#65: How to Do a 15-Minute Money Reset as a Creative

Mastering Your Jewelry Business: Pricing, Marketing, and Financial Strategies

In this episode of The Jeweler's View, host Courtney Gray draws from her extensive 25-year experience in the jewelry industry to share invaluable insights on transitioning from a hobbyist to a creative business owner. Joined by guest Erin, the discussion covers strategies for pricing handmade jewelry, understanding financials, leveraging tiered products, and effectively marketing to different customer segments. They emphasize the importance of regular financial reviews, setting achievable goals, being mindful of inventory costs, and nurturing customer relationships to build a sustainable jewelry business. Listeners are encouraged to track their progress, utilize resources like Courtney's website, and reach out with questions. 

Erin D. White

Hexagon Strategy Group

Helping Entrepreneurs Do Well by Doing Good

 erin@hexagongrp.com |  www.hexagongrp.com

 - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erindwhite/

 - Website: https://hexagongrp.com/

 - Ideation Boot Camp Interest Form

Personal and Business Finances_Simple Workbook

Transcript

 Edited #65: How to Do a 15-Minute Money Reset as a Creative

Welcome to The Jeweler's View. I'm Courtney Gray, metalsmith educator and creative business strategist. After 25 years in the jewelry industry, running one of the country's top metalsmithing schools, coaching artists, advising companies and organizations, and hosting interviews with some of the best in the craft.

Each week I share the lessons I had to learn the hard way so you can build a rhythm that supports your creative work, your values, and the life and business you actually want. Find tools, coaching and my transform course@courtneygrayarts.com and let's get to work. 

Courtney Gray: we're all coming from our own background and I've got women in my membership now and in Transform also coaching clients who are coming from working in corporate America, they've been striving for these goals for a long time. you know what to look at, right? But when it comes to your own creative business and [00:01:00] service, somehow it shifts big time, and we get into a mindset of, don't know how to do any of it.

Erin White: Right.

Courtney Gray: It is like we forgot, you know?

Erin White: Okay.

Courtney Gray: So I think what we're trying to do with you all today, and Erin, I know you can help us simplify this in a way that makes it less daunting, less scary, less vulnerable. look at the financials and build the numbers towards your goals.

, We're looking at investments in our life. What does it cost for us to live the life that we want to live, and then do we want that to shift? Do we want vacations in there?

Of course we do.

Erin White: You must. It is a given. You have to put it in there

so for your business expense, you have to put your own payment in there.

You have , a jeweler's formula, for selling your goods.

And hopefully your own labor is included in that, and I can't tell you what to pay yourself, but whether it's $20 an hour, $50 an hour, $75 an hour, if it takes you, 20 minutes to make something, then you prorate it based on that. So don't forget to put your hourly rate in what you wanna bring home a month into your business [00:02:00] expenses,

Courtney Gray: this is one of the biggest topics for jewelers that I hear Erin,

Erin White: I'm sure.

Courtney Gray: For creatives is what the heck do we pay ourselves? Start with something. I'm telling you, even if it's a hundred dollars a month, start,

Erin White: I know.

Courtney Gray: Start, you're like, no, don't do that,

Erin White: Don't say it.

Courtney Gray: but start somewhere is what I mean.

Erin White: Right,

Courtney Gray: we need to see that money coming into your personal account, as a labor charge

Erin White: Yeah.

Courtney Gray: at some point, I think many of us are stepping out of hobbyists into creative business owners,

Erin White: what do you want me to talk about first?

Courtney Gray: I wanna hear about that. Well, let's assume we just looked at our numbers, right? We looked at what we're trying to manifest or build for our lives,

Erin White: Right,

Courtney Gray: and our businesses

including our vacation time, including our tuition for our kid,

we have that in front of us now.

Erin White: When you think about your pricing and you think about how do you want to price, right? So you have different types of pricing. This is the advice I've given anybody who does one of a kind work, special work like you all do people are paying for your brain and that is invaluable, period.

