Let Business Concerns Influence Your Artistic Choices
To what extent do (and should) business concerns influence the artistic choices bead and jewelry artists make?
If you want to be in business, then I’d say, “A Lot!” But this isn’t what a lot of designers like to hear. Success in business takes something besides being an excellent jewelry designer.
Jewelry making is not a passive art. You make jewelry for others to wear and buy, and you have to anticipate how they will assess your work and recognize your artistry. It is not the same as painting a painting or sculpting a sculpture in the sense that with paintings or sculptures, the artist does not need to communicate interactively with the viewer in order to create the product and be deemed successful. Jewelry making, instead, is more an interactive art. It is like architecture, where success can only be created through some kind of dialectic with others, and only be defined as successful as the product is introduced publicly and understood by others as finished and successful.
Selling your pieces is merely another phase of this interactive art, but sometimes forces upon you some more limits and refinements. You have to market to audiences. You may have to standardize things to be able to make the same thing over and over again. You may have to work in a production mode and repeat making certain designs, rather than freely creating and designing anew each time. You have to price things so that they will sell, and you have to price things so that you can make a sufficient profit. You do not (which translates as never) undersell yourself, like offering discounts to family, friends and co-workers.
You have to conform to prevalent styles and colors and forms. You have to make things which will photograph well for sale online. You have to make things that local stores want and are willing to buy or put on consignment. You may end up with a lot of “one size fits all,” because producing too much variety in sizes, shapes, colors and sizes could overwhelm you financially.
You find that if you want to make your jewelry design into a successful business, you may have to compromise with yourself, your artistic drives and sensibilities. You may have to limit what you offer. In order to make that sale. In order to make a profit. In order to establish your brand and how it is recognized. And stay in business.
As You Get Started,
Ask Yourself These Questions
1. After honestly evaluating my hard and soft skills, am I business-ready?
2. Are there potential customers who will want, need and demand the kinds of jewelry I design?
3. Can I price my products competitively?
4. Where do I want to sell my pieces?
5. Can I get my pieces the visibility and opportunities to get purchased, given where I want to sell my pieces?
6. What are my competitive advantages? How do my works and my business strategies differentiate myself from my competition?
7. Are my pieces consistent and coherent enough to be recognized and understood as a brand, and as a brand designed by me?
8. Do I feel I can organize, manage, control and keep updated all the business functions – Design, Financial Management, Production and Distribution, Marketing and Branding, and Selling, Feedback and Evaluation?
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For more articles about Conquering The Creative Marketplace, click over to our Jewelry Designers’ Hub
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Thanks for being here. I look forward to sharing more resources, tips,
sources of inspiration and insights with you.
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Conquering The Creative Marketplace
Many people learn beadwork and jewelry-making in order to sell the pieces they make. Based both on the creation and development of my own jewelry design business, as well as teaching countless students over the past 35+ years about business and craft, I want to address what should be some of your key concerns and uncertainties. I want to share with you the kinds of things (specifically, a business mindset and confidence) it takes to start your own jewelry business, run it, anticipate risks and rewards, and lead it to a level of success you feel is right for you. I want to help you plan your road map.
I will explore answers to such questions as: How does someone get started marketing and selling their pieces? What business fundamentals need to be brought to the fore? How do you measure risk and return on investment? How does the creative person develop and maintain a passion for business? To what extent should business decisions affect artistic choices? What similar traits to successful jewelry designers do those in business share? How do you protect your intellectual property?
The major topics covered include,
1. Integrating Business With Design
2. Getting Started
3. Financial Management
4. Product Development, Creating Your Line, and Pricing
5. Marketing, Promotion, Branding
6. Selling
7. Professional Responsibilities and Strategic Planning
8. Professional Responsibilities and Gallery / Boutique Representation
9. Professional Responsibilities and Creating Your Necessary Written
Documents
