Interview With Tracy Matthews, Author of "The Desired Brand Effect"

Laryssa Wirstiuk 0:00
Hi, I’m your host Laryssa Wirstiuk. Through this podcast I aim to empower and inspire jewelry entrepreneurs and innovators, so they can thrive by doing what they love. I’m passionate about digital marketing for jewelry brands, and I’m excited to share my passion with you.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 0:17
This is episode 149, and today I’ll be sharing my second interview with Tracy Matthews who previously joined me on episode 77 of this podcast. It feels like yesterday that I just talked to her. I can’t believe so much time has passed. Not only does Tracy run a successful jewelry brand, but she’s also the chief visionary officer of Flourish and Thrive Academy, which helps other jewelry business owners launch grow and scale profitable businesses. She’s the host of the top rated Thrive by Design Podcast, and now Tracy is also a published author. Her book, the Desired Brand Effect: Stand Out in a Saturated Market With a Timeless Jewelry Brand, will officially be available to purchase on November 9, just a few days after this episode goes live. I’m holding up a copy of it. If you watch this podcast on YouTube, you can see it. And also a side note reminder that there is a video component of this podcast. If you don’t know about it, search for Joy Joya on YouTube, and please subscribe to watch the videos.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 1:31
So I had the amazing opportunity to get an early press copy of the book. And I just finished reading it last week, I have to say I’m super impressed with this book. As a writer and author myself, I know how seriously difficult it is to write and publish a book. It is no joke. The Desired Brand Effect took Tracy about two years to write and took an amazing amount of effort from both her team and community to get the book in print. I’m super excited for Tracy and hope you’ll also get a copy of her book, which jewelry designer Jennifer Dawes says quote is “like a master’s program for your jewelry business”. But before we get to the interview with Tracy, I want to share some marketing-related news and insights from the past week that caught my attention.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 2:23
I feel like I’m always talking about Instagram on this podcast, but they’ve just been releasing so many new features. And I honestly really like a lot of them. So I feel encouraged to talk about them. So yes, finally, Instagram announced that it will allow users all users to finally share links on Instagram stories. I mean, come on, how ridiculous is it that this feature has not been available all along? When Instagram first introduced Stories links a few years ago, the feature was limited to only verified accounts or those with a certain number of followers. Dumb. They’re hoping to create more equity on the platform and allow everyone to express themselves with links. Better late than never, I guess, right? So if you want to start adding links to your Stories, first, you want to add the content to your story. Whether you’re uploading it, or you’re creating it right in the app, you want to select the sticker tool from the top navigation. You want to tap the link sticker add your link, tap Done, and then place the sticker on your Story the same way you would a GIF or poll or question.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 3:40
Next, this is a pretty interesting blog post I guess that was published on microsoft.com. So Microsoft Advertising recently surveyed more than 1000 people in the US who have browsed, researched, or shopped for items online in one or more luxury categories. And one of those categories was watches and jewelry. So they found out the following things from these surveys. So, one, the purchase of luxury goods online is growing, with 53% of respondents saying they will buy more online in 2021 then in 2020. Secondly, these shoppers like the variety, and they feel comfortable purchasing high-priced items sight unseen. Yes, it’s true. However, they are doing a ton of researching online before purchasing. So Microsoft Advertising says as a jewelry brand not only is showing up in search engine results key but so is having a seamless website and purchasing experience because these customers want convenience and ease so quick and easy checkout matters to them. How can you appeal to these luxury consumers who are doing a ton of research before they end up buying something? Online education. You can do that through your social media posts, through your email marketing, through blog posts or ebooks, or downloads on your website. They are looking for the information, you need to provide it to them and make them feel like they’re making a super-informed and value-driven purchase. So some other things at this survey found one: 71% of the shoppers are under the age of 45 two: they’re 48% more likely to value sustainability. Three, over half earn more than $85,000 annually. They are 60% more likely to be brand loyalists. And finally, 45% expect transparency about the use of their data. So some really interesting stats and a lot of great data and information to inform luxury jewelry brands, and how they cater to those online shoppers.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 6:04
And then finally, I’m a broken record, Instagram released another new feature. This is super awesome for brands that are either looking to get into influencer partnerships, they’re starting to research these partnerships, or maybe they are already working with influencers. So Instagram has been experimenting with new ways to facilitate these brand influencer partnerships. First, one thing that they’re debuting is a new folder within Instagram, DMs that’s exclusively for these partnership messages so that they’ll kind of get filtered, they won’t get lost, they’ll become a priority for brands. Second, brands will be able to use data and unique filters to discover and select the best creators or influencers for their campaigns. It’s not super clear what those filters will be. But I like that brands will be able to manage the whole influencer collaboration right within the Instagram app so they don’t have to use any sort of outside tools. All the management can be done in one place. Even the search, discovery, and initial communication process can be done right there. I’m really excited to see how brands start taking advantage of these features. And or if they will make influencer partnerships not only easier to manage, but more transparent and trustworthy.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 7:36
If you want to get the links to the articles I share in this segment of the podcast, you can sign up for my email newsletter by visiting joyjoya.com/signup, and you’ll get a digest with the links whenever a new episode drops. Alright, let’s jump right into my interview with Tracy and learn more about her book The Desired Brand Effect.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 7:57
Hey, Tracy, thanks so much for coming back on the podcast as a second time guest. I’m very excited to have you today.

