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) Reader Survey - How Do You Assign Item Numbers to Your Jewelry?

2) What's New at Home Jewelry Business Success Tips - excellent new articles, plus a new section!

3) Featured Article: Building Multiple Streams of Jewelry Business Income

4) Neat Jewelry Related Website: Sharon MacLeod's colorful contemporary art jewelry

Reader Survey:
How Do You Assign Item Numbers
to Your Jewelry?

Jewelry artist Rae Gedlaman sent in this interesting question:

"How do jewelry artists go about assigning style numbers of all the merchandise they make? I'm curious about the different ways people keep track of their pieces."

Readers, please send in your method for assigning inventory numbers to your jewelry pieces. In an upcoming article in Home Jewelry Business Success Tips, I'll include all of your responses (along with a link to your website if you include your URL with your response). So email me your inventory methods and receive a valuable free link to your website while you contribute to the jewelry business body of knowledge!

What's new at
Home Jewelry Business Success Tips

Since our last issue, I've added a new section to our site:

The Greater Good and Your Jewelry Business
How you can contribute to the greater good with your jewelry business - tips for jewelry fundraisers, charity jewelry, awareness jewelry - and other ways to make a difference, help good causes, and establish public relations. I'll also be adding articles on public relations for your jewelry business.

And I'm pleased to bring you the latest great articles from our guest authors:

Coiling Wire the Easy Way
Coiling wire doesn't have to be hard on your wrists. Guest author Pat Greer of Send Us Your Ears details a fast, easy, and fun wire coiling tool you can make yourself.

Determining the Quality of Pearls
Pearls are graded on six factors - luster and orient, nacre thickness and quality, color, surface perfection, shape, and size. Guest author Joy Bescardi of Frost Jewelry details how these factors determine the quality of this classic gemstone.

Jewelry Business Strategies for the New Year
Ideas and business strategies for making this your best jewelry year yet. Guest author Sophie Van Tiggelen of Bagatelle Jewelry shares eight ways you can jump start your jewelry business.

Awareness Jewelry - tips for designing and marketing jewels of hope
Guest author Georgia Hadley of Adorneya Jewelry Studio details how to promote and contribute to good causes with awareness jewelry, including a variety markets for it.

Image Hosting for Online Auctions
Your image hosting choice affects the quality, downloading speed, and cost of your eBay jewelry auction photos. Guest author Sophie Van Tiggelen of Bagatelle Jewelry explains the free image hosting system she uses.

Become one of our world-famous guest authors! Jewelry Business Success News is read by subscribers in over 70 countries around the world. So submit a jewelry business article that will be read around the world, and receive a free permanent link to your website plus a boost in your traffic. Our guest authors report a significant flow of traffic coming from their article links on Home Jewelry Business Success Tips.

For stable, long-term income from your jewelry business, your best bet is to develop "multiple streams of income" from a variety of jewelry-related activities.

Multiple streams of income provide you with financial security. Since you don't have all your eggs in one basket, your income is less vulnerable if one of your streams falters for any reason.

I really like this model of earning a living with your jewelry business. Most creative people enjoy a variety of creative activities, and with this system you get to pull together several of them to contribute to your overall income.

Each activity you pursue that brings in one of your streams of income is called a profit center. So how do you decide which profit centers to focus on?

First, consider everything in your jewelry business as a potential profit center. Here are a few examples of jewelry business streams of income:

• jewelry shows / home parties / fundraisers
  
• wholesaling / consigning to shops
  
• teaching workshops
  
• having hands-on studio time for people to come and create their own beads / jewelry / whatever your specialty is
  
• selling supplies or kits
  
• selling patterns or tutorials online or offline
  
• writing books
  
• offering bracelet making birthday parties
  
• assembling private-label jewelry lines
  
• selling jewelry from your website
  
• holding open studio jewelry sales
  
• making jewelry repairs

Decide which profit centers you'd like to concentrate on, and determine how you could make each of them more profitable. How can each contribute to your overall income?

Calculate the expenses and income potential of each profit center. Considering the amount of time you put into them, ask yourself:

• Which profit centers bring in the largest or most reliable streams of income?
  
• Which do you enjoy the most?
  
• How can you make the most of each?

Once you start thinking of your jewelry business as a set of profit centers, you'll be able to establish a more stable year-round income.

For example, you can beef up your profit centers that consist of selling your finished jewelry during the months when your sales are traditionally the highest.

Then you can focus on your other income streams during the months that are less busy for sales. You might choose those slower times of year to concentrate your efforts on teaching jewelry workshops, doing jewelry repairs, and developing jewelry tutorials or patterns to sell online.

Once you've analyzed your potential profit centers and their possible income, it's time to figure out your strategy. Chart out a plan for making the most of each of your streams of income throughout the year. Then brainstorm ways to reduce the expenses and increase the profitability of each.

A good strategy is to gradually add one new profit center at a time, and work to make it the most efficient and profitable stream of income it can be, before adding another profit center.

It's better to focus on maximizing a small number of profit centers than to get more activities going on than you can handle - and not doing any of them very well because you're overwhelmed. Remember that the overall objective is to diversify your income.

I strongly believe that the "multiple streams of income" lifestyle is more secure than relying a single income source. It buffers you from the ups and downs of each activity.

And since you don't have to work full-time on just one of your profit centers, the combination of them can satisfy your soul while equaling the income you need.

Neat Jewelry Related Website

Our neat site this time is Sharon MacLeod's colorful contemporary art jewelry. Sharon is fascinated with turning ordinary materials into colorful, richly patterned jewelry. She uses supplies like digitally printed paper, polymer clay, and tubing to create one-of-a-kind and limited production jewelry. People often ask her what her jewelry is made of! I also enjoyed the clean, uncluttered design of her website; it makes it easy to concentrate on Sharon's fantastic jewelry.

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 150 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.