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EXIT Podcast Episode 27: Craft Sales (feat Jenine Abegg)
283 Plays3 years ago
Jenine & Taylor Abegg own savannahill.com, an online jewelry store. Jenine went from buying beads and wire from Michaels to sell to her friends, to having her designs mass-produced overseas and featured at Costco. It's difficult to go into business for yourself - but many people who have succeeded in "owning their job" are nervous about scaling up into a business with employees, suppliers, long-term contracts, etc. So I wanted to talk to Jenine about how they made it happen.
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Transcript
Introduction to Janine Abeg and Savannah Hill Jewelry
00:00:17
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome to the Exit Podcast.
00:00:19
Speaker
This is Dr. Bennett, I'm joined here by Janine Abeg.
00:00:22
Speaker
Janine owns Savannah Hill Jewelry.
00:00:24
Speaker
It's a business that she started from her living room 17 years ago and now has been featured in Costco.
00:00:30
Speaker
It's available at savannahhill.com.
00:00:32
Speaker
Welcome to the show, Janine.
00:00:34
Speaker
Thank you so much.
00:00:35
Speaker
So, probably the number one reason that people with artistic talent procrastinate starting this kind of business
00:00:44
Speaker
There's a million craft businesses and they think, how am I going to stand out?
00:00:48
Speaker
How am I different?
00:00:51
Speaker
How did you get over that hump?
00:00:55
Speaker
Good question.
00:00:57
Speaker
I started my business to pay for diapers.
00:01:01
Speaker
I had two young children.
00:01:03
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.
00:01:13
Speaker
And so I needed extra money and I would, I would make some jewelry for myself and friends.
00:01:20
Speaker
And then my friend's mom would see it and say, Oh, I want to buy one of those.
00:01:24
Speaker
And, and,
00:01:24
Speaker
And it actually became a business because of people around me encouraging me, you need to do a party.
00:01:30
Speaker
You need to make more of these.
00:01:32
Speaker
And I really just started off by needing to get some extra groceries.
Transitioning to Online Sales
00:01:36
Speaker
Awesome.
00:01:37
Speaker
So it was definitely word of mouth.
00:01:39
Speaker
Tell me about the parties.
00:01:42
Speaker
So like I said, I started making, you know, stuff for my friends and her grandma.
00:01:46
Speaker
And then before I know it, within maybe a month, I was invited to do a little party.
00:01:51
Speaker
So I
00:01:52
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.
00:02:03
Speaker
Oh, come over.
00:02:04
Speaker
We'll have a fun little party.
00:02:06
Speaker
And it really began just like that.
00:02:09
Speaker
Nice.
00:02:10
Speaker
So we have, we have several people in the group who operate small Etsy shops and,
00:02:17
Speaker
There's a difficult jumping off point.
00:02:20
Speaker
Well, first of all, how did you make the transition from making things for your friends to going online?
00:02:27
Speaker
Was that a big hurdle or was that pretty straightforward to do?
00:02:32
Speaker
It was a huge hurdle.
00:02:34
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.
00:02:48
Speaker
It's very competitive.
00:02:49
Speaker
And that was sort of like, if you can get into Swiss days, oh, that's amazing.
00:02:53
Speaker
But you can start in these smaller little places in your local communities.
00:02:57
Speaker
And so I got into doing, um,
00:03:00
Speaker
those craft booths at different fairs around town.
00:03:04
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.
00:03:15
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.
00:03:21
Speaker
And so because of need, I thought now is the time to go online.
00:03:27
Speaker
I knew nothing.
00:03:29
Speaker
And that was really, it's a huge hurdle.
00:03:32
Speaker
But looking back now, I'm so thankful for my husband encouraging me to do that.
00:03:36
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.
00:03:43
Speaker
So it was definitely a huge hurdle to do that, but it was worth it.
00:03:48
Speaker
And in today's marketplace, it's a necessity to be online.
00:03:53
Speaker
How long did it take for
00:03:56
Speaker
the online to overtake what you were selling face to face?
00:04:04
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.
00:04:14
Speaker
They're a pretty big company now.
00:04:16
Speaker
And I was one of, you know, one of the first vendors with them.
00:04:20
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.
00:04:33
Speaker
And I can remember one of those first like necklaces I put on as a Jane.com deal.
00:04:39
Speaker
I think I sold 275 necklaces in one morning.
00:04:44
Speaker
And then that was like absolutely insane for me.
00:04:47
Speaker
That turned into a two day sale
00:04:50
Speaker
maybe bringing 976 orders in two days.
00:04:55
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.
00:05:05
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
00:05:15
Speaker
these opportunities I took.
00:05:17
Speaker
So I had my own website, I had Etsy, and then I had Jane.
Meeting High Demand and Manufacturing Overseas
00:05:21
Speaker
I still sell on Jane today.
00:05:23
Speaker
I don't do as much, but I sell on jane.com and sell out, you know, certain products there.
00:05:29
Speaker
I sell on my website and I do also still sell on Etsy.
00:05:32
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?
00:05:43
Speaker
So that was like my best friends, my mother-in-law, I need help.
00:05:48
Speaker
I have way too many orders and all these kids running around.
00:05:52
Speaker
And so it was like during nap time, I'm buying everyone Jimmy John's.
00:05:56
Speaker
Let's make necklaces, you know?
00:05:59
Speaker
And so sometimes we would just kind of, I would incentivize my friends.
00:06:03
Speaker
You get free jewelry.
00:06:04
Speaker
I'll pay you this.
00:06:05
Speaker
I'll take you to lunch.
00:06:06
Speaker
I'll babysit your kids forever.
