BJA seminars aim to prepare craftspeople for business

The British Jewellers Association (BJA) is to host a series of seminars for craftspeople who want to become businesspeople. The day-long seminars, which are entitled ‘Marketing your Business’ and ‘Selling Successfully’, have been designed as a pair for maximum impact and will be initially staged in both London and Birmingham in July. Day one of the seminar, ‘Marketing your Business’, will take place on June 30 in Birmingham and July 1 in Central London and will focus on defining your market, identifying your ideal customers, researching where to find them, building a marketing strategy and coming up with an action plan. Day two of the seminar will be on July 29 and July 31 in Birmingham and Central London and will cover customer needs, selling solutions, the difference between price and value, and closing sales. The lecturer will be Nicole Bachmann, a founding partner of Haywood Mann which runs and designs tailored leadership and performance development programmes across Europe. Bachmann said: “You are a jewellery designer. You are a jeweller. You are an artist. You are a craftsperson; fantastic, well done for getting this far. However, if you are not also a business person, the likelihood of you being able to make a living out of your passion is not very high. Because you are the business.” Topics covered in the seminars will be comprehensive, including everything from channels to marketing, to understanding your customer and coming up with an action plan and discovering how to close a sale and having fun while selling. Lindsey Straughton, head of marketing at BJA, said: “Nicole is a fabulous and motivational speaker and feedback from her attendees at her previous seminars has been extremely positive. “We know that these days will provide a great opportunity for designers and those running small business to get to grips with topics which are for many creative people hard to put into practice.” The seminars cost £97 per day and will run from 10:00am.