Jewelry Software

In this interview Gary Capps talks to Dr David Weiman of MarketingJewelry.com about simple steps you can take to massively improve your jewelry business.

Dr David Weiman is the marketing Director for Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist, the worlds oldest gem, bead and jewelry arts magazine.

Dr Weiman is also a psychologist who specializes in helping jewelry artisans understand the psychology of selling handcrafted jewelry.

You can read the full interview below as well download a pdf copy of this interview or listen to a recording of it here;

Gary Capps Interviews David Weiman of MarketingJewelry.com

Gary Capps:

Hi everyone; welcome to our talk today. My name is Gary Capps from Beading-Software.com, the creators of bead manager jewelry software. I’m joined today by Dr. David Weiman from Marketingjewelry.com

David is the third generation of Weimans in the jewelry business. His grandfather founded the small jewelry chain Weiman’s for diamonds that had several locations in Philadelphia and then his father owned and managed the stores until changing careers to become an attorney.

David is the marketing director of several publications such as Lapidary Journal jewelry artists magazine which is oldest gem and jewelry arts magazine in the world and Step by Step jewelry as well as being one of the founding creators of Beads Fest, the instructional bead show which is now all over the U.S.

David has also been a licensed psychologist in Pennsylvania since 1998, presenting seminars around the country on how to make the psychology of connecting with customers easy to understand and simple to implement.

Welcome David and thanks for taking the time today to talk to me.

David Weiman:

Gary, it’s a pleasure to be with you.

Gary:

You are known as the expert jewelry-selling psychologist. Can you explain why psychology can play such an important part in being successful in your jewelry business?

David:

The essence of this is that jewelry is not a necessity; and yet people keep buying it. There’s virtually an infinite market for it.

In fact, I recently suggested in a newsletter article that I wrote that the jewelry makers ask their customers how many pieces of jewelry they own; because my contention is nobody really knows how much jewelry they own. Most people don’t unless all they own is a watch and a wedding band and a bracelet or something like that. It’s something that people buy that they really don’t have a specific need for.

You can understand the psychology of that, why people buy things they don’t need and understand specifically around the buying of jewelry and what attracts people to it and where the real action is.

I know we’re going to get into a little bit later in our conversation some of the deeper psychological meanings behind some of these transactions. It really is, I believe, mainly psychological and the reason is that the average consumer is not an expert in the materials used to make jewelry.

Most people do not understand what they’re looking at. They couldn’t tell the difference between something that was real gold and gold-plated, for example or a real gemstone vs one that was created in a lab or in a manufacturing plant. So the psychology of it is very, very rich for this particular field.

Gary:

I definitely agree with you about people not knowing how much jewelry they own; especially when you look at my wife’s little jewelry basket or jewelry box. I just had to buy her more because it was her birthday. It’s definitely an impulse buy a lot of the time, I think, rather than a need for the product.

David:

When we’ve asked people what they were thinking of during that impulse moment, a lot of times it’s a connection to something in the past. Somebody may see a ring that they do like but it also reminds them of a ring that their grandmother owned; and that may be the impetus for buying. They can’t really tell you why they were attracted to a piece; that’s at an unconscious level but it is fascinating how people make those choices.

Gary:

Yeah; so trying to tap into why they want that and if you can get in line with why they want that item then you can align with that customer successfully.

David:

That’s right.

Gary:

Could you give any specific examples where some clients have implemented these psychological tactics in their business and some of the results they have seen?

David:

For customers who understand what I teach about the objection-handling process, they notice a shift not just in their attitude but in the corresponding attitude of the customer.

More specifically what I mean is, a lot of jewelry-makers are defensive – and rightfully so; I’m not criticizing them for having this feeling. A person walks by your booth, you have your jewelry out, and the prospect or the passer-by kind of snorts and says, “My 5-year old can make something better than that.” Your initial inclination is to react very defensively and sort of create an argument with that person. A person who walks by and says, “I would never pay that much money for that piece.”

The defensive instinct is to argue back but that’s the last thing you want to do; because all of these moments where somebody is saying something is an opportunity to engage and learn more about them.

So the shift there is, instead of responding to be curious and ask questions about why they said what they did and to learn more about their preferences. Because that’s a skill that’s always useful whereas arguing in business is never useful.

The other thing that I think is critical is when somebody recognizes what they do well and what they don’t; and in what they don’t, if they have any desire at all to improve that.

Somebody attended one of my Bead Fest seminars on selling jewelry and she recognized that her interest in connecting with people was so low and she was so shy that it wasn’t working out for her to do shows well. She told me that her boyfriend loved her jewelry and really did like connecting with people; loved talking with people about it.

The major change that she made after attending the seminar was to start selling together with him. He started coming to the shows and he started taking over that direct connection with customers. At a future show – she had come to the same show one year later – she told me that she had doubled here revenue from shows because she was engaged, she was enthusiastic; people were attracted to that and they started buying more.

Gary:

I was going to ask you to say what you feel are the three most common obstacles that any jewelry business owner new or old should really face up to and overcome?

So you think the connection with people, making sure that you can align with customers is obviously a very important one. Do you think there are another couple as well? Obviously, making sure you get that right; what would be another couple of really common obstacles that they need to overcome if they want to succeed?

David:

The most common one, the obstacle itself is the challenge of seeing it as business instead of a hobby. A lot of people who come to my website Marketingjewelry.com are hobbyists who are interested in converting this to a business; or people who have been in business for a while who are now looking to bring up the level of it.

Even those folks tell me that they still have trouble seeing themselves as a businessperson. You have to leave that aside as a dirty word. Being in business as a jewelry maker is a wonderful, amazing way to share your jewelry with other people. It’s not a dirty word and it’s something that they should feel good about.

