Jewelry Making Tips with Metalsmith Society
Metalsmith Society is a community on Instagram where jewelers share jewelry making tips. On this podcast Metalsmith Society founder and author Corkie Bolton discusses tips from the Instagram page, provider deeper insights, answers questions, and highlights bonus content often shared by community members in the comment section.
Jewelry Making Tips with Metalsmith Society
Selling $8000 During An Instagram Live With Special Guest Chelsea Leigh
In today’s episode, I will be discussing how to sell your jewelry during an Instagram live with special guest Chelsea Leigh Jewelry. Chelsea makes each piece of jewelry from her home studio in North Carolina, she has been a full-time jeweler for over three years. Chelsea has been successfully doing Instagram live sales since 2020 and it’s been a major revenue generator for her business. She makes an average of $8,000 to $10,000 every time she goes live.
Be sure to check out Metalsmith Society merch and use code PODCAST5 to save $5 off your order of $30+ https://metalsmithsociety.com/discount/PODCAST5
Follow Chelsea on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chelsealeighjewelry/
Check out her jewelry: https://chelsealeighjewelry.com/
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Welcome to Jewelry Making Tips with Metalsmith Society the ultimate podcast for anyone passionate about the art of jewelry making. I'm your host, Corkie Bolton. Metalsmith Society is a community on Instagram that has over 240,000 individuals, from professional jewelers to small business artisans, hobbyists, students and even those curious looky-loos eager to learn about jewelry making. Together, we share tips, kindness and even those curious looky-loos eager to learn about jewelry making. Together, we share tips, kindness and support. In this podcast, I will discuss tips from the Instagram page, provide deeper insights, address questions and share bonus tips that often surface in the comments section. So, whether you've been making jewelry for a while or you're just starting your jewelry making journey, this podcast is your go-to resource for all the jewelry making tips. So grab your tools, dust off your workbench and join me.
Corkie Bolton:In today's episode, I will be discussing how to sell your jewelry during an Instagram Live with special guest Chelsea Leigh Jewelry. Chelsea makes each piece of jewelry from her home studio in North Carolina. She has two business degrees, but has always had a passion for the arts. She has been a full-time jeweler for over three years. Chelsea has been successfully doing Instagram live sales since 2020, and it's been a major revenue generator for her business. She makes an average of $8,000 to $10,000 every time she goes live. Chelsea welcome.
Chelsea Leigh:Hi Corkie, Thanks so much for having me today.
Corkie Bolton:I'm so excited. You're here and this topic gets me really excited, because that's amazing. Tell us everything. Start at the beginning.
Chelsea Leigh:I am excited to talk about it. I would consider myself a pro with Instagram live sales at this point. I started them in 2020 just kind of for fun to see how it would go, and it's been a very important part of my business ever since then. So I've been doing them for four years now.
Corkie Bolton:That's amazing. Could you start for our listeners and just explain what an Instagram live sale is?
Chelsea Leigh:Yeah, so essentially you're using the live feature on Instagram. You're going live and think of it kind of like QVCs, where you're just showing all of your pieces that you have for sale and allowing people to purchase them in real time. So explain to us how it works. So I will create a collection or just a variety of pieces and I will kind of market this ahead of time to all of my followers. But essentially I'm going live on Instagram and, one by one, I will show each piece that's available and for sale and allow people to kind of claim that piece as I show it.
Corkie Bolton:Awesome and I'd love to hear from you for someone that maybe is interested in doing this themselves. Do you stay on one piece until it sells and kind of like how do you like fill that time? Are you just chatting away?
Chelsea Leigh:You know it's, it's a little bit of selling, but it's also a little bit of connecting with customers and kind of just facilitating conversations. Sometimes people will tell me oh, I love your shirt that you're wearing, or I love your makeup, or you know, kind of connecting with people on a personal level. That is kind of what fills the time. But I will show a piece, and the first few pieces I show people always kind of wait because they want to see what's coming. So I'll kind of hover on a piece for a couple of minutes, try it on, tell them about it, how I designed it, talk about the price, and if no one bites on it after about a minute I'll move on to the next piece. And a lot of times I'll get requests for people to come back and say can you go back to piece number six or whatever, and I'll pause what I'm doing and go back to piece number six.