Full stop, end of story. . And that's [00:03:00] what you sell on. But your marketing has to match that. Your verbiage has to match. It's the easiest time in the world now to teach, an AI agent.

Who you are. I built an agent for my mom, right? So it knows everything about her. So when I'm doing her captions and everything, they're writing it like it's her. Okay, well, it is right in like it's her. if you are doing value-based pricing, you have to put you into it and no matter how scared you are to hit post or submit on your website, do it anyway.

If you always assume that you are gonna be too low, then start with 5% increase, 10% increase.

Do something that makes you, a little bit scared but also comfortable. Do that and increase it accordingly. So the other things you can do in this crazy market, it's a crazy market. And guys, you gotta understand, I'm generally speaking, I don't know any of you's, business, whatever. And there's an opportunity.

Actually you said this last episode and it's really quite genius. So if you are doing things with gold or doing things with silver or platinum what can you put in there that society really cares about? Is there a recyclable material that you can 

put in ?

And then it goes to value-based pricing. Do you have your customer avatars? If, if, just do me a favor. We don't have time now. Google it. Google customer avatar. Do the most basic avatar you can do. I'm sure Courtney talks about in her course she can help you do, do an an avatar.

Does your person even care about sustainability? If they do care about sustainability, then it may be very interesting for you to come up with something that has. Precious metals [00:04:00] or gemstones or something that is also sustainable, , doesn't have bamboo on, it doesn't have, I have no idea.

But that way, you lower your price, whereas you used to make your entire piece out of gold or your entire piece out of platinum. Now you're doing these amazing different designs with both sustainable materials and materials that we pull out of the earth. If we wanna go into tiered products, then you can have your high end things and then what if you found a manufacturer, whether it was US based or not right now, 'cause of the tiff. You might wanna find somebody local where you could do some things that some of your customers like, oh my God, I love that.

So if there's something or design that you could do more sustainably and you know, people like that and people are gonna buy it, you can do that at a different tier. Still great material. So now we're talking about three tiers that you can mitigate.

The prices going up, right? Another thing you can do, so if you buy a sheet of something, like a sheet of metals,

Say you bought it last year. This time. [00:05:00] It was $15 cheaper. I don't know if it drops or goes up that much, but maybe it does do not factor that price in when you're selling it today. You gotta factor in today's price for what that is.

So when you think about it across the board, now you've mitigated your margin, and it's not dishonest. This, this is what it's going for today, right?

You are more skilled. So if you charge $10 an hour last year, maybe you are up to, you know, $15,, and factor it in your labor. Just like I want you to check your numbers weekly. And I'm sure metals go up every day 'cause of the market.

And maybe something you just have to check that day. Whatever sites you all go and check. You change the price.

Right? When you buy something, label how much it was and what year you bought it, if you can do that. So you know you're being fair and that'll lessen you second guessing yourself all the time about what you should do.

What do you think about that?

Courtney Gray: I love that. And right now, yeah, it's, let's get scrappy and let's get real, right?

Let's get real with the numbers. And to me, that's replacement cost. It's not what it cost you to make it 10 [00:06:00] years ago. It's what is it going to cost for you to replace now?

We are seeing metal spike higher than ever. I think they will drop at some point,

Erin White: Mm-hmm.

Courtney Gray: we're in the thick of this,

we're having to , the courage up to charge what we need to replace the goods,

Erin White: Yeah. But also it's an opportunity to be creative. To say, how can I do things?

So you, and, and maybe it takes you taking a poll of your customers that have nothing to do with Juul. Just send out a survey is, you know, for example, I use ConvertKit for my ESP, for my email service provider, and they've included polls now. Right. And even if you don't have a poll, you can insert a poll in your email

Courtney Gray: There's a lot of fear around putting out something we assume, that they are their own customer,

Yeah.

probably true to a certain extent, like your ICA or your ideal customer avatar

probably has some similar traits

we're essentially making for ourselves in the beginning

Erin White: So traits and pockets are two different things. , Your customer, they may share your traits, but they may not share your pockets. And we should not be counting other people's money. To Courtney's point, what's the price? The price is the price. And put it up there.