I think another obstacle is just the idea that they’re selling something; but the reality is that our entire lives are spent persuading people in some way to do something that we want. When your 5-year old wants a cupcake for dessert, they’re selling you on the idea that they deserve it even if they didn’t eat their dinner.

So, we’re selling throughout out entire lives and these tactics or skills of persuading are important to possess. Many people say, “I don’t want to have to sell my jewelry.” Well, that’s fine. You may not be as successful as you could be.

I think the third area is understanding the value of their jewelry and that it is worth more than most jewelry makers charge for it. The obstacle there is recognizing that they are worth it. They as human beings who have created this are worth it and that the jewelry may last well beyond the generations, even of the person whom they sold it to in terms of passing it down.

For example, a piece of jewelry that you sell to a customer who has a daughter, if she gives it to her daughter, it may survive longer than her daughter and that daughter’s daughter. It’s something that will be passed down through generations if it’s well made. That’s extremely important and extremely relevant.

Gary:

I think that’s a really good point to make. There’s that term out there about’ starving artists’ and there seems to be a badge of honour about that starving artist who’s just getting by, by selling a bit of jewelry and people not valuing it enough to actually realize what they’re doing is worthwhile. I think that’s a really good point that you made there.

David:

And that gets conveyed in very subtle ways; when your body language and your tone of voice is submissive and you’re showing that you don’t feel very good about it, abut the jewelry and whole sales process, people pick that up. And it does transfer to how valuable they feel the jewelry is.

When you’re confident, when you feel good, when you know the jewelry is worth the price that you’re asking for it and you love making it, all of that goes into the experience that the buyer has as well.

Gary

Yeah; so when there are people looking to actually start turning their hobby into a business, where would you suggest that they actually begin to market themselves, to actually grow out of that hobby phase into making money?

David:

The most logical place for people to start is with the people who are closest to them; and that is family and friends. For a few reasons, although they may feel uncomfortable accepting money from friends – but that’s something they have to get over.

The social circle is extremely important for jewelry sellers at the beginning. They’re people that the jewelry seller is already comfortable with, that they already know. Their folks are going to give them an honest opinion about the jewelry.

It is very common for people who are wearing jewelry to get remarks comments and questions about it. When it’s your sister or your mom or your cousin Beth who’s wearing the jewelry, and somebody they work with notices it, cousin Beth says, “Oh, yeah; my cousin Rachel made this.” it’s an easy and smooth connection right back to the jewelry artist. So that’s typically the place where they’re going to have the most success.

That can extend a little further out if you think of social contacts as a series of concentric circles; the next furthest out point is generally people that that person works with. Most jewelry artists are not fulltime jewelry artists, the do other things. So the other people in your social circle like co-workers, people who perhaps you’re involved in a club or an activity with.

In fact, this is often how jewelry makers in selling. Somebody notices a bracelet they have on, that they made. A co-worker says, “I love that; where did you get it?” The jewelry artist says, “I made it.” The co-worker says, “Could you make one for me?” And that’s how it starts.

Gary:

It’s some nice word of mouth marketing, really.

David:

Exactly.

Gary:

What about people who’ve already go an existing business but they’re looking to shift up a gear or two. How would your advice differ to those people?

David:

There it’s much more important to ratchet up your marketing. There’s a lot of… I guess for those folks, a lot of them lose sight of that their current customers are their best source of new business and referrals.

It’s kind of like if you had an apple orchard and you were in a hurry; you sort of quickly went through and grabbed as many apples as you could. You’re leaving a lot on the trees. I want those jewelry makers who are already established to go back and do a little more harvesting; to spend more time marketing.

I say this with sort of a chuckle in mind because not a lot of people keep track of this. If you’re marketing yourself 10 hours a week you want to spend 12 hours a week doing it. If you’re marketing yourself 4 hours a week you want to spend 6 hours doing it.

Whatever they can do to add a little more time to that is going to pay off; because if you think about it – you yourself as a successful businessperson can relate to this – to get to your first level take a huge amount of work. To get from that level to the next level doesn’t take twice as much work. It probably takes a quarter again as much work; because you already have the base. You’ve already learned from your mistakes. You already know what works.

So it’s really a matter of putting more time in and seeking out more of the folks who fit your primary and secondary targets.

Gary:

I think it’s like… somebody explained it to me once. It’s like when you get a business started and for those people that remember the old water pump with the big handle? I’ve seen them on telly; they weren’t around when I was a young lad. But you used to have to pump those really hard and fast for a while, you get the water started. But once you actually filled up that pipe and the water was coming through it was very nice and easy and gentle to keep it going and the water would carry on flowing.

Running a business can be very much like that, can’t it? Once you put in that initial effort then you can keep it going along quite smoothly.

David:

That’s a great analogy for it because you have already got that thing flowing. You’ve done the hard part so it’s about tweaking from that point on

Gary:

And good maintenance, really and keeping in touch with those customers, remembering important things about them which is really important.

When people get into business, they often feel they’ve got to sell their product… I think we touched on this when you were talking about   confidence and how you actually present yourself. Can you explain the difference between selling yourself and selling your products and why selling yourself can be so important?

David:

It’s a great question and it reminds me of the phenomenal marketing writer Harry Beckwith, who’s written some great books on service marketing that I think definitely apply to selling jewelry as well. One of his books was Selling the Invisible, that was his first one. He also wrote What Clients Love, which is just a terrific book for jewelry sellers to read; And You Incorporated.

It basically says that people sell things in the wrong order. People tend to sell on the price first then the product then themselves. He’s talking about service marketing but this applies to jewelry as well because the person has to trust you before they buy the jewelry. If they don’t, they may buy it because they still like it. But that’s not going to result in a long-term loyal customer.

