Posted by Jeanne Connolly
I worked at a high-end antique shop for 5 long years while putting myself through an upholstery and fashion design program in Colorado. My goal was to combine these two disciplines to create usable art for the home. I thought it was brilliant to learn about the history of furniture while I was learning to take furniture apart and build it back up again in school. The shop I worked at was gorgeous; the entire inventory was nothing short of inspirational in every step that you took. Fine crafted European and Asian antiques from the 17th through 19th Centuries surrounded me. I was so impressed with my boss. When he was just a high school boy he started collecting stained glass out of buildings that were going to be demolished. He learned everything there was to learn about stained glass and became an expert on stained glass at a very young age. He quickly became a savvy young businessman and used clever small business marketing tactics, which lead him to eventually surpassing his own Father's income upon graduating high school.
Lesson One: Become an expert.
This young entrepreneur soon became an expert in American Antiques, then European Antiques and Asian Antiques. His collection grew and grew to include all of these wonderful pieces. He began importing from all over the world and had many different shop locations over the course of his 40-year career. He always stayed ahead of the curve when it came to choosing the new "cutting edge" neighborhood in which to have his shop. He was a visionary that saw trends before anyone else did. He created trends! It was exhilarating to see him in action at the shop.
Image via eronjohnsonantiques.com
Lesson Two: Become the best and change with the times.
I knew nothing of antiques when I began working there in 2005. My boss had made it through a lot of hard times when business was slow prior to my coming on board. He always managed to get out of his own way and recreate himself through thick and thin. He learned how to build an e commerce website, as well as grow it with exceptional marketing tactics, when all of the other antique shops weren't changing with the times. Antique shops didn't have websites then! While everyone else was shutting his or her doors because business was bad, my boss became the single largest antiques dealer online, in the world.
When I came on board, I quickly appreciated how busy this unique shop could be. I was an East Coast girl after all. I worked at the shop full-time and found time outside of that for my upholstery classes. During the day, I was doing sales, learning about the history of furniture, helping to write descriptions for the shop inventory and photographing the antiques for the online store -- all marketing tactics that would later prove useful to me in my own business. We had a brick and mortar shop that was almost 20,000 square feet and filled to the brim! This entire inventory was also on the website and had to be maintained in both places. There was a very small staff to keep up with it all, which made for a greater learning opportunity and forced me to wear many hats.
Lesson Three: Learn about new ways to market your business.
This was also the beginning of social media and other digital marketing tactics and I was intrigued with how we might use it for the business. There was no blueprint to follow for this, but we fumbled our way through collecting fans and likes along the way. I wrote promotional posts for events and concerts that we held at the shop. I kept learning about new social media outlets that the shop could try out. Some of those marketing tactics stuck and some stunk, but it was fun to try them all and see what happened.
Lesson Four: Take what you learned from your boss and make it your own.
I started my own company in 2007, while I was still a student of upholstery. It was probably around this time that I cut back on my hours at the shop to enroll in a full-time Fashion Design program to make my furniture redesigns more interesting. I started creating social media profiles for my own business and playing around with the same small business marketing tactics that I had tried with my boss. This time I could be even more daring and the voice of the shop could solely be my own. I was on fire! This was also about the same time when Etsy started becoming known to the Indie community. I started my shop on Etsy in 2007. I took everything I learned about how to market an e commerce website from my boss and applied it to the Etsy shop. I created shop policies modeled after the policies we had at his shop. I was savvy about marketing tactics like writing descriptions and using tag words to highlight my nichey product. I was comfortable and knowledgeable about photographing my furniture because of that job at his shop. I sold my very first piece to an Interior Designer couple on Craigslist. My second creations wound up in an article in our local Art and Culture newspaper and then landed in an "Etsy Finds" feature on Apartment Therapy's Blog. I set up an art studio and networked with artists. I had learned how to work with a high-end clientele from my boss and his shop. I felt comfortable working with the trade and presenting my work as art, rather than a bunch of thrifted furniture that had been torn apart and redone.
Lesson Five: Watch how the cool kids deal with creating fame and follow their lead.
I had seen my boss interviewed by the media many times. Since we were in Denver and not a huge overwhelming city, these meetings were a lot more intimate. These magazine editors became real people that we interacted with all the time at the shop. I think that allowed me to feel very comfortable presenting my own work to the media and to begin building my own brand, product and voice using PR and marketing tactics. We had very different clients and very different products so our media channels didn't really cross over. I had an artsy Indiemade product and he had a very high-end product. His clients contained both celebrities and celebrity designers. It was a thrill to speak with them and meet some of them in person.
Lesson Six: See opportunity and improve upon your business idea.
The game changer for me was listening to him sell a $10,000 antique over the phone for the first time to a client that had been on our website. A $10,000 antique, sight unseen? Really? That was all I needed to get my juices going. My entire vision of ever wanting, needing or having a brick and mortar shop had dissolved. These online marketing tactics were like magic, absolutely inspiring, and my journey of becoming an online retailer was born.
Lesson Seven: Know when what you have isn’t cutting it anymore and change it.
I realized having my sweet little Etsy shop wasn't enough if I was going to ever be taken seriously by the big spenders in the world. I started my own Yahoo website. Wow, was that ugly looking back now! It had the bare bones and was a good start, but it wasn't a good tool to help me grow my business. By this time, I had been getting some pretty significant press with my small business but I couldn't capture any names in order to begin my own mailing list. I put an ad on Craigslist and traded my redesigned furniture for a website with a professional web designer. The site looked stellar, but he moved like a turtle. He was slow as molasses and I was a girl that needed to make changes fast. I asked him for a way to capture names on a mailing list and this never happened. I told him I wanted a photo gallery of my sold pieces and that never looked nice or worked effectively. I always had events coming up and by the time I could get him to post anything, the events were over. This guy was killing me, ruining my A-game! How was I ever supposed to be taken seriously with a web presence like this? I wasn't. Then along came Indiemade after trying a few other websites that were also catering to small business. Boom, I was the designer! I was in charge. I easily replicated the fancy home page that my web designer built. I easily created a mailing list form and started capturing my fans names -- one of the most essential marketing tactics if you're operating online. I effortlessly created a sold gallery with all of my work. I even built myself a press page, which was a snap!
Lesson Eight: Sit back and watch the magic happen.
Fast-forward down the road and I started having cross-over with the same publications that my fancy boss had been in. I was able to present my business in the most professional light possible online. I learned small business marketing tactics from working at this beautiful shop for 5 long years. Had I not been inspired to how to market an e commerce website, I would probably still be sitting at a local craft fair and hoping someone would discover me. So what can a real job teach you? Just about everything! I would highly recommend finding the most inspiring real job that you can and buckle up for the ride. There will be plenty of time to learn and make your own mistakes as an Indie business, why not take a couple rounds on the fast track with somebody that already knows a thing or two first? You won't be disappointed, trust me.
Until the next time...
xo
Jeanne
