation levels in a clever and tied-in way; you might point out that they could donate the price of a coffee or price of a cab fare to make it easier to understand how to donate to your campaign
It helps to offer samples of your work or promotional items like stickers, posters, autographs, even T-shirts with your products branding on these
The campaign will be a commitment of time and energy; you will always be hustling; no time to sit back and watch
Keep your backers up-to-date with posts, newsletters, whatever
If your donations slow down to a trickle, try a new approach to your marketing
Remember, many campaigns reach their final goal in the eleventh hour
Accounting, bookkeeping, inventory management, record keeping, business relationships with financial institutions and suppliers are in place. You still won’t be able to achieve that sweet spot between risk and reward without the appropriate business growth mind-set. In the creative marketplace, where your success relies on both your artistic/design, as well as your business, acumen, this can be difficult for you. But it can be done. With that right mind-set.
j) ROI: What Does It Mean To Foster A Growth Mind-Set
Failure is uncomfortable. Disconcerting. Too often, we do everything we can to keep ourselves out of situations where we might fail. We focus on what could go wrong, instead of what could go right. We think we don’t have the abilities to do the task. We get paralyzed. We do nothing. Or we keep repeating ourselves, producing the same-ole, same-ole, whether there is a continued market for these items, or not. Or we begin to visualize any risk as insurmountable, way bigger than it really is.
But allowing any fear of failure to become some kind of insurmountable wall works against us. If we are trying to make a go of it by selling our jewelry, we can’t build these kinds of walls. Successful business people and successful businesses need to foster a culture which promotes a growth mindset. Simply, a growth mindset is a culture where you have permission and encouragement and confidence to take risks.
Risks are OK because they bring rewards. Rewards allow the business to maintain itself, sustain itself, grow and expand. Failures are OK, as well, as long as they become learning experiences. Doubt and self-doubt are OK only if they are used to trigger reflection and new ideas to overcome them. Not having the skills requisite for the moment is OK because we are all capable of continual learning. Temporary setbacks are OK because you have had them before and overcame them.
Carol Dweck wrote the seminal book on growth mindsets called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (2006), with a series of related books to follow. People have either a growth-mindset or a fixed-mindset.
Those with a growth-mindset believe their abilities are developed through continual learning and hard work. They are more willing to experiment and try new things, and see failures as opportunities rather than set backs.
Those with a fixed-mindset believe that abilities are innate – you’re born with talents or not. They seek out opportunities where specific talents, rather than effort, leads to success. They prefer to repeat tasks and apply skills they are already familiar with.
Developing a growth mindset means such things as…
Understanding the power of “Not Yet”.
Setting learning and continual learning goals
Being deliberate and constantly challenging yourself
Asking for honest feedback and criticism
Always reflecting on and being very metacognitive about your thoughts and actions, successes and failures
Recognizing if you are stuck in a fixed-mindset, and acknowledging your weaknesses
Focusing on the process, and less-so on the result
Getting comfortable with self-affirmation, rather than needing the affirmation and approval of others
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FOOTNOTES
Campbell, Casandra. What Is Inventory Management? How To Track Stock For Your Ecommerce Business, Inventory Management, 6/19/20. As referenced in: Inventory Management
Your choice of name can make your business the talk of the town, or doom it to obscurity.
Coming up with that great name for your business takes a little work, some organization, some thinking, some getting opinions from several other people, and some reality-testing.
Some of you may be selling pieces of jewelry to your friends and acquaintances. Others may be selling at craft shows or home shows, or selling wholesale or consignment in stores. Some of you may be planning to go into business but haven’t gone very far yet. And some of you may have store fronts or online businesses through which you sell your jewelry.
Whatever your jewelry making business, the basic goals, strategies and steps for naming your business are the same. You want a business name that
Works for you
That your customers can relate to
And that makes your business a success
What is important are:
…how your business name looks and sounds
…how your customers recognize and respond to your business name, and
…how appealing it is today, but also how adaptable it is over time, as you grow or change your business
In this video tutorial, I go step by step, in great detail. We cover a lot of ground together to get you thinking and critically evaluating your options for naming your business
In this video tutorial, these lessons work for all jewelry making businesses, whether you have already gotten started in your business, or are still in the “I’m thinking about starting a business” stage.
We will be examining the pros and cons of different types of business names. We will be doing some self-marketing analysis. We will rehearse a best strategy for brainstorming and for filtering.
We also are going to review other critical business and marketing tasks which you can do, given the research work you have done generating a business name. These include,
registering your business, trademarks, copyrights
creating a tag line
working on an elevator pitch
naming your jewelry and jewelry lines
writing short descriptions of your business, as well as a short story to use with your marketing plans.
This class includes 14 video modules (over 2 hours of materials), plus 11 practice exercises, and a downloadable handout summarize all the materials in this course.
Jewelry designers do not necessarily think of efficiencies when organizing and arranging their designs. They primarily focus their thinking and energies on how to effectively and successfully go from one end to the other. But the next question becomes: Is this efficient, as well as effective? Could the same piece be done just as well in less time? With less effort? Component Based Design is a process of building a piece of jewelry in pieces, sections or segments. A component is a something well-defined that feels like a whole unto itself. It can be a form. It can be a shape. It can be an object. It can be a set of steps or procedures. It has these kinds of characteristics: modularity, replaceability, portability and re-usability. Component Based Design unifies the design process and reduces variability in the numbers and types of choices we have to make as designers. It helps us tackle Design Debt. Design Debt refers to all the inefficiencies in the design process which add more time and effort to what you are trying to accomplish. This article finishes with discussion about how to create a Component Based Design System for jewelry designers.
Can Jewelry Designs Be Both Effective And Efficient?
Jewelry designers do not necessarily think of efficiency when organizing and arranging their designs. They ponder how to go from one end to the other, focusing their efforts on achieving an effective level of satisfaction and appeal. They think a lot about the use and placement of colors, textures and patterns. They figure out ways to attach a clasp. They jump from selecting design components to arranging them. And in this sense, visually, they tend to see their designs as a Gestalt - that is, they appreciate and evaluate their satisfaction with the piece as a whole. That piece as a whole should evoke a greater satisfaction, sense of finish and success moreso than the individual parts. And in general, that’s the way it should be. Designers want to be effective as designers. This is what effectiveness is about.
But the next question becomes is this efficient, as well as effective? Could the same piece have been done just as well in less time? With less effort? With less thought about design elements and their arrangement? With less investment in all the beads and other pieces which eventually become finished pieces of jewelry? Is this a piece which could be created over and over again for multiple clients and larger productions? Could we be just as creative and just as effective by building in more efficiency into the process of design? Would adding an intervening step - that is, using design components to build components and then using components to build compositions - be smarter?
Re-thinking the design process in terms of components and component design systems provides one intriguing set of answers. Approaching design as a Component Based Design System is an especially good option for designers to incorporate, and for those designers who want to build their designing into a profitable business. Even if you are not headed in a business direction, thinking of design in terms of components and component systems offers a whole new way of creative thinking and design possibilities.
What Is A Component?
A component is a something well-defined that feels like a whole unto itself. It can be a form. It can be a shape. It can be an object. It can be a set of steps or procedures. It has these kinds of characteristics:
· Modularity · Replaceability · Portability · Re-usability · Functionality encapsulated within the component’s design · Is minimally dependent on the use or presence of other components · Anticipates its implementation · Intended to interface and interact with other components · Not context specific · Can be combined with other components to create new possibilities
If we think of a piece of jewelry as an architectural object, then it would be made up of a set of components which in some way conform to one another and interact with one another in a common, predictable way. The designer would create sets of components. Then any finished composition and design would be assembled from these components. Components will range in complexity. In general, the more complex the component, the more limited its applications. The more re-usable your components are, the easier they are to design with. The more re-usable your components are, the easier it will be to scale your projects larger or smaller, longer or shorter, more volume or less volume. Components allow you to take something apart which isn’t selling or no longer useful, and re-use all the parts.
What Is Component Based Design?
Component Based Design is a process of building a piece of jewelry in pieces, sections or segments. These pieces are combinations of design elements.
These combinations of design elements become a set of smaller, manageable parts, which themselves are assembled into a piece of jewelry.
Systems of re-usable design components will allow any number of design possibilities. A component based design system provides a commonality within a visual language.
Instead of focusing on designing a particular product, the designer concentrates on creating a design system. The designer’s principal responsibility in the formation of style is to create meaningful forms. These forms are more than shapes. These forms contain the essential elements which contribute to the jewelry’s aesthetic and functional structure and composition. Some forms will be able to stand on their own; others, may be dependent on the presence and organization of others.
Component Based Design Systems enable the designer to build better products faster by making design re-usable. Re-usability allows designs to more easily be adapted to different body types, context-requirements, and/or scales. Component Based Design Systems require clear documentation for each component, and a set of rules or standards for their use and assembly. Standards govern the purpose, style, and usage of these components. Documentation and standards help the designer avoid situations where you find yourself reinventing the wheel, so to speak. It helps the designer deal with such things as backlog, adapting different versions of a particular design, and concurrently managing both short-term and long-term goals and aspirations. It allows the designer to spend more time and focus on the trickier and more difficult part of coming up with designs specific or unique to each client.
How Is Component Design Helpful For Jewelry Designers?
Component Design allows for the designer to… – Design consistently – Prototype faster – Iterate more quickly – Improve usability
Design consistently. Standardized components used consistently and repetitively create a more predictable outcome. Standardized components also allow designers to spend less time focused on style, and more time developing a better user-experience and client outcome.
Prototype faster.Working within a coherent design system allows you to more quickly and easily organize your work flows. It allows you to experiment over and over again with the amount of prototypes and variants. Working with and within a design system should also provider greater and faster insights into design dilemmas and solutions. Iterate more quickly. Design systems reduce the effort in design, from having to try out myriad colors, patterns, textures, scales and other design elements, to only having to try out a few components in the design system.
Improve usability. Should reduce inconsistent, unworkable or illogical combinations of things within any composition. In return, this should increase client satisfaction when wearing any piece of jewelry so created.
Design Systems Do Not Limit Creativity Or Design
Creating a design system does not limit or restrain the designer. In fact, it opens up more possibilities, more easily attainable. Design systems will also allow pieces to be easily customized and adapted to different situations. Design systems take away a lot of the worry about what to do next.
Design systems do not limit creativity. They offer a different way of allowing the designer to assert their creativity. The designer is still free to experiment, evolve, play, adapt. Design systems improve efficiency; they save time. Design systems do not constrain, restrain or otherwise limit the designer to work and think and speak and play as a designer. Design systems can evolve and adapt to changes in styles and fashions. In fact, these systems trigger insights more easily apparent, as to how things need to change. After all, a change in one component will automatically define what changes need to be made in all other components it will interface and interact with.
