Transcript
Speaker: Hey everybody, welcome to the Exit Podcast.
Speaker: This is Dr. Bennett, I'm joined here by Janine Abeg.
Speaker: Janine owns Savannah Hill Jewelry.
Speaker: It's a business that she started from her living room 17 years ago and now has been featured in Costco.
Speaker: It's available at savannahhill.com.
Speaker: Welcome to the show, Janine.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: So, probably the number one reason that people with artistic talent procrastinate starting this kind of business
Speaker: There's a million craft businesses and they think, how am I going to stand out?
Speaker: How am I different?
Speaker: How did you get over that hump?
Speaker: Good question.
Speaker: I started my business to pay for diapers.
Speaker: I had two young children.
Speaker: My husband was in school and diapers were really expensive when you're buying a size, you know, newborn and size five as my kids were 15 months apart, those first two.
Speaker: And so I needed extra money and I would, I would make some jewelry for myself and friends.
Speaker: And then my friend's mom would see it and say, Oh, I want to buy one of those.
Speaker: And, and,
Speaker: And it actually became a business because of people around me encouraging me, you need to do a party.
Speaker: You need to make more of these.
Speaker: And I really just started off by needing to get some extra groceries.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: So it was definitely word of mouth.
Speaker: Tell me about the parties.
Speaker: So like I said, I started making, you know, stuff for my friends and her grandma.
Speaker: And then before I know it, within maybe a month, I was invited to do a little party.
Speaker: So I
Speaker: you know, spent a couple really late night weekends, you know, beating until my fingers hurt, making bracelets that were the popular style and just some kind ladies in my ward.
Speaker: Oh, come over.
Speaker: We'll have a fun little party.
Speaker: And it really began just like that.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: So we have, we have several people in the group who operate small Etsy shops and,
Speaker: There's a difficult jumping off point.
Speaker: Well, first of all, how did you make the transition from making things for your friends to going online?
Speaker: Was that a big hurdle or was that pretty straightforward to do?
Speaker: It was a huge hurdle.
Speaker: So after I started doing shows, I also was invited to, you know, maybe think about doing a festival and in the state, Utah, where I live, there is a really big festival called Swiss days and it is hard to get into.
Speaker: It's very competitive.
Speaker: And that was sort of like, if you can get into Swiss days, oh, that's amazing.
Speaker: But you can start in these smaller little places in your local communities.
Speaker: And so I got into doing, um,
Speaker: those craft booths at different fairs around town.
Speaker: And I would stay at my booth because I customized a lot and I could make a bracelet shorter or the necklace longer for people, typically over a weekend.
Speaker: And my husband was at home with our little kids and it was hard to be gone for three or four days at a festival.
Speaker: And so because of need, I thought now is the time to go online.
Speaker: I knew nothing.
Speaker: And that was really, it's a huge hurdle.
Speaker: But looking back now, I'm so thankful for my husband encouraging me to do that.
Speaker: I had to use a lot of resources and help build our first website, took our own pictures, you know, all of these things.
Speaker: So it was definitely a huge hurdle to do that, but it was worth it.
Speaker: And in today's marketplace, it's a necessity to be online.
Speaker: How long did it take for
Speaker: the online to overtake what you were selling face to face?
Speaker: I was very blessed to, um, have the opportunity to kind of get on with a, with a startup company and that company is Jane.com.
Speaker: They're a pretty big company now.
Speaker: And I was one of, you know, one of the first vendors with them.
Speaker: And so I would sell one of my products on my website, which was very simple for a discounted price on their platform where they would take a commission, but they paid a lot of money for marketing to get it out there.
Speaker: And I can remember one of those first like necklaces I put on as a Jane.com deal.
Speaker: I think I sold 275 necklaces in one morning.
Speaker: And then that was like absolutely insane for me.
Speaker: That turned into a two day sale
Speaker: maybe bringing 976 orders in two days.
Speaker: And that was through that Jane.com model where we were paying them a high commission, but they were also putting forward a lot of marketing for us that I wasn't equipped to do.
Speaker: So I feel like we were lucky and blessed to have that opportunity to kind of launch pad more of our online presence because of some of these
Speaker: these opportunities I took.
Speaker: So I had my own website, I had Etsy, and then I had Jane.
Speaker: I still sell on Jane today.
Speaker: I don't do as much, but I sell on jane.com and sell out, you know, certain products there.
Speaker: I sell on my website and I do also still sell on Etsy.
Speaker: So were you, I mean, 275 orders, had you already done all the beading and twisting and the crimping or what was involved in that?
Speaker: So that was like my best friends, my mother-in-law, I need help.
Speaker: I have way too many orders and all these kids running around.
Speaker: And so it was like during nap time, I'm buying everyone Jimmy John's.
Speaker: Let's make necklaces, you know?
Speaker: And so sometimes we would just kind of, I would incentivize my friends.
Speaker: You get free jewelry.
Speaker: I'll pay you this.
Speaker: I'll take you to lunch.
Speaker: I'll babysit your kids forever.
Speaker: Please help me.
Speaker: And in those early days before I had any helpers, that's how we made it work.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I imagine that the process changed as you went from like what you're originally describing seems like a lot of like wire and beads and things.
Speaker: And what I see on the website now is it looks more like a manufactured product.
Speaker: Um, it looks like, like it probably is less amenable to like hand tooling.
Speaker: So can you talk about how you, how you navigated that transition?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And so, okay.
Speaker: So I started, like I said, in my living room, and then we transitioned to some of the boutiques and doing the little craft fairs.
Speaker: I eventually did a booth at Swiss days, which was crazy.
Speaker: And I mean, we're talking so much inventory and so many people.