Long-term loyal customers result because of their connection with you. So you really want to sell in the opposite order according to Beckwith, than you would think. You want to sell yourself first then the product and the price last; because for artisan jewelry, people aren’t buying it on price.

If you don’t want to spend very much money on jewelry, here in the U.S. you could go to Walmart, Target, or any of the large discount stores and find jewelry while spending almost no money for it. That’s not why people buy artisan jewelry. People buy artisan jewelry because it’s unique, it’s one a kind, it’s handmade, and they get to have a relationship with the artist – that’s key. People love saying to someone who’s admiring their jewelry, “I know the artist who made that.”

So you really want to re-orient how you’re selling, to focus on what you have brought to that jewelry because otherwise, it’s just an object. We associate so much with something that we love that you want to include yourself as a part of that package; something that a lot of jewelry makers are shy about.

I’ve gone to websites at the request of jewelry makers who have asked me to review their site where they don’t have a photograph of themselves. You’re trying to make this personal connection with the customer and they can’t figure out what you look like. So that’s key.

I often advise people not just to include a photograph of yourself but show you interacting with customers; people laughing, smiling, and having a good time. That’s extremely persuasive. Again, it sort of links back to our discussion about low self-esteem among jewelry artists and artists in general; that you want to see yourself as part of what the person is buying – and to feel great about that.

Gary:

That’s a really, really good point there. You’ve been in the industry for a long time now, over 20 years I think, working in this field. Is there one common problem that you’ve come across in that time that you could name and how would you advise people to get past that?

David:

I think the biggest problem is under-pricing their jewelry. Before we started our recording today, you and I were talking about your software Bead Manager Pro and I was sort of testing it out myself; I love it – and that’s a shameless plug for you but I really do. I think it’s fantastic.

A lot of people under-price for all kinds of reasons. There was somebody who came to one of my seminars and she said, “I was selling a piece for $27 and I was sort of happy to get $27 for it. So my husband sat down and broke the piece apart in terms of its components. He didn’t literally take it apart, he just added up everything that was there and said I had $37 worth of components in it. So I was losing $10 every time I sold it.”

Well, that’s what your software does. Part of what it does is sort of helping somebody handle that. Had I known about this software back then, I would’ve suggested that she get a copy of it.

Things like that; jewelry makers just don’t see themselves… I don’t blame them. They’re not attracted really to the counting of things and knowing exactly what went into a piece because that’s counter to the creative mind. The creative mind is the right brain; that supposedly where all the creativity emanates from and the left brain is the logical side. So she really joined up with her husband and he helped her out. But beyond that., I’m not even sure if she had used a formula the resulted in maybe double or triple her component costs would have been the best way to price it.

The truth is, a piece of jewelry is worth what any willing buyer will pay for it. And aiming low out of a fear that your price will be a deterrent is that problem that I’m talking about. They’re so concerned about rejection that they think, “How low can I price this that anybody would buy it without even thinking about it? “ But that ignores the fact that psychologically people associate price with quality.

For example, if people are looking at two very similar pieces of jewelry and price is not an issue for them; they can afford either piece. One is $100 and one is $50. This also depends on which one they saw first. They may think, “Great! I can get the same piece for $50? Half the price? That’s phenomenal.” That’s not the customer you want. You want the customer who says, “$100! Man, that must be a really nice bracelet; really well-made.”

I’ve had this experience and a story about this I often tell is, I was looking for a toaster oven. The average toaster oven today lasts a week. When I was kid, my grandfather had the same toaster my entire life up until the point where he dies, you know? He had for like, 20 years. They don’t make them like they used to; that’s the common expression.

I went to the Consumer Reports website and I did some research on toasters. They had an interesting conclusion and it was that the best toaster was the lowest priced toaster that they tested. But that wasn’t the most popular one. The most popular one was much more expensive. The ultimate conclusion was that people believed that the higher priced toaster was better so they bought that.

I printed out this article; I went to my local Bed Bath & Beyond store to buy the toaster. I was standing there at the toaster display with a couple that looked like… they had the fresh-scrubbed look that looked like they had just gotten married and somebody just plucked them right off of the wedding cake; picture perfect couple.

They were looking at a toaster that must have had a $200 price tag on it and I was about to pick up one that was about $25. As they were reaching for the toaster they wanted – which was on my list as not a good toaster; it did not make toast very well. it made hot bread; slices; it actually browned it.

I said to the couple, “Wait a second. I have the consumer reports article that says that toaster you’re about to pick up for 200 bucks actually doesn’t make toast very well.” They looked at me the way they would curiously look at an animal in the zoo; like I wasn’t talking and I was just a curiosity. They backed away a little bit and they grabbed that toaster and bought it.

So, even as I was trying to present them with evidence that it didn’t do what they were buying it to do, they didn’t care. They wanted to spend $200 on a toaster. I got mine for 25 bucks; works perfectly well, I’m very happy with it. But I don’t have the prestige feeling that I own this popular, exclusive brand.

That has a lot to do with it.

There are people who, when the see a piece of jewelry, the more money it is the more they believe it’s better; it’s higher quality, better components. And because it’s not something people understand very well… I mean, a toaster’s pretty easy to understand and the couple that I saw in Bed Bat & Beyond still bought this overpriced thing that didn’t work. But that’s what they were happy doing.

If you think about it, they spent 8 times what I did an they got an inferior product but they didn’t care. What they cared about was that the price was (in their mind) directly associated with the quality.

