Jewelry Business Guru by Cindy Edelstein

JewelryBizGuru Blog has moved to CindyEdelstein.com

Finally! I've got a new look, a new name and a new blog at www.CindyEdelstein.com. I'm so excited!

Expect a lot more content and please don't be shy to comment or ask questions on the new site. CindyEdelstein.com offers a lot more information on the rest of our projects and events, too. So much to share! I hope you join me there.

 

Time Flies! And we need to harness its flight

I'm so surprised by how much time has passed since I last blogged.

I've got a few excuses - you can be the judge of whether they're good or not!

1. We're revamping the blog and while plotting and planning it's new look and feel I may have already "left" my current blog.

2. We're getting ready for the industry's biggest trade show week -- and my head is spinning!

3. I do so much connecting on Facebook my bloggin' has taken a back seat

4. I don't have a set bloggin' plan or schedule so it doesn't rise to the top of the To Do list often enough

 

Do any of these reasons seem familiar to you? How often are you using them as excuses to not get your OWN blog or press release or other communique done?

It's a safe bet to say we all need to juggle better and faster. I also think this shows me that I need to schedule my open time more and put things that are good for "us" on the schedule as much as things that are good for our clients.

Can you relate?

I'll be catching up on some posts shortly.

 

 

Halstead Scholarships Now Available for fledgling jewelry artists to learn business skills at Visiting Artist Program of the Buyers Market of American Craft.

Through a generous gift from Halstead Bead Inc., scholarships are available for jewelry artists who want to receive business training in the Visiting Artist Program of the Buyers Market of American Craft.

     The Visiting Artist Program, coming to Philadelphia February 19-20, 2011, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, will provide one- and two-day workshops teaching craft entrepreneurship -- how to launch a business, develop and promote product lines and price artwork for wholesale and retail sales.

     Participants will tour the Buyers Market of American Craft, the nation’s largest wholesale tradeshow where artists from the U.S. and Canadian studios sell their work to galleries, boutiques, museum shops and catalogs. In addition, participants will receive a portfolio or product critique from retailers and tradeshow managers.

     Offered twice a year, the Visiting Artist Program is tailored for studio-based artists who make and sell jewelry, fashion accessories and designer products for home or office such as tile, pottery, glass art and other fine crafts. The non-profit Arts Business Institute runs the program with a faculty of experienced retailers and artists. The Visiting Artist Program will also be offered this summer in Baltimore, Md., on July 11, 2011.

     Family-owned Halstead Bead Inc., www.halsteadbead.com, of Prescott, Ariz., has been a supplier of findings, chain, beads, wire and tools for jewelry artists since 1973.

    A scholarship donation presented to the Arts Business Institute by Halstead Bead will cover admission fees for several jewelry artists to attend the Visiting Artist Program in 2011. The company’s own Halstead Grant is presented each year to a new jewelry designer.

     To register online for the upcoming Visiting Artist Program, please visit www.artsbusinessinstitute.org. Registration is $75 for a one-day workshop and $130 for a two-day workshop. To receive a scholarship application contact Erin Hartz at [email protected].

The application deadline for scholarships to the Philadelphia program is February 4, 201l. For information call 800.432.7238, ext. 206.

Instore Magazine says: Snap Out of it! Post Recessionary Advice for Jewelers

This made me smile on a dreary Monday morning. Instore magazine's tip of the day eblast was spreading optimism so I felt like contributing to the cause!

Are you still bummed out? Do you see light at the end of your tunnel? Have you started to do things differently to get different results? Tell us about it.

Daily Candy celebrates 10th Anniversary with an Entrepreneur's Launch Contest

Daily Candy is turning 10 and to celebrate their decade of great finds, new discoveries and fantastic new designers they're running an entrepreneur's contest.

One winner from each of their signature categories (fashion, food, and fun) will win a $10,000 trip to New York City, a write-up by DailyCandy editors, and a day at DailyCandy Academy --"where you’ll mingle and brainstorm with the now-iconic entrepreneurs we knew way back when," they say.

Over the years Daily Candy has written about hundreds of jewelry designers and great jewelry boutiques -- this is your chance to really launch big.

Their only requirement: Your service or product must help make life just a little bit sweeter. That’s what DailyCandy is about, after all.

For details and entry form, go to dailycandy.com/startsmallgobig.

Who deserves to be a Design Star?

I can't get this article out of my mind: it published weeks ago but I keep thinking about it. Being in the business of helping designers -- both newcomers and those that have arrived -- I ruminate on the topic a lot.

The New York Times' Eric Wilson covered the glamorous and self-promoting 2010 CFDA Fashion Awards event on June 7th. The tenor of the article is "who deserves stardom?" And it addresses the age old tug of war between talent and fame; longevity vs. newness.

                    He writes:

It is, after all, hard to say who has real talent and staying power or merely the ability to sell themselves effectively, which is why, at the Council of Fashion Designers of America awards ceremony, some provocative comments made by Kim Hastreiter, a founder of Paper magazine, struck a nerve that was in sharp contrast to a night that is normally dominated by a spirit of self-congratulation.

