Welcome to another edition of my Weekly Journal! I use this space to share a bit about jewelry, and a lot about my journey from lawyer to jewelry business owner. In this week's journal entry, I want to speak directly to those of you who want to start your own business or already have. In running my business, the number one thing I always keep in mind is service. Service is the name of the game! It's about THEM, not YOU. This sounds so incredibly simple, right? But so many people fail to operate their business from a place of service, and it's so incredibly hard to succeed in the long run that way. 

So what does service mean exactly? Service means to be "of help, use, or benefit" (Webster's Dictionary). Every message you deliver about your business' product or service will be much more powerful if you speak from a place of service. Focus on what your customer or client has to gain from your product or service, or what problem you can help them solve, or how your service or product can make their lives better. This sounds easy but it can be tricky in the age of social media. For example, I have noticed that some business owners use their Instagram Stories to post almost entirely about their personal lives. What they did over the weekend, their cat, the wine they enjoyed last night, etc. I think it's great to show little snippets of your personal life because it makes you human and relatable, and these days a lot of people are consciously trying to shop more and more with small business owners rather than big corporations like Amazon. But, I think personal life snippets should be a tiny fraction of what you communicate. Why? Most people have difficulty keeping up with the minor details of their friends' and family's lives, let alone a stranger's life. It's really easy to disengage from that! Why? Because it isn't serving them. It adds little to no value to their lives. 

There's another reason it's really important to speak from a place of service. People can sense that energy, even through the social media and digital airwaves! If your motivation is solely to make money, don't think for one second that your potential customers won't notice that. It's a selfish energy and a self-centered energy that doesn't serve them and it won't serve you in the long run either. On the other hand, if you establish your business from a place of service and operate from the belief that your product or service truly solves a problem or is of value to your target market, then your communications will carry an entirely different energy. Businesses that provide true value to the world will, as a natural consequence, make money. Focus on the value, and the money will come. Focus on the money, and you're actually going to repel it.

I have an important real life example to share about this point. Remember that I had a jewelry store in 2010 that failed after just one year? During that time period, I was way too focused on not being a lawyer. That was my driving force in opening that store. Bottom line - that store wasn't about the customers I might serve with my jewelry designs. It was about me escaping the law. I couldn't see that at the time, but I see it so clearly now. I'm not surprised the store failed and that I ended up back in the law. Law was always on my mind! I gave all my energy to it! 

I'll conclude with this - there is all sorts of value that you can add to the world. You can add value to the world in big ways. You can add value in small ways. And they're both valid. There are tons and tons and tons of big and small problems to fix in the world. Just find your tiny little niche and focus on that. For example, in my own company, I aim to serve brides who are looking for classy jewelry they can gift to their bridesmaids at a giftable price-point. It's not too cheap, it's not too expensive, it's right in the middle. There are so few companies in that middle lane, so that's where I aim to add value. In addition, I aim to solve a problem -- most brides leave jewelry to the very end of their planning process (perhaps because they think it'll be easy to find) and then they scramble in a panic because it's actually really hard to find classy bridesmaid jewelry that won't break the bank (especially if you have something like 8 bridesmaids). I always aim to serve that scrambling bride who is just so happy to stumble across my website or Instagram because it's exactly what she's been looking for. My business is the solution to her problem. Sure, I sell jewelry to non-brides and to brides who aren't scrambling around at the last minute, but my little, tiny, narrow lane of service that I focus on is the one I described above. And when you cover your tiny, little lane of service so incredibly well, other people traveling in other lanes are going to notice you. So what's your tiny, little, narrow corner of the world you aim to serve with your business? Keep that top of mind when you communicate about your business and you will go far.

xoxo,

Stacy