#100: There’s No Magic Key to Building a Jewelry Business
Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome to The Jeweler's View. I'm Courtney Gray. I've spent nearly 30 years in this industry running schools, doing custom work, coaching, consulting, and working with makers at all stages. Over time, I've started to see the patterns, the things that actually move a creative career forward and the things that can quietly hold it back.
I built this podcast to cut through the noise. Less time in your head or down the research rabbit hole and more time building something real. Let's get into it.
100 episodes. 100 weeks ago, I decided to commit to something new.
I did not have some gigantic master plan for 100 episodes. I had a microphone, some ideas, a lot of experience in this industry, and a pretty simple plan: begin. Make the first one. Rip off the Band-Aid, right? And just [00:01:00] see. Then make another one. Pay attention. See what came to life. See how it feels. And here we are, episode 100.
. Welcome back to The Jeweler's View. I'm Courtney Gray. I think we should celebrate this one a little bit, don't you? Because 100 of anything is a lot. 100 weeks of showing up here, 100 conversations, ideas, guests, experiments, things that worked really well and probably a few things that we won't be revisiting, and somewhere along the way, this little podcast started growing.
We've passed over 15,000 audio downloads. We're averaging around 1,000 downloads a month. The YouTube channel has more than 17,000 views, whatever that means, and there are now more than 200 of you subscribed over there. I do love updating these numbers because they keep moving, which is pretty damn cool
And I have to tell you, these are not enormous numbers compared to [00:02:00]some giant podcast a production team of maybe 20 people, with a celebrity host or an influencer at the microphone, I don't care. They're enormous to me because every one represents a person.
Somebody pressed play. Somebody listened. Somebody sent an episode to a friend. Somebody found me for the very first time. Somebody came back the next week and listened again. And all of that grew out of one decision I made 100 weeks ago. I'm going to do this. Not forever, not until I have a million downloads.
I'm gonna start. I'm gonna commit to it and see where it goes. Now, that brings me to something I think we need to talk about. Over the last few weeks, I've been asking you to look at what you actually want. What doesn't fit anymore? What are you trying to create?
What do you want more of in your world or your orbit? What do you need to let go [00:03:00] of? Those questions matter, but eventually there's another one, and it's not quite as fun. Are you willing to do what it takes to get there? Because nobody said this was going to be easy.
And I think a lot of us, honestly, would rather really just skip over that part. We see somebody on Instagram whose work is selling. We see the beautiful studio, the opportunities, the following, the sold out sign, the business that appears to be humming along, right? And somewhere in the back of our minds, I think we imagine that they must have found something we haven't found yet. I know I've been there. The thing, right? They found the thing, the answer, the magic key that opens the success box, and all the light comes pouring out. And saying that reminds me of something I haven't thought about in years. We used to go to a ton of classic rock concerts in Houston, Texas when I was growing up as a teenager. [00:04:00] One time, we got to see Tom Petty. Amazing show. I remember He had this whole act, right?
I remember this huge treasure chest on the stage. He played out this whole thing where he was trying to open it, right, and he couldn't find the key. He finally found the keyhole, put the key in, turned it, and when that chest opened, this enormous, bright white light poured out and filled the stage.
The music started. I can still see it. It was fantastic. Now, wouldn't it be nice if life worked that way? You search long enough, you finally find the key, click, the box opens, light everywhere, cue the music, and you've made it. The thing you tried goes viral, right? Your work starts selling every week. People begin showing up at your bench, like we all dream of, offering you thousands of dollars for whatever you just spent 12 hours sweating over.
Congratulations, you found the [00:05:00] key. Except that's not how this works. There isn't a key, and I know that's considerably less exciting than Tom Petty opening a glowing treasure chest, but I also think there's something really freeing about this.
Bear with me. Because if there's no secret key, you can stop looking for the damn key. Now, look at almost anyone you consider successful, and look past the part you're seeing today. There's usually a tremendous amount underneath what you're seeing. We're talking hours, years, bad decisions, good decisions, things that totally flopped, Things they had to learn, things they had to unlearn, times they had to get totally scrappy because they didn't have the money, resources, or connections that they thought they needed at the time. They stayed curious, they adjusted, they found another way, and they gave it time.
That's the [00:06:00] part we don't see in the finished photograph. We don't see Tuesday afternoon three years earlier when nobody bought anything. We don't see the hundredth attempt. We don't see the day they wondered whether any of it was working, and we certainly don't get to see the first time they tried the thing they now make look easy I know that one firsthand. When I started moving more of my work online and away from this physical school that I used to have, I was not used to being on camera this much. I wasn't used to hosting big Zoom calls. I remember Melissa Muir coaching me through some in the beginning as my moderator, and literally teaching me where all the buttons lived and helping me understand how to hold space and relax for a lot of people at once. I was not good at all of it. I remember teaching my first pricing class and freezing for probably the first 10 minutes, like just shaking, right?
Nerves. I stumbled [00:07:00] my way through it somehow, and then I came out the other side. Now the next one was a little bit easier than the next one. I had to sit inside those nerves the first few times and do it anyway. Now that's part of the story we leave out when we look at somebody who's comfortable doing something now.
We didn't see their first time. We didn't see them trying to remember where the mute button was while also attempting to look like they knew what the hell they were talking about or doing. And now here I am hosting an online event for more than five hundred people and thinking, "Okay, that was fun.
I'm ready for more." Not because I suddenly became a person who never gets nervous. Quite the contrary. I've just done it enough times, I've gotten the reps. I've learned what works. I've screwed things up. I've frozen, I've recovered, and I've learned that discomfort does not necessarily mean I'm doing the wrong thing.
