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Ask Questions to Sell More Handmade Jewelry

Selecting a Niche for Your Handmade Jewelry

Displaying Your Handmade Jewelry at a National Craft Show

What is a Brand?

Business Systems that Guarantee Success? Brett:  Is There A Business Building System That Guarantees Success? Anne: Is there a business building system that guarantees success? You know, I wish I could say, ‘Yes’ to that question but there really isn’t. To think if there’s a fail-safe system out there I think is a wrong way of thinking and so many marketers put it out there and say ‘Yes, yes! Do this and it’ll work’ but you know it can’t happen because each one of us is really, really different. Let me use pottery as an example. If I take a 5 pound piece of clay and sit down on the potter’s wheel what I end up with is going to be different than what another potter ends up with. Brett: I see what you’re saying. It’s the same system so you’re sitting down at the potter wheel you have the same material that I have but, boy, the output would be extremely different from what I would make. Anne: And it’s exactly the same with business and running and managing a business. I could say to you, ‘take this idea or concept and do exactly this because that’s what worked for me’ but that might not work for you. Brett: I think that’s the difficult part is many people that offer these business systems, it did work for them so they come with the absolute best intentions – it’s one of the reasons they’re so effective at selling these systems because they did it and it worked for them and it’s very natural when something has worked for you just to say ‘hey, if people will just follow the same system that I used it should make them successful as well’. But the issue is – what you pointed out – is that every human in different. So it might’ve worked perfectly for the person that’s offering the system but it might not work at all for someone else who comes at it from a very different perspective. Anne: Exactly and I think that we’re trying to encourage our students not to fall into that trap or that mindset. Just because I wrote a book and one of the leading distributors of beading and jewelry making components saw it, picked it up and wanted to distribute it doesn’t mean that if you write a book the same thing is going to happen for you. So, I think that if you can just take the concepts and do that hard work of internalizing it and bringing out the pieces of it that make sense and work for you, you’ll be so much further ahead than trying to follow somebody else’s step by step guidelines. Brett: I think the point that you’re getting to is be careful about leaning on the system to make you successful. In other words, if you’re so convinced that the system is the greatest thing since sliced bread, you can actually get a little bit mentally lazy and you don’t want to do that. You always want to remember that no matter how good the system – and we’re not saying that all systems are equal, clearly there are some business systems that are better than others – nonetheless, it’s still going to come down to you proving your own skill. It’s going to come down to your desire to succeed. So spend your time and effort really focused on those things and to the extent that you do that, then you have a better chance of whatever system you pick up that the system will do for you what it promised. Anne: Right. And the thing of it is as we’ve discussed in so many of the lessons, the system needs to adjust as you go forward. Brett: That’s right. Okay, Anne, so we got that within five minutes so that’s our tip for the day. For more great “How to Make More Money Making Jewelry” tips head over to our website at www.makemoremoneymakingjewelry.com. Thanks Anne!”