The Art of Business: Nancy Dillingham Marks

Summary

Join host Christian Brim as he sits down with Nancy Dillingham Marks from the Glass Arts Collective. Discover how Nancy transitioned from a corporate career to founding a thriving creative business in fused glass art. Learn about the challenges she faced, the importance of marketing, and her unique approach to combining business acumen with artistic passion. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or a seasoned business owner, Nancy's insights on identifying ideal clients and leveraging creativity for profit are sure to inspire. Tune in for an engaging conversation filled with valuable lessons and personal stories.

Takeaways

Combining Business and Art: Nancy's journey highlights the importance of blending business skills with creative passion to build a successful enterprise.

The Power of Marketing: Understanding and implementing effective marketing strategies is crucial for reaching the right audience and growing a creative business.

Creating Win-Win Situations: Building strong relationships with clients and collaborators by understanding their needs can lead to mutually beneficial outcomes.

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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.875)
Welcome to another episode of the profitable creative the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. am your host Christian Brim special shout out to our one listener in Rialto, California. Not sure where that is. California is a huge state, but it sounds southern. I don't know. Rialto, California listening. Thank you very much. Joining me today on the show is Nancy Dillingham Marks. You have to use the Dillingham because she's not an embezzler.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (00:25.006)
you

Christian Brim (00:31.465)
With Glass Arts Collective, Nancy, welcome to the show.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (00:35.128)
Thank you, and I'm from California too.

Christian Brim (00:37.518)
Do you know where Rialto is?

Nancy Dillingham Marks (00:39.758)
I've heard of it, but exactly where it is, I think it's Northern California, but I'm not positive.

Christian Brim (00:43.115)
Yeah, see? I mean, San Francisco, that's Spanish. I don't know why I would ascribe it to Southern California. Anyway, why don't you tell us what you guys do at Glass Arts Collective?

Nancy Dillingham Marks (00:58.702)
We have a lot of fun and we laugh a lot. What we do is primarily fused glass, which most people don't know what it is. So it's taking glass that is capable of being heated up and melted together. But instead of like blown glass where you're in front of a 2000 degree furnace and it's really hot and you have to be moving all the time, it's beautiful. Don't get me wrong. But we create beautiful things in fused glass at room temperature.

Christian Brim (01:00.203)
Mmm.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (01:27.822)
and at our own pace and comfortable and laughing and music's playing. And then I put it into a kiln, similar to a ceramics kiln, and we actually fuse the glass together. So a little sample is this cute little bowl, which we put lots of little embellishments on and fired it into a very usable little bowl. Now we like to decide what would we put in it.

It's not big enough ice cream. I just want to state that right away.

Christian Brim (02:02.379)
Not enough ice cream, no. See, when you, and you know, we're audio on this podcast, but I have the benefit of seeing some pieces in your gallery there. And I was thinking more like a better Shrinky Dink, because you know, I did Shrinky Dinks when I was a kid. But yeah, I mean, I don't even kids know what Shrinky Dinks are. Those are awesome. But

Nancy Dillingham Marks (02:04.204)
No.

Christian Brim (02:32.329)
This looks like something that maybe they would have made stained glass out of. Is that the same process?

Nancy Dillingham Marks (02:39.168)
Yes and no. So the first part of the process, yes, it would be the same because you're cutting with the same tools or we have the ability to do it the same tools, but they put it together at room temperature. So it's done usually either with foil and solder or it's put together with lead or some type of metal framing. And theirs really isn't usable for food, for example. So

Christian Brim (03:02.792)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (03:08.041)
Well, I wouldn't want to eat off that.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (03:08.802)
We make bowls and platters and plates that all can be used for food. We make wall art, table art, garden art, jewelry, wine bottle stoppers. I mean, we have, I would say a larger variety of types of things we could make. And some of the glass is not food safe, but stained glass, glass that's sort of designated as stained glass is not able to go into the kiln easily.

Christian Brim (03:37.835)
Mm-hmm.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (03:38.058)
it has to stay pretty much with whatever it was, the sheet it was cut with. There was a thing called co-efficiency of expansion, COE, and that is how it's measured on the rate of expansion and contraction. So stained glass doesn't have to worry about it because it's not getting put into any type of heat, but anybody doing any kind of glass blowing uses a different COE than I do with a fused glass.

Christian Brim (03:44.106)
Okay.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (04:06.058)
And then there's window glass, which has its own. And again, for different reasons, doesn't get heated up to the same degree. But even in our little world of the fused glass, there's more than one number. So we have to stick with our number or the expansion and contraction will impact and it will crack.

Christian Brim (04:27.306)
Sounds like a lot of science. Tell me. okay. right. What tell? Okay, so I'm fascinated. How did you how did you turn this into a business?