“Just because you’re cute, connected, rich and famous doesn’t necessarily mean you design great stuff,” Ms. Hastreiter said on stage. “We’ve got to stop with this ‘one day you’re in, the next day you’re out’ business. How can you be a genius today and the next year you’re not, because you are off trend?”

I often refer to the luck of the draw, the "one hit wonders" and the yoke of success in all my marketing seminars. And conversely of not stagnating and missing trends that consumers want to buy.

We talk about those in relation to the more prosaic acts of bookkeeping, paying ones dues and knocking on countless doors. There's such a need for basic business knowledge -- and more important, mastery -- that talent alone is the bare minimum job requirement of a entrepreneur.

But it always looks easy for the "other guy." I have yet to find a designer who didn't find greener grass in someone else's yard. No matter how verdant their own plot may be.

We're all seduced by the newest hot designer -- often whom we assume has great heat based on their press coverage or showcase location in Bergdorf's, Neimans or Ylang23/Twist/Moondance Jewelry. We rarely, if ever, know how hot their bank account is and that, of course, is the truest measure of business success.

I've now been around long enough to witness the long and short lifecycles of some very famous, and a few infamous, jewelry designers.

I can tell you for sure -- when it comes to true success it ain't about the jewels. It most often comes down to the marketing and the operations. Marketing to create the desire and operations to sustain the growth.

While I too am often seduced by the design, the designer and the inspiration -- I am now impressed more with the discipline, the command of numbers and the execution of good strategy. I am now more turned on by a spreadsheet firmly in the black than the most colorfully unique design. 

There is a rather low barrier to entry in this field -- even when working with precious materials you can find the cash to start a line. But the ability to grow a business is way more impressive. And way, way harder to do.

And while passion is certainly on the top of the list of traits needed to run your own design firm -- it is closely followed by discipline. And diligence. 

It takes time to develop these skills even if you come by the trait naturally. To quote Michael Kors in the article:

“I waited three years before I ever had a fashion show, and by the time I did I had a business,” Mr. Kors said. “Today the spotlight is so quick that it’s really hard to start anything under the radar today. I don’t know if you can still let a business percolate and grow naturally.” But it is a fact that there are more aspiring designers than ever before. “It may be easier to become a designer, but it’s a lot harder to make it as a designer,” said Mr. Spurr, who trained at Yves Saint Laurent before starting his men’s wear label. “There are a lot of people out there with no training at all, but you have to understand the business side, the public relations, the production and the shipping.”

Read the whole article here.

I missed Project Runway Day in NYC - did you?

image from Racked.com:

Thanks to my favorite new NYFashionista blog, Racked.com, I never miss a trick even when I can't get into Manhattan to shop.

This report on the Project Runway PR coup just made me smile:

"What would lure us into standing outside in midtown for over an hour on this cold Manhattan day? Why, the chance to see Nina Garcia, Michael Kors and our beloved Tim Gunn celebrating Project Runway's return to New York! They were there to help the city proclaim today "Project Runway Day" and temporarily name Seventh Avenue at the Needle Threading a Button statue "Project Runway Avenue."   read the Racked.com blog here

Unemployment Can Lead to Entrepreneurship - NYTimes.com

Interesting Article in NYTimes today about entrepreneurship. Down economies give more people the opportunity to start something of their own.

I think it's true that when the status quo is good (at your old job) you just may not have the drive to start your own thing. But when you're kicked out of the nest, so to speak, you learn quickly how well you can fly.

Maybe less true for artists? You tell me if you needed to be kicked out of the nest or did you leap? Leave us a comment....

Unemployment Can Lead to Entrepreneurship - NYTimes.com.

Others among the unemployed are taking the entrepreneurial route. The most recent Index of Entrepreneurial Activity by the Kauffman Foundation showed a slight uptick of new businesses in 2008 — a full recessionary year — over 2007. An average of 320 Americans out of 100,000 formed a business each month, Kauffman said. What’s more, it found, the patterns “provide some early evidence that ‘necessity’ entrepreneurship is increasing and ‘opportunity’ entrepreneurship is decreasing.” Accidental or by design, entrepreneurship is on the rise again this year. LegalZoom, the online legal document service, says the number of new businesses it helped to form was up 10 percent in the first half of the year, compared with the period a year earlier. “We were surprised,” says Brian Liu, co-founder and chairman of LegalZoom. “We expected there to be a drastic downtick.”

Please take our Jewelry Designer Business Survey

https://app.e2ma.net/app2/survey/8645/11093/3f6d017d3e/

We'd love to have more folks take our survey, "JRB Pulse of the Designer Community Survey, " on what jewelry designers are doing online.... how you're using the tools out there, are you following our tweets, posts and various ways to communicate. And most importantly, what else do you need to succeed and thrive this year?

click this link to go to survey:
https://app.e2ma.net/app2/survey/8645/11093/3f6d017d3e/

Please tell us! It's a quick and easy survey -- and we'll use the statistics to help you and your peers.
Tell your friends, too, if you will be so kind as to forward that link so we can capture as many different perspectives as possible.

Here's a sample of the less than a dozen questions -- see? It's not intimidating.

BusinessWeek Seeking Nominations: Best U.S. Entrepreneurs 25 and Under