Insider Tips to Building a Desirable Brand with Jewelry Expert Tracy Matthews

In this podcast episode, I welcome jewelry designer and business mentor Tracy Matthews, who shares her insights on building successful jewellery brands through effective marketing and mindset.
Tracy, with over 30 years of experience, discusses her 'Desired Brand Effect' approach, which emphasizes the importance of branding, audience understanding, and messaging to attract and retain customers.
We explore the significance of in-person interactions, understanding customer desires, and translating these into sales strategies, especially in an online setting.

Tracy also highlights the need for an entrepreneurial mindset, encouraging listeners to take risks, learn from failures, and continuously improve their business practices.
We discuss maintaining focus in marketing efforts and the importance of consistent mindset work, offering practical tips for product-based businesses looking to thrive in challenging economic climates.

You can follow Tracy at @tracymatthewsny

And dive into her podcast or website to learn more about the Flourish and Thrive Academy at https://www.flourishthriveacademy.com/

To join the Mel's Roadmap to Profit program and learn the Sales and Marketing Strategies you need to start and scale your product business head here: Roadmap to Profit.

We are also running LIVE Pinterest Masterclass this week - join here.

00:00 Welcome and Introduction to Tracy Matthews

00:19 The Importance of In-Person Networking

02:18 The Desire Brand Effect: An Overview

02:34 Building a Jewelry Business: Lessons from the 90s

03:26 Creating and Scaling Desire in Your Brand

05:53 Understanding Your Audience and Messaging

12:35 Marketing Strategies for Different Customer Segments

22:30 Exploring Marketing Podcasts

22:46 Understanding Customer Psychology

23:02 In-Person vs. Online Sales

24:04 Feedback from Physical Retail

24:53 The Importance of Mindset

27:29 Overcoming Limiting Beliefs

29:52 Setting Clear Goals and Priorities

36:16 Taking Calculated Risks

36:41

Big Talk About Small Business
Empowering entrepreneurs with the insights to succeed in their ventures.

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Chapters

• 14:02 [Ad] Big Talk About Small Business
• 14:47 (Cont.) Insider Tips to Building a Desirable Brand with Jewelry Expert Tracy Matthews

