To be sure you never miss an issue of "Jewelry Business Success News" in your e-mail box, please add the following Home Jewelry Business Success Tips domain to your list of trusted senders / your address book / contact list (in your e-mail software) and to your ISP / mail service's "whitelist": @home-jewelry-business-success-tips.com

1) Fun Historical Jewelry Quiz

2) What's New at Home Jewelry Business Success Tips - new articles!

3) Featured Article: How to Get Customers to Stop at Your Booth

4) Interesting Jewelry Related Website: The Medieval Beadwork Page

5) Answers to the Historical Jewelry Quiz

Fun Historical Jewelry Quiz

Can you define these jewelry terms from the past? Answers are later in this newsletter, but no peeking till you make your best guesses.

1) parure
2) chatelaine
3) etui (also called a necessaire)
4) lavalier
5) torque (also spelled torc)

What's new at
Home Jewelry Business Success Tips

I'm proud to bring you another great selection of articles from our guest authors. We have some wonderful new authors along with a few you already know:

Time Management Tips: How to Add Extra Hours to Your Day When You Work at Home
Time management strategies can make all the difference in your productivity and success when you run a jewelry business at home. Guest author Lisa Jay of Lantana Designwear presents ten great tips for using your work time super-effectively.

A Truly Original Display
A great, original jewelry display is fun to create. Returning guest author Ellen Leonard of Prophecy Girl Designs takes us on a journey of booth themes, brainstorming, shopping, and assembly. Voila!

How Many Tools Do I Need?
Good tools are one of the pleasures of beading and jewelry making. Guest author Vicki Todd of Bead Lady's Kharma offers tips for acquiring and maintaining your own collection of jewelry tools.

Charity Jewelry - Good Karma for Your Business
Creating and selling charity jewelry is a wonderful way to help a cause that's important to you. Laura Christensen Wells of Christensen Studio shares her experience of using her creative talent for the greater good - and how it attracts good karma to her business.

Men's Silver Jewelry Today
The men's silver jewelry market has grown dramatically, receiving a major part of the $5 billion per year spent on men's jewelry. Guest author Susi of Silver Jewelry Crossings describes major trends in this important segment of the jewelry market.

Moissanite Testing - Is It a Diamond or Moissanite?
Moissanite resembles diamond so closely that it has been known to fool gemologists and electronic diamond testers. Guest author Dennis Shea of National Jeweler's Supplies compares moissanite to diamond, and gives a tip for accurately using a moissanite tester.

Become our newest guest author! Submit an article and receive a free, permanent link to your website, along with a boost in your traffic. Our guest authors report a nice flow of traffic coming from their article links on Home Jewelry Business Success Tips - and often extra sales too!

How to Get Customers
to Stop at Your Booth

How do you stand out in the crowd at a show that has lots of other jewelry booths? It's easy if you use a two-part selling technique of first displaying something that stops people in their tracks, and then starting a friendly conversation about it.

As an example of this technique, I'll share with you my experience with a non-jewelry vendor who was an absolute master of it. Then I'll show how you can use this technique yourself in your jewelry booth.

I was wandering through a plant and garden show looking at all kinds of outdoor products, when I saw something that stopped me in my tracks. A vendor of tropical plants had an incredible 7-foot high potted plant with the most enormous leaves I've ever seen; each individual leaf was at least 5 feet wide and 6 or 7 feet long, on humongous stalks branching out of the base. Talk about an attention grabber!

I stopped to look at this mammoth plant in amazement, and the vendor strolled up and started a friendly conversation with, "What can I tell you about it?"

Naturally I asked some questions about the unbelievably large-leafed plant, and the vendor told me some interesting facts about it. Before I realized it, I was drawn into the booth and looking at all kinds of small tropical plants that he added into the discussion.

It wasn't till later that I realized he'd used the two-part technique of displaying something that stops people in their tracks (his unusually enormous plant), and then establishing a bond of trust by striking up a friendly conversation with something that could not be replied to with yes or no ("What can I tell you about it?").

The tropical plant guy was a master of this technique! Now, how can you apply this method to your jewelry booth?

