We recently connected with Jennifer Ryan and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jennifer thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I founded Ajna Designs Jewelry in Miami 16 years ago. We specialize in supplying upscale hotel’s giftshops/spas with unique, hand-crafted jewelry as well as offer our creations on our website. When the pandemic began business basically stopped. Soon my girlfriends began calling and seeking advice as they started their passion projects and side hustles. Noticing that they all had the same questions I decided to form Entrepreneurial Wise Women Gather. We met once a week (on zoom) and dealt with goal setting, accountability, problem solving, brainstorming etc. After a year it transformed into Wise Women Gather for Finances – dealing with how women handle/perceive/feel about money. We dealt with mindset, planning, how to budget, gratitude for what we have etc. Essentially both groups were women helping/supporting/mentoring women. Through this process I realized my passion was helping women gain financial freedom. I also learned that coaching wasn’t my jam (for now). It hit me one day that I can still help women hit their financial goals in a very real way. Having experience as a wholesaler, I realized I was in a unique position to develope a way for women to easily start and grow their retail business. Ajna Designs On Demand was born!
Now businesswomen can offer their audience (clients/customers) products without worrying about minimum orders, inventory, taking photos, writing description, risk of unsold items, startup expenses, joining clubs and wasting time and money. They only pay after they have been paid – basically risk and stress free.
All they have to do is copy a photo from our website of the bracelets they feel will resonate with their clients, price the items (2 -3 times the wholesale cost, not a small percentage like affiliates offer) and place them on their purchasing engine (FB, IG, Etsy, blog, website). After a bracelet is purchased from them (and paid for) they then order from us, sit back, and wait for the next order. We offer white label and even package and drop ship. As far as we know no other wholesaler is trying to help the businesswoman in this way (aside from Print-On-Demand). We did everything we could to make it easy, efficient, and completely risk free.
We launched last month and are learning that the potential is much greater than we anticipated. We started by targeting business/life/spiritual/health coaches who can offer the bracelets as a gentle reminder to help their clients stay motivated, inspired, and focused. We are now introducing Lava bracelets as oil diffusers for women who sell essential oils and astrologers/intuits are requesting zodiac bracelets. Any type of teacher (yoga/sports/dancing etc.) can sell them to their students as well as anyone who already has an online store and wants to increase their retail line. A travel agent just approached us asking for adventure themed charms and we are already going international as we have received inquiries from Canada. All a happy surprise!
Our audience is helping us grow by telling us what they want, which we find exciting and motivating. If we just listen, they will guide us.

Jennifer, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Years ago, when I was a yoga teacher a close friend was getting a divorce. She had to attend a mediation and was worried because her soon to be ex was manipulative, aggressive and domineering. While she was in the meeting, I was surrounding her with “stick to your guns” energy but wished I could do more. I came up with the idea of making meaningful bracelets. I made a set of bracelets but didn’t know how to finish them, luckily the same friend was a jewelry maker and she taught me how to close them. I wore the bracelets to my yoga classes and my students began requesting custom made items. So, Ajna Designs Jewelry was born. I also started approaching spas where I was teaching and soon, I was so busy filling orders I had to stop teaching yoga. It was so full circle because out of a desire to help my friend she helped me start my business.

How’d you meet your business partner?

People say don’t work with family but the best decision I ever made was having my husband as my partner. We realized early on that we had to grow up fast and foster a better way of communicating if we wanted this to work. Before, if we were angry at each other, we would close down, play the silent treatment or simply leave to blow off steam. You can’t do that when you have a $3,000.00 order to fill by the next day. So we worked on communicating, being more respectful and polite and working out our “issues” until they were resolved instead of running away. We both bring different strengths to the table and help each other where one might be weak. He is the sales force, I am the designer/administrator and we both make the jewelry together. There is no struggle of who is the boss, we both are equally self-motivated, and we both love the jobs we do. It has been a fantastic journey that has strengthened our relationship and given us a business we love.

Have you ever had to pivot?

We were in full swing during high season in March 2020. We were intensely working from the minute we woke up until late at night. Both of my parents, who had varying degrees of dementia, had just moved in with us and I became their full-time caretaker. I made a promise to myself that I would enjoy living with them and to providing fun, joy filled days for them but soon realized it was a huge challenge while trying to run a business. I knew I had to change things but didn’t have a second to think about it. When Covid hit everything stopped and now I had time to sit back and contemplate my future. We already knew that we needed to concentrate more on selling retail to the public directly, so we turned our focus on growing our social media presence. It was exactly what we needed but very slow growth. We assumed that when the hotels re-opened our wholesale business would pick up again, but it turns out they were not given the budgets to rebuild their retail spaces. So we pivoted even more and came up with a new way of offering wholesale to a wider audience. Now we have Ajna Designs On Demand – allowing business women to buy wholesale without the restrictions and complications.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ajnadesignsjewelry.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ajnadesignsjewelry/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ajnadesignsjewelry
• Other: My wholesale info: https://www.facebook.com/ajnadesignsondemand https://www.ajnadesignsjewelry.com/ajna-designs-on-demand https://www.instagram.com/ajnadesignsondemand/

Image Credits
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