Corkie Bolton:Oh, that's amazing and I love the idea of you trying it on and just being so engaging with your followers, like that's amazing.
Chelsea Leigh:Yeah, it's kind of like I said. It's a fun way to connect with my customers and my followers and they feel like they get to know me on a more personal level when I'm actually going live, as opposed to just a pre-recorded reel or you know kind of scripted type of video.
Corkie Bolton:Hey friends, I wanted to give a shout out to all of you incredible supporters out there. Your enthusiasm and dedication keeps this podcast going strong and I'm endlessly thankful for each and every one of you. One of the best ways folks like you can support my work is by heading over to metalsmithsociety. com and shopping my wide range of merch that reflects the spirit and values of our community. Whether you're looking for apparel to represent in practical items such as work aprons, quench cups or notebooks, or you want something smaller like stickers, I've got you covered. Every purchase directly supports me in continuing to run the community and the creation of this podcast.
Corkie Bolton:But that's not all. When you visit metalsmithsociety. com, you'll also discover exclusive content on my blog book recommendations, a directory of places to take in-person classes and more. Today I am offering my podcast listeners an exclusive $5 off a single purchase over $30 when you use code PODCAST5. Code podcast5. So head over to metalsmithsociety. com and add code PODCAST5 to your order of $30 or more to save $5 off, and thank you for listening. Amazing, and let's say I want to buy one of your pieces. How does that go down?
Chelsea Leigh:So on the live I have an index card written out for every piece. Every piece gets a number assigned to it and on the index card is the number, the price, all the details about the piece and if you want to purchase that one, you will leave a comment saying item number 10, and then your email address. And once you leave that comment, I actually have the helper in the background who is taking down all of the comments, writing down their email addresses, what pieces they want to claim. And after the live sale is over, I will actually go through all of those comments and items that were claimed and send one big invoice through my website.
Corkie Bolton:Amazing. I love this idea of a helper. So is your camera on you so that you can't see the comments, but the helper can.
Chelsea Leigh:So I am usually, my camera is usually facing my table. Most of what I sell is rings, so I'm constantly like trying rings on my table. Most of what I sell is rings, so I'm constantly like trying rings on my fingers, and so there's no really need to see my face, but I can see the comments as they're coming through. The helper is more oh, because I'm getting. Sometimes, if I sell a piece, I'm getting like 10 comments for one piece, and so we have to go through all those comments and figure out who was the first comment that came through to claim it, since all of these pieces are kind of one of a kind items.
Corkie Bolton:Wow, that's awesome. This might actually be a new job for my husband.
Chelsea Leigh:It is Podcast editor software engineer for my website.
Corkie Bolton:I'm going to keep putting him to work.
Chelsea Leigh:Yeah, it's definitely recommended to use a helper. The first live sale I ever did, I did not use a helper and I needed it big time, and I'm lucky that my boyfriend actually was just watching in the other room and he noticed that I was kind of struggling to write down names and keep up with comments and things like that, so he started doing it on his own. So, bless him, but now he's my. He's my full time helper for all the Instagram live sales.
Corkie Bolton:That's fantastic, because the other consideration here is is that, even though we can download our live and even share it, we can't get the comments. They're like gone forever.
Chelsea Leigh:Exactly, and I think that is something you're able to do on Facebook. I believe I'm not 100% sure but I think that when you go live on Facebook, it saves the comments. So if anybody listening has got a bigger audience on Facebook, that might be something to look into. But on Instagram, yeah, you can save the live but you can't save the comments. So there's no going back and double checking.
Corkie Bolton:Okay, so helper is essential. One other quick question I have here is has that interest in a particular piece ever led to you custom creating it and getting additional orders?
Chelsea Leigh:Yes, Sometimes the piece is a one of a kind. It is what it is and it's just something I made one day randomly and I won't be making anymore. But a lot of times, if enough people are interested in it, it's almost a way for me to kind of gauge what is popular or what I might want to incorporate into my permanent collections on my website. I also will sometimes take pre-orders on the live sale, though I try to focus on the live sale, being more ready to ship items. If something is popular enough, I'll go ahead and say, okay, well, I have the capacity to make five more of these and I'll take pre-orders right there.
Corkie Bolton:That's great. What is the frequency of you going live with these sales, and I'd also you know? Part two of that question is how are you promoting folks so that you can get a good amount of your followers attending?
