The Jeweler's View
A podcast not only for Jewelry Makers, but all Creative Movers and Shakers, connecting entrepreneurs and aspiring creatives in with the resources, knowledge, and mindset support they need to achieve goals they once thought impossible.
#104: 20 Hours of Custom Jewelry Work. No Deposit.
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Get the Deposit Before You Get Carried Away: Protecting Your Time in Custom Jewelry Work
Courtney Gray shares a hard-earned lesson from a custom commission where she spent about 20 hours carving a wax ring design around a druzy and a blue aquamarine, but never collected a deposit and the client later acted like he hadn’t approved the project and disappeared, leaving her with unpaid work made for a specific person. She explains why skipping a deposit can happen: excitement, trust, not wanting to seem pushy, and love of making, then re...
#103: Clear Boundaries for Custom Jewelry
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Stop the Endless Design Revisions: Set Iteration Limits in Custom Jewelry
Courtney Gray hosts The Jeweler’s View and explains how custom jewelry projects can stall when customers keep reopening decisions after a design seems approved, creating extra hours of sketching, sourcing, and email. She shares a graduation pendant story where offering too many blue-stone and sketch options led to weeks of circular feedback, and notes that limiting choices helped the project move forward.
Gray suggests using structure to prevent endless revisions: ask whether changes move toward a decision or...
#102: I Almost Ignored a $10,000 Custom Jewelry Inquiry
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Don’t Judge a Custom Jewelry Inquiry Too Fast: The “Dragon Slayer” Email Lesson
Courtney Gray shares how she almost ignored a six-page email from an address ending in “dragon slayer,” only to later discover it was a sincere request for a one-of-a-kind custom piece with full creative freedom and a roughly $10,000 budget, which became a commission paid via a $500/month plan and resulted in an elaborate gemstone necklace made in a new platinum-silver alloy.
Using this story, she explains how custom inquiries can look awkward, overly long, or unclear bec...
#101: You Sold the Jewelry. Did You Pay Yourself?
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What Did That Sale Really Require? (Custom, Shows, and Best Sellers in Jewelry Business)
Courtney Gray explains why a sales total never tells the whole story in a jewelry business and urges makers to ask, “What did this sale require from me?” Using examples from custom work, craft shows, and best-selling pieces, she breaks down the hidden time, labor, sourcing, communication, revisions, travel, and prep that can shrink real profit and drain energy even when revenue looks strong. She shares a client example where a $700 custom quote yielded under $50 profit once true...
#100: There’s No Magic Key to Building a Jewelry Business
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Episode 100: No Magic Key. Just Reps, Commitment, and Beginning
Courtney Gray marks episode 100 of The Jeweler’s View, reflecting on nearly 30 years in the jewelry industry and on building the podcast one week at a time without a master plan. She shares growth milestones (15,000+ audio downloads, about 1,000 a month, 17,000+ YouTube views, 200+ subscribers) and emphasizes that success isn’t a “magic key,” but the unseen hours of learning, mistakes, adjustments, and persistence.
Using her own experience getting comfortable on camera, teaching, and hosting large online events, she reframes discomfort as part of g...
#99: Can You Go Slow and Still Build Something Big?
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Go Slow With Intentionality: Bella Grass on Becoming a Jeweler, Building Confidence, and Finding Your Niche
Host Courtney Gray shares a conversation with Transform student Bella Grass about her path into jewelry after college, starting with a Boulder Metalsmithing Studio class, learning through an entry-level casting job, attending New Approach’s three-month program, and working as a repair jeweler and setter. Bella discusses what surprised her most, how hard and gratifying the work is, along with the focus, problem-solving, physical demands, and confidence required when things go wrong.
She exp...
#98: What doesn't fit anymore?
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Stop Adding More Tasks: Find Direction with Two Words
Courtney Gray welcomes listeners to The Jeweler’s View and explores what to do when you know you want something different but can’t define what it is yet. She describes how makers often react by piling on new classes, tools, techniques, and goals, mistaking activity for direction.
Drawing from a coaching call with an accomplished jeweler and her own experience selling Creative Side without a mapped-out next step, she emphasizes creating space to notice what’s pulling, draining, and worth l...
#97: What If You’re Ready for Something Different?
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When Your Jewelry Business Doesn’t Fit Anymore: Recognizing Evolution Without a Perfect Plan
Courtney Gray introduces The Jeweler’s View and reflects on the Evolving Creatively event with Holly Gage, Francesca Watson, and Teresa Kiplinger, highlighting how creative and business evolution often happens without a full map. She emphasizes that recognizing something “doesn’t fit anymore” is valuable information and doesn’t mean failure, and that makers can experiment in business the way they do at the bench without self-judgment.
