Perhaps due to the meticulous nature of the craft, the Jewelry Business attracts perfectionists. Holding ourselves to high standards can be an asset, but this tendency can make it difficult to move on in the face of poor performance. Business is full of pitfalls. From marketing to inventory management, we don’t always have the information we need to make “Perfect” decisions. A successful entrepreneur must be able to forgive themselves for making mistakes. And I mean BIG mistakes. I once invested a quarter of a million dollars in a gorgeous new product line that I was sure would be a huge hit. It wasn’t! I had to drastically discount and even melt down a huge part of the inventory. After the initial shock, I realized that I needed to repackage the way I thought of liquidating obsolete inventory. Now I call it “liberating capital” and we do it regularly.
We like to think that our success or failure is the result of talent and hard work. While these elements are important, luck plays a greater role than most of us are willing to admit. In situations where there are many factors out of your control, as in business, luck is often a deciding factor. In The Drunkard’s Walk, Leonard Mladinow explores the role of random chance in our lives. He asserts that ” success or failure sometimes arises neither from great skill nor from great incompetence” but from mere luck of the draw. This is important to remember in fashion. If you hit a trend one year, it does not necessarily mean you will nail it the next year. In fact, the laws of probability almost guarantee that over the course of a career we will sometimes hit it big and sometimes completely bomb. Don’t take it personally, it’s just math!
No one makes the right call all the time. Over the long haul, a successful business person makes more good decisions than bad decisions. But in the short run, how you handle your flops is crucial. Learn from mistakes and move on. Persistence is a better strategy than beating yourself up.
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