651 Kathleen Cutler:

How often do you look at your life, your business, everything you have, and take a minute to really value what exists for you, right here, right now, in this very moment? As entrepreneurs we are always striving towards the next milestone, the new feature, the new customer, that we can forget to honor what IS.  My guest today – Kathleen Cutler – says your best customers are your current customers, so when we truly value them they become your recurring revenue.

MELINDA

Hi, welcome to Wings of Inspired Business. I’m Melinda Wittstock, 5-time serial entrepreneur and founder-CEO of the social podcast app Podopolo, and here on Wings we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams.

Today we’re talking bling. That’s right, the jewelry business which grew apace in the pandemic when people couldn’t travel or dine out and luxury spending turned inward and more intimate.

Kathleen Cutler is the woman behind the rise of the personal concierge jeweler, and works with distinguished jewelers such as Loren Nicole, the 2020 Town & Country’s Designer to Watch. Her specialty is turning affluent browsers into ready-to-buy clients who keep coming back for more, and she shares today her approach to relationship sales and how to create loyal repeat customers.

Kathleen will be here in a moment, and first:

If you love podcasts, and wish you had a podcast concierge who knows what you love serving you with the exact right new listens for your interests and tastes, then check out Podopolo. It’s the new app that makes listening personalized and social – with 4.5 million audio and video podcasts at your fingertips with an easy way to share and discuss with friends. Listen to Wings on Podopolo, connect with me there, and if you have a podcast, claim it for free to grow your reach and your revenue. That’s Podopolo – free to download in either app store.

Kathleen Cutler’s love of jewelry began as a little girl, and these days she’s living her dream as the catalyst for the rise of the personal concierge jeweler. With more than a decade of experience in the jewelry industry (and many more years in the high-end outdoor exploration industry), Kathleen has honed her skills with 7-figure brands to combine the conveniences of modern technology with the power of old school relationship-building. The results? Repeat clients, abundant referrals, and a solid business foundation that prevents sales from slipping through the cracks. She lives by the mantra, the best clients are the ones you already have, with conversation and trust-building at the core of every sale.

Her method, the Art of Legacy Selling, focuses exclusively on existing customers and connections, providing momentum in businesses through attentiveness. Her year-long program, The High-End Sales Society, provides actionable guidance on sales, marketing, visibility, and systems and teaches successful luxury businesses how to up level their sales with affluent buyer psychology.

As a writer and speaker, Kathleen has graced the stage of nearly every major jewelry conference and has appeared in the most prestigious industry publications including Rapaport, NYC Jewelry Week, INSTORE, JCK, Jewelry Ecomm, Atlanta Jewelry Show, NY Now, and National Jeweler. She is a GIA graduate and a member of Gem X and the Women’s Jewelry Association.

When she’s not showing jewelry businesses their timeless value, Kathleen can be found living a grounded life with her high school sweetheart, young son, and their dog in an old house by the ocean. She enjoys hiking, cooking, gardening, and the luxury of a leisurely afternoon.

Today we talk about the secrets of relationship selling, the power of personal networks, and much more.

So let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Kathleen Cutler.

Melinda Wittstock:

Kathleen, welcome to Wings.

Kathleen Cutler:

It’s so good to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

Melinda Wittstock:

I’m intrigued about how the pandemic affected a lot of businesses. Many entrepreneurs were struggling over the past 18 months and yet, the jewelry business was a bright sparkly shining light and came out of the pandemic pretty well. What was behind that?

Kathleen Cutler:

Melinda, I love that question. Though we’ll talk about the jewelry industry and that niche in particular, I think what we learned through this, can apply to any sort of entrepreneurship or any endeavor that people are in. The jewelry industry in particular, did so well through the pandemic, because it’s truly built on relationships. People who weren’t able to travel as a gift or go out to dinner or the opera or the ballet, tended to feel very sentimental and want to buy a bigger jewelry gift for an anniversary present than maybe they would have in the past. I had a client who had a million dollar September, whereas September used to be more of a slow month and it’s not necessarily that people were waiting for the holidays, but they’re now starting to buy, especially artisan heirloom quality jewelry, really throughout the year. It’s so exciting to see.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well it’s interesting, because you put people in lockdown so they can’t travel, they can’t go out to eat, they can’t do a lot of the other luxury spend, I guess, that maybe they had become accustomed to. They’re at home or they’re closer to their loved ones, and so it kind of makes sense.