Tracy Matthews 8:04
Laryssa, I’m so excited to be here for a second time. We met during the pandemic. So it’s fun to get to see your journey and to connect again. So thanks for having me.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 8:14
Yeah. And it’s also exciting that you are now coming to us with like amazing, awesome news. And I’ll have you tell the listeners what that’s about. But that makes it even more festive.

Tracy Matthews 8:26
Yeah, well, I’m really excited because my brand new book, The Desire Brand Effect: Stand Out in a Saturated Market With a Timeless Jewelry Brand, is now available to purchase on Amazon. I’m super pumped about it.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 8:38
Yay, congratulations. It’s such a big accomplishment. It’s no small feat.

Tracy Matthews 8:43
So much work. Oh my gosh, and you’ve written a book. So you understand this 100% You seem to like whip yours up like really quickly. This took me two years to get together almost three years, honestly.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 8:56
So tell tell the listeners what inspired you to write this and go on this journey, which is clearly not an easy one.

Tracy Matthews 9:03
Oh my gosh, okay, so when I was married, when I was younger, my ex husband was the writer. I was like, he’s gonna write all these books. And that’s great. I’m totally gonna be like, supportive of him and whatever. I never saw myself as an author. Fast forward many, many years later, I started Flourish and Thrive Academy and started mentoring jewelry designers. After I had my own jewelry business for many, many years, so many things happen. And then I was like, people were like, “You need to write a book, you need to write a book.” I’m like, “Nah, I don’t want to write a book.” We have these programs and courses, all the things. And so as my journey continued, and as we started refining our messaging and how we taught people over at Flourish and Thrive Academy, I put a name to the methodology that we were teaching. I think the biggest stumbling block that I was having is like what do I call a book? Like there’s so many things that you could do, right? And so I created this name for this methodology. I’ve been teaching for years and called it The Desired Brand Effect. And I have to thank an ex boyfriend for helping me with this. He was in advertising. And he’s like jewelry is something to be desired. Desire needs to be through all of your messaging and marketing. And so that was sort of the impetus like the see, I’m like, okay, let me tie it all together.

Tracy Matthews 10:18
And about two about three years ago, you know, I have a couple of good friends who are in parallel spaces, but different niches, who had written a book, and I got to watch them kind of like rise to the top just seems like so much work, I’m like, it’s hard for me to sit down and like, do all the things and write right, like, for a long period of time, because it’s a lot of work, and you’re in your head a lot. And so, we started organizing this book, and I was gonna launch it in November 2019. Because I’m a 10 on Quickstart says, like, we could pull it together in a couple of months, like six months and get it to market. Well, that didn’t happen. And I put the whole project on pause, and then 2020 happened, the pandemic started, and I’m like, “Oh, geez, like, I can’t do this. Now, it just seems like, right now, I need to be showing up for my community.” So we put things on the back burner for a minute. And then I revisited it earlier this year and enlisted an editor to kind of help me shape and organize the content so that we can move it move a little bit faster. I like having support like that, because it’s like my words, but like, they can tell you like this is too much, or whatever. And I pushed back the date like three more times. And now I’m like back to where I was two years ago, launching it in November. And that was sort of the impetus. But really, it was more about taking the methodology that I’ve created over the years and making a condensed version of that so that people could understand why creating desire, sharing desire, and scaling desire, like all these core components of the Desired Brand Effect are necessary for jewelry businesses, and other product-based businesses at every stage, because you’re never, you’re always viewing. And we’ll get into this more, hopefully, throughout this podcast, but you’re always everything that you do in business can be viewed through the lens of this methodology and this framework.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 12:15
I think it’s so smart that you wrote this book, well, I’ve never done your courses or programs. But after reading the book, it felt like it was like you said all in one place. Like I could kind of get the gist of it like a culmination of all these thoughts. So it made so much sense to me that you did that.

