Melissa Designer Jewelry Inc.

Dec 26

In their own words

“This is such a fun place. The gals that work for me are my gems, and we just have a ball, and the clients love it. It’s part therapy—there’s some crying that happens in the store, there’s love. It’s an exuberant and free place to be, and I think the clients love that interaction.”

-Melissa

Jason’s Interview with Melissa

Jason

We're back on Meet the Jewelers, and today we're talking to Melissa. How did you get into the jewelry industry?

Melissa

It started in high school. I had a fabulous art teacher who was new to the school and came out of a great metals department at a university. He introduced that to the art class, and I was hooked from day one. She was a great mentor and really encouraged me in different art courses, but especially in jewelry. When I went on to college, all I knew was I wanted to be an art major and ended up in the metal studio every semester. That's how I got my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a metal emphasis.

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Jason
What was your journey post-college?

Melissa
In college, when I was a junior, I was recruited by a custom jewelry store to start designing for them. I did that and finished up my degree, ended up spending ten years with them. At that point, I had an opportunity to move out of state and start my own business. So I did. That was a little over twenty years ago.

Jason
What would you tell your younger self knowing what you know now?

Melissa
So many things. Take those business courses! Those ones that my father said, "Take the business courses." And I said "No." Of course, now you could reflect back and say, "Yeah, that was probably not such a smart idea." but I've made it nonetheless.

Jason
Can you tell us about the brand history of your retail store?

Melissa
When I first started out on my own, I'd actually moved out of Wisconsin to the mountains of North Carolina and had a little retail store within a space that had different artists’ booths. That was very successful, and I started doing art shows around the country. Flash forward a few years, I had met my future husband and made a move out of the mountains to the triangle area of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. At that point, I also delved into wholesale. I did some American Craft Council shows and was accepted into their mentor program, which was a fabulous opportunity. That was focusing on production work and selling multiples of a single design to different galleries around the country. I did that for a couple years, and it was boring to me. The creativity was lacking. I turned that around and decided to not seek out wholesale work and just strictly focus on retail and one-of-a-kind work. Still doing art shows. I had a very small studio in a small town in North Carolina. I would put some jewelry on one of the showcases and put a sign on the street that said I was open today. It started taking off, and I started taking a lot of custom work on repair and art shows around the country. I was doing twenty-five shows per year, so I was literally on the road half the year. At that point, I was tired of traveling. I decided to make a change and open a retail store and try to get off the road doing art shows. I had a five-year goal of having the retail store open. I met my goal financially to get off the road as far as doing shows and strictly work the retail store within three years. That was about fifteen years ago.

Jason
Was that one of the hardest things you've done?

Melissa
Yeah, it really was because it was part of me. There were more things happening at the store, more people looking for my services than there was on the road. It just made sense to stop traveling for many reasons, financially and personally. The store has been a success. I now have five employees: one goldsmith, the others are salespeople, and then myself as a goldsmith. We have more work than we know what to do with, all custom work.

Jason
What was the turning moment?

Melissa
I felt like I was going to have a nervous breakdown, is what it came down to. I love to work; I love what I do. I couldn't imagine doing anything else; it makes me completely happy. But there was a time about four years ago, a real critical moment. Things were just pretty much out of control with the amount of work that was coming in. At that point, it was just me. I would sit down and chuckle, laugh, and then almost cry because the reality would sit in. I would just look at these deadlines and the amount of projects coming in; there was no way that one person could fulfill this. So I reached out to a friend; she helped me for a short amount of time when I was doing the production work. At the time, I could not afford to hire her. But I had to do something, or I was going to lose it. I called her up in California, and I said, "You know, I'm at a point you know in my career in this business that I actually can hire you full-time if you'd ever consider coming back." And I said, "I don't want an answer right now. I'm going to call you in a week, you know, because I'm throwing this out in the world, in the universe." I called her a week later, and she said, "I haven't been able to think of anything but this." And so she moved here. That's been the beginning of a wonderful change in my life. To have someone who's so creative and on top of things to share this with and to take some of the burden. Since then, we've been able to add three salespeople to get us back at the bench and try not to be on the floor as much as we were.

Jason
What's the experience like as a customer when they come into your shop?

Melissa
This is such a fun place. Even clients say, "You guys all have so much fun. You're always laughing." And we are. This is just the best experience, and I call my girls “gems.” We are really good at being able to focus on one thing, drop it for another thing, and come back to it. That's really what this business is about, being able to process the different things that are happening at any time during the day. We just have a ball, and the clients love it. It's part therapy; there’s some crying that happens in the store, there's love, there's sharing. It's a really fun, exuberant, and free place to be.

Jason
Tell us, who's your ideal customer?

Melissa
Someone who is open to ideas, who is themselves, because we really try to design for someone, get to know them inside, and design something that speaks to them. It's a very personal interaction that we work with. We take a lot of different notes, ask them a lot of questions, and try to become part of their life. We're not really after just making one sale to them. We're after a lifelong friendship here. Most recently, something really wonderful happened. We designed some wedding bands for a couple of women who were getting married. They were actually together for thirty-nine years and decided to get married. We became so close and had so much fun figuring out their personalities and designing something specifically for them. They even invited me to the wedding to be one of the witnesses. That just warms my heart so much. I ended up doing a drawing with a Sharpie. It was about her life; it was a surprise. She had no idea what I was going to do for her ring, her partner did and gave me full permission, but the other gal was not able to see her ring until the wedding. So I made a drawing that was completely her lifestyle and had that engraved on the inside of the ring as a surprise to her. As a wedding present, I had the drawing professionally framed for them. It's just one of the few stories; it humbles you and reaffirms what I'm doing is the right thing.

Jason
Why should people trust you?

Melissa
I think it's our personalities. We're very low-key here. We make jokes, we laugh, but we know it's important. I can make my own rules now. It's a wonderful thing. People really want the truth.

Jason
You have an opportunity to share anything you want to Meet the Jewelers audience.

Melissa
Come see the passion that we put into our jewelry. Come see what real jewelry is about, what handmade is about; our benches are right there for you to look at. We're here to meet you. We're here to talk to you. We're here to solve any issues that you might have or questions that you might have. We carry a very unique product, and we hand make it right here.