Nancy Dillingham Marks (04:30.296)
That's the extent of the science I'm gonna share.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (04:40.792)
Well, I was getting close to retirement, trying to decide what I wanted to do. And I didn't even know anything about this until I hit my sixties. And I was, my parents had relocated to Southern California from Massachusetts so I could spend their last years together with them, which was phenomenal. And I'm so grateful for that. And there was someone teaching a class, a fused glass at the retirement home they were at.

Christian Brim (04:48.69)
Okay. Okay.

Christian Brim (05:08.947)
Mm-hmm.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (05:09.358)
And I'd never heard of it, but my mom was so excited. And I thought, you know what, what a great idea. This is something I can do with her. So I took a class and I got hooked. Hook, line and sinker. This is the first medium. And I've tried a lot of different things that I would say were creative and nothing, nothing got me excited until this. And so I started taking classes and the first class was in the San Fernando Valley.

very nice studio, but it wasn't as convenient for me. And I was not able to go over it as often. I guess would be the best way to say it. Well, they opened a branch in my area, three miles from my house, a mile and a half from my work. I thought so. And the manager here was phenomenal. And I came in every chance I got, because it was so easy.

Christian Brim (05:52.746)
Okay.

I was very thoughtful of them.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (06:06.068)
Then, unfortunately, and I don't know why, they chose to close this branch.

And that was after about a year of my just being in love with Fuseglass. Now we're now at the point where the company has been sold and what am I going to do? And no, well, my husband sold our business. So, sorry, I was a little off on that one. Sorry. So now I am officially retired. You do a very good job.

Christian Brim (06:24.603)
so the whole thing got sold. OK, sorry.

Christian Brim (06:32.626)
No, no, I just, that's my job as the host is to clarify, so.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (06:40.042)
So my husband sold the company and now it's like, okay, what am I going to do? And we talked about the things that I was passionate about. And the number one thing was the fused glass. Well, I have learned how to run a business because after working over 30 years in corporate, my husband's business, which was the last job I had, was working in a small business. And as the chief operating officer, I was responsible for most things that went on in the back end.

Christian Brim (06:55.049)
Mm-hmm.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (07:10.51)
And so I was a business woman before I was an artist, but I had.

Christian Brim (07:16.596)
That's usually not the case. Usually it's the other way around.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (07:19.67)
You hope that they can be combined. That's an important part. So I decided, you know what? The space here is now vacant that I really liked. And I created a corporation and I took out a new lease and I opened Glass Arts Collective with the idea that I would ask other artists who I knew to help teach until I was strong enough to do it myself.

Christian Brim (07:23.294)
Yes.

Christian Brim (07:45.768)
And how long ago was that?

Nancy Dillingham Marks (07:47.694)
five and a half years ago.

Christian Brim (07:50.281)
Okay, so this is a, this is a fascinating point to, to, point out observation. Most, most creative businesses start out with someone having a passion in a thing and they, they start, but they don't have any business experience. Right. And you came at it, ask backwards.

yes, I, but, but it's, it's, it's fascinating because most of the time, people come on this show and they talk about their experiences of like figuring out how to make money at what they, they did. But you already came in understanding the, the, the blocking and tackling of business and could apply that. So what, what would you.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (08:20.92)
That's my personality.

Christian Brim (08:49.16)
what would be the things you would emphasize to other entrepreneurs that maybe didn't have the business background that you did in starting a business in a creative industry?

Nancy Dillingham Marks (09:04.884)
say to do the opposite of what I was thinking. I would bring somebody in to help set up the business. Bring somebody in who knows marketing, which is huge. I didn't really know marketing because we had such a good business. Word of mouth was how we were moving along and it didn't even occur to me that such a thing like marketing was necessary. So I would reverse it. I would allow someone else to help me set up the business. All of the things, the accounting, how do you track

Christian Brim (09:10.794)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (09:31.722)
Okay.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (09:34.838)
What do you need to know about cost versus revenue and how do you know to monitor that and all of those important details. And it, doesn't take someone on a daily basis being involved once you get set up, but somebody who's just over your shoulder being that, that sort of helpful subconscious mind that says, wait a minute before you go investing in this, let's look where you're at with X, Y, and Z that you're already doing.

You want to you're doing really well with X, Y, and Z. OK, let's go expand into ABC now. Those types of things and I kind of refer to it almost as your board of directors. It's just somebody who you can run ideas by.

Christian Brim (10:14.698)
Hmm.

So to clarify, you didn't have that, but you're suggesting that someone should.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (10:20.366)
Correct.

