Mentoring for new jeweller businesses
From 1996 to 2009 the City Fringe Partnership delivered major initiatives to improve the prospects of residents and support London's small businesses.
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Mentoring for new jeweller businesses - Mentoring Matters
The CFP's Jewellery Sector Investment Plan (JSIP) included projects that dealt with major industry challenges. In particular, the need for improvements in training provision, growing the demand for London-made products to support business growth, and encouraging more people into the trade.
The first ever showcase of London's jewellery talent, London Jewellery Week, industry-led training, equipment grants for small and micro-businesses as well as capacity-building grants for industry support organisations, schools projects, like the pilot scheme at Maria Fidelis in Camden, and beginners' jeweller courses were all part of the CFP's investment into the sector.
The CFP funded Mentoring Matters, a project designed to connect twenty self-motivated, enthusiastic jewellery designers with industry professionals to advise and guide them in the early stages of their business development. After a year of one-to-one support from experienced mentors, the selected group was given the opportunity to meet event and show organisers, retailers and key figures from the jewellery industry. This led them to showcase their work and discuss the progress they had made during the programme so that they could implement what they learnt over the course of their careers.
Hannah Bedford - Jewellery Designer
Hannah saw an advertisement for Mentoring Matters in industry newsletter Benchpeg and knew the hours spent with an industry professional would be important in developing her fledgling company.
Hannah decided that she needed support with three core areas: managing the creative side of her practice, developing the photography on her website and business support. As a result she was assigned three mentors to help her with the business' different areas of need. She explored new ways of working and went on to spend one full day every week developing creative ideas without undermining the business she had built up with existing products.
She also received support for the business side of her practice: "I wanted someone with experience in the trade but it turned out that that they had lots of experience in a much bigger business. We looked at direct selling and getting more publicity in magazines, which was really interesting."
Hannah felt that the development of her new collections and launching her own website were "probably the biggest direct results of the mentoring". Her mentor showed her how to write a website specification document so she was able to select and engage a web designer. Following the support of Mentoring Matters Hannah was more focused on the growth of her business. "I would like to raise the profile of my work, take part in bigger shows and get some more publicity. It's my aim that within two years I can give up my part-time job and focus full-time on my practice.
"Throughout the mentoring programme there have been times when I have had to re-evaluate the way I worked, be it in methods of production, my organisation or business practices. In addition to this, the process has opened up a new network of colleagues and friends I feel I can exchange advice and experiences with."