There's somebody that's gonna do it. And let me just say this. [00:07:00] During any recession, has Beverly Hills ever closed?

Courtney Gray: This does not have to put you out of business

Erin White: There is a group of people that have money and they will always have money.

We won't even get into the reasons why. Okay? Does it matter? Does it matter? Are they your people?

Do they want your goods? Do you need to start selling to a different demographic, especially if you have tiered pricing, you have to segment your marketing. It may make your business a bit more interesting, but it also helps you stay more than a float.

It actually makes you a true business. So let's just go to Ralph Lauren. He has his place in Macy's, right? Now he's designing for HBCUs. They have their own line of Ralph Lauren, that's a whole different segment.

They realized that more than rich white folks that live on, the Hamptons, buy his clothes. [00:08:00] So you need to segment to that. So sometimes it also involves research, like who are the other people that would buy my stuff? It could open up a whole new world.

Courtney Gray: That's growth,

that's getting scrappy, that's getting wise and

Erin White: Yeah.

Courtney Gray: true business and. of this assumption of thinking, my customers will not be able to afford the price change.

Erin White: And it's also saying that my stuff is good enough that other demographics would want it,

 And you don't have to change your design, so many different things you could do to put your product in front of other people.

Courtney Gray: There's no limits to the market that you can reach

it's getting creative with your marketing. It's learning those things. It's devoting some time to getting more confident and more willing to step outside of the box 

Erin White: that's what I was gonna say, that confident piece, I'm sure the work that all of you do is amazing. Let other people see it, you know?

Courtney Gray: Don't hide your light.

Erin White: Right, exactly.

Courtney Gray: And never make assumptions because you [00:09:00] don't know until you put it out there. You don't have enough data to truly say. I can't charge this I'll price my customers out.

Erin White: Correct.

Courtney Gray: you may, and that's where I love this

you have a low end option for people, you have a high end option.

Erin White: Mm-hmm.

Courtney Gray: and how do you market to them differently? 

Erin White: You all have businesses that people buy from periodically. So it's always gonna be important to nurture that customer. So if I have a kid, which I don't, but if I have lots of nieces, nephews, all these people, I'm like, oh, but this graduation time, all these graduation gifts are coming up.

So I should consider Courtney's business. Because now I know I can get a graduation gift from them. And you run that through your email list. Graduation's coming up, we have some amazing pieces that speak to graduation

and so those are different things that you can do. But I did wanna, I'm gonna pause there and, you know, give you some airtime, but, I wanna talk about the different types of products as well.

Courtney Gray: Reaching out to your audience, sending the newsletters out regularly, following up with them. Because those who have bought from you already are your best customers.

That's your customer [00:10:00] base. I've seen their children come to me.

Grandchildren because I built the trust 10, 15 years ago, I'm their go-to, because they've had a good experience with me and I keep in touch.

Get their email, a phone number if they're willing we don't have to bug 'em, but we do have to stay relevant

we have to remind them that you're still here doing your thing.

Erin White: Stay in their inbox with things that matter to them. So my platform, the hospitality of business. , It's to let them know, Hey, I know it's the holidays. You don't even have to sell to them if you don't want to. But hey, the holidays are coming up.

This is the thing. I was on the phone with one of my clients, lawyers the other day and I was like, I saw a post. They said that this we're rounding out the end of the year, and it doesn't seem like anybody's slowing down. He was like, oh my God, I feel the same way. Like nobody slowed down.

Talk about that in your email. Are you fatigued? How's it going for you? This is what's happening for me . You don't have to say anything else, but to Courtney's, you are still you and you are interested in in them what's happening to them, you know?