00:06:08
Speaker
Please help me.
00:06:10
Speaker
And in those early days before I had any helpers, that's how we made it work.
00:06:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:16
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.
00:06:30
Speaker
And what I see on the website now is it looks more like a manufactured product.
00:06:36
Speaker
Um, it looks like, like it probably is less amenable to like hand tooling.
00:06:41
Speaker
So can you talk about how you, how you navigated that transition?
00:06:46
Speaker
Yes.
00:06:46
Speaker
And so, okay.
00:06:47
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.
00:06:54
Speaker
I eventually did a booth at Swiss days, which was crazy.
00:06:59
Speaker
And I mean, we're talking so much inventory and so many people.
00:07:05
Speaker
I had the opportunity and was approached by a company.
00:07:07
Speaker
They wanted me to design some very specific jewelry for them.
00:07:12
Speaker
And they wanted that jewelry to go into Costco.
00:07:15
Speaker
And so that's where Costco came to be.
00:07:18
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
00:07:27
Speaker
very customized images inside of glass that people would want special family pictures, ancestors, pictures of temples inside of these charms.
00:07:37
Speaker
And I sold so many of them and they really, this company really liked it.
00:07:41
Speaker
They had artwork, they had beautiful artwork.
00:07:44
Speaker
And what I ended up doing is they wanted me to streamline.
00:07:49
Speaker
Obviously I couldn't solder millions of these necklaces or hundreds of thousands of them.
00:07:55
Speaker
And so,
00:07:56
Speaker
I was basically charged with, you need to be able to get this manufactured.
00:08:00
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,
00:08:12
Speaker
interchangeable and different sizes.
00:08:15
Speaker
And so I spent a couple of weeks there getting all my molds made and it was like baptism by fire.
00:08:21
Speaker
Like anything else you learn by doing things, you learn by the necessity that comes to you.
00:08:27
Speaker
Here we have this problem here.
00:08:29
Speaker
We have this roadblock.
00:08:30
Speaker
What are we going to do?
00:08:32
Speaker
I would go to Las Vegas and also Tucson for jewelry shows each year where I would find
00:08:39
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.
00:08:50
Speaker
I was directed to a certain company.
00:08:54
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.
00:09:07
Speaker
I still touch every single piece of my jewelry that you see on my website.
00:09:11
Speaker
There are finishing things that I need to do.
00:09:15
Speaker
But a lot of my stuff is manufactured now at some of the factories that I have.
00:09:19
Speaker
So we have a factory in the Philippines that we use and a factory in China that we use.
00:09:24
Speaker
And so that's been awesome in helping us scale what we've been doing.
00:09:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:29
Speaker
So did you go straight from...
00:09:33
Speaker
getting your friends to work for pizza to sending it out overseas?
00:09:38
Speaker
Or did you have an intermediate stage where you had employees?
00:09:42
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.
00:09:53
Speaker
So I was the face of it.
00:09:54
Speaker
I had to go to Costco headquarters.
00:09:56
Speaker
I had to present it.
00:09:57
Speaker
I had to
00:09:58
Speaker
you know, help them understand what we were going to do and where our price points were.
00:10:03
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.
00:10:22
Speaker
Right.
00:10:23
Speaker
throughout the year.
00:10:24
Speaker
That was the program I participated in, but often we'd have two or three shows going on at one time.
00:10:32
Speaker
And one show, the sterling silver and the product that we had there, it cost about $10,000 per show in inventory.
00:10:41
Speaker
I did not have that.
00:10:42
Speaker
And so it was a really neat opportunity to have the funding behind me to help me
00:10:49
Speaker
pull this off.
00:10:49
Speaker
And so the company I was working for, they helped with all of the employees.
00:10:55
Speaker
I was training everyone.
00:10:57
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.
00:11:08
Speaker
And working on that.
00:11:09
Speaker
And then I would go out to a show, train people how to do it.
00:11:14
Speaker
I'd travel around to different shows.
00:11:15
Speaker
And those were usually on the West Coast is where those shows were in Washington, California, Arizona, Utah, Vegas areas.
00:11:24
Speaker
So that was a really crazy, cool experience.
00:11:28
Speaker
And after a time, I was gone all the time.
00:11:31
Speaker
And the whole purpose of my business was to be home with my family.
00:11:35
Speaker
Sure.
00:11:36
Speaker
And so after a time I, I sold out of my portion and continued back to doing it on a smaller scale.
00:11:46
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.
00:12:01
Speaker
So a lot of those things happened pretty early on.
00:12:04
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.
00:12:12
Speaker
So that was an awesome chance to learn about manufacturing and a bigger scale.
00:12:19
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.
Standing Out in Business and Networking
00:12:31
Speaker
And that is the most important thing.
00:12:33
Speaker
is to raise my children nearby and for them to have a mother.
00:12:37
Speaker
Yeah, but it was such an impressive slingshot early on.
00:12:42
Speaker
And I wonder if you could speak to how did you attract that kind of attention?
00:12:53
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.
00:13:04
Speaker
Um, so the gal who found me who, and I would do a lot of festivals.
00:13:10
Speaker
So sometimes they were just like, Oh, a Saturday afternoon at this festival, you know, and I had a lot of inventory.
00:13:15
Speaker
I'm always creating, I'm always making stuff.
00:13:18
Speaker
I have a lot of stuff.
00:13:19
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.
00:13:24
Speaker
And,
00:13:25
Speaker
I never expected people to find me.
00:13:27
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.
00:13:37
Speaker
And I think it was being in the right place at the right time.
00:13:41
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.