Tracy Matthews 12:32
Thank you. Yeah. And it, you know, it’s fun. And you know, I always say like, this is like the condensed version of every version of every sport more to offer, you know, if you want to explore a little bit deeper too.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 12:46
So what do you think readers will get from this book? Or what do you hope that they will get from this book?

Tracy Matthews 12:53
So it depends on where you are in business. Because if you’re just starting out in business, I think this book is going to be a really powerful tool to help you understand like the essentials of what it takes to actually launch a jewelry company and, and get to a place where you’re doing your first, your first year of like, let’s say six figure sales, like that’s kind of the marker we have.

Tracy Matthews 13:15
So if you already have a successful kind of six figure lifestyle business, and you’re someone who wants to stop being overwhelmed all the time, and prevent burnout, and kind of stop being the doer of all things so that you can lean in more into the creative parts of your business, probably the reason why you started your business, then this book is going to help you identify like maybe some of the roadblocks that might be standing in your way. And some of the things that you need to optimize and delegate and get off your plate so that you can either work less and continue, like work less or more in your zone of genius for your lifestyle, business, or eventually scale to like multiple, six figures.

Tracy Matthews 13:53
Now, if you’re an established business, and you’re doing well, and let’s say you have your like mid six figures, or kind of approaching those seven figures, it’s gonna help you optimize what you’re doing inside your business, so that you can really streamline and I hate to use the word streamlined, but that’s really what it’s all about, like, creating more efficiency in what you’re doing. Because as your business gets bigger, and it’s really easy to create bloat. And if you’re not like really optimizing what you’re doing inside your business, with the support that you have, with the team that you have, with the systems that you have, and how you’re setting goals and business planning and all that stuff, then your business can start to like, be this like, I like to call it like a runaway train or something like that, where it can become hard to control and so we’re always looking through this lens, regardless of where you are in business, to help improve your reach, improve, how you’re getting in front of your perfect customers, how you’re converting those people into paying clients and for people who are buying from you again, and how you’re optimizing the systems and structures in your business so that you can create things that are repeatable, that doesn’t require you or someone on your team to be doing all the manual labor. When it comes to that.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 15:12
Yes, I found even though I personally do not have a jewelry business, reading the sections about systems and processes were such a good reminder to me that, you know, I can’t always have a hand in every part of my business, even though sometimes I want to. So like just good business reminders and principles in general, regardless of industry, I felt like.

Tracy Matthews 15:39
And I think something that’s really important to remember is like, what got you to where you are now a business is not what’s going to take you to your next level, whatever that looks like. And I’m always revisiting through this. In fact, we are in a process where we are optimizing everything that we’re doing from an HR and team management standpoint. And what I will tell you is, I thought we had some pretty good things in place. But as I’ve grown, you know, I kept encountering some of the same issues with, you know, maybe holding people accountable on my team for doing their job, or like having because I’m a nice person, like, I hate doing the bad parts, like the parts of the business where you have to, like, you know, have reviews and discipline people or do corrective actions and all those things. So, like, this is something that I’ve come back to, even though I created the methodology to improve what we’re doing in business, even as like with a multi seven figure business and running multiple companies. It’s powerful. And it’s something that like, anytime you’re struggling with something in your business, you can look to this model to solve those problems, and to improve upon what you’re doing.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 16:48
Well, to your point, another thing I love so much about your book is you’re speaking from personal experience, like you’ve been through it all. So you know, you’re not just preaching, you actually like practice this stuff. And you’ve had to learn from mistakes and overcome challenges to get to this point. And I really appreciated that.

Tracy Matthews 17:08
Yeah, I feel like we all learn by doing. And so the more that we can practice what we preach, it’s important. I also think that I sort of feel like I was put on this earth to like, have a bunch of like, failures and mistakes. So use that as like a sounding board and balance off of to teach people lessons. I don’t know, sounds so silly, but at the same time, it’s kind of the truth.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 17:35
You’re making a positive out of it.

