Happy New year, friends! I am officially back in the studio and getting things back up and running after a nice busy and relaxing holiday with my family and friends. I hope yours was the same!
Before the year gets to hot n' heavy I spent the last two weeks looking back at what I hoped for, what I achieved, where I failed, and digging deeply into my sales numbers to see what worked and what didn't.
I set a few crazy goals for myself and I'm majorly proud to say that the last two weeks showed me that I kicked some major ass and knocked the goals out of the park. It was a steady grind and I shed some major tears but I did it!
None of this would have been possible without your continued support of my dream of being a thriving working artist. So let me show you what WE achieved together!
I'm going to do a full week of posts on Instagram soon, and a much more detailed blog post full of numbers but wanted to open my year with some of the major touchstones from 2024.
K, let's see the big hits….
MOST IMPACTFUL THING SAID TO ME THIS YEAR
TO SEE takes time...
LIKE TO HAVE A friend TAKES TIME
REBRANDED
A long-time goal was to get my branding into someone else's hands. Someone who could reinterpret my existing brand into a cohesive and elevated one, and 2024 was my year! I'm in love with the look and have enjoyed putting it to good use.
Expect to see new tissue + box tape on your packages (at the very least) soon!
The beauty of this rebrand is owed to Abbey McGrew of Wayfarer Design Studio, and her amazing team.
I love what she had to say about my brand after our interview:
"Rebekah J. Designs creates sentimental
jewelry that holds space for life's important
moments. With an organic, bold design
style, you invite customers to honor their
own stories through the pieces that they
wear everyday."
What a talent and a gift she is to be able to see this in me.
NEW COLLECTION: LOW TIDE
Focusing on my hopes on continually elevating my work, skills, and brand I launched the Low Tide collection in September.
It proved to be a collection that feels like home and feels like a new direction for RJD.
It's bigger and bolder than some of the work I've made in the past, but it also holds so many of the themes that I hold dear to my work: organic, textured, beautiful, easy to wear, and most importantly it holds space for the things you need to fill it with. Accompanied by a story that guides your thoughts and helps you harness your own magic when you wear these pieces.
SHOP the LOW TIDE Collection
BIGGEST WHOLESALE ORDERS… EVERRRR
I set a goal to grow the wholesale side of my business and boy did I!
I shipped the largest wholesale I’ve ever received in April, and then subsequently smashed that total with 2 more totals I'd never dreamed of.
Wholesale is easier on my family life. I like the cadence of it. Receiving orders and batching tasks makes it easier to step away for school drop-offs and dr visits, and I like that.
Taking my work to in-person shows wasn't high on my list when planning 2023 because of the emotionally and physically taxing properties.
Initially, I wanted the pendulum to swing from being focused on Retail sales (street markets and craft shows) to a focus on wholesale. This didn't happen (it ended up being 50/50 again) but I found this year it was easier to do in-person shows. I often have a teenager to help (yay mom life!) and because I'm my own boss and no longer working for another company, I make the rules and the days following shows are a rest day now.
So while I didn't meet the goal of raising my wholesale to be more than my retail revenue I am learning to let go of old ways and create healthier new ones.
NEW HOME GOODS
I have long wanted to create jewelry for our homes and the Shell Dish and Spoon were natural starts!
They were great hits over the holiday and I will be keeping them in the rotation permanently, and they'll be available for wholesale too! So maybe you'll see them at your favorite shop this coming year!
Who knows, maybe knobs next?
A BIG GOAL - CRUSHED
It's not common to talk about money this way but I'm determined to be transparent in the hopes that you as makers or doers know your worth and that as customers you know what you've helped me grow.
Am I the richest person in the world? By far, but this was a big step up from my 2022 sales, and I'm SO PROUD of this.
When I sat down with my assistant, Grace to work on 2023 goals I asked her to develop a goal-setting dashboard. I'm visual and I didn't want to be operating from a place of feeling. I wanted to SEE the year unfold towards my goal as we progressed.
To do this I needed to suggest in an amount to put into the chart. I suggested $150,000 thinking it was completely wild, and unattainable. As the year progressed, we could see that the charts were calculating that I was on track to come close to 150k!
Throughout the year we'd meet on the 1st of the month, import the data from my sales, and wait for the chart to move up. And it just kept moving up. This goal was an 80% increase from what I did last year and that's just plain wild to me.
I never thought I'd reach this.
And I fucking did.
Holy hell, I surpassed it.
Stay tuned for a deep dive into the NUMBERS from my year.
Leave a comment