Component based design systems are not one-shot, one-time deals. They are never complete. The work to create and maintain and improve them is ongoing. These systems are living. But because a change in one component will trigger changes in others, the effort it takes to maintain and grow these system can be many times less than what happens when the designer does not rely on such a system.
Design Debt: Something Serious Which Needs To Be Managed
In more jargoned, but eye-opening, language, Component Based Design Systems reduce what is called Design Debt. Design Debt refers to all the inefficiencies in your design process which adds more time and effort to what you are trying to accomplish, as you are designing any piece of jewelry. Design Debt continues to accumulate and increase as a project matures over time. Even after the designer has relinquished the project to the client, Design Debt will continue to accumulate if the designer fails to deal with it head on.
Design Debt includes things like… – Taking too much time to meet your goals – Having to do too much research or experimentation when figuring out how to proceed – Spending too much time thinking how to make a particular piece of jewelry unique or special for a certain client
Design Debt also includes all the good design concepts or solutions you skipped in order to complete your project on time. Design Debt includes all the additional time and effort you will have to make, should you have a backlog of projects which keep accumulating and accumulating as you are trying to finish the particular project you are now working on.
Some designers might approach the ever-accumulating Design Debt by cutting corners or relinquishing the project to the client prematurely. The designer might settle for a lower fee or less profitability. The designer might find that negative word-of-mouth is building too quickly with unsatisfied clients or demanding business stakeholders.
There are many sources of Design Debt, some very tangible, others less so. Examples of these sources of Design Debt include…
· The designer relies on an overabundance of non-reusable materials, or too much variation in inventory, or, inconsistent styles and conventions, all difficult to maintain
· The designer might start a project with assumptions, rather than research
· The designer might not have sufficient time or budget to implement each choice and step with care
· The designer might not have a full understanding of how each design element, form and component should best be arranged and interact within a particular composition
· The designer might be working with a partner or assistant, with incomplete information passing hands, as each works on the project
· The designer might not have a chance to test a design before its implementation or sale
· The designer might not get the opportunity to find out what happens with a particular piece after it has left the studio and the client wears it
· The designer might not have in place any formal or informal time and procedure for reflection and evaluation, in order to understand how various choices led to good or bad designs, or whether there is an improvement or degradation in the designer’s brand due to good or bad performance
· The designer might rely on published patterns without the wherewithal to adapt or customize them, or otherwise approach unfamiliar situations
Ultimately, Design Debt is measured in how satisfied our clients are with the products we design, and how that satisfaction affects what is referred to as contagion - the spread of word of mouth and its positive or negative impacts on our brand and reputation. Over time, Design Debt accumulates and becomes a great burden on any designer and design business.
Component Based Design Systems Help Us Tackle Design Debt
Anything which unifies the design process and reduces variability in the numbers and types of choices we make as designers will help us tackle Design Debt. That is what Component Based Design Systems are all about. Component Based Design allows the designer to deal with a smaller number of pieces and variables at any one time. Component Based Design leverages previous thinking and exploring, reducing the number of tasks which have to be done for each subsequent piece of jewelry.
And Component Based Design allows the designer to more easily and directly relate any kind of feedback to specific project design choices.
Creating A Component Based Design System
A Component Based Design System has… · Visual elements · Modular elements · Standards · A voice and tone · A relationship to client needs
Your Component Based Design System can either be (a) decoupled from any specific project, which is effective for establishing a brand identity, or (b) coupled to a specific project, which is more effective for developing a line of jewelry made up of individual pieces.
Creating a Component Based Design System involves Six Key Task-Activities, which are… (1) Conducting Visual Audit of Current Designs / Inventory (2) Determining Your Voice and Tone / Brand Identity (3) Designing A Component / Modular Elements (4) Creating Component Based Design System(s) / Library of Documentation and Standards (5) Defining Rules of Scale / Size, Volume, Distribution and Placement (6) Relating To Customer Needs / Shared Understandings
(1) Visual Audit of Current Designs / Inventory
You will need to carefully review the visual elements you use in your current jewelry design practice. You want to create a visual design language of discernable design elements, shapes, forms and components you are using now.
You will in effect be creating two inventories: · First, a Visual Inventory of design elements which are visual features, and · Second, a Functional Inventory of those beads, findings, shapes, forms and/or other component parts which are functional and interface with the wearer, such as clasp assemblies or things which allow a piece to move, drape and flow, or things which make a piece of jewelry adjustable, or things which allow a piece of jewelry to maintain a shape or position.
For each discernable set of design elements, (such as, color, pattern, shape, form, movement, dimensionality) or completely formed component, you would generate a description based on auditing the following design elements: a. color, finish, pattern, texture b. point, line, plane, shape, form, theme (typology) c. sizing and spacing and scale (2–4 sets of standards of utilization; or by body type) d. movement and dimensionality e. canvas (stringing materials; foundation) f. principles of composition, construction, manipulation; layouts g. support systems (allows movement, drape and flow), structural systems (allows maintaining shapes or positions) and other functional elements h. plans, guidelines, icons
Your inventories can be a simple check-list, or more narrative descriptions.
By creating a 2-layer Inventory of Design, you will be able to visualize the possible design components and patterns you might have at your disposal, as well as quantify what you are working with. Cataloging these details puts you in a better management/control position. This makes visible many of the consequences of your choices and selections in terms of managing Design Debt.
After you have finished creating your initial Inventory, review it. Identify where inconsistencies are. What things are must-haves? What things are superfluous?
Then look for things which go together or will be used together. Develop a simple system of categories to group things into. Keep the number of categories short. Examples of categories might include Patterns, Templates, Themes, User Interface, Foundations, Center Pieces, Color Palettes, Linkability.
(2) Determine Your Voice and Tone / Brand Identity
You want your parts, components and groupings of components, when used in the design of a piece of jewelry, to give the impression of you as a designer and/or your business’s personality.
Look at your inventory and ask yourself: What are the more emotional, intangible qualities these seem to evoke? Do they evoke things, not only about my design sense today, but about what I aspire to be as a designer? How do I want my clients to respond to my pieces?
There should be a high level of coherence within your groupings of components. They should express a voice and tone, either of your entire brand, or of a particular line of jewelry you have created.
If there is not a high level of coherence, determine why not. What adjustments do you need to make in your inventory to achieve this?
(3) Design A Component / Modular Elements
Begin to take your visual inventory and re-imagine it as one or more collections of components.
Types of components to think about: – Re-usable – Repeatable – Build-upon / Connectible / Linkable – Scale-able – Evolvable over time – Has necessary function – Has necessary shape, form or theme – Can easily interface with customer as the jewelry is worn
Some components will be modular and self-contained, thus not dependent on the presence of other components. Some components will be compositional in that they fit or coordinate well with others. Some components will be generic, thus usable in many different kinds of situations. And some components will be flexible because they can be tweaked and made to work in a variety of situations.
Now, actually begin to develop components. Towards this end, start with developing one component.
1st: List the key design elements, such as color, pattern, texture, shape, movement, dimensionality, and the like. These are the particular design elements you want associated with your core brand identity. 2nd: Define the smallest re-usable parts, such as beads, bead clusters, connectable links, stringing material and the like. 3rd: Scale up and define a complete component 4th: Scale up and define a composition consisting of several arranged components 5th: Fully layout the piece of jewelry, which will consist of one or more components and one or more compositions.
As you develop components, you will always need to keep in mind two things: a) How you want the component to behave within your piece, and b) How you want the component to interface with the client wearing the jewelry
CHAIN LINK COMPONENTS A Simplified Example of Component Design G-CLEF COMPONENT
I have a basic component I call a G-Clef Component. It is a simple chain link which is very connectable to other things. I use this as a simple example of a Component Based Design System.
I use this in several ways. I can use these as links in a standard chain. I can easily adapt two of these links to function as a hook and eye clasp. I can add beads between each link. I can use this as the basis for creating a pendant center piece. I can use this for earring dangles.
The general infinity shape and reference to music (I’m based in Nashville, Tennessee - ”Music City USA”) are easily incorporated into several lines of my jewelry, though there is one particular line of jewelry totally focused on this link component.
My documentation for this component is as follows:
Two Other Examples Of Jewelry Designed Based On Components
(4) Component Based Design Systems / Library of Documentation and Standards
Your design system is much more than a pattern library. It is a collection of re-usable components which can be assembled together in any number of ways, and used to clearly signal and cement the identify of your brand as a whole, or of a particular line of jewelry you have developed.
As such, the system has meaning. It has structure. It embodies a system of concepts relevant to and representative of you as a designer and your design business or avocation. It is resilient.
Towards this end, to build in these meanings and intentions and expectations, you will develop a set of standards. Adhering to standards is how we manage and maintain consistency with how these meanings / intensions / expectations are expressed within any piece of jewelry we create. Following the standards is how we influence our clients to consistently come to share these understandings. Standards remove a lot of the arbitrariness in our design decisions. These standards should be put in writing, and be part of your documentation library. Regardless of what materials, tools and techniques specific to your jewelry design practice, a successful design system will follow a core set of standards developed by you. These standards will inform you how components should be designed and how they should be organized within any composition.
These standards will focus on the following:
Brand touch points. What design elements or their arrangements evoke immediate associations with your jewelry designs?
Consistent client experience. What design elements, components or their arrangements result in a consistent client experience? When your client buys your jewelry and wears it, how does the client feel? How does the client want others to react, and does the client in fact get these reactions? When you client wears your jewelry, what needs, wants and desires does s/he want to be fulfilled, and how successful has your jewelry been towards this end? How do you maintain consistency in construction, functionality and durability of your pieces?
Coherent collection.To what extent do all the pieces in your collection similarly represent your brand and result in a similar, consistent client experience?
Naming conventions.What names should we give to our components, our pieces of jewelry, our lines of jewelry, our business and brand identity as a whole? How will these names resonate with our clients? Which names do you want to be universal, and which iconic?
Emphasis. What aspects of your jewelry do you want the client to focus on? Which aspects of your jewelry are most likely to trigger a conversation between you and the client, and between the client and that person’s various audiences? Is that the conversation about your jewelry you want people to have?
Utility. What is each component, and how should you use it? What rules should you follow for building modular, composable, generic and flexible components? For linking and connecting them? How do you manage modifying any one component?
Potential. What determines if a component is to have a high potential value? Does the component have great commonality in use and/or re-use? Does the component have great business potential, whether or not it can be commonly used? Does the component have great potential in creating patterns or textures or shapes or forms or themes? Is the component technically feasible to create? Can this component be created within a certain timeframe, if there are time constraints? Does this component have the potential to excite others?