Right, because what I went for was the opposite. I went for people who had experience with Fuseglass more than I did to help me better understand that side of the business, the artistic side. What are the types of things I want to bring in for inventory and tools and the basics? So that, I mean, I knew what I liked and I knew what I was using, but I knew there were other tools that maybe were better or maybe were different and how would they work?

as it happened, I opened my doors five weeks before COVID hit.

Christian Brim (10:59.178)
Great timing.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (11:01.004)
Yeah. so I went through all the, my gosh, you know, all the things that you can imagine went through my head and I stopped and did a mindset change on myself. And I remembered how I said most of my life, I wish I had more hours in the day. I wish I had more time if only, and suddenly in this odd way, I was gifted that time.

Christian Brim (11:26.642)
Mm-hmm.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (11:27.66)
And what I did is instead of focusing on all the negatives and what, you know, I couldn't impact, I switched to what I could impact, which is my skills. And I came into the studio. I was by myself most of the time until they opened up things, but, and I just tried all kinds of things. I watched a lot of videos and there's wonderful videos, in fused glass that I've watched online by some incredible instructors.

and I would try it and then I'd hear someone say you can't do this and I say well why not.

I because somebody's gonna ask me, why not? And I need to be able to respond, why not? Or yes, that's true, or no, it's not. So I did a lot of playing for many years.

Christian Brim (12:17.854)
You went back to the lab as it were. And okay. So you, came to the business, you, were in a business that, that sounds like you joined. was already established. It wasn't in startup mode. And, and so you had an awareness of some of the things that went into business and, and how to operate a business. What, what did you not know in starting up a business that you should have, or it would have been helpful had you known.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (12:20.248)
Yes.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (12:29.71)
Correct.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (12:47.863)
Definitely marketing and definitely marketing.

Christian Brim (12:54.034)
Okay, so let's dig into that. What's when let's define marketing first because there may be some confusion of terms. When you say marketing, what are you talking about?

Nancy Dillingham Marks (12:55.394)
Yeah. Yes.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (13:05.23)
that I didn't know what I was doing. Trying to get the word out that this studio existed and what is fused glass. Because it's great to show pictures, but somebody doesn't know what it means. You can use the word fused glass all you want, but if somebody doesn't know what it means, all they hear is the word glass and, ooh, danger, danger, Will Rogers. I'm going back to some of our old, younger days.

Christian Brim (13:12.532)
Okay.

Christian Brim (13:30.566)
You mix two metaphors two shows it's Will Robinson. Yes. Okay. I think you're thinking of Buck Rogers, which anyway, go ahead.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (13:34.103)
you're right.

Christian Brim (13:42.856)
Maybe you weren't.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (13:43.138)
But it's so my, my big thing was I didn't know how to market to the right audience either, or how to identify my ideal client. So frequently we go in with the idea. Well, obviously this is good for everybody. Everybody's going to want to do this, but is everybody my ideal client? It doesn't mean they can't be a client, but are they my ideal client? So learning to identify who that is.

Christian Brim (13:55.901)
Mm-hmm.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (14:11.84)
And where do they hang out? What do they do? Where am I going to find them? So I can go to a flea market or a farmer's market, whatever you want to call them these days, and introduce myself and show what I have. But it still isn't really necessarily the right people. It might have a few of those people, but is the majority of those people worth the time and the investment that I need to make?

to do that. And those were the types of things I needed to learn.

Christian Brim (14:47.306)
I think, yes, think defining the target market is something that is critical for any business existing or startup and understanding that that might change over time. it's often overlooked and I don't know why.

I think back about my experience and when I started, I bought a franchise. Yes, there were actual accounting franchises at the time and there were three of them I could pick. And I started with zero clients and so part of the franchise model was they taught you how to market and sell, which was helpful. But I missed the part where

The trainer and I remember to this day almost 30 years ago where he said, this is what you do. This is how you do it. And every time you make a change, you're taking money out of your pocket. And I made the mistake of, well, I've been talking Nancy. I don't know what to tell you. mean, are you, are you back with me?

Nancy Dillingham Marks (15:55.534)
You're frau-

Nancy Dillingham Marks (16:17.314)
I am. Are you there?

Christian Brim (16:18.598)
Okay, I'm here. I never left. I don't know where you went.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (16:22.326)
I didn't leave either, you just sort of froze.

