Wire Jewelry Making - Jewelry Hobbyist Shares Secrets to Success

Wire Jewelry Making Jewelry Hobbyist Shares Secrets to Success

brought to you by: "Why Start A New Business When You Can Make Money With Your Favorite Hobby?" http://www.hobbydollars.com

Wire Jewelry Making - Jewelry Hobbyist Shares Secrets to Success

Wire Jewelry Making - Jewelry Hobbyist Shares Secrets to Success Today I have an interview with Andy “the Name Bender” Turner. Andy is a very successful wire name jewelry designer and entrepreneur, who teaches other aspiring artists all the tips and tricks on how to create, market and sell personalized wire name jewelry. Andy is still practicing his craft so you know that what he teaches really works.

In this interview, Andy shares some of his best tips and advice from his widely popular “ Wire writing Secrets” course and his own experience making and selling wire name jewelry. Keep reading to see how Andy got started and how you too can turn your hobby into cash.

Can you briefly give us some background on yourself?

I'm from the UK and I migrated to Australia in the late '80's, I started making Wire names in 1985 and I've been doing it ever since selling in Europe and all around Australia, and it's been my living up to about 5 years ago when I started to sell my Ebook, now I enjoy teaching other people my skill through my products.

When and how did you start creating personalized wire name jewelry?

I was already making and selling earrings in Crete, Greece in 1985, when I met by chance a Japanese guy that made Name Pins from wire. It was the first time I had seen them being made, he gave me an alphabet in wire and the rest is history !

Creating beautiful unique wire name jewelry started as your hobby, right? What convinced you to transform this hobby into a business?

Funnily enough I had been making money from making wire name jewelry since the mideighties but I just regarded it as making money to live on and not much else at first, I really started to regard it as a "business" sometime in the late nineties where I started getting more serious about the amount of money I could make from it. I think it was when I read "Rich Dad Poor Dad" by Robert Kiyosaki that the penny dropped for me regarding business.

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Wire Jewelry Making - Jewelry Hobbyist Shares Secrets to Success Could you tell us about your product, what is it about and what will it teach the user to do?

My products now are: a) My Ebook "Wire writing Secrets" for $49 which teaches the user to make wire writing and make personalized name necklaces (pendants), and name pins b) My DVD series "Wire writing Secrets" which is a set of 6 DVD's for $149 that teaches the user to make the names in video format, with other bonuses like certain letter combinations and Name videos and pictures c) My Mentoring course "Make Name Jewelry" for $29.95 / month which is a full course delivered in weekly Eclasses (by email) which covers everything I know about how to make names and then sell them at events and online Can you briefly describe your target market for this product and what type of person will benefit from it the most?

I see two target markets here, one is the jewelry hobbyist who simply wants to learn a skill where they can make names for gifts, or just learn wire writing for other ideas they may have, and the second is for the crafter who actually wants to take it a step further and make money from the craft of what I call "Name Bending".

As far as who will benefit from it the most, then I see two types of benefit, if it is financial benefit then the second option where you will be actually making and selling the names would be better, but it can also be beneficial from a creative point of view, each piece made is unique and if you make it a gift for a special person, then you get that benefit of feeling good, knowing that you have created that special piece for that person.

How long would it take a person to learn to make this type of wire name jewelry?

This is a good question, I think for the crafter who already makes some type of jewelry then it shouldn't take long at all, it is all about practice and I would say someone could learn it well enough to begin selling their jewelry between one and two months.

For the absolute jewelry making beginner then I think a lot of it depends on how good you are with your hands, I mean some people just aren't good with making small, sometimes intricate stuff, for whatever reason they may run out of patience or just find it too hard, and on the other side of it, other people will learn it like a fish in water, or whatever that saying ŠCopyright 2010  http://www.hobbydollars.com

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Wire Jewelry Making - Jewelry Hobbyist Shares Secrets to Success is, lol, but if you haven't mastered it within 6 months then I would probably give up and find something else to make money with, it's a bit like I tried to learn guitar for years, but I was still crap after all that time !

For those thinking of starting a wire name writing jewelry making business, would this be a good business for them to start from home? And why?

Start from home yes, you can make the names at home, if you want to make it into a business, then you can make a lot of stock at home, and then if you plan to do a lot of fairs or markets or whatever, and then when you get to the markets you'll still have to make names, but you'll have a lot of stock you can sell.

If you plan to make a website then you can actually make all of it at home, which is what I do right now, I still make names and sell them from home, I just need to then go to the post office to mail them out.

At home you can take your time to create your wire name jewelry, when you are outside selling your names on demand, then there is a pressure on you to make the names to a deadline and to make them well, the advantage to the higher pressure situation is that you can make more money cash in hand on the spot initially, until you build up a completely online business, or mail order business, so that you can work from the comfort of your kitchen table or your workshop or whatever.

Is this type of wire jewelry making business expensive to start and manage?

No it isn't, it's really cheap actually, you need your basic tools, you need some round nosed pliers, some side cutters, some wire and you need to build some kind of display, then you need to find a market or wherever you want to sell, and then you pay rental for that, and you might pay some fuel for your car, but really the overheads are small and as far as managing it, there you're just basically keeping records, receipts, all of that sort of stuff for the accountant and just use a spreadsheet like I do excel spreadsheet to manage all the money side of it.

What advice can you give someone who wants to start this business?

Well, I would say yeah, give it a go - because you haven't got much to lose if you don't do anything with it, if you've already got the tools and wire great you can start straight away and if you haven't, if you're just totally new you can get the tools from jewelers supply stores and the wire from craft stores online or locally, and I just say give it a go, and you can potentially make a fair chunk of money, what have you got to lose ? ŠCopyright 2010  http://www.hobbydollars.com

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Wire Jewelry Making - Jewelry Hobbyist Shares Secrets to Success Any other advice or tips about getting into the personalized wire name jewelry business?

Start small and build your business up, get your basics tools, wire some kind of stall setup, some names, make some names for stock, and then find out about local venues that you can sell names at, think outside the box a bit you don't have to do just craft markets, you can do shopping centers, some shopping centers will allow you to set up there and, I've even sold on the street where its been allowed.

Then just take it step by step, maybe work one day and if you're a bit nervous just take orders if you feel pressured, don't make them on the spot, take an order and say like it will be ready in a few days or by the time the next market comes around you can do it that way, and then later on think about setting up a website and all of that stuff.

Excellent advice indeed. So if you're ready to start your own wire name jewelry business, checkout Andy's “Wire writing Secrets” training course by Clicking Here.

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