Codify, thus standardize, how components are described and detailed. Include information about basic design elements, such as color, pattern, texture, finishes. Give your component a name. Describe how you can adjust for scale - making something larger, smaller, with more volume, with less volume. Elaborate on any assembly considerations. Also anticipate in writing any situational or contingency requirements. Provide insights into how this component fits in with other components, or becomes the core component from which additional components might be fashioned. Write some notes about how the component is consistent with the standards for your brand / jewelry lines which you have developed. Last, take a picture of your component and include this image in your database.
(5) Scale / Size, Volume, Distribution and Placement
Scalability has to do with size and volume, and your strategies for adapting your component to different scales. You might think about a larger version for a necklace and a smaller version for a bracelet. You might think of modifying the component to increase its volume for use as a center piece pendant.
Scalability in jewelry will also refer to the ease of placing or distributing variations in size and/or volume.
Scalability begins with taking a modular approach to your jewelry design work. Additionally, your component must express some characteristics which are both generic as well as flexible. You want your components to be able to grow and shrink with the content of your pieces. I like to develop both a larger and a smaller version of each component, which I get very specific on and document. This usually gives me enough information should I still want to change size or volume.
(6) Relate To Customer Needs / Shared Understandings
For any design, it is a long journey from idea to implementation. This journey involves different people at different times along the way. The designer’s ability to solve what is, in effect, a complex problem or puzzle becomes a performance of sorts, where the designer ferrets out in various ways - deliberate or otherwise - what the end users will perceive as making sense, having value and eliciting a desire powerful enough to motivate them to wear a piece of jewelry, buy it, utilize it, exhibit it or collect it. The designer, however, wants one more critical thing to result from this performance - recognition and validation of all the creative and managerial choices he or she made during the design process.
People will not use a design if their agendas and understandings do not converge in some way. They will interact with the designer to answer the question: Do You Know What I Know? If they get a sense, even figure out, that the answer is Yes, they share understandings! - they then become willing to collaborate (or at least become complicit) with the designer and the developing design.
A Component Based Design System forces the designer to incorporate these shared understandings into the development and organization of components. Component choices must be justified according to a set of standards. This set of standards relates design choices to how the client will perceive and respond to your brand identity or the identity you want any line of jewelry to reflect. A Component Design System creates tight guidance and boundaries, increasing not only the efficiency of your operation, but your effectiveness at developing jewelry which is consistent, coherent, user-friendly, user-desirable, and contagious.
Re-orienting your design practice towards a Component Based Design System may seem daunting, at first. But it gets easier and faster as the system grows and evolves. It is well worth the effort.
Choosing and Using Other Jewelry Findings:
Preparers
You have to approach the Jewelry Findings with a large measure of respect. “Jewelry Findings” are all the pieces that you use, including clasps, other than stringing materials and beads. They are called “jewelry findings”, because up until about 15 years ago, many of these pieces didn’t exist. People went to sewing notion stores, antique stores, flea markets, hardware stores, cannibalized old jewelry, wherever, and found things and made them work. Because many of these pieces are new, there is not a consensus on what some of these things should be called, so you have a lot of similarly looking pieces that go by different names. I’m sure over time, the name-game will shake out, and there will be more consistency.
Respect these jewelry findings. They are the pieces that get pulled and strained, torn at and squeezed, maligned and misused. These are the pieces that will make or break your piece of jewelry. Understand and respect them.
Many designers fail to make the full range of these pieces available to them. They either don’t know about them, or are afraid of them or think they might use them incorrectly. They too often limit their own design possibilities by relying on the same limited set of findings for everything they make. But the world of possibilities that these jewelry findings open up for us is endless.
Below is a list of other major jewelry findings used in bead stringing. I’ve tried to group them into three categories to make it a little easier to relate to.
PREPARERS:
Things Which Prepare the Ends of Cords and Stringing Materials:
These kinds of jewelry findings are mostly used with thicker cords, like leather and waxed cotton, but also with cable wires. These enable you to create a “loop end” on each side of the cord or cable.
From the two loop ends you have created on each end of your cord, you then continue to create the rest of your clasp assembly. If the loop is big enough (to give you jointedness), or looks substantial enough (like it won’t break from movement), you can attach the clasp directly to the loop. If not, you will want to attach your clasp/ring to jump or split rings, and these, in turn, to your loop ends.
You usually try to match the size of the interior opening on the jewelry finding to the thickness of your cord or cable. For some of these pieces, this match is more important than others.
You always put some glue on your cord or cable before you stick them into the piece. You use glue because all these cords are oily, and some will sweat, as well. They will slip out of the findings — even with tight crimping or clamping — because they are slippery. That’s why you use glue.
I recommend using a glue like E6000 or Beacon 527. Don’t use super glue. Super glue (or the jeweler’s version called G-S Hypo Cement) dries like glass, so the bond will shatter like glass, because all jewelry moves. Also, after it shatters, the bond looks like a broken coke bottle. E6000 and Beacon 527 dry like rubber, so they act as a shock absorber, when the jewelry moves.
CRIMP ENDS
These come very fancy or plain. They come with a small opening to use with cable wires, and wider and wider openings to use with leather or waxed cotton, or even braided leather.
These pieces have a loop at the end of a tube. The tube has 3 bands. The first and third are decorative. The center band is meant to be crushed and crimped. You put some glue on the cord or cable — any glue except super glue — stick it into the tube, and take a pliers and crush the center band as flat as you can get it.
When you crush the middle band, visually, it looks like it is part of a pattern of beads. It doesn’t look like an ugly crushed piece of metal.
Some crimp ends come with a hook, so that you attach a loop on one end and the hook on the other, to create a hook and eye clasp.
These and clamps (see below) work best for preparing the ends of cable wires and thicker cords. Crimp ends tend to be on the pricier side; clamps are very inexpensive. Both hold well, relying on both the glue and the crimp.
CHAIN/CORD ENDS
These pieces have a loop at the end of a split tube. For chain, these are soldered on. For cords or cable, you put some glue on (again never super glue), stick it into the split tube, and take a pliers and crush snug, NOT flat. What’s holding these on is the glue. If you crush flat, you lose the bond. Should tightly match cord thickness to interior diameter.
We need to crush snug because we want the glue to adhere to all the interior surfaces. If there are any gaps where the glue has not adhered, the bond will break.
These are terrible pieces, because it is difficult to achieve that perfect bonding with the glue.
END CAPS
These pieces come in just a few sizes, but many designs. Those pictured are very industrial looking, but they come very decorative, as well. Some pieces have a hole at the end instead of a loop and are labeled “end caps,” but technically, these should be called either a cone or a bead cap. Usually, the interior opening size of the end cap will be listed, such as ID=6mm or ID=8mm or ID=12mm. You coordinate this with the width of whatever you are trying to slip into the end cap. But because of the shape of the end cap, there still may be fit issues.
These pieces have a loop at the end of a hard metal tube. The loop is either an eyelet or a fixed loop. You put some glue (not super glue) on cord or cable and stick in. The glue is all that holds. Should tightly match cord thickness to interior diameter.
Because it is important, for the bond to hold, to get the glue to adhere to all the interior surfaces, and you cannot crush the ends snug, you need to put a lot of excess glue on the cord when you stick it in. And you need to be prepared to wipe away the excess glue that bleeds back out.
You never attach your clasp directly to these pieces. You need an additional intervening ring — jump ring or split ring or soldered ring — between the end cap and your clasp component.
CLAMPS Ribbon or Bar Clamps:
These clamps are folded metal with a loop in the center edge, come in different lengths, and have teeth. These are for ribbons or fabric. You don’t use glue, because the glue will bleed into the ribbon or fabric.
You fold over the end of the ribbon or fabric, making the end pretty, and stick into the clamp, and use a pliers to crush firm. If your material is wider than the clamp you have, you would make several folds in the end, like you would when gift-wrapping a package.
Foldover or Wing Clamps:
These come in a few different sizes, some with square loops, some with round loops. Some have plain backs; some have patterned backs.
These typically are a loop on top of flat metal with two wings that fold over. You put some glue (not super glue) on the cord or cable, sit in the saddle between the two wings, and use a large pliers, and crush the two wings over each other and over the cord. Crush as flat as you can get it. This is not done in one movement because the wings are stiff and strong. You usually take your pliers and move then to one side, then the other, then back, until you get the two wing position over each other, and you can crush them flat.
One mistake people make with this piece is that they crush snug, not flat. Where the wings overlap each other, this leaves an air passage. Again, we want our glue to adhere to all the interior surfaces. If you crush snug, this air passage will weaken the bond, and your cord will pull out. You have to crush as flat as you can get it, to force the glue up into that air passage.
You can use one clamp for multiple strands, if you wish. You can seat multiple strands of cable wire or leather or whatever into the saddle of one clamp.
These and the crimp ends work the best for preparing the ends of cable wires and thicker cords. Crimp ends are pricier; clamps are cheap. Crimp ends have a design impact; clamps are very utilitarian.
COIL ENDS
Coil ends have an open ended loop at the top of a tightly wound coil. I don’t like the way these look after they are crushed onto the cord, and they don’t hold up well. One advantage is that the coil functions as a spring, and absorbs a lot of the excess force place on the piece, that comes from movement.
With coil ends, you put some glue, (but not super glue), on the cord, shove it into the coil. You take a chain-nose pliers and crush the first two rings of the coil onto the cord. If you crush too hard, you’ll slice the cord. If you don’t crush hard enough, the cord will pull out.
The way the loop was designed to work, was that you take a pliers, move the open ring to the side, slip on your clasp or ring, and, using the pliers, move the open ring to a closed position again. DON’T DO IT THIS WAY. When you move the loop back and forth, it breaks off easily. These loops are rather brittle. SO, the way you would use this, is that you would take a jump ring or split ring, and attach this to the loop and your clasp piece. As long as you don’t move this loop wire, it stays strong.
Coil ends come in two sizes in terms of the width of the interior diameter. If your cord is thicker than the smaller size, see if you can make it work with this smaller size, anyway. The larger size is more awkward to use. Say you had leather cord. You can take a single-edge razor blade and cut the end at an angle, put some glue on the cord, and shove it into the smaller piece.
BEAD CAPS
This is a decorative cup-like or bowl-like piece, with a hole in the center. This piece is originally used as a decorative element, to cover one or both sides of a bead, as you string your beads on. However, you can adapt this piece to be an end. You might have multi-strands, where you tie them all off together, and use the bead cap to hide the mess. You might have a bead crocheted rope, and again, use the bead cap to give your piece a decorative end. You glue the bead cap on. Then you take an independent wire or thread, attaching it to your piece about 2–3” from the end, and running it through your piece, through the cap, then finishing off the rest of your clasp assembly.
What’s nice here are that there are hundreds of styles, whereas the more typical jewelry findings look very utilitarian.