Drawing on Teresa’s idea of developing a visual vocabula...
#96: You Probably Don't Need Another Idea
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Discernment for Creatives: Good Idea vs. Good Idea for Right Now
Courtney Gray explains that most creatives don’t have an idea problem but a deciding and discernment problem. Ahead of the Evolving Creatively gathering with Holly Gage, Francesca Watson, and Teresa Kiplinger, she shares how to evaluate ideas before they become obligations: whether an idea fits the current season of life and business, what work and responsibilities are attached to saying yes, and what will get less time, energy, or attention if you commit.
She encourages using “not now” a...
#95: What Are You Feeding?
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Pay Attention to Your Attention: What Are You Feeding?
Courtney Gray introduces The Jeweler’s View and announces a free online event, Evolving Creatively, featuring Holly Gage (working with burn survivors; “Vulnerability Out Loud”), Francesca Watson (rebuilding after her studio burned; “Resilience in Motion”), and Teresa Kiplinger (creativity as an anchor and “radical acceptance”), noting the timing near the anniversary of Gray’s own house fire. She then explores the question “What are you feeding?” after getting a Sak Yant tattoo intended as a reminder of “softness,” defined as listening before reacting, accepting help...
#94: Is your business a toddler or teenager?
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What Season Is Your Jewelry Business In and Who Is It Asking You to Become?
Courtney Gray introduces The Jeweler’s View and reflects on finding an old photo of her son Tristan, realizing life changes in unannounced “seasons” that only become clear in hindsight.
She connects parenting to creative business growth, arguing makers should treat their businesses with the same patience they give children learning to walk, rather than believing they’re “behind” or expecting expertise immediately. Using Creative Side Jewelry Academy, she describes shifting stages, from doing everything he...
#93 Build Your Life First. Then Your Business.
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What Kind of Tuesday Are You Building? Redefining Success for Jewelry Makers
Most jewelry makers can describe their business goals in about thirty seconds. More sales, better collectors, full-time income, a gallery. But ask them to describe their ideal Tuesday and the room goes quiet.
In this episode, Courtney Gray challenges makers to stop designing their businesses before they've designed the life those businesses are meant to support. Because if you never define success on your own terms, you'll spend years building toward someone else's version of...
#92: Why Does Building a Creative Business Feel So Personal?
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Facts vs. Stories: Becoming a Beginner Again in Jewelry (and Life)
Courtney Gray introduces The Jeweler’s View and shares how learning to ride her first motorcycle at 47, including dropping a 600-pound Honda Shadow and needing her husband’s help to lift it, mirrors building a creative jewelry business later in life. She describes how creative work feels personal because it carries years of hope and identity, making criticism, slow sales, and online visibility feel heavier.
Gray emphasizes coaching around separating facts from the stories we add (e.g., “no one...
#91: Do You Really Need a Business Page to Succeed? A Guide for Makers
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Visibility Over Marketing: Build Where Trust Already Exists
Courtney Gray of The Jeweler’s View discusses visibility for jewelry makers and argues that new makers often don’t need a business page yet, especially if it means abandoning an engaged personal network to start from zero on a new platform.
She describes how adding platforms creates an “invisible invoice” of time, attention, and maintenance, reframing most makers’ challenge as a capacity problem rather than a visibility problem. Gray shares a simple framework: discover, deepen, and land—to evaluate where people find y...
#90: If I Build a Website, Will They Come?
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Your Jewelry Website Doesn’t Create Visibility, It Receives It
Courtney Gray explains that a jewelry business website is often misunderstood: it rarely creates visibility but instead receives attention generated elsewhere (shows, Instagram, referrals, newsletters, podcasts).
She describes how makers can spend excessive time perfecting websites only to see no immediate results, and warns against waiting for a “finished” brand or using website tweaks as productive procrastination.
Gray emphasizes that websites should evolve with the business and primarily move visitors from curiosity to confidence by offering clear, simple a...
#89: What Do I Prioritize First to Grow My Jewelry Business?
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What’s the Next Right Thing? Setting Priorities That Move Your Jewelry Business Forward
Courtney Gray hosts The Jeweler’s View and discusses priorities for jewelry makers, ocusing on what matters most right now rather than productivity or hustle.
She explains that makers often feel overwhelmed because many tasks (website, social media, photography, email, shows, relationships) seem equally urgent, but not all are equally important at the same time. Using an example of a jeweler fixated on Instagram despite most sales coming from repeat customers and referrals, she emphasizes ident...