If jewelry makers can get over a little bit… (Look, I’m from a jewelry family. I’m from the third generation of my family in the jewelry business. I tell people I was born at night but it wasn’t last night) to really think about this and to feel comfortable and to almost be curious and experiment with it. If I were to charge 50% more, what would happen there? How would that change people’s perception of it? And ho to continue to think about this concept – that it’s worth what a wiling buyer will pay for it because that’s extremely important.

I would say that really, the most common problem that I’ve come across is just people under-pricing their work. I think your software addresses this and I think they can go even further in experimenting because the software lets them do that, with hanging some of the elements that go into it. Because honestly, if you priced it out and it came out to $75, that doesn’t mean you couldn’t get $250 dollars for that ring.

Gary:

A really good word you used there at the end was that perception and perceived value was so important. That’s not to say people should be trying to overcharge for shoddy products.

You want to make sure it is a good quality product because you want to make sure those customers come back again. But the perceived value of something that is quality made can be so much more than even the double mark-up rates that people charge for it. I think that’s a really good point that you made there.

David:

It’s amazing that people feel good when they…

Gary:

…..Spend some money; they like it because they’ve got something to show off for it.

David:

Exactly. For a certain kind of person, when they pay $250 for that ring, that’s an extremely valuable ring to them. And that all by itself is relevant and important to them. They wanted to pay that. Most jewelry makers I know don’t have a gun at their booth where they’re holding people up. They don’t say, “You must buy this or else.”

The reality is, and I think it’s a tough one, in different markets and different places depending on where you are, you’re either going to hit that market or not.

If you go to a flea market, or what I call a parking lot sale; you know, they have them in churches and flea markets that are outside… they have all sorts of names for them here. Sometimes they call it an ‘antique show’; but it’s really all the junk in your basement that you want to get rid of. That’s not a good environment for selling $250 rings.

But in a more exclusive environment where the people are really looking for that special thing, once they see it, once they’re delighted by it, the feel very good about paying for it and that’s they key thing.

Gary:

It’s good to know you can actually make your customers feel better by paying more. That’s really good.

We talked a little bit before about making the best of a bad situation, such as show that maybe didn’t go so well. You were saying that maybe if someone makes some comments about your jewelry, you obviously don’t want to react to that.

Can you elaborate on the a bit more and explain how to turn those bad situations into positive ones?

David:

The best thing that you can do when it’s clear that you’re at the wrong show, if you’re selling at  place where they’re also selling discount sunglasses and bars of soap, things like that… That is not a good spot for an artist and jeweller but that can happen, is to relax a little bit and say, “OK, I’m in a classroom right now and I’m going to study. This is my laboratory.” I’m just going to talk to people and learn; because you can learn a lot from the bargain hunter, too.

You can ask them questions like, are there areas in your life where you’re not seeking bargains? Where you’re not looking for the lowest price? What are those areas? Are there things that you truly value and price doesn’t have anything to do with it? Oftentimes, the person who is a bargain hunter in 99% of their life may have one or two areas where money’s no object.

We all know people like this. They may be incredibly cheap on everything except where they stay when they travel. They don’t like budget hotels. They like to stay in a nice place.

I know people who are excessively cheap about everything except this one food item that the love.

Gary:

Don’t name them here.

David:

No, I’m not going to use brand names but…

Gary:

I meant your friends just in case they ever hear this – don’t name them.

(laughter)

David:

They know who they are.

But there may be one thing. It may be a certain kind of cheese that they like, or a certain kind of oatmeal or whatever it is. They’ll gladly pay up for that. So learning about that person’s mind is extremely important.

The other thing is to talk to other vendors there, and see what their experience has been at other shows, other venues, in other communities, in other towns and learn as much as you can from that.

All of this is in the service of educating yourself about that kind of consumer. Do you want to sell to a bargain hunter? No. They’re not a good customer for artisan jewelry because artisan jewelry cannot compete on price. But that’s not what it should be competing on. It should be competing on value, quality; the fact that it was handmade and it’s unique, things that we’ve already talked about.

So, one way of making the best of a bad show is stop worrying about what you’re not selling and start really talking to people. Take your time, learn as much as you can. You can also use that information to avoid that type of show in the future.

Try and write out as many characteristics or factors about tat show that you think are making it a bad show. Oftentimes when we leave a venue, we don’t remember as much about it as we think we do. We’re typically more confident in our memory than is actually true. So of you’re allowed, take some pictures, take some notes, and in the future when you’re evaluating the show make sure that the components that you feel sure made that show bad don’t exist in the new one.

For example, some people love a show that’s just jewelry makers. Some people don’t. Some people want a show where there’s jewelry, accessories and other artisan level products there. That’s fine. But if it’s birdfeeders, that’s probably not a good show for your jewelry.

Seriously, the most important thing they can do is learn as much about a show before they pay a booth fee. Google the name, see if anything’s been written about it, call vendors who you believe… if you know who was there the prior year or the last time that show was put on, call them and talk to them. Call the promoter and ask them what kind of advertising and marketing they intend to do and how many people were at the last show. There’s disincentive for then to be honest if the show as bad. That’s just the nature of business but definitely learn as much as you can because a lot of people are optimists about a show they’ve never been to before. It’s just a natural human tendency if we don’t have experience about something, to be slightly optimistic about it. They’re hoping for the best. You can hope for the best; you still need to plan for the worst

One piece of advice I gave that I was highly criticized for was that if you’re going to a show and you’re not sure what value people place on artisan jewelry, is to have a small line of manufactured jewelry with you that you did not make, that you will put out of it’ truly a bargain hunter show. Why should you suffer there and sell nothing?