BELL CAPS
A bell cap is a bead cap with a loop on it. This is a decorative cup-like or bowl-like piece, with a loop sticking above the center. This piece is originally used to adapt something, like gluing it to the top of a crystal pendant or bead, to be a drop. But it can be adapted to use as a fancy end-cap. Use glue here. Attach the clasp assembly to an additional jump ring or split ring. Again, there are many, many decorative styles in bell caps, so you won’t have to rely on the typical and very plain specialized jewelry findings.
The arms on the bell cap are somewhat independent, and can be pushed into the shape of whatever piece they are attached to. So, for example, you can take a rough stone, position the bell cap at the top, push on the arms to shape them to the stone, then put glue on each arm and attach the bell cap to the piece.
BEAD TIPS (aka, KNOT-COVERS)
These pieces are used to hide knots. One style has a cup with a tongue attached. Another style ends with a loop, not a tongue. The most widely used style — Clam Shell Bead Tip (or double-cup) — has two half cups that close over the knot, and a tongue extending from one end. While some people use these pieces with cable wire, they are primarily designed for use with needle and thread.
These take some practice in learning how to use them. On the first side of your piece, you string on the bead tip, say the clam shell. You tie a bunch of knots in the tail, so your knot is bigger than the hole in the bead tip, and won’t slip out. Cut off the tail. Put a drop of glue on the knot. Here you would use something like superglue. Superglue will make the knot stiff, so it won’t pull through the hole. E6000 will make the knot rubbery, and it will be able to contort and work its way through the hole. Trim the tail. Press the two halves of the clamp together over the knot, so it looks like a bead. Take the tongue, fold it over and through the ring on your clasp, and back to itself, so it forms a loop.
On the other side of your piece, here’s the tricky part. You need to keep your tension on the thread, so the thread doesn’t show when you’re finished. You need to tie a bunch of knots, and complete the rest of the process. This is a 3-hand operation, but you only have 2 hands.
Here you slide the bead tip onto your thread. Use one hand to hold everything tight. Take an awl or a round nose pliers — something where the width graduates into a point, and put the tip where you want your finished knot to end up. Tie an overhand knot over the awl or pliers up high on the wider part of the jaws. Tighten the loop of this knot. Tighten the tension on your thread. Move the loop down the awl or pliers a bit, moving towards the narrow pointed end. Tighten this loop. Check your overall thread tension. Move the loop down a little bit more. Tighten this loop. Check your overall thread tension. When you loop gets to the tip of your awl or pliers, you need to pull your knot tightly, and push the awl or pliers out of the way, AND, you want to maintain the thread tension in your piece. Tie a bunch more knots. Put glue on the knot. Trim the tail. Close the clamp. Loop the tongue into the other part of your clasp. This takes about 5 tries before your body gets that muscle memory to do the task easily and correctly.
When I started in jewelry making, almost every piece used bead tips. I’m not a big fan of this type of piece today. The tongue when bent over to hook and secure the clasp is not jointed enough. It doesn’t leave a big enough loop, so there is tension and these tongues break off. Today, you can tie your piece to the clasp using knots, then slip a crimp cover over the knot, so it looks finished as if there were a bead there. This is both more secure and easier to do.
Some alternatives to tying a globular knot: (1) with needle and thread work, you can tie off an end to an 11/0 seed bead, and have your clam-shell enclose the seed bead, and (2) with cable wire, you can crimp on a crimp bead on the end of your wire, and have your clam-shell enclose the crushed crimp bead.
CONES
Cones come in many shapes and designs, but basically look like a megaphone. These are used to finish off the ends of jewelry, often to hide a lot of messy knots or unfinished ends inside the cone.
One style of cone is called a 3-to-1 cone (also, 2-to-1 up to 11-to-1). This is a flattened cone, with one hole on one side, and 3 holes on the other. This is supposed to help you finish off a 3-strand piece in a decorative way. You pull each of 3 strands through the 3 holes on one side, and out together through the one hole on the other side. For two of the strands, you tie a large knot or double-knot, cut off the excess tail, and let the knot fall back into the box of the cone. I’ve only known one person in my life who could accomplish this, and maintain sufficient string tension so that none of the cable wire showed on the other side of the cone and as part of the bracelet. For the 3rd string, you would continue creating your clasp assembly. This is a good piece in theory, but not practice. Most people end up tying the three strands into this big, globular knot, and then trying to finish off the clasp assembly, only to have the clasp assembly take up 25–30% of their finished bracelet.
Regular cones are used like lampshades to hide some ugliness. With the typical cone style — that megaphone looking piece, the way you are supposed to use this piece is as follows: You take a soldered ring, something small enough so that it will fit far enough back into the cone, that the cone will hide any of the finishing knots or ends. If we start with a 3-strand necklace, you would tie off each strand to one side of the soldered ring. Then you would take a separate, independent cable wire, hard wire or thread, whatever you are stringing with, and tie it off in a knot to the other side of the soldered ring, pull the whole works into the cone, with the stringing material coming out the narrow end. Then you would finish off your clasp assembly.
The soldered ring, in this case, acts as a “support system”, creating jointedness. Otherwise, without this ring or support system, the cone could not support the resulting stress and strain. Since all the pieces are metal — cable wire, cone, clasp, crimp — , and these would be too stiff and would not move easily, and, as you now know very well, when you bend metal back and forth, it breaks.
EYEGLASS HOLDER ENDS
A major category of jewelry are eyeglass leashes. You make an eyeglass leash by attaching an eyeglass holder end to the eyeglasses, making a string of beads, attaching the string of beads to a split ring, and attaching the split ring to the eyeglass holder end. You never attach the beadwork directly to the holder ends. Eyeglass leashes take a huge beating, as they are worn, and you need to create as much jointedness as possible, so you don’t ruin someone’s eyeglasses, have the lenses shift position within the frames, or have the leash break. In fact, we want to use a split ring — about 10mm or 12mm in diameter — that is a little larger visually than you might feel comfortable with.
Eyeglass leash holder ends are made from round rubber thong (usually black or clear), flat vinyl (usually black or clear), or elastic cord (comes in many colors). The round rubber thong is the most durable. Elastic cord is not durable at all. There are various style options. Most come with what is called a “coil center”. When the eyeglass leashes are worn, the rubber, vinyl or elastic cord sweats, both from the humidity found in the air, as well as the wearer’s own body sweat. Coil centers tend to slip, so these don’t work well with narrow arms on eyeglasses. Other eyeglass leashes come with a bead center, usually a 6mm glass roller bead. The beads don’t slip.
The ones with bead centers are a little more expensive than the ones with coil centers. One company bought the ones with the coil centers, slipped these off what is basically a rubber band, and slipped on a 6mm glass roller bead. They took a $0.45 cent piece and sold them for $4.00 a piece. People thought they were magic because the beads didn’t slip, so were willing to pay the premium. You can do the same thing. There are about 300 colors of roller beads, so you can personalize your line.
WATCH BAND COMPONENTS
These pieces are used to adapt watch faces so you can make beaded watch bands off them. They consist of a tube designed to slip over the spring bar on each end of a watch face, and some kind of loop or series of holes that come off the tube. Beaded watch bands have become so popular, that now you can purchase watch faces designed specifically to attach these to them.
CRIMP BEADS, CRIMP COVERS, and HORSESHOE WIRE PROTECTORS
Crimp beads come in many styles, sizes and finishes. These are used to secure cable wires to clasps. The crimping process involves crushing the crimp onto the cable wire, first separating the tail wire from the main wire, then creating a lock, and finally re-shaping it so it looks like a bead again.
Crimp Covers
These are U-shaped beads that slip over the crushed crimp. They are used like a lampshade to hide something that is ugly.
You attach the crimp cover in two steps. First, using the tips of your crimping pliers, you push the two sides of the U together, so you have a pretty bead. These are made of a soft metal, so you don’t want to push too hard, or you will crush them. After you get the two sides to meet, you’ll find that the lip on either side doesn’t meet up perfectly.
So, Second, at this point, you return the crimp cover to your crimping pliers, this time resting it between the top notches (thus, furthest from your hand) in each jaw. This will help preserve the roundness of the crimp cover as you manipulate it. Gently push the jaws to force the lips to meet more perfectly. You can slide crimp covers over your crushed crimps. You can also use these to slide over any knots, to hide the knots.
Horseshoe wire protectors
These serve several purposes. (1) It forces you to leave the correct size loop in the cable wire, so that you have the appropriate support system or jointedness. Without the loop, you would be pushing the crimp all the way to the clasp. This is a No-No. You never push the crimp all the way to the clasp — this creates stiffness with metal parts, and general movement would cause these to break.
(2) The horseshoe also makes the loop more finished looking — better than a bare-wire loop. Most people hate a bare, exposed loop. The horseshoe fools the eye/brain here, making it think that the loop is finished and more organically a part of the whole composition.
(3) The horseshoe prevents the cable wire from folding into a V over a period of time and wear. If the wire were to change from an arched loop to a V-loop, the wire then would more easily bend back and forth and break.
There are many choices to make when selecting crimp beads:
Crimp Beads
– tube vs. round
no difference in “holdability”, but most people prefer the tubes
– THE SILVER COLOR ISSUE: sterling silver vs. silver plated vs. silver plated crimp with sterling silver crimp cover vs. argentium silver crimps
Silver-plated crimps are usually plated over brass. Brass has a very high degree of integrity as a jewelry making metal. The plating wears off relatively quickly, and your crimps will look black — basically tarnished brass. More recently, these plated crimps have been plated over aluminum, which can break from the force of the crimping pliers.
Sterling softens at body temperature. If your crimp is resting on the wrist or the neck, there is some risk of it softening and weakening. This risk is minimal, however. If you’ve crimped correctly, you shouldn’t lose sleep over this. I prefer to use the sterling silver crimps; they are often made better than the other crimps.
You can also use a silver-plated crimp to crimp, and slide a sterling silver crimp cover over it.
Argentium has the same silver content as sterling but does not soften as easily at body temperature. These are a lot more expensive than sterling.
– crushing the crimp and re-rounding it vs. crushing, then using crimp cover
Some people don’ t like the look of the re-rounded crimp, or feel uncomfortable trying to re-round them. The crimp covers add about $0.50 — $1.00 more to each piece.
– plain tube vs. twisted tube
The twisted tubes (sometimes called Tornado or Cyclone crimps) are a little more expensive than the plain ones. When you crush the twisted tubes, they look decorative enough that you don’t have to re-round them. You definitely need to re-round the plain ones.
