We were lucky to catch up with Summer Holladay recently and have shared our conversation below.
Summer, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What sort of legacy are you hoping to build. What do you think people will say about you after you are gone, what do you hope to be remembered for?
This is such a broad question for me. I’m a maker, I’m a teacher I’m a mom…
As a maker, I would say creating pieces of jewelry that are treasured by whoever receives them. Some that the next generation can say, “Hey, I remember my mom/grandmother/aunt wearing this, and it’s special to me because of them and keeps them close to my heart.”
As a teacher, passing on the joy of the creative process to my students, so that instead of being afraid of messing up or trying something new, they rise to the challenges they face and use those things to learn and grow and improve their skills and keep creating.
As a mom, quite simply, creating special memories with my kids and gifting them a set of skills they can use the rest of their lives to create something beautiful.
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?
When I was little, I saw my parents doing different things, and that affects a child’s interests tremendously. I didn’t get video games, I’d go on family vacations to beautiful parks across the southwest. If something was broken, I would help my dad fix it. I wasn’t particularly interested in makeup…I’d rather go outside and hunt for fossils in our caliche driveway. I remember going to gem shows with my parents, and my mom scouting for precious items at reasonable prices – things she considered investments. My dad learned to facet gemstones – I have a citrine ring mounted with one of his stones. Where other kids could name characters in TV shows or songs on the radio, I could name different gemstones. I feel that things like this – my childhood experiences and influences – combined with the desire to create, hatched a restless spirit, and I spent most of my life searching for my “thing.”
I lived the American Dream – that is, I went to college and got my degree and got a “good” job and worked 40 hours a week in my cubicle. It was unfulfilling, and male dominated. The funny thing is, a) no matter how much or how little I worked in the position, I got paid the same for showing up, and b) I was laid off from my “safe” job after being there almost 5 years. Over the years I secured other positions with other companies, but never felt a tug or a passion to stay with any of them. During this time, I still had my creative bug and tinkered with different creative outlets, including crochet (a legacy from my grandmother), beading, wire-wrapping. and furniture re-finishing. So the bug was still pacified, but not satiated.
After a psychologically exhausting marriage and divorce, my aunt, knowing my penchant for creating and for tinkering, bought me a seat in a class where I could learn to make a silver ring. “This is a waste of time,” my embittered, broke self thought. “It’ll be fun, but then it’ll become an expensive hobby and I just don’t have the time or the money for this. Long story short..I was GOOD at it, and I wanted to do and make more. So I did. My first pieces were awful. I say that with a grain of salt, because every maker I have ever talked to is critical of their own work, myself included. In spite of this, I started posting photos on social media – just a “hey I made this new thing” here and there. Well, one of the necklaces I posted caught people’s eye, and within 15 minutes, two people had messaged me, asking how much for the necklace. I’ve been doing it ever since.
I guess you could say the problem I solve and how I hope I’m set apart and what I’m most proud of is helping people to know their worth. I make heirloom-quality sterling silver jewelry. When someone receives something I’ve made, my hope is that it’s something they think is beautiful, and that if they receive it from someone (vs purchasing directly from me), they know how special the gift-giver thinks they are. In a world where self-worth is sometimes fleeting, people need to know they are priceless…and treasured. I also teach classes making silver rings/pendants and setting a stone in them. Many students are self-deprecating, criticizing themselves and their abilities. I consider it my personal responsibility in the few hours I have with them to instill the confidence they need to make their jewelry. Students have commented many times over on my patience as a teacher. In my mind, if I’m obnoxious or condescending, how can they enjoy the class? I mean, that would be miserable, right? And who am I to assume that I explain something perfectly the first time? When someone asks a question, I know instantly my instruction was not clear and start explaining or demonstrating differently. When they leave the class, they have created something beautiful, and – I know it’s silly, but – I go into this “proud mom” mode. Because I AM proud of them – this person who three or four hours ago didn’t know anything about working with silver, and now they walk out of the room with a ring they made themselves.
As for what I want people to know about me…yeesh, that’s hard. I’m an introvert! Hahaha
Seriously, I want people to know they’re worth it. At the end of the day, if you don’t hear it from anyone else in your life, YOU ARE WORTH IT. Worth knowing, worth loving, worth pampering, worth spoiling, worth hanging out with…you name it. The other thing I want people know, and I wish I conveyed this more in my daily interaction with folks, is make the mistake. If there’s a new thing you want to try and your life would forever be better because of it and you’re terrified you’ll mess up…DO IT. I mess up every single day, and every day I have a choice to wallow in my failure or to flip it the bird and conquer it. If it’s something hard, it’s usually worth it. If it’s something hard and you can’t do it alone, find someone who knows how and who can help you. Because you’re worth it.
How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.
I use a combination of outlets. My primary is my website, and everything else is a satellite to that. I have apps on the back end of my website that allow me to connect with selling platforms like Amazon, Etsy, and more. This allows me to track my inventory in one location instead of having to update on each platform as I go. I’m also able to customize and tweak things – pop-ups, cross-promoting products, colors, photos, the possibilities are endless and I can analyze to determine what works best for me.
The most obvious “con”, if you want to call it that, is that a website is no Field of Dreams. Just because you build it doesn’t mean they will come. The learning curve for finding what works for you as far as marketing goes can be pretty steep. For example, referrals from friends as well as previous clients have worked well for me, but it takes time and money and finished goods for that to happen. With selling platforms, you are able to leverage their already existing customer base, and can usually tap into PPC ads to be seen even more.
The pro for me with a website is that I control all the information for my customers. If you sell on Amazon, you don’t get the customer’s email – you just build Amazon’s email database. And even if you build a substantial business on a selling platform, if they get a bee in their bonnet about you, they can shut you down without notice and without a second thought. Many people aren’t even able to get an answer from these corporations as to why they’ve been shut down.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
The last 15 years have been a series of pivots. From college, to corporate, to lay off, to selling insurance, to dropping everything to care for my dad, becoming county treasurer to have a paycheck…and on and on.
Most professional positions I’ve had, I’ve experienced severe burnout. When I start the position, it’s new and exciting and I’m learning (I’m voracious when it comes to learning new skills and/or helping out an underdog that was behind before my position was filled).
My last and most pivotal – uh, pivot – was a combination of burnout and divorce. I had sold many many products through Fulfillment By Amazon; I couldn’t keep good help, I couldn’t get all the things done myself. I just stopped. That, combined with not being enough or worth it, to someone I was supposed to spend my life with, well…it was just a downward spiral. I was at the bottom of the bucket with three kids under the age of 5. I had spent the last half of my life doing things that were only rewarding for a short time and hating the rest of it. So, I learned. As I mentioned, I didn’t want to, I thought it was a waste of time. However, there is never a downside to learning a new marketable skill, and it has certainly worked out for the greater good.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.summerjoysilver.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/summerjoysilver
- Facebook: facebook.com/summerjoysilver/
- Threads: @[email protected]