Elizabeth, the Executive, and the Cable Guy: A Jewelry Business Success Story

Elizabeth of Stones in Harmony wrote to tell me about a jewelry business success day she had this past week:

First, she did a jewelry trunk show at a financial services office, where she made some great sales from just five customers.

While she was there, the necklace Elizabeth was wearing caught the eye of a top-level financial planner.

This executive fell in love with the necklace - and not only insisted on ordering it, but also wants to shop directly from Elizabeth's home jewelry boutique / studio.

(Since then, this executive has been spreading the word to her friends, who also are now interested in Elizabeth's jewelry.)

After the trunk show, Elizabeth returned home and the cable guy arrived.

Elizabeth says,

"I mentioned that he'd best buy something for Mamma for Mother's Day. It is creeping up on us. Would you come into my studio?

"The studio was empty of course. So I pulled my jewelry case from the car. [It was still there from the trunk show.]

"We sat down on the rug and pored through jewelry options.

"I gave him a really good price (yes, I did make a profit) because this boy had so much love in his heart for his mother and girlfriend that I just felt so gifted to be able to give him something so personalized and special, not to mention with gift boxes."

So here is one of Elizabeth's very happy customers - the cable guy who now has his Mother's Day gifts completely taken care of, well in advance, including lovely gift boxes:

You may remember Elizabeth's first jewelry success story - when she helped her washing machine repairman take care of his Christmas shopping with her jewelry gifts (you can read about it near the bottom of my Jewelry Business Success News issue #65).

Elizabeth very kindly gives me credit, saying she learned her success techniques from my Secrets of a Handcrafted Jewelry Shopping Service book.

But obviously her jewelry is a big part of the magic, and so is her manner of putting customers at ease and solving their gift-giving problems.

Elizabeth's jewelry business success story illustrates a couple of ways to recession-proof your jewelry business:

1) Take your jewelry for private showings to people who can afford to buy it (the financial services office trunk show).

2) Connect directly with people who have gift-giving needs to take care of (the cable guy).

The next day, Elizabeth sent a dozen roses to the woman who had invited her to do the trunk show.

She says, "developing friendships is much more meaningful to me than sales."

Congratulations, Elizabeth - for putting yourself out there and doing it, and for all the wonderful things that came from it! Thanks so much for sharing your success story.