When Cerese D Jewelry was chosen to participate in Goldman Sach’s 10,000 Small Businesses Initiative, we knew it would be a lot of work. Deborah was selected as the student. She had to complete 5-6 hours of mandatory attendance class time each week, plus small group work, plus homework. She had to study business finances, operations, marketing, selling, and human resources. In all, it was an 8-12 hour per week commitment, for three months, on top of running a very busy business.

But, she did it!

(Check us out celebrating: https://vimeo.com/549651561)

And Then the Real Work Began

In order to graduate from the 10,000 Small Businesses program, each participant must commit to creating a growth plan and then pitching the plan to the entire group. 

That’s because the purpose of Goldman Sachs’ program is not just to make small business owners more successful – it’s also to help them benefit their communities through hiring and creating economic opportunity. To do that, businesses must grow. To grow, they must be scalable.

Scaling a business isn’t just about working harder and doing more of what you’re already doing. It’s about finding ways to work smarter, to be innovative. Mixing manufacturing products with hand-work, automating business processes, and automating marketing are all part of scaling. So just when the CereseD team has mastered all the new skills required to produce regular online sales events (lights, camera, action!), now it’s time to master some new skills.

The entrepreneurial fun just never ends (no, we’re not being sarcastic)!

The Challenge

So the next entrepreneurial challenge is to explore ways to scale the business while maintaining the handmade couture jewelry brand. To work smarter, but still remain attached in a deep personal way to all our clients. If we scale, but lose that strong feeling of sisterhood and connection, that’s not a win.

So that’s our next entrepreneurial adventure. It’s not easy, but we’re on it! And we’ll keep you informed about our progress along the way.

You can read more here.

Being an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart. Before the pandemic, we attended client conferences wherever they were all over the country. We would turn a very ordinary booth into an upscale boutique that always took several hours and sometimes a couple days to design. Our display, merchandising and artsy jewelry attracted jewelry lovers new and old to our boutique. After a very long few days we would pack it up, jump on a plane and head back to Atlanta to start the ritual all over again.

The pandemic of course forced us into lockdown and all events cancelled.

For the first few weeks of the pandemic, everything was kind of quiet. Then, people started jumping on Zoom calls – something we really hadn’t used before. And it got us thinking… could we transform our on-the-road show to a Zoom show?

Honestly, there wasn’t a lot of room for doubt. We needed to do something.

We got a Zoom account, researched the technology, and then announced we would be having a virtual pop-up show. The email invitations went out, and hundreds of our amazing customers responded – all excited about a chance to connect (and, let’s face it, staying at home was starting to get boring after the first few weeks).

A Forward Pivot

Since that time, we’ve had so many Zoom, Instagram, and Facebook Live events we’ve lost count.

Once we were comfortable with the technology of the normal Zoom type live show, using the vertical cell phone image with poor lighting and weak audio, we wanted to significantly improve our events. Initially we figured out how to attach multiple high-definition cameras, mics with good audio, and auxiliary lighting, to enhance the viewing experience. We hired chefs, DJ’s and live models just to set us apart from everyone else.  But we still were not satisfied. 

We soon decided to produce our own shows. We invested in live streaming technology that gave us high quality video and audio using robotic cameras, wireless mics and graphics. We’ve also gotten pretty good engaging our audience with a very sophisticated look.

But the thing is, we just keep going. That’s what being an entrepreneur is. Not getting hung up on the mistakes or fixated on getting things perfect . . . that’s just a formula for getting stuck. Being an entrepreneur is about doing fast homework, assessing the potential risks and rewards, and then plowing forward using our best judgement.

We know we’re not the only ones who did a pandemic pivot. In the middle of a lot of pain and fear, a whole lot of creativity bubbled up during those dark months. We’d love to know – what reserves of resourcefulness did you discover in yourself when the world shut down?

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