Speaker: I had the opportunity and was approached by a company.
Speaker: They wanted me to design some very specific jewelry for them.
Speaker: And they wanted that jewelry to go into Costco.
Speaker: And so that's where Costco came to be.
Speaker: I, they wanted me to take, I was doing a lot of soldering, a lot of hand work with glass and kind of the same way you would make stained glass, but I would put
Speaker: very customized images inside of glass that people would want special family pictures, ancestors, pictures of temples inside of these charms.
Speaker: And I sold so many of them and they really, this company really liked it.
Speaker: They had artwork, they had beautiful artwork.
Speaker: And what I ended up doing is they wanted me to streamline.
Speaker: Obviously I couldn't solder millions of these necklaces or hundreds of thousands of them.
Speaker: And so,
Speaker: I was basically charged with, you need to be able to get this manufactured.
Speaker: So within a matter of weeks, I found myself in the Philippines and I was sitting in a factory teaching these people how to make these charms and making them, you know,
Speaker: interchangeable and different sizes.
Speaker: And so I spent a couple of weeks there getting all my molds made and it was like baptism by fire.
Speaker: Like anything else you learn by doing things, you learn by the necessity that comes to you.
Speaker: Here we have this problem here.
Speaker: We have this roadblock.
Speaker: What are we going to do?
Speaker: I would go to Las Vegas and also Tucson for jewelry shows each year where I would find
Speaker: new places where I would want to, you know, source my crystals or my sterling silver, whatever, you know, and just go to these shows and, and meet people and talk to people.
Speaker: I was directed to a certain company.
Speaker: And again, like I said, within weeks, I was at their factory in the Philippines, designing the line that launched me into my production work where I was having my designs made for me.
Speaker: I still touch every single piece of my jewelry that you see on my website.
Speaker: There are finishing things that I need to do.
Speaker: But a lot of my stuff is manufactured now at some of the factories that I have.
Speaker: So we have a factory in the Philippines that we use and a factory in China that we use.
Speaker: And so that's been awesome in helping us scale what we've been doing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So did you go straight from...
Speaker: getting your friends to work for pizza to sending it out overseas?
Speaker: Or did you have an intermediate stage where you had employees?
Speaker: So because I was the jewelry designer, so basically a large, a large company, a successful company hired me to do the jewelry line for Costco.
Speaker: So I was the face of it.
Speaker: I had to go to Costco headquarters.
Speaker: I had to present it.
Speaker: I had to
Speaker: you know, help them understand what we were going to do and where our price points were.
Speaker: And so I, it was really a neat opportunity because I didn't have the funding to pay for the inventory for a jewelry show at Costco, you know, the road shows at Costco, when you go and they're selling the, you know, the, the leather recliners or, and they're just the temporary shows that are there for a week or two.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: throughout the year.
Speaker: That was the program I participated in, but often we'd have two or three shows going on at one time.
Speaker: And one show, the sterling silver and the product that we had there, it cost about $10,000 per show in inventory.
Speaker: I did not have that.
Speaker: And so it was a really neat opportunity to have the funding behind me to help me
Speaker: pull this off.
Speaker: And so the company I was working for, they helped with all of the employees.
Speaker: I was training everyone.
Speaker: And so that was a very, very unique situation where there was a couple dozen of us working in a warehouse here in Pleasant Grove, Utah.
Speaker: And working on that.
Speaker: And then I would go out to a show, train people how to do it.
Speaker: I'd travel around to different shows.
Speaker: And those were usually on the West Coast is where those shows were in Washington, California, Arizona, Utah, Vegas areas.
Speaker: So that was a really crazy, cool experience.
Speaker: And after a time, I was gone all the time.
Speaker: And the whole purpose of my business was to be home with my family.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And so after a time I, I sold out of my portion and continued back to doing it on a smaller scale.
Speaker: And I have been back on the smaller scale, not doing the Costco stuff with all the employees and the crazy amounts of volume for, I would say, let's see, um, probably 12 years.
Speaker: So a lot of those things happened pretty early on.
Speaker: And now I've been back kind of solely having, I didn't have, you know, people telling me what they wanted me to produce and how they wanted me to produce it.
Speaker: So that was an awesome chance to learn about manufacturing and a bigger scale.
Speaker: And I intended to go back to Costco on my own, but for personal reasons and others, I really chose to keep it at home where I could control the size and be here with my children.
Speaker: And that is the most important thing.
Speaker: is to raise my children nearby and for them to have a mother.
Speaker: Yeah, but it was such an impressive slingshot early on.
Speaker: And I wonder if you could speak to how did you attract that kind of attention?
Speaker: Because you needed these institutional sort of gatekeepers to bring you into the fold, to lift you up and put you in those positions.
Speaker: Um, so the gal who found me who, and I would do a lot of festivals.
Speaker: So sometimes they were just like, Oh, a Saturday afternoon at this festival, you know, and I had a lot of inventory.
Speaker: I'm always creating, I'm always making stuff.
Speaker: I have a lot of stuff.
Speaker: And, and I would go to these little shows as a means to like, let's clear out some of the stuff that I have.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: I never expected people to find me.
Speaker: I just thought maybe you'd buy one of my pretty marble bracelets for 24 99, you know, but one gal came one day and she was the owner of that big company.
Speaker: And I think it was being in the right place at the right time.
Speaker: And honestly, looking back, I'm so thankful for having the opportunity to, to kind of go global and to learn the things I learned and to, like you said, be that slingshot effect.
Speaker: But really, that isn't realistic.
Speaker: I realize that that's not going to happen for everyone.
Speaker: The most success that I have found is by trial and error, by the market changes every quarter, it would seem.
