Today I interview my English counterpart – we joked in the episode that we are the same person who took different paths!
Award-winning entrepreneur and Jewellery business expert Jessica Rose is the founder and Director of the London Jewellery School and Jewellers Academy.
Jessica set up LJS aged just 21 in 2009 with only one class a month from a community hall in South London.
The school grew and has trained over 20,000 students with classes running 7 days a week, making it Europe’s largest jewellery training centre.
In 2018 Jessica founded Jewellers Academy, providing online training in jewellery and business offering individual courses as well as Diploma programmes and the infamous Jewellery Business Bootcamp.
In this episode, she shares how she got started with jewellery making, and what motivated her to pivot to teaching rather than just making.
You can listen to this episode below, or on your fave podcasting app!
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Highlights from this episode:
- After a year selling her pieces, Jess R created a series of six beginner jewellery making lessons which quickly filled. To meet demand, Jess R recruited freelance jewellers to run courses she could not teach and steadily grew her classes to create the London Jewellery School.
- Whilst the school is currently closed due to COVID-19, it has seen over 40,000 students in its classes and has transitioned to online classes at the Jewellers Academy.
- As her courses grew, Jess R reduced her in-person teaching and focus her time and energy on building her business and teaching online classes.
- “The nice thing…as the business grows you get to choose what you want to do. You don’t have to do everything” {Jess R}
- If you are facilitating classes, have a clear lesson plan/flow and outcomes for what the students will have made/learned by the end of the session.
- Consider whether your lesson/session will be live or online.
- “Marketing your class online is about 50% of the work” {Jess R}
- Both Jess R and Jess V set up Facebook groups to support their online learning classes. This allows for peer supported learning and builds strong communities.
- Jess R started building her online classes by challenging herself to create one YouTube video a week making something and learning. This allowed her to learn what shots, content and edits worked well and made scaling up to using a film crew easier.
- Live courses can sometimes be difficult for beginners as they may not know terminology/techniques/tools.
- Jess R discusses a basic technical setup needed for filming including audio and visual elements.
- “The things that are obvious to you are not always obvious to a beginner” {Jess R}
- If possible, two camera angles are helpful—a wide shot and a close up. This provides students with additional information.
- Provide students with exact measurements and dimensions.
- Cover all health and safety aspects at the start of the class and in course notes.
- “Just be yourself. People will gravitate towards you or they won’t. It’s an underrated marketing tool—share yourself, who you are and your personality” {Jess V}
- Check out Jess’s Jewellers Academy!
