Question about self promotion

Hi, Karleen;

I mostly make beads, that is my full time job. But, I do have a few designs I like to make, and in order to afford the cost of sterling etc... I decided to sell a few pieces. One cool place I started out in was my beauty shop.

I went in to get my hair cut and kind of mentioned to the girl doing my hair that I did jewelry on occassion and was looking into getting some of my bracelets into a few salons. Of course I was wearing a nice bracelet and just happened to bring some samples in my bag :). She went wild for them, called over the manager, and essentially did all my selling for me. :) They decided to give it a try.

I set up the display, in the glass case they had at the counter, made sure each piece had my web address and card, and provided the gift boxes - stamped with my name. They take a 25% profit from the sales - plus any percentage if the customer used a cc. ***NOTE*** Always have an inventory sheet and have the manager of the Salon sign off on it so that you can keep track of what sold etc...*** The neat thing is that once I was in the shop people called me and asked for custom orders.

My next venture was a bit different. I mailed out brochures to some local gift shops, ****NOTE ****steer away from the lower end shops, pick out shops in more upscale areas, as the customers there are more willing to pay higher prices for artisan jewels. OK, back to the topic

- I took great care with my pictures, used Word to design the brochure and had Kinkos print them out - I think the total cost was less then $50, since I wanted color and glossy paper. I wrote a short note to the store owner ***KEEP IT SHORT*** people are busy and don't have time to read a long bio etc.... and asked if they would be interested in setting up an appt. to view my designs.

I think I sent out about 30 brochures, and I got 5 responses - which is good. Of the 5, I ended up in 4 of the shops. The neat thing is that these shops pay up front - no more consignment like the beauty shop. Though I am still in 3 beauty shops and love to go and see what is selling. ***NOTE*** If you are shy like me - be sure that each peice you bring to the shop already has the amount you want - RETAIL - for the item. It is much easier to do that then under sell yourself. I found that it was much easier for me to say the price when they asked, by saying: "hmmm.... let's see this is marked at $100 retail, and my wholesale is 50% so for you it is $50". This prevents you from selling a bracelet you spent 8 hours designing for $10 all because you froze when they asked the price - lol. Can you tell this happened to me before??

I only have a few peices in each store, and they would like more, but I just don't have the time to make beads and design. To be honest I don't have a designers eye when it comes to finished pieces so it takes me a long time to get a piece that pleases the eye. Mainly I use this venue to get myself out of the house - lol. Since lampworking is a bit solitary and I too am really shy!

Hope this helps a bit! Denise

Vibrant Jewels wrote:

Thanks Denise, you bring up a lot of good points and ideas!~

Get a friend to do some of the promotion for you, or at least write it for you. They're both more honest and less hard on the artist, I can't say anything nice about my work because it embarrasses me but I can say great stuff about anyone else's stuff without a problem.

-Su

Maybe we can form a self-help, self-promtion group? Everyone can write the stuff for someone else.

-Su

Indeed it does.

Tina