00:13:53
Speaker
But really, that isn't realistic.
00:13:57
Speaker
I realize that that's not going to happen for everyone.
00:14:00
Speaker
The most success that I have found is by trial and error, by the market changes every quarter, it would seem.
00:14:11
Speaker
And I make what I like.
00:14:14
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.
00:14:28
Speaker
I think sometimes we fight, why do I have this desire?
00:14:31
Speaker
But I really feel like our individual desires when we're living correctly are inspired of God.
00:14:38
Speaker
And we are all meant to be the body of Christ and to create and to help each other to have fulfilling lives.
00:14:46
Speaker
And that looks different for every single person on this earth.
00:14:49
Speaker
But I really believe that our heavenly father made us to...
00:14:55
Speaker
to fulfill amazing things.
00:14:57
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.
00:15:05
Speaker
And I'm over here in my little scope, you know, making bracelets still.
00:15:10
Speaker
And I never anticipated that, but this is what has happened from it.
00:15:15
Speaker
And I feel very, very fortunate.
00:15:17
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.
00:15:30
Speaker
But there's a talk that I passed around with the guys recently about lottery tickets.
00:15:40
Speaker
and how this guy's making a joke.
00:15:42
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.
00:15:50
Speaker
It's just the lottery, right?
00:15:51
Speaker
But that's the way a lot of, like, tech investing goes.
00:15:55
Speaker
But...
00:15:57
Speaker
There's the not winning strategy, which is think really hard about your individual lottery ticket and the numbers to pick.
00:16:03
Speaker
But there's another strategy that maybe can win, which is just buy a ton of lottery tickets.
00:16:09
Speaker
And so, right place, right time, you were in all of these situations.
00:16:14
Speaker
You were going to these trade shows.
00:16:16
Speaker
And I think the appeal of e-commerce for a lot of people is...
00:16:21
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.
00:16:31
Speaker
But because you were able to step out into that world of face-to-face, you did find the big break.
00:16:42
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:16:43
Speaker
And so I think for the guys, so we've got lots of guys who are doing this.
00:16:47
Speaker
We've got guys who are, one of the guys sells Dungeons & Dragons dice and scented candles.
00:16:54
Speaker
Oh, cool.
00:16:55
Speaker
One of the guys sells leather crafts.
00:17:00
Speaker
One of them does woodworking.
00:17:02
Speaker
And I think one of the things that I'm going to pitch to them after this call is, what about trade shows?
00:17:11
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?
00:17:20
Speaker
So that's...
00:17:24
Speaker
Yes, there's an element of luck and chance or providence, but you can kind of make your own luck a little bit.
00:17:34
Speaker
I agree.
00:17:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:36
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.
00:17:44
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
00:18:07
Speaker
But as time's gone on now, it's like, well, we made it okay.
00:18:11
Speaker
But I have a lot more lines out in the water.
00:18:15
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.
00:18:25
Speaker
But I keep creating, I keep putting lines in, and we may not be hitting home runs, but we're hitting singles.
00:18:33
Speaker
And that still scores points.
00:18:35
Speaker
And so I am grateful for that principle of work and to keep pressing forward.
Logistics and Sourcing Materials
00:18:42
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:18:44
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.
00:18:52
Speaker
I'm sure that this also involved...
00:18:56
Speaker
lawyers and accountants, maybe some marketing people.
00:19:00
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?
00:19:07
Speaker
Okay.
00:19:10
Speaker
So for Costco in particular, to get in with the roadshow, you had to go up to their headquarters in Bellevue, Washington.
00:19:17
Speaker
And I mean, even just to get seen by human beings was like an act of God.
00:19:22
Speaker
Like, really?
00:19:23
Speaker
Like, you think you can get an appointment at Costco?
00:19:25
Speaker
So I felt very fortunate because of the connections that, you know, the lady who had hired me
00:19:32
Speaker
I was so nervous.
00:19:34
Speaker
I don't get nervous.
00:19:35
Speaker
I don't have anxiety.
00:19:36
Speaker
I had anxiety that day.
00:19:38
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
00:19:58
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.
00:20:07
Speaker
So you're basically given, you know, this much paperwork when they say, yeah, we like it.
00:20:13
Speaker
And you have to go through all of that, which we did with.
00:20:17
Speaker
experts who had done it, people who had, who had done it.
00:20:21
Speaker
And honestly, everything that we did, it was because of people.
00:20:25
Speaker
I would know someone, someone else would know someone, someone else knew someone who knew someone.
00:20:29
Speaker
And it really is about that network of I'm at a roadblock.
00:20:33
Speaker
What do I need to do next?
00:20:35
Speaker
And finding someone who knows how to take care of that.
00:20:38
Speaker
That was a very broad answer to a specific question that you answered, but it was one thing.
00:20:44
Speaker
roadblock, find someone who maybe knows someone.
00:20:47
Speaker
And, and a lot of times you would continue, but you just, you just keep pushing forward.
00:20:52
Speaker
And, and honestly, sometimes I'd call Costco and say, I'm stuck.
00:20:57
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.
00:21:06
Speaker
And now we need to ensure our employees that
00:21:09
Speaker
that are part time that were, it was just like, I have no idea.
00:21:13
Speaker
And sometimes they'd say, yeah, this other company use this, this people.
00:21:18
Speaker
So here's this name and number, you know?
00:21:19
Speaker
And so I was never afraid to ask for help and, and that's how we do it.
00:21:25
Speaker
That's how I continue to do it.
00:21:27
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.
00:21:45
Speaker
But the value of having the right people in the room and knowing where to find them and getting them together is enormous.