Kathleen Cutler:

Exactly. I think too, I work with a lot of jewelers, so I mentor jewelers, but I have a whole host of businesses that I get to step behind the scenes and see what’s working. I work with some jewelers who do restoration. They take grandma’s earrings and put them into a more modern setting or they repurpose some other things that are happening. That’s been just so incredible to see people at home, as you’re saying, kind of in their own four walls and truly looking at what matters. Our big thing is, the best clients are the ones you have but a lot of the time, the best jewelry is the one you have and tailoring it, making sure it fits you, your taste, your style, and where it might go next. Are you creating for your daughters, your grandchildren, all of these different heirloom ideas. I think people had a lot of time to think. We saw that jewelry was a huge benefit of a lot of that thinking time.

Melinda Wittstock:

You have been in the jewelry industry for a long time and as you mentioned, you now mentor folks in the industry. Take me through exactly how you help them. You have a method called the art of legacy selling. Tell me about that.

Kathleen Cutler:

Our biggest belief is that the more exquisite care we can take of our existing clients, that’s really where our legacy business grows. I work with generational businesses, so first, third, fourth generational businesses. What we find, is that they’re truly sitting on a gold mine. I think that businesses feel like in this modern era, we have to be on all the places. We have to on Pinterest and Instagram and Snapchat and TikTok. Not to say that those aren’t valuable places, especially for a beautifully visual medium like jewelry, but we find if we can match that new age social selling with that old school deep connection, that that’s truly where that gold mine can really come into fruition.

We have our clients look back at their lists, especially around the holiday season, say, “Who would you love to walk through your physical or virtual doors this holiday season?” We teach them that art of connecting, first on a personal level and then bringing it back to that shared love of jewelry. The key component is that you’re connecting first, human to human. You’re really having that deep connection. The results are just incredible. We actually had a client who was sharing yesterday, that she reached out to someone who had bought a $42,000 ruby from her earlier this year. She just said, “Hey Sally, how are the kids? How’s fall going?” No response. Two weeks later, Sally reaches back out and says, “Hey, I’m ready to buy those two sapphires we were talking about earlier.” It really is about staying top of mind and having this beautiful one-on-one connection.

Melinda Wittstock:

Kathleen, you mentioned that most of these are legacy businesses. How did the pandemic make effect how jewelry is being sold? Is it moving more out of retail and into e-commerce, or what are some of the trends there?

Kathleen Cutler:

That’s a really great question. I mean, we primarily believe that the concierge business model is old school, but here to stay, it’ll continue to feel very modern. I think in that way, jewelry is being sold. We had a $48,000 sapphire ring sold through a five minute phone call that someone found online, and then actually closed over the phone. I think it’s really become someone might discover you on LinkedIn, check out your Instagram, follow you on your newsletter, and then meet you in person in at a coffee shop or a lot of our clients, if they don’t have physical brick and mortar locations, will have some sort of studio co-working space where they’re meeting clients. I just think the journey continues to evolve.

What we’ve seen is the number one key for sales and success, is one on one communication. I think that people have a myth with selling this high-end jewelry online, that if you build a website with a big buy button, that people will hit that buy button. But for $30,000, $50,000, $100,000 pieces, it truly is about having this conversation, even if that’s in Instagram DM, on Zoom, or meeting in person.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, it comes back to what makes sales work and it’s always to do with relationship and a personal connection and building trust. I think as social media and basically e-commerce sales first came online, I think a lot of people made the mistake of thinking, “Oh, well that relationship you don’t have to invest all that time in there anymore, because all of this is automated,” but you still do.

