A few words on selling and marketing -- Techniques? Strategies? -- and developing customer loyalty and trust. I think of it as the customer being the brains and I'm the hands, and to me this is a true collaborative partnership.
This is the fourth chain I've made in this style for Winter. One was for herself, and three were gifts to pals. This one in particular was made with tinned copper wire, peacock potato pearls and silver-plated skull beads. Winter roams the Internet acquiring goodies, and she really likes these raku-fired flask pendants.
Two raku flask necklaces that I forgot to photograph in November/December were made with copper wire and copper-coloured pearls, which also looked great. Those particular flasks had a lot of copper in the blue glaze.
Winter is always bringing me odd pendants and broken necklaces or too-short necklaces and we discuss options. I re-string, use leather, make or re-use chains and combine all kinds of different items to make her visions come true. Because she's doing all the designing and decision-making, I can give her a much better price than I might otherwise charge on something I'd spend my time designing. To me, this type of customer is a joy to work with.
Nuts and bolts: accounting for interruptions -- you know, vital things like drinking coffee, grazing for free samples, visiting -- at the farmers market on Saturday, I think this 24" necklace took me about 1.5 to 2 hours to put together, I used about 2/3 of a string of inexpensive pearls, some skull beads, jump rings and an oversize clasp. In case it needs adjusting, I make these chains in segments, joining them with various combos of jump rings.
Now back to the real world of deadlines and day job.
Thanks for stopping by!