The criticism that I got was from people who said, “You can’t do that! You can’t go to an artisan jewelry show and then put out manufactured jewelry.” They missed my point. I’m not advising people to go to an artisan jewelry show with manufactured jewelry. I’m saying if you wind up at a flea market then you should bust out your manufactured jewelry, put your stuff away and sell, sell, sell, try and recoup some of your investment. There’s no need to be stubborn about it. I know jewelry artists who do that. It’s almost like their emergency kit.

Gary:

Their little bargain basement basket.

David:

The Bargain basement stuff; It’s out there; why not be prepared? I’m not suggesting that anybody present that as handcrafted jewelry. I’m saying take all of your stuff off the table, put that stuff out, and sell it. You’ll learn for the next time.

Gary:

I think that’s really good and it ties up across where we were talking  before, about adding more value and the perceived value of your jewelry and the right audience for that; then realizing, exactly as you say there, when you’re in a different audience that that’s just not going to work in certain situations. So understanding your sales situation is very important. That’s really good.

OK, we’re just going to wrap up. I want to ask you finally, what is your number one success tip for everyone out there?

David:

The number one success tip is to set goals; to be clear about where you want to go. If you went to the airport to fly to California from New York; you got on the plane and the pilot said, “I’m not really sure where we’re going today. We’re just going to get in the air and see what happens.” You’re would try to get off that plane.

Gary:

Yes.

David:

The reality is that in all areas of life we benefit from having goals. The goal there is to fly to California, not all over the country. It’s key, it’s essential to have a sense of where you want to go with your jewelry business.

Is that in terms of numbers, like your profitability or your revenue? That’s fine. If your goal is just to enjoy yourself more selling your jewelry, that’s fine. If your goal is to sell at five more shows or do three more home parties this year, that’s fine.

But without goals, your jewelry selling is sort of like water meandering down a hill towards a stream, without much direction except downhill. I don’t recommend that. I really like people having a focus and some clear goals to direct what they’re doing because you will arrange your behaviour around that.

So if your goal for example is to do five home parties this year; you’re chatting with some friends at the local supermarket and one of them mentions that she’s going to be having some kind of summer party, you might think, OK, that’s an opportunity there to discuss doing that as a jewelry home party.

Without that on your radar screen, you may have let the moment go by without taking advantage of that or discussing it with the person; and I don’t mean that all of your friends have to suffer because you’re trying to market your jewelry. But when you have the goals firmly planted in your mind, in your brain; in your unconscious mind, your brain helps you look for ways to achieve those goal

So I really think that number one success tip is to write them down. Discuss them with friends and family, with your business partner (certainly your business partner); but to discuss it with others to make it public and to hold yourself accountable to it.

Gary:

That’s great. Thank you very much for your time today, David.

For those people who have been listening, if you want to find out some more advice from David, you can go his website Marketingjewelry.com. He’s got a free e-book that you can download which is 50 Great Jewelry Selling Techniques.

Thank you again David, for taking the time to catch up with us today.

David:

Gary, my pleasure. Thank you.

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This interview is brought to you by Dionne Payne – Author of Bead Jewelry Profits

In this interview Dionne Payne talks to Gary Capps of Beading-Software.com about ways to maximise your jewelry business revenue.

Dionne Payne is the author of the ebook Bead Jewelry Profits.  Her ebook has helped jewelry makers around the world improve their jewelry business income and profit level.

Gary Capps is the creator of Bead Manager Pro the leading Jewelry Software program used by thousands of jewelry makers to keep their business running and on track.

You can read the full interview below as well download a pdf copy of this interview or listen to a recording of it here;

Dionne Payne Interviews Gary Capps of Beading-Software.com

Dionne: Hi everyone and welcome to the Bead Jewelry Profits Interview series. My name is Dionne Payn and I’m the host for the interview today. During this series we’re going to be exploring some of the challenges that face bead jewelry artists as well as talking about some of the strategies that we can use to overcome them.

Now today I’m delighted to introduce Gary Capps the creator of Bead Manager Pro which was designed to help bead jewelry artists automate their business and also price their jewelry creations resulting in more profit – which I think is always a good thing!

So welcome Gary, it’s really good to be talking to you and I’m sure the listeners to this call are going to get a lot out of our interview today.

Gary: Hey Dionne thanks for having me.

Dionne: Thank you very much. Now Gary before we start on the meaty stuff I just wanted to ask you a bit about your background and how you got involved in the bead jewelry industry.

Gary: Well my actual background is in PLC programming. I used to do programming for buildings so setting them up to run anything that you want in a building off of a computer basically. And I got involved with, I started developing the Bead Manager Pro software with my wife. She was actually creating jewelry and doing beading and through some of the forums that she was on she found some people on there who were asking how they could do certain things with software and they couldn’t find software that would help them with their inventory and pricing their jewelry primarily. So she came to me and said, ‘Well what do you think about this?’, so we created something we did a bit more research then we created a demo piece of software and really it went from there. That was a few years ago now and it’s developed into the software package that we’ve sold now to hundreds of people all over the world.

Dionne: Wow. So I guess during the few years that you’ve been running the software you’ve had a lot of input from different bead jewelry artists. I just wanted to get your opinion, what would you say was the best piece of advice for somebody that’s looking to grow their business from a hobby to create an income?

Gary: Well going from a hobby to income you need to really stop first of all and decide if running your own business is the right thing for you. To a lot of people, especially if you’ve given up a steady pay check to run your own business find that can be pretty daunting especially if you’ve got financial commitments which most people do have. So I’d suggest proceeding with some caution first of all and do a bit of research on yourself. Figure out if you’ve actually got what it takes to run a successful business.

You know how to make jewelry but do you know how to keep the books, manage your inventory, manage cash flow, do marketing, advertising and everything else that a small business person has to do. You’ve got to become the master of everything in your small business.

