Melin Design Subheader 404 1
melin
,

7 Ways to Manage Your Business. Assign One Day to EACH Task!

I’m by myself in my business. I have employees, I head the big jobs, we assemble jewelry to no end. I’m in the trenches with the Jewelry Assembly Chicks because that’s what I like to do the most, create things. Take apart and put together things. Solve the puzzle of this piece goes with that piece. Getting a huge multi thousand piece job and thinking, “No way!”, and then getting it done in record time in perfect quality, perfectly made in the USA, much to the delight of the customer.

How do I run this business part? Barely! I do quickbooks and pull my hair out when there’s much hours, pieces, materials, new lists, payrolls, to enter and marketing, social media output. I don’t want to do it. I go in kicking and screaming. But this! What a great idea from Nicole Giordano, at StartUp Fashion. A time management trick where you assign each day of the week to a task. And stick to it! You don’t get distracted by the “wrong day” intruder. You put it in the bin that pertains to IT’S day of the week. Deal with it on it’s day, not in the middle of payroll day…

This couldn’t be easier and now, maybe I don’t need a business manager I’ve been praying for each day. I just need to devote one day a week to those needy things and tell the customer, “My accountant is in on Tuesdays.” This makes me feel I could be featured in Entrepreneur Magazine: Business Owner Does It ALL!

Melin Design Subheader Contact
melin
,

Is It A Hobby or A Business? How to Know If You Have A Great Business Idea

This is a great article at Business News Daily, 10 Ways to Know If You Have A Great Business Idea. If you have a great idea, you must find out if anyone else has the same idea. Research the heck of it it, until you have exhausted every corner on the world wide web.

This is especially true of jewelry. There is a lot of it out there. Know what’s going on before you invest in the time and money to start a jewelry business. Learn the trade. Learn some skills at a local jewelry school. Youtube lessons. Know your material and where you can get it. Know how to price your wares both wholesale and retail. Know your profit margins. Start small and local. Make sure you are paying yourself for the time and effort. If you are not drawing an income and covering your expenses like driving, research, filling out entry forms, taking photos, materials, TIME!! (know how long it takes you to make each necklace, bracelet or earring from start to finish), then it’s a hobby, NOT a business.

When you start getting orders that you can’t handle because your designs are sought after and sales are going through the roof, then call us, The Jewelry Assembly Chicks. We are here to assemble your jewelry and take you to the next level!

black-and-white-close-up-jewellery-jewelry-265906
melin

How To Make A Jewelry Sketch

I get a lot of requests for help from jewelry designers. I’m going to lay out a plan of attack to get the best possible results when seeking help in getting your product assembled and delivered. I’d like to lay out some steps to start sketching, which will lead to your tech pack and this will help both the established designer and newbie get their ideas understood and brought to life.

I have an idea….

Great! Now you need to get down on paper. Sketch it out, full size, since most jewelry pieces can fit on one sheet of 8 1/2” by 11” paper, a flat sketch. Draw it out and keep drawing it out until it shapes up to what you want. Just paper and pencil. It’s cheap, you can throw it out and start over. It’s the idea you want to get across, not the execution of the drawing. Keep it loose, let it flow, and watch it develop with each drawing. This is called the concept sketch. This is the time to explore ideas, question, suggest. It’s a good way to keep track of your original idea and how it has evolved. Using your family and friends as your focus group, see what they think of these drawings and ideas. Here’s an example of sketches:

Sketchbook

Jewelry Sketches

Jewelry Sketch Tutorial

Everyone loves it!

Now you need to get the details down. Start taking measurements, detail with notes, add necessary components. How long are the bracelets, necklaces and earrings? Take these drawings to a digital mock up or refine your line drawings with the final details: Measurements, materials used in the piece, the style numbers of the components, stringing materials used, prices, these are all known as the specs.

What’s it made of?

imgFResearch the materials needed to make the pieces and record them by style numbers, size and prices. Where are you going to source them from? Organize all these specifics on the drawings with your measurements. These specifics will go into your tech pack.

Now you can move on to early prototypes where you work out your kinks, fix the problems and do any necessary changes. This part can get expensive, producing each generation of a prototype, but it’s best to work out the problems before you get to the final prototype. It’s very important to not cut costs here. Mistakes made in the multi-thousands of an order is VERY expensive to fix.

I found out about this program from a designer recently. https://craftybase.com/

This along with these programs:

http://www.beading-software.com

http://www.bejeweledsoftware.com

will help out with organizing, keeping track of supplies, materials, inventory, labor, pricing, shipping, sales. Getting started in an organized manner will help you keep on track to create a thoughtful process in creating your jewelry business and thrive.