Transcript

0:00

Hello and welcome to today's podcast. I have Tracy Matthews here today, a special guest who has been a jewelry designer for over 30 years and now helps jewelry product businesses run their business. I'm so excited to have you here, Tracy. thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here. we, met recently at a product to business conference, which was super exciting and so good to meet in person. I learned so much from listening to you speak at that conference and just wanted to get you on here because I know you've got so much to share and a vast, wealth of experience. So super excited to have you on here today. I'm excited to talk all about everything and it was so great to meet you. I, got to have dinner and met so many great people at that event. get in person people. it's a great way to meet colleagues and peers. Get inspiration. It totally is. And I think as we, we spoke about it the, at the time as well, just the, things you can share, the things you're going through, the, experiences you have with your clients or how you're helping your jewelry businesses thrive and flourish, which is the name of your company as well. Flourish and thrive. it's really amazing to see, that journey they go through as well. It is. Yeah, it really is. And it's fun. nothing makes me happier when someone starts getting their marketing down and their business starts growing and it keeps compounding. we just had a retreat here in Arizona last week and some of these designers I've been working with for Years and to see what's happening and the growth of their company It's a little bit of a weird time because we're in election year. I don't know what it's like in australia. But for a lot of businesses, there's a lot of jewelry businesses actually closing down right now it's exciting because the businesses we've been supporting are doing really well and some of them are having their best years yet. So it just goes to show you that it's not always about what's happening in the world or the economy, when you do the work and create what I like to call the desire brand effect, great things happen. let's talk a little bit about that because that is the name of your book as well. tell me a little bit about what that means. What's, that all about? So I have been designing jewelry for a long time, as you mentioned, and I built my business through the school of hard knocks trial and error trying to figure out all the things you need to do. that's when I started back in the nineties. The way that we grew a business was by reaching out to wholesale stores or wholesale accounts, other retailers, and trying to get our products into those stores. only 5 percent of my sales We're direct to consumer until the internet came around one of the things we know to be true in order to stand out in any sort of market Is that we needed to number one create desire? So what that means is that we just have brand assets. We understand who our audience is We understand how to speak to the desires of our audience We have messaging that attracts that audience. We need to share desire, especially now in the online internet wave of being able to convert prospects into paying customers with marketing, sales activities, messaging, revenue generating activities, and the experience you deliver. once you nail that, you need to scale desire. And that's just really about scaling your business. And that comes about by, proper planning, automation, getting support and all those things. And so when I think back in that day, I was really building this business through trial and error. One of the things we had to do was within a few seconds, be able to stand out on a phone call because there wasn't even email when I started to get someone to take an appointment with you. And when we translate this. It's on onto, online sales, everything that you're doing from a visual branding and messaging are the things that attract buyers it translates across all sales channels and all avenues. And so I developed this model, called the desire brand effect. I didn't have a name for it at that time. You to basically diagnose problems that I was having in my business. So if I was, sales were slowing down, I knew what to focus on. If I was hitting sort of a growth plateau, I knew what to focus on. If my sales started to decline, which they did once or twice, I had to figure out why that was happening. And so it became a diagnostic tool. And at the end of the day, when I was developing this, what I really wanted was to have financial freedom. I wanted to have this business that I loved that rewarded me creatively, and also. Feel a sense of accomplishment knowing that watching people wear my designs, like the coolest thing when you're walking down the street and see a random person wearing your jewelry So that's the high level of what the desire brand effect about, but it's basically a marketing and sales system and business operational system that helps any type of jewelry or product based business grow. a lot of what I teach as well is you need these systems in place. You cannot just, create that brand and then expect people to come to you. There really has to be a system for all your marketing and all the ways that you market your business. And obviously you've been through it all in terms of, before the internet, before online, before e commerce. and I think that was a huge, aspect for people. one of the things you talk about is becoming a magnet for the right customers. how do you go about that? people buy physical, like luxury products, jewelry, anything that requires messaging, not because they need it. Usually it's because they want it what makes people want something? it's because you're fulfilling a desire. So in order to get someone to resonate with what you're doing, you need to speak to those desires. when you can speak to those desires through your