SPEAKER_00
One of the biggest things I see hindering sales in jewelry businesses is actually having too many options for your customers and I really see so many jewelry business owners who even may recognize this really struggle to cut down those options and I work with all of my clients who enter the jewelry business academy on this. I have a framework for reducing those options in their collection that they all go through and it takes them on a step-by-step journey in really optimizing their collection for driving sales. So you know you can have the dreamiest, gorgeous pieces, you can have good pricing and you can still be making it really hard for your customers to shop.

So that is the topic I'm diving into today. If you do enjoy this episode I would love to hear from you. Screenshot the episode you're listening to and tag me on Instagram it is Robin Clark Coaching.

My name is Robin Clark and I'm a jewelry designer turned jewelry business coach and podcaster. I'm the founder and CEO of the jewelry business academy, the host of the jewelry business academy podcast and I help women around the world scale their jewelry business to six figures and beyond without burning out. If you are a jewelry business owner looking to scale your business then my podcast and program are for you.

You'll get lots of actionable tips to level up your business, your mindset and your life. So grab your notebooks and let's dive in. I was talking to a client in the jewelry business academy the other day about decision fatigue that customers experience and you know we so often are focused on the decision fatigue that we as business owners face but we forget about our customers and how that really impacts sales.

So today I'm diving into that topic with you and how you can reduce the options to really drive sales in your business. And you know we were chatting about this on one of my coaching calls with my clients and we have these calls every single week where we're deep diving into different topics that are coming up for them and one of the biggest things that I see a lot of business owners struggling with is struggling to sell their jewelry even though it's absolutely gorgeous. They have so many dreamy pieces, they are high quality, a lot of them are handmade.

There is nothing wrong with the product. The product is gorgeous, the pricing is right but they're not driving sales. They still have a big community and this plateau of sales or this difficulty in driving sales actually comes down to often having too many options for your customers and so that's a topic that I'm going to talk about today because on the outside it looks like oh maybe there's something wrong with your products or your pricing or your messaging but sometimes it's simply that you have too many products that that people just cannot choose from and so when this is your reality we actually have to take a look at what you're doing and really reduce those options for your customer and make it a less stressful experience for them and once you've done this upon mastering this and simplifying your collection and simplifying your options I've seen customers drive sales really quickly, drive repeat customer sales, it really helps customers know which pieces that they want and so this is one of the things I actually work with my clients on in the jewelry business academy in the first few weeks and that is really looking at their collection in depth.

We take a look at which pieces need to be cut, which pieces you know are hindering their sales in that way and it's something that a lot of people really overlook when it comes to driving sales in their business so if you're wondering if maybe you have too many pieces in your collection or you're causing a lot of anxiety in your customers and that is reducing or slowing their purchasing decisions then join me in the jewelry business academy. You can head to my website jewelrybusinessacademy.ca to learn a little bit more about me and the program and you can go ahead and book in a connection call with me.

This is a free call just to see if you and your business are a good fit for the program and as I've said before I only reserve 12 free calls per month so please fill in the application form in as much detail as possible because I just can't get on the call with everyone who books a call in and yeah then we can dive in see if your business is a good fit and get you into the program and and and really see where your issues are in your business and start driving sales. So let's dive into today's episode. I am actually recording this at six in the morning because I woke up this morning feeling just really inspired and really excited for the day and this is actually a topic that I have been wanting to really dive into on my podcast.