And I think that that's important to do . So some people say it's 3, 3, 1, 3, 3, 1. So, or two, two or 1, 1, 2, or whatever it is you touch, touch, sell, touch, touch, sell, or touch, touch, sell. You know what I mean?

You would do that in a relationship with anybody.

Just be a real friend, be a real company that actually likes these people

Okay, so I'm off my soapbox. There are a few things that we call products and how, and, and they speak to how these products perform. One of the things that Courtney asked me to do is explain how do you look at your portfolio, right?

, And I'm, and I'm gonna talk about, in terms of grocery store, I like to give. Analogy so we can pull up. So you have things like loss leaders, cash, [00:11:00] cows, anchor products, and sometimes you have premiums, right? So in terms of a grocery store, well used to be, used to be the way things are skywriter.

So loss leaders used to be eggs. Milk bread, stuff like that. They're lower cost items that get you in to buy the filet mignon or the duck, these are loss leaders, right? They, you know, you have to come in for staples.

Just think of everything that people buy when it snows, when it threat or snow. That's the loss leader. But then once you're in there, instead of. Broccoli, you'll buy broccolini that's a little bit higher tier or maybe some fennel so think about it like this.

And green onions, you'll buy lees instead of green onions. Now, cash cow is something that is high margin, but low growth. So you could take the iPhone. A super high margin. I don't care what they say, it's super high margin, it's a cash cow for them. Apple makes so much money on them, maybe not. The iMac though, that's what I'm doing. This show on the iMac is not the cash. Everybody needs a phone, but not everybody needs an iMac.

And then you have big ticket items, so I'm gonna pull it back to your world a little bit so gold diamond and crusted choker that is a anchor item those are different tiers that a lot of people that make products don't even think about. Now, a person like me in services, I'm always thinking about that

but product owners, you can think about that too and put [00:12:00] some ad dollars behind it on how you take care of things. How do you take care of costume jewelry?

How do you take care of gold jewelry? How do you store it? How do you call your insurance company when you get a new piece and add it to your insurance? These are all clever ways. Of helping someone and actually doing them a service.

So now you can market to them and you know that they're the type of person that would buy from you.

Courtney Gray: How do we track what's working?

Say you put all these efforts in and you're getting some return how do you gauge what's working? What should we do more of? potentially should we remove?

Erin White: Yeah, and that's why I went over these four things. That's why I went over the loss leader, the anchor product, the cash cow premium, because you'll be able to see how much of those you move. So if you know that you have a higher end product, you can see how much of those you move. If you moved one in a year, that's not your thing.

So let's say your anchor product isn't moving.

You sold [00:13:00] one of your higher end things in a year, did you know who your customer was? Did you seek them out and did you really push it?

The the and, and I'm literally making all this stuff up, but where you vended, what did it cater to? That crowd. Because I've often told my mom, I said, these are not your people.

They are not your people. We need to stop going to these events because these are not your folks. They're not buying a $350 handcrafted necklace made out of Jade and Coral.

Courtney Gray: It's not your crowd.

Erin White: So when you look at your p and l, that's a profit and loss statement. Look at, your numbers or your sales report, and you are moving something that's mid-tier faster, should you make it in different colors?

You gotta look at your sales reports and those are monthly. Look at your sales report and make determinations and also talk to your customer, the people that bought it, why did you buy it?

And if somebody bought something else, Hey, why did you buy this and not that?

Courtney Gray: [00:14:00] ask those questions.

Erin White: I will say this, a lot of people don't realize how much work it is to have a business and how much thoughtfulness and intentionality goes into it. And it's not just a thing, you know? If you had to do a couple of things to start, you don't have to do all the things.