Christian Brim (16:26.222)
so my, my mistake was not being focused enough or discriminate enough on who I sold because I just wanted to sell and be bigger. And what I, forgot was that lesson that he said that like, you're just taking money, every change you make, you're just taking money out of your pocket. And I think a lot of startups, new businesses,

They're motivated by fear like I've got to I've got to sell because I got to pay the bills And that invariably puts you on a hamster wheel Where you're selling to people that you shouldn't be selling to and you're not making money off of them But you keep trying to sell more of them because you need you know, and it's just a circle So did you did you have that experience of like the flea market? Yeah, I I

used to work in a flea market as a young man, a young teenager selling sunglasses. And the flea market I worked, none of those people are coming to class to do a fuse class. None of them, zero, absolutely zero. I was shocked because there were people carrying geese in bags.

Like they go there to buy geese to take home to cook Yeah, so like none of those people are so did you have that experience like the flea market where you're like this I'm not I'm not I'm not using my time. Well, or I'm I'm I'm actually hurting myself because I'm bringing in the wrong people

Nancy Dillingham Marks (18:10.606)
Absolutely. And one of the things that had been brought to my attention is, well, why don't you use Groupon? And I chose not to because as much as it's great at getting somebody in the door once, it's probably only a one-time shot. And that is a environment that takes a lot of time to manage. And that's not where I wanted to invest my time.

Christian Brim (18:28.04)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (18:34.138)
Mm-hmm.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (18:38.38)
I recognize, and I did this also when I was in the corporate world, that there are just some people who aren't the right customer for you because they do eat up all your time. And even though there might be some good pieces, do you lose more money and gain a lot more frustration by that particular customer? And it's okay to fire a customer and just say, you're not the right fit for me.

Christian Brim (19:03.05)
100%.

Bad customers actually drive out good customers. They absolutely do. usually it manifests of like those bad customers are the ones that you end up spending all your time and energy on. And then you don't have that bandwidth available to take care of the people that you actually should be taking care of. So yeah.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (19:08.823)
Yes.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (19:26.976)
Exactly. And it changes your whole mood and your whole viewpoint. And you kind of are in a funky mood instead of being an upbeat mood and happy mood like I normally am. So it's...

Christian Brim (19:32.381)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (19:44.201)
Yeah, the barometer for me, the litmus test is like, do you dread when the phone rings and it's them or when they walk in the door or when they send you an email? Like if you're just like, get rid of them because you know, and the reality is it doesn't matter if the problem is you or them. It doesn't matter. It's just that if that's your attitude, you're not going to do good work.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (20:06.754)
Right. Nope.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (20:12.12)
Exactly. Exactly. And I try to be really clear with people that my studio is fairly structured. We don't have people coming in during regular classroom type of environments to do whatever they want. It's a structured time because there's a certain amount of time. We have certain projects they can do. And if that doesn't fit what they want, then they shouldn't come.

Christian Brim (20:21.182)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (20:39.336)
Yes.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (20:40.248)
I try to be really friendly about it that the class is designed so that you can practice what you've been taught in the projects. And no, it's not the most ideal. They're great projects, don't get me wrong, but they're not what everybody absolutely wants. And I don't know a single painting class or anything else that is Picasso all of a sudden. You have to start somewhere.

Christian Brim (20:58.11)
Sure.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (21:07.618)
So what I've designed is there's open studio program. When you know the techniques that you like to do and you don't have to know them all, I do not have, you know, a 12 step program that you have to take first before you can kind of get set loose. But once you know those techniques, then you can come in and make what you want. So I want to give the freedom for those people.

Christian Brim (21:28.778)
So I want to clarify, do they have to know what they're doing before they show up for open time? Okay.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (21:35.596)
Yes, they have to, there's no instruction in Open Studio. They must know the techniques already. And it's fine if they learn them somewhere else. But there's no instruction. Will I help point them in a direction or if they have a question, yes, but am I going to give them instruction? No. And I make that super clear. And some people pay attention and a few haven't. And a few people leave frustrated at the end of the day. And that's okay. Because I couldn't be any more clear than I've been.

Christian Brim (21:44.585)
Right.

Christian Brim (22:02.899)
is.

Well, you some people just hear what they want to hear. My daughter is a figurative oil painter and she also teaches classes and she uses the comment I use it so much that she can't stand the phrase anymore. It's fun. It's fun art, not fine art. But but she addressed. Yeah, right. She addresses that like for those people that like want like me like that. I want to be good.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (22:25.513)
I like that.

Christian Brim (22:34.782)
I don't want to do something if I'm not good and if I'm not good, I'm pretty impatient about learning how to be good And but it's about setting the expectation right like So One of the things I talk about in my book At length is and I talk about on the show all the time is the Pareto principle Most people hear it as the 80-20 rule

Nancy Dillingham Marks (22:44.536)
Great, exactly.

Christian Brim (23:03.86)
but it's this thing that shows up in human behavior. And most people apply it in the sense that 20 % of your efforts generate 80 % of your results. Now, it's not always that exact same percentage, but the point being that there are some things, some small group of things that you do that is much more important than the rest of the vast majority of things.