So choice overload let's talk about choice overload because as I was saying before when a customer and customers aren't purchasing or they are slow at purchasing pieces it's often because they just have too many options so this is something that I see a lot of jewelry business owners doing you know we have these huge collections we launch huge collections and there's just so many pieces so many options so many layering necklaces so many different stacking rings to choose from and you know think about it this way as a business owner which pieces are you wanting to wear every day or are you struggling to choose your favorites because if you're struggling to choose your favorites your customers are struggling as well and there's a balance that you want to get you just because you know you want to limit their options but you also want to have enough options to keep them coming back again and again and again which is so important you know the cost of getting a new customer is pretty high even if you're doing organic sales it's just the time and energy that goes into getting the customer the first time around you really want to know that they're going to keep coming back and purchasing from you multiple times throughout the year and so you do want to have variety of pieces that they can come back and purchase but when you have too many options you rarely set your customers up to experience decision fatigue which really slows their sales it does also lead to customers just even not making a purchase even though they may absolutely love all of your all of your designs and so that's really frustrating for a lot of business owners you know especially when they put their heart and soul into their business into their designs they have really high quality pieces even really affordable pieces and customers all are saying that how much they love them but it just isn't reflecting in the sales and I've also seen this with multiple six figure businesses who have plateaued and you know because they kind of have got to a level where they're like oh you know we're at this high level now let's introduce all these other options and that is one of the biggest mistakes they make that that all those options rarely give people so much decision fatigue and it significantly impacts sales and it's something that people just overlook all the time so as humans it just becomes so much more difficult and stressful to determine which option is best for you when you have multiple options so I'm going to kind of compare this to online dating because you know anyone who has been on any of the apps on hinge or any of those online apps also experiences decision fatigue because you know you're swiping through swiping left swiping right and it becomes stressful at some point to determine which ones you should invest in talking to which ones you should just just move on from and a lot of people experience decision fatigue when it comes to dating as well so we really have to acknowledge that this is a human experience and especially in today's world with everything going on people have so little headspace and they have to make so many decisions on a daily basis and not only that because of the way social media is now because of like people's addiction to apps like tiktok our attention span and our ability to make decisions I feel has really been hindered so the other thing to remember is that as humans we inherently feel a little bit sad about the opportunities that we forego so that means that you know when we're choosing between even just two options that are both good we always feel a little bit sad about letting one of those go you can sort of compare this to going on holiday say you had two options you could go on a beach holiday for a week or you could go on a skiing holiday for a week I mean obviously if you love the sun like me the beach holiday is going to be the option but you're still going to feel a little bit sad about like the adventure and that you would have got on and a different type of holiday or different type of experience and so your customers feel sad they go through a lot of emotions when they're purchasing and people forget this but customers feel a little bit of like a ping of sadness and stuff when they can't get both the pieces or multiple pieces and they have to leave some behind they don't want to make a mistake and they do feel a little bit sad about that so keep that in mind and the other thing is when designs are too similar and they just can't choose between one or the other there's could be layering necklaces that look really similar in design in length but there's like a subtle difference in the chain or a subtle difference in the pendant or it could be stacking rings that have a subtle difference in them whenever you have these options in your collection that are very very similar to one another it makes it hard for customers to know which option is best for them and then they are worried that they're going to regret it down the line that they're going to be like oh I should have got the other one even though they're both gorgeous pieces even though if you didn't have both those options and you just had one of either of them they would have been so happy so you want to make sure that you're not putting them in the position where they're feeling anxiety that they're going to experience regrets around their purchase because they love both pieces and they don't want to make a mistake so I'm going to talk a little bit about how to sort of overcome this and how to reduce the options in your collection as a jewelry business to actually really drive sales the more that you're able to reduce the choices that your customers have you're going to really create a much better and much less stressful experience for your customers there's so many other benefits to this as well it really increases brand recognition it really um strengthens your branding and your collection overall and what you're known for and so many people forget about that so let's talk about how many options are ideal because I see you know in the jewelry industry it is different from a different type of product-based industry but I think I've spoken about this before in another podcast where I was talking about if I was to start another six figure jewelry business from the ground up what I would do differently and one of the things I said was I think I would start with about five or six different pieces of like one design like bracelets or necklaces or whatever it was and I would scale that up to six figures before introducing anything else and I've spoken to business owners who've done that really successfully and the thing about that is it really becomes what you as a brand are really well known for obviously this doesn't work for everyone and it doesn't work for all businesses but typically I see most jewelry businesses have at a very minimum like 30 40 50 pieces in their collection then they're launching 10 to 20 new pieces every few weeks or months they just have so many options and research has actually shown that the optimal number of options for a customer in just any industry is actually closer to six instead of 20 to 30 which most people assume is the case in the jewelry industry it's a little bit harder for everyone to get close to six but you want to really look at all the pieces in your collections how many necklaces how many rings all these things and say have I maybe got too many options for customers so the first thing you want to do is look at your collection and reduce your product range the next thing that you really want to do is fine tune your sales funnel and guide shoppers to make the right decision if you do have a few options so this is something that's really easy to do if you have a boutique or if you do in person events because you can talk to the customers or you can get your sales reps to talk to your customers and to guide them to find out what they're looking for to find out what they love and to guide them through the process of choosing the right piece and you can literally be like okay based on like what you've shared with me these are the like two pieces I think that would be great for you or this is the piece that sounds like it's the one for you and you can really drive sales if you are able to master this correctly however this is so much harder to do online because obviously you're not there talking to your customer and guiding them through their purchasing decisions and so it's so important to have really really really good product descriptions online it's so important to have a good customer journey through your website which really optimizes the navigation and makes it easy for people to find pieces that they are looking for and not be hit with a million options when they are browsing through your website. The other way that you are going to be able to fine-tune the sales funnel and help customers make the right decision is by having differentiations in pricing. If you have pieces that are super similar and the price is similar you're really making it hard on customers to choose to choose the right piece so please please please take a look at that and think about that and think how you can really help help customers make decisions quickly and easily and not feel that regret having those customer reviews has a huge impact as well on your website and also considering incorporating online quizzes to help guide shoppers to their perfect piece on your website is going to make such a difference.

So that's all I'm going to say today because I think this is going to be a nice short and sweet episode and I just really want to encourage you to think about all the ways you can make it easier for your customers to make purchases to support your business. You know a lot of people are always like especially now with the way the economy is going. A lot of small businesses are feeling a little anxious especially jewelry businesses and I'm actually going to do a whole episode on this because I actually think this is such an incredible opportunity for growth over the next few months and year for jewelry businesses and people don't realize the opportunities that they have at this stage but I will do a whole other episode on that because I think it's a pretty big topic but anything anything that you can do to help your customers help reduce the stress help just build that trust is going to have such a big impact and as I'm recording this we are about five weeks away from the end of the year we are heading into 2023 and so if you are wanting to hit some big goals in your jewelry business over the next year if you are ready to ready scale your business and feel supported then I would love to invite you to join me in the jewelry business academy it is the most expansive container for jewelry business owners ready to scale their business to six figures and beyond without burning out so if that sounds like something you'd love to learn a little bit more about hit to my website it is jewelrybusinessacademy.

ca and you can go ahead and book in your connection call with me I'm looking forward to our next episode we have a ready incredible guest from BC joining and it is all about ready driving sales in your business so I think you're gonna really love that one