Chelsea Leigh:allows kind of this buildup in between live sales. If I did it more frequently than that, it might not be as special or exciting. So that's definitely a big reason why I think I've been so successful with the live sales is because they are just infrequent, therefore more special and something to look forward to. And as far as kind of advertising and marketing, it usually about a month in advance I'll announce the date for the live sale and just start posting on Instagram like teasers or behind the scenes of me making things that are going to be on the live sale. I also love to engage my audience and ask them, hey, what colors are you loving or what stones might you want to see? And give them the opportunity to kind of feel like they're involved in what is coming on the live sale. So it's usually about a full month worth of hyping it up before it actually happens.
Chelsea Leigh:Do you use an email list? I do. Yes, I have an email list so I'll send out emails. I don't send out a ton of emails just when I have new things or, you know, save the dates. So with email, I usually won't start marketing the live sale until about a week before. I feel like any sooner is a little bit irrelevant. So I do send out emails, probably a week leading up to the live sale, but most of it is done on Instagram. That's amazing.
Corkie Bolton:Are there any other perks that your followers might get by attending one of these lives?
Chelsea Leigh:they definitely get the opportunity to shop things that I don't normally make. The live sales are something for me where I get into this kind of production mode. When I'm making orders, I get on my website and kind of get out of that creative type of mindset, whereas the live sale is set aside time for me to work on these creative ideas. So my customers are getting to see ideas that they've never seen before, and I'll make different pieces than what I typically make, so it's just kind of something cool and fun and different for them. And then I also mentioned before, it's a really cool way to interact and I actually love that. My customers have started to interact with each other on these live sales and they'll kind of cheer each other on in the comments, like I'm so glad you got that one.
Chelsea Leigh:And it's funny, even on a piece where let's say I have five people that tried to claim it and I'll announce Corkie got piece number 13. And all the other people will be like yay, corky, I wanted that one so bad, but I'm so glad you got it. Amazing. Yeah, so it's been really awesome to see how I've been able to build a community and they start to interact with each other and not just interact with me. So I really love that part of it.
Corkie Bolton:Well, and I just want to you know I want to interject here for folks that you're following, as of this recording is around like 7,000 followers. I know from us previously chatting that you had some other followers that you deleted. I guess I'm bringing that up and not really explaining it. So it's very impressive to have this dollar amount of sales and it just goes to show the power of the true fan, because you just have these true fans that are willing to spend money with you and it doesn't matter that you don't have 200,000 followers.
Chelsea Leigh:You have committed fans and that's amazing 100%, and I think that is something that's super important to highlight for anybody listening is that your follower count on Instagram does not mean anything. It doesn't equate to sales. You, just like you said, you have to find those diehard, true fans who just love you and love what you do, and you'll be successful if you find enough of those people.
Corkie Bolton:Definitely, and you know your followers and supporters are so supportive of you. I wouldn't doubt that they're listening to this right now, so shout outs to them, yes.
Chelsea Leigh:Shout out to all my CLJ girls. I love it.
Corkie Bolton:Even having like the little like hashtag with it is awesome, and I'm a CBJ, so we're like pretty similar there. Very close, very close. Yes, you know, and I certainly don't want to end on any kind of negative note, but is there any downside to doing this or what have been some of the pain points in doing this that you've overcome, people?
Chelsea Leigh:trying to claim them. Sometimes there's a little bit of frustration or anger from people who aren't able to get a piece. Or maybe they said oh, I thought my comment came through first, but on my end it doesn't look like it came through first. We got someone else's comment first, so sometimes that can be problematic. I will say my customers are amazing and usually, like I said, they're kind of just cheering each other on. It's more just me. I feel bad. I wish I could give everybody everything they wanted.
Corkie Bolton:Yeah, I think that that's totally understandable, that people might get frustrated, but again, you're generating this excitement over scarcity in a way. But yes, also you have a lot of options for folks too.
Chelsea Leigh:So yeah, I will also say that it's a lot of work on the back end after the live sale is over when I have to go through all of those emails and match up who got what and then send out those invoices. I usually will stay up until like three or four in the morning after it's over sending out invoices because I want to just go ahead and get them done and out. So it's definitely a lot of work on that end of things, but it's obviously worth it.