– Regular or long tube vs. short or half tube
Short tubes or half tubes are primarily used in pieces like illusion necklaces, where you have a cluster of beads, and the cord shows, another cluster of beads, the cord shows, etc. Half tubes are used on either side of the clusters to keep the beads in place. When you crush the half tube, the volume of space it takes up is not noticeable. When you crush the regular sized tube, its volume of space is too noticeable and detracts from the general look of the piece. One mistake people make with the short or half tubes, is that, when they use them to finish off the ends of jewelry, their mind tells them to use 2 or 3 of them so that they will “hold better.” A crimp is a crimp, and if you crimped correctly, there is no difference in holdability between the short and longer tubes. Each crushed crimp you add becomes like a little razor blade. All jewelry moves, so you’re increasing the chances, by using more than one crimp on each end, that one of these crimps will cut through the cable wire. One crimp on either end is enough.
– variations on quality/grade of crimp beads
Basically, you get what you pay for!
Here’s how crimp beads are made: You start with a sheet of metal. You roll the metal into a tube. You buff along the seam where the two sides meet, so that it looks like it’s been soldered together. However, there’s really a seam there.
So often, people come into our shop and tell sad tales of failed crimps and broken bracelets and necklaces. They blame themselves. They blame the pliers. But they never blame the crimp beads. In most cases, the crimp is at fault.
Cheap crimps, usually bought in small packages, usually at craft stores, are not made well. When you crush these, they tend to split along the seam. Sometimes you can see the split. Othertimes, you can’t quite see that the two sides of the tube have started to separate. Your cable wires pull out. Or your crimp edges have cut into the cable wire.
An A-grade crimp, usually costing about 3 times what the cheap crimps cost, can hold up to your initial crushing, as well as another 8 or so clamping down on it during the re-rounding process.
There are heavy-duty or A+ grade crimps. These run about 6–8 times what the cheap crimps do. You don’t have to worry about any splitting, no matter how much you work the crimp bead with your pliers.
– using 1 crimp on each end vs. using more than 1 crimp on each end
Using 1 crimp on each end of your piece is sufficient. Using more than 1 crimp on each end is too risky. Sometimes you mind, or your best friend, thinks that is 1 is good, 2 or more would be better. No! When you crush your crimp onto the wire, it becomes like a little razor blade. All jewelry moves, so your crimp is constantly trying to saw through the cable. Using more than one crimp on each end increases the chances that one will saw through. All you are doing is adding razor blades.
– size of crimp
Manufacturers are inconsistent in how they label the sizes of crimp beads. In general:
2mm is the average size For .014, .015, .018, .019 cable wires
1.5mm is small For .010 and .012 cable wires
2.5mm is slightly more than averg For .019 and .024 cable wires
3.0mm is large For .024 cable wires, or thicker cords, or bringing
more than 1 strand thru at a time
4.0mm and larger For thicker cords, or bringing 2+ strands thru
The women were so excited about the jewelry. Trying it on. Adjusting it to see if they could wear it a different way. Changing up the silhouettes. Pretending they were wearing different outfits to visualize what the pieces would look like. It was a very versatile line of jewelry, and all the women noticed that very quickly. They could wear necklaces as bracelets. Combine bracelets into necklaces. Take one bracelet, add it to a necklace, and create a longer piece. They could purchase different pendant drops, all as add-ons as they wished or none at all. And the drops easily converted into earrings. Imagine that! And the awe and glee and elation and animation — yes, these women were more than happy to have found this jewelry designer and her custom pieces.
I was there that day. In the store. At this one-day trunk show. I saw it all. These women were purchasing almost every last piece. It was the right aesthetic. Contemporary but conservative as well. An individualized look but not outlandish. Easy to wear. Easy to adapt. Easy to visualize what it would look like with different outfits and in different situations.
The jewelry designer was very attentive. She demonstrated the flexibility of each piece in the line. She, at first, asked the women individually a lot about themselves and how they liked to wear jewelry. Then she subtly shifted the conversation a bit so they were talking about themselves and how they would want to wear her jewelry.
At one point, I slowly looked around this upscale clothing, accessories and jewelry store. There were seven store associates standing around. Standing around. A glazed look on their faces. The enthusiasm and energy before them somehow foreign. After the trunk show, when the designer was no longer there, they would be the ones to represent her and her jewelry.
They stood there with blank faces. As if watching a movie they found uninteresting. None of them stepped in. None of them stepped up. Even though the jewelry designer was mobbed with seven or eight women at any one time. They obviously were unable to empathize with the crowd. They had no clue how to sell the pieces because these were pieces of jewelry they didn’t wear themselves. They were somewhat clueless about how to suggest how these store guests could put things together in a stylish, wearable way.
At the end of the day, the jewelry designer was very happy with her sales. But it hit her. Her jewelry would remain at this store for the next several months. But she would not. She would be leaving that day. And she was worried. She thought that over the 10 hours, her purpose was not only to sell to customers, but her purpose was also to model for the sales staff the smart ways for working with these customers and selling her product.
Had the store associates been reliable deputized partners with the jewelry designer that day, all would have made many more customers happy, and made a lot of money and commissions for store, sales staff and designer. Going forward, the designer now had doubts.
Jewelry Designers Often Have To Rely On Others,
The Designers’ Success Relies On Their Whims
Most jewelry designers do not own their own shops. They rely on other people to sell their stuff. They might put their jewelry in a clothing, accessories or jewelry store on consignment. They might be represented by a gallery or sales representative, with their jewelry spread out in many stores. They might package their jewelry into trunk shows or pick boxes where they send out their jewelry to various stores. These other venues can pick and choose and sell what they want, then return the rest.
The success of sales becomes the whim of who sells it. Their understanding of the designs. Whether they like the pieces or not. Their motivations to keep things clean, neat and displayed well. If they can see themselves or their friends or spouses wearing these. Their sense of style, knowing what things might work well together with what fashions. How well they communicate with their customers. Perhaps even IF they communicate with their customers. If they follow-up with their customers.
Designers Must Take The Lead In Preparing Others To Sell Their Jewelry
The designer must play a leadership role here. The designer as leader must effectively influence, persuade, train and convince whoever will be selling their jewelry how to sell it. As best as possible, the designer must build shared understandings about the product with those who will sell it.
Passive assumptions won’t work here. The designer cannot assume that store owners and their sales staff, because they supposedly want to show a profit, will be good at their jobs. More likely, they are not — particularly when it comes to selling someone else’s stuff. The consequences of poor salesmanship are virtually invisible until many months, even years, later. That’s too late to wait.
To add to the difficulties, the opportunities in terms of time, resources, and follow-up are very limited. The designer may get just one shot to build shared understandings and accomplish several goals. Ideally this should happen in person. Often, it is not. Often it is reduced to shared emails, some printed materials, and some phone calls.
Six Key Shared Understandings
There are six key understandings which the designer must influence others to share. These include,
1. The Key Product Details
2. The Primary Product Benefits
3. The Smart Ways To Use The Products To Build Customer Relationships
4. What Rewards The Sales Staff Should Expect For Themselves, Based On Their Performance
5. At All Times, How To Maintain The Optimum Inventory and Product Mix
6. How To Routinize Timely Feedback
1. The Key Product Details
Think of every line of jewelry as its own culture with a group or tribal identity. Which three to six words or simple phrases encapsulate what that identify is all about? What were the key, primary design choices made which give this line of jewelry its character and resonance? How would anyone know that any piece of jewelry was a part of that group or tribe?
These key words or details might relate to materials and techniques. They might reference fashion, style and taste. They might be things about the designer or about jewelry design in general. There will be lots and lots of details which can be conveyed, but the list of details will need to be severely culled.
People have what is called finite rationality. They can only handle and remember between 4 and 10 pieces of information at a time, with 7 pieces of information usually the upper limit for most people.
Don’t confuse the sales staff. Don’t let them confuse the customers. Limit that descriptive words you use when explaining your jewelry, your design choices, and your design goals. Keep these descriptors simple, un-jargoned, devoid of business babble and clichés.
Keep repeating these 3 to 6 things. Repeat them in ways you want the sales staff to learn them, understand them, and be able to repeat these 3 to 6 things to their customers when you are not around.
2. The Primary Product Benefits
It is not the features of your jewelry that result in sales; it is the benefits people perceive the jewelry will provide for them. People do not focus on what the product is. They focus on what the product means to them.
People buy things to solve problems. These problems might relate to needs and wants. They might relate to achieving status and position. They might resolve emotional desires.
What problems for the potential customer does your jewelry solve? Think carefully about this. Make lists.
Then reflect awhile on how you think your jewelry solves these problems for your customers better than any of your competitors. What are your competitive advantages?
Convey to store owners and sales staff the results of your thinking and synthesis. You do not only want to list for them what customer problems your jewelry solves for them. You do not want your explanation divorced from the actual selling situation. You are not presenting an academic assessment; you want to present a marketing assessment. You want to convey how your jewelry resolves customer problems better than anyone else. This is a little more difficult to do and get the words out, and requires some practice.
And, again, remember that people have finite rationality. Don’t talk about everything. Focus on the couple of primary competitive advantages your line of jewelry has.
As best as possible, make your benefits concrete and specific. Think of which benefits would most readily stick in people’s minds.
3. The Smart Ways To Use The Products To Build Customer Relationships
Any sale is an interaction based on communication. The sale is not the only result. The building of a relationship also results. Too often sales staff performance is rated based on number of sales, and too rarely rated on building relationships. But it is in the building of relationships where we get those repeat sales and bigger sales and broader sales and better word of mouth and more new customers and, you get the idea.
Ideally, if you get the chance, like in the trunk show described above, you can model these relationship building behaviors in front of the sales staff. You can demonstrate how you elicit customer needs, wants and problems to be solved, and how you gain their awareness and trust in how your jewelry will meet these in an advantageous way. If there are other types of products in the store, you can demonstrate how to co-market, such as your jewelry with the store’s clothing.
Absent the in-person approach, you can provide ideas in periodic emails. You might do some simple one-sided-page images and short descriptive content. You might create a fun video that you can share.
You can also work with store staff in developing customer lists detailing the who, how to contact them, the what they bought, the dates, the follow-up sales, customer preferences, any descriptive information about the customer to help future sales.
To help guarantee that sales staff keep these lists and fill them out completely, you can ask to see them periodically to review. You can encourage sales staff to communicate with customers pre-, during, and –post sales. Based on your review, you can suggest specific items in the line that each customer might like to see, and possibly buy. Even though you are not physically present, you can still show how building relationships can generate sales and profits.
4. What Rewards The Sales Staff Should Expect For Themselves,
Based On Their Performance
It is helpful if you not only generate commissions and sales for the store, but also some kind of reward for the sales staff each time they sell one of your pieces. Show you recognize their efforts and appreciate them. If sales staff get paid no matter what they do, they may not give your line of jewelry the attention and promotion it deserves.
Besides some reward, perhaps a thank you note, or giving either a monetary extra commission or a piece of your jewelry, you most likely also want to reward the sales staff’ customer follow-ups, without actual sales, such as sending thank you notes or calling them when you send new pieces to the store.