#88: Is Anybody Even Seeing My Work?
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Visibility Isn’t Everywhere: Build Consistency Where People Already Pay Attention
Courtney Gray introduces The Jeweler’s View and addresses makers’ anxiety about whether anyone is seeing their work, especially when social posts get little engagement. She shares a client story of a maker overwhelmed by trying to be on every platform, then reframes visibility as being where people already pay attention by asking where the last five sales actually came from, mostly referrals and existing relationships, not the platform she worried about.
Gray emphasizes that visibility and engagement aren’t...
#87: Jewelry Success: Are Your Marketing Efforts Paying Off?
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Planting Seeds: Why Visibility and Relationships Pay Off Later
Courtney Gray introduces The Jeweler’s View and explains that many important business results are invisible at first, because relationships and trust often take months or years to turn into sales. She shares a story of meeting a woman at a music show who didn’t follow up until a year later, became a client, and eventually became her first assistant and a key part of her jewelry school’s growth.
Courtney also recounts asking her friend Steve, a five-decade jeweler...
#86: Why Do Buyers Connect with Certain Jewelry
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The Emotional Experience of Buying Jewelry: Trust, Connection, and Consistency
Courtney Gray introduces The Jeweler’s View and explains that while materials, craftsmanship, and price matter, most jewelry purchases begin with emotion: trust, connection, curiosity, and recognition.
She argues makers don’t need sales pressure or persuasion tactics; instead, they should invite clients into an experience shaped by welcoming interactions, attentive environments, and genuine care.
Gray highlights listening as an underrated skill, especially in custom work, where slowing down to hear the story behind a request builds connec...
#85 Packaging, Presentation, and the Art of Taking One Thing Away
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Take One Thing Away: Visual Clarity in Jewelry Design and Presentation
Courtney Gray, host of The Jeweler’s View with nearly 30 years in the jewelry industry, shares a guiding principle for makers: when something feels unclear, remove one competing element. She applies a style tip about taking off one accessory to jewelry photography, packaging, booth displays, websites, and jewelry design, arguing that professionalism and luxury often feel calm and intentional rather than crowded or expensive-looking. Gray explains how adding props, signage, explanation, textures, and design details can dilute focal points so ev...
#84: Are You Waiting for the Perfect Setup? Unleash Your Creativity Now
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Resourcefulness Over Readiness: Building Momentum and Confidence as a Jeweler
Courtney Gray welcomes listeners to The Jeweler’s View and shares lessons from nearly 30 years in the jewelry industry about what moves creative careers forward. She challenges the belief that growth starts after buying better tools, branding, or equipment, noting she has seen creativity stall in fully equipped studios while strong work emerges from limited setups. The episode focuses on resourcefulness, momentum, and how confidence is built through action rather than waiting to feel ready. Gray explains how “getting ready” can disgui...
#83: Let Your Art Speak: The Magic of Wearing Your Work
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Let Your Jewelry Leave the Bench: Small Visibility That Builds Confidence
Courtney Gray introduces The Jeweler’s View and explains that jewelry gains traction through everyday wear, not just big launches or shows. She argues many makers get stuck waiting to feel “ready,” even though movement and visibility are what build confidence.
By wearing your work—especially experimental pieces—or letting trusted people wear it, you gather real-world feedback on comfort, scale, movement, and emotional impact, and you learn what resonates without needing every interaction to become a sale. The same id...
#82: Unlocking Your Audience: Who Connects with Your Creative Work?
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Stop Guessing Your Jewelry Customer: Find the Patterns That Drive Visibility
Courtney Gray introduces The Jeweler’s View and explains that many makers assume their customer is “someone like me,” which can become outdated as their work and audience evolve.
She argues that understanding who actually resonates with your jewelry is foundational to visibility and affects messaging, engagement, sales channels (Etsy vs. galleries), presentation, and pricing; if the customer picture is fuzzy, everything downstream gets fuzzy. Instead of inventing a fictional ideal customer, she recommends looking for patterns and evidenc...
#81: Part 2: Building a Jewelry Business That Evolves With You From Wholesale to Direct-to-Consumer, Brick & Mortar & Hard-Won Lessons
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Building a Jewelry Business Without Losing Yourself: Resilience, Team, and Retail Growth with Stacey King
Courtney Gray hosts The Jewelers View and continues her conversation with Stacey King about what it takes to build and grow Lulu Designs while staying aligned with the work.
