We recently connected with TRI Distinction Handmade Jewelry & Accessories and have shared our conversation below.
TRI Distinction, appreciate you joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
TRI Distinction is owned by Penyon (mother) and Qiauna and Camai (two daughters). We have fond memories of working in our mother’s handmade jewelry business when we were adolescents. We attended local bazars and festivals to sell our jewelry while learning public speaking, cash handling, and negotiation skills. We loved making jewelry with our mother, because it provided us with confidence, self-esteem, creativity, trust, and a deeper relationship between the three of us.
Our inspiration to start TRI Distinction came when we attended a winter fashion show in Anchorage, Alaska in December 2019. The fashion show included a pre-show panel discussion with small business owners and Influencers. The panelists were inspiring, impactful, and their passion for entrepreneurship sparked a desire to create our family business. The question we asked ourselves was, “what service or product would we sell?” Who would have known our question would be answered, minutes later. That night, we wore jewelry that we created to the fashion show and were bombarded with compliments and inquiries. Happily, to our surprise we had a flood of people wanting to purchase our jewelry. That was our answer, we will sell handmade jewelry! We were so excited and immediately began developing a plan for our business.
What we were not prepared for was being hurled into a pandemic soon after the event; that took a physical and emotional toll on each of us. The pandemic contributed to our frustrations and loneliness both personally and professionally. We knew our business could provide an opportunity to focus our emotions on a creative outlet. Therefore, we reevaluated our commitment to starting our business, and found that working together, creating our bold designs brought us joy and we reaffirmed our commitment to our business.
At the time we had no idea how our designs would be received by the public, but we were confident in our ability to make one of a kind, stunning, and eye-catching designs. We were battling a pandemic, local craft stores closing, and no public events scheduled. We relied heavily on social media, virtual shopping events, and word of mouth. Finally, TRI Distinction a one-of-a-kind handmade jewelry and accessory store was established in August of 2020. We continue to be amazed by our supporters and we’re excited each time our clients choose us to bring some added distinction to their style!
TRI Distinction, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
TRI Distinction is an inclusive company that has a broad approach to our pieces. Our genderless jewelry and accessories reflect femininity, masculinity, culture, and other affinity groups for inspiration. We use beads, wire design, resin, clay, and fabric to create colorful one-of-a-kind pieces. We want each of our clients to feel unique, special, and distinct, knowing they are the only person wearing their exclusive piece of jewelry.
As Designers, our love for creating is rooted in the deep history of our family from Philadelphia and New York. We come from a lineage of fashion designers, models, seamstress, jewelry designers, fascinator creators, and tailors. It’s in our BLOOD! Some of our best memories are going to the fashion districts in New York, or attending fashion shows and admiring the unique garments, bold designs, and fearless styles. The excitement that we experienced, inspires us each time we create our designs for our clients. We want our clients to feel like they have an exclusive piece of jewelry that is solely their own. That was the idea behind only creating one version of our jewelry pieces. This approach is one of the reasons our TRI DIS Family continues to return and tell us how special our jewelry made them feel.
Some of our most challenging and exciting designs are custom orders. It’s one thing to create designs on our own, but it’s another challenge, to take a client’s vision, interpret their desire, and create a unique piece of jewelry that can last forever. We feel honored each time our customers trust us with their requests. We’ve created pieces for proms, weddings, funeral memorials, mommy and me sets, cosplay events, graduations, and employee appreciation gifts. We welcome the opportunity to create your next distinct piece!
TRI Distinction is proudly based in Anchorage, Alaska. Our business is reflective of our beliefs of benevolence, inclusion, customer service, and high ethical standards. Benevolence is generational and a pillar within our company. Contributing positively into the next generation is our family’s vision. Our company’s culture is no different! A portion of every purchase contributes to a local non-profit organization that empowers underrepresented youth. It is our joy to impact our local community not only through our client’s personal style, but also through charitable giving!
Any fun sales or marketing stories?
Growing up in Alaska, each year Anchorage Daily News host the BEST OF ALASKA event. This event allows readers in the community to vote for their 35+ favorite businesses each year. In the past, we’ve always voted for our favorite businesses or services and looked forward to the winner’s edition being published each winter. The list of winners gives viewers a peak into new business we may be unaware of or cements the long standing of seasoned business owners.
This year we were fortunate to be nominated for two categories – Best Jewelry Store & Best New Business! We were incredibly grateful for the nomination by our customers and were caught off guard even more so, when Anchorage Daily News contacted us to tell us we made the Top 5 Nomination for both categories. We were honored and humbled to be listed among other Superstore jewelry companies, that have won year after year. The feeling was surreal to know that the event we grew up loving, had our business listed in the Top 5! We felt so blessed for that moment.
These nominations are particularly meaningful to us as the results are based on votes completed by our customers, supporters, and community. Therefore, we didn’t want their efforts to be in vain, so we created a marketing plan for the next 2 months of the voting period. We relied heavily on our content management knowledge, using all available social media platforms to garner participation in the voting period and other nominees.
As we are still growing our business, we are very intentional with our marketing decisions, especially when it comes to paid advertisements. Being that this nomination was unexpected and a great opportunity for us, we selected paid advertisements to reach a broader audience.
We are happy to say that our marketing plan and consistency paid off! We are honored to have been recognized as PLATINUM (1st place Winner) for Local Jewelry Store and GOLD (2nd place Winner) for New Business! The announcement will be released publicly on December 18th in our local news.
For us, this was a lesson in – Betting on Ourselves! We could’ve been self-defeated, knowing we were listed with established businesses, but we relied on the encouragement and support of our customers to push us. In the end, a childhood event, is now a reality for TRI Distinction – A small business, with BIG dreams!
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
We created our business during the height of the pandemic; therefore, we didn’t have the option to meet clients through networking events and bazaars, due to isolation requirements.
We were forced to rely on social media platforms and online engagements to promote our business. We were not knowledgeable of the business features of each platform, so we wanted to avoid early pitfalls, so we attended online courses, Masterclasses, and watched hours of YouTube videos to familiarize ourselves with business requirements and suggestions.
We’ve focused our attention to our social media content to better connect with our customers and potential customers (followers). We create TikTok videos and IG/Facebook lives regularly to engage with our followers. Each week we host TRI Tea Time Tuesday LIVEs on Instagram to connect with our audience. We found that staying consistent, transparent, and open has reflected positively on our social media. Understanding that one day you may get a few followers and the next day you might lose a few, becomes a balancing act of resiliency.
For us, it was important to find our community on our social media platforms. Being new entrepreneurs, we wanted to create genuine connections with our followers, rather than simply clicking follow. This approach of introducing ourselves, interacting, and answering questions has provided the social community that we desperately needed at our inception.
We worked hard to connect with other jewelry designers and local businesses. By finding our niche community (handmade jewelry design) it’s empowered us and created a sense of belonging. We network and collaborate with other handmade jewelry designers locally and through social media. By remaining consistent we’ve seen an increase in engagement and followship.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://tridistinction.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tri_distinction/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TRIDistinctionAK
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tri-distinction
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/TRI_Distinction
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@tridistinction/featured
- Other: Pinterist – https://www.pinterest.com/TRI_Distinction/ TikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/@tri_distinction LinkTr.ee – https://linktr.ee/TRIDistinction