visual branding, through your marketing, through your messaging, through everything that you do, then you become a magnet for those things. So if we're thinking about, like I, I call this like four stages of magnetic marketing, first it's about your branding, then understanding your audience. It's been understanding the messaging that's going to attract that audience and the marketing that you do to actually resonate with them. So if we're, we can break this down, the visual aspects and everything that you do from a visual identity standpoint, including like your collection or your designs, your packaging, your website, your logo, your brand colors. and you can also search for brand name. you can search for brands, your, models, catalogs, or social media platforms all of these are things that are branding or the things that like develop your brand. And that visual brand is something that when someone looks at it immediately, it might catch their eye. And that's what gets them to stop the scroll or gets them to stop whatever they're doing. if they land on your website, they immediately know if your products for them. Now one thing that I see people doing all the time because they are on a budget building their business is they put models in their business of their teenage daughter, but their dream client is a 50 year old woman and they're wondering why they're not making sales. And I'm like, because your teenage daughter is not your avatar. And if they see a teenage daughter on their website. And on your website, because that's all you can afford for a model because you think it has to be some young pretty person. they're not going to see themselves in you. And so the visual branding is all about getting someone to identify with what you're doing. it filters into all aspects of what you're, of what you, create, present, design, all the things. Now, the next step of this, is your audience, you don't want the 14 year old if your avatar is 50. So one of the things you want to be thinking through is who are these people? who are the people in my dream audience? you hear a lot of gurus, including myself say, pick one dream client. And that's who you focus on. that's somewhat true. I'm not here to say I've been lying to people for all these years, but it gets complicated when people try to market to everyone and they don't understand because they're not expert marketers, because I don't think anyone who started a product business necessarily started that product business to become a professional marketer, they started the product business. Because they had a passion for whatever it is that they're creating, they want to design it. They want to bring it to market. So with the audience, you need to get clear on one avatar first. And then from there you can start to branch out into other customer segments. for instance, I design engagement rings and wedding bands. I have several customer segments. One of my dream clients is a millennial couple. several years ago when I started, that was the avatar. The millennials are a little bit older now, I had that one segment who was shopping for engagement rings. Now I have another segment that was 45 to 55 year olds. that was based off of three of my best friends who loved to travel, who would go around the world and collect, stones from like Sri Lanka or wherever they were traveling in and come back and want me to design jewelry. So that older segment, they're soft. Purchasers, they're people who, make 300 to 500, 000 a year. They live in a big city like New York city. They have a exceptional amount of money to spend. Like money is not an issue and they treat themselves often to luxury goods. So no brainer, like on who that is. And then the next segment were heirloom redesign. these are people losing a parent or grandmother and felt a deep, sentimental connection they needed to know that if they were bringing their. Stones or gems or gold or whatever it was to someone who was going to redesign it that they needed to be able to trust them because if something happened to those stones, that's the last like memorable thing that of value that they had of their grandparent or parents. And that story actually comes about because of my personal story. My mother passed away. right after my 21st birthday between 21 and 22 and her death was the thing that catapult me into jewelry design. It's a little bit of a sidebar story, but that I use that story in my marketing because it connects and lands with people and when people know that I've actually experienced what they've gone through, they can trust me. And so when you're designing that audience and you can literally speak to the desires or whatever it is that they're going through right now. Those are the things that actually draws them in and you become a magnet for those things. Then there's your messaging So the messaging I feel like if you can nail that avatar thing down you really understand what motivates them The messaging becomes easy because you can understand what matters to them what drives them. in my case when Millennials were starting to get engaged What mattered to them is that they had something that was unique. They had a custom piece that no one else had. They wanted to use alternative stones. They wanted a design that was specific to them. And they were also like in that buying zone where 5, 000 to 10, 000 was what they were spending on engagement rings and wedding bands. Now, in that one customer segment. So for the travel jewelry. they're going to reset a stone for two to 5, 000, but it's literally like an afterthought. They're not thinking too much about how much money they're spending. But I knew exactly what, how to market to those people because they wanted to, because of what their desires were, they just wanted to remember this amazing trip. And then same thing with the people Who are doing the heirloom redesigns And then finally, the marketing, that's really the system that you use to understand, okay, where are all these people hanging out and where am I going to find them? If you have, a high end older clientele who doesn't use social media, spending all your time on Instagram is not going to be the best use of your time. Yeah. that's not where their attention is, right? So where is their attention? Yeah. And so by understanding all of these things, you can understand, like, where are they hanging out? What do they like to do? How am I going to reach them? And all those things. I was just doing a deep dive for one of my clients today. And we work with, most of our jewelers are handmade. Jewelry designers are, and makers are in the handmade, market. But I just happened to get off with someone who also designs fine jewelry. And I, we, clearly identify cause we dialed into our customer segments. So I'm like. Like you're running ads. The people that you're targeting are not buying from ads because she's trying to compete with these really high end jewelers and she's a newer, brand. I'm like the way that you're going to find your customers are at the golf club talking about what you do. Wearing your jewelry, offering them. So having that clarity is going to save you a lot of time and also make you a lot more money depending on the type of jewelry you design, some people you meet are going to be shopping online, once you hit a higher end segment, it does require more personal touch. So the more that you can understand that and understand the desires of the people you're serving. And dial into that, the better your result is going to be. And the more you're going to magnetize those people to you. So what would be some of the suggestions for someone like that to, reach those people? what is she doing to achieve that? have them have that brand awareness about who she is and where to find her, like the golf club that's where, this particular woman, lives in a golf club community. She works, she services wealthy people. She designs tennis bracelets, which make complete sense because she's in a community where people are wearing tennis bracelets and diamonds. And when we were. When we were looking at these customer segments, like the only segment that was going to find her online was actually these new couples getting engaged who are looking for lab created diamonds. And in that case, you optimize your marketing on your website. if you're going to do Google ads or anything else for lab grown diamonds and speaking to that, what is that generation? Is that Gen Y Yeah. So the Gen Ys who are probably getting engaged now, the thing that they're looking for is different. Like a lot of them are buying lab created diamonds. They don't have a big budget. People think that lab created diamonds are the same as fine jewelry. And I don't want to make this all about fine jewelry because there's a lot to be Said for people who are doing handmade products as well. But just understanding their desires and their shopping patterns, changes everything. what are some of the products that you serve? So I've got a variety of different types of product businesses. for example, I have some handmade sustainable fashion. I have lots of beauty products who are handmade as well. I have ceramics, I have accessories. I do have some jewelry, but more, costume as opposed to fine jewelry. a mixture of beauty products and stuff like that too. Perfect. I have an idea. So for, these handmade. Beauty products, What is the reason why someone wants handmade beauty products? Because I use this type of product, the products that I use, there are seven, no more than seven ingredients, all organic. I'm allergic to, any sort of anti aging stuff. And if I put retinol on my face, everyone's what do you use? And I'm like, not nothing special. It's like literally organic cream. Cause I'm 53 people are like, how do you not have wrinkles? And I'm like, I always say it's because I don't have kids, but also because I've always used these organic products. So the thing, the reasoning why I bought organic products is cause I want clean skincare. I want. things with no more than seven ingredients in it. I want something that is not going to make my skin break out. I'm lucky I don't have breakout prone skin, but when I'm using something with retinol or some of these acids my skin freaks out and gets all red and weird. I also want something that I can reorder quickly and my desires in ordering those products is that I look younger than I am. I want to feel and look and feel beautiful. So those are some messaging desire points for something like that. If you're thinking of bold, chunky costume jewelry, what is the reason someone would wear that? they wear it because they want to stand out. I used to work with this, client and she was a little bit older and she designed really bold costume jewelry. And one of the talking points we came about is that the reason why people loved her jewelry, because the jewelry always fits. And it can make any outfit. So you can just wear something from Chico's, a, clothing brand here. and if you don't feel great, you can really, accessorize with that bold jewelry and the jewelry makes the outfit. it makes women in her demographic feel more confident. They feel, Like they're expressing their personality, that they're bold and out there. You said, what are some of the other, you said ceramics and what else? it's sustainable fashion brand as well. sustainable fashion, like why would they want to buy. So why do people want to buy sustainable fashion? we know that fast fashion is gross because, stuff that you buy on Amazon is made in these like sweatshops in probably in China or one of these places. And most of this stuff that it's so cheap, people just buy, they overly consume and then the products get thrown in the landfill. So you know that product that's probably being made out of recycled fibers is going to be something that is not only going to be better for the earth, but it's not going to, you're not going to have a reaction to it. It's going to be, slow fashion where, people are supporting like a family behind it. So these are all the things that people. as you said, putting that into your messaging, but also reflecting that in your imagery your logos, your designs, your website. we talked about, Understanding your target market, understanding that aspirational aspect. we talked about the jewelry brand who had the target for the older customer, but then they had a teenage model. It happens all the time. I see it literally every day. Yeah. And because, but what would you say to someone who's but that's aspirational that they want to look like that. People are so savvy these days. things that are too polished look like stock images. They don't look like a real life. And so if you can't hire age appropriate models that you actually pay to do a photo shoot. Have your friends who are age appropriate film the jewelry. some women are blessed with like thin bodies for their entire life. They don't really have to work at it, and they're just thin forever. But most women, once they hit menopause, start to gain weight. They, their body changes, like even if they're thin, like their skin starts to sag, things change. So if you're looking at someone on a website, and you're 50 years old, and you have age spots and wrinkles on your hands and veins popping out of it, And all is like these young slender fingers of a 15 year old. And it doesn't like, they're going to be like, Oh, that's for younger people or it's a little bit out of touch and they're not even going to, consciously know why they're not buying it. It's not conscious. they see it and they know this is the thing about this other brand I've been, working with, young daughters on the site. Beautiful. They're famous because they're athletes, whole thing, but it's not her customer. And people who don't know that about her, unless they already know, you don't get it. Yeah. So the confused mind is always a no. So if you are confusing your customers or potential customers, our prospects, and you aren't consistent and you aren't giving full focus. To understanding who they are, it is going to be a no. So the first thing I would lean to is become a student of marketing. I know it's probably not something you thought you were going to have to learn when you developed your product, but the more you can understand and just consume marketing podcasts. I have a podcast called thrive by design. Mel has a podcast here. Where she talks about marketing. There's so many marketing podcasts out there. that are free for product business owners to learn about marketing you might not get the full strategy. from a podcast, but you're going to start learning and understanding the psychology behind what motivates people to buy. the more you understand what motivates someone to buy, the easier it is to make a sale and the more confident you become in talking about your wares and your work And if you want to sell online, you have to do this because It's really easy to sell in person at a market, but it's very hard to translate those sales into an online sale it's understanding, like listening to those customers. What are they saying? You're going to get little tidbits. The more that you understand. Those people, and the more that you understand what they're saying to you, and you use that in subtle ways in your marketing, the more it's going to land. one of the simplest ways to do this, is to say Hey, I was just out of market this weekend talking with a customer. she bought this bowl. Here's the reason why she loved it so much. you tell the story of someone else and get really descriptive. then you're like, if you're someone like that too, maybe this is the ball for you. you can be tongue in cheek about it. it's like picking up on what they have said and someone's going to see themselves in that as well. I think that you mentioned doing the market. obviously we don't want people to be doing a market every weekend and having a lifestyle full of that. But I do believe that in person, the same thing with physical retail. When I had a brand, we opened a physical retail store and the feedback from customers is amazing. whether it's a pop up a retail store or markets at different places too to get different feedback. so much. Using that and really making sure that you are, drawing everything you can out of that to really understand who your customer is and who, who walks up or who turns their head or, what are they drawn to, which, pieces or which style of your, merchandising that they're going to be attracted to. Exactly. one of the things I wanted to ask you about is, mindset. That is definitely something that, we'll definitely talk about more strategy and, all the things that you need to have in place, but we both know, and you especially have to, been in it for so long that you can have all the strategy, you can have all the tactics and you can have all these things that you're supposed to be doing, but mindset comes into it in such a big way as well. Can you talk a little bit about that? I come from an entrepreneurial family. My family is full of risk takers. So I didn't totally experience this. I didn't have a belief that artists were starving, but a lot of people grew up with this mindset, right? This mentality that if you start your own business, I was just one of the, superstars marrying. a French designer who got on the today show, a big TV show in the U S during the Paris Olympics with Savannah and Hoda. when I was interviewing her about this experience, she took my program, laying the foundation and was executing all of these things. She's through COVID, I started picking up jewelry to make jewelry, And decided that I wanted to turn it, I turned this hobby into a passion. When I told my friends, they're like, why would you do that? That's so risky. It's because they're French, it's like very cultural. You don't have your own business in France. And when I was hearing that, I was like, yeah, like a lot of, there's a lot of people who just have been programmed because of their upbringing, generational trauma because of, what society says you should or shouldn't do. That starting a business is number one risky that you can't make money doing it and all these things and certainly those things can be true, but are they 100 percent always true? The answer is no. If that were the case, why are there successful artists making millions and millions of dollars a year like Ashley Longshore? Who never went the traditional route, who always was her best promoter and seller. And now she has partnerships with Bergdorf Goodman and Anthropologie and all these places. And same thing with many jewelry brands. It's if you, or any sort of maker brand, if you have the mindset that you can succeed, Then you, the chances of you succeeding are 1000 times better than not believing that. So one of the best tools, to upgrade your identity into who you want to be is number one, be to be always doing consistent mindset work. And what I mean by that is to understand, okay, what is when you're sitting still and negative thought patterns start to come up. What are you telling yourself? Are you comparing yourself to others? Are you telling yourself that you're a piece of crap? Are you telling yourself a story that no one's buying right now? what are those stories? As soon as you identify them, write them down. Then identify another possibility because my, partner Jason is an amazing, executive coach, He's amazing about thought reversal, like flipping negative patterns and thought belief. He'll just be like, is that a hundred percent always true? And you could never find a case. And he's never use the word never in anything because nothing is ever a never. it's never a hundred percent true. So if you can find any possibility or situation. Where the opposite can be possible, there could be a different reality, your work is to release those limiting beliefs. if you're saying to yourself, it's hard to make money as an artist, change that thought pattern and start repeating a different story I am working every day to become a successful thriving artist, or it's easy for me to put myself out there and make sales. Even if you don't totally feel it, your brain can't identify the difference between a negative thought and a positive thought. If you start repatterning it and start stating positive statements in replacement for the negative things that you're telling yourself and you do the work. manifestation doesn't really work unless you take inspired action to back that up. you can change your thoughts all you want. work on them daily identify when they're coming up and stop it, write it down, flip the belief, start, a journal with belief flipping, and then record yourself on your phone, audio app, and just create positive affirmations about the other things. And then every single day. Make sure that you have clear goals where you're going for your business. So let's say you have a financial goal or whatever. Set those clear goals. And then every single day, prove to yourself that you're moving closer to those goals by setting priorities that you focus on first before anything else. I noticed people like they want to go and make their stuff before they actually do the sales activities, do all the hard stuff first to get it out of the way. And then you are going to see and watch your sales consistently grow. it starts with that mindset. Every single day you need to be upgrading your identity into the person you're becoming and you need to stop comparing yourself to other people because you don't know their journey. What on Instagram is not the real story. I'm going to tell you right now, this has been a really tough year for Flourish and Thrive Academy. For a lot of whoops. That's my alarm saying you have F you money. See, I even set alarms to remind myself how I'm doing, but I'm just telling you, this has been a really, hard, tougher year for my business. we've had a lot of team changes and in the U S. The economy is making, or the election is making people crazy again, because regardless of the sides that you're on, we are so diametrically opposed here. And it makes it hard when there's so much noise for people to focus. And so my job and things are shifting now because I've really had to focus my audience and focus my people. And when you do that, the sales start to pick up again. And so I mentioning that not to share what's going on inside of my company, but just for, so that, Every business has a season, but it's your job to focus get your head in the right place. And set alarms on your phone saying you have app money and then that will bring it in. I love that. I've shared lots of apps about that too because I think it is such a, yeah, I think it's, having those personal things. So yes, doing some, having some, I have a lot of reminders on my phone that pop up and statements that I read out to myself as well. And then, just being mindful and watching what language you use. I did a podcast, with my husband, a psychologist all about limiting self beliefs and, negative self talk because it is such a crucial, mindset hack that you need to be focusing on. And you mentioned there as well about that by doing those things as well, you set up daily habits and understanding what you need to do daily to reach the goals that you have. And one of the things I saw on your Instagram as well as 12 things you'd learnt to do in the business. And. One of those was your, I'm just going to read it out to you, read it out back to you, but your success is directly correlated to the actions you take on a daily basis. Not getting what you want, look at what you're doing. what are those goals and are you actually actioning toward things that go towards them? that's a huge thing because people say they want something, but they are unwilling to do the work that it's going to take. It is not going to be an easy road. You guys like. Yeah. Maybe you do something and it works awesome. Do more of that. Keep doing the things that work. until you understand what works for your brand, I can give you strategies all day long. It may or may not work for you. Because once again, it depends on where your customer is hanging out, what they're resonating with. for anyone selling anything, bridal cooking. Fashion styling, planning a party. You must have a robust Pinterest strategy because that's where people plan their weddings and get inspiration. when you talk to someone and they don't have a Pinterest strategy, and their audience is literally planning their wedding on Pinterest. Then shame on you for not doing the thing that's going to get you the customers you want. my point is that the actions you take are directly correlated to the results you're getting. So if you're unwilling to do the testing and the things that are actually going to move the needle for the thing that you say that you want, then. You're not going to get what you want. And touching on that, I did hear you mention it, but I didn't, focus on that before, but you mentioned about that, a lot of people you work with and yourself included, like you are, doing handmade things. So you are actually spending time on that, aspect of your business. But you cannot just then not, focus on sales or marketing activities as well. It has to be a part of your whole, whether it's day or week or the way that you schedule it out and you have seasons of making or whatever it might be, but you can't just say, make the product and then not actually spend any time marketing or selling it. in order to hold yourself accountable, one of the most important things, first of all, you need to learn how to market. Some of you don't know. Sign up for Mel's program if you're into jewelry or luxury products. Also pick up my book because it's great for any product maker. It's not just for jewelry designers there's a lot of strategies in there but having a Developing a marketing strategy for you, meaning okay, what are my 90 day goals? What are the three major projects I'm going to launch? What is my sales and revenue goal? How am I going to get there? Do I have creating a marketing calendar with your marketing mapped out for the months? Like all of that stuff is going to be integral to you getting what you want. So if you're just showing up and Expecting sales to happen and not really doing anything except for doing an Instagram post here or there. You're not going to get a result because you're not really focused. I bring it back to what I was talking about earlier. you need focus. Scattered energy is not going to get you a result. Absolutely. You touched on earlier as well, Tracy, about, that you've come from an entrepreneurial family, which I have as well, it's innate thing that you are, do have to take risks, in business. Do you believe it's imperative to be willing to take risks in running a business? I do. because risk averse people are never going to push themselves far enough. you have to be willing to fail every single day because. And failure can look like you sent an email marketing campaign that did not convert. that's what I'm talking about. Like having a failed launch, and using the information from that failure to improve it for next time. my first business. Got wiped out in what you guys call the great financial crisis, we call it the market crash of 2008 in September I had shipped over a hundred thousand. Dollars worth of orders and got paid for almost none of them and it put my business into negative cash flow cycle that Had me basically in a position where I had to make a decision to keep the business open or close it I made the choice to close it had to file for bankruptcy and start all over I was devastated to say the least I could not see the lessons in it for a long time. I was so hard on myself. I felt like a loser. I was like, what did I do wrong? All these things. Yeah, I'm quite frankly, probably. Yeah. You probably just went through all the stages of, Oh, all the things. But in hindsight, looking back at it now from a more neutral position, yeah, that sucked. Like my credit has been affected for the rest of my life because when you have a small business, you personally guarantee all of those loans and everything that you take, like most of them aren't in a business name and that's, that has sucked. But what I learned is how do you run a business on cashflow? How do you. get really scrappy with what you're doing in a way that gets the result you want. How do you pay attention to what's actually happening to be aware when something is weird, So this year, like right around May, I'm like, Oh, this is going to be a tough year because the election's coming. We had to make some cuts in the business. We had to cut back expenses. I had to take a pay cut, for a short term period these are things we have to do in the short term for long term gain so that the business can still thrive through it. These are just seasons and cycles in business and awareness. And that big lesson that I got from that was that pay attention to what's happening and. Pivot when you need to and learn the lessons that you need to. So your ability to get back to your original question about taking risk, I do think it's important. I think to the extent you're willing to take a risk is how successful you'll be because the more risk averse you are, the bigger risks you take will get you the best reward. There is a chance that you're going to fail. if you just want an easy, stable business, don't take a lot of risks and expect not to probably make that much money Or grow very fast. be smart about it. I'm not saying be reckless with taking risks, take calculated risks. Do your research, measure the data, these days it's easy to use, AI tools to even analyze things. So you don't even have to have an analytic brain to know how to do it. You can analyze risk potential and all these things. But the more risk forward you out and you know what you call it, the more risky you are, the more willing to take bigger risks. The chances of you growing quickly are going to be a lot higher, but also the chances of having a big failure, are going to be bigger. So just be aware of that. it's not, neither is right or wrong. It's just really, what is your tolerance? And the more that you are willing to flex that risk muscle, the more you're going to see your business grow and shift and change and be able to learn. And so as long as you can use everything that you do as a learning experience, and also I think the big. Most important lesson here is calculated risk. One of the things that put my business in jeopardy back in 2007 and eight is I tried to expand too quickly. Yes. I had in 2007 had, across about a million dollars in revenue. for my handmade jewelry business. I had launched a fine jewelry collection, but I also in the same year launched a men's jewelry collection. Developing a new sample line and marketing two new, basically two brand new businesses with inside my company were extremely expensive. Then I took all these orders for gold for my fine jewelry and the gold prices skyrocketed that year. So I was losing money on the gold pieces. So that quick expansion. And then I was also investing in all these trade shows and traveling a ton. So I have my business because things were booming in 2006 and seven. I was like, I can spend more money. To grow. And I spent more money at the wrong time. So be aware of cycles in business and all that stuff, because the next year was that slower year that things slowed down a lot. I wasn't able to recoup that investment, which is one of the things that put us in that cashflow cycle. So if you're going to be launching new things and investing in your business, which is great, highly recommend that you do it. just maybe don't do it all at once, pace it over time. also being really aware of patterns and seasons. So yes, like in the, in Australia, especially the, it is quieter in, in Australia. June, July for us because it's a winter period, especially in retail, buyers aren't going to buy as much in those periods too. So really knowing your cycles, knowing what's going on so that you spend the right amount of money at the right time, or you're aware of your expenses. is going out because you are going to have fluctuations. So I think that comes back to that as you grow as a business owner, really making sure that you not just know the sales and the marketing as we've talked about, but you also really understand that business side of it and the financial side of it because you can't just stick your head in the sand and expect your bookkeeper or your accountant to be the ones that do it. You really have to learn that as well. And that's just part of being a business owner that you are going to have to do all those Parts of it as well. This is true. 1000%. You got to look at the numbers. Very important. And as you say, knowing, plan your year out. but as you say, also that there are going to be failures, there's going to be things, are they learnings? what do you take from it? Know, that it's normal to fail. It's normal to have things that don't go as you plan. But it's not necessarily a failure as in invented commas, but it's a learning that you can get better next time or edit and change things as you say, you've got to test everything. A lot of people are going to be like, Oh, I just don't even know where to get started with my marketing. What should I be doing? What are some suggestions if you're feeling overwhelmed with it all and you're just like, where do I even get going? I truly believe that you need to learn how to do the marketing yourself, even if you're ever going to have someone else do it. if you need to learn how to market your business, join a community like Mel's or mine or find a coach you resonate with, learn strategies relatable to what you're doing when you're ready and you can actually afford it, I highly recommend starting to get things off your plate and hire out the things that you, don't enjoy doing. And so a lot of you want to hire a marketing VA first. it's not always the first hire I recommend, but I would just start by just finding someone that can support you with simple things like maybe even posting your social media and engaging on social media So there's different things that you can hire out just very part time in a virtual position that can make a significant impact to get some of the things off your plate. I have a whole process for this, but we don't have enough time to go through the whole thing. maybe we'll need a whole new podcast. I think that's one of the things I heard you talk about at the conference we were at about hiring the team. that's a whole, other podcast where we can dive deep into how to do that and what are the best positions to start hiring So we'll definitely meet again to talk about that. Thank you so much for sharing your journey here and some of your, amazing tips. I think there's so many takeaways that people can, get going with their business and figure out, how to Sell and market the business and understand who their customer is. I will share your flourish and thrive Academy with everyone in the show notes they can find you on Instagram and your personal account. Tracy Matthews, NY as well. Yes. Awesome. Thank you so much for having me, Mel. Thank you so much. All right. We'll speak to you soon. Bye.