Speaker: And I make what I like.
Speaker: And I would say if you're passionate about what it is that you have, get it out there, talk to people, do festivals, get it on the internet, keep creating, keep doing what brings you happiness and joy.
Speaker: I think sometimes we fight, why do I have this desire?
Speaker: But I really feel like our individual desires when we're living correctly are inspired of God.
Speaker: And we are all meant to be the body of Christ and to create and to help each other to have fulfilling lives.
Speaker: And that looks different for every single person on this earth.
Speaker: But I really believe that our heavenly father made us to...
Speaker: to fulfill amazing things.
Speaker: And, and just like what you're going to do with what you're doing with the exit podcast, who knows what that's going to bring and who knows what that's going to turn into.
Speaker: And I'm over here in my little scope, you know, making bracelets still.
Speaker: And I never anticipated that, but this is what has happened from it.
Speaker: And I feel very, very fortunate.
Speaker: Yeah, well, and I, you know, you talk about it not being realistic, and I think maybe, like, that particular outcome was serendipitous providence, you know.
Speaker: But there's a talk that I passed around with the guys recently about lottery tickets.
Speaker: and how this guy's making a joke.
Speaker: He's talking about what if we had, like, these conferences where everybody goes and they talk about how to get the right lottery numbers and how to, like, it's silly.
Speaker: It's just the lottery, right?
Speaker: But that's the way a lot of, like, tech investing goes.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: There's the not winning strategy, which is think really hard about your individual lottery ticket and the numbers to pick.
Speaker: But there's another strategy that maybe can win, which is just buy a ton of lottery tickets.
Speaker: And so, right place, right time, you were in all of these situations.
Speaker: You were going to these trade shows.
Speaker: And I think the appeal of e-commerce for a lot of people is...
Speaker: I want to be home, like either because I've got kids or just because I'm a kind of a homebody and I don't really want to, you know, be this like sales rep.
Speaker: But because you were able to step out into that world of face-to-face, you did find the big break.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: And so I think for the guys, so we've got lots of guys who are doing this.
Speaker: We've got guys who are, one of the guys sells Dungeons & Dragons dice and scented candles.
Speaker: Oh, cool.
Speaker: One of the guys sells leather crafts.
Speaker: One of them does woodworking.
Speaker: And I think one of the things that I'm going to pitch to them after this call is, what about trade shows?
Speaker: How can we get this in front of people and get you in front of people to talk about what makes it cool and to do a little bit of selling?
Speaker: So that's...
Speaker: Yes, there's an element of luck and chance or providence, but you can kind of make your own luck a little bit.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And another analogy that we use a lot is we like to put as many lines in the water as possible for those lines.
Speaker: anglers out there you know the more lines you have out there i'm not sure you know back in the day i would put a special up kind of like a groupon deal up you know i'm like okay i have this much volume of these products and i'm going to discount it this much percent let's just see how many will sell at the beginning often i would like completely sell out which was so exciting
Speaker: But as time's gone on now, it's like, well, we made it okay.
Speaker: But I have a lot more lines out in the water.
Speaker: And because I've been doing this for so long, I have learned never to get discouraged because people are still buying my jewelry, maybe not at the volume that I'd hoped they would.
Speaker: But I keep creating, I keep putting lines in, and we may not be hitting home runs, but we're hitting singles.
Speaker: And that still scores points.
Speaker: And so I am grateful for that principle of work and to keep pressing forward.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: I'm sure that the transition of the business, you know, we've talked about the manufacturing side and how that changed the operations.
Speaker: I'm sure that this also involved...
Speaker: lawyers and accountants, maybe some marketing people.
Speaker: So can you talk about how the like overheads and the number of people that needed to be in the room, some of these decisions, how that changed?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So for Costco in particular, to get in with the roadshow, you had to go up to their headquarters in Bellevue, Washington.
Speaker: And I mean, even just to get seen by human beings was like an act of God.
Speaker: Like, really?
Speaker: Like, you think you can get an appointment at Costco?
Speaker: So I felt very fortunate because of the connections that, you know, the lady who had hired me
Speaker: I was so nervous.
Speaker: I don't get nervous.
Speaker: I don't have anxiety.
Speaker: I had anxiety that day.
Speaker: And so you sit in this boardroom with 12 people staring at you and you have to sell them and show them and have real life samples of your product and have them touch them and ask you a million questions about production, which was so funny because I had only just got home from the Philippines and
Speaker: And here they are, you know, just such an infant and understanding how this was going to work and have to be able to answer all these questions.
Speaker: So you're basically given, you know, this much paperwork when they say, yeah, we like it.
Speaker: And you have to go through all of that, which we did with.
Speaker: experts who had done it, people who had, who had done it.
Speaker: And honestly, everything that we did, it was because of people.
Speaker: I would know someone, someone else would know someone, someone else knew someone who knew someone.
Speaker: And it really is about that network of I'm at a roadblock.
Speaker: What do I need to do next?
Speaker: And finding someone who knows how to take care of that.
Speaker: That was a very broad answer to a specific question that you answered, but it was one thing.
Speaker: roadblock, find someone who maybe knows someone.
Speaker: And, and a lot of times you would continue, but you just, you just keep pushing forward.
Speaker: And, and honestly, sometimes I'd call Costco and say, I'm stuck.
Speaker: Can you point me in the direction of the insurance company that we can, um, you know, that will be able to insure us because it's in different States.
Speaker: And now we need to ensure our employees that
Speaker: that are part time that were, it was just like, I have no idea.
Speaker: And sometimes they'd say, yeah, this other company use this, this people.
Speaker: So here's this name and number, you know?
