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Welcome to the GuiltTrips podcast. I'm your host, Kendra Lockhart. As a goldsmith and

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gemologist, I'll be speaking 24 carat on all things jewelry, metals, and gems. Join

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me plus a few friends to demystify both materials and designs as your private jeweler. Let's

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tune in on these topics and get golden. Building on the last episode where I talked about the

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eight ways to create your own opportunities. Now let's discuss the difference between

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traditional versus alternative pathways as an entrepreneur and areas of business. For me,

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both have been priceless. I've enjoyed learning classically and observing how things shift

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decade by decade. But as we know, there is that expression, learn the rules like a master so

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you can break them like an artist. And oftentimes it really does matter that you throw out the

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handbook and go rogue or organic. I'll be covering five different areas of my career where I had to

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make the choice of the old way versus the new way. So let's begin. The first decision that I was

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faced with, and this was early in my career, was what type of company I wanted to have. My first

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couple jobs were in traditional stores. Would I go on to be an owner? Would I build out a brick

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and mortar? If so, that would entail researching neighborhood, looking at competition in a certain

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race? What is the demographic of that area? Am I a destination? Am I part of a subculture? Would

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there be adjacent businesses that could support me and refer me? Or am I completely incongruent in

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the area I've chosen? Like have I decided to plant an orange tree in Alaska? I've seen that in some

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of my peers and colleagues. I went down the path in 2009 with the recession of potentially moving

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out of Chicago and relocating to Austin, Texas. When I did my homework, as far as owning an actual

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shop, there was something that was very attractive as far as rent, district amenities, transportation,

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and shopping culture in the downtown area. And I got my binder out and I completely fleshed out

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how many square feet I'd need. Would it be a hybrid of studio plus showroom? Would I strictly

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have a retail only with a back office? Did I want to run it myself? Would I make room for staff?

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If so, how big? What would the layout of that look like? So if you go the traditional route of

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owning some type of store, a lot goes into it. And you won't have the authority for every single

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aspect of that decision making process. So it's going to be collaborative. For example, a colleague

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who did end up downsizing his store and picking one town over because it was more affluent and

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had better commerce, as well as better resources, including the bureaucracy of that city. It required

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a team of builders because the space needed to be retrofitted to a jewelry store. You've got a call

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insurance and security and plumbing, electricity, the interior designer, cabinetry maker, just for

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starters. Let's not forget signage and all of the permits that you have to file with the city. At

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some point, that cascade of choices and project managing seemed to not be the fit for where I

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wanted to go and how I wanted to do my business. I ended up becoming a private jeweler. How did

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I come up with that plan? There wasn't the word private jeweler when I began my career. That's

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just what I channeled or came through. Or if you want to use the word downloaded, that's how I came

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up with my title. The decision I had to make was do I want to be completely storeless and have a

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studio? Or do I want to have a studio somewhere? The origin of the way that I wanted to do business

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was planted for me in my childhood. We had a family carpenter named Nick who would come over

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after my parents got home from work. Oftentimes we had him sit and have dinner with us. And then

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my dad and Nick would go into the front room and begin drawing out some ideas for a bookshelf

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built into the wall or upgrade the patio into a deck. So I was very familiar with watching

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somebody who was both the visionary and the maker grab pen and paper. In this case, he would

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blueprint it out, take it away, give my dad a call as far as the materials, the cost, and the timeline,

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and then return to work on the project. It was easy to see myself in the sense of why don't I

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grab some loose stones, depending on the client, maybe a nice bottle of wine, show up to their

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home after hours, which still allowed me to do my work and design, create, budget, flesh out if I

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had to bring anybody else in to create and collaborate with, and then mark the calendar as

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far as when I'd be back to drop it off or set up a time that off site out of their home,

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they would want to meet and pick up the item that they had commissioned. The reason I went the

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direction I did is it gave me a lot more autonomy and it lowered my overhead. Another area of

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traditional versus alternative was the education and the training. I've spoken before that I took

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classic courses in metals at university. There was a professor, dedicated studio, college,

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sourced supplies, there were scholarships, budget. Most importantly, there was a curriculum. I

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didn't have to come up with how I was going to build my brain. It was already laid out for

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generations. Contrast that with an alternative route of finding classes to take and fleshing out

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my own repertoire. One of the ways that this happened is when I started my apprenticeship,

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the first thing he asked me, and this is a well-known story, what can you do as far as bench

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work? And my answer was, well, I can etch a penny and I can anodize some wire. Those were things

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I learned at university. That wasn't vocational enough. It didn't help me size a ring. It didn't

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show me how to set a diamond. So the agreement was go back, take a class. When you hear that,

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there's room for, ooh, is this craftsy? Is this hobbyist? No, it wasn't a hobby style at all.