But if you’ve not got those skills, you can leverage off someone else who’s got those skills you need. Just get a clear plan in your mind of what you want to do and where you want to go and then really you’ve just got to work hard to get something up and running ‘cause there’s not too much substitute for good old hard work when you’re actually trying to start something. But once you’ve got it started all of these things start to gain momentum of their own and it does get a lot easier as you get going.

Dionne: Absolutely. And often its taking that first step, which is always the hardest but once you’ve got the first step you just have to take another step, another step and before you know it you’ve actually gone quite far, it’s a bit like starting your own business isn’t it?

Gary: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

Dionne: So when you start out in a business venture, i.e in your bead jewelry business, what would you say are the top 3 tips that you should know.

Gary: I’ll tell you number one – have some sort of plan anyway. I mean a lot of people I’ve seen follow business plans and a lot of people advocate having that rigid business plan of what you’ll do, work out your revenue that you expect to make every month and plan out your activities.

For me personally. in the businesses that I’ve started and run and I’ve started and run a few, being too rigid doesn’t work for me because I’ve always found that the business will change as you develop. I tend to have a plan of where I’m starting and where I want to go with steps along the way but I keep it pretty fluid because a lot of things that will turn up that you’ve never really dreamed of actually happening.

But as long as you’ve got a clear goal of what you want to achieve and keep focussed on that and then adapt what you’ve got on paper to make sure that you actually get there.

And I also think you’ve got to try and remember what you’re doing this for. By that I don’t mean how much money you want to make but what’s the real goal that’s actually driving you. So it might be that you just love making jewelry so that you’re happy making all day long so that you’ve got enough money to pay the bills and pay for some groceries which definitely beats working 9 to 5 in some kind of office cubicle.

But maybe you want to run your business from home to have time with your kids but you actually want to grow that business as well so that’s a good financial provider so that one day you’ve got enough money from your business to provide for your kids college fund. So working out what’s the motivator for you to run your own business I think is very important and then working towards that. Sorry we had 3 things didn’t we?

So number 2 I think you definitely have to have some cash behind you, starting now in business, you’ve got to make sure that you’ve got enough money to fund yourself ‘cause generally that might mean if you’re starting your own business you’re giving up some kind of regular income.

So you’re going to have to budget right to run your business, pay for your stock, advertising, attending fairs, functions and so on. But just because you’ve stopped having the money coming in from your regular business doesn’t mean that the bills won’t stop so you’ve got to make sure that you cover yourself, don’t get yourself into any kind of financial debt really if you can help it.

And then number 3 I think it’s really important to make sure that you get the support of your family and your loved ones. It is hard work, generally when you start out on any new business venture and I definitely know that myself that from working till the early hours of the morning to get stuff done because like I said earlier you have to become the master of everything in your small business when you begin, until you can
branch out and get people helping you.

It can be very hard work so you’ve got to have a partner that understands and gets on board with that. And if not a partner then hopefully if you’ve got a family member or friend or someone who can actually support you at times.

But then with any hard work that you go through then you need someone to actually celebrate the rewards at the end of it because there’s always good things that happen. I know myself with my business with BeadingSoftware.com. I also work my wife, she’s a published author and she’s franchised her own company. So we both share in the businesses, the good things and the bad things but we try to make sure that we always celebrate the good times and reward ourselves for a job well done and that can be anything simple. So make sure you reward yourself and it might just be having a night off with a DVD, going out for dinner, whatever it is but celebrate the milestones along the way in your business as well, make sure that you realise what you’re doing it for.

Dionne: That’s really good advice Gary. So just to sum up, decide what motivates you, which is so important because when the hard times come you have to have that behind you to say, ‘ok well this is what I’m doing it for, this is the higher purpose.’

Gary: Yeah absolutely like a lot of people think they’re doing their business for money and obviously money is very at the forefront of your mind when you start a business but really what’s the reason what you’re trying to earn that money for and it might be for your kids, to pay for your house, to buy a new car whatever it is there’s always something underlying there that you are doing that for.

Dionne: Absolutely. And to summarise point 2, make sure that you’ve got some cash behind you because yeah when you start a business it often takes a while before you get regular cash flow.

And also to make sure that you’ve got your family and friends support. I liked what you said about celebrating your successes as well. Often we don’t do that we just move from one thing to the other and its like oh yeah we’ve done that! But definitely celebrating your successes – that’s a big thing because that feeds into that motivation loop as well.

Gary: Yeah absolutely. If something is done well if you’ve just started out your jewelry business and you’ve made some good sales that week go out and spend a bit of money on yourself, have a good time and enjoy it because that was the whole point. Don’t just go, oh worked really hard that week and I’ll work hard next week – try and have some fun at the end of the day.

Dionne: Now there’s a lot of talk in business about finding your USP or your Unique Selling Proposition. Why do you think that’s so important?

Gary; Well I think having a USP really is just so that you’re actually memorable. At the end of the day, there’s a million choices for absolutely everything out there. So if you don’t stand out from the crowd you just become part of it. So if you can find even a simple way to differentiate yourself, that can really help to get people talking about you and your work.

Dionne: I agree with that too and in Bead Jewelry Profits, the e book that I’ve written, I talk about the importance of finding your niche. With that it means that you can charge more for your products because you know the group of people that you are specifically targeting and you know that you’re going to be the best in that niche which is a really powerful tool, I mean once you’ve got the niche yeah you can charge more because you are the go to person, people really respect that.

Gary: Yeah absolutely, you can build a fan base around that which is very important.