00:21:53
Speaker
And that's a huge part of...
00:21:55
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.
00:22:02
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.
00:22:17
Speaker
Like it's, there's, there's huge value in being able to get the right guys in the room.
00:22:23
Speaker
So yeah,
00:22:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:25
Speaker
Amen.
00:22:25
Speaker
I totally believe that.
00:22:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:27
Speaker
Um, okay.
00:22:29
Speaker
So, um, what drove the, well, you, okay.
00:22:35
Speaker
Well, you talked about, you talked about the, the family situation being the reason you moved away from brick and mortar, right?
00:22:42
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?
00:22:50
Speaker
Well, I have been sourcing for a long time.
00:22:55
Speaker
I continue to go to those jewelry shows I mentioned earlier.
00:22:59
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.
00:23:10
Speaker
That is so invigorating to me.
00:23:12
Speaker
But I have made some very meaningful connections with people
00:23:17
Speaker
that I have done business with for over 10, 12 years now.
00:23:23
Speaker
And I'm a very loyal person and I like to stick with them.
00:23:29
Speaker
So you have just particular like overseas sources?
00:23:33
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.
00:23:40
Speaker
Was it just like beads and wire or what was involved?
00:23:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:44
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.
00:23:59
Speaker
And people liked it.
00:24:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:03
Speaker
That was really neat.
00:24:04
Speaker
And now, you know, now I'm doing a jewelry show, you know, at someone's house.
00:24:08
Speaker
So now I probably need more than that.
00:24:12
Speaker
So, you know, just a simple Google search got me going.
00:24:15
Speaker
And then I find a company and maybe I use them for a while.
00:24:19
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
00:24:31
Speaker
get on the internet and find things.
00:24:34
Speaker
And I would do that a lot.
00:24:36
Speaker
And I eventually, again, found myself at these trade shows, which were huge because people would come from all over the world.
00:24:44
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.
00:25:01
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.
00:25:13
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.
00:25:20
Speaker
And so I'm constantly bringing in, um, just different materials to, um,
00:25:26
Speaker
to experiment.
00:25:27
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,
00:25:39
Speaker
and different metals.
00:25:40
Speaker
And so even what you see on my website, isn't all of what we do.
00:25:44
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.
00:25:53
Speaker
I enjoy that and people buy it.
00:25:56
Speaker
So I'm going to keep doing it.
00:25:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:58
Speaker
Well, and I mean, I think, you know, maybe as, as part of the nature of your business, you, you kind of,
00:26:05
Speaker
have an obligation to stay current.
00:26:12
Speaker
Just being in those trade shows and getting access to the materials, it's another lines in the water thing.
00:26:19
Speaker
You have to just be where these types of conversations are happening so that you can find what you need.
00:26:25
Speaker
I love a Google answer.
00:26:26
Speaker
I love it when the answer is just Google it because I feel like so many of these small businesses
00:26:32
Speaker
are hamstrung by like, surely the professionals have a secret.
00:26:36
Speaker
Surely there's some backdoor that I need to find to get into like, how do I source this?
00:26:41
Speaker
How do I run this?
00:26:42
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.
00:26:49
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.
Creative Process and Prototyping
00:26:57
Speaker
I love that.
00:26:57
Speaker
That's true.
00:27:00
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?
00:27:17
Speaker
Okay.
00:27:18
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.
00:27:26
Speaker
Uh-huh.
00:27:27
Speaker
And so sometimes it would mean I'm adding a stone.
00:27:30
Speaker
I'm setting some crystals.
00:27:31
Speaker
I'm adding a specific initial or an engraving.
00:27:35
Speaker
We're adding different, you know, customizable charms.
00:27:39
Speaker
And so I like something.
00:27:42
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:27:43
Speaker
And I think that's what has always been a neat thing is that we really can customize a lot of our things.
00:27:49
Speaker
And that has been, there's just some staples that we've just sold so many of over the years that,
00:27:56
Speaker
I update them and bring new things to the table, but they're just popular.
00:28:00
Speaker
They're just a classic gift.
00:28:02
Speaker
They're not expensive.
00:28:03
Speaker
People like them.
00:28:05
Speaker
And we sell a lot of them.
00:28:07
Speaker
Bread and butter.
00:28:09
Speaker
Yep.
00:28:10
Speaker
Lots of single hits.
00:28:12
Speaker
You know, my little boy plays baseball and it's just like, get on base.
00:28:15
Speaker
And that's what we're doing.
00:28:17
Speaker
I love it.
00:28:18
Speaker
I love it.
00:28:18
Speaker
Get on base.
00:28:20
Speaker
Um,
00:28:21
Speaker
What's your process when you're thinking up a new design?
00:28:23
Speaker
Do you build mock-ups?
00:28:25
Speaker
Do you have drawings?
00:28:26
Speaker
How do you go about creating?
00:28:28
Speaker
Yeah, a little bit of all of that.
00:28:31
Speaker
You know, a lot of times my inspiration comes, both things temporal and spiritual, at like 3 a.m.
00:28:39
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.
00:28:48
Speaker
Ideas come to me for lessons for...
00:28:51
Speaker
at church ideas come to me for jewelry that I need to do for the upcoming season.
00:28:56
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.
00:29:06
Speaker
You know, I, I would laugh sometimes I can remember three of my kids embraces, you know, just how expensive that was.
00:29:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:14
Speaker
And,
00:29:15
Speaker
you know, all their different things.
00:29:17
Speaker
Having kids are expensive right now.
00:29:18
Speaker
You know, we still have some embraces.
