We were lucky to catch up with Jen Edmondson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jen, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of the most important things we can do as business owners is ensure that our customers feel appreciated. What’s something you’ve done or seen a business owner do to help a customer feel valued?

Our customers are everything to us; we are nothing without them. So we try to show our customers gratitude at every possible turn. -We try to answer questions promptly
-We try to honor all special requests
-We package our orders by hand with care and attention to detail.
-We ship out within 1-2 business days

But most importantly, we show our customers we appreciate them by treating them like human beings. I mean, thats all we all want in life is to be seen and to be heard! When customers contact us, they are contacting US not a customer service rep. To be honest, you will be interacting with me!

-We answer customers as quickly as possible, because we know their time is valuable.
-We speak to our customers with a friendly, honest and authentic tone.
-We try to honor all requests and we offer honest and detailed reasons if we cannot honor the request

Basically we love our customers and we feel kindness in all aspects of life goes a long way to a happier world.

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

Absolutely. If you have not heard of Laughing Frog Studio before, WELCOME! We’re glad you’re here now!

Laughing Frog Studio is a husband & wife small business upcycling vintage silverware into jewelry, accessories, housewares and more from a small studio in rural Texas.

Our business started in 2011 . I had been running an online and brick & mortar antique booth. We had both been looking for a CREATIVE outlet as well as side hustle to bring in a little more cash to fund our daughter’s ice hockey dreams (hockey is an expensive sport). So I pulled a few pieces of silverware from my huge stash of antiques and made a rough pair of spoon earrings. I listed them on my antiques site and they sold within a day or two. That’s when I realized we were on to something. So over the next couple of weeks Matt go into the studio (at that time it was the garage work bench) and started experimenting with tools and techniques.

Matt is a super ingenious creative at the core and has a very defined artistic sensibility. I mean he majored in computer science and that is the degree doing the heavy lifting on his livelihood. But he minored in Art because that was a passion for him. So in the early days Matt worked on ways to make basic things like rings and bracelets, but he really got creative and came out with products and designs never seen before like our casserole spoon belt buckle.

Flash forward 11 years and we have a wonderful customer base/followers who really bolster us in our creative endeavors. We continue to come up with new creative designs to really wow our existing and new customers. We are currently working on a new line of necklaces made with upcycled vintage 1920s/1930s belt buckles! And yes, the necklaces will also have upcycled vintage silverware. We hope to launch these necklaces in late Summer 2022.

What sets us apart from other upcycled silverware creatives is twofold: creativity and customer care. At Laughing Frog Studio, sure you will find classic spoon rings, but you will also find a litany of super creative handmade upcycled silverware creations. Matt has made a line Sculptural fish necklaces reminiscent of an Alexander Calder mobile with individual dynamic pieces. Jen has created a line of Women Of Nature spoon rings featuring hand stamped artistic designed faces

We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.

Ah yes this one is easy – it is my husband. We met in college and while we did not date in college, I knew he was “the one”. Long story short, we married in 1997. This is a great and romantic story – to be honest it would make SUCH a great Romcom – I would love to share with you but you are reading this because you are interested in business content.

We had been together for many years when we decided to start this business. As I said earlier, we were looking for a creative outlet and a productive side hustle to earn a little extra money for the family. The upcycled silverware business was a shoe-in once I took some silverware from my antiques business and made them into earrings. They sold so quickly I knew that we were on to something big. Since Matt has always been artistic as well as a phenomenal creative problem solver, I knew he could get us up and running on all the tricks and techniques necessary to create our designs. . Hence the business partnership was founded

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Sure thing! While we are a two-person team, I do all of the business-related functions including social media. I have been on the major social media platforms for several years but decided that in 2022 one of my business goals was to expand my reach on Instagram.

At the start of 2022 I had just under 1,000 Instagram followers that were accrued over 10 years on the platform. As of 8/2/2022 I have 1457 followers on Instagram. Instead of growing 100 followers per year for 10 years, I grew 457 followers in 8 months. Note this growth was high despite the regular culling of fake, inactive, spam and other accounts from that follower list. For a small business, ne micro business, this kind of growth is a big deal.

The trick for me on Instagram was to buy into the latest feature that they were pushing, in this case it was Reels, which is their short form video format. I invested countless hours in researching other small businesses and how they were doing Reels and what was “working”. What types of content, what trends, what trending sounds, what days/times were they posting, how often they posted, did they feature their faces, were they showing process videos, etc. I learned that for me and my account, creating process Reels or funny trending Reels were effective at getting more views and thereby increased my following. Furthermore, much to my surprise, I found that videos featuring my face and personality really had a huge effect on my views and following.

So my advice is probably three-fold:

First, find several small businesses on Instagram that you admire or are in some way similar to your own business in terms of size, product/service category etc. Study what they are doing on their account that seems to be successful at getting views and growing their account. Make copious notes about what they are doing. Then start trying things and document what you are doing – did I show my face or not, what time did I post, what day did I post, did I use trending audio or not, did I inject humor, did I use my brand colors, how many followers do I have each week, etc. – so that you can see what works and what does not work.

Second, don’t be afraid to show your face and your personality. I know, I know, easier said than done. This is a little scary, particularly if you are an introvert. But trust me, showing your authentic self goes a long way towards building connections and trust with potential followers/customers. Start small and show your face smiling. Then next time, show yourself doing something that is “so you” – for me it was being silly, I tried one of the Reels dance trends. The next time, use your voice a little, etc. You see where I am going here. Take baby steps to start sharing yourself and personality on social media. Your people will find you and love you and eventually they will flock to you!

A final tip – learn all you can about Instagram and the algorithm. There are LOADS of social media managers out there with Instagram accounts that are sharing all kinds of nuggets and tidbits regarding how to make the algorithm work for you. Study those accounts and don’t be afraid to DM them and ask them questions. Instagram is all about engagement, so if they are a social media manager worth their salt, they will respond because they know that the algorithm deems even DM responses as engagement.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.laughingfrogstudio.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laughing_frog_studio/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laughingfrogstudio
• Other: TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@laughingfrogstudio

Image Credits
Al photos are my own.