You definitely gotta look at your sales reports. Definitely gotta talk to your customer. That has to be a high priority. If you're a DHD like mine, if I showed you my calendar, I literally, you'll not be able to see it. But I'm gonna tell you what I have on my calendar. Everything on my calendar lists out when I'm going to record, when I'm going to email my list.

When I'm gonna follow up with my list, when I'm going to create my LinkedIn contact content, it's literally everything is on there.. And then everything has reminders. So three things. Check your sales reports, check your money, and talk to your customers, and everything else you have to do will flow out of that.

Courtney Gray: Some sort of foundation that's approachable here and that you can manage checking in on, it has to be doable. When we set where it's like the smart goals, right? 

You have to block time on the calendar. The first thing we do in Transform is all about that.

Erin White: Yeah.

Courtney Gray: have a digital calendar? If you're on paper still, it's fine, but you have to mark these things down, or they will get loss in the making.

It'd be lovely if we lived in a world where you were a self-made jeweler [00:15:00] and you could just make things, put them out a couple of times and they would sell

work that way. There's no overnight successes here. Those people worked for 10 years before they saw

Erin White: Yep.

Courtney Gray: return on those efforts.

Erin White: Yeah.

Courtney Gray: I love that we started Erin in the last episode with knowing that baseline of what is it that you bring in, do you want your life to look like?

Erin White: Mm-hmm.

Courtney Gray: did those numbers look like?

I have a song in one of the lines. In the song is from necessity, we create the recipe.

Erin White: That's it.

Courtney Gray: that's it, right? 

Erin White: That's it.

Courtney Gray: something, you'll find a way. It may take getting scrappy, trial and error trying this different thing and if it doesn't work, shifting gears. I like the idea of adding in tiers, if you look at the sales reports, if you have a good inventory system or at least some sort of, tracking system

Erin White: Yep.

Courtney Gray: I sold 20 rings,

Erin White: Right.

Courtney Gray: We can work from that data on what's working, moving forward,

what's gonna keep them coming back?

Erin White: Right.

Courtney Gray: So we're saying weekly. You should look at, let's give you guys a little bit of homework to move into your next chapter here.

A baby step towards, bringing [00:16:00] in income from this and making a profit. Instead of what I hear commonly feeling like you're sinking, sinking all of your money

Erin White: Mm.

Courtney Gray: tools, into learning, now honestly, the metals alone, geez, it's gonna knock you out.

Erin White: And can I say this?

Like I've had to tell my mom, don't buy another thing. You got enough? Go ahead and make. Something from everything you have in here.

Stop yourself. Because one thing I have learned with having a mother that has done this now for over a decade is sometimes y'all just like to buy.

Courtney Gray: We love shiny things,

Erin White: Yeah.

Courtney Gray: Yeah.

Erin White: Stop

Courtney Gray: shiny

Erin White: it.

Courtney Gray: Yourself a very small budget if you have to, buy something new. This is such a common, here's another episode, Erin, is we distract ourselves by buying new

Erin White: Right. Literally what I was about to say. And so like I said, when you talk to your customer, some people do. 2, 2, 1. Engage. Engage, sell, engage, engage, engage, sell. Why don't you do this for yourself? Sell, sell, buy, sell, sell, sell, buy, give yourself a limit. On what you're gonna buy. Right?

It takes discipline, discipline is built over time. . Just do 1% better. Believe me, y'all are talking to A-A-D-H-D person. I am talking to myself too when I tell you this 1% better. That's it. Just do something differently today than you did yesterday.

Be kind to yourself. Be compassionate to yourself right now. I don't know if you all have seen it. Right now the monks have walked from Texas all the way to DC on a peace walk. Imagine what that walk takes.

To show the world that we can be peaceful to one another and in our hearts to ourselves. 'cause the reason why there's not peace without is 'cause there's not peace within. And so if for us, this audience, it starts with being kinder and peaceful to yourself and not beating yourself up, then do that.