5. At All Times, How To Maintain The Optimum Inventory and Product Mix
Do not assume that the store will maintain the optimum inventory and product mix of your jewelry at all times. There will always be other companies, other designers and other product opportunities competing for any store’s attention. So you will need to step in and capture that attention on a regular basis.
Create an easily update-able plan for the store that details the ideal mix of product — types of jewelry, price points, color, finishes and textures.
Reduce this to a simple product inventory sheet to give the store.
Contact the store periodically to update the inventory, compare to your plan, and make inventory suggestions accordingly.
6. How To Routinize Timely Feedback
You need to get feedback routinely, say at least every 3 to 6 months. You need regular feedback on your jewelry, on the sales process, on other things you can do to help sales staff become better at selling your jewelry.
If your jewelry is not turning at least twice a year, the particular store is probably not right for you. It might be the inattentiveness of the sales staff. It might be a lack of fit with the store’s customer base. But, if you are not getting a minimum of 2 turns a year, this location is not working either for you or the store.
You might formalize requests for quarterly results. You might call the store or any of its sales staff periodically to get information feedback. You might send a questionnaire to customers who have previously purchased your jewelry.
It helps the feedback process along when you provide rewards. This might be in the form of refreshments, such us sending an evaluation form with a box of cookies. This might take the form of adding some free pieces of jewelry to be sold, or one-time discount on purchases.
______________________________
FOOTNOTES
James, Geoffrey. 6 Ways to Persuade Customers to Buy. Inc.com, 2020.
Jewelry creates a series of dilemmas for the jewelry maker — not always anticipated by what most jewelry makers are taught in a typical art class.
That’s the rub!
Painters can create any color and color effect they want with paints.
Jewelry makers do not have access, nor can they easily create, a full color palette and all the desired coloration effects with the beads and other components used to make jewelry.
Jewelry is not like a painting or sculpture that sits in one place, with controlled lighting, and a more passive interaction with anyone looking at it.
Jewelry moves with the person through different settings, lighting, times of day. Jewelry sits on different body shapes. Jewelry must function in many different contexts. Jewelry serves many different purposes.
People use and understand colors using their senses. These perceptions among wearer, viewer and designer include:
(1) The Sensation Of Color Balance
(2) The Sensation Of Color Proportions
(3) The Sensation Of Simultaneous Color Contrasts
Better designers are able to manage these sensations. They do so, in major part, by relying on a series of color sensation management tools.
We review these in great detail in this course.
In this course, you will learn some critical skills for jewelry designers that you will want to know…
How to pick colors for jewelry, and how this differs from picking colors as a painter
How to adapt basic color concepts in art when making jewelry
How to recognize the differences between universal responses to color from the more typical subjective ones, and what better designers do about this
How to manage the sensation of color within your pieces to achieve your designer goals
You will learn to make smart choices about color when designing and making jewelry.
I slowly glanced around the room, at each and every participant, all seventeen of them, sitting quietly around this very large classroom table, eagerly awaiting what was to come before them. Our guest Jewelry Design Instructor standing at the head of the table. Me sitting at the other end.
Two very special days with this super-hero Instructor. She guiding them step-by-step through the processes of design and construction. Demonstrating how to use the tools. Then the technique. Then the discussion about strategy and materials. And finally, beginning this fabulous necklace project design.
The excitement was palpable. No one could contain themselves. They were lapping at the starting gate. Eyes on the prize. Working together with a celebrity designer. Hearing her thoughts. Seeing her in action. Becoming at least a Facebook friend. Hoping to be able to finish by the end of the next day. And show it off the next.
It took two years to get to this point.
I had arranged everything.
My plans methodical.
My organization without question.
My calendar and schedule to the point.
But until that moment we all entered the classroom, finding our seats, laying out our tools and materials, making sure our water or coffee or tea was at hand, snacks carefully positioned along the center of the table, our guest Instructor passing out the instruction kits … until that very moment, I wasn’t sure this was all going to happen.
The Advanced Study Was To Culminate In
A Masters Class In Beadweaving and Design
I am a jewelry designer.
I own a bead store.
I have all kinds of clients and customers interested in various aspects of jewelry making and design. There are bead stringers. Also wire workers. Some fiber artists, silversmiths, and lampwork artists. Toss in some hand-knotters and braiders. The occasional biologist and physicist who use beads in their experiments, and we meet the beading needs of quite a large range of people
One group gets my special attention — the bead weavers. These are people who like to use those tiny little seed beads and needle and thread, and make jewelry, tapestries, embellished clothing, and sculptures, and whatever they can think of. Our bead weavers have a special Advanced Jewelry Design Study Group which has existed for many years. One of the earlier projects this group pursued was to study the life of a well-known and well-respected bead artist and designer. At the time we studied her life, she had already become a celebrity designer and teacher in the bead weaving field.
The question before the group: What makes an accomplished bead weaver and jewelry designer?
Was it family upbringing? Special innate talents? Schooling? Happenstance? What influenced her in her development as a bead artist and designer? Were there ups and downs? Was the career path linear? How important was it to have a mentor or special teacher? How about comradery — what kind of social network did she have, and how important a role did that play?
The group picked their target. I phoned her, and explained what the group wanted to accomplish. I asked if she would be willing to be interviewed, probably about once a week, and she agreed. And that began our adventure and exploration which lasted a little more than a year.
The Advanced Jewelry Design Study Group, to say the least, was very excited. To have this kind of access to a master bead weaving artist and designer was extraordinary. And they had many, many questions for her.
So, my routine began with asking the group what questions they had. Then I would phone the instructor and we would talk about 30 minutes. I reported her answers back to the group. There was some group discussion. Then we generated some more questions.
There were questions about how she got started. She was a seamstress. How she got into beading. She was hired to work in a bead store. How beading became a passion for her. She began to teach classes. She saw how she could integrate the techniques she used as a seamstress into techniques for weaving beads. Did she have a mentor. The woman who owned the bead shop had been a basket weaver, and adapted those techniques for bead weaving. This person was very inspirational, and took her under her wing. Was there any happenstance. Someone was wanting to start a major bead weaving magazine. They came to town — San Diego — to interview several bead weaving artists to see whom they might highlight in the first issue of the magazine. Our Instructor was one of the chosen few.
Over the year, we talked about variations in several bead weaving techniques, and how she came to choose the variations she preferred. We asked what it meant to her to have a design sense. We discussed other bead weaving artists, what of their history she was familiar with, and how they came to specialize in certain techniques over others. We were inquisitive about her selection of materials. We asked questions about what it was like to teach, and how her approaches were similar or different, given the varying skill levels of her students.
During the summer, I asked her if I could arrange a 3-day workshop with her in Nashville, Tennessee. We decided on the weekend of June 21st, about 1 year later at that point. We planned to do two projects — a simpler bracelet, and a more advanced 2-day necklace.
I added the dates to my calendar. I created my marketing plan and schedule. And did not give it much more thought, since the workshop was not to happen for about another year.
Competitive Conflict #1:
The Local Bead Society
I had been an active member and supporter of our local bead society until the year previous to when my Advanced Jewelry Design Study Group began its study of the artist and designer.
As a store owner, I actively promoted the bead society. I garnered them a large membership. I offered steep discounts to their members. I steered many opportunities their way. I let them use our classroom spaces. I provided materials for their activities at no cost to them. I assisted their planning, program and development committees. I worked with them to write their bylaws.
Everything worked smoothly for many years. But then it didn’t.
Bead society officers were elected every two years. In that last election before I discontinued my relationship with the group, three of the four officers elected — the president, the vice president and the secretary — no longer managed the society and functioned in the members’ interests, nor followed the bylaws.
The society had a bylaw that stated that every program had to have a prespecified date, on which, if that program looked like it would lose money, the membership had to vote whether to continue with the program, or cancel it. The officers ignored the rule. They scheduled several workshops of interest primarily to themselves, many which had nothing to do with beading, over their first two years in office. They drove down the $8,000 the society had in the bank to a little under $1,000.
The officers made themselves the chairs of all the organization’s committees. Refused to do the monthly reports to the membership, including information about the society’s bank accounts.
The officers refused to let the treasurer have access to the bank, or any signatory powers as specified in the bylaws.
The three officers spent society money on lavish gifts for themselves.
And on and on.
Which is why I withdrew.
The Society Wanted A Workshop Too
About six months after I had booked our workshop with the Instructor, the bead society officers approached this same Instructor, and cleverly booked a workshop the weekend before ours. They did not pick any particular workshop projects at that time. I had already done a lot of pre-marketing, so the message about our workshop and our dates was very visible and out there way before the time they approached our Instructor.
We’re in the same town — Nashville, TN. Our potential market of possible participants is virtually the same. The market was not large enough to support two workshops. I did not find out about their plans until 3 months before our workshop was to begin. That’s the timeframe when they began their marketing.
The Instructor should have had more control over the situation. But she did not. She thought the bead society was located in another part of Tennessee, where there would not be a major conflict.
So, here we were.
I proposed to the Instructor and the bead society the following, hoping for a compromise:
a. We would keep our June 21 weekend date
b. We would do the two projects that the Instructor and I had agreed upon.
c. We would hold the workshop at my bead store
d. My advanced students would get first priority for available seats, which would still leave room for a large number of additional participants
e. The workshop would be marketed as a joint project between the bead store and the bead society
f. The bead society could have all the proceeds, which would have been several thousand dollars
The bead society said No!
I held our workshop as planned and scheduled.
The Instructor canceled their workshop, and told them she would never do a workshop with them again.
Competitive Conflict #2:
Another Local Bead Store
My bead store is located less than half a mile from another bead store. I view them as friendly competition. They see me as the enemy. The two stores have different mixes of merchandise. Some customers overlap, but I view my market area as a 5-hour driving radius around Nashville. They view their market as Nashville only. They offer classes, but come from a craft perspective. They teach steps. I offer classes, but come from a design perspective. I teach theories and applications. We do not attract the same customers. We do not attract the same students.
For me, the presence of both stores, plus a Michaels craft store across the street creates a lot of synergy — more things to buy, more things to do, more customers to entice into learning beading and jewelry making. For the other store, they assumed loss of sales, loss of students and loss of customers. The reality was that our businesses presented more of a continuum than any overlap.
But having this Instructor teach here was a coup. It was status. Power, Legitimacy. Credibility. It was an endorsement of who I was, what I was, and my way of thinking. And the other bead store owners — a husband and wife — wanted all of this for themselves. They were not happy.
We may have been seen as some kind of enemy in this instance. Or, perhaps conversely, as a friend providing more opportunities to bead artists and designers for fun and professional development in Nashville. I guess it depends how you think about competition and where you are standing.
