2020 Vision - Adulting in the time of Pandemic

Author’s Bio - Angela Benjamin of Ange B Designs, is a sustainable jewellery designer and maker based in West London. Alongside her jewellery design business, she also teaches one-day jewellery making workshops for beginners.

I’m humming the tune to that old 80s George Benson song, as I type:

“if I knew back then, what I know now?If I understood the what, when, why and how? It’s clear to see what I should have done. In hindsight, it’s 2020 vision!”

Although 2020 may be a year that many of us will want to forget, I think there is always something to be learnt from the past. I’ve never been one for making New Year’s resolutions or grand plans for the dawning of a new decade. I didn’t have any huge expectations of the last year other than the desire to keep making jewellery, as a sideline to my day job.

However, that being said, in a rare moment of adulting, I did sit down and make a business plan. I must confess that this was only the second time in nearly 5 years of selling my jewellery online that I’d done this ( *shamed face smirk). Being a physiotherapist (albeit a self-employed one), I felt confident that my career afforded me the relative luxury of a ‘job for life’ so business planning was never something that had occurred to me.

Much in the same way that I approach a lot of my jewellery making, I leapt into opening my Etsy shop, with little more than a cute logo and a tiny budget! I managed to juggle making, selling and shipping without any real forethought - mostly learning on the hoof.

When I decided to open my own website, it seemed like a good idea to do a bit of planning but again it was all pretty basic. In December 2019 I joined a Facebook group to help improve my understanding of website visibility and SEO, with a view to “taking things seriously''. It was at this stage that I made my first proper business plan. It was stumbling across this plan that prompted me to write this piece. To paraphrase the late great Maya Angelou, “if you don’t know where you’ve come from, you don’t know where you’re going”. At the time, I remember tentatively putting down a few randomly selected numbers, based on little more than my previous years figures and a vague hope that I could at the very least replicate them in the coming year.

Three months into 2020, and the world was in the throes of a global pandemic. My physiotherapist ‘job for life’ had been drastically curtailed and I had plenty of time to make jewellery. I quickly learned that whilst there were somethings that I could not control, making simple plans helped to add structure to my day, and helped me get the most out of my business.

I started by setting myself a target of doing at least one hour of business-related admin or learning per day. As someone who has quite a short attention span and struggles to sit still for longer than 15minutes, I thought this would be a stretch. Learning how to make my jewellery easier to find on the internet sounded far less enjoyable than actually making it! However I quickly realised that with all of my in-person selling events cancelled for the foreseeable, I needed to do what I could to broaden my reach.

Establishing this new daily learning habit (interspersed amongst the Zoom physiotherapy consultations, sourdough starter raising, home gym workouts, knitting AND jewellery making) helped me to hone not only my knowledge gaps, but also provided me with a clear focus for the direction in which I wanted to take my business.

An example of this was realising that I wanted to make my jewellery (and ultimately it’s production), as sustainable as possible. Enter the ‘made-to-order’ lightbulb moment! This seemed the perfect strategy for me to practice what I preached, and in so doing give my customers a semi-bespoke jewellery shopping experience.

With the disruption that the Pandemic brought to all of our lives in 2020, I figured that there must be other small business owners who faced challenges that had taught them something, whether it be a tangible skill or something more philosophical. I decided to reach out to three of my creative friends for their personal insights, as they are all at different stages in their journey as solo handmade business owners.

Divinia Fleary launched Toup Ceramics the midst of the first UK lockdown, making beautiful hand-built functional ceramic tableware.

“Know thyself! Understanding my own strengths and weaknesses was key - it enabled me to not only draw on what I’m already great at but find creative ways to support the areas that are lacking, so I can maintain a perpetual forward motion of myself and my business.

An example of this was the need to maintain set working hours to enable me to be more productive. Relying on sheer will to motivate myself during lockdown wasn’t enough, so to find a way around that I found, and joined online creative co-working groups which kept me accountable and gave me a lovely sense of community too.”

Naadu Ashun of A Bag Less Ordinary opened her Etsy shop back in 2017. Her gorgeous handmade bags of all sizes beautifully combine her Anglo-Ghanian heritage, through her mix of Liberty print and African waxed cotton and Ankara print fabrics.

“With the pandemic dominating most of last year, I found people were after connection even more than usual. Being a small business and the face of my brand, really helped with being able to connect with my customers. I found myself having more conversations with customers on Etsy and Instagram, and they were often really lovely chats.

People want to know the person behind a business and if you are empathetic, kind and friendly I have found it helps your business to grow - especially when times are difficult for everyone.”

Janette Watson alongside her husband Paul, design and hand makes beautifully intricate nautical-inspired homeware for their small business, The Lazarette.

“In January 2020, our main target was the US wedding market, as our cute flower girl baskets were popular. During the March lockdown, it became clear that there were problems with shipping due to fewer flights and COVID restrictions.

We then concentrated on the UK. I created more storage basket designs after studying interior trends in magazines and online. These have done well, and I love making them.

After an exhibition was cancelled the autumn, we realised that our local sales would be down. Luckily, a local woman started a free Cornish Christmas Facebook group showcase makers based in Cornwall. Within a month, she had 20,000 members and we had the busiest November ever!

So last year was a revelation, we started off thinking global was best, but now realise that people want to support local businesses and there are lots of lovely customers right on our doorstep - it’s also better for the planet.

Personally speaking, I’ve learnt that I enjoy my own company but I like to know that there are people ‘out there’ when I need to feel connected.

I’ve learnt that doing anything creative, on any scale, in any form is important. I’m hopeful that the value of creativity in our lives will be given greater priority once things return to normal.

Most significantly, I’ve learnt that even during what was probably the worst year on record for most of the world, we all have potential for growth. Whether that’s learning that you’d rather buy bagels, than spend several days (or weeks as I did) attempting to rear your own sourdough starter, or maybe something a bit more introspective.

I’ll leave it to Ms Angelou to sum things up:

“ I have respect for the past, but I’m a person of the moment. I’m here, and I do my best to be completely centred at the place I’m at, then I go forward to the next place”