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And it was an opportunity to learn with an award-winning metalsmith and to master techniques

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that would bridge that gap between I understand the materials, I understand the process of

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makership, but I'm not anywhere close to a commercial style of creating. That eight-week

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course made me so much more familiar with comfort as far as the tools, how to critically think and

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creatively solve when it came to fabricating, which is taking components and building a ring,

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as well as something that was a little more subtractive, such as wax carving, which I wasn't

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exposed to at school during the time I was there. And from that, it allowed me to think of how can

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I go and discover more specialty classes? What if I want to learn certain patinas? Let's say I wanted

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this to eventually be my niche and my look for any of my collections, the value for my ability to

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earn was in the alternative learning style. Next will be visibility. How do you get out there and

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seen, known, heard, liked, trusted, all that goes into being an opportunity for somebody who can be

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hired to fulfill a consumer or clients wishes and wants? Obviously visibility traditionally

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means how we learn through marketing and branding what's available. For me, that meant partnering

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with established businesses. As you know, I was a designer in a couple different retail galleries

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and stores. The way that that got announced and circulated was through print work. I was in the

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newspaper, there was an article that came and interviewed me and told my story. The stores would

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buy space in magazines so that they could advertise what type of business they had, including

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featuring new talent. Traditional mailing was done. When I had a lecture that I wanted to give at

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the art gallery, postcards went out to certain zip codes, the VIP clientele, and whatever demographic

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we wanted to hit. We connected with other businesses in the area that could have partnered with us to

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see if they wanted to have anything on that same day so that there was kind of a quote unquote

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art crawl. In contrast, how do you get your name out there? In an alternative way. You can do your

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own print work, you can make flyers, and you can send out your own mailers and postcards. One of the

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most successful ways for me was participating in independent art shows. There were two types. There

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was the juried kind where you had to submit professional slides of your work and hear back

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if you'd been accepted or not. Often there was a fee for being considered and then you would go and

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rent booth space, table space, etc. There were other open calls for artists such as at a church,

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at a park district, for some sort of fundraising or charity work. One of the things that turned out

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to be most successful for me was finding wedding trade shows because obviously that's the client

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that has a real need for rings instead of just a want. It did bring me in contact with a lot of

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people who would become my future referrals as far as adjacent or congruent vendors. That's where I

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met great photographers, great calligraphers, and a great confectionary artist who ended up being the

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maker of my thank you gifts to my top clients. The fourth area would be how to learn how to be a

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business person. The art part was handled and was obviously the more natural of the two, but

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understanding the execution of commerce and sales was more learned. So traditionally, that is part

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of your apprenticeship or working under somebody who owns a store. It's a lot more than just jewelry

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as far as apprenticing. You have to learn to think like the owner and sometimes step into their

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shoes. For example, if they're on vacation, or if you receive a phone call, or if they have tasked

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you with some type of assignment that ends up benefiting them, as well as their clientele,

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you're going to learn some chops. For me, it was writing the appraisal, pricing out new insurance

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coverage for the shop, discovering a new vendor to replace somebody who was either retiring or

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underperforming, ordering supplies, taking a call from somebody who wanted to show us their

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equipment or their merchandise or product. Those were all elements that went into understanding

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the other half of owning a shop, not just the creation side, but the framework of being a

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business owner. Conversely, where I went to learn the best of my entrepreneur skills was the Kauffman

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Foundation. One of my clients said, you've got a brain that is a little outside the box, as far as

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owning your own brand. What I can suggest is you submit for this program, Fast Tracking Entrepreneurs.

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It's a 12-week incubator. And the process to submit my name, he was the one who surprised me with

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nominating me. It was very Shark Tank-like before its time. They needed you to be a new artist,

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the verbal interview. What is your vision? How are you paradigm shifting your industry? I'm not

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going to lie, it was probably one of the most exciting series of conversations I've had in my

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entire career. And the deepest value was learning what type of business to set up. Did I want to

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be a sole prior ship? Do I need to be an LLC? Do I need to look at the difference between S-Corp,

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C-Corp? Do I need an accountant? Can I file myself? These are skills that were priceless and still

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serve me 20 years later. The best support system to be made aware of was called SCORE. And it was a

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collection of retired achievers in different industries as a resource that could end up mentoring

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the next generation. And I love that knowledge share and that passing the torch to somebody who

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was where you were at once upon a time. The last point I want to discuss as far as traditional

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versus alternative is the look who's talking about you and driving your ideal clients towards you so

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that you can conduct business in that matchmaking way where supply and demand is completely fulfilled

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in a personable manner. The traditional way that this happened for me was word of media. The gallery

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owner happened to be an excellent writer and networker and was quite gifted at creating press

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releases. I learned from her how to talk about myself and how to reach out to news sources. Some

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were a closed book and you needed to know the right people. Others were open and were certainly

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looking to source a great story and have something new to talk about or somebody new to feature. On

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the flip side of that is what happens in the simple art of allowing yourself to be found. It was the

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word of mouth instead. Out of that entrepreneur incubation there was incentive to talk about your

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classmates and see if you could drive any sort of business towards their burgeoning business model,

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to share about us, to send people our way, to refer us, to open doors, to make introductions,

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and to help us figure out the pathways in much less of a trial and error way. And what that really

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shaped was the art of conversation and the instinct of making something out of nothing. Truthfully,

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I think it's why I have such good stranger magic. It's why I can be sitting in a restaurant

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minding my own business or I can strike up an organic conversation on a train ride. And before

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I know it, we're exchanging numbers or emails or business cards. And that's about as alternative as

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it gets is to have no plan but to be 100% prepared to recommend yourself that you are a solution to

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a quote unquote problem they don't know they have. So this has been one of my more enjoyable

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topics to speak about because it really does take me back to that priceless 12 week learning

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called the fast track that is still available now through the Kaufman Foundation. And I was lucky

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to get scholarship into it. It was a very romantic time in my life that took me from what felt like

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a two dimensional artist into somebody who could now be bilingual in both creativity and

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transacting and monetizing. Hope you've enjoyed listening.

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Thank you for listening and learning with me. I would love you to share this project with

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people finding rare beauty in today's world and throughout our times. Until the next episode,

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keep your own stories sparkling.