Corkie Bolton:And you know, just to go along with that because your time is valuable, is there a like minimum price point for something that you're going to sell in the live?
Chelsea Leigh:No, I have sold things as low as $5. And I find that people use these live sales to kind of stock up. So, because they happen so infrequently, people kind of wait to shop until the live sale and they're buying multiple items through it. And I add those lower dollar items just as a way for you to kind of like add on to your order if you want. I have usually a minimum cutoff for shipping, so I'll do $5 shipping on all orders and then if you spend $100 or more I'll waive shipping. So that kind of incentivizes people to go ahead and get two or three items.
Corkie Bolton:That's great, and do you have any international shoppers?
Chelsea Leigh:On the live sales. Occasionally I'll have a few people from different countries, but I would say 95 percent of all of my shoppers are based in the United States great.
Corkie Bolton:So that makes it pretty easy to say, like here's your standard shipping rate, right, right, awesome Chelsea, you've inspired me. I'm not going to lie.
Chelsea Leigh:I definitely want to try this. Well, I've seen you doing your auction pieces and I feel like that is a really cool concept. I've not really seen many people doing something like that, so that could be something that you do on live as well. You could have people doing a live auction.
Corkie Bolton:Yes, yes, and for those listening at Corkie Bolton Jewelry on my Instagram I will occasionally put up a piece for auction where folks comment on the post, and it's a great way to like what Chelsea's doing. You're generating some excitement, You're generating engagement. It's so important in this day and age that our followers and us have this relationship, Because if people are just scrolling and maybe tapping the heart but they're not really engaging with you, your work's not going to show up as much for them. I could kind of go off on that. But the auction gives that engagement and generates that excitement and sometimes, like with your you know lives, it's like people almost got the piece, but then they didn't. So then the next time there's an auction they're even more excited. They want to get one that next time. So yeah, I mean maybe I'll bring an auction to the live.
Chelsea Leigh:Yeah, that'd be fun. You should try it, chelsea.
Corkie Bolton:thank, you so much. You can find Chelsea on Instagram at Chelsea Leigh Jewelry. You can also find her work at ChelseaLeighJewelry. com. I want you to go ahead and follow her and make sure you check in on her next live, and she also has her own podcast called Beautifully Consumed. Do you want to tell?
Chelsea Leigh:us a little bit about that. Yeah, it's just kind of a side project. I started for fun and it's not necessarily related to business or jewelry. It's more just like mindset, motivation and kind of how we can all become the best versions of ourselves that we can be. So if you need a little feel good or a pick me up, that's what it's good for.
Corkie Bolton:Amazing. So that's the Beautifully Consumed podcast. You can find it on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So thank you. Like truly, what an inspiration you are. This is awesome. It's so generous of you to be willing to share this concept because clearly it's worked so well with you, and I think that truly is the spirit of folks in our community at Metals mith Society is being willing to help other jewelers and knowing that it doesn't take any money out of your pocket, and that's just so cool to me. So thank you.
Chelsea Leigh:Yeah Well, thank you. I actually have convinced a lot of my other small business friends, not just in the jewelry space, to start doing this, and they have started doing it and have seen success from it. So it feels cool that an idea I had is able to like help other people.
Corkie Bolton:So yes, that's amazing. Thank you, I'll definitely be stealing it at some point.
Chelsea Leigh:Yeah, you should let me know when you decide to. I'll definitely be stealing it at some point. Yeah, you should Let me know when you decide to I will.
Corkie Bolton:Thanks again, Chelsea, and I look forward to putting this out there into the world.
Chelsea Leigh:Yeah, thank you for having me Corkie.
Corkie Bolton:Thanks for tuning in to today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Remember, you can always show your support for my podcast in a few simple ways. First, please subscribe to my channel so you never miss an episode. Your subscription helps me grow and reach more listeners like you. Second, if you could, please leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback not only boosts my visibility, but also helps me improve and tailor my content to better suit your interests. So I'd love if, in the review, maybe you could tell me about what your favorite episode's been so far. And lastly, consider sharing the podcast with your jewelry making friends. Word of mouth is a powerful tool and your recommendation means the world to me. Thanks again for being a part of my podcast community. Your support keeps me going Until next time. Bye.