00:29:19
Speaker
We have two driving, double the auto insurance.
00:29:23
Speaker
I had no idea.
00:29:24
Speaker
I was just like, how, what is going on?
00:29:27
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.
00:29:36
Speaker
And I'm thankful for that.
00:29:38
Speaker
I don't exactly know how that works, but I get woken up at three in the morning and information comes and
00:29:45
Speaker
And I follow it as best I can.
00:29:46
Speaker
Sometimes I wake up in the morning, what was that?
00:29:49
Speaker
So I have to try to write it down or get up.
00:29:52
Speaker
And that's the worst thing when you, when you lose it.
00:29:56
Speaker
And that, and that, that has taught me that you never lose it because that is valuable information.
00:30:04
Speaker
So I utilize the notepad on my cell phone a lot in the wee early morning.
00:30:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:10
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?
00:30:31
Speaker
Yep.
00:30:31
Speaker
And, uh, I'm listening.
00:30:33
Speaker
I'm listening.
00:30:34
Speaker
Right.
00:30:34
Speaker
It's like, I'm listening.
00:30:36
Speaker
I'm, I'm here.
00:30:37
Speaker
Okay, go ahead.
00:30:37
Speaker
And then I can write it down and go to sleep.
00:30:39
Speaker
That'd be great.
00:30:44
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.
00:30:58
Speaker
So what's the...
00:31:00
Speaker
Beyond the ideas phase, what happens when you go, okay, I'm going to make a prototype.
00:31:06
Speaker
I'm going to send, do you send it to the Philippines?
00:31:08
Speaker
Do you have to like show them how to make it?
00:31:10
Speaker
How does that work?
00:31:12
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.
00:31:17
Speaker
So I sometimes have a drawing and I need them to be 12 millimeter by 12 millimeter and two cubits.
00:31:22
Speaker
No, I'm just kidding.
00:31:23
Speaker
But like, we just have to kind of go back and forth and,
00:31:28
Speaker
And it's also really funny because sometimes the scale of things is just wrong.
00:31:33
Speaker
You know, we'll like, we'll do a run on something.
00:31:35
Speaker
I'm like, okay, let's just try like 250 of this and we'll just go ahead and do it.
00:31:41
Speaker
It looks good.
00:31:41
Speaker
The pictures look good.
00:31:42
Speaker
Cause we're just kind of using technology emails.
00:31:45
Speaker
You know, I have a, like a what app and we chat and we just kind of go back and forth.
00:31:49
Speaker
And then I'm like, okay, we'll just do an initial run.
00:31:52
Speaker
And the cool thing is, is I can have a brand new design in like
00:31:57
Speaker
10 days to my doorstep, you know, sometimes the scope or the scale is like, Whoa, that was way off.
00:32:04
Speaker
It was way bigger than I thought, or it's just not right.
00:32:07
Speaker
And so, um, that's just something that we continue to work on and it just gets better.
00:32:16
Speaker
What does that cost?
00:32:17
Speaker
What does that cost?
00:32:18
Speaker
That initial run at two 50?
00:32:20
Speaker
Well, it depends on what the product is.
00:32:23
Speaker
Um,
00:32:23
Speaker
And so that's a huge determination right there.
00:32:27
Speaker
But for example, I do a lot of crystal bracelets.
00:32:30
Speaker
Like you can see them on my website.
00:32:32
Speaker
They're like a cushion cut crystal bracelet.
00:32:34
Speaker
They're just pretty simple.
00:32:35
Speaker
I'm trying to think if I have any sitting around here, but I change the color all the time on those.
00:32:42
Speaker
And because we've done those for so long, I can change the colors of the crystals for the seasons.
00:32:49
Speaker
And sometimes I set those stones.
00:32:51
Speaker
Sometimes I just have them set them for me.
00:32:55
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.
00:33:07
Speaker
Am I going to use a pewter base?
00:33:10
Speaker
Am I going to use a brass base?
00:33:12
Speaker
What am I going to
00:33:14
Speaker
Am I going to cover it in 14 karat gold?
00:33:16
Speaker
Am I going to go pure sterling?
00:33:18
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.
00:33:31
Speaker
Same exact bracelet just made from a different material.
00:33:34
Speaker
Right.
00:33:35
Speaker
I don't know if that answered your question, but it really depends on what product, like what material we're using.
Pricing Strategies and Customer Demographics
00:33:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:43
Speaker
So like, what about a range?
00:33:45
Speaker
Okay.
00:33:48
Speaker
So sterling item, and it's also market-based gold and silver prices change every day.
00:33:54
Speaker
And so I'm sure that's your most expensive prototyping.
00:33:57
Speaker
Yes, it is.
00:33:58
Speaker
And so when I'm doing, I mean, the thing that I've learned is that yes, I can sell
00:34:03
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.
00:34:14
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.
00:34:22
Speaker
And I want to ask you, yeah, like was that an evolutionary process?
00:34:26
Speaker
How did you arrive in that little niche?
00:34:29
Speaker
Well, that's just what sells, you know, and I put things up on our website.
00:34:33
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.
00:34:43
Speaker
I'll put it up there and it'll sell eventually, you know, someone will find it.
00:34:47
Speaker
But it's just those single runs, you know, what works, what's selling.
00:34:52
Speaker
And, um, people want to look nice, but not spend a ton of money.
00:34:57
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.
00:35:07
Speaker
And if it's online, it's like no harm, no foul.
00:35:10
Speaker
You know, if they don't want to.
00:35:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:13
Speaker
Yes.
00:35:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:13
Speaker
Yes.
00:35:14
Speaker
That makes sense.