The first thing the other store’s owners tried to do was steal the workshop for themselves. Not long after I had booked the Instructor that summer, they called her. They asked her to reschedule the workshop the same weekend, but at their bead store instead. Even before she told them No!, they began a premarketing campaign. Emails, signage, phone calls — all indicating that they were to host the Instructor the weekend of June 21st. And after she told them No!, they continued their premarketing campaign anyway.
This confused lots of people. Many people thought I might be lying about our program. Luckily, I was interviewing the Instructor weekly, and reporting back to our study group. I included summaries in our marketing materials we sent out to all our customers each month. Eventually, the other bead store stopped their marketing.
The wife who owned the bead store found out the Instructor was doing a workshop in Kansas City. This was about 5 months before our scheduled date. She drove all the way to Kansas City from Nashville. She arranged to meet the Instructor at the hotel lobby one morning, on a pretense and supposedly to show her and sell her some specialty Czech glass beads. They had never met in person before.
The Instructor told me that she had come down into the lobby, and the wife began pulling out displays of Czech glass. But the conversation quickly turned to the Nashville workshop. The wife asked the Instructor to change the venue to their bead store. The Instructor again said No!, and sent the wife on her way. “Creepy,” was the word the Instructor used.
There was more to come.
Three weeks before the workshop, the husband this time phoned the Instructor. He asked her when she would arrive, and which airline she was flying on. He told her that he would pick her up at the airport.
She was already suspicious of the couple. She told him she had other arrangements.
And one more thing.
For three days during my workshop — Friday and Saturday and Sunday, the husband parked his car in the parking lot. Directly in front of my store. Headlights on. He was there all day, every day. As if he were taking names of the customers coming into my store.
Creepy.
Underestimate Your Competition At Your Peril
Looking back, it all seems so much fun — great stories to tell. An adventure in competitive competition. But it was very important to take competition seriously then, and seriously now. It is important to know…
1. What competition is
2. Who you competitors are
3. The specific characteristics of your marketplace
4. What your competitive advantage over your competitors is
5. How to get the message across to your clients and customers — current and possible — about your competitive advantage
Many businesses do not take the time to truly understand their marketplace, and all the competitive forces within it. They may spend some time listing some differences between themselves and those they compete with. Lower prices. More accessibility. Better quality. Faster service.
But the differences in and of themselves do not make the difference between capturing your market or not. It’s the visibility of these differences. And the credibility of how these differences are conveyed. And the risk and reward calculus of your customers. Your competitive advantage is not the quality or price of your product or service you are selling, but your ability to make this information known in the market, and believable in that market, and valued in that market.
1. What Competition Is
Competition is a process utilized to influence outcomes.
Competition begins with perceptions of differences in status or position, and the subsequent recognition of contradictions between market reality and personal or organizational expectation. Status or position can relate to things like wealth, power, attention, income, market share, access to scarce resources, prestige and fame.
A person or business makes the decision to compete when those contradictions become personally or organizationally untenable. Survive or die.
The motivation to pursue competition, then, is to enhance or impede positive or negative changes in status or position.
A strategic competitive response, intuitive or formal, is developed. It is an opportunity for action based on an assessment of the relative risks and rewards for acting versus not acting.
This competitive response and pursuit can take two forms: Either, a) cooperation, when a common goal can be shared, and both can gain,
or,
b) conflict, when a common goal cannot be shared, and the gain for one is a loss for the other.
Whatever the response, competition can incentivize. It can set in motion positive things which make the person or business more efficient, more effective, more responsive, more actively learning, more adaptive, and more innovative. Or just the opposite can happen.
Competition is never a fixed state of affairs. It is a journey. So the rivalry has a lot of give and take, and ebb and flow, to it. Things can improve for one party, and diminish for the other. Things can improve for both. Just as easily, things can deteriorate for both. These can lead to compromising ethical standards. These can lead to financial ruin.
2. Who Your Competitors Are
Your competitor is anyone operating in your market — whether individual or business or network or organization or even an event or other more abstract thing — which can influence outcomes related to your status or position.
This might relate to the products you sell. This might relate to the services you offer. This might relate to your design sense, ideas and philosophy. So, you want to get a handle on how your competitors CAN INFLUENCE THINGS, and WHAT RESOURCES AND CONNECTIONS they have on hand to exert such influence, and what their MOTIVATIONS are for wanting to influence things.
Understanding Your Competitors
You cannot compete if you do not have a thorough understanding of who your competitors are. Their understandings and assumptions. Their business strategies. Their operations. Their client / customer base and how they market to them. Their perceptions. Their expectations. Their skill sets. Their level of resiliency and ability to adapt to changing market conditions. How they position themselves within their market.
You cannot compete if you do not have a good estimate of how many competitors you have, and whether they are direct or indirect competitors.
Your competitors include any individual or business which might deter a potential client or customer from choosing you. Some of these individuals or businesses will be obvious because they compete directly with you. Another designer. Another design business. Another business, but not specifically a design business, which sells the same types of design products or services you offer.
These direct competitors may be in the same locale or service area you are in. They may be online. They may have a print catalog. They may be registered as ancillary employees with another service.
With direct competition, you want to be as visible or moreso than they are in order to attract and retain clients and customers. Visibility means that people know who you are, where you are, and the relative risks and rewards for patronizing you rather than one of your other direct competitors.
Indirect competitors are those who do not offer the same products or services that you do; however, the products and services they do offer satisfy your clients’ or customers’ needs in a similar way. They are viable alternatives to what you offer, as understood by a shared or overlapping client / customer base. You must always ask yourself, to understand these indirect competitors, what all the alternatives to your products and services might be.
For example, people buy jewelry for many reasons, one of which is to be adorned in an appealing way. That same person, rather than buy jewelry, might meet their same need by getting a tattoo or buying another accessory like a handbag. Jewelry purchases might be seasonal, timed to special holidays and occasions or the schedule of the partying circuit. At other times, these same people might be attracted to other artistic products and services. In the winter, they might think more about getting a knitted sweater. In the spring, they might think more about planting a garden.
To reach your client / customer base when they are involved with your indirect competitors will still require strategies to increase your visibility. But the specific things you do might be very different, than when competing for the attention of clients and customers who visit your direct competitors. You will need to change your field of vision. You may redefine your client or customer based into different sub-groups. Your marketing messages will probably be very different. Where you place these messages, and when you schedule these messages to go out, may be very different.
3. The Specific Characteristics Of Competition In Your Marketplace
You cannot compete if you do not have a good understanding, not only of who your competitors are, but also, how good they are at competing. What is their position, both in terms of status and location, in your market place –marginal or core? What is their strategy for pricing and how does that relate to clients’ or customers’ perceptions, wants and needs? Do they offer discounts? Payment terms? Do they have anything related to special status, such as awards? What kinds of marketing do they do, and what is the content of their messaging? Are there cultural or social things which impede or enhance their competitiveness? What is their history, how did they get started, how did they keep going? How adaptive and resilient do they appear to be as market conditions change, and what kinds of things make you draw your conclusions?
How Do You Define Your Market Boundaries?
It is very important that you have a clear understanding of how people find you, or find where your products and services are available. This will influence what marketing messages you want to send, where you want to post them, and how often you want to post them.
Some of this information may involve mapping out local shopping behaviors. An example, 25% of your clients or customers visit both the local mall and your business or where your products or services are on the same shopping trip. Another example, 15% of your clients or customers interact with you or your products or services three times each month.
Other information may be specified in terms of how extensive the driving radius is, such as, 50% of your clients or customers are willing to drive 1 hour to get to you, your products or your services.
Within your market boundaries, you may have some sub-markets or market niches. This might break down by age or by income or by gender or by some other variable. You might have clients who want fully customized services, or those who want boiler-plate.
Your physical, geographic market boundaries may have little to no relationship to your online market boundaries. In fact, you may have several different online market boundaries, given where and how you create your online presence.
Concurrently with all your analyses, with a simple review of your various competitors advertising and websites, you can determine how they define their market boundaries. This might trigger new ideas and understandings for you in your own marketing efforts. Or it might create new competitive puzzles to solve. It might give you a better way of calculating whether any one marketing approach is worth the costs.
Also, ask yourself, are there any gaps in the market which you might exploit? Conversely, are any parts of the market oversaturated, and should be avoided?
How Do Your Competitors Position Themselves?
Your same products or services can be presented within your market or market niches in a number of different ways, and through various combinations of circumstances and contingencies.
Based on the packaging and presentation, different existing and potential clients or customers may vary in what resonates with them. That is, even though the products or services may be the same or similar, people won’t always recognize how all of these may equally meet their needs, wants and demands.
The circumstances surrounding the packaging and presentation of products or services is known as positioning. It is important to know how your competitors position themselves. Ask yourself: Am I positioning myself similarly or differently from my competition?
This information about positioning helps you differentiate what you offer from what they offer. It helps your clients or customers compare you to your competitors in a way which influences them to believe that they would trust purchasing from you rather than them.
What Is Their Pricing Strategy?
One of the most visible aspects of your business is how you price your products or services. Your prices provide a concrete measure your clients or customers can use to compare you to your competition. They are perhaps the most singularly important way you recruit and retain your clients or customers.
Obviously, it is critical to get an understanding of how your competitors price things. Do you use a similar or different strategy for pricing your products or services? How appealing are your prices? Are prices in line with what people in your market area are willing to pay? Do your clients or customers trust you in how you value things in order to price them — especially if your prices are higher than your competitors?
Do any of your competitors offer discounts? Are there volume requirements before giving someone a discount? Do they offer different payment options? Terms?
And many designers find they often have to compete with other designers who under-price their products or services, sometimes even below their costs, because they are unaware of the business fundamentals of pricing. There is no good competitive strategy here except to ignore them. Under-pricing is a yellow flag that these designers will not be able to provide a quality service or product, and won’t be able to survive very long as a business.
What Are Your Competitors’ Strengths?
You want to fully understand what clients and customers like about your competition, and like more about your competition than your own business. Then you ask yourself, are these qualities or products or services you need to adopt and include in your own business. Or maybe differences in appeal come down to how you market yourself. Or maybe these are things you need to ignore and not try to offer.
Examine the backgrounds and skill-sets of the owner, and if a larger organization, that of the staff. How much does this lead to their success?
Have they had any particular wins? Can you learn from those?
What Are Your Competitors’ Weaknesses?
It is not only the strengths of your competitors which you need to be aware of, but also their weaknesses. This may further help you identify both your own strengths and weaknesses. This may help you understand how your clients view the strengths and weaknesses of both you and your competitors. It may help you better sharpen your marketing messaging or reveal how to add to your list of products and services.
Often competitor weaknesses in design businesses relate to those businesses trying to impose one design solution on every situation. They have no adaptive skills. They aren’t very resilient. Their knowledge and skill-set in design is shallow and limited. They have difficulty overcoming unknown or unfamiliar situations. They do not know how to engage with their clients in a fully empathetic way.
