We were lucky to catch up with Dayane Vail recently and have shared our conversation below.

Dayane, appreciate you joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

If you are planning on starting any project, my advice is ‘just do it’! Most projects stay on the first step forever and never leave the paper or that cool folder full of ideas on Pinterest. At least mine started that way, a folder full of different projects and ideas, and I kept waiting for the right moment, to have more money or more free time, but these things never happen so in the midst of chaos I set $200 a side (might not seem like a lot but trust me when you have nothing every penny counts), bought the basic of material I would need to start trying things out.
Keep in mind I was working at 3 jobs at that time, but none of which made me happy or paid me well enough. So every chance I got I made my first few products and let me tell you, they were absolutely horrible, the quality was terrible and they were very unattractive, but I saw potential and so did all my relatives and friends (not sure if they really liked or just wanted to support me, but either way it helped).
Fast forward a few months I moved towns and got a new job, but this time it was part-time because I wanted to dedicate more of my time to these new ideas. So my advice to you is to dedicate time to your new project, that is the only way to know if you are good at it.
One thing that absolutely helped my business get off the ground was connecting with other small businesses on network events in my town, I got to introduce my start-up business and get a few connections with other businesses that were interested in helping me and also exposing my brand. We are just so used to all the technology that we forget that a good face-to-face can do wonders for your business, and that is how my business was pushed towards establishing a brand.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Hi, my name is Day and I enjoy transforming real flowers into jewelry. The idea of becoming a jeweler never even crossed my mind, not until I realized that working for other people was making me so depressed. Still, my initial wish was to have a bed&breakfast somewhere in the middle of nowhere but since I didn’t have the means to make that dream happen yet, Because I am also crafty, I decided to give it a try on an affordable side of business by making a few clay earrings.
It didn’t take long or me to realize that clay earrings were not meant to be made by me, but luckily I loved making earrings with resin and loved even more when I could make them using real botanicals and wildflowers from where I lived and everywhere.
Today I pride myself on never giving in when things got hard, but trusting my gut that I could make this business work. With my shop, I get to work on things that matter to me, like my vision for how beautiful the feminine shape can be, so I devote a whole collection to it called Plant Lady, additionally, I get to explore my creativity through artistic jewelry.
As a result of my business, I’ve been able to connect with people across the globe. Many people have reached out to me telling me how a special piece of jewelry touched them or a loved one, and that makes it all worthwhile.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

When you start a whole business by yourself you start to think that you have to do everything yourself. And that is something I have learned from my family where almost everyone is self-employed, and most refuse to hire outside help. It was something very hard to unlearn, but after a few times getting things wrong, I decided that I need to hire help in parts of my business where I don’t have enough experience or patience, to be honest.
I guess the hard part is allowing your small business to be less dependent on you because if you are going to do everything yourself you will become overwhelmed, and frustrated and it can become too exhausting to keep going in the long run.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

It is so simple that it hurts, but consistency is key. If you are a small business like me maybe you don’t want to post on social media every day (and how I understand that part lol) but it will help your business and anything you do so much, same with all types of advertising you do, like email or text message marketing. If you don’t have a social media manager use a simple yearly agenda with all the months of the year to add everything that is important to your social media growth (which are potential customers) that will help to know when you should send out emails, text messages, posts (and in what social media platforms).
As an effective strategy for growing your clientele, I like growing my social media platforms because the more they see my products, brands, and videos, the more likely they are to become customers.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ammildesign.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ammil_design/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ammildesignn
• Other: tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ammildesign