Tracy Matthews 17:39
There’s a lot of good, you know, positive aspects. I’m not like, like failing forward every five seconds, but at the same time, like there, I have had some pretty massive failures. And in the 25 years, I’ve been an entrepreneur, so.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 17:52
So in your book, you, you mentioned so many other books and authors that I love you talk a lot about the E Myth. Start with Why by Simon Sinek, you mentioned Gary Vaynerchuk. I love all these examples. So in what ways have these books and thought leaders impacted your own journey as an entrepreneur? Why did you choose these examples specifically?

Tracy Matthews 18:13
I’ll break them all down separately, because I think that each of them has different impact in a different way. So the E Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber, like literally mind blown after I read that book, I think I read it in 2005, or 2006. And it had been around for a really long time. At that point I’m like, why hasn’t anyone told me about this book, I realized all the things I was doing wrong. I was like, Oh, my gosh, I just created even though I’d been in business, I think for maybe eight years, by that point seven or eight years. I’m like, I created a job for myself. And this is no wonder why I feel like this is torture. This is not fun. Like, I am not an entrepreneur. I mean, I was an entrepreneur. And actually, I was an entrepreneur, but I was not acting like an entrepreneur. And I was so mad when the person who recommended it to me was an accountant who I worked with for a brief period of time. And he’s like, I think you really need to read this book, because what you’re doing here is not going to be sustainable for very long.

Tracy Matthews 19:11
And so I read the book, and I was like, oh, because like, the whole premise of the E myth is that a lot of people create jobs, like they basically start a business because they’re good at a skill. He calls them technicians. And they eventually they think they’re starting a business, they hire people. And at a certain point, their profits stopped growing or their sales stopped growing, and they end up having to like, move backwards a little bit and then firing all the people in their back into the first place that doing all the things again, because they haven’t set their business up the right way. And so the biggest takeaway that I got from this is the more that you can document your way of doing things, the more that you can create structure, the more that you can optimize and systematize the things in your business that you no longer want to do anymore, the more powerful you’re going to be as an entrepreneur, the more you’re going to be able to get off your plate, the more you’ll be able to prevent overwhelm for yourself. And the more you’ll be able, the easier it will be to train people to do the parts of your business that you don’t want. So whether that’s hiring a team, or hiring an outsourced marketing person, or hiring someone like Laryssa to do your marketing for you, or whatever it might be, or even hiring, like a shipping person help you ship or hiring a CEO or an operations manager, whatever it is, we’re depending on where you are in business, the easier will be for them to succeed in that role. And for you to succeed as a team working together.

Tracy Matthews 20:44
And a lot of people that we work with in the beginning stages are like, well, I don’t really want to have a big team or hire people. But I will tell you that at certain points, if you want to stop doing the parts of your business that you don’t like, that might be one of the options that you have to consider. And if you do it the right way, it actually will free you up to do be do more of the creative parts of your business that you love. So that’s yeah, and Start With Why I think the message the that book was really powerful for me, because I learned about Simon Sinek at an event that I was at with Marie Forleo. This is probably about 12 years ago. And I was just blown away by the Golden Circle and the whole methodology about why great companies start with why. And it’s become part of the teaching of our programs, because I think there are so many reasons why people start jewelry companies and a lot of times people have a hard time expressing their their brand story and stuff like that. And if you can start with why it becomes a lot easier to communicate who you are as a brand, to create a personality and a brand voice and to do all the things that make you stand out in a saturated market, because you’re creating these points of distinction from you and everyone else.

Tracy Matthews 22:01
And then from a content perspective, which I know you appreciate, as a marketer, Gary Vaynerchuk’s book really showed me how and helped me I use this as a framework, not a framework, but as a reference tool that I recommend to our audience, too, is that when you’re marketing, you can’t always be selling, even if you’re always selling like you need to be creating content that’s not only native to the platforms that you’re creating the content for, but also creating content that is building what I like to call the know, like, trust factor. Because once you do that, that’s the thing that gets people to actually buy from you in the long term, and create a connection with your brand. And it’s one of the core aspects of people have you becoming like the only choice in the eyes of your perfect dream clients?