Stacey links her “latchkey kid” upbringing to resilience, learning from tough moments, and putting art first while relying on a healthy support system and community. She shares hard business lessons from wholesale, including over-inventory, cash-flow strain, long corporate payment terms, and the risk of relying on si...
#80: Part 1: Staying in the Magic: How to Stay Creative While Running a Jewelry Business
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Staying in the Magic: Stacy King of Lulu Designs on Process, Tools, and Play in the Jewelry Studio
In this Jewelers View studio conversation, host interviews Stacy King, founder of Lulu Designs, about staying “in the magic” while building a sustainable jewelry business. King describes creativity as presence and flow, shaped by her background in ceramics, dyslexia, and learning through repeated failure before the internet, and emphasizes collaboration and community over working alone.
She discusses resisting distraction and comparison from social media by keeping a daily grounding practice (reading, natur...
#79: Imperfect Action and Moving Forward (Encore)
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Imperfect Action and Moving Forward: Building Momentum When Nothing Feels Ready
Courtney Gray closes a three-part creative cycle series on The Jeweler’s View by focusing on imperfect action, staying in motion without waiting for ideal conditions, after episodes on resistance and flow.
She shares how her all-or-nothing sprint style led to burnout and how sustainable progress comes from rhythm, one priority at a time, pivots, and celebrating micro wins.
A community member’s story illustrates the cycle: inspiration, tech issues that stalled a gallery applic...
#78: When Urgency Undoes Alignment (Encore)
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In this episode of The Jeweler’s View, Courtney Gray revisits a top Transform members’ topic on how urgency can masquerade as productivity while undermining clarity, alignment, and sustainable momentum.
She shares that her burnout came from moving too fast, overcommitting, launching before things were ready, and losing presence and joy, and recounts a painful mistake made while rushing, accidentally sharing a private internal Google Doc with her team, causing lasting hurt.
She explains that urgency is often fear-driven (FOMO, fear of being forgotten, fear of falling behind) and is rei...
#77 Building a Cohesive Collection (Encore)
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Build a Cohesive Jewelry Collection: The 3–5 Piece Framework
Courtney revisits a Transform members’ top pick episode on how to build a cohesive jewelry collection without getting overwhelmed or stuck in endless experimentation.
Using the example of a student whose 40-piece spread looked like multiple different jewelers, she explains that selling and presenting work becomes easier when pieces feel connected—like siblings—rather than disconnected experiments.
She shares a simple three-to-five piece framework: choose one through line (shape, texture, technique, metal, or color story), create one anchor piece that carri...
#76: Do You Actually Need a Hydraulic Press? A Real Conversation with Peter Gilroy
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There’s a point in your work where starting from scratch every time just doesn’t make sense anymore.
In this episode, I sit down with Peter Gilroy of Bonny Doon Engineering to talk about how the hydraulic press can shift your process from one-off making into something more repeatable and intentional.
We get into what it actually does beyond cutting discs, how it changes the way metal moves, and why it can open up entirely new possibilities in your designs and production.
This is not about buying m...
#75: Choosing the Right Tools for Your Bench
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Let the Work Lead: Choosing Jewelry Tools Without Wasting Money
Courtney Gray introduces The Jeweler’s View and explains that many jewelers slowly waste thousands on tools they don’t need, often buying out of aspiration or avoidance rather than necessity. She returns “back to the bench” to argue that a basic setup can produce a wide range of work and that progress comes from skill, repetition, and understanding materials—not accumulating equipment. As consistent work develops, it should dictate which tools to add, creating a bench tailored to real workflow instead of...
#74 - Why Jewelry Appraisals Matter More Than People Think
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Appraisals, Documentation & Insurance: Protecting Custom Jewelry Before Something Goes Wrong
Courtney Gray introduces The Jeweler’s View and explains why jewelers and clients should prioritize appraisals, documentation, and insurance before a loss occurs. She shares a story of a client who lost a custom sapphire ring in a public restroom, but because it was professionally appraised and added to a homeowner’s policy, the loss became an insurance claim and a rebuild rather than a devastating event. Gray outlines what an appraisal includes (materials, stone details, design features, replacement value) and why...
#73: How Jewelers Build Relationships With Gem Dealers
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Sourcing Is Relationships: Building Trust With Gem Dealers
The episode argues that successful gemstone sourcing is less about finding vendors and more about building relationships with dealers who will support you when problems arise. The host recounts cracking a ruby during engagement ring sizing and needing to replace it at their own cost; because of an established relationship, the dealer helped significantly and the replacement stone was even better, leaving the client thrilled. The script highlights how long-term trust, illustrated by Karen Richards’ decades of relationship-building at the Tucson show leads de...