00:35:15
Speaker
Okay.
00:35:16
Speaker
So like,
00:35:17
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?
00:35:28
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.
00:35:38
Speaker
They maybe buy it for themselves and really like it and then they give it as gifts.
00:35:42
Speaker
And so,
00:35:44
Speaker
I mean, jewelry is one of those things where, yeah, you can buy it for yourself.
00:35:47
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.
00:35:58
Speaker
So I sell a lot of things for teachers and for moms and people giving to their sisters.
00:36:04
Speaker
And so those are very recurring.
00:36:06
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:36:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:07
Speaker
Yeah.
Balancing Family and Business
00:36:08
Speaker
And you mentioned the church merchandise type stuff.
00:36:15
Speaker
I didn't see a ton of that on the website.
00:36:18
Speaker
I didn't go through the entire catalog.
00:36:20
Speaker
Do you still sell a lot of that stuff or is that a smaller piece?
00:36:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:24
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.
00:36:32
Speaker
Like I've done a lot of little let God prevail things since President Nelson's
00:36:37
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
00:37:00
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.
00:37:10
Speaker
Yes.
00:37:11
Speaker
Nice.
00:37:14
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.
00:37:26
Speaker
and be close to the kids.
00:37:29
Speaker
And I want to ask you about that experience, what that looked like from your perspective and how you resolved it.
00:37:38
Speaker
Well, I really truly feel like my husband and my kids save me.
00:37:43
Speaker
They are what keep me grounded and they take up all of my heart, my mind and strength.
00:37:53
Speaker
And so I
00:37:55
Speaker
having the opportunity to do all the things that I got to do early on with the business was absolutely incredible.
00:38:01
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.
00:38:07
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.
00:38:21
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.
00:38:37
Speaker
And, you know, the soon to be new stepmom is like me or that.
00:38:42
Speaker
No question.
00:38:43
Speaker
It would always be my family.
00:38:45
Speaker
Like I can walk away anytime from my business.
00:38:49
Speaker
I'm thankful I have this business.
00:38:52
Speaker
It is a vehicle to help provide for my family.
00:38:55
Speaker
It is very humbling that we're, I we're like this little rowboat in a huge ocean.
00:39:01
Speaker
I have no idea why we haven't capsized yet, but we are still rowing.
00:39:06
Speaker
And, um, sometimes we get horribly seasick and wet and horror, but we're, we're still here.
00:39:14
Speaker
And it's, it's because I,
00:39:18
Speaker
I'm grateful to a heavenly father who somehow has allowed this to continue despite my inability to manage it very well.
00:39:27
Speaker
I'm thankful to my husband who, who does a lot of our finances.
00:39:31
Speaker
We do have an accountant too, but he does a lot of the day to day and shipping.
00:39:35
Speaker
He is very analytical.
00:39:37
Speaker
He's very, um,
00:39:39
Speaker
He's very spreadsheet oriented.
00:39:41
Speaker
He's very organized.
00:39:42
Speaker
And I'm like, you know, I'm a big mess.
00:39:44
Speaker
And so, but it all makes sense to me.
00:39:47
Speaker
I can tell you exactly where that one product is.
00:39:50
Speaker
And he's like, where is, I have no idea.
Educational Paths and Career Options
00:39:53
Speaker
And so we balance each other up.
00:39:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:59
Speaker
I wanted to ask you also about, because you're mentioning sort of the chaos and the disorganization,
00:40:07
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.
00:40:21
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.
00:40:30
Speaker
What would you say was like the high watermark?
00:40:35
Speaker
Well, there's been times where we were on our dining room table.
00:40:41
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.
00:40:57
Speaker
We now are fortunate to have in our, we live in an old farmhouse that was built in 1940s.
00:41:05
Speaker
And it was on a large dairy farm.
00:41:08
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.
00:41:18
Speaker
We have 17 chickens and we enjoy gardening and, and being outside with our family.
00:41:24
Speaker
And this would hold like our chicken feed and our rototiller.
00:41:29
Speaker
And, you know, there was like an old canoe.
00:41:32
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.
00:41:42
Speaker
And so it's, uh, it's old and it's rudimentary, but it does the trick.
00:41:48
Speaker
And we have industrial shelving and, and lots of boxes and, um,
00:41:55
Speaker
It's a mess, but I mean, not horrible.
00:41:58
Speaker
It's not on my dining room table anymore.
00:42:00
Speaker
At least in one place, yeah.
00:42:03
Speaker
I'm actually right in the middle of a very similar situation.
00:42:07
Speaker
We are recording from the Bennett bedroom right now.
00:42:12
Speaker
It's occupying a corner of a not particularly huge room.
00:42:16
Speaker
You can see the crib in the background there.
00:42:20
Speaker
And I've got this little...
00:42:23
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
00:42:53
Speaker
Yeah, and that's not sustainable.
00:42:54
Speaker
So we're headed to the shed out there.
00:42:59
Speaker
You will love it.
00:43:00
Speaker
You will love it.
00:43:01
Speaker
And again, I'm sorry for the technological difficulties that we had early before we got started.
00:43:07
Speaker
I have had the same laptop that we were trying to make work since 2007, I think.
00:43:13
Speaker
It prints all of our, it prints all of our shipping labels.
00:43:17
Speaker
It does exactly what I need it to do.
00:43:19
Speaker
It doesn't do very much.
00:43:21
Speaker
And I don't know why I thought I could, you know, get it to function.
00:43:25
Speaker
So this other laptop is working great, but we had to bring that in from outside inside.
00:43:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:31
Speaker
And, and, uh, from what I understand, you also have five kids, is that right?