Laryssa Wirstiuk 22:49
Love all of that. They’re essential reading, like put them all on your list. Another thing I really liked about your book, were all the points that you made about mindset and the role of mindset, which some people might dismiss as woowoo, or something like that. But it is essential. I agree with you. I think that that’s very important. Can you talk about can you summarize that for the listeners and maybe say some common like roadblocks that people create for themselves?

Tracy Matthews 23:22
Well, the reason why I find my think mindset is so powerful. This goes back to one of my personal stories. And I mentioned this on the first podcast we did together I believe. But my first business was taken out in 2008 completely wiped out and I had to make a choice. Do I want to keep this going and try to like restructure it and fight for the business, or am I done? Or do I want to move into a new direction. And I chose to close the company and start a different kind of jewelry company that was a little bit more of a lifestyle business because I was at a place in my life where I wanted, I didn’t want to work as hard. And I was working really hard and around the clock and stuff like that.

Tracy Matthews 23:59
In that process, though, you know, after going from like the height of what felt like the height of my career, being in 350 stores and having a ton of celebrity fans to going to be like putting my tail between my legs and being like I’m closing my business and like filing for bankruptcy was like horrifying for me. I felt like a total loser. And I went through this really dark phase which a lot of people do, or have done before. And like the negative self talk that I had, try not to get emotional, was so debilitating that I just didn’t feel like I deserved success. And so I went on this exploration of doing a lot ton of mindset work to get my head in the right place so that I could actually build a new company.

Tracy Matthews 24:44
And so I started working with my friend who really wanted to get into coaching. She’s like, she had a whole slew of like her own issues and problems and she’s like, you help me with the business side because that’s what I need to do. Just like I have zero problems making money. So I’m going to help you with that the money mindset side. So I was like, okay, cool trade, I’ll teach you how to be an entrepreneur. She was working for in advertising at the time. And she’s like, and she basically taught me how to change my mind about the way I thought about myself. And so she started having me do like visualizations, and like, she was doing some hypnotherapy with me. And then she was also having me do these this affirmation practice where I created an affirmation about myself that literally restated the outcomes I was trying to create in my life over and over and over again, 25 times a day in the morning and 25 times in the evening. And really quickly, things started. And I was working with another coach at the time too who was also super into mindset and showing up as like putting, basically putting on your big girl pants, and like going out there and going for what you want.

Tracy Matthews 25:51
And so, Erika Lyremark got me to this place where she’s like, where she’s like, on a coaching call with her, like, what is it? Who do you want to sell to, and I was like, I want to sell to rich people. And I’m like, obviously, you can’t use that in your marketing. But it was like a really powerful frame, because it got me seeing like, I’m no longer going to work with people who are price resistant, I was designing custom jewelry at the time. And I was living in a city with people with tons of money, but I seem to attract all these people with zero money. And so when I kind of use these mindset frameworks in tandem, things shifted really quickly for me. My business grew really fast. I had some of my most profitable months in take home pay ever like, I remember that first month when I took home $30,000 in profit for myself, that first time I was like, Wait, what just happened here, because that seemed like, I had a business that was like a seven figure company where I was selling all over the world. And sometimes I couldn’t even take a paycheck. Because we were like, the operation was like eating up all the money. I was like, This is amazing, I can do anything now. And it was really powerful.

Tracy Matthews 27:00
So then, you know, I’m fast forwarding a little bit, when I started mentoring people, and people were reaching out for consulting. I started seeing like, you know, this, but your belief system about yourself, can be a powerful operating system, and it’s running in the background. And sometimes we don’t realize that it’s not serving us if it’s not aligned with what matters to us. And there’s so many different ways to approach this. But like the most basic way is like an exercise that we’ve done in our community for a long time. It’s just like, write out all your limiting beliefs, even if you don’t think that they’re a limiting belief and create the opposite belief for yourself. And so that starts just like, if you believe that it’s hard to make money as an artist or a jewelry maker, then what’s the opposite of that? People will pay me handsomely for what I do, because they love my creativity, and they’re more than happy to pay my prices. Or if you have a belief that real art that artists can’t make money. You can reframe that belief into real artists thrive and make money. Even Jeff Goins even wrote a book about this, I think I referenced him in there. It’s like “Real Artists Don’t Starve”. And so all these things are really powerful.