Has your competitor had any particular failures? What can you learn from those?
Your competitor’s weakness may have less to do with the competitor but rather some deficiency or disorganization in your market. You might learn how that competitor has tried to respond to market imperfections, and take that into account when formulating your own responses.
What Are Your Clients’ or Customers’ Views and Understandings
of Your Competitors?
Clients and customers make or break your business. It is what they perceive and what they expect and what they value which are critical. Every business, whether a 1-person office or a multiplex, must be able to anticipate the understandings people have who use their services, or who may use their products. And then ditto for that of your competitors.
Additionally, every business needs to have an arsenal of competitive strategies for aligning the understandings of others with those of the business. Do you know what your competitors’ strategies are towards this end?
You may think you offer quality products, but they may not know or may not recognize this. You may think your hours of operation are sufficient, but they may not. You may think your design sense is current and fashionable, but they may not or may be unaware. You may think you have better messaging, connections, and relations with your clients and customers, but they may feel that moreso with your competitors.
One place where all these dynamics converge is online through facebook likes, customer reviews, customer comments and the like. It is important to devote resources towards managing and participating at these types of nexus points.
Always do some reality-checking: How do the understandings and views your customers have of the competition or your own business coordinate with your own understandings and views?
What Are The Primary Ways Information Is Exchanged
About The Sale Of The Types Of Products Or Services You Sell?
How do people find out about you? About your competitors? How do they know what your sell? Where you sell it? The value? The opportunity to buy? What happens if they are dissatisfied after the sale?
There are all kinds of options.
– Print advertising in newspapers and magazines
– Ads or classifieds in directories and neighborhood papers
– Marketing materials like brochures, business cards, hand-outs
– Relationships with your suppliers or distributors
– Classes you teach
– Trade fairs, exhibits, art and craft shows you attend or participate in
– Attendance at social or business events
– Sponsorships
– Word of mouth
It’s that last one — word of mouth — where you usually get your biggest bang for the buck. So you need to think of ways to drive it.
4. What Your Competitive Advantage Over Your Competitors Is
Part of driving that word of mouth is establishing in clear, visible, legitimate and valuable terms what your competitive advantage or advantages are over those of your competitors.
Your competitive advantage(s) are all the reason someone should contract for your services or buy your products rather than those of any of your competitors. What are those 5–10 things about you and your work that sets you apart from, and perhaps makes you better than, your competition?
There’s always something to differentiate yourself from your competition. Even if your products and services are the same, your pricing is similar, your turn-around time the same, your choices of design elements very similar, there are always other things which come into play and with which you can use to differentiate yourself. You can be a better manager of relationships. You can be clearer and more directional about how to develop your business, and assist others in developing theirs. You can deliver an outstanding customer experience better than anyone else.
5. How To Get Your Message Across To Your Customers
— Current And Possible — About Your Competitive Advantage
What gives any individual or company a competitive edge are four values:
1. Authenticity
2. Rarity
3. Individuality
4. Legitimacy
You want to position yourself so that you stick out among the competition. This is true geographically. This is true in cyberspace. This is true in the marketplace of ideas, feelings, and values.
Start your strategic planning by focusing on the client or customer, their needs, wants, demands and decisions to buy. Get a solid handle on their thinking, their understandings of the marketplace, their understandings of your business and those of your competitors. Get very detailed about their shopping behaviors.
Last, you want to build relationships and emotional connections with these clients and customers. You want to be known as someone who hears, listens and understands them. You want to be a part, not only of the present, but their history and future, as well.
Design your communications and your interactions to maximize your advantages. You have core convictions — Authenticity. You are a unique source for things — Rarity. You can tailor what you do to the needs of each client of customer — Individuality. You can justify why patronizing you makes more sense than patronizing someone else — Legitimacy.
Ask yourself: What devices do my competitors employ to get their messages across and build customer loyalty in terms of authenticity, rarity, individuality and legitimacy?
Messaging About Your Competitive Advantages Is Not A One Shot Deal
Managing your design business and growing it means you have to be constantly learning about it and making necessary adjustments. Learning about your business in relation to the competition provides a myriad of clues and ideas. Anticipating the shared understandings of your clients and customers allows you to refine your business in a very positive way. And don’t forget to assume that your competitors are assessing you at the same time you are assessing them.
Keep a running list of your ideas, and as they evolve or change.
a. What you do better than your competitors
b. What your competitors do better than you
c. Things your discovered, learned about, and might exploit, and which might be incorporated into your own thinking
d. Things you have learned and insights you have gained which you might leverage into new innovative ideas
Keep on improving. You want to at least match your competition, but better yet surpass them. They are not the standard. Don’t copy them. Innovate, don’t imitate.
Workshop Post Mortem
So how did competition play out after my workshop?
The bead society lost a lot of members, and soon closed down. But many of their members stopped coming into the store. As one former bead society member and former store customer put it: It was more important for her to have a group to come to every Tuesday night, get out of her house at least once a week, and be with others who shared her interest, in spite of any wrong-doing on the part of the bead society officers.
Having a bead society in the area, and maintaining a visible presence in it, was very cost-effective for the store. They were 300 ambassadors spreading good word of mouth about my business. The bead society was also influencing people in the community to take up beading and jewelry making as a hobby and avocation. These were things I didn’t have to utilize store resources for.
My bead store competitor is still in business. To this day I do not think that the owners there recognize that we are different businesses. We have different values and goals. Our customer bases overlap some, but we provide different experiences and attract different market niches.
I try to minimize a sense of Us vs Them. I always refer customers to them and to Michaels. To me, the local customer does this calculus. Is it less risk to find what they want locally, see the real colors and real quality, and get it immediately, or is it less risk to try to find what they want online? With three stores merely blocks apart, it lowers the risk to shop locally. This is incredibly advantageous. I don’t think the other bead store recognizes this.
I was lucky to have approached the design of my classes differently from the traditional craft, step-by-step, learn mechanics approach. The internet, where now you can get all these types of step-by-step classes for free, has driven the value of this type of class to $0.00. My classes focus on the art and design aspects of beading and jewelry making — things not easily conveyed in video tutorials online. So my competitors — the bead store a few blocks away, as well as Michaels — have significantly reduced the number of classes they offer. At the same time, I have tripled mine.
Jewelry creates a series of dilemmas for the jewelry maker — not always anticipated by what most jewelry makers are taught in a typical art class.
That’s the rub!
Painters can create any color and color effect they want with paints.
Jewelry makers do not have access, nor can they easily create, a full color palette and all the desired coloration effects with the beads and other components used to make jewelry.
Jewelry is not like a painting or sculpture that sits in one place, with controlled lighting, and a more passive interaction with anyone looking at it.
Jewelry moves with the person through different settings, lighting, times of day.
Jewelry sits on different body shapes.
Jewelry must function in many different contexts.
Jewelry serves many different purposes.
People use and understand colors using their senses.
These perceptions among wearer, viewer and designer include:
(1) The Sensation Of Color Balance
(2) The Sensation Of Color Proportions
(3) The Sensation Of Simultaneous Color Contrasts
Better designers are able to manage these sensations. They do so, in major part, by relying on a series of color sensation management tools.
We review these in great detail in this course.
In this course, you will learn some critical skills for jewelry designers that you will want to know…
• How to pick colors for jewelry, and how this differs from picking colors as a painter
• How to adapt basic color concepts in art when making jewelry
• How to recognize the differences between universal responses to color from the more typical subjective ones, and what better designers do about this
• How to manage the sensation of color within your pieces to achieve your designer goals
You will learn to make smart choices about color when designing and making jewelry.
Learn to Think and Speak and Work
Like a Jewelry Designer!
Making and designing jewelry is fun, awesome, challenging and rewarding. You enter a world full of inspiration, creativity, color, texture, construction, beauty and appeal. With your jewelry, you impact the lives of many people as they go about their day, attend special events, or interact with friends, acquaintances and strangers.
As a jewelry designer, you have a purpose. Your purpose is to figure out, untangle and solve, with each new piece of jewelry you make, how both you, as well as the wearer, will understand your inspirations and the design elements and forms you chose to express them, and why this piece of jewelry is right for them.
Your success as a designer is the result of all these choices you make. Our courses are here to help you learn and apply key insights about materials, techniques and the jewelry design process when making these kinds of choices. We also introduce you to things you need to know when trying to conquer the creative marketplace.
Empower yourself to become fluent, flexible and original in jewelry design.
I have created an updated, extended version of this class online, which you can register for. The class is divided into 18 short video tutorials on such topics of seed and delica beads, metal beads, clasps, stringing materials, adhesives, miscellaneous findings, and the like. There is a downloadable handout that accompanies each video segment.
19 lesson modules. This class is $30.00.
You can find it online and register here.
16 Important Lessons I Learned Doing Craft Shows!
In this SO YOU WANT TO DO CRAFT SHOWS… video tutorial class, I discuss critical choices jewelry designers need to make when doing craft shows. That means, understanding everything involved, and asking the right questions.
Learn How To…
…Find, Evaluate and Select Craft Shows Right For You
…Determine a Set Realistic Goals Right For You
…Compute a Simple Break-Even Analysis
…Best Ways to Develop Your Applications and Apply
…Understand How Much Inventory To Bring
…Best Promote and Operate Your Craft Show Business
Doing craft shows is a wonderful experience. You can make a lot of money. You meet new people. You have new adventures. And you learn a lot about business and arts and crafts designing.
19 lesson modules. This class is $45.00.
You can find it online and register here.
Learn An Easy-To-Use Pricing Formula
and Some Marketing Tips
Especially Relevant for Jewelry Designers!
I continued working in the health care field, teaching graduate school, doing consulting, government health policy planning, and, my last professional job, directing a nonprofit membership organization of primary health care centers. Working in health care had become such a hollow experience for me, that I jumped off the corporate ladder when I was 36 years old. With a partner, we opened up a retail operation, in Nashville, Tennessee, where we sold finished jewelry, most of it custom made, as well as selling all the parts for other people interested in making jewelry themselves.
My partner was the creative one, and the design aspects of the business were organized around her work. I was the business person. I made some jewelry to sell, but my motivation was purely monetary. No passion yet.
During the first few years, it was painfully obvious that my jewelry construction techniques were poor, at best. The jewelry I made broke too easily. This bothered me. I was determined to figure out how to do it better.
This was pre-internet. There were no established jewelry making magazines at that time. In Nashville, there was a very small jewelry / beading craft community. No experience, no support. So I did a lot of trial-and-error. Lots of experimentation.
In these early years in our retail jewelry business, two critical things happened which started steering me in the direction of pursuing my jewelry design passion.