#72: How to Buy Gemstones Without Getting Burned
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Courtney Gray, metalsmith educator and host of The Jeweler’s View, shifts into practical jewelry industry guidance, starting with gemstone sourcing and buying stones online. Using a real engagement-ring story about a misrepresented “natural” tanzanite that turned out to be synthetic, she explains that lab-grown gemstones aren’t inherently bad; the real risk is lack of transparency. She covers essential stone-buying safeguards for jewelers and clients: always confirm return policies, demand clear treatment disclosure (heated, fracture-filled, irradiated, coated, oiled), and understand the difference between natural gemstones, lab-grown stones, and simulants. Courtney also notes when gem...
#71: Can You Build This in Six Months?
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Courtney Gray introduces The Jeweler’s View and shares a past conversation with a student who had six months to make her jewelry business work before returning to a full-time job. Courtney explains that whether six months is enough depends on starting skill level, available hours and focus, pricing and required sales volume, existing audience, comfort with selling and follow-up, consistency of visibility, and most critically, defining what “working” means as a specific income number. She notes six months can create traction (visibility, conversations, early sales), but predictable sustainability usually takes longer, with real mo...
#70- What You Have to Give Up, to Get Something else
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Courtney Gray shares the second major crossroads in her business: during COVID, she had to choose between storing and waiting out the shutdown of Creative Side Jewelry Academy or selling it, and she sold after recognizing her real capacity, health, and energy could not sustain that version of the business while building what was next. The transition was messy and painful, involving community abandonment, slander, and a prolonged period of depression, illness, and multiple hospitalizations, reinforcing that pushing past capacity eventually forces consequences. She emphasizes that letting go only works when you fully r...
#69 When Momentum Stalls
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Courtney Gray explains that stalled momentum doesn’t mean a maker isn’t talented or worthy, it usually reflects the sustained effort required to build something from scratch and the work needed to restart after interruption. She recounts starting her jewelry business at 24, then dismantling it to complete a welding technology internship in Germany, and returning home to a year-long struggle to regain traction, which triggered self-doubt.
The turning point was a clear decision to fully commit rather than keep an “easy exit,” followed by consistent action, studio space, creating, visibility, follow-up...
#68: Finding Clear Direction in a Changing Jewelry Market
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Finding Clear Direction in a Changing Jewelry Market
Courtney Gray, a metalsmith educator and creative business strategist, introduces The Jeweler’s View and shares guidance for jewelers navigating rising metal prices and broader market shifts. She explains that what many jewelers feel isn’t only financial pressure but “directional pressure,” raising questions about pricing, scaling, narrowing collections, pivoting, and defining success. Gray argues that market changes expose whether a jeweler’s direction is solid or fragile, and that stability comes from choosing a clear lane, pricing tier, output level, margins, audience, capacity, a...
#67: Design with Intention: Adapting to Changing Metal Prices
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Rising Metal Costs: What They’re Revealing (and How to Stay Grounded)
Courtney Gray reframes rising metal prices as information, not a reason to panic and shares how cost pressure exposes weak spots in pricing, design choices, and thin margins. She explains why gold and silver behave differently (including silver’s industrial demand), and how constraints can sharpen creativity through more intentional design, smarter metal use, and stronger pricing logic. Courtney shares an example of a metalsmith adapting without cheapening their work, offers a reflection prompt for what to change if pric...
#66: Silver Linings: What Rising Metal Prices Are Actually Teaching Us
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Harnessing Constraints to Enhance Your Jewelry Business
In this episode of The Jeweler's View, host Courtney Gray, a seasoned metalsmith and business strategist, delves into how rising material costs can actually drive clarity and improvement in the jewelry business. Courtney emphasizes the value of working within limitations to refine design and pricing, shedding light on building a resilient business structure. She advocates for intentionality in material usage, confident pricing strategies, and the importance of clear, repeatable systems. As a precursor to a live panel discussion with experienced jewelers, this episode provides...
#65: How to Do a 15-Minute Money Reset as a Creative
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Mastering Your Jewelry Business: Pricing, Marketing, and Financial Strategies
In this episode of The Jeweler's View, host Courtney Gray draws from her extensive 25-year experience in the jewelry industry to share invaluable insights on transitioning from a hobbyist to a creative business owner. Joined by guest Erin, the discussion covers strategies for pricing handmade jewelry, understanding financials, leveraging tiered products, and effectively marketing to different customer segments. They emphasize the importance of regular financial reviews, setting achievable goals, being mindful of inventory costs, and nurturing customer relationships to build a sustainable...