Tracy Matthews 28:13
But I think one of the most powerful exercises that I’ve come across is something that we call The Rapid Reframe, in our community, and it’s really aligning these stories that we tell ourselves, because whether we believe it, or whether we realize it or not, you may believe it or not too, our conditioning, how we grew up confirmation bias on like, the things that we were taught from a very young age are the things that shape us as adults. And so if our parents told us that money doesn’t grow on trees, or they told us to get a real job and not be an entrepreneur, and they weren’t supportive of those things, all those things run in the background. So you need to do the work to turn those stories around and replace it with a new story that is actually moving you in the direction that you want. So the easiest exercise is just to like flip that belief and create a new affirmation, but it goes into such deeper work.

Tracy Matthews 29:10
And you will see at the core like all of the CEOs of these, like Fortune 500 companies and all these, and entrepreneurs and business coaches that you see out there, you’ll always hear them talking about mindset, because it’s like the people who can get their head in the right place. And get coached on that. Their life will be changed forever. And they will be the ones who are doing the big things in the world. And they’re going to be the ones who are the high performers. And so it’s a constant thing you have to work on. And I think it’s really important to be operating your business from a place of success mindset and identifying when the negative beliefs come in and have a tool that can just like quickly turn them around. And so I will tell you, it never ends. Like there are days I wake up and I’m like, I’m such a loser, like, what am I doing? I and like I start comparing myself to other people. And then I have to go into the mindset work, change it and say like, you know, you’re doing an awesome job. Look at how many people you’ve impacted. You know, this is just one stepping stone on your journey, that there’s more to come like, this is not the end, right? So there’s so much to it, it’s like, hard to encapsulate it in just a few minutes.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 30:24
Yeah, that’s so inspiring and powerful. And I agree that it is like a constant active practice. I have the habit, when I’m just like, super busy with work, my meditation or affirmation practice, like goes out the window. And that’s usually like when I need it the most actually, though, I try to be on top of that. And I have to like, same as you constantly, like, tell myself positive things, because I start to get in this headspace. like, “Wait, where did that come from? Where did why did I start feeling bad about myself?” So it’s like, you have to be on top of it all the time.

Tracy Matthews 30:59
Always. And there’s one other thing that I just want to add to this, because it’s not just about affirmations. And like positive mindset, it’s about taking action, like you say, once something you have to put in the work. It’s not like just manifesting out of thin air. Like, it starts with the mindset, but the actions are the thing that actually make what you desire happen.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 31:20
Absolutely. That’s a good, good addition to what you said. So another thing that I like about the book is all the specific, I don’t want to say case studies, they’re like stories from designers that you’ve worked with. And I think that that makes the content so much more relatable and accessible. I’d love to know like what was the process of gathering those stories like you, you probably have so many to choose from at this point.

Tracy Matthews 31:45
So many. Well, most of the case studies in the books are actual students of ours, not all of them. I think I profiled Jacquie Aiche and Katie Seller, who are both just people I admire, and I love their brands for different reasons. And so I featured them in the book. Because of that, but the I think the majority of the rest of the people that case studies in the book are actual students of mine. And, you know, I’m always like, nothing there. The reason why I started Flourish and Thrive Academy, the reason why I wrote this book is because, for me, there’s nothing more exciting than seeing other people succeed in business like, like, I’m stoked for my own success. But I wouldn’t do all this work and stuff if what I did didn’t work, if what I taught didn’t work, I guess. And so, over the years, like we’ve I’ve seen some of these designers that we mentor in the book, like Karina Harris of Waffles and Honey, she’s been in our community for seven or eight years. And I we have mentored her, because it started out with me and my former co founder Robin mentoring her when she just started her business and to see how far she’s come. Like. It’s amazing. And so people like Alex Camacho or Allison, who I featured all about pricing, you know, these people to be able to watch their journey, some of them have been in our community for a short period and some for a long time. And to hear stories about how they just did one thing, how it made such a huge impact is inspiring. And so as I was writing the book, I started thinking through like, okay, like, Where would be a good? What would be a good example here. And so I would go through our like reference of like case studies of people that we’ve written about or people that I’ve been celebrating in our community for a while, and I just ask them. I’m like, Hey, are you cool if I like write about you, because like, I got some great things to say, you know, it’s fine. And so it’s fun to feature those people because the the range of success is very, you know, some people have very small businesses, some people have, you know, are doing like, multiple, six or seven figures already. And it’s just fun to kind of watch them all thrive and grow. Or there’s brands like Jacquie Aiche who’s like, you know, multi million dollar empire, at least that’s my assumption.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 34:00
Well that’s one cool thing about having a niche business book is all the examples are probably people that who are reading your book they are familiar with, they’ve heard about, so they feel connected to it, like, oh, I can achieve that, as opposed to like some random general business book or like this corporation, blah, blah, blah. And you’re like, I can’t really relate to that.