Dionne: Exactly. So if you were going to advise a bead jewelry artist who was looking at starting or had a hobby and wanted to move that into a business, how would you recommend that they go about doing it?

Gary: Well someone once told me, they said if you treat your business like a hobby then it will pay you like a hobby, but if you treat your business like a business it will pay you like a business. So I guess that really means just take it seriously.

Making jewelry it might be lots of fun for you, you might really enjoy it and that’s great but if you’re flat broke then how much fun is that going to be. I know we did say that the money is not the major motivator here but at the end of the day we’ve still got to eat and pay the bills. So if your hobby is making jewelry then your business really needs to become selling jewelry and that can be quite different.

Dionne: That’s really good advice actually, yeah I agree with that. While we’re talking about selling jewelry, one thing that my clients often say to me is, ‘oh I just don’t know how to price my jewelry’. It almost seems to be a psychological thing because they feel that, ‘oh well nobody is going to pay what its worth’. So what would be your suggestion as to finding the best way to price your jewelry?

Gary: Yeah this is a really interesting question because this is one of the main reasons why we actually developed Bead Manager Pro in the first place. And we have so many customers that prior to using our software actually had no idea how to price their jewelry and this is part of what my wife actually found in the forums when we decided to create Bead Manager Pro.

So many people just guess at what their completed piece is worth and they forget to factor in all the actual parts that went into it plus the time. And practically no one thinks about the overheads because you’ve got to pay for electric, rent, phone, the internet and all that kind of stuff which you have to account for if you’re going to actually be a business. So you need to actually be able to work out all these things accurately to price your jewelry or you might as well just be running a hobby.

And that’s something you can actually do with Bead Manager Pro really easily. You can just enter in your salary requirements and your overheads when you create pieces and Bead Manager Pro works out all that for you and just factors in the cost of the parts, your hourly rate and your overheads. Again overheads are a very important thing, like I say that’s something a lot of people just forget. They’ll think about maybe how many parts went in there, how many beads, the string, the clasp and so forth and they’ll figure out well I spent half an hour actually making this but your half an hour is not just the time it takes to create your jewelry you’ve got to pay for a lot of other stuff on top of that and you shouldn’t forget that as well.

Dionne: I remember I referred one of my clients to the Pricing Calculator that you have that’s freely available from your website and I remember she came back and she said, ‘oh well I was really surprised, I’ve been way under pricing ..’

Gary: Yeah we get that quite a lot from people. They have a look and they just didn’t realise what they’re doing and people can be working for almost the minimum wage or even below because they don’t realise that their time is worth a lot more than they’re actually valuing it at. So that’s a really important thing to do if you want to move from a hobby to a business you’ve got to look at that and say well this is what my time is worth and this is what I need to do.

Dionne: There’s also a psychology behind it as well. Now maybe I’m going to get flamed for saying this, it’s a bit controversial. But there seems to be almost a starving artist mentality and anybody that wants to break out of that – anybody that actually wants to make money from their bead jewelry seems to get everybody else’s back up. Have you noticed that as well?

Gary: Oh absolutely, I mean there’s always that we call it over here the Tall Poppy Syndrome, you stand up too high someone wants to lob their head off and so its always it can be easier to just hunker down and try not to stand out too much and charge too much for your pieces.

But if you’re making good quality pieces then that’s worth something and you shouldn’t be afraid to actually go for the price. There’s been a lot of cases in other businesses I know of where… this is actually going slightly off topic here. Now Donald Trump, he was selling some apartments, they wouldn’t sell, he raised the price on them by, I can’t remember the figures now but fifty or hundred thousand dollars whatever. Everyone suddenly went, ‘oh my God, these must be exclusive ‘cause they’re so much more expensive’ and he sold them all. So you can price stuff, people will pay for it because it’s got an exclusivity to it and it’s got to be worth something if you’re charging that much. So don’t be afraid to charge for what your stuff is worth.

Dionne: And if Donald Trump can do it so can we!

Gary: Absolutely. Slightly different there sorry with the luxury apartments and making jewelry but the case is the same.

Dionne: It’s having the self confidence and I think it ties really well in defining your niche and defining your unique selling proposition. Once you’ve got that in place, once you know how you can differentiate from other people then you can charge the money for it.

Gary: Sure.

Dionne: Now one of the things about creating bead jewelry and especially selling it online as well is that it’s a lot different to going to a craft fair or wearing your pieces so that people can see them.

So taking really good photos is important. Do you have any advice on how to do that how to take good photos of jewelry?

Gary: Yeah I mean I don’t pretend I never have pretended to be an expert in making jewelry but actually showing off to sell it is a little bit of an art in itself. So there are few basic things that you kind of need to follow.

So number one try and fill the frame so the frame of the picture that you’re actually taking with the piece that you’re trying to showcase they don’t have a big picture that just has a tiny little piece or earring or something in the middle of it that you cant really see. Make sure you fill it up. If you’re putting stuff in a catalogue or on your website, then make sure everything is in the same alignment, keep it all horizontal or vertical. You don’t want to trying to flip pages round from one to the other as you’re going through it. Obviously make sure that your pictures are clear, they’re sharp, don’t have fuzzy images, that’s not going to help them sell at all.

Try and have a background that complements what you’re photographing so if you don’t have like a multi colour background with a multicoloured bead necklace cause that’s not going to stand out, you’re not going to see it. Definitely don’t do that famous EBay shop where there was a guy who was selling some cutlery. What he actually did he laid it out on the toilet seat to take the photograph and then he took that photo of his cutlery on the toilet seat and he put that up on EBay to sell it so don’t do anything like that.

