My dear husband suggested that I write a post about all of the things I’ve learned while running my own business. So here goes the tell all of all of my dark secrets…

I am not an outgoing person by nature. I am shy and practical, not a sales person. When clients send an inquiry via my website, I personally respond to every single (legitimate) inquiry that comes in. I have had to really deal with my fear of talking to strangers (I think my parents did too good of a job when I was little on that one.) I try to respond to every inquiry that comes in as soon as I get it in my email box. Some days I have a lot of trouble with that because the idea of sending an email to a stranger is too much to handle at that moment. I’ve learned that if I am not in the mood right away to send an email back, I can put the email aside for awhile and work on building myself up to feeling up to it. Once the conversation gets going with a client, that fear goes away and I look forward to the correspondence.

The practical part of my personality can also be a hindrance to my business. I don’t like to “sell” people jewelry. I create a great product. If you want to buy it, great, if you don’t, that’s cool too. I don’t do sales and discounts because I’m never going to charge a client an outrageous price just so I can discount it. All of the prices I give are hard prices, bottom line, that’s it. This is not how sales people do it. If you go to a jewelry store, if you stay there long enough, they will keep dropping the price and dropping the price until they get to the price that I would have given initially. I don’t like playing the games. Sometimes, I think that means I make fewer sales. I also think that people usually do end up appreciating my way of doing things more eventually so I am not working on changing my blunt honesty.

And the biggest reason for writing this blog post: As far as pricing, I will never go back on what I said the first time. I recently did a job for a client where I made a mistake on the pricing. That client will never know that that mistake was made. If I make even $5 on that piece I will be lucky. I’d much rather lose money on one piece and have a happy client than go back to someone and tell them they need to pay me more because I made a mistake. I will also never pad other clients’ prices to make up for the loss on a different piece. A mistake is a mistake and you learn from it and move forward.

Zappos recently made a major pricing mistake that cost them over 1 million dollars. See the whole story here. Even though the chances of me making a mistake worth that much money are slim, I think the principal is the important part. I am obviously a for profit company and my goal is to make enough money to support myself but I will not do that by pissing off my clients.

In the last year or so, the most important thing I’ve learned is that I can run my company how it works for me. I can pull from the good things I see other companies doing and learn from what they have done wrong. In the end, what really matters is if I am happy doing what I am doing.

Please browse around enjoy our new site. We look forward to your feedback and to working with you in the future to create a piece of Stunning, Custom, Jewelry just for you!

Jewelry by nature, is not green.  The mining of gold and gemstones is not exactly green since it disrupts the earth, not to mention how it affects the people actually doing the mining.  Casting is not exactly green because of the chemicals used in the process.  Even jewelry finishing isn’t really green because of the polishing compounds used, and again, the human rights issues.  Even though jewelry is not by nature very green, there are ways to be green-er.

Most companies claiming to be green use what they call “recycled metal.”  This means that they take gold that has already been used for jewelry or other things and re-cast it into something else.  The idea is that by using “recycled” gold, they are reducing the need for gold mining.  This is a great idea in theory and even sometimes in practice.  The problem has to do with the casting process.  When someone casts from casting grain, there are no chemicals in the casting grain that can weaken the finished piece.  They do add something called flux in the casting process to help the metal flow better which doesn’t generally affect that piece of  jewelry unless the caster uses way too much flux.  When someone takes a piece of gold that has already been cast into a piece of jewelry and melts it to cast it into another piece of jewelry, the small amount of chemicals that was in the first piece can start to affect the integrity of the second piece.  This isn’t always an issue, but it can be.  The more times gold is put through the casting process, the more chemicals are added, and the more likely it is to affect the finished product.

One way to get around this but still be slightly green is to sell your jewelry that you don’t wear anymore to one of those “Cash for Gold” places.  I know it sounds stupid, but the gold you sell to these places is sent to a refinery which takes all of the chemicals out of the gold and turns it back into pure casting grain that is then used to make more jewelry.   I don’t know how “green” refineries are, but at least your gold is being re-used and helps with the need to mine more gold out of the earth.