Tracy Matthews 34:22
Yeah, some mass market corporation. Exactly. So it was really important for me to only feature small brands. I mean, I think a few places we mentioned something mentioned some big brands, but it’s really about pricing case studies about how perception and perceived value really plays into pricing strategy for your jewelry. So I love that part.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 34:44
Yeah. So another thing that you talk about is the importance of having a support system and mentorship. You’ve touched a little bit about on that while we’ve been talking today, but I want to know who and what supports you in your business and what is the personal experience that that means so much to you and that you believe in the value of it?

Tracy Matthews 35:04
So my first business Tracy Matthews Designs launched it in 1998. There what like the industry was so tight lipped that I had like friends who are jewelers who would not share their suppliers with me. I’m like, and the Internet wasn’t really a thing back then, like you could find stuff. But it was hard. You had to go to shows or like, you had to hunt like, it was not easy. So over the years, I had opportunities. I’m like, Yeah, I could probably use some help. I don’t really know what to do here. And then I would go and like, try to find a consultant. And then I was like, Oh, it cost so much money. I know something I can afford it. And that was always my, my message to myself. I can’t afford it.

Tracy Matthews 35:41
Until like 2008 happened. And it was like, right before that. It was like, I’d moved to New York. And I had hired a couple of professionals who were saying, like, you need to kind of fix some of these things in your business, because you’re leaking money. Like that was like the big thing. I was like a big spender throwing money at problems instead of optimizing things, and realizing what needed to happen. And it wasn’t until, like my business was like, on the way like doing a huge business backslide for like downhill, not in a good direction at all. That I was like, Okay, I need someone to help me and I hired my first business consultant, it was more money than I ever thought I could afford. It was more a bigger investment than I felt comfortable with. At that time. In 2007, or 2008, whenever I brought this person on, it was about $1,500 a month, I know if I hired the same consulting company, my consultant was a guy named Phil Clements. And I know if I were to hire him now probably be like five times as expensive. He’s not alive anymore. But I know his consulting company has lived on. And it was really hard for me to come to the place to actually like, do it. I honestly was so mind blown.

Tracy Matthews 36:59
After the first month that I was like, Why didn’t I do this? Like five years ago? This was like, that was the one regret I have, like in business like more than anything like, Why didn’t I do this sooner, like, oh, my gosh, someone can look inside my business and tell me what to do. And I kept saying, like, I wish there was someone who could just tell me what to do. And it kept showing up, but I wasn’t willing to have someone like, have someone told me what to do. So through that process of working with him, and he helped, he really helped me during the wind down process of my business, because he got me really clear. Like Tracy, you have a choice here. It’s not just one thing. Like, there’s like probably five options you could come out of this scenario with. And he helped me get clear on that.

Tracy Matthews 37:42
Yeah, actually, like sat me down one day. And he’s like, what is it that you actually love? Like, I really want to hear from you. I couldn’t even answer the question. He kept asking it meeting after meeting. And he’s like, next meeting, I want you to really think about this when you come back and have an answer. And I was like, I love designing jewelry. I love talking to the clients, I love the creative process. I love sales. Like I love certain parts of the business that were more on the sales and marketing side, I love strategy. What I was spending most of my time on was managing people and fix putting out fires and all these other things. And that was because I didn’t set my business up in a way that was like, going to be self managing, like I was setting my team up for failure because I didn’t empower them to self manage themselves, and also have like a checklist or a scorecard or something that hard or something that harder to understand, like, Oh, these are the expectations you have of me, here’s how I know I’m doing a good job. And it was pulling me into a place that I hated. And it made me resent my company. It made me lose the desire to fight for it. And so many other things.