I like to apply this principle and it's not my idea. It's Perry Marshall's idea, but I've stolen it. To apply that to your own customers and this idea that 20 % of your customers will actually pay you more than the other 80%. Right? And then

Nancy Dillingham Marks (23:59.426)
Absolutely.

Christian Brim (24:02.122)
Now, you may have to do more for them, but they're willing to spend. They're willing to spend more money with you. And then if you take that to its next iteration and say 20 % of the 20%, which is 4 % for those taking off their shoes to do the math, it's 4%. 4 % of your customers will actually pay you even more. Now, the problem or the challenge

is how do we capture that value? Those people that want to spend more with you, want to do more with you, would give you that money, figuring that out. So, have you experienced that in your business?

Nancy Dillingham Marks (24:46.318)
Absolutely. So one of the things that I've learned working in large corporations as well is really kind of the ability to communicate well with people. So I always look for what I referred to as a win-win-win situation. for, mean, I worked at IBM, I worked at Toshiba, I was selling technology. And that's what I did with my husband's company as well. But understanding...

Christian Brim (25:00.072)
Mm-hmm.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (25:14.934)
What it is the person really wants. It's great to say, I need a network switch or I need a new car. What kind of car? What do need the car to do? What are you looking for? It wants to get you from, there are so many different cars that can get you from point A to point B. Do you have to take a lot of people with you? Bless you. Bless you. That's okay.

Christian Brim (25:35.978)
Excuse me.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (25:40.686)
Do you have to take children with you? Do you have to take a lot of equipment or things in the car with you? And by clarifying what it is they are looking for, you have a much better chance to helping them get where they want faster and easier. So as I opened my studio as an example, initially I was the only one in the gift shop.

Mind you, I'd spent several years making stuff, so that was pretty easy to put them in there. Well, my open studio program that I had created, and it's been modified and enhanced, but they were coming on a regular basis and making a bunch of stuff when we were fully open again. And I was listening to them and they didn't have a place to sell it. They kind of had given it away to friends and it's been great gifts and everybody loves it, but they're kind of having a stockpile.

Christian Brim (26:29.834)
Mmm.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (26:39.66)
And I said, well, don't you want to open up an Etsy site? Yes. Or don't you want to do? And they're like, I don't have the business sense to do that. I don't have the time and the energy. mean, the idea that scares me to no end. I went, ding, ding, ding, ding. What else can I do for them? You can put things in the gift shop. And they looked at me like it was the greatest thought.

Christian Brim (26:43.71)
You had an idea, right?

Nancy Dillingham Marks (27:09.524)
ever. Okay, I exaggerate a bit, but that was, you know, it sounded really good right for that moment. Yes. So I, originally I was just a gift shop physically here. And then when I started realizing how much stuff we have and gee, only people in the area know about it. Do I really want to ship glass? You know what? I know how to ship glass. I know how to package things.

Christian Brim (27:14.826)
sliced bread as they say, better than sliced bread.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (27:38.408)
I went to being online and you know, I brought them all with me and originally I just had all of the stuff listed and that was great because it wasn't that much but I had one person come to me and just say, you know, I found something I really liked on your website but it didn't list the artist's name. And I was curious to know what else that artist did. I'm like, OMG.

Christian Brim (27:40.562)
Mm-hmm.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (28:08.222)
I didn't think about that. That's kind of that marketing thing that I didn't have in place. So I spent about two hours max. It didn't take that long. It sounded like this overwhelming big project. I just went through and added the artist's name on each item. And then I created a subcategory by artist. A project that I thought was going to take me weeks took me two hours to do. And I was like,

Okay, this is really pretty cool. This is

Christian Brim (28:41.426)
Yeah, I would say you're much better at marketing than you think you are because really, mean, the reality is marketers and people that sell marketing services don't want to tell you this is that most of what they do is guesswork because you're dealing with humans and you can't predict how humans are going to behave. the, know, there are some principles for sure. And I think they're very important principles in marketing, but a lot of it is experimentation and learning and

Most important, which is what you did, is listening to your customers. That's the best way to find out everything you need to know.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (29:20.054)
Exactly. but when I was doing it in these other organizations, it didn't occur to me that that's what I was doing and that was marketing. so I would, I had to make sure that I represented what the customer needed to the point that the customer could tell their boss why this was the right solution. Because I knew as a manager, yes, that was important. They had to know.

