We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Briana Bruneau a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Briana, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

This business venture started from my hobby and accidentally bringing home the remnants of it. In my free time I enjoy going to the gun range and recreationally shooting. One day I came home and was putting my equipment away and noticed on the bottom of my bag I had handfuls of empty shell casings. Talking with my boyfriend about this we thought we could make something cool with them. It took some time to research but soon after the first set of Earrings were created. From there someone on Instagram asked if we could make cufflinks. It was from here we started to explore what else we were capable of doing. We have now expanded from just earrings to a whole line of Jewelry, coasters, a variety of décor and we continue to look for more ways to expand.
I think what is unique about us is that we use products we generate ourselves doing something we enjoy and are overall passionate about what we are creating,

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Our brand focuses on making unique jewelry that is fun and allows people to express their passions as well. Not to mention they look cool! We have a variety of options to customize coasters, certain jewelry and more to really make something special for our customers. I have made customers Harley Davidson coasters, coasters with personal cigar wrappers, used special casings to really get a unique and special product for each customer.
What we are proud of is the relationships we have been able to build with our customers as well as the trust they have in us to be able to make them a product that really fits them or their family member they are shopping for. I have multiple returning clients now who buy coasters for every occasion and personalize them for every person they purchase them for which makes this so cool for me since I get to learn more about the people who I am making my crafts for and knowing they love them so much they want to share them with those they are the closest with!

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

As a new business grows people will approach you with requests that seem daunting. Throughout the year of starting up this business I have been approached with questions on if I was capable of making something but never in large quantities. Those challenges were simple to over come. Recently I was tasked to make 60 custom coasters for an order when I had never made more than 12 at a time. I took this challenge as an opportunity to do two things: One was to get time studies done to make sure my pricing was realistic for all costs involved, ad secondly test my consistency under pressure. This took me 5 days to complete and the customer was very happy with the product!

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I started a business from a hobby. I was going to our local shooting range multiple times a week which helped me build a relationship with management and the staff as well as identify other regulars. When I started my business I posed to them to sell it in their store. This has been such an awesome was to build a business and reputation. I know that when asked about who makes the product the staff is excited to tell them and let them know it is a fellow shooter like them at our local range. In addition to this I am able to attend different events and engage with customers who are into the same hobbies as me which makes building relationships even easier! Another thing in our local community which is beneficial to building reputation is the support of other small businesses. I have gotten to meet such amazing business owners who not only purchased my products for their personal lives or for their businesses but also promote my work as I do theirs!

Contact Info:

• Website: Upinarmsaccessories.etsy.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/up_in_arms_accessories/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/upinarmsaccessories/
• Other: Email: [email protected]