Kathleen Cutler:

You really do. One of the first e-commerce businesses I was involved with, we had a full-time dedicated social seller who just answered questions all day, every day. I think that as you said, we call it the technician, if you’re online and just answering, “Okay, how much is this ring,” with a, “$20,000,” and then you don’t follow up with why it’s that price and why you love this pieces and more inquiries about what gift you’re buying it for, what event you’re celebrating. If you were to do that in the store, you would never make the sale. I think sometimes online, people feel like if you’re just giving information and then turning your back, that people can self-serve. But any high-end purchase, be it a car, computer, jewelry, it’s nice to talk to somebody about the purchase and really make sure it’s the right fit for you.

I think that we’ll just continue to step into a level of personalization in our interactions, especially the more high net worth you get working with clients. They’re quite busy and they don’t necessarily want to sift through all of these different options. It’s not to say they’re not going to do a ton of research, but when it comes down to it, they love to be guided toward the right choice for them.

Melinda Wittstock:

That means you need to understand them and understand their needs. That means you need to ask the right questions and develop that relationship. I think you hit on the crux of it and it’s not just the jewelry industry, it’s every industry. People don’t have a lot of time, but they want you to know them and know what they need, so you can save them time, get them what they want.

Kathleen Cutler:

Of course. It’s so funny. I think when we work with our clients, they’re blown away by these techniques. They’re like, “Kathleen, I understand, I understand,” but it takes a little bit because it’s so antithesis to what we’re taught right now. This is not fancy Instagram strategies. This is looking at your people, writing handwritten notes, picking up the phone, remembering people’s anniversaries, it’s really old school stuff and it’s so, so effective.

Melinda Wittstock:

It is. I got a handwritten note just the other day and they’re so rare that it’s almost like a prized possession. It’s like a lost art. It’s like someone actually took the time to figure out my address.

Kathleen Cutler:

Found a stamp.

Melinda Wittstock:

Get out a nice Pen, write neatly. I mean, it does make you feel special. There’s something to that.

Kathleen Cutler:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Melinda Wittstock:

When you work with clients, tell me about your ideal client, and usually where they are when they begin working with you, and what the transformation is.

Kathleen Cutler:

The ideal clients we’re typically working with are usually, as I mentioned, sometimes generational businesses. At minimum they’ve been in business for 10 years. They have a fantastic book of business. A lot of them are award-winning jewelers. We have jewelers who are Town & Country’s up-and-coming jeweler, like a really high, well known jewelers. They’re looking to just gain traction in terms of repeat business, making that purchaser not just a one time, but truly stepping into part of the family where they purchase again and again. Usually when we work with someone to begin with, they already have a great book of business. They’re fantastic at what they do. They’re really good at building relationships, but out of sight, out of mind, they’re not always thinking about, “Okay, this person who bought six months ago, I should keep in touch with them.”

The process we work with them through is, having really intentional goals each week. “Who am I going to reach out to? What am I going to say?” We help them troubleshoot, and a lot of it is mindset. I work with primarily artists, right, or people in the arts. They don’t want to bother their clients. They don’t want to come across as pushy, as salesy. We help them truly lean into being that genuine friend and trusted advisor. Jewelry lovers are jewelry lovers. The more we can help our jewelers and help our retailers truly understand that their clients are thrilled to hear from them, that’s when we continue to just see this growth and this confidence in our business owners. Their income just soars and their repeat business, we’ve had clients just this week, sell their highest price point engagement ring.

We work with super niche people too. We have a client who is in kind of the gaming niche. She does really an amazing futuristic jewelry. She had this famous gamer reach out to her for an engagement ring. It’s really just incredible. Big fan of riches in the niches. We always say, there’s a pot for every lid or no, a lid for pot. It’s really teaching the people we work with to become even more of themselves, find their people, and then most importantly, keep in touch.

Melinda Wittstock:

The people at the very high echelons of tremendous wealth, as opposed to your regular upper middle class person.

Kathleen Cutler:

It’s such a great question, and yes it does. We find most of the time, the higher the price point, the easier the sale. This comes from one of my original mentors when I was just getting started in the jewelry industry. She had been one of the founders at Whole Foods, so she had been around people with a lot of zeros in her career. She told me, she said, “Kathleen, it’s just a matter of zeros.” Someone who has the disposable income to spend $30,000 on a ring, is very similar to you who might have $3,000 to spend on a ring. I think as we start to get into that price point where someone has X amount of zeros that are maybe more zeros than you or I, or even our jewelers themselves would spend, or their friends and family, it’s proportionally a different type of purchase. People at that level are often used to buying from artisans. They’re used to working with the arts, supporting the arts. They’ve typically been jewelry purchasers. They understand so they’re going to want you to be really top in class and be very, very educated.

That’s why we love having these deep niches. You might be a specialist in eco-friendly sapphires. You might be a specialist in recycled gold. As I mentioned prior, gaming. These different in privacy and internet privacy. I find that kind of the higher zeros you go, the more that person on the other really values working with kind of the elite person in that niche. We do find that as you go up, the person on the other end is so excited. They’re more willing to wait lots of times. They’re more excited about the process versus when you’re selling a $200 piece, for example, whereas that $200 might represent a bigger percentage of that person’s bank account so it’s going to be much more of an emotional purchase. It’s a very interesting spectrum that I think a lot of the clients and jewelers we work with, are blown away. Someone who’s spending $60,000, it’s actually a lot easier sometimes to close than someone’s spending $600.

Melinda Wittstock:

I think that does apply to other industries as well. I mean, you talk even to other coaches, when you think of the coaching part of what you do. Folks that sell very high ticket, almost exclusive coaching programs, talk about the same phenomenon, that it’s easier in a way to sell that assuming your right audience and you’re connected with the right target clientele, as opposed to selling a course for $297 a month or whatever.

Kathleen Cutler:

It’s the truth. We’ve really found too, a lot of our client’s clients, and this gets a little bit meta, but our client’s clients grow up with them as well. Maybe they started buying at the lower spectrum of their work. Then as they… We’re just saying, one of our clients was their clients, they had met when they were all young and now he owns a really major tech company in San Francisco area. Now he’s grown with them and that’s really where we love to think of this art of legacy selling. How can we make sure that we are staying in touch with someone, even if they aren’t purchasing, right? This is not about, Hey, I reach out to you. I get a sale, though that’s often what happens on the back end, but it’s truly about becoming part of that family. Some of our clients are invited to weddings, funerals, they go to dinner with their clients. It really is beautiful to see.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, how wonderful. How did you first get started, I guess, in this space? Were you always interested in jewelry as a little girl?

Kathleen Cutler:

I totally was. I just, actually, surfaced a picture of me wearing this beaded necklace I loved as a little girl. I loved doing seed beads as a young teen. Then I discovered silversmithing when I lived out in Utah and I started taking classes, I bought all the equipment, and I just became obsessed with being able to take something in my mind and put it into the world. I love jewelry. It’s such a wearable art, such an incredible way to express, but certainly from an architectural, from a creative standpoint, it’s so incredible to think of something and then hold it in your hands and wear it. I’m actually wearing, you can’t see me but I’m wearing a few rings that I made right now in this conversation. Then I stepped into a apprenticeship. I actually was an apprentice jeweler. I was making jewelry for a brand. We had three physical locations and selling the jewelry on the weekends, which was so fun in their stores.

I really realized that I didn’t like the designing part as much as I liked the organizational part. I have a literature degree as well as a business degree. I just am so right brain left brained. I found that I liked organizing the jewelry studio, coordinating, and sales so much more. Then I stepped into a really large antique and estate jewelry business. Started on their sales floor and then transitioned into their e-commerce team. We did over seven figures years in our first year online. It was like off to the races. I just loved that way of selling as well. Truly about building those relationships.

Melinda Wittstock:

What a great story. Do you think a lot of people during the pandemic, turned to almost lived your experience in a way, whether they were crafting or just picking up a hobby? Say they always loved jewelry and they’re like, “You know what? I got some time on my hands. I’d always thought of maybe one day,” or it was just some sort of dream, but they never did it. Then during the pandemic, people started to purse, kind of, their maker side if you will. Have you seen an uptick in the number of sort of independent newcomer jewelry designers?

Kathleen Cutler:

It’s a really great question. I mean, I always hope we all get to experience the art of creating. I’ve re picked up painting, watercolor, which is something I didn’t have space for and recently moved to now have the physical space for. I think so many of us don’t identify as creatives, but we all have like, whether it’s cooking that you love to do or gardening or painting, or in your parenting is how you express your art. I just think that hopefully the pandemic and one of the lasting things of slowing down, is having that element for creativity. As for new jewelry designers kind of on the block or in the scene, I think so. I think people had more of that time. I do some mentorship work with new emerging jewelers. I do think that there have been some new people.

I think there’s so many really incredible organizations that are working towards making the jewelry industry more inclusive, from a lot of different perspectives. But as you can imagine, because it’s so generational, it is challenging to get started. I was so lucky to have an apprenticeship and then one of my employers sent me to the Gemological Institute of America. I actually got a graduate diamond degree. I’ve had such incredible opportunities. I just love how interested people are getting, in this beautiful wearable art.

Melinda Wittstock:

What have been some of the challenges along the way? You make it sound very effortless and very easy, but there’s got to have been. I don’t know a female founder, an entrepreneur, who doesn’t have a few. What have been some of yours?

Kathleen Cutler:

Yeah. It’s such a great question. It’s like, “Which ones?”

Melinda Wittstock:

Which ones?

Kathleen Cutler:

I think exactly which ones, but I think what this journey over the past six years, really, I took a big detour. I took a detour away, which is why I speaks so deeply on it. I took a detour away from the relationship building into the mass marketing. I actually thought I hung my hat for a while on Facebook ads and complex email marketing campaigns and some of this more funnel based work. We had some amazing success with jewelers in sending traffic, but we found that it just was not repeatable. We could do everything exactly the same. Someone could have a fantastic website, fantastic product, but we really had stepped away from what we now do exclusively, which is this art of legacy selling and true relationship building.

In this six-year period, I had a son he’s three and a half now. I just had such a dark night of the soul around, okay we are working with jewelers. We are sending so much traffic to their sites, but we can’t guarantee that our clients are getting the results we want. We want everyone to have this, what works for some, we want to have this truly repeatable. For me, it was just because everything I do, I want it to work, right? I want it to be repeatable and make sure that it can work no matter who’s on the other side. I had just said no to a client for ads, because I was just feeling so disillusioned with the results. It was winter. I was sitting at a stop light and waiting to pick up my son and I was just like, “We can’t do this anymore.”

I had a client come to me that next week and I said, “Hey, can we try something?” She said, “Sure, I’m game Kathleen. You have a great reputation. What are we trying?” I said, “All right, we’re going to write a letter. We’re going to craft an email to 10 people in your network. We’re going to tell them about the pieces you have.” It was right around the holidays, and she made $10,000 that first day. I was like, “Okay, this is it.” This is back to the roots. This is back to that antique and estate jewelry company where we did seven figures. This is really, we need to have these personal connections, not when we are at that high end space it’s not just about numbers, it truly is about relationships.

That was a big transition point for me, was stepping back into what had worked. It’s easy to say, “Okay, that worked, but let me try something new.” It was really incredible to step back into that relationship building. It’s just been, I mean, the results and the friendships and the connection our clients have with their clients, just lights me and my team up so much.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, how wonderful. What advice do you have for women in business, at whatever stage of entrepreneurship or whatever industry that they’re in? If you had to boil it down to a couple of things that you’ve learned along the way that you’d wish you’d had someone give you this advice earlier on in your career, what would those be?

Kathleen Cutler:

I think the very first one is the best clients are the ones you have. I think no matter where you are in the journey, if you’re just be beginning, I think for our clients, they sell to a lot of friends and family and they feel like, “Oh my gosh, I don’t have a real business until I am selling to strangers on the internet.” It truly is. We’ve had clients who’ve been in business for 20 years and they can trace their entire business back to those first purchasers, those first friends and family.

I think if you can stop chasing new clients all the of time and really take exquisite care of who’s on your client roster, who’s jewelry you’re making, who’s in your book of business, even who is a great lead. We joke about this all the time. The best leads are the ones you have. The best staff is the one you have. The best house, dog, all these different things. I think if we can change our lens from more and more and more, into, again, this kind of, I have a yoga teacher background, so this is a little bit from that as well. When we can be more in tune with what we already have and show that gratitude, it just builds a phenomenal business foundation.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s really important to build on that. Any other pieces of advice or is that really the main thing, that’s your north star?

Kathleen Cutler:

That’s my north star. I think the secondary thing would be, it sounds trite, but your network is your net worth. I think the more you can, not to just do the best clients are the ones you have, but the best relationships are the ones you have. If you’re starting a business, and as you have Melinda, you’ve come from business after business as a serial entrepreneur. My guess is you’ve relied and really maintained the relationships that you’ve had in the past, be it corporate, be it at the last business. I think so often as women, we think that we need to kind of go it alone, but really the more we can lean into our network, the more we can stay in touch, take an old colleague up to dinner, send that text, reconnect with your best friend from college, and really have that network as well. Not only does it enhance your life, but it also can just lead to such incredible opportunities in the business world as well.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh gosh. It’s so important to be doing that when you don’t need it as well.

Kathleen Cutler:

Yes. Better to call with, “Congratulations on the new baby,” then, “Hey, can you help me find a new job?”

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. No, this is important that a lot of women do make this mistake of just heads down, showing competence, achieving things, getting things done, doing it all, and ignoring that relationship thing. I just want to hammer that home. I mean, this is a topic that comes up over and over and over again on the podcast. I don’t know whether women have this perfectionism thing, where we just tend to focus on the doing, rather than that relationship muscle. The relationships are actually something that women are really good at. It’s always been a little confounding to me that that’s such a pervasive issue for women in entrepreneurship.

Kathleen Cutler:

We see it too. I think because it comes easy, it doesn’t feel like true, real work. We tell our clients all the time, “Go to that new Pilate studio where your high net worth clients hang out. Wear your jewelry and walk the dog. Go invite a friend out and sit at the yacht club together.” These are true strategies. I think that because it comes easy and it seems fun, I think as you said, that perfectionism or that drive to just… We’ve had clients say, “I just left my last brain cell on my Instagram post.” It’s like, “No, that’s not necessarily going to grow your business.” What will, are this deep network of relationships that you’ve maintained and especially as you said, before you necessarily need them for that loan, advice, or for funding, connections, or all of these other things. We really want to make sure we’re maintaining and nurturing the relationships with our colleagues, our family, all of these other things, as well as our clients.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yes. So, so, so important. Kathleen, how can people find you and work with you? What’s the best way?

Kathleen Cutler:

I’m at kathleencutler.com. I’m on Instagram, Kathleen Cutler. We do have a free master class, which is all about social selling to the affluent, a lot of these techniques we talked about, and it is not just for the jewelry industry. We use a lot of jewelry examples, because that’s where we live, but it’s a place for anyone who wants to truly understand how to leverage their network, how to have some of these deeper connections and how to, as you said, have more fun, right? Go to Pilates as a business strategy and meet some people as a way to grow your business.

Melinda Wittstock:

Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us.

Kathleen Cutler:

It’s so great to be here today and excited to continue to connect.