Tracy Matthews 38:54
And I hadn’t realized how detrimental that was, until it was almost too late. I like gave up the fight. And so that was my first foray with mentorship, because I really think of him even though he’s paying him I think of him as a mentor. And I think people can find mentors who will mentor them for free. I think that that’s definitely a possibility. It’s a little bit harder unless someone who really like has a personal relationship with you and like loves you so much that they want to spend that time. And so I think when I think of mentorship, there’s a lot of different ways that you can get support. Obviously support can come from hiring a team and knowing how to lead them in a way that doesn’t suck you in to the things that I just mentioned, like of putting out fires all the time. It can also look like joining a supportive community, hiring a business coach, hiring an executive coach, because they’re I think they’re they’re kind of they’re slightly different but the same, taking courses and programs. Being in a mastermind group. And so over the years I’ve done all those things.

Tracy Matthews 39:56
I love learning so I’m always buying courses, I’m always buying books, I prefer to listen to things. So like, if things come in audiobook, like that’s a total plus, or if I can buy the program, I am consistently in mastermind groups or business groups where I can learn from people who are way more experienced than I am, and who could do like crazy things, who have done like incredible things. And I’m in a group right now, where the people who are mentoring me have $100 million businesses, and my business is so small compared to that. But the value that I get from that is like, amazing. And so what I always recommend people to do is whether it’s like, you know, following Laryssa and getting coached by her or like being in a community like Flourish and Thrive Academy or finding someone else outside of this world, in general, is find someone that you vibe with that, that has already done, what you’re trying to do or is help other people do that.

Tracy Matthews 40:56
I don’t necessarily always think that the person has to like have had a big business before because a great example will be someone like Phil, he actually just consulted for companies, but he knew what to do, because he could see what the companies could not see. And he did, he was an entrepreneur at one point. But his main, I think his main career was like, helping people in turnaround situations. Or like my boyfriend, Jason, who’s an amazing business consultant, his talent is really coming in and fixing operational inefficiencies and coaching the visionary. And so there’s all different scenarios and types of people that you can work with. But more than anything, they have to have either done it for another company, or then someone who’s done it for themselves, because they’re, they’re the ones who are going to help you fast track into stepping in to what you’re meant to be in your business. And I don’t think as creatives, as jewelry makers, as product based businesses, we are meant to be always making. And I also don’t believe that we’re meant to be like always managing people and feeling tortured by our business, either. There’s a happy medium of finding that sweet spot of where we can be in our creative zone of genius by getting that right support, because we actually have outside eyes on our business that can see the things that we can’t see. It’s so important.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 42:21
Everyone needs that at every stage, you can’t see everything when you’re inside of it. Well, this has been such a great conversation, Tracy, I so appreciate your time, I would love for you to share any final thoughts about your book about what you want our listeners to know, tell us all the things going on, all the things.

Tracy Matthews 42:44
So well, first and foremost, The Desired Brand Effect was developed, I got my copy somewhere, oh, it’s over here, over here, was really developed as a tool to help you solve problems in your business. So whether you’re in the startup phase, it’s going to show you like how to get to that place where you’re in the zone of being like consistent with your sales and marketing processes. If you’re growing your business, as I mentioned, is going to help you kind of get out of those growth plateaus when you feel like you’ve hit that feeling of burnout and overwhelmed. And if you’re in more of a scale phase where you’re trying to grow like a seven or multiple seven figure company, it’s gonna really help you approach your business from a place of more profitability, more impact and like reaching more of the right people. And so it’s a framework that I’ve used to scale multiple businesses across different industries. So if you are someone outside of the jewelry industry listening to this podcast, it will help you. I’ve had a lot of service based business owners read this, and they’re like, this is totally helping my business, which is cool. So it’s, it’s designed to be a reference tool that you can go back to over and over again. And you know, as you’re growing a business, it’s like I liken it to different levels in school, like you might you start as a freshman learning like basic concepts, and then you layer on more advanced concepts as you grow and evolve through university and then maybe eventually you go to like, get a master’s program or whatever. So it’s really designed to be something that you can go back to over and over again. And so that’s, that’s the gist of what the book is about. So I hope that you’ll pick it up and you can grab it over at the desiredbrandeffect.com. There’s all the information right there. And I’m offering some amazing bonuses and exciting things for people who buy in the promotion period, which is super fun. And it goes live November 9th.

Laryssa Wirstiuk 44:45
So exciting. Yay. I wish you all the success with the book. I’m very excited for you. Congratulations again. And thank you so much for coming on the podcast a second time.

Tracy Matthews 44:55
Yeah. Thanks for having me, Laryssa.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai