214 – How to Market TODAY with Veronica Staudt of Vintage Meet Modern

You're listening to gift biz unwrapped episode 214 when you look

good, you feel good,

and when you feel good,

you do good and that's really truly what it's all about.

Attention gifters,

bakers, crafters,

and makers pursuing your dream can be fun whether you have

an established business or looking to start one now you are

in the right place.

This is give to biz unwrapped,

helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,

resources, and the support you need to grow your gift biz.

Here is your host gift biz gal Sue moon Heights.

Hi there,

it's Sue.

So happy that you're joining me here today.

Actually, if you're listening to the show on the day it's

released, so this is Monday,

May 13th you are one of the first people to find

out about my new masterclass.

Registration opens today and I cannot wait to share this information

with you in the masterclass.

You're going to learn why now is the perfect time to

monetize your handmade products.

You're also going to find out about the number one thing

small business owners miss when starting their businesses and this is

what causes them to struggle and eventually shut down.

More importantly,

you're going to find out how you can prevent this from

happening to you.

I'm also going to talk about how to get customers to

pay what your product is worth and the secret to attracting

customers effortlessly.

The masterclass is called how to turn your handmade products into

an income producing business.

Registration is limited,

so your fortunate to be listening to this and if you're

interested, you should jump right over and grab your spot.

The link to register is gift biz unwrapped.com

forward slash master class.

Now let's move on and talk about today's show.

If you heard the podcast of a couple of weeks back,

so that was episode 212 I talked about my takeaways from

social media marketing world.

You already know that live streaming is hugely valuable right now

and is only going to get more and more so in

the future.

Veronica and I talked today about how she kind of stumbled

upon this and what an integral part it now plays in

her business and speaking of her business,

I can't wait to have her tell you all about her

very creative niche,

how she got to where she is today through adding storytelling

to her sales strategy and many other business building gems.

Okay. This wasn't an intentional play on words,

but I'm going to go with it because Veronica is all

about jewelry.

I can't wait for you to hear from her.

So let me introduce you right now to Veronica stout.

Veronica is the founder of vintage meet modern.

She has over 20 years of experience in the personal styling

and shopping industry specializing in jewelry and accessories.

Her company focuses on helping women look and feel their best

by dressing details.

The secret sauce is her hand curated collection of designer vintage

jewelry that has been sourced from all over the world.

Veronica believes that dressing details set you apart from the rest

to help you look and feel your best every day.

No dressing room required.

Plus it's fun empowering chic and sustainable too.

Vintage meet modern is a unique business in that it is

part collection,

part collaboration and part consulting.

Veronica, I have been so looking forward to our interview.

Welcome to the gift biz unwrapped podcast.

Thank you so much for having me Sue.

I am excited to be here.

Me too.

I met you,

Oh it's probably been a month or so ago at a

conference and I like hung around your table the whole time

cause you have so many beautiful things there.

But I was really trying not to ask you a lot

of questions because we had already agreed that we'd talk here

and I want to hear it all live and for the

first time.

So really excited to hear about all of that.

But before we do,

I want to ask you my regular question that I ask

everybody. And that is if you were to describe yourself as

a motivational candle,

what color would your candle be and what would be a

quote on your candle?

So altogether it speaks total.

Veronica. Well,

this is an interesting question And I really put a lot

of thought into it.

And I would definitely say that the color I would choose

would be actually be orange because orange is a color that

naturally attracts happiness and empowerment.

But what my candle would say as a motivational quote or

inspiration would be fear on magic because I strongly believe that

we all have the power to do something special inside.

And I think a lot of times our self doubt and

anxiety is what holds us back.

So I think that if you naturally believe in yourself and

that you're happy that you should be your own magic.

And then what happens when you add magic?

Awesome things happen.

So that would be my color and my candle.

I have never heard that before.

And I love it.

Be your own magic and let yourself be and tell the

world what your magic is.

Yes, for sure.

To be unique and individual and just yourself.

Yes. And that's clearly what you've done with vintage meet modern

for sure.

I mean,

that's a great example of how using your own magic results

in a business that's really super unique and,

and people talk About you.

Yeah, I think that that's a really important lesson to be

learned. I think in today's world,

and I have to say this as also a mother to

three children,

I think sometimes we all get wrapped up in thinking that

we have to do things a certain way.

And I think if there's something that really truly using a

candle reference sets you on fire,

like I think that you should go for it.

I think that sometimes you have to invent your own rules

or sometimes you have to invent your own processes.

Sometimes you have to use your own passion and your drive

to fuel what you want the outcome or the success part

to be.

But I just think that more times than not,

we sort of like censor ourselves or we hold ourselves back

from really achieving our true potential.

When the reality is,

is that when you look inside,

if it's something that you feel that passionate about,

you'd actually be doing,

uh, to service to the world,

not sharing it with other people.

So I like having a unique business because I think it

just goes ahead and proves you really can be successful financially,

emotionally, physically in lots of different ways by doing something that's

really truly unique to yourself.

Right. And the other thing is you stand out because you're

different. You've given people something to talk about.

Yeah. And you know what,

that's actually a really interesting thing because you said a little

bit in the intro and talked about like dressing in details

and things like that.

We try to embrace that.

We always say that something small can really set you apart

from the rest and that will make you more memorable.

But it will also be a great conversation starter also.

And so I always want people to feel like you have

the ability to be part of everything,

but at the same time you're still unique.

And one tiny little piece of jewelry.

One fabulous accessory can really,

really truly set you apart from the rest.

So don't think that that's not accessible to everyone because that's

the whole point with the jewelry,

it always fits and there's a piece that fits everyone.

You should definitely go out there and you should be able

to set yourself apart from the rest.

Beautiful. Well,

let's take it back a little bit and talk to us

about how you got to where you are today.

How did everything start out?

Well, it was one part passion and one part being raised

around it.

And then it was like one part really tapping into and

acknowledging what I was really good at.

So the historical part and the memorable part of it was

that I was raised with a love of vintage jewelry and

accessories by my own grandmother.

She was an absolutely wonderful woman,

came from a very humble backgrounds,

made her own clothing,

but it had definitely an eye for detail and design and

loved fashion as an expression.

And she had a really incredible jewelry collection and it wasn't

anything over the top.

We're not talking about crown jewels or anything like that,

like from from the queen or anything.

She just had these really fun and interesting but high quality

vintage and designer pieces,

which really weren't vintage back then.

They were just things that she bought that are vintage now

and I am a self girly girl and I'm not afraid

to admit that.

And all of my cousins and all the other kids would

be outside playing in the backyard when we'd go to visit

our grandparents.

But my grandmother would always find me snuck off in her

room playing through her jewelry and her accessories and everything and

instead of being like,

no, no,

should get outside with all the other kids,

she was always like,

they're like,

Oh here,

let's just put a little more on you.

Let's put a few more rings out or let's put a

few more necklaces on.

That was really something special.

And then later on in life,

this is the emotional part of it.

She had Alzheimer's the last six years of her life.

And we of course all knew her,

but she didn't really know herself.

But she did know herself.

And the interesting thing is is my grandfather put her pearls

on her every single day,

all the way up until the day she died.

And so I had this lasting memory of how everything that

she'd been through and everything that I'd even watched her change

from, she's still resembled and looked like herself and she still

has such an elegant way about her,

even all the way up until the end.

And I thought to myself,

wow, if you could wear a strand of pearls your entire

life, why wouldn't I want every woman to be able to

have that?

And so I just naturally fell in love with jewelry and

accessories that way.

And then it parlayed into a career for me.

I love that.

First off as you were describing it,

I could just picture a little Veronica in there with the

jewelry box,

putting them on and then this strutting around whatever you would

do and what a nice relationship and something,

an experience to have with your grandmother doing that.

That's awesome.

And I also think by the way of your story,

having pearls on until the very last moment just is a

great example of a couple of things.

Number one,

her style,

because that was hers,

you just continued it on for her.

But a statement that she would make and that's what we

can do with your products.

That's the whole point of vintage meets modern,

right? Correct.

I mean,

and that's what it is.

It's like one part legacy,

one part defining your own personal style and one part making

the realization that it's little things that you can actually have

your entire life and that doesn't mean your style might not

change, but it's little things that really can make the biggest

difference. And we do go through so much in our life.

And so why not be able to feel really good about

who you are by dressing and dressing up every day?

Because you do have to go out there to the world.

So we all have to be able to put on clothes.

We all have to have some form of expression.

So whether you're a fashionista like me or you have a

more casual style,

you should still embrace some part of it because it is

a huge reflection of who you are.

And I always tell all my customers,

when you look good,

you feel good.

And when you feel good,

you do good.

And that's really truly what it's all about.

I love it.

And you are so right.

And you're talking to the right audience because our listeners are

99% women.

So we all can go to our jewelry boxes and put

on our fancy stuff.

Even if we're going for coffee,

let's just go with that.

So take me to the point in time when you decided

this could actually Be a career for you.

Well. That's also like everything in Veronica's life.

It builds off of other things.

When I graduated from college,

I came home with a degree in political science and Spanish

and I said to my father that I wanted to be

an interior designer and he said,

good luck with that because you were totally trained in college

for that,

obviously. Right,

exactly. I said,

very determined only because I am a very determined person.

I said,

fine. I said,

I'll put myself through interior design school,

not a problem.

So I took a job at Neiman Marcus in Chicago because

I wanted something that I could work nights and weekends so

that I could go to school for interior design during the

day, and I started in the jewelry and the accessories department

and I fell in love with it.

It was like I had been connected to my grandmother all

the times.

You just didn't realize that it was going to happen that

way. Right?

Right, exactly.

So I started this career at Neiman's,

and this is the funny thing,

like anybody who works in sales that has ever worked in

commission sales can probably identify with this a little bit.

Nobody talked to me,

nobody wanted to be my friend.

When you start off in a commission sales department,

and I'm seeing a,

Neiman's gave me the absolute best training and customer service and

actually working with people in my entire life.

So I cannot say anything negative about Neiman Marcus at all.

That is my mothership.

If you get to know me at any kind of personal

level, like I'm a Neiman's girl through and through,

but when you work in a commission sales environment,

in the very beginning nobody would be my friend because it

was like commission sales there.

Was that competitive?

Yeah, it was super competitive.

So back then we didn't have iPhones.

We weren't sitting on our phones like looking stuff up or

anything like that.

All the jewelry designers back then,

they would send these like handbooks and books that would come

into the jewelry department and so I would read them.

I would read about like what the materials were made of,

what kind of stones they were producing,

what the season's line was inspired by.

And so I take the books and then I'd stand at

the counter and then all of a sudden customers,

which is naturally start coming up to me and they'd be

like, Oh,

what are you doing?

And I'd be like,

Oh, well I'm actually reading about this piece from David Yurman

or Steven Legos or something like that.

And they'd be like,

Oh, I didn't even know that the Kali collection was inspired

by river rocks from John Hardy and stuff like that.

And so all of a sudden this natural storyteller that was

like always part of me connected with the customers.

And so suddenly instead of not even worrying about my fellow

colleagues not talking to me,

all of a sudden I started getting this really amazing customer

clientele book because I just became known as the person who

knew about the jewelry,

knew what to do about the jewelry,

knew what to wear with the jewelry.

So I had this really nice experience.

And then when I left because I had children,

I stayed in touch with some of my customers and then

later on in life I actually found myself to be a

single mom when my girls were two and four I got

a call gun,

I believe in fate and it was a customer of mine

who had terrible,

terrible arthritis in her hands and she couldn't wear any of

her rings that I had sold her her throughout all the

years. I had sold at Neiman's because of the arthritis.

And I said,

well, I've just heard about this thing called E-bay.

I said,

what would you say if we took all the rings that

you had on consignment since you can't wear them at any

more? And we put them on eBay.

And she was like,

well, I have nothing to lose because I can't return them.

The state dealer doesn't really want to deal with them because

their designer and their costumes jewelry and they're not fine jewelry,

so let's give it a go.

And that is how the business was born.

It was born by basically a consolidation of people's estates and

I started putting things online on marketplaces like EBS and things

like that and then suddenly it took my accountant at tax

time saying,

you know,

I know that I'm not supposed to interfere in your personal

life, but you to realize you made more money selling things

on eBay last year than you did teach in preschool.

He said,

Oh, thank you for this.

He said,

did you ever think about maybe turning this into a business

and that is truly how the business was born and it

wasn't even on your radar at all.

Yeah, and like the thing is is it came so naturally

to me because I loved it so much that it just

came naturally to me that I didn't even realize that that

was what I was doing.

I thought I was just making some side hustle money so

that I could give my girls a better life while we

were trying to get ourselves started over again after divorce.

And then the interesting thing is is then enters my husband

who I'm now been with over 11 years going into the

business and how the business even grew to the next step

was my husband is a film editor,

a professional film editor,

and so he also has training at the tire fee and

one night while we were sitting having a glass of wine,

I said,

you know what?

I didn't understand.

I said,

a lot of people sell similar things to mine on eBay,

but they seem to get a better price point than I

do on it.

I said,

I really wonder why because my descriptions are good and I

really don't know what I'm doing,

and he looked right at me and he said,

you know,

I can tell you why this coming from like a minimalist

who like doesn't really even like jewelry.

He says,

your pictures suck.

I was like,

what? He's like,

your pictures are terrible from there.

My husband,

he was then at that time my fiance,

because he was trained as a photographer and an editor,

he started taking my pictures for me and then again like

another area or another facet of business improved.

And so like that's a perfect example of how you have

to be open to asking for other people's help.

And that's a perfect example also of how my product based

business grew was that when I felt like things weren't going

the way that they were,

I would confide in people who could give me some honest

feedback and we would find solutions to get over the hump

so that we could get to the next part.

So that goes everything from taking things on consignment to then

even figuring out how we could just buy entire estates so

that we could keep our profit margins done.

We just grew and grew and grew.

Now you have to stop because I have like 7,000

questions so we can't go any further.

I'm backing you up a little bit.

Okay, sure.

Cause this I think would be interesting.

I've been writing notes and as you've been talking,

I'm taking you back to Neiman Marcus again for a second

with one question here.

Sometimes it's easier for us to understand how to be successful

when we see what you shouldn't do.

So you were at the counter learning the stories behind all

the pieces of jewelry and that's how people got attracted to

you and you started talking to customers,

but what were the other salespeople doing not doing that you

were doing?

Like what were they doing to try and get business that

wasn't working?

Honestly, I would say that if you've ever seen like the

water cooler memes and things like that,

like they would basically stand behind the cash wrap area,

which was protected back then because back then the POS,

the cash register itself was like in this little sort of

alcove so that the customer wouldn't see you wrapping things up

and stuff like that.

And that was a big congregation area.

It was a congregation area because there was a phone back

there. So employees would be standing around talking on the phone.

I don't know to who,

I'm not a nosy person,

but it wouldn't be uncommon to see three to four associates

congregating in sort of this little cash register area or being

on the phone.

I, myself personally,

I was always out right in front.

Okay, so you were out right in front interacting with customers.

Yeah, and I think this is a good point here,

even in today,

even though we're not having to stay behind counters and all

that, in a way we are because we are staying behind

a computer screen.

We think that,

and I'm saying we as a generality,

but we've got a website up,

so why aren't people coming to the website or we're working

some type of a show.

I know you were just at the Chicago,

the garden show,

right? A lot of people even at shows just sit behind

and expect people to come to us versus us initiating and

encouraging conversation.

So being proactive versus just available if someone wants to talk

to you makes a big difference.

Oh, for sure.

I think that an important thing to point out is that

you can be a successful sales person.

Like, I guess you could say taking a step back or

taking a more relaxed approach,

you don't have to be like in,

people were naturally attracted to me when I used to work

and even now I think people are naturally attracted to me

because I admit when I'm working or when I'm doing something,

people are naturally curious to see what I'm doing.

That's just something that's inherent about me.

I think that it's probably why I was actually even a

successful preschool teacher.

A little kids would love to just congregate around me and

see what I was doing even then.

So I think for certain people that's natural.

I have met certain salespeople speaking of the Chicago flower and

garden show because we were just there.

If you are a more laid back sales person,

that doesn't mean that you can't be,

you don't have to be in somebody's face introducing yourself or

going after them or something like that.

But for example,

my booth partner was a much more laid back gentlemen,

but he was constantly moving around in his booth and then

people were constantly just naturally seeking him out to ask questions.

And so he was not necessarily a super outgoing person,

but he had a very successful show just like I had

a very successful show because people naturally thought,

Oh, this person's doing something.

So they must be able to answer my question.

So being approachable could be a way to say it.

Yes. Okay.

Yes. Being approachable.

And one thing though that's still does goes a really,

really long way.

And I'd love to bring this up just because I see

even with my own children or it just drives me crazy.

We're all glued to looking down at our phones.

You know what?

I'm guilty of checking things even when I'm on the selling

floor of answering questions or regramming a picture on Instagram or

things like that.

But if you have somebody that's in your general vicinity,

talk to them,

make eye contact with them.

You don't have to sell them anything.

But the polite thing to still do is sales is so

much more than just selling something.

I mean,

it is service,

it's connections,

it's relationships.

It's listening to the customer about their problem,

whether they're verbally telling you or they're physically telling you through

cues why they're even being attracted to looking at what they're

doing. So take the time to make eye contact with them.

Say hello,

start the relationship with them.

Who knows whether it's going to lead to a sale in

the end or not.

But you always must at least be able to start the

relationship. And that's always a very simple thing to do.

Eye contact.

Hello, how are you?

Can I help you with anything?

Put the phone down.

Okay. So then the other thing that I want to point

out with your time at Neiman Marcus is you started getting

into stories around the product and that is something because I've

seen you in action that you've carried over even today.

And I noticed at the table anytime someone picked up a

piece, you just like started diving into the story.

It was either where you found it,

how the piece was made,

some special quality of the piece.

Maybe it was the stone or I don't know what,

but everything was story and what I saw was people who

thought something was pretty and picked it up or just kind

of looking started to fall more in love with it because

you were telling them more about it so they'd be more

becoming more bonded to the product or to the piece of

jewelry I should say.

Products are still meant to serve us,

whether they're serving in a neat need like the food that

we have in our refrigerator or they're becoming something that's ingrained

in our personal style.

We're all going to be connected to what the service of

the product is that we've taken into our life.

So when you have an opportunity to work with something that

is special or if you were a product based business that

is developing a product,

you're always thinking about who the product is actually going to

serve. It's what I have been most proud of is being

able to continue to tell those stories because we live in

a world where we consume so much stuff,

everything, information,

technology, physical products,

everything. And I happen to be one of the people who

is fully committed to the sustainable fashion movement and to other

sustainability. I think that there's a product for everyone.

I really do.

I'm not saying that product based people shouldn't create products,

but I'm saying in order to more successfully serve your customer,

which then helps your bottom line tell the story of your

products because you will hit home runs with your customers and

your core audience over and over and over again and you

can't put a price on that.

You really can't Love it.

Okay. So give biz listeners,

you might be saying to yourself,

okay, I don't have any stories to my products,

so some ideas that come to the top of my mind

and Veronica you can add in,

but how you started as an artist,

your personal story might not initially relate to the product,

but just like we went through with Veronica,

how she got there,

her path,

so her journey,

it could be a customer who's using your product and some

result that they got or how excited they were about it.

It could be a new method that you created that you

weren't expecting and it was just a surprise for you.

I mean,

there can be a million stories if you start looking for

them. Absolutely.

Can you give any others ideas and suggestions,

Veronica, just to get people's minds thinking?

Well, I do think that if you have taken time and

money and investments to bring something to market,

you have a story there.

First and foremost.

I mean,

and I think that that's always one of the most important

things that you can start with.

In my situation.

This is just an example of that.

Why do I sell vintage jewelry specifically?

I sell it for a lot of different reasons.

I sell it because over the weekend we sold it to

she was going to wear them as something old for her

wedding. I mean,

that's a perfect example of how that,

if you took the time to actually think about all the

different ways that your product could serve your audience,

there's always gotta be a story to tell.

I mean,

otherwise you wouldn't have taken your own time in your own

passion to say to yourself,

we need to take this product out there and we need

to be able to give it to people.

I think the important thing to think about so much when

it comes to the product itself is maybe the story comes

when you think about who your ideal audience is.

If you don't think you have a story and you know

that you've touched the heart of a customer,

whether you're serving a simple need that's no big deal to

them, or maybe it's changed their life because let's use like

my son has very,

very slight sensory processing disorder and of all things they gave

us this little medical brush to brush his arms with.

Okay, now I gotta tell you that little medical brush that

they gave us was the same medical brush that they gave

me to brush my children's hair when they were newborns.

So when they gave me this brush,

I just thought to myself,

I use this to brush my kids' hair when they were

like newborns,

what this going to do for my son?

Now you know what?

This was a product that I saw in a totally different

light when we would be able to use it to set,

brush his hands and then he would calm down and he

would be less fidgety.

So this is a perfect example of how you're taking the

time to look at the product from how the customer is

using it.

And something that maybe was used in a completely different surrounding

was absolutely life changing for us because you gave my little

boy his freedom back to calm down instead of fidgeting while

he was in school.

Good point.

Yeah. And I think if people start getting the idea of

going out and looking for the stories,

the other thing that you were talking about Veronica,

is if you are also not just thinking of who your

client is,

but interacting with them when they're purchasing,

how are you going to use the product?

Is this a gift?

Maybe those stories will come out.

Cause you would have never known what that customer was going

to use those earrings for unless you would have asked her

or engaged in conversation somehow.

Well exactly.

And that's the other thing is it's really interesting when you

think that your product is going to be serving a certain

audience and then somebody comes up to you and tells you

how they're going to use it and you're like,

wow, I never even thought about that.

It opens up a whole new Avenue for how you message

in social media.

I mean there's so many opportunities if you just talk to

your customers.

Yeah. And then you know,

it's a really great door that opens to,

I happened to be a big note taker also.

So when we receive notes or feedback like that,

we often sit back down and when I say we,

I say my small team,

but we often think to ourselves,

is this a niche that we before like kind of ignored

and that we,

maybe we have more customers in it or is this just

another thing that we should use as a perfect example of

a niece that we did feel at the time.

So look.

Therefore there are other ways that our product could be marketed,

sold another audience that it could serve,

but it doesn't always necessarily overlap,

in which case.

Then we turn it into a super positive review.

That's the other thing.

I'm a really big person with recycling content.

Yeah, for sure.

Let's circle into now talking a little bit more about photography,

so this was really interesting that your husband's like,

okay, Veronica,

change out the photos.

Yeah. What was the experience like once you had different photos?

Well, in a visual world,

the story is really important.

I mean it's super important and we'll we can talk a

little bit about how that video has been even more of

a game changer than just great photography for us because you

get to use the visual and tell the story at the

same time,

which is great.

The photography in general really did change our business a lot

for a lot of different ways.

One, people took us a lot more serious because our photos

were, well,

they weren't distracting.

I mean that's what a good professional product photo will do.

It doesn't have to be anything ultra special.

I mean you don't have to have it laid out imagery

wise on a stack of gold bricks trying to set yourself

apart from the rest,

but good clear,

clean photography for a product based business is critical.

That's the very first thing because you don't want that customer

to be distracted and you want to have them have the

clearest image of what they're actually going to buy,

especially in the online world.

That's their first interaction with it before they probably even read

the description.

Okay. Question.

Are you a fan of individual pictures,

like flatly images of the product or more lifestyle where it's

integrated like maybe someone is wearing a bracelet?

Well, because of the way that my company is proud of

being full service and because of the way that we really

resonate with our most successful audience,

that continues to come back to us more and more.

Yeah, that's a very good question to ask.

We learned from the feedback from our customers that they enjoy

both the lifestyle and the flat Lake.

They like the lifestyle ones because jewelry specifically or I would

say smaller things specifically when they see it on a person's

body or a person's arm or things like that.

It's a really easy way to tell size and scale without

them being able to touch it.

And I'm sure we've all seen this before,

it's like you order a shirt online and then you come

in, it's like the size for Barbie.

You're like,

wow, you're like,

I thought I read the dimensions right,

but I wouldn't even let my five-year-old wear the sweater.

So that's one thing that I've learned that has been very

successful and our audience gave us that feedback.

Our audience told us,

we asked our audience,

which were their favorite types of photos and they said the

ones that you have featured on models or on bodies or

things like that,

because we can get a size of the scale as to

whether or not it's right for their personal tastes and their

personal style.

The second runner up,

which goes along with the collaboration side of our business is

a lot of people take a second look at our pieces

because vintage not going to deny gets a bad rap.

Grandma's jewelry.

It's outdated.

What would I want with it?

But then all of a sudden what was very successful in

my business was showing you,

okay, you can wear this vintage necklace with what you picked

up at Ann Taylor.

You can wear this vintage necklace with what you already like.

It anthropology.

You can wear this vintage necklace and you can look like

an old Hollywood bombshell with a classic black dress that you

already have hanging in your closet.

And then that's when customers really knew that vintage meet modern

really was vintage meet modern.

Wow. I could wear all this vintage jewelry with my modern

clothes every day.

This is genius.

Where have you been my whole life?

And it was nice too because like I said,

as much as we love having the collection,

we get really nice responses for people who say,

you know,

I have a whole entire box of clip earrings that were

my grandmothers that I never ever once thought to put them

on. And that's what I want.

If you got a box of your grandmother's stuff,

like I had a box of my grandmother's stuff,

pull it out,

you'll have the best memories in the world and I might

even make some great suggestions about what you can wear it

with because of course that's collaboration side of our business.

So if you're struggling to find what to wear,

those blue clip earrings from Gramma with,

I can also help you out in that department.

And if there were a couple of pieces that you would

simply never wear,

they might be something that you'd be interested in.

Veronica, absolutely take that too.

So it works all the way around.

So yes,

photos are definitely important.

Very important.

Okay, so I've got to ask this because I know when

you made mention of this name,

a lot of people perked up their ears.

Just because I know this to be true.

You talked about eBay and how once you went on to

eBay and then you adjusted the photos,

that's when things really started taking off.

How do you equate that to happening?

Were you directing people over there?

Were you running ads?

How did you get traffic going on eBay in the beginning?

In the beginning it was consistency,

and I've always said this before because even though vintage meet

modern, the website is a bulk of our sales and is

a bulk of where we conduct our business as well as

be able to direct people to now we still get quite

a few sales even from eBay at sea,

other small marketplaces,

and for me,

honestly, the trick to success was just being consistent,

just putting things out there consistently always helped with the algorithm.

I will share an insider tip when we got too busy

to be able to consistently put things on eBay and Etsy.

We found ways through our inventory management system to have VA's

help us basically transfer and put other listings out there.

There's nothing wrong with that.

No, but a lot of people actually,

even in my own industry are like,

well isn't that overwhelming?

And I keep telling them,

no, it's really data entry.

You must be scared of data entry or having somebody else

do your data entry for you easy if you set the

process up to do it.

And that has actually,

I'm very grateful for it because there have been times where

we've had problems with the website and since I'm a non-techie

person, I didn't even realize that we were having problems with

our website.

We've had months where Etsy has just blown us out of

the water because we've had a customer who found us through

Etsy who bought 25 pieces at a time because she's flying

back home to China and she wants to bring her entire

family, American vintage costume jewelry as a gift.

So again,

being able to be selling on multiple platforms.

When you find that there is a process that works for

you, one place,

document it and try to repeat it someplace else.

And if you need help documenting it,

I can even give you some suggestions of people who helped

me figure it out,

how to document my processes.

Okay, perfect.

So the one big,

big takeaway overall,

cause there are so many topics here I want to try

and get into,

but the one big key that you've continued to find first

off for sure your advice about multiple platforms,

one of them being your own website,

by the way,

always. Always.

But even if you're on Etsy,

eBay, whatever,

at some point have your own website as well.

But the big takeaway you'd say is consistency,

right? Oh absolutely.

And when you say consistency,

I know it'll vary by product for people.

Now you're lucky because you have new jewelry all the time

to show and it's not the same jewelry.

You're not making the same piece over and over again in

different colors every single time.

It's different.

Yes. So consistency might look a little bit different to different

product makers,

but for you,

what does consistency mean?

How often are you posting new pieces?

We'll hear what Veronica has to say about consistency.

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Well, consistency for us actually we learned with the volume of

what we felt that we could keep up because our pieces

are one of a kind.

We consistently put up between 25 and 50 pieces per week.

Okay, so that's a lot.

That's why you need a VA.

Yeah, and we have an in house inventory person that helps

us, but the good news is is that we've been very

lucky in that we have very good margins and when you

have that,

you can figure out what your sweet spot is in terms

of being able to figure out how many pieces you can

put out per week.

I like,

again, being a storyteller,

so 50 to 60 pieces per week is our sweet spot

in which I can do my Facebook live.

We basically come up with a month's worth of merchandise at

a time.

She goes along with that consistency factor.

So we know what we're going to be doing week one,

week two,

week three,

week four,

and then we can even plan in like when we're going

to do a sale or something.

Like if I'm traveling or if we know that we're going

to be doing a big show or something where we know

that that week is not a good week to be adding

a ton of new merchandise.

So then that would be a week that we might host

a sale or do something like that.

Okay, wonderful.

And I love you talking about the fact that you have

a schedule,

it's not like Monday morning you come in and say,

okay, what are we doing this week?

You plan it out a month in advance,

a couple of months.

We have a quarter system just like most retailers do.

We have a four season.

Yeah, and when it comes to the merchandise and the inventory,

we planted out 12 weeks at a time and that helps

my staff.

That helps myself.

That helps.

Being able to,

when we're doing popups and in-person things,

we already know in advance what trays we're going to be

bringing and what we have.

We generally carry between 50 and 60 pieces a week and

a great collection averages between 200 and 250 pieces per month.

It gets boosted up a little bit closer to the holiday

time because we sell through things faster fourth quarter like most

retailers do.

All right,

so now I want to layer on something that most people

probably don't know about you yet,

and that is your Facebook live programs.

Yeah, so that's really my excitement,

what I want to talk about.

So share us what you're doing And then we'll take the

conversation from there.

Okay. So the way that you're so lucky that you have

your podcast,

I started doing Facebook lives actually when I had a customer

who lived remotely and I didn't even realize it.

I had like this teeny tiny little Facebook group that had

like three people in it.

It was like me and it was like the customer and

it was my inventory assistant and that was it.

And she had a newborn baby and she lived really far

away, overseas,

far away.

And she would always miss whenever I was going to be

doing an in person event or she would never wake up

when I was doing emails and things like that cause they'd

come during the middle of the night and when a product's

gone it's gone cause there's only one right,

it's gone.

So I started very nervously going live just to showing the

jewelry on a table to her with my camera overhead.

I wasn't even looking at the camera and she was like,

Oh my gosh Rhonda,

because this is so genius.

She's like,

I can hear you talking about the piece.

I can see the size and the scale against your hand.

If I ever needed to hold something up to myself,

like I wasn't self conscious about it,

I'd be like,

Oh yeah,

like this looks great.

You could wear this with a black top and you could

wear this with earrings and all this other stuff and everything.

And again,

it was my husband who just walked on by and he

was like,

why don't you do that on Facebook for everybody?

He's like,

you're doing it just for her,

right? She buys every time because she gets to see what

you're doing.

And so it started out that we just,

and again we got a process in place.

It started out that we just started showing new things.

We were just showing like whatever the things would come in

the same way that like people do unboxing videos.

We'd get a huge collection of jewelry and maybe we'd have

an estate consigned or something like that.

And then people started saying to me like,

what can I buy this and can I buy that?

And since everything was one of a kind,

it was driving my inventory manager nuts.

She was like,

we have got to stop invoicing people.

She's like,

I'm not even getting through things during the day.

Were you doing this on Facebook live on your business page

obviously. And then was it a certain scheduled time so people

knew to come and watch you or how did you start

attracting an audience?

That's what happened.

I said to myself,

Oh my gosh,

we're going live at all these random times.

And then the next day Mariana's coming in and I'm like,

you need to invoice this person and that person and everything

else. And then there were people blowing up my inbox saying,

are you going to be going live again?

Because I want to see what you're going to have first

before everyone else.

And that's what I said.

That's it.

I said,

I cannot be going live at five 30 while making dinner

at the same time for my kids just to be answering

people's questions.

So we developed this thing called jewelry party Wednesday,

I'm not getting you.

We actually did it on Wednesday nights because my children were

all at activities at the same time.

So for those of you who don't think that you can't

do alive,

I do it completely around my entire family is all how

you tell people all about it.

So I said,

well, we don't have the kids on Wednesday night,

so on Wednesday night at 7:00 PM every week I'm going

to go live.

And that's exactly what it is.

I started telling people and then I did some homework.

I learned about how some things worked on Facebook.

I learned that you could schedule events.

I learned that you could go under the video publishing tools

and have a sole countdown that says five minutes before you

were going to go live,

but the way that you drop an episode with your podcast

or maybe with a blog saying,

you know,

new episode comes out on Tuesday at 4:00 PM every week.

I just said,

I'm going to go live at 7:00 PM on Wednesday nights.

And so that's how it really got started.

And then we've stuck with it.

So I was already unofficially doing it for about six months

and now we actually run it like an actual show and

we are on our 52nd episode.

So that means 52 weeks.

So it's been a year to even a year now.

It's actually been more like two,

but before it was really sporadic.

It was like just what I felt like going live.

Now we have it like an actual professional show where we

go on,

we go live,

we invite our customers.

When we get new customers that are through email,

we remind them.

The other thing is is that we do more with it

now too.

We download the copy afterwards and we put it on our

website, so if you can't make it to the party you

can always go back and watch the video and a lot

of people like doing that because they can get a second

chance at the look.

They can an automatic link to the latest collection.

My inventory manager is very happy because they're all pieces that

we already work to put online before the party starts so

you can head on over to the website,

add it to your cart.

You don't have to wait for it to be invoiced as

a ton of fun.

And the awesome part is we have an amazing community.

People show up from all over the country and the world

every week.

They actually say hello to each other in the comments.

Oh, so they're becoming friends.

Yes. Not be calming.

They are.

Some of them,

even when they see certain kinds of jewelry will even say,

Oh, I know who's going to get that.

Like, I mean these are people who haven't even met each

other or anything.

They always joke,

they're like,

we're going to have to have like a vintage meet modern

convention one day or something like that.

You should.

It's fun.

Well, listen,

the other thing that's so cool about your business model,

Veronica, is there is definitely tension towards the purchase because if

someone really,

really likes something,

if they're not the first one to get it,

it's gone.

Yeah. Scarcity.

Dr. Lee is on our side.

It plays a really big role in our company.

It plays both an important role in reminding the customers that

all the pieces are out of production.

They're all one of a kind and the chances of me

ever getting them again are slim to none.

I might be able to find another pink rhinestone broach,

but I don't know if I'll ever find one in that

specific design from that specific designer and that kind of quality.

And I don't know how long you might have to wait

for it.

My sources run pretty deep,

but not always can I find something easily or something even

similar ever again.

So that's a great thing.

I mean especially for your crafters and you're one of a

kind listers and things like I would play that up in

a heartbeat for sure.

It only helps people feel like it's more special and it

is. Absolutely.

So there's a couple more things I want to address here

and I'm looking at the time.

So any advice for someone who is considering a live show

like yours?

Any suggestions,

anything that you would want to share to put an end

to this portion of the topic?

Well, like my candle referenced in the beginning,

make your own magic.

I would say the most important thing is to go for

it. Just go for it.

I mean there's the pragmatic person and he is going to

tell you right away,

go for it because live video is like very hot right

now and not as many people are doing it.

And so when it comes to algorithms and when it comes

to Facebook favoring those types of things and stuff like that,

your views are already going to be dramatically increased.

But one of the biggest benefits that I would say is

that if you're struggling,

it's also cheap.

It's super inexpensive to do.

I mean we have bells and whistles now as we're going

into our 52nd show and after two years of almost doing

Facebook lives,

but in the very beginning I did mine with our ring

light and my iPhone.

We're not talking about any special editing equipment,

we're not talking about any of the stuff that we use

now. All that stuff came down the road.

Once we started looking at ways,

like I said,

at vintage meet minor,

we're always looking for ways to improve things and give people

a better experience.

So there came a time and a place strategically to grow

into that.

But in the beginning it's very inexpensive and very easy to

do and the last thing that I would say is is

that if you haven't tried using it,

you will be shocked at how involved your audience will be.

We were talking about serving the customers at the very beginning

and finding out different ways and what's your story and things

like that.

It makes it so much easier for us even to give

our customers a better experience because they interact with us and

they tell us what they want.

What are you seeing in terms of percentages of people showing

up live versus people watching later?

I admit this like I have not quite figured out the

whole watch party aspect of things yet.

People do show up live when we invite them.

You have to stay consistent.

Again, that's a big thing with me.

I remember when I first started doing this,

and it'd be like one person watching live,

two people watching live.

And even now,

sometimes there'll be like the first five to 10 minutes,

there'll be like two or three people.

And then by the end you'll see like 90 or a

hundred or things like that.

And then the very next day you'll open it up and

it'll be like,

Oh, your video had over a thousand views on it and

you're like,

wow, in 12 hours.

That's amazing.

I didn't even do anything to boost it or pay for

advertising or anything like that.

So that's one thing that I'll say is stay consistent and

keep doing it because the more you do it,

the more eyes you will get.

And then there are always strategies and things like that for

you to be able to get them to your website or

on your email list or things like that.

As you get more and more comfortable with your life,

you will,

how to communicate with your customers better as to get the

product into their hands,

which is of course the point besides the community aspect.

Right. And the one thing I would also add to this

is when you start out,

you might not have anybody watching unless you've invited a couple

of friends or family members or something and that's okay.

And even if,

let's say you have three or four people in for the

duration of time,

let's say you are on for 20 minutes or half an

hour, even if you only have those three or five people,

that's okay,

keep going because people will come and see it later or

each time you go on there'll be more and more people

who will be coming.

So don't get discouraged,

just stick with it.

That's part of the reason why we now download them and

we put them on our website and we put them on

YouTube. So it's another opportunity to have people be able to

go back and watch it on their schedule and on their

time. And it's also another way for us to be able

to make a graphic,

put it on Pinterest.

Pinterest graphics do really well for us.

Put that on the website.

They want to come into the website.

They wound up watching the video there.

That's another thing is like I said,

is don't be afraid to ask your audience questions regardless of

whatever your format is for your show because people will tell

us, Oh,

I just watched the video from four weeks ago or whatever.

So you can't say that just because you didn't get instincts

success from it,

that it was a failure.

Perfect. Okay.

I've got to ask you this question because you are so

bubbly, so upbeat.

You have such a great story to share with all of

us and we're learning so much.

Bring us to a point when it wasn't so great.

Oh wow.

Like is it great today?

No kidding.

Well, I mean for one thing,

being an entrepreneur,

it definitely has its ups and downs.

I know we've all seen that cartoon where it's like a

straight arrow to success going up and then what it really

feels like for an entrepreneur is like all the scribbles and

things like that.

I would say the most difficult parts have been when we've

hit plateaus.

It's kind of like there's two things in life that you

want. You want to keep losing weight when you're trying to

lose weight or when you're trying to make money and grow

your business.

You keep wanting to see things go up.

So I would say that we've had a couple of different

times that have been very hard.

Making the transition from E-bay then to Etsy then to Shopify

was really hard.

It took almost two years of consistency to have our Shopify

shop out,

pace, eBay and essay at sea together.

Did you close the other site?

When you add,

you just layered them one on top of another And it

was very difficult at times where when we would see our

Shopify stop or our own standalone platform not doing well to

say to ourselves,

let's just put all of our effort back into eBay,

or let's just put all of our effort back into Etsy.

That was very tempting many,

many times as an entrepreneur,

I had to talk to my mastermind friends.

I had to talk to my accountant.

I had to sit down and refigure out numbers.

I had to even emotionally decide to myself,

you have to be careful about the amount of energy that

you're putting into this because you're beating yourself up over something

that we still haven't even seen completely through.

That's definitely,

I'd say that that has definitely been one of the more

difficult times.

Okay, so a point of clarification here.

So you started with eBay,

so eBay got to a certain level of sales.

You decided that you wanted to also open up Etsy.

While you were doing that,

did eBay continue to stay consistent and so it was by

Etsy, new customers and new audience.

Your strategy was the business would build or did you see

some loss from eBay?

Oh, we definitely saw a loss from eBay because your focus

wasn't there as much,

or what do you attribute it to?

Well, for me,

I think at the time,

honestly it was a change in eBay.

It was definitely a time in eBay.

And so that's the thing is,

is you naturally think to yourself,

well, if this isn't working,

I mean,

I'm a big believer in that too.

If this isn't working,

what can we do differently?

And so for me,

the risk was saying,

well then let's open up an Etsy shop.

