We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Meg Goodman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Meg below.

Meg, appreciate you joining us today. Do you think your parents have had a meaningful impact on you and your journey?

I am the first-born daughter of two loving and educated parents, each with master’s degrees. My parents have stressed the importance of education for as long as I can remember and made investing in it a priority. However, what my parents did differently was that they stressed passion in tandem with education which made all the difference. They allowed me to explore different hobbies at a young age but never forced me in a particular direction. They didn’t push any desired identity onto me, they allowed me to find it myself. My different hobbies as a child always ended up encompassing some sort of DIY creation that I attempted to sell and contribute profits to a philanthropic mission. My interests as a child really foreshadowed my future career. My parents wholeheartedly supported every one of my passions, never making me feel silly for my artistic interests or bad when I wanted to move onto something new. Even if they had doubts about my hobbies, they never made me aware, which helped to build the foundation of confidence in my strengths and self-identity.

My parents are my biggest supporters of Beaded by Meg, and I don’t think I would’ve made it this far without them. Countless, unpaid hours have been spent helping me with pop ups, finances, creative ideas, and my fair share of meltdowns. Their unwavering support helps me believe in myself time and time again. I’m so grateful to how I was raised because they shaped me into the confident, capable, and creative businesswoman that I am today.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Hi! I’m Meg, the creator, designer, CEO, & sole employee of Beaded by Meg! I design and create handmade jewelry that is bold and colorful, meant to spark happiness and inspiration in its wearer. Recently, I created the Beaded by Meg charm bar, a customizable experience where the customer can choose a chain, clasp, and charms to create their very own interchangeable necklace. I sell the jewelry on my website, wholesale to boutiques, and at pop up shopping events.

I started my business totally by accident as a 15-year-old sophomore in high school. When I started seeing rosary chain necklaces everywhere, I knew I could make one myself. I got my first supplies from Michaels, along with an instruction book, and taught myself how to wire wrap jewelry. The first necklace I made took over 4 hours to complete. I wore my creation to school the next day and received an insane number of compliments. I made up a price of $25 on the spot to the first person who asked if I could make them the same necklace. I sold around 10-15 necklaces those first couple of days by just wearing mine to school. A few weeks later I saw a girl I didn’t know walking down the hall wearing my necklace and it hit me that I could actually make “something” out of what was happening. I made an Etsy page in October 2015 and started designing with supplies from chain craft stores. In early 2016, I made an Instagram page for Beaded by Meg and began working with micro-influencers to promote my brand. I began to create and grow an engaged community online that drove a majority of my sales.

In 2018, the summer before I went to college at Auburn, I was scouted by America’s Mart, the wholesale trade show for apparel and accessories where all of the boutique owners shop for their inventory. I had absolutely no business being there (I didn’t even know what invoice meant) as an exhibitor with my jewelry but I was determined to jump on this opportunity because it was a huge deal. I went into my first tradeshow completely blind, got my jewelry into 5 stores and barely broke even. But doing that trade show changed the trajectory of my life because it opened up a whole new world within the fashion industry. And the thought that I could have some impact on fashion and have a product that is sold in stores was fascinating to me.

I decided to study apparel merchandising at Auburn University to get the education I’d need in the business of fashion and wholesale. I continued to work on Beaded by Meg throughout college as a full-time student. Balancing the two at the same time proved to be a great challenge as Beaded by Meg started to majorly pick up at the beginning of COVID. I found myself with more free time which gave me creative energy and flexibility with my business. I believe I was able to thrive during COVID because I was already in the ecommerce sphere and had a growing Instagram following. At this time, I began focusing on presenting myself as a founder-forward brand, sharing my day-to-day and struggles. People wanted to follow along because they not only liked the designs, but they were interested in me as a person.

Something that sets my business apart from others is my sense of style and taste. Some words to describe Beaded by Meg would be: colorful, feminine, fun, preppy, glam, & bold. I won’t design anything I wouldn’t personally wear. Instead of following every trend now to try and “stay relevant”, I am selective with the different jewelry trends I incorporate and try to keep a consistent theme.