00:43:35
Speaker
Yes, I do have five children.
00:43:36
Speaker
Yep.
00:43:37
Speaker
And they're, um, probably it sounds like older than my kids.
00:43:41
Speaker
Sounds like your oldest is 18 maybe.
00:43:43
Speaker
Yes.
00:43:44
Speaker
So my oldest son is 18.
00:43:45
Speaker
So we have a son who's 18.
00:43:48
Speaker
My daughter, Grace, is 16.
00:43:49
Speaker
She'll be 17 next month.
00:43:51
Speaker
So she wants to claim that she's 17.
00:43:53
Speaker
William's 14.
00:43:55
Speaker
Tommy's nine.
00:43:56
Speaker
And Bobby is two.
00:43:58
Speaker
Wow.
00:43:59
Speaker
That's a spread.
00:44:00
Speaker
Good for you.
00:44:01
Speaker
Because Heavenly Father has a great sense of humor.
00:44:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:06
Speaker
We thought we were done after Tommy, but now who knows what will happen.
00:44:10
Speaker
I don't, I don't say anything.
00:44:11
Speaker
I just say, let God prevail.
00:44:13
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.
00:44:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:21
Speaker
So, um, how, how have you, I often ask our entrepreneurial guests this question, which is,
00:44:31
Speaker
What you're doing doesn't take a four year degree.
00:44:34
Speaker
There are a lot of paths that do.
00:44:37
Speaker
What's your attitude toward educating your kids so far?
00:44:40
Speaker
Do you have an inkling of like what their professional path will look like, how you're preparing for it?
00:44:46
Speaker
That is a great question.
00:44:49
Speaker
Yes, I see different things in each of my children.
00:44:53
Speaker
I see certain children maybe going the trade route, maybe having their own business.
00:44:59
Speaker
I see other children who if they don't get a law degree, it is a waste of human existence.
00:45:05
Speaker
And so we're kind of everywhere and in between.
00:45:07
Speaker
I haven't finished my degree yet.
00:45:09
Speaker
I got married and started having my children.
00:45:11
Speaker
I want to finish my degree.
00:45:13
Speaker
And what I my desire for education changes from month to month of I want to study everything, but I can't.
00:45:21
Speaker
So maybe when my younger child gets in school full time, I'll
00:45:26
Speaker
I'll finish my degree, but education is important to us.
00:45:30
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.
00:45:40
Speaker
We are their biggest supporter.
00:45:42
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.
Financial Management in Seasonal Business
00:45:55
Speaker
And that is,
00:45:56
Speaker
It's in the Bible, and that is how we're truly happy is when we're progressing.
00:46:04
Speaker
And our job as parents is to help ignite that ability to progress.
00:46:12
Speaker
Gotcha.
00:46:12
Speaker
So, I mean, in terms of how you talk to them about it, have you...
00:46:20
Speaker
like, so for me it was college or nothing.
00:46:23
Speaker
Like that was what I was told.
00:46:25
Speaker
And that, that turned out to have been a mistake.
00:46:27
Speaker
I feel like a lot of guys in my generation were sort of told like it's college or nothing.
00:46:32
Speaker
So, and college is a lot of work.
00:46:36
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.
00:46:48
Speaker
Um,
00:46:50
Speaker
How have you approached that as you've got kids that are that have different needs?
00:46:54
Speaker
And like, is it is it easy to just motivate them on their own course or is it challenging?
00:47:02
Speaker
I think some things are very easy to motivate and others are tremendously challenging.
00:47:06
Speaker
I mean, my husband graduated from college.
00:47:09
Speaker
He's also an aviator.
00:47:10
Speaker
He's a part time corporate pilot is one of the things he does.
00:47:13
Speaker
And he loves that.
00:47:14
Speaker
And he went to school for aviation.
00:47:16
Speaker
And now knowing what he knows now, he's like, why did I go to school for aviation?
00:47:20
Speaker
I should have gone to school for something way more useful.
00:47:23
Speaker
That was so dumb of me.
00:47:25
Speaker
And so part of us is like.
00:47:28
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.
00:47:50
Speaker
It really doesn't.
00:47:51
Speaker
And
00:47:52
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.
00:48:00
Speaker
And we were able to check out and go on a trip together.
00:48:03
Speaker
And that was really, really neat.
00:48:05
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.
00:48:12
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.
00:48:20
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.
00:48:28
Speaker
And we don't like that, you know?
00:48:30
Speaker
And so we're trying to make plans about what can we do better next holiday season?
00:48:34
Speaker
So every year we always say, well, why are we going to make it better?
00:48:37
Speaker
And there's good things.
00:48:42
Speaker
How do you manage?
00:48:44
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.
00:48:55
Speaker
Like this is how much, this is how much I'm actually going to have this year.
00:49:00
Speaker
Uh, how have you guys leveled that out?
00:49:02
Speaker
That is so hard.
00:49:04
Speaker
We are still, still trying to figure that out.
00:49:09
Speaker
Um, what we do since we've been doing it for so long is we like to look at like six months.
00:49:16
Speaker
Let's say, let's look at six months worth of income.
00:49:19
Speaker
Let's take out the high.
00:49:20
Speaker
Let's take out the low.
00:49:21
Speaker
Let's find the middle.
00:49:23
Speaker
And, um,
00:49:24
Speaker
that is sort of like what our monthly goal would be.
00:49:29
Speaker
And so that is how we have kind of found like these benchmarks.
00:49:32
Speaker
You know, we do the same thing with groceries.
00:49:34
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.