First, create a really show-stopping piece of jewelry that relates in some way to the rest of your jewelry line. The larger and more dramatic it is, the more effective this technique will be.

This is your opportunity to indulge your wild side and create an art piece that embodies the most theatrical or outrageous jewelry you can make in your particular medium. Don't even worry about how comfortable this piece would be to wear; its job is to be extreme art. It must be something most people would admire but not want to wear - and it must make everyone say, "Wow!"

Put a suitably outrageous price on this piece. It's one-of-a-kind and probably could never be duplicated, so price it as though it's a rare collector's item. Don't be timid about pricing it; which price gives your show-stopping piece more panache - $20 or $2000?

Next, devise a way of displaying this incredible piece of jewelry so that passersby can't help but see it. You might put it at eye-level on a dramatic pillar, or mount it on the back wall of your booth, or display it front and center in an acrylic case. Wherever you place it, be sure it has good, bright lighting. In fact, it should be the most well-lit object in your entire display so all eyes are drawn to it irresistibly.

Now, decide on a few friendly things to say that feel natural to you. People will want to know something about your showpiece when it stops them in their tracks, so ahead of time think of a few different conversation openers. Remember the tropical plant guy's greeting, "What can I tell you about it?".

Once you've established a rapport with customers by discussing your extreme jewelry art piece, you can transition the conversation easily into other pieces in your display. Your visitors are interested in your craft now, so you can gently educate them about the rest of your jewelry.

And don't be surprised if you actually sell your outrageous show-stopping piece of jewelry midway through the show. An art collector may decide it's exactly the piece they need to add to their collection. Or a dramatically stylish lady may be thrilled to find a piece of jewelry that's worthy of her extraordinary wardrobe. Your suitably high price will encourage people to view it as valuable artwork.

When that happens, you'll get to go home with a nice financial bonus in your cashbox and the opportunity to indulge your wild side once again to create another piece of extreme jewelry art.

Neat Jewelry Related Site

Our neat site this time is The Medieval Beadwork Page. Webmistress Elspeth Grizel (Jen Funk Segrest) has put together a fantastic experience for fans of both medieval culture and beads. Her website is a resource of decorative uses of seed beads in the Middle Ages to the 16th Century. What's especially neat about this site is how every aspect of it is flavored with medieval ambience. If you've ever wondered what the Internet was like in the Middle Ages, here is your answer. :o)

Here are the definitions for these jewelry terms from the past:

1) parure - a set of jewelry consisting of 3 or more pieces. In Victorian times a complete parure consisted of two bracelets, a necklace, earrings, and a brooch.

2) chatelaine - a set of household tools, each attached to a chain and usually worn at the waist. Chatelaine tools usually included scissors, a thimble, a needle holder, pin cushion, etui/necessaire, writing tablet, pencil, perfume bottle, seal, boot hook, vinaigrette, etc.

3) etui (also called a necessaire) - a tiny decorative, cylindrical-shaped case that was often carried on a chatelaine. The etui was used to carry small "necessary" items like pencils, scissors, manicure set, or spectacles. The etui was first used in the 1720's.

4) lavalier - a pendant with a dangling stone that hangs from a necklace. The lavalier is named for the infamous Duchess Louise de La Valliere (1644-1710), who was mistress of King Louis XIV of France and was involved in many intrigues in his court.

5) torque (also spelled torc) - a necklace consisting of a narrow, twisted metal band. This type of ornament was worn by the ancient Celts, Britons, and Gauls.

Source of jewelry definitions: All About Jewels Glossary.

Find Specific Jewelry Business Info

Looking for specific jewelry business information or the answer to a question? Try our "Search This Site" feature to scour Home Jewelry Business Success Tips for any keywords you enter. A link to Search This Site is available from the bottom of the navigation bar at the left side of every page.

We have well over 140 articles now, plus lots more coming up - and sometimes knowing where to find specific information among so many articles can be tricky. But now you should be able to search easily and find what you're seeking.

If your search doesn't turn up any results for our site, then you've discovered a topic we need to add - please let me know the info or tips that are missing from our site.