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Welcome to the Joy Joya podcast where jewelry is joy and everyone is encouraged to add more polish and sparkle to the world with topics ranging from marketing tips to business development, best practices and beyond. This is the go-to podcast for ambitious jewelry industry dreamers like you. Hi I'm your host Larissa Worstiek.

Through this podcast I aim to empower and inspire jewelry entrepreneurs and professionals so they can thrive while adding more beauty to the world. I'm passionate about digital marketing for jewelry brands and I'm excited to share my passion with you. As we all know, jewelry is joy so I'll gladly seize any opportunity to talk about it.

This is episode 208, you're checking out a weekly segment of the podcast called The Gold Mine which is a more intimate personal and brief take from me about a topic of my choosing but typically in the categories of entrepreneurship, growth, mindset, as well as my own personal observations about the industry. If you're new to this podcast, welcome. You can get interviews and business development and marketing tips on Sundays and The Gold Mine with me on Wednesdays.

If you're a return listener or viewer, of course, thank you for following along. In this week's episode I'll be talking all about gratitude and why it's more important than ever to express genuine gratitude not only to the people who have purchased from you but also to the people who follow your marketing content on email and social media or elsewhere. We're about a month away from Thanksgiving at this point so I wanted to plant this seed in your mind and give you some time to prepare for the season of gratitude.

I'll be discussing why gratitude is so important, who should you be thanking and how to thank them and how to make gratitude a lasting value in your business. Okay, so number one, why is gratitude so important besides the obvious, right? We're all taught that gratitude is important. Gratitude matters in business because from a customer experience perspective, it really shows that you're paying attention and that you truly do care about your customers.

It demonstrates that you're not taking anything for granted in your business and typically also shows that you're not just in it for the profits, right? It shows that you have a purpose, that you're value-driven, that you're passion-driven. All super important elements in building a long-lasting brand. It also gives you the opportunity to really connect with your customer about something that's not related to sales or promotion.

And that's just a mistake really that I see so often in the jewelry industry, especially because I follow so many jewelry brands on email, on social media, and all they tell me about all the time is their new product, their new sale, their new this, their event, et cetera. Tell me about something that is related to your core values, to your story. Show that you care about me, not just as a customer, but as someone who has willingly given my attention to you, which is no small thing in this world of overwhelm and too much information.

There's just not enough gratitude and thanks being expressed in this world. So your customers and followers will really take note when you show authenticity in your expression of gratitude. If you allow me to get woo-woo for just a moment, feeling grateful can also really help you manifest your business goals and dreams.

And I've personally been reflecting a lot on the concept of gratitude. I just finished listening to this audio book called Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself by Dr. Joe Dispenza.

And I'll link that in the show notes if you're interested. And he basically says over and over and over again in the book that if you want to achieve something you previously have not been able to accomplish, you kind of need to show gratitude for the future event, for the thing that you want in your life, as if it's already happened. So if you want to grow your business by, let's say, 50% in 2023, you have to think and feel and act as if you are grateful for that growth having already taken place.

That will help you align your mindset to be prepared for this amazing thing that you're going to achieve. And along the way, open up new opportunities that you probably could not have even imagined. So you can start to express gratitude for that future business that you want by expressing gratitude for what you have now and start moving toward a more gratitude-centered mindset overall.

It might sound a little crazy. It might sound a little bit new age, but it really is proven to help people overcome self-doubt and self-limiting beliefs that will help, that will keep them from getting to where they want to be, especially like you all listening or watching business owners who have big dreams, have big responsibilities. You're like the captain of your own ship.

So you have to overcome all of these blocks. And starting with gratitude is really the best place to get on that path. And one of the most powerful tools that you will have as a business owner.

And I really believe that. So now that you know why gratitude is so important, you're probably wondering, who should I start thinking and how can I thank them? Well, one of the most obvious ones is to start with your past customers. So you can have different ways of thinking about thinking them and thinking about this based on their past purchase history.

So maybe you have a core group of VIP customers who purchase often or they've been with your business for a really long time. Maybe you have one way of thanking them. Also thank your social media followers and especially the people who seem to engage with you the most on say Instagram.

You can even send them a DM. Someone actually did this this morning to me, a person I recently started following, but I love their content. I started leaving comments and liking a lot of their posts.

And I was shocked when they wrote me a personal DM, used my name, pointed out something they noticed about me based on my profile and said, thank you for following and asked me a question about myself. I was very taken aback by this because they seem in my mind to be high profile. They have a lot of followers.

Like what do they care? What do they care about me? A random follower when they probably have a lot of people engaging with their content. And it really stood out to me and made an impression. And I love this tactic.

If you notice people who are engaging with your content a lot, reach out to them directly and see them, acknowledge them. You could potentially even offer something special to your social media followers like promotion, discount, bundle, new product announcement, whatever, whatever makes sense for your business. Definitely thank your email subscribers.

So I believe that signing up for an email list represents a higher level of commitment than following someone on social media. So if you're going to thank your social media followers and give them something special, give your email subscribers something even a little more special. If you feel comfortable with segmenting your email list, you can even segment your subscribers by the people who are most engaged with your emails.

So maybe you have a segment of people who click on most of the campaigns that you send right to them personally and thank them for being so interested in your content. Beyond your customers and the people who follow you on various platforms, thank your employees if you have any and your business partners and vendors. If you don't have employees, are there any freelancers who work with you or intern like anyone who's helped you in the past year, make them feel like they're needed and that they matter because they do.

If you've gotten any press this year, reach out to publications and journalists and express your thanks because they don't have to cover your jewelry brand. And it's really nice to acknowledge the fact that they took the time to learn about you, to really see your products and to feature them. Regardless of who you choose to thank, the thank you's should really be as personalized as you can make them with the resources that you have available.

And when others express gratitude for you and your business, take it really seriously and acknowledge that person. Don't just brush it off. Don't just be that person who's like, oh, it was nothing, no big deal.

Like take that in and say, thank you for like acknowledging that about me and really let it land because it will encourage you to kind of put that out into the world more as well. And it will also make that person feel joyful for the fact that they could share that with you and that you really heard it from them. So once you start expressing gratitude, how can you really make it a lasting core value in your business? Don't just stop with the holidays.

I know the holidays are a great motivator. They give us time to sit and reflect. They encourage us to share these messages of gratitude.

They make it like socially acceptable to go and thank people because sometimes it can feel weird and awkward. You're definitely putting yourself out there. But maybe leave a reminder or set a reminder for yourself to do it quarterly or once a month or even daily reach out to a person and show gratitude.

Also build gratitude into your customer experience. So have an automated thank you email. Maybe have that thank you message on the order confirmation page on your e-commerce website.

Send thank you cards in your packages and always respond to comments with gratitude. Whenever you reach important milestones in your business, think people who are involved in that. A milestone could be like hitting a revenue goal, selling out of a limited edition product, selling like your highest priced piece, reaching a certain number of social media followers, growing your email list to a certain number, getting into your dream retail store or a press placement in your dream magazine, whatever it is.

Think everyone who was involved in helping you achieve that milestone. If you don't have a customer referral program in place, that's a great way to thank your current customers for referrals. Same thing with customer loyalty programs.

That shows gratitude for customers who make repeat purchases. So what do you think about my perspective on gratitude? Are you going to kind of start expressing gratitude more in your business? Do you already express gratitude? Maybe you have even more thoughts on this than I do. I would love to hear what you think on this topic.

So let me know your thoughts, leave a comment on YouTube or let me know in a podcast review and you can always email me Larissa. That's L-A-R-Y-S-S-A at JoyJoya.com. Thanks for listening or watching. Thanks for listening.

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