00:49:45
Speaker
So we're constantly having to, you know, have meetings and,
00:49:50
Speaker
calculate and average and make goals and remake goals and cancel that goal.
00:49:56
Speaker
Let's try this goal.
00:49:57
Speaker
It's hard because you don't know.
00:50:00
Speaker
And the number one thing I can count on, and I know this sounds so cheesy, but it's prayer.
00:50:06
Speaker
It's paying your tithing.
00:50:07
Speaker
The Lord has always provided for us.
00:50:10
Speaker
We have never gone without.
00:50:12
Speaker
And I am so thankful for those lean months, which teach us
00:50:16
Speaker
diligence and humility and those months where we're like, wow, that's awesome.
00:50:20
Speaker
Let's take a couple of weeks off.
Future Plans and Business Continuity
00:50:22
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:50:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:25
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.
00:50:41
Speaker
Right.
00:50:42
Speaker
like a significant promotion or demotion.
00:50:45
Speaker
And, um, and yeah, getting used to that roller coaster is, is quite a ride.
00:50:50
Speaker
And I, there's another element to that, which is for you, um,
00:50:56
Speaker
You're ideally on this upward trajectory.
00:51:00
Speaker
You're growing as a business, but you're growing like this because of the sine wave, the seasonal character of it.
00:51:09
Speaker
Predicting how high the next high is going to be and how low the next low, that's a huge analytical challenge.
00:51:15
Speaker
Well, cool.
00:51:17
Speaker
What's the next...
00:51:21
Speaker
Second step.
00:51:22
Speaker
So this operation seems like it meets a lot of your needs, meets a lot of your wants.
00:51:28
Speaker
What does the future look like for you?
00:51:31
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?
00:51:38
Speaker
Yes, there is a chance.
00:51:40
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?
00:51:48
Speaker
And sometimes it's like that would just be like the magic wand.
00:51:52
Speaker
And then we're brought back to reality.
00:51:54
Speaker
And then we really remember that.
00:51:56
Speaker
Wait a minute.
00:51:57
Speaker
We like working together.
00:51:59
Speaker
We have learned so much about.
00:52:02
Speaker
and we like the lifestyle.
00:52:04
Speaker
So we usually end up with, no, we want to keep the business.
00:52:08
Speaker
We definitely want to keep the business.
00:52:10
Speaker
And what do we want to do better?
00:52:12
Speaker
And where do we want to be next year?
00:52:13
Speaker
And what goals do we have for our retirement?
00:52:16
Speaker
And we usually end up with new goals for the next year and what we're going to try to do.
00:52:23
Speaker
And I don't see the business going anywhere.
00:52:26
Speaker
And I even have one of my children who was like really fascinated by all of it, stones and stuff.
00:52:31
Speaker
And he's a boy, he's nine.
00:52:33
Speaker
He like loves stones and like geology.
00:52:36
Speaker
And you just like, mom, someday, can I take over the business?
00:52:39
Speaker
You know, I'm like, Oh, sure.
00:52:40
Speaker
I guess.
00:52:41
Speaker
Yeah.
Conclusion and Entrepreneurial Paths Beyond Education
00:52:42
Speaker
You want to.
00:52:43
Speaker
Um, so that always made me laugh, but I don't see it going anywhere and we continue to adjust and, um,
00:52:52
Speaker
see where it goes.
00:52:53
Speaker
You know, I, I'm not exactly sure.
00:52:56
Speaker
I am thankful that we have a platform to provide for our family.
00:53:01
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.
00:53:10
Speaker
Do you think about changing the nature of the business or expanding into some new product?
00:53:15
Speaker
Or is it, do you like kind of the steady state that it's at?
00:53:20
Speaker
I'm not opposed to opening up into different venues.
00:53:24
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.
00:53:32
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,
00:53:44
Speaker
Looking at packages over the last few weeks, I was like, you know, Louisiana, Texas, North Carolina.
00:53:50
Speaker
I mean, obviously everywhere, but sometimes it blows me away how much we're sending to the South.
00:53:56
Speaker
And so it's just as we adjust and make new things, I think certain things are more popular to certain demographics.
00:54:03
Speaker
And I just keep creating and just keep seeing what's going to happen.
00:54:09
Speaker
Cool.
00:54:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting about your son being so interested in stones and geology.
00:54:14
Speaker
I've had this wild burr to do some metalworking recently.
00:54:20
Speaker
I've been watching these YouTube videos about silver refining things.
00:54:24
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.
00:54:35
Speaker
Um, which is like a very different, it's very different, like aesthetic, a very different flavor than, than what you're doing.
00:54:42
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?
00:54:53
Speaker
Yes.
00:54:54
Speaker
Yes.
00:54:54
Speaker
Sometimes my, some people always joke, they're like, when does the men's line come out?
00:54:58
Speaker
Where's the shark tooth necklace or the bullets?
00:55:01
Speaker
You know, I'm like, I don't know.
00:55:04
Speaker
We'll see what happens.
00:55:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:06
Speaker
There's definitely like some, some potential for some brand confusion there, but, um, it's a cool idea.
00:55:14
Speaker
Well, listen, this has been a lot of fun.
00:55:16
Speaker
It's been great getting to know you.
00:55:17
Speaker
Anyone that wants to learn more about what Janine here is doing can check out savannahill.com.
00:55:23
Speaker
She's also got an Etsy shop that I'll include in the podcast description.
00:55:27
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.
00:55:38
Speaker
Thanks so much, Janine.
00:55:39
Speaker
This was a pleasure.
00:55:40
Speaker
Thank you so much.
00:55:41
Speaker
Thank you.