It can simply mean I'm [00:08:00] doing something I haven't learned how to do yet. It gets easier. I think we need to say that more often. It's okay not to be good at something right away. You're allowed to stumble through the first one. You're allowed to feel awkward on camera. You're allowed to finish and immediately know the ten things that you would totally do differently next time. Now that's, again, not evidence that you shouldn't be doing it. That's how you learn to do it. I think we can mistake discomfort for a stop sign. We try something once, it feels terrible, right?
Very uncomfortable. And we decide, "Well, I'm just not good at that." Of course you're not good at it yet. You just started. Give yourself some reps. This podcast has taught me the same thing. Episode one did not create this. Episode 10 didn't. There wasn't one episode where suddenly the treasure chest opened and The Jeweler's View became what it is today.
It's accumulated [00:09:00] one episode one week at a time, then another. I learned what I wanted to talk about more. I learned more about what you need to hear about. I figured out what I didn't want this show to be. I changed things. I experimented, had conversations that took me somewhere I was not expecting, and I got frustrated with parts of it. I got better at others and came back the next week anyway, 100 times. That's the part I'm celebrating today. I love the growing numbers. Of course I do. But the number I'm most proud of is the one on the front of this episode, 100. Because as we wish we could control things, I couldn't control how many people listened. I could control whether I made the next episode. There's something in there for your business, too. You can't completely control whether someone buys your work this week. You can't control when the right opportunity shows up.
You can't force the [00:10:00] timeline. We cannot force the timeline, but you can decide how you respond. You can learn. You can make. You can pay attention. And you can get better. You can come back tomorrow. You can adjust when something isn't working, and you can come back tomorrow.
Now, I'm not talking about blindly doing the same thing for 10 years because somebody told you consistency is the secret to success.
Consistency without paying attention can turn into a very impressive rut. I'm talking about staying committed to the direction while being willing to change the route, the way you get there. That's different, right? And it brings us back to the question we've been talking about for the last few weeks: What do you want?
Because once you know what you're working toward, even loosely, there's another question waiting for you. Are you willing to be uncomfortable long enough to get [00:11:00] better at it? Are you willing to put in the time to get the reps to be a beginner?
To make mistakes where other people might actually see them? To hear the word no? To learn something you thought you already understood? To change your mind or change your route? And to come back after a month that didn't go the way that you planned? That's part of it, my friend. That's paying your dues, not suffering for the sake of suffering, not proving how hard you can work.
Putting in enough time and attention to actually become good at what you're trying to do
This is something, of course, I want people to understand about Transform too. Transform is not some magic key. I don't have one. If I did, I would absolutely sell that instead. Much easier program, right? One week, here's your key, good luck. But that's not what I teach. Inside Transform, we figure out what [00:12:00] you're actually working toward and start making decisions from there.
We look honestly at where you are. We figure out what needs your attention. We make choices. We test those choices. We learn, and then you continue implementing what you learn after our weeks together. I can teach you, I can challenge you, I can help you see something that maybe you haven't seen this way before.
I can definitely help you simplify. I could put you in a room with other jewelers doing this alongside you. But I cannot want it more than you do, and I can't do your reps for you. That's true of Transform. It's true of jewelry. It's true of this podcast.
It's true of just about anything worth getting good at, right? Anything worthwhile. So for episode 100, your bench note is pretty simple. Go back to the question we've been circling: what do I want? And add [00:13:00] one more: am I willing to stay with it long enough to find out what it can become? You don't have to promise forever.
I certainly did not sit down before episode one and promise myself 1,000 episodes. Commit to the next stretch. Give it enough time to teach you something. Stay curious. Get scrappy when you need to. Notice what's working, change what isn't, and keep coming back, because the life or business that you're trying to create probably isn't going to arrive in one giant flash of white light.
There may never be a treasure chest. There may never be a magic key. But one day, you might look up and realize you've made 100 of something. You've created a body of work. You've found your people, your tribe. You've become better at what you do. And you made real progress toward the thing you once weren't even sure that you could do And you can [00:14:00] trace this whole thing back to one fairly unremarkable day when you decided, "I'm going to begin."
That's worth celebrating. I'm here cheering you on. So thank you for 100 episodes. Thank you for listening, for sharing these conversations. And to every guest who's trusted me with their story, thank you to Gesswein and Bonny Doon for sponsoring the show this year and helping me keep these conversations going.
And thank you to all the jewelers who've written to say an episode helped you try something different, rethink something, or feel a little less alone at the bench. I'm curious to see what the next 100 bring, now I know where I wanna start. In my coaching conversations, I keep hearing about the decisions that don't fit neatly into a business plan, like a custom job that takes twice as long as expected, a customer who needs more of your time than you priced for, a piece that sells well but that you [00:15:00] dread making again.
So over the next few episodes, we're gonna get into those situations. We'll look at what's actually happening and what choices you have when you're the one running the business. And if you're ready to do that kind of work alongside other jewelers, enrollment for Transform is on my website,
you can find everything at courtneygrayarts.com. No magic keys, but I can promise you that we'll get some good work done. Until next week, I'm Courtney Gray. This is The Jeweler's View. Thank you for being here, and for the hundredth time, onward and upward. See you soon.
Speaker 5: This episode is supported by Bonny Doon Tools. Metal only moves well when pressure is applied correctly, controlled. From simple forming to engineered custom dies, Bonny Doon gives you consistency that you can rely on. Built for real studios and proven under real pressure, tons [00:16:00] of pressure. Learn more at bonnydoontools.com.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you're here. This path takes a lot, especially when you're building something of your own. If you wanna go deeper, I share key takeaways and additional teaching through my email list at courtneygrayarts.com. Keep going. This part matters. I'll see you next [00:17:00] week