Christian Brim (29:30.442)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (29:42.814)
Yeah. You had a three party sale. Yeah.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (29:48.748)
I had to make sure I represented the manufacturer correctly. Because if there was a problem, they would support me because they, had that conversation about what the customer needed and that I was doing the right thing. So I had any kind of an issue with the product did for some reason, they were right there to help me. And then the company I was working for, if it wasn't the manufacturer, then I needed them to be happy. So.

Christian Brim (29:51.838)
Mm-hmm.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (30:16.448)
It was really so easy. It sounds like it's a difficult thing to do, but it was so easy by just saying, I want to make sure that everybody is doing, getting the right thing. And in that respect, I know a lot of times manufacturers offer your Smith for an extra dollar or two if you sell their product. And that's great. But you know what? It doesn't add up to being the value. Like you were saying, by making sure you gave.

the people what they wanted and needed. And they came back to me because I made them look good. And so they wanted to do business with me again. We might've been a little bit more expensive and that was okay. Because you can go online and just buy about anything, but you don't necessarily know if it's the right fit for you. And by taking the time to work with somebody to get that information was huge. And I was very successful.

Christian Brim (31:14.138)
I want to pivot back and ask a question. You don't have to answer this, but I'm curious now that you've let the cat out of the proverbial bag. What percentage of profits do you generate from the store versus the studio versus the instruction or the rental of the space?

Nancy Dillingham Marks (31:40.59)
You know, I haven't looked at it lately. In the past, the classes definitely generated more for revenue, profit and revenue, profit and revenue, both. The gift shop is a percentage of what I get. take a percentage from my, it's consignment. And so I do sell a lot of my stuff, but the percentage overall,

Christian Brim (31:47.334)
More revenue. I said more profit. What generates more profit? Both. Okay.

Christian Brim (32:01.418)
Yeah, it's a consignment.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (32:10.306)
doesn't make the profits there better than the classes still.

Christian Brim (32:13.791)
Okay, in absolute dollars, but what about percentage? And let's lay time on top of that.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (32:21.777)
Well, time-wise and percentage-wise, I would say the gift shop is the ideal for growth. That is my direction for growing the company more, is the gift shop. Because once we've taken the time to photograph, create the descriptions, as much SEO and everything, the keywords that we can, and get it up on the internet, is a fraction of the time that

Christian Brim (32:29.769)
Mm-hmm

Christian Brim (32:34.558)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (32:52.668)
Mm-hmm.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (32:53.024)
it takes for us to ultimately make compared to my taking my time to have a class and to teach and then do all the back end work that needs to be done to get the things fired and cleaned up and packaged and notifying people to come get it. So the gift shop is ultimately my bigger revenue generator in the big picture, especially going forward.

Christian Brim (33:14.954)
You're speaking in terms of potential. Yeah, yeah, because if you're going to do more classes, you got to hire more instructors and have additional space. So I mean, like that you're kind of maxed out there, right? But a virtual gift shop, there's it's unlimited. I'm thinking having a daughter.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (33:17.859)
Yes.

Christian Brim (33:39.531)
Who's an oil painter who has had multiple gallery shows? I'm thinking no, she's she's very talented. I I have a lot of her art hanging in in my home But I haven't paid for most of it like I'm not her ideal customer like I would not buy her stuff. Normally. I love you, Mackenzie She understands it. I'm not she's very strong in her brand and

Nancy Dillingham Marks (33:46.744)
Congratulations to her.

Christian Brim (34:09.418)
I'm not it like and that's fine In any case what I was gonna say is what came to mind as you were talking about that person that said that they wanted to know what else that artist had produced I'm thinking like and I don't know how Etsy's laid out I don't know any of this, but I'm like a separate page by artists, maybe your top five artists, but like

The artist has their own page and it's their story and it's their journey and like that's that's what came to me. I don't know. You can take that for what it's worth.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (34:45.784)
Well, I did very similar and I didn't go to Etsy. I have it all on my own website because if I'm going to pay somebody to do the marketing, I have to still market for Etsy. I might put it to my own resource.

Christian Brim (34:51.721)
Nice.

Christian Brim (34:56.252)
Are you using like Shopify or something like that? WooCommerce. Okay. Okay.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (34:59.502)
WooCommerce with WordPress. So each person does have their own tab and when you get to their tab you have their story as well as information. I'm not as good at WordPress as I was at Squarespace but I learned as an example and this is another thing for new people it probably won't affect as many people but in Squarespace there is not an add-on product for shipping

Christian Brim (35:06.974)
Mm-hmm. I love that.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (35:29.432)
that includes insurance. So I can do shipping all day long, but it will not allow me to add insurance. And when I'm shipping glass, that's a big part of what I needed to have. And it took quite a while, way too much time to find out that there was no one who did that. So I had to completely have the website rebuilt.

