Brooklyn Publicist Designs Travel-Themed Jewelry Line

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

When you go from hobby to side hustle, you might be surprised at how much time you need to spend on tasks that have nothing to do with the hobby itself. The publicist/jewelry designer you'll hear about today says that designing her products takes 5% of her hustle time, and the remaining 95% is all about production, promotion, pitching, or working on the business model. I sometimes feel like that as a writer, as an author, I spend far less time actually writing books than in doing all the other things associated with writing. Which can be a problem sometimes, because I got into writing books because I wanted to write. Still, the point is that you want to make sure you're up for the other tasks associated with running a business before you decide to dive right into the transformation of a hobby.

Also, what are the keys to launching a line of handcrafted jewelry? As you learn in this story, there are three things you can do to stand out in this crowded light. Pricing is also key, so we'll look at that as well. It is an accidental side hustle, one of the best kinds, and it's doing very well for this Brooklyn-based publicist. Welcome to Side Hustle School.

My name is Chris Guillebeau. Here's a shout-out to our sponsor, and then on with the show. In 2018, Memorial Day weekend in New York City was unseasonably wet. Instead of hitting up the traditional barbecue and rooftop parties, many New Yorkers opted to stay tucked away indoors warm and dry. But in one brownstone in Brooklyn, Christina Tong was finding the comfort of the indoors anything but comfortable.

With most of her friends out of town or otherwise occupied, Christina was woefully without plans. So she took stock of her options, and then her gaze fell on a pile of jewelry. One of the necklaces was broken, the other was something that she simply didn't wear much anymore. But instead of sending them off to the trash bin, she opted to refresh them into new pieces. Jewelry making had always served as a bit of a creative release for her.

She took zen-like comfort and the methodical approach required to take pieces apart and put them back together in new and interesting ways. With each new piece that she carefully pieced together, there was a theme. And since travel played an important role in her life, she often found herself creating pieces that reminded her of recent adventures. Vibrant and contrasting hues of beads and stones piled one on top of the other along a chain to represent snapshots that she carried with her. Her jewelry making outlet also served as a keepsake from her time exploring the world.

A few days later, a friend stopped over at her showroom for a meeting about the PR work that Christina did. When she saw how Christina had spent her weekend, she convinced her to let her take pictures of her work and show them off in her social media channels. A lot of jewelry and retail buyers followed her and she knew that Christina's work would really shine, maybe even stand out. At the time, many jewelry pieces were either overly simplistic or loud and bulky. Christina's pieces were singular in their design and they incorporated elements from both categories.

What really pushed the envelope for her friend was that travel inspiration for each piece. Shortly after posting Christina's work, that friend was flooded with direct messages and comments. Among others, she heard from a purchaser at Saks and from two creative directors in the industry. The fact that they were interested was exciting. Being a publicist for her day job, Christina knew an opportunity when she saw one, so she decided to actually try building a brand around her love of jewelry design.

Since her jewelry centered around her experiences traveling, Souvenir felt like a fitting name. It's the French word for "remember," derived from a Latin word meaning "to come to mind." Over time in English, the word came to represent a tangible piece of the traveled experience that was small enough to bring home. That was the feeling that she wanted to evoke with her work, so she removed the vowels and called it SVNR. Christina took professional pictures of her work against a neutral background, used them to create a quick line sheet that would allow buyers to request wholesale orders, and posted them on social media. Now let's talk a bit about that pricing.

Setting the right price is especially important in the jewelry industry because it signals to potential buyers the quality of your work. If you price your products too low, you run the risk of pigeonholing yourself into a costume jewelry market instead of something more high fashion. Somewhere in the range of $100 to $200 felt like a safe place. The goal was to hit a higher price point without alienating a more budget-conscious consumer. Christina also decided to price for the long term.

She took her own desired salary into account and considered that she'd likely want to bring on someone down the road to help out. As she put it, your markup needs to cover so much more than just your production. Last but not least, she knew she'd be selling wholesale, so she had to consider those relationships as well. Since launching SVNR a year ago, Christina has sold over 2,400 pieces. Most sales are from wholesale accounts that she secured over time, though she did also create a website using Squarespace to sell directly to consumers.

And here's some advice from her for anyone out there who's interested in doing something similar. If you have a clear understanding of who you're designing for, who your customer is, what they like, what they dislike, what they are capable of buying, and so on, there's always opportunity to grow the business beyond a single category. But it's important to start with one kind of product in order to figure that out. Do it really well, and then only expand once you have a solid understanding of that ideal customer. Once you understand that aesthetic, you can use it to start creating new product lines.

For Christina, her brand is casual and effortless but makes a statement. The travel background adds a bit of whimsy to the brand and that resonates with her customers. So this summer, she's looking to expand the aesthetic into other categories outside of jewelry such as handbags and slip dresses. Her goal is to build a sustainable brand, one bead at a time. All right, so congratulations to Christina.

Let's talk about this crowded market of designing and selling jewelry. First things first, you need a clear aesthetic. What are the values of the brand? Storytelling is really important. I also liked how Christina suggests you focus on what your ideal customer dislikes as well as what they like.

That can often be really helpful because if you think about what somebody might like, it can be really broad. But if you think about what they dislike, they usually have some really clear polarizing opinions and views. And you want to pay attention to that. Next, pricing in a range that suggests it's a high quality, high fashion item without pricing out a more budget conscious buyer. So in this case, Christina chose that $100 to $200 range.

Not necessarily an impulse purchase, but also not something that you have to save up for for a long period of time, because a lot of people that could fit that market that price point. And then lastly, building wholesale relationships, which Christina chose to favor. And you can also do it the other way. You can also favor a more direct consumer model. And in this case, Christina actually built a website.

She does sell direct to consumers, but she focuses on the wholesale relationships. And it's hard to do both of them well. So you'll usually have more success choosing one or the other, either being mostly wholesale, but also selling to consumers, mostly consumer, but also having some wholesale accounts. The thing with wholesale is your profit margins are going to be much lower. But they're also those wholesale partners are also doing a lot of work.

So presumably, at least in the ideal world, they're reaching a lot of people that you wouldn't otherwise be able to reach. Whereas if you have the ability to go direct to consumers yourself, then you can have higher profits, but you'll also have more work to do. So pros and cons, of course, but it's great to see how well this is starting with something like 2400 pieces sold in the first year is really fantastic. All right, listeners, I hope you enjoyed it. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better.

Today's show notes, including links to SV and R, are at sidehustleschool.com/931. Episode 931. We'll be back tomorrow with a weekly recap and a whole new set of stories all next week. Thanks so much. In the meantime, this is Side Hustle School.

From the Onward Project.