We already know that we have a platform and we already

have a customer on eBay.

So can we find a similar customer,

or maybe even a completely different customer on Etsy,

just to sort of broaden our net.

And it was always worth taking the risk.

But there's always that time investment.

Let's not even talk about the financial investment there,

is having to retrain how to do things that you can't

just use the same strategy that you used.

That was a success in one place and think that it's

naturally going to have the same outcome and the other.

So that's definitely where I have to say those were some

pretty dark days.

And sometimes it was hard to say.

That's the other thing they tell you all the time is

that, well,

just stick with one thing that works and make it the

best. Who knows what that one thing is?

I only use eBay as an example because eBay has consistently

changed every time they've changed things with the sellers.

Global shipping you have to add into it want to keep

a power level seller.

You have to have X amount of products listed at the

same time.

You want to keep power of seller status.

You need to take returns within 30 days.

In my industry,

having things be one of a kind,

especially with vintage,

it's really hard to say that we'll just take things back

because not all customers are this way,

but many times people buy things and then they just obviously

return them and so in vintage that's very hard for us

because people who usually do that also don't care for things,

so we would get things back in the mail because we

were forced into eBay's return policy,

which is part of the reason why I even started my

own site and we returned something and it looked like it'd

be ran over by a car.

I wouldn't be like,

Oh my gosh,

and to keep power seller status,

you have to accept,

like I said,

eBay's terms.

That's how it parlayed into me eventually having my own site.

But the real reason why was because I wanted to give

people a better buying experience.

You can't have an email list on eBay.

I work in an industry where a lot of times it's

personal shopping and personal styling.

So many times I might have something,

or for example,

somebody might have a necklace and I might come across the

matching earrings and I want the ability to be able to

reach out to them to say,

we have the matching pieces to this.

You can't do that on eBay.

In fact,

you can do it a little bit on Etsy,

but still only if you have a connection with the relationship.

Whereas when you're on your own site,

once they're your own customers,

that's what we grew into.

But that was a hard road And you bring up a

good point in that each platform has strengths.

So you were using the platforms for their strengths.

Also understanding their weaknesses at the same time.

Alright. So Veronica,

we've talked about your past,

we've talked about current day,

and now let's talk a little bit about your future.

And I want to do that by way of a virtual

gift. This is a magical box containing unlimited possibilities for your

future. It's your dream or your goal of almost unreachable Heights

that you would wish to obtain.

So please accept this gift and open it in our presence.

What is inside your box of the future?

We really want to make vintage modern.

We want to be able to easily walk into all of

the modern places that you like and be able to see

that it has a present and it has a future there.

My dream is to be able to walk into all the

stores that all the women who we know and love,

who are listening to us and be able to show them

how easy it is to mix their vintage jewelry with our

modern clothes.

We're getting there.

So J crew has been the first one to be really

open to it and it's been very supportive.

I hope that there'll be a few other well known retailers

that will accept us with loving arms.

Also, It's like you're creating a brand new style really with

vintage meet modern.

Thank you all.

I'd like to say that we are probably not reinventing anything.

We're just making it better and more accessible.

Yeah, but just the idea,

the concept of merging the two together is a whole new,

at least for me it is.

It's a whole new thought process in terms of doing it

that way because I'll find people who like vintage,

but that's all they wear you like it's vintage throughout.

It's not vintage and anthropology for sure.

I'm very intrigued by that.

Veronica, thank you for the gifts.

Oh, you're very welcome.

Let's make it all happen.

How about that?

Yeah, absolutely.

So where can our listeners learn more about you and see

the show?

Well, they can find us@vintagemeetmodern.com

if you'd like to tune in live.

We go live on Wednesday nights for jewelry party Wednesday once

a week.

And if you can't make the live,

please sign up for our email list because that's our VIP

list and you will always get a link to the replay

so that you can go and watch it at your convenience.

Beautiful. And that's 7:00 PM central standard time,

I'm presuming.

Yes, yes.

Cause you're right near me in Chicago.

Yeah man.

Someday I'd like to come and watch you do a show.

Oh absolutely.

We would love to have to throw something out there Like

random like that.

But that would be really fun.

It would be a blast.

It absolutely would be a blast.

And Ashley,

it's one of our most requested consultation services.

So is to be able to have us help other people

who are afraid of going live,

be able to see how easy it is.

So we love also helping other brands and retailers really embrace

using Facebook live or using any medium of video in order

to really showcase their brands.

Cause there's just so much you can do with it.

Yeah. Well Veronica,

let's see.

When this interview errors,

it'll be a show that was two or three weeks ago

where I talk about the takeaways that I got from social

media marketing world because I was just there when we're recording

this today.

The timing gets a little funky,

but I was just there last week and you are so

right on in terms of video and specifically live and how

important it is now and it's only going to get more

and more.

So you are in with the good stuff for sure right

now. So you're a great model and the ideas that you've

given us and the little tips here and there along the

way are fabulous.

So I thank you so much for that.

Well thank you so much For having a sign.

You know,

I absolutely adore you and your audience is fantastic.

Oh, thank you.

And I adore you too.

Feeling's mutual.

Have a great rest of your day.

You too.

There you have it.

And what did I tell you?

An excellent example of what live streaming can do for a

business. And it can be this way for your business too.

I encourage you.

No, I dare you to test this out if you haven't

already. As you heard,

it's well worth it,

and we talked about storytelling,

so that's your starting point with content for your live streams.

We're moving on now from glamming up with beautiful vintage jewelry,

too, tasteful Italian dining,

getting pretty classy here on the podcast up next week,

we're going to be hearing from Eric at pasta mamas and

what's going on with this delicious brand.

Believe me,

you don't want to miss it,

meaning you don't want to miss the podcast or getting a

taste of this product.

But for now,

one more thing I want to leave you with.

Remember to grab your spot for my free upcoming master class.

How to turn your handmade products into an income producing business.

To register,

go to gift biz on rapt.com

forward slash masterclass that's a wrap and I'll see you back

here next week.