Speaker: And so I was never afraid to ask for help and, and that's how we do it.
Speaker: That's how I continue to do it.
Speaker: Yeah, one of the biggest revelations of running this operation is, you know, I have an MBA, which means I know, you know, I'm an inch thick on a lot of these topics.
Speaker: But the value of having the right people in the room and knowing where to find them and getting them together is enormous.
Speaker: And that's a huge part of...
Speaker: what I do for the guys is just to, you know, a lot of times I do not have the answer, but I know the guy who has the answer.
Speaker: And, and I, it took me, it really only took me like one group call to trust that because we, we had this guy who, who needed some help and I was just blown away by what the other guys had to bring to the table.
Speaker: Like it's, there's, there's huge value in being able to get the right guys in the room.
Speaker: So yeah,
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Amen.
Speaker: I totally believe that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Um, okay.
Speaker: So, um, what drove the, well, you, okay.
Speaker: Well, you talked about, you talked about the, the family situation being the reason you moved away from brick and mortar, right?
Speaker: So how do you source the materials for this business or how did, how did you do it and how do you do it now?
Speaker: Well, I have been sourcing for a long time.
Speaker: I continue to go to those jewelry shows I mentioned earlier.
Speaker: I really enjoy getting the opportunity to meet people from all over the world and to see their product and to touch it and to make those connections.
Speaker: That is so invigorating to me.
Speaker: But I have made some very meaningful connections with people
Speaker: that I have done business with for over 10, 12 years now.
Speaker: And I'm a very loyal person and I like to stick with them.
Speaker: So you have just particular like overseas sources?
Speaker: I guess what I'm asking is when you were starting out and you needed like, well, so tell me a little bit about what your original product was.
Speaker: Was it just like beads and wire or what was involved?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the products that I would use were just like go to Michael's or Joanne's and get some cute stuff and then maybe take some stuff apart that I had in that drawer over there and put it together in a way that I like.
Speaker: And people liked it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That was really neat.
Speaker: And now, you know, now I'm doing a jewelry show, you know, at someone's house.
Speaker: So now I probably need more than that.
Speaker: So, you know, just a simple Google search got me going.
Speaker: And then I find a company and maybe I use them for a while.
Speaker: And then, you know, I keep searching online, you know, back in, let's see, back in the early 2000s, you know, that's kind of where we're all starting to really
Speaker: get on the internet and find things.
Speaker: And I would do that a lot.
Speaker: And I eventually, again, found myself at these trade shows, which were huge because people would come from all over the world.
Speaker: You know, they were known for their turquoise or their pearls, or there were known for their sterling silver inlaid pendants or their, you know, and you would walk through floors and floors and floors and ballrooms and ballrooms full for four days and never make it to the end of seeing everything.
Speaker: And I had to rely on, I don't know, I think I can, I just am directed and I can feel like at the end, I bet I found what I was looking for, or I know I haven't found what I was looking for yet.
Speaker: And sometimes I don't even know what it is that I was looking for, but when I find it, I'm like, this is what I was looking for.
Speaker: And so I'm constantly bringing in, um, just different materials to, um,
Speaker: to experiment.
Speaker: And so now we have like different things that I make here in my little workshop, you know, we have an engraver and we have a laser thing, you know, we have just like different stuff where we can work on leather and wood and,
Speaker: and different metals.
Speaker: And so even what you see on my website, isn't all of what we do.
Speaker: If you come to a more local festival, I'll have more, just some different stuff, but I'm always creating and making new things because that is fun to me.
Speaker: I enjoy that and people buy it.
Speaker: So I'm going to keep doing it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, and I mean, I think, you know, maybe as, as part of the nature of your business, you, you kind of,
Speaker: have an obligation to stay current.
Speaker: Just being in those trade shows and getting access to the materials, it's another lines in the water thing.
Speaker: You have to just be where these types of conversations are happening so that you can find what you need.
Speaker: I love a Google answer.
Speaker: I love it when the answer is just Google it because I feel like so many of these small businesses
Speaker: are hamstrung by like, surely the professionals have a secret.
Speaker: Surely there's some backdoor that I need to find to get into like, how do I source this?
Speaker: How do I run this?
Speaker: And so when I hear, oh, you just Google it, then like the people are just liberated to be like, well, okay, then I'll just Google it.
Speaker: And then they, then they, you know, can, can start to execute instead of, you know, going around and around their minds about it.
Speaker: I love that.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: Um, so when you are, well, well, tell me a little bit about how much labor you put in yourself and like what specific, what little touches do you do, uh, after the manufacturing process?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So, um, a lot of times the things you see on my website, they're component based and then I'm putting them together.
Speaker: Uh-huh.
Speaker: And so sometimes it would mean I'm adding a stone.
Speaker: I'm setting some crystals.
Speaker: I'm adding a specific initial or an engraving.
Speaker: We're adding different, you know, customizable charms.
Speaker: And so I like something.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: And I think that's what has always been a neat thing is that we really can customize a lot of our things.
Speaker: And that has been, there's just some staples that we've just sold so many of over the years that,
Speaker: I update them and bring new things to the table, but they're just popular.
Speaker: They're just a classic gift.
Speaker: They're not expensive.
Speaker: People like them.
Speaker: And we sell a lot of them.
Speaker: Bread and butter.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Lots of single hits.
Speaker: You know, my little boy plays baseball and it's just like, get on base.
Speaker: And that's what we're doing.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Get on base.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: What's your process when you're thinking up a new design?
Speaker: Do you build mock-ups?
Speaker: Do you have drawings?
Speaker: How do you go about creating?
Speaker: Yeah, a little bit of all of that.