Christian Brim (35:32.702)
Hmm. Okay.

Christian Brim (35:41.331)
Okay.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (35:55.98)
Now I built Shopify, I mean, I Squarespace myself, so that didn't cost anything, but I did have to hire someone to do WordPress. And WordPress is a lot more complicated and has a lot more potential issues, unfortunately.

Christian Brim (36:12.358)
Yeah, yeah. Yes, I was around at the beginning of WordPress and you know at the time it made a lot of sense, to the point to kind of emphasize my point about trying to be all things to all people, it kind of grew into this monstrosity that is actually now very difficult to use. Like you can't really use it without some professional to help.

Which is then where places like Squarespace came back in and said, we're going to make this simple. But there's the problem is every every act of simplicity eliminates options. So, you know.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (36:53.282)
Exactly. So again, you need to really think through everything and it's easy to miss something and that was somewhat of a costly mistake for my me but luckily enough again, I built out the Squarespace so I would have had to pay somebody to do WordPress in the first place anyways. So I did learn a lot and I love learning. I mean, I'm in my 60s and I still love learning and I still love taking classes and I still enjoy

acknowledging that there are things that are different and have to be done differently. I actually took computer programming in college to date myself even more. And even though you can figure out the math, I had to a lot. Yes, exactly. I was learning on punch cards on a mainframe.

Christian Brim (37:37.468)
I'm pretty sure you were learning on punch cards. Yes, okay.

Yeah.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (37:46.402)
And it's so funny because people don't know what those are.

Christian Brim (37:48.956)
No, I came 10 years after you. was using the TRS-80s, so I had it so sweet.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (37:57.888)
I was, you when I was at Sony Pictures Entertainment, 286 laptops were starting to get rolled out. And it was, it was, I've been on quite a journey in the technology world. Majority of my corporate life was in technology and it's changed so much over the years.

Christian Brim (38:19.63)
It's, it is, it is societally transformatible, transformative that, that it's so, it's such a change. I want to go back to this, this, statement you made, you, you love to learn things. I don't know if you've run into this. I ran into this, where

My, my tendency was to jump in and solve problems and learn things, right? Like that's what I like to do. but, but I I've learned that, as I, as I've grown an organization of more people that have jobs that are like, doing things, I oftentimes got in the way because I was trying to learn and figure it out. And it's like,

you know, just being able to say, yeah, I want to, but it's, it's not even that I don't want to, it's that I'm going to make, make things worse. If I, if I try to involve myself, have you run into that?

Nancy Dillingham Marks (39:29.902)
I have and it's been a fun combination of, because I've worked in different roles and had people working for me. Some of them knew what they were doing and some of them really didn't. So it was important for me to understand the concepts, not necessarily so I could do it myself, but so that I could ensure that I knew what was going to happen. In some cases, I would say, you you don't have to follow my steps exactly.

Christian Brim (39:46.716)
Absolutely.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (39:58.84)
We just need to have the same end result. So if you find a way that works a little bit better for you, but the end result's still the same and it doesn't take significantly longer, if it's shorter, great, but not significantly longer, I'm okay with you having the flexibility to do it your way too. When I was working at Columbia Pictures slash Sony Pictures, I joined when it was still owned by Coca-Cola back in the 80s.

Christian Brim (40:01.3)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (40:14.836)
Mm-hmm.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (40:27.938)
There were people who were frustrated and I actually went up and said, you know, what's wrong? You know, why are you frustrated? Because I could tell it was job related and it would, it usually came down to the information that they were receiving from somebody else was not in a format that worked for them in any way, or form.

Christian Brim (40:36.778)
Mm-hmm.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (40:49.974)
And I would look at it and I like to sort of see myself as a problem solver too and jump in. And so I would call the manager of the other department and in a really compassionate voice because anything other than that, people take it as an insult and they feel like they're being attacked. And I think that that is a huge thing that people need to learn is it's not all about me. And that

If you want to work with somebody, you need to approach it in a compassionate way. But I explained that I didn't know if there was anything that could be done differently, but is there a way for us to just talk, the four of us, you know, their employee and my employee and I, and just see if there was another way that the information can be shared. So they're still getting what they need in a way that works for them. And can we get what we need in a way that doesn't require us to basically reinvent the wheel?

Christian Brim (41:23.197)
Mm-hmm.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (41:46.57)
every day and come to find out absolutely it was something and i don't remember the exact details of what it was even but it was so simple and they were like yeah we could absolutely do it that way instead it's just you know like a press of a button and it changes and they were like my god why didn't you say something sooner

Christian Brim (42:10.824)
Yeah, think that's a very key skill for anybody to understand is that one, cooperation is always better than conflict. And two, being able to explain to them why it's in their best interest. And you can call that sales, you can call it whatever, but people are self-motivated, they're selfish, they're interested in what's in it for me.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (42:22.424)
Yes.