And there’s one very simple thing which instead of actually taking photographs which can be a little bit difficult ‘cause you’ve got to line yourself up, you might need some kind of tripod or overhead system for laying your camera, keep it horizontal and lining up. Just use a flat bed scanner. If you’ve got a flat bed scanner, and they’re very cheap to buy, then just put your pieces on there and scan the images in rather than actually photographing them ‘cause that will keep them perfectly still and with most flat bed scanners now as well they come with some kind of software so that once its scanned it in you can crop that image you can rotate it you can resize them very simply and that can give you really good clear images.

Dionne: That sounds like a great idea. Thanks for the advice Gary. And so we’ve spoken about finding your USP and pricing your jewelry and also taking photographs. So you’ve got your jewelry piece, where would you start with your marketing at first.

Gary: I would definitely start with friends, maybe current work colleagues as well if they’re reasonably good friends at work because its so easy these days with friends to give recommendations for you. Especially with all the social networking now not just regular word of mouth but with Twitter and Facebook and Myspace. There are all these sites where people can go on there, they can tell their friends and then they can go on to Facebook these days and put a little picture of them wearing their new necklace and earrings and show it off.

But also a referral from a friend is always so much more powerful than any other type of marketing because there’s already trust built into that relationship. So I’ll tell you try showing off some of your jewelry pieces to friends, you can be pretty sure that someone will want something made for them as well. And if you’re creating unusual pieces or just exceptionally good quality pieces if that’s your USP then they’ll show that to their friends and so on and so on and so on. Maybe even start out if you want to get your work out there to start getting a bit of word of mouth marketing through your friends then maybe start by giving some of your friends pieces that you’ve made for birthday or Christmas gifts something like that. So just get some of your stuff out there to begin with.

Dionne: That’s also very good advice. And that the word of mouth thing is so powerful it’s quite surprising isn’t it?

Gary: Oh it’s huge. I mean it’s just massive. It’s because there’s such an inbuilt trust in that because if a friend of yours tells you that they bought something from somewhere and they liked it then quite likely that if you need whatever that thing is next time you’re very likely to go there and get that yourself. It is the best marketing tool there is if you can get enough word of mouth going on.

Dionne: Now I was reading the e-book you have the other day that is advertised on your site and there was something that caught my eye and I thought oh this is really interesting. You talk about jewelry parties. So for anybody that hasn’t heard of that before what is it and what’s the best way to get started?

Gary: So what is it? I guess you never heard of a jewelry party but you’ve probably heard of Tupperware parties or Avon or those makeup parties or even Ann Summers parties dare I say that? Where you get all the girls round and look at different stuff.

Basically its just hosting some kind of party where you’ll get people round, you’ll put on an event and it can either be at your house or a friends and you can showcase your jewelry. The best way generally to get started with that is with your friends, so you might want to start with running your jewelry party at your home so you can invite people round maybe put on a bit of finger food, a couple of drinks or something like that to make a good evening out of it as well. And then what you want to do if you want to expand those, you need to reach out to other people. So if you start with your first one and just invite your friends what you really want to be doing is getting your friend’s friends.

So what you can do is offer some incentive, so if you run your first party then you might say to your friends there, ‘look if any of you guys if you want to run a jewelry party then what I’ll do I’ll give you a percentage of the profits from that party maybe or you might give them some jewelry in gifts or a present or whatever it might be something to incentivise them to host the party. So then when they host the next party for you, you give them their gifts whatever it is and ask at the next party, ‘so look if anyone here would like to host the party then I will give you the same thing’, whatever that might be again.

So try to make sure that you actually have a good party that everyone has a good time at them by creating that successfully then everyone will be happy they’ll be relaxed and not too pressured into buying and as we were saying earlier word of mouth relationship marketing is very important so people always buy from friends.

Metaphorically speaking that means that people don’t buy from someone they don’t like so even if you don’t know all the people at the party then its important that they like you and consider you a friend even if only for the evening and then you can grow basically your networking from there.

And also when you’re at these parties try and build your own database so if you can get names and phone numbers and emails and so on from guests you can build your own little database. There’s a whole host of other things that you can do which as you mentioned in our e-book which you get from the website Beading-Software.com. Then just making sure that you really run a good fun party environment and having those incentives for people to host it and to bring their friends along then that’s what’s going to help you to network really within your crowd of friends and then your friend’s friends and your friend’s friend’s friends and so on and so on and so on.

Dionne: Now that’s powerful stuff there Gary! So what you’re saying is that by organising your friends and their friends and getting referrals from that group as well you can actually build your business. It would be quite a quick and easy way because you’ll be having fun and the word of mouth thing is happening for you as well.

Gary: Yeah it’s really just looking at a way that you can socially interact and push that word of mouth marketing with some incentive as well for people to help you out and if they have a good time then they’re going to have no problem with doing that.

Dionne: Absolutely. So Gary we’ve gone through the call and it’s been a really great call, we’ve got a lot of things out of this, so thank you very much.

Gary: No problem.

Dionne: Now if one of our listeners wanted to find out a bit more about you and about the bead jewelry software that you have how could they get a hold of you?

Gary: Yep, so you can just visit our website which is www.beading-software.com. We’ve got our software on there, Bead Manager Pro and you can also go there and download the free e-book that we talked about as well which covers quite a lot of this stuff in depth there too.

Dionne: Fantastic. Now I’m going to have a link to that on my website as well so that will make it a lot easier for everybody that’s listening on the call.

Gary: Ok good.

Dionne: Wonderful. Well Gary thank you so much for your time and I’m sure that everybody who’s been listening to this interview is just going to be so inspired and they’ll run off and figure out how to market their businesses and their jewelry in such a good way. So thank you very much for your time.

Gary: No problem at all – thank you for having me.

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