Today, Beaded by Meg is my full-time job and I have worked with over 100 boutiques across 25 states. I do pop up events across the southeast United States in boutiques and sorority houses. I work with sororities and other philanthropic organizations by donating a portion of profits from pop ups to their causes. You can find my jewelry at beadedbymeg.com or follow me on Instagram at @beadedbymeg!

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

Social media is a core reason why my business is successful today. In early 2016, I made an Instagram page for Beaded by Meg and that’s when my business started to get attention from outside my local area. It was still a rather new concept for a small business to have a dedicated Instagram page, so people were really interested. Very early on, I sent jewelry to what we’d now call micro-influencers, but at the time they were just girls I thought were cool from different high schools that enjoyed taking photos. I’d also repost photos of my customers wearing the jewelry. Doing these things helped to build an engaged community online and I started taking feedback from my customers to help influence my designs. I used polls on Instagram stories to get feedback about what materials to source and which designs customers preferred more. I hosted “ask me anything” on stories where I would answer any follower’s question in video format. Back when giveaways were more favored by the algorithm, I gave away tons of jewelry in collaboration with other small businesses so that we could cross-promote to each other’s audiences.

Today, I focus on being a founder-forward brand by showing behind the scenes content, rich Instagram captions with stories, and pieces of my life. Sharing yourself online is not for everyone, and it isn’t necessarily a requirement to owning a successful business. However, I believe that showing my personality alongside my business had a great hand in my success. If I were to give advice to someone just starting to build their social media presence, it would be to show some personality whether that comes through in your writing, brand photography, or something else! Show us behind the scenes of what goes into making the product and your inspiration. Foster the audience you have now no matter how big or small by provoking them with questions or asking for feedback. People care so much more about the person behind the brand than the products, so if you make them care about you, they’ll want to support your creative endeavors by purchasing your products.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Beaded by Meg really started taking off at the end of 2019. I was in the midst of my sophomore year at Auburn studying fashion merchandising. I found it increasingly challenging to keep up with the demand of college and running a full-time business that requires a lot of creativity. The Instagram algorithm was much more friendly at this time, so most of my followers were seeing my posts and the account was getting a lot of organic traffic, which led to an increase in sales.

While my business was booming, my grades started slipping and I started to question if I should drop out of school and continue pursuing Beaded by Meg. My parents encouraged me to finish out school because my degree was very applicable to my business and education is very important to them. Begrudgingly, I decided to start the spring 2020 semester which was quickly moved online due to the pandemic. Suddenly, I found myself with much more free time and creative energy which caused my business to explode even more. I started picking up more wholesale accounts with online boutiques and really started to expand that side. I decided to take off the spring 2021 semester from school to experience what it was like to pursue Beaded by Meg full-time and figure out if that’s really what I wanted to do with my life after college. I returned to exhibiting at the Atlanta Mart and the response was overwhelming in the best way possible! I got to meet so many retailers I had been working with (some for years) and also made a ton of small business friends! I started envisioning the future of what Beaded by Meg could become when I was finished with college and knew I would do anything and everything to make it my full time job. 2021 was my most successful year by far, the highlight being Black Friday where almost 400 orders were placed within 24 hours.

After all of that success, I tried to return to college, but I couldn’t keep up with it all. I only had a few semesters left, so I decided I needed to take a step away from running my business. It was a very hard decision to walk away from something I had been building for the past few years; it had become part of my identity. But, stepping away allowed me the space to fully learn and finish out my degree successfully. I graduated in December 2022 and quickly made my way back to running Beaded by Meg! I feel more confident in my journey as an entrepreneur not only with the accomplishment of a bachelor’s degree, but the applicable knowledge and back-up plan it provides.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://beadedbymeg.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beadedbymeg/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beadedbymeg
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/megan-goodman1
• Other: Faire: https://faire.com/direct/beadedbymeg