Christian Brim (42:38.826)
Having that understanding so that you can explain to them why it's beneficial for them to make this change. And it's not it's not about me. Hey, this is why you want to do it right. And that comes down like you know you can use that in business all the time. Like if you need to make a change about how your customers or clients interact with you, deal with you, communicate with you like hey, you know I know you hate to do it this way so.

What if we did it this way? Would that be better for you? Would that, you know, remove some of your frustration? yeah, that's a great idea. But it was for me. I mean, you know, my motivation was for me. I also want to point out something you said about not necessarily needing to know the skill, but needed to understand the concepts. And I don't know who coined this phrase, but it was somebody in the IT space when I was

doing coding, don't ask, that's a whole nother story. But but it was this concept of business owners need to know enough. And and it's like, you don't have to be an expert at marketing, you don't have to be an expert at finance, you don't have to be an expert at operations. But you need to know enough that if you engage someone, hire someone that you have a basis for your your expectations like

To your point, like, should it take six weeks? Should it take six months? Are you going to understand if the problem solved when they deliver a solution? and people say, well, you know, I can't know everything. No, you don't have to know everything. You just have to know enough. And I'll take this a step further. It's kind of like, you know, going to the physician. Well, most people would never question the physician, right? Like,

This is what they said to do. So I'm going to do it. That's fine. But understand no one understands you better than you right and so your body you know it better and if you don't communicate that to them and and involved in the process, you're not going to get the best health care and that's the same thing with hiring an accountant or a marketer or anything else you like you got to know enough.

Christian Brim (45:04.562)
I'm now stepping off my soapbox.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (45:04.918)
And no, I completely agree with you. And I would just add to that, that we will not always use the right terms. So when you're talking to an accountant, rarely are you going to know the language of an accountant, but you can explain yourself well enough and then have a dialogue with them to ensure they understand the outcome expected. So,

Christian Brim (45:14.652)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (45:20.639)
Mm-mm.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (45:30.528)
If you use the wrong term and you use debit instead of credit and you were thinking whatever, it's going to happen. Whatever you're doing, even just in normal everyday life, there's times you say something different because that's the way you're thinking. And people will take it and run with that because you said, but that's not what you meant. and my gosh, that creates such a nightmare. it's,

Christian Brim (45:53.662)
Yes. Yes.

Christian Brim (45:58.315)
What?

Nancy Dillingham Marks (45:59.65)
Just take it to the extra step so that this is what we're gonna get.

Christian Brim (46:02.216)
Yeah, and I think it's also about the humility of like, you know what? I don't speak your language. I don't understand all the concepts. And so, you know, I think I had an interview with Matt Payne, who is a Hollywood writer and producer. And he said the first time that he had heard a profit and loss, he heard that term. He didn't know.

whether it was profit in loss or profit and loss. Like he didn't know exactly what the term was, much less what it meant, right? But he had the humility to say, I don't know. Like, I don't know what you're saying. You're speaking words I don't understand. And having the humility to say, I don't know. You're speaking Greek. I don't understand.

Nancy Dillingham Marks (46:51.778)
Exactly. And most people, when you are honest, has so much more compassion and patience than when you try to pretend you know everything and then nothing comes out to be the right way. And my gosh, what a roller coaster. And as you said, a hamster's wheel.

Christian Brim (47:09.95)
Yeah, I

I had a guest on here that was in out of home advertising. And I stopped him and I'm like, okay, I don't know what that word means. Like, what does that mean? Well, you know, like billboards and like bus stop sign. okay. Yeah, I've seen those. Yeah, know that, but I'd never heard that term in 55 years. So like, you know, you got to stop and ask. Nancy Dillingham marks.

How do people find more out about the collective?

Nancy Dillingham Marks (47:48.664)
Well, primarily the ideal place to go to is our website, Glass Arts with an S on it, collective.com. That's where our gift shop is. That's where scheduling for classes or sessions as I call them are. You can actually see a gallery of things that aren't for sale, but are also phenomenal pieces. There was enough of that that we created a separate gallery. And yes, you can search for the different artists and hear a little bit of their story.

We didn't go overboard with the stories. I do a little bit more of that through other mediums. We have Instagram, we have Facebook, we have YouTube. But it's really the website that takes you to the most information in one place.

Christian Brim (48:34.378)
Perfect. Listeners will have that link in the show notes. For those of you listening, if you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like it, shoot us a message, tell us what you wanna hear, and I'll get rid of Nancy. Until then, ta-ta for now.