Speaker: You know, a lot of times my inspiration comes, both things temporal and spiritual, at like 3 a.m.
Speaker: It is so annoying where I'm woken in the middle of the night and I am wide awake and it's quiet and ideas come to me.
Speaker: Ideas come to me for lessons for...
Speaker: at church ideas come to me for jewelry that I need to do for the upcoming season.
Speaker: And I feel like heavenly father just blesses me with the ability to, to get information line upon line based on what the needs are of our family.
Speaker: You know, I, I would laugh sometimes I can remember three of my kids embraces, you know, just how expensive that was.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: you know, all their different things.
Speaker: Having kids are expensive right now.
Speaker: You know, we still have some embraces.
Speaker: We have two driving, double the auto insurance.
Speaker: I had no idea.
Speaker: I was just like, how, what is going on?
Speaker: But I feel like every time we need a little bit more money or whatever it is, there's a way opened up to be able to do that.
Speaker: And I'm thankful for that.
Speaker: I don't exactly know how that works, but I get woken up at three in the morning and information comes and
Speaker: And I follow it as best I can.
Speaker: Sometimes I wake up in the morning, what was that?
Speaker: So I have to try to write it down or get up.
Speaker: And that's the worst thing when you, when you lose it.
Speaker: And that, and that, that has taught me that you never lose it because that is valuable information.
Speaker: So I utilize the notepad on my cell phone a lot in the wee early morning.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I've definitely had to learn that too is even if I don't, even if I don't have a brainwave, if I'm up for no reason, I take that as, Hey, I'm trying to talk to you and, uh, and I'll, I'll get my scriptures or I'll get my notebook or I'll, I'll, I'll try to open up whatever is supposed to come out, you know?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And, uh, I'm listening.
Speaker: I'm listening.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's like, I'm listening.
Speaker: I'm, I'm here.
Speaker: Okay, go ahead.
Speaker: And then I can write it down and go to sleep.
Speaker: That'd be great.
Speaker: So, okay, but then once you have the idea, is there like... Because, I mean, some of these products, they don't look like something you could just build for yourself.
Speaker: So what's the...
Speaker: Beyond the ideas phase, what happens when you go, okay, I'm going to make a prototype.
Speaker: I'm going to send, do you send it to the Philippines?
Speaker: Do you have to like show them how to make it?
Speaker: How does that work?
Speaker: It's all a lot of different things where I'll be like, I want to do these rings or I want to do these bracelets.
Speaker: So I sometimes have a drawing and I need them to be 12 millimeter by 12 millimeter and two cubits.
Speaker: No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker: But like, we just have to kind of go back and forth and,
Speaker: And it's also really funny because sometimes the scale of things is just wrong.
Speaker: You know, we'll like, we'll do a run on something.
Speaker: I'm like, okay, let's just try like 250 of this and we'll just go ahead and do it.
Speaker: It looks good.
Speaker: The pictures look good.
Speaker: Cause we're just kind of using technology emails.
Speaker: You know, I have a, like a what app and we chat and we just kind of go back and forth.
Speaker: And then I'm like, okay, we'll just do an initial run.
Speaker: And the cool thing is, is I can have a brand new design in like
Speaker: 10 days to my doorstep, you know, sometimes the scope or the scale is like, Whoa, that was way off.
Speaker: It was way bigger than I thought, or it's just not right.
Speaker: And so, um, that's just something that we continue to work on and it just gets better.
Speaker: What does that cost?
Speaker: What does that cost?
Speaker: That initial run at two 50?
Speaker: Well, it depends on what the product is.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: And so that's a huge determination right there.
Speaker: But for example, I do a lot of crystal bracelets.
Speaker: Like you can see them on my website.
Speaker: They're like a cushion cut crystal bracelet.
Speaker: They're just pretty simple.
Speaker: I'm trying to think if I have any sitting around here, but I change the color all the time on those.
Speaker: And because we've done those for so long, I can change the colors of the crystals for the seasons.
Speaker: And sometimes I set those stones.
Speaker: Sometimes I just have them set them for me.
Speaker: But, you know, it depends on, you know, if a bracelet that I sell for $20, you know, it depends on what base material I'm going to use.
Speaker: Am I going to use a pewter base?
Speaker: Am I going to use a brass base?
Speaker: What am I going to
Speaker: Am I going to cover it in 14 karat gold?
Speaker: Am I going to go pure sterling?
Speaker: You know, so there's so many factors that I can do the same jewelry item, but out of different materials where it's like this bracelet could cost you $2 or it could cost you $15.
Speaker: Same exact bracelet just made from a different material.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I don't know if that answered your question, but it really depends on what product, like what material we're using.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So like, what about a range?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So sterling item, and it's also market-based gold and silver prices change every day.
Speaker: And so I'm sure that's your most expensive prototyping.
Speaker: Yes, it is.
Speaker: And so when I'm doing, I mean, the thing that I've learned is that yes, I can sell
Speaker: higher priced items, but we sell lower priced items that wear well, that stainless steel always looks good and it's not that expensive.
Speaker: I was going to ask you about that because I noticed that virtually everything in your catalog sits in this 20 to 40 range.
Speaker: And I want to ask you, yeah, like was that an evolutionary process?
Speaker: How did you arrive in that little niche?
Speaker: Well, that's just what sells, you know, and I put things up on our website.
Speaker: Like I'll do a really fancy 14 karat gold necklace that I hand lay all these crystals and it's going to be $349 and there's only one of them and I'll sell it.
Speaker: I'll put it up there and it'll sell eventually, you know, someone will find it.
Speaker: But it's just those single runs, you know, what works, what's selling.
Speaker: And, um, people want to look nice, but not spend a ton of money.
Speaker: So I've, I've like accepted that, you know, I've, and maybe, and maybe if they want to go higher dollar, they want to go into a jewelry store and look at it.
Speaker: And if it's online, it's like no harm, no foul.
Speaker: You know, if they don't want to.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That makes sense.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So like,
Speaker: Do you do analytics on whether you have a lot of big ticket, like recurring customers or is it mostly one off or do you keep track of that?
Speaker: We have a lot of return customers and I think a lot of our customers, probably the last handful of years have been for gifts.
Speaker: They maybe buy it for themselves and really like it and then they give it as gifts.
Speaker: And so,
Speaker: I mean, jewelry is one of those things where, yeah, you can buy it for yourself.
Speaker: But, you know, I like to give stuff to my sisters and to my kids, teachers and kind of the same thing where if you're in that right demographic and the right dollar amount, you will you will sell.
Speaker: So I sell a lot of things for teachers and for moms and people giving to their sisters.
Speaker: And so those are very recurring.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you mentioned the church merchandise type stuff.
Speaker: I didn't see a ton of that on the website.
Speaker: I didn't go through the entire catalog.
Speaker: Do you still sell a lot of that stuff or is that a smaller piece?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I sell some stuff on Etsy and that's more, I have some like fun little let God prevail things and those are really popular.
Speaker: Like I've done a lot of little let God prevail things since President Nelson's
Speaker: awesome talk about that and yeah i mean that's on my mind all the time i mean i probably say that to myself you know five times a day you know let god prevail it's the best that's the best liner ever for lds products you know and so that's on etsy i kind of have more yeah face stuff on there
Speaker: Yeah, so you've bifurcated your offering a little bit, and there's a particular vibe that you're creating on one side versus the other.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: So in your husband's podcast with Brett Kane, he mentioned that you had this moment where you told him, I just want to be mom.
Speaker: and be close to the kids.
Speaker: And I want to ask you about that experience, what that looked like from your perspective and how you resolved it.
Speaker: Well, I really truly feel like my husband and my kids save me.
Speaker: They are what keep me grounded and they take up all of my heart, my mind and strength.
Speaker: And so I
Speaker: having the opportunity to do all the things that I got to do early on with the business was absolutely incredible.
Speaker: But at the end of the day, I still wanted to be home to make dinner for my family and put my kids to bed.
Speaker: And after having a, you know, a couple of years of that very, very rigorous schedule, it was very obvious to me where I needed to be.
Speaker: It's one of those things where it's, I don't know if you've ever seen the parent trap, you know, and the dad is going to marry the new young, cute lady and they're out camping and they kind of have a freak out.
Speaker: And, you know, the soon to be new stepmom is like me or that.
Speaker: No question.
Speaker: It would always be my family.
Speaker: Like I can walk away anytime from my business.
Speaker: I'm thankful I have this business.
Speaker: It is a vehicle to help provide for my family.
Speaker: It is very humbling that we're, I we're like this little rowboat in a huge ocean.
Speaker: I have no idea why we haven't capsized yet, but we are still rowing.
Speaker: And, um, sometimes we get horribly seasick and wet and horror, but we're, we're still here.
Speaker: And it's, it's because I,
Speaker: I'm grateful to a heavenly father who somehow has allowed this to continue despite my inability to manage it very well.
Speaker: I'm thankful to my husband who, who does a lot of our finances.
Speaker: We do have an accountant too, but he does a lot of the day to day and shipping.
Speaker: He is very analytical.
Speaker: He's very, um,
Speaker: He's very spreadsheet oriented.
Speaker: He's very organized.
Speaker: And I'm like, you know, I'm a big mess.
Speaker: And so, but it all makes sense to me.
Speaker: I can tell you exactly where that one product is.
Speaker: And he's like, where is, I have no idea.
Speaker: And so we balance each other up.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I wanted to ask you also about, because you're mentioning sort of the chaos and the disorganization,
Speaker: I imagine based on, so I sell books on Amazon and my wife has had to tolerate a pretty enormous pile of books and boxes and packaging materials.
Speaker: I got to think that this house, this business probably occupied a pretty decent portion of your house for a minute while you were building it.
Speaker: What would you say was like the high watermark?
Speaker: Well, there's been times where we were on our dining room table.
Speaker: And when it gets to the point where, you know, you can't even, you know, push the corner of the jewelry items aside to have your bowl of instant ramen noodles, that's when we need to make a change.
Speaker: We now are fortunate to have in our, we live in an old farmhouse that was built in 1940s.
Speaker: And it was on a large dairy farm.
Speaker: And so now it's only about an acre or two, but one of the outhouses is like a little two bedroom apartment that we used to call the chicken shed.
Speaker: We have 17 chickens and we enjoy gardening and, and being outside with our family.
Speaker: And this would hold like our chicken feed and our rototiller.
Speaker: And, you know, there was like an old canoe.
Speaker: And at some point we had a warehouse about 10 minutes down the street and we decided let's convert the chicken shed into our office.
Speaker: And so it's, uh, it's old and it's rudimentary, but it does the trick.
Speaker: And we have industrial shelving and, and lots of boxes and, um,
Speaker: It's a mess, but I mean, not horrible.
Speaker: It's not on my dining room table anymore.
Speaker: At least in one place, yeah.
Speaker: I'm actually right in the middle of a very similar situation.
Speaker: We are recording from the Bennett bedroom right now.
Speaker: It's occupying a corner of a not particularly huge room.
Speaker: You can see the crib in the background there.
Speaker: And I've got this little...