The same idea can be applied to gemstones.  I don’t know of anyone who will buy your gemstones (unless they are getting gold too) but you can always re-use them yourself.  If you take all of the stones from your jewelry that you never wear, use them in a new piece that you will wear, and sell the gold, you have just prevented the need for mining more stones for a new piece of jewelry for yourself.

The big “thing” with diamonds (and other gemstones) is how the people involved in the mining and initial selling of the stones are treated.  I don’t think any jewelry store in the US would knowingly sell “conflict diamonds.”  All of the vendors they buy from claim to use diamonds that are “conflict free.”  There are ways that you as the consumer can be sure that what you are buying are conflict free.  There are stones that you can buy with certificates of origin.  I think Wal-Mart even has a new line that has certificates of where the metal and stones in a piece have been.

My concern is still how the people involved are being treated.  Even if a stone is “conflict” free, that doesn’t mean the miners were treated well and paid a fair wage.  Same for the cutters and even stone setters.  If this is something that concerns you, I recommend buying Canadian diamonds.  The diamond mines in Canada are some of the best in the world (most likely, I don’t know for sure) for safety for employees, fair wages, etc.  You have know though, when you buy anything, diamonds, jewelry, anything that has better conditions for employees, you are going to have to pay a little bit more.  I think Canadian diamonds are around 10% more than African diamonds.

I personally do what I can to be a “green” jeweler.  I don’t have the ability to used recycled gold, but I encourage my customers to buy jewelry wisely.  If you only buy pieces that you really love and will wear, you are already reducing the affect of jewelry on the environment.  I am happy to use stones that a customer already owns.  A lot of “custom” places are really trying to sell you a diamond or a gemstone.  The biggest thing I try to do is keep everything local or at least within the US.  Jewelry made in China, India, Hong Kong, etc. is less expensive because of the working conditions for jewelry manufacturer employees.  By manufacturing in the US I am not supporting how other countries treat their people with low wages and unsafe work environments while also supporting industry in the US (local manufacturing also reduces the need for fuel to transport jewelry.)

If you are looking for “Green Jewelry,” keep in mind that recycled materials are good, but you can be responsible without them.  Don’t buy jewelry unless you really love it, sell your old gold back to jewelers so it can be refined and used for any kind of jewelry, and re-use your own stones that you already have.  I will always do what I can for the environment so if you have any ideas of how to be “Greener” with jewelry, please let me know and I will be happy to do what I can!

I already have a great wax and casting guy in Arizona and I am not willing to sacrifice quality to use someone local, but I still needed a jeweler to finish all of my pieces.

I starting asking around where I was working at the time to get the names of some good jewelers in my area.  It was harder than I thought since mostly the name I got was the jeweler the company I worked for used, and that could have been a conflict of interest.  Luckily, one of my friends had worked for several other retail jewelers in Omaha and had a name of a different guy that she had used to do some ring sizings.

I went to see that last guy and their price list was fair and they said they could get the work done by the date I needed it so I left some castings and stones with them that I was putting together to hopefully sell pre-made.

Now if you look at my designs, you will notice that I love bezels.  Bezel setting is a type of setting where the metal goes all the way around a stone and is bent over the stone all the way around to secure it.  The castings I left had 3 bezels total and a lot of prong set stones.

I was very upset when I went back to pick up my pieces and the bezels were uneven thicknesses around the stones and the metal wasn’t smooth!  Also, my castings had been polished down to the point where one was so fragile I wasn’t comfortable selling it anyone or even wearing it myself!

It was a large disappointment to get back pieces that didn’t look good and really weren’t sale-able.  But at least I learned a lesson about giving someone work that you haven’t used before or even seen work from.

I have since gone to using the other name I kept getting and their work is flawless!

As of last Monday, I am self-employed!  This comes with great responsibility.  For example. I am currently looking for health insurance that will allow me to keep my plan to start a family in the near-ish future.  I am also learning how hard it is to stay focused on work with all of the distractions at home.  So far  I have actually managed to stay on task but it hasn’t been easy since I love to cook and watch tv and play computer games and anything that I’m not supposed to do while I am supposed to be working.

So wish me luck with my endeavor and stay tuned for more on my own journey with my business, lots of jewelry designs, and advice on what consumers should know before they go into a jewelry store or look online for jewelry.  If you or anyone you know is looking for a piece of truly unique jewelry, please keep me in mind!