Welcome to the Gilt Trips podcast. I'm your host, Kendra Lockhart. As a goldsmith and
gemologist, I'll be speaking 24 carat on all things jewelry, metals, and gems. Join
me plus a few friends to demystify both materials and designs as your private jeweler. Let's
tune in on these topics and get golden. Welcome back and in today's episode we're
going to discuss the importance and pricelessness of a mentor. If you've
listened to some of the earlier episodes then you're aware that it was fate that
led me to my first mentor who did open quite the door for me. Would I have walked
through that on my own? Probably. But it was worth everything to have somebody
help with that first step.
The five areas that I received mentoring in were networking, clientelling,
strategy, education, and troubleshooting. None of these was more important than
another and they all did come through a variety of people in the industry. The
first area I'd like to discuss is networking. It was the tipping point from
when I stopped being just a private jeweler and became a house designer or
a featured artist in various boutiques, galleries, and retail establishments. The
way that this happened wasn't me necessarily being the jeweler to the
person who referred me. It was that I was on their mind as far as a fit and that's
the core of networking, matchmaking in a way. I had been working part-time for
somebody in the advertising business who had to reach out to a bunch of stores
and see if they wanted to place an ad in her magazine accounts. In the last
episode I mentioned Ancient Echoes. It was a gallery in the Lincoln Park
neighborhood that was female-owned and while she was carrying fine designs
there was nobody local who could custom make. I remember being very nervous to
go and show my wares as they used to say. I brought a portfolio as far as
pictures. I had a small box where I where I somewhat badly organized my pieces.
They were samples of a bunch of different techniques so there was no rhyme or
reason. After a few moments of her looking through my images and studying
my work she said, where have you been? My nerves got the better of me and I
immediately started to explain I had gone to school, downstate, my undergrad is in
this, I've done an apprenticeship. She laughed a little and stopped me and said
no not like that. Where have you been? You'll be an excellent fit for us. As far
as being the house designer for the silver room originally in Wicker Park
and then had moved down to Hyde Park in Chicago it was a friend who was
purchasing a lot of pieces from there and said you really got to go check it
out and make an introduction and so I did and mentioned who had sent me. We began
discussing some of the designs that he was carrying. I asked him are you ever
interested in modifying some of this or having your own designs and the owner
Eric had said that's the next step for me to grow to which I said let's make
that happen together and there were some great collaborations and most importantly
they had somebody who had a great relationship with an urban magazine so I
got some media coverage. With the estate collection we were both working with the
same spiritual counselor and at some point Deborah said you know you're a
jeweler. My other client is a jewelry store owner. How about I make a call for
you and you go stop in and that was an excellent run. I went from being an
appraiser to a gold buyer to her repair person and eventually a trainer for her
staff so that she could optimize time away from the shop.
The next mentor developed me as far as clientelling. It's one thing when you're
minding your own business and you get asked what do you do and a conversation
ensues and there's an organic agreement to meet up go over some designs talk
out a project. While that can be ideal and maybe even preferred it doesn't
always happen that way. It takes having the right conversation and when to
present yourself as your profession and I was lucky enough to have the
mentorship of a very quiet and introverted engraver. He said there were a
couple ways to approach this. Where you're putting yourself, how you're
presenting yourself and what you actually do besides the jewelry making. It was at
that point that I realized my ideal clients were going to be off the beaten
path. I was going to help them voice their love story in their personal rings.
That had a lot of appeal to the alternative crowd in Chicago, other
professional creatives and people who wanted something besides a cookie cutter
engagement ring or wedding band. As fate would have it the people who collaborated
the deepest with me on this idea are the ones that are still most happily married
year after year.
The next form of mentoring that I received was from a former employer and
it was a beautiful relationship as far as growth because I came in as a young
20-something with an ability to draw and had made a few projects and he spotted
my potential. We covered strategy as far as plotting my career. It was his
suggestion to go through a diamonds course. From there getting a certification
in diamonds and no it wasn't through the GIA or the Gemological Institute of
America yet. It was local, it was a weekend course and it was in person
that was coming through Chicago. If the highest commission was paid on diamond
sales then it would make sense that the first tool that I should have in my kit
as far as a designer is how to speak diamonds and sell diamonds. The next step
was continuing education and refining my drawing abilities into the style of the
jewelry industry. So I took a countersketching course and he paid for these.
They weren't expensive but he was investing in me and getting me more
robust as an asset for his business and his team. And ever since then that's
exactly how I approach the opportunity of learning something new and converting
the return on in that investment. He was instrumental in helping me understand how
to create educational goals, career goals, sales goals, and design goals. Working
there my strategy became incredibly well-rounded which was a mirror
reflection of how well-rounded I was becoming as an asset to myself and my
industry.
Another mentor came to me in the form of a contractor. While I was working for
somebody else this was the one in charge of their repairs so it was a house
account and I would go down drop things off pick things up. At some point I had
grown into being able to be the person communicating what to do not just pickups
and drop-offs as a courier. Now I was the repair manager. I had the eye I had the
vocabulary and I had the experience after a certain point and being able to
have conversations with John played into my future. Once I went out on my own I
approached him to be my house account. There was a fondness between the two of
us both being goldsmiths him in the middle of his career and me at the
beginning of mine so that we could sit and quote-unquote talk shop. Sometimes he
would show me someone else's project sometimes it would be the discussing of
my own design and over time he developed my ability to see what could be done
easily could be done economically and could be done incorrectly. These were
important ways to be able to assess a client's request or your own speculative
design before you start spending the dollars on the gold and the gems. We
would have conversations at the idea point at the model point at the casting
point at the setting point and at the finishing point of several projects and
within a couple years I felt like a library of blueprints on what not to do
that I didn't have to learn painfully or expensively or the hard way. Some of the
things that I learned to do that they didn't teach you in school was the right
way to block off heat when you're repairing something with a torch or when
you're trying to set a fancy cut that may chip more easily than a round diamond
or the best ways to fuse mixed metals and some of the more interesting tricks
like when a drill bit breaks off inside a pearl or what to use when you need to
unglue a stone or the best way to blacken or oxidize grooves in a piece.
Lastly you need a mentor to help you with troubleshooting. I'm not talking what
happens on the bench but those real uh-oh's whether they came from hubris
or they came from naivete once you're in the ditch it's hard to get yourself out.
The beauty of the mentor who can help you with troubleshooting is probably going
to save you both time and money. Some of the situations that Kirk was most helpful
with was the difficult client that you gave an inch to and is now asking for a
mile and you just don't have the right script or you're not sure that the next
thing you say is going to soothe or exacerbate the tension in the relationship.
A mentor who could troubleshoot when I got robbed by my own client it's the
mentor who can help you make sure that you've covered your ass or it's the
person who can help you get through the red tape the bureaucracy and the legal
aspects of doing business filing your taxes properly having the licenses that
you need or don't need depending whether your wholesale or retail. I've been
helped with when to leave a relationship with a vendor when to correct a
relationship with a vendor and when it's time to have a backup or explore a new
person as far as contracting out some of the labor for the projects that fuel my
business and my client relationships. I like to think of this type of mentor and
as the auditor one who's going to do the pressure test look for the cracks in how
I'm conducting business. Help me do that stitch in time to save me nine actual
ones. I hope you find one or many that are just as valuable as the fine master
that I've mentioned in today's episode.
Thank you for listening and learning with me. I would love you to share this
project with people finding rare beauty in today's world and throughout our
times. Until the next episode keep your own story sparkling.