Speaker: outbuilding just like that that's got my riding mower and a bunch of other stuff in it and my commitment to the boys for the trades call this week was I'm going to clean that thing out get some insulation in there get some HVAC in there and that's going to be the spot because currently the wife evacuates the house for the podcast because this house is just not big enough to keep five kids quiet while I record I can imagine
Speaker: Yeah, and that's not sustainable.
Speaker: So we're headed to the shed out there.
Speaker: You will love it.
Speaker: You will love it.
Speaker: And again, I'm sorry for the technological difficulties that we had early before we got started.
Speaker: I have had the same laptop that we were trying to make work since 2007, I think.
Speaker: It prints all of our, it prints all of our shipping labels.
Speaker: It does exactly what I need it to do.
Speaker: It doesn't do very much.
Speaker: And I don't know why I thought I could, you know, get it to function.
Speaker: So this other laptop is working great, but we had to bring that in from outside inside.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, and, uh, from what I understand, you also have five kids, is that right?
Speaker: Yes, I do have five children.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And they're, um, probably it sounds like older than my kids.
Speaker: Sounds like your oldest is 18 maybe.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So my oldest son is 18.
Speaker: So we have a son who's 18.
Speaker: My daughter, Grace, is 16.
Speaker: She'll be 17 next month.
Speaker: So she wants to claim that she's 17.
Speaker: William's 14.
Speaker: Tommy's nine.
Speaker: And Bobby is two.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That's a spread.
Speaker: Good for you.
Speaker: Because Heavenly Father has a great sense of humor.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We thought we were done after Tommy, but now who knows what will happen.
Speaker: I don't, I don't say anything.
Speaker: I just say, let God prevail.
Speaker: But you know, it is very challenging having a toddler all the way up to a senior in high school, but it's a lot of.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, um, how, how have you, I often ask our entrepreneurial guests this question, which is,
Speaker: What you're doing doesn't take a four year degree.
Speaker: There are a lot of paths that do.
Speaker: What's your attitude toward educating your kids so far?
Speaker: Do you have an inkling of like what their professional path will look like, how you're preparing for it?
Speaker: That is a great question.
Speaker: Yes, I see different things in each of my children.
Speaker: I see certain children maybe going the trade route, maybe having their own business.
Speaker: I see other children who if they don't get a law degree, it is a waste of human existence.
Speaker: And so we're kind of everywhere and in between.
Speaker: I haven't finished my degree yet.
Speaker: I got married and started having my children.
Speaker: I want to finish my degree.
Speaker: And what I my desire for education changes from month to month of I want to study everything, but I can't.
Speaker: So maybe when my younger child gets in school full time, I'll
Speaker: I'll finish my degree, but education is important to us.
Speaker: And I am excited to see their desires, my children's desires and their talents and gifts, which are very individual and what will happen for them.
Speaker: We are their biggest supporter.
Speaker: And so our job is to help them learn and grow and find their, their potential and, and to grow in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man.
Speaker: And that is,
Speaker: It's in the Bible, and that is how we're truly happy is when we're progressing.
Speaker: And our job as parents is to help ignite that ability to progress.
Speaker: Gotcha.
Speaker: So, I mean, in terms of how you talk to them about it, have you...
Speaker: like, so for me it was college or nothing.
Speaker: Like that was what I was told.
Speaker: And that, that turned out to have been a mistake.
Speaker: I feel like a lot of guys in my generation were sort of told like it's college or nothing.
Speaker: So, and college is a lot of work.
Speaker: So, which is why they say it that way that they, they, they frame it as an inevitability, kind of like you, you tell your kids like you're going to go on a mission, you know, like you, it's, it's assumed that you will go on a mission.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: How have you approached that as you've got kids that are that have different needs?
Speaker: And like, is it is it easy to just motivate them on their own course or is it challenging?
Speaker: I think some things are very easy to motivate and others are tremendously challenging.
Speaker: I mean, my husband graduated from college.
Speaker: He's also an aviator.
Speaker: He's a part time corporate pilot is one of the things he does.
Speaker: And he loves that.
Speaker: And he went to school for aviation.
Speaker: And now knowing what he knows now, he's like, why did I go to school for aviation?
Speaker: I should have gone to school for something way more useful.
Speaker: That was so dumb of me.
Speaker: And so part of us is like.
Speaker: I wish I would have been smart enough to realize why didn't I finish my degree, even if the kids were young, because it was just so much easier, you know, and I think hindsight 2020, um, we're learning, but today's, uh, just the, the platform that we're living on, it doesn't have to be a four year degree or a six year or a 10 year degree.
Speaker: It really doesn't.
Speaker: And
Speaker: I think the kids have enjoyed seeing what it looks like, what an entrepreneurial family looks like, where it's like, hey, last week, let's just go on a trip.
Speaker: And we were able to check out and go on a trip together.
Speaker: And that was really, really neat.
Speaker: Whereas if we had a normal nine to five job and my toddler went to a babysitter and, you know, we couldn't have done that.
Speaker: And so we talk a lot about, you know, what our life is like, what things we like about it, what things we don't.
Speaker: We know that when Christmas comes around, mom is going to be really hectic and working 17 hour days because of the order influx.
Speaker: And we don't like that, you know?
Speaker: And so we're trying to make plans about what can we do better next holiday season?
Speaker: So every year we always say, well, why are we going to make it better?
Speaker: And there's good things.
Speaker: How do you manage?
Speaker: I'm imagining if I'm in a seasonal business like that, it's going to take me a minute to settle on like a monthly budget.
Speaker: Like this is how much, this is how much I'm actually going to have this year.
Speaker: Uh, how have you guys leveled that out?
Speaker: That is so hard.
Speaker: We are still, still trying to figure that out.
Speaker: Um, what we do since we've been doing it for so long is we like to look at like six months.