Instead of me charging one 150 'cause I'm scared to charge too much, I'm gonna charge 1 55. That's a victory. Right? Instead of saying, I haven't looked at my numbers at all, I'm gonna take 15 minutes on Saturday and look at my personal and business expenses

put it on your calendar. When you're gonna check your personal and business expenses.

And that total number that how I wanna live. Number, check your sales reports, [00:17:00] put that on your list. I would encourage you, not unless you're like, you know, Superman or something, do 'em on separate days. 'cause it might be too much to do it all at one time

Courtney Gray: Yeah. Sales reports.

Erin White: Yes.

Courtney Gray: by?

Erin White: I really want you to check those things. And earlier what we were talking about is mindfulness. So Courtney was talking about pay attention to what you feel when these things come up.

Just be mindful of 'em. They're not wrong. There's nothing wrong with it. Just say, okay, this is what it is. I accept it. Take a breath and then get back to it..

Courtney Gray: For myself, I'm looking at my rhythm, you know, and my, comfort level with all of this, and mean, I ran a corporation. It was hard to look at those numbers. You do get used to it. It's nice to have someone like Erin or a financial advisor, someone who, these numbers are just numbers, right?

Erin White: Right,

Courtney Gray: It's so personal, and we can take offense to the numbers if we're not careful, right?

Erin White: Right.

Courtney Gray: I'm not good enough. My value, the work isn't gonna sell. This is never going to work. All these stories that come up. At first

Erin White: Yeah.

Courtney Gray: You will see a shift because you'll just know more.

Erin White: Right,

Courtney Gray: more,

Erin White: right.

Courtney Gray: informed and you'll know what's informing your decision making every day, your marketing efforts,

Erin White: ugh.

Courtney Gray: you know, and

so here's the rhythm we wanna build. And even if you lean into this 1% more than you have in the past, then you're winning.

You're gonna have more clear information to work with

Erin White: Totally.

Courtney Gray: of these assumptions,

Well, maybe we'll bring you back midyear and we'll like do a quarter two check-in. I don't know.

Erin White: I wanna hear from people. I wanna hear what they've been doing

Courtney Gray: okay.

Erin White: And if they have other questions, I'm happy to answer, but I would love to hear from people.

Courtney Gray: How do they reach out to you?

Erin White: You can email me at connect@hexagongrp.com. [00:18:00] Please follow me on LinkedIn. Erin D. White.

I'll be starting my podcast soon. In the beginning of the year, I am gonna have an ideation bootcamp where I'm gonna help existing business owners and people that are thinking about, entrepreneurship, ideate on what their business is or how to iterate on their current business.

And it's gonna be a six week bootcamp?

Courtney Gray: Bringing it to life. 

Erin White: Yes. So I'll give you the link where people can show their interest.

Courtney Gray: Okay, cool. We'll put all of this in show notes. Reach out to me if you need any of this again, but. will link Erin, so she's a new resource for you,

beyond what you may have access to in your orbit. We're all in it to win it together.

Erin White: And it's enough for everyone.

Courtney Gray: There is enough for everyone. I'm so glad that I picked you from the crowd

Erin White: thank you. Must have been universe.

Courtney Gray: That was the universe stuff for sure, because it was like, wait, the one person in this group

Erin White: Yeah,

Courtney Gray: if you guys listened to the beginning of the last episode,

i'm grateful for your time sharing with us

Erin White: I'm grateful for your existence in my life, Thank you 

Courtney Gray: Erin,

Erin White: Yeah.

Courtney Gray: much. 

Erin White: All right.

Take care.

Thanks for listening to The Jeweler's View. If today's episode gave you something to think about, consider sending it to a friend or share it on social and tag me at Courtney Gray Arts. You'll find tools, coaching resources, and the transform course@courtneygrayarts.com. Remember you're not behind.

You're becoming exactly the kind of maker your business needs and that kind of depth. It takes time. I'll be back next week, same time, same tough love, onward and [00:19:00] upward.