Speaker: Let's say, let's look at six months worth of income.
Speaker: Let's take out the high.
Speaker: Let's take out the low.
Speaker: Let's find the middle.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: that is sort of like what our monthly goal would be.
Speaker: And so that is how we have kind of found like these benchmarks.
Speaker: You know, we do the same thing with groceries.
Speaker: Like how much have we spent in the last six months on groceries, take out the high, take out the low months and let's try to find that, that sweet spot.
Speaker: So we're constantly having to, you know, have meetings and,
Speaker: calculate and average and make goals and remake goals and cancel that goal.
Speaker: Let's try this goal.
Speaker: It's hard because you don't know.
Speaker: And the number one thing I can count on, and I know this sounds so cheesy, but it's prayer.
Speaker: It's paying your tithing.
Speaker: The Lord has always provided for us.
Speaker: We have never gone without.
Speaker: And I am so thankful for those lean months, which teach us
Speaker: diligence and humility and those months where we're like, wow, that's awesome.
Speaker: Let's take a couple of weeks off.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, it's, it's like for me right now, I'm, I'm routinely having changes to my income that would have been either a promotion or a demotion at my corporate job.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: like a significant promotion or demotion.
Speaker: And, um, and yeah, getting used to that roller coaster is, is quite a ride.
Speaker: And I, there's another element to that, which is for you, um,
Speaker: You're ideally on this upward trajectory.
Speaker: You're growing as a business, but you're growing like this because of the sine wave, the seasonal character of it.
Speaker: Predicting how high the next high is going to be and how low the next low, that's a huge analytical challenge.
Speaker: Well, cool.
Speaker: What's the next...
Speaker: Second step.
Speaker: So this operation seems like it meets a lot of your needs, meets a lot of your wants.
Speaker: What does the future look like for you?
Speaker: You know, sometimes my husband and I talk about this, you know, is there a chance that he could get a full time aviation job?
Speaker: Yes, there is a chance.
Speaker: And sometimes it's really tempting to be like, oh, could you just go get a full time aviation job so that we don't have to do the business anymore?
Speaker: And sometimes it's like that would just be like the magic wand.
Speaker: And then we're brought back to reality.
Speaker: And then we really remember that.
Speaker: Wait a minute.
Speaker: We like working together.
Speaker: We have learned so much about.
Speaker: and we like the lifestyle.
Speaker: So we usually end up with, no, we want to keep the business.
Speaker: We definitely want to keep the business.
Speaker: And what do we want to do better?
Speaker: And where do we want to be next year?
Speaker: And what goals do we have for our retirement?
Speaker: And we usually end up with new goals for the next year and what we're going to try to do.
Speaker: And I don't see the business going anywhere.
Speaker: And I even have one of my children who was like really fascinated by all of it, stones and stuff.
Speaker: And he's a boy, he's nine.
Speaker: He like loves stones and like geology.
Speaker: And you just like, mom, someday, can I take over the business?
Speaker: You know, I'm like, Oh, sure.
Speaker: I guess.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You want to.
Speaker: Um, so that always made me laugh, but I don't see it going anywhere and we continue to adjust and, um,
Speaker: see where it goes.
Speaker: You know, I, I'm not exactly sure.
Speaker: I am thankful that we have a platform to provide for our family.
Speaker: And I hope that we can be wise with what we're given stewardship over so we can, you know, prepare for the next chapters of our life.
Speaker: Do you think about changing the nature of the business or expanding into some new product?
Speaker: Or is it, do you like kind of the steady state that it's at?
Speaker: I'm not opposed to opening up into different venues.
Speaker: And I feel like we sort of have with some of the church items, you know, I haven't always done stuff like that.
Speaker: I mean, here and there, you know, it's sprinkled in, but the exciting thing, like some of the metrics I was looking at earlier, we send a lot of our jewelry to, um, the East coast and down South, you know, I mean,
Speaker: Looking at packages over the last few weeks, I was like, you know, Louisiana, Texas, North Carolina.
Speaker: I mean, obviously everywhere, but sometimes it blows me away how much we're sending to the South.
Speaker: And so it's just as we adjust and make new things, I think certain things are more popular to certain demographics.
Speaker: And I just keep creating and just keep seeing what's going to happen.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Yeah, it's interesting about your son being so interested in stones and geology.
Speaker: I've had this wild burr to do some metalworking recently.
Speaker: I've been watching these YouTube videos about silver refining things.
Speaker: like where you, you use like copper wire and you run a current through it and it just pulls in the silver and you melt it down and you create like ingots and bars and stuff.
Speaker: Um, which is like a very different, it's very different, like aesthetic, a very different flavor than, than what you're doing.
Speaker: But I wonder if, if your boy might take it in more of like that direction, like, cause it's, you know, this, the different gender flavor, um, fascination, you know what I mean?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Sometimes my, some people always joke, they're like, when does the men's line come out?
Speaker: Where's the shark tooth necklace or the bullets?
Speaker: You know, I'm like, I don't know.
Speaker: We'll see what happens.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's definitely like some, some potential for some brand confusion there, but, um, it's a cool idea.
Speaker: Well, listen, this has been a lot of fun.
Speaker: It's been great getting to know you.
Speaker: Anyone that wants to learn more about what Janine here is doing can check out savannahill.com.
Speaker: She's also got an Etsy shop that I'll include in the podcast description.
Speaker: If you're interested in learning more about what we do at Exit, you can check us out at exitgroup.us, follow us on Twitter at exit underscore org, or follow the podcast at exitgroup.podbean.com.
Speaker: Thanks so much, Janine.
Speaker: This was a pleasure.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: Thank you.
