IAM332- Jewelry Designer Creates Versatile Designs with Indo-Western Elements

Jinal Sampat is a jewelry designer at Sampat Jewellers. Her focus is on innovation and creation of jewelry pieces that are meaningful and hold long term value. She creates versatile designs with Indo-Western elements. Jinal holds her graduate degree from Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).

• CEO Hack: Writing 20% of the things that will help us achieve 80% success every Sunday
• CEO Nugget: Focus on the resources you have and build your business
• CEO Defined: Working on the business, not in the business

Website:https://sampatjewelers.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sampatjewellers/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SampatJewellers/

Full Interview

Check out one of our favorite CEO Hack’s Audible. Get your free audiobook and check out more of our favorite CEO Hacks HERE.

Transcription

The full transcription is only available to CBNation Library Members. Sign up today!

Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:30

Hello, hello. Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. i have Jinal Sampat of Sampat Jewellers. Jinal, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Jinal Sampat 0:40

Thank you so much for having me on the show and I'm super excited and pumped up.

Gresham Harkless 0:44

Yeah, I'm pumped up as well. And I wanted to read a little bit more about Jinal so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. And Jinal is a jewelry designer at Sampat Jewellers. Her focus is on innovation and the creation of jewelry pieces that are meaningful and hold long-term value. She creates versatile designs with Indo-Western elements. Jinal holds her graduate degree from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). Jinal, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

[restrict paid=”true”]

Jinal Sampat 1:10

I am. Go for it.

Gresham Harkless 1:11

Let's do it. So to kick everything off. I want to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. And what led you to start your business?

Jinal Sampat 1:18

Oh, sure. Interestingly, I married into a family of diamond jewelers. My father-in-law basically used to make jewelry for my family for more than 20 years when we got married. Right now it's more than 30 years. So yeah, a long time. So that's how we were introduced. And I'm actually an architect and a landscape architect. But I used to practice that. But slowly, like the jewelry thing, I really was interested in it. And there was a small niche that I saw. No one was working on it.

So we specialize in wedding chains. Just because having Indian culture there's a lot of ornate jewelry and it's not variable on a day-to-day basis, it's too much, so my goal is to have it more versatile, so it's more variable. And that's what I saw people needed around me, and I really enjoyed creating something unique that the market doesn't have. So that's why I got started in designing jewelry, and it's just been on for the last five years or something.

Gresham Harkless 2:30

Nice. Now you're definitely on your way for that 30 years, then you've been doing it for five years. So that'll be too but I love that because a lot of times there's usually some type of opportunity in the market, but you have to be able to see that. And when you see that you can definitely create something because it fulfills a need, which is always what I think everybody wants to do whenever they create something.

Jinal Sampat 2:50

Yeah, for sure. Jewellery is such a saturated market in some ways. Like there are tonnes of designers, tonnes of pieces. But I wanted to do something specific to our culture, and something that would preserve it and celebrate it basically.

Gresham Harkless 3:08

Absolutely. As you said, very versatile, so it's not just you have to wear it specifically on that day, but you can wear it beyond that, which is something you can use to always remember that day, even beyond that day. So I truly appreciate you for doing that. And I want to hear a little bit more about like some of the pieces can you tell us a little bit more about what you're doing and exactly the process maybe on how you actually create that?

Jinal Sampat 3:30

Yeah, sure. So the wedding chains, they are actually called mangal sutra in our culture in Indian culture. So I just call them wedding chains to keep it simple so people don't get confused. So usually what they are, is a traditional chain of like beads, small black beads, they could be as ornate as you can, they are like big pendants. So basically married women are supposed to wear them every day. It's like the engagement ring, we have we wear it every day.

So the wedding chain is supposed to be worn as a purpose to protect the husband and the couple from the evil eye, so that's the idea behind it. So what I did was the black beaded chain got too overwhelming, it's just too much, I didn't wear it for five years until I got married. So I was like this should be some way to make this variable meaningful, it's such a unique piece.

So I started designing and experimenting with a chain keeping fewer beads and making a delicate chain so that people can go to school and wear it at work not feeling out of place. So that's where I started with the chain was number one and then the pendant started getting simpler and more modern.

So I try to bring elements from the traditional design but actually try to make it a bit more delicate for daily. There, it's not that robust, it's delicate to the eye. And it has those fine elements of our culture like curves and flowers. But still, it has sharp lines of the modern, that work for the modern generation. So that's basically the overall idea and also, there is a lot more to do. I experiment with some with a longer chain that goes down to the belly button, like a fashion piece. But it's solid gold. So you can wear it at night parties, it's just perfect.

And then a lot more to do with the pendants. Basically just a pendant, there's a lot of design elements, once you open up your imagination, there's just a lot you can do with this concept. So I'm really excited. And I think I'm getting positive feedback from the brides. I mean, they always see Oh, Hawaii, I didn't know about you guys, I wish I knew about you earlier. So we actually have a lot of brides that are married for more than five years, and they get this piece for their first anniversary, or their second anniversary depending on what stage they are in. Some women are fanatics, they collect wedding chains, we have one engagement ring per wedding chain can be multiple, I have a whole collection of wedding chains.

So I was really excited about that. So the market actually becomes bigger a little bit for us. And also more women can benefit from mistakes that they have done. Sometimes what I like to do is also take the existing chain that they have, and redesign it. So we custom design it using their same diamonds or gold, whatever they have for sentimental value, and create something new.

Gresham Harkless 6:49

Nice, I definitely appreciate that and appreciate you being able to see all that it is just that you started to create, I guess certain versions of the wedding chain. And then you started to ask people and then you got feedback and decided whether to continue to push along with it was that kind of like what happened?

Jinal Sampat 7:06

Actually, it was really interesting. I just wrote a blog one day on varying changes, I created some designs and did them in Photoshop a little bit to make it visual, I didn't even create those pieces. It was a test blog, and I just put it out. And I still get leads from their blog before your old blog. That's when I had the aim. There's really some interest in here. I mean, I try something and it's still working. So I mean, there should be more to it. So it was a coincidence that I wrote that blog for mangal sutras for modern women.

Something along that lines, I just came like 20 or 25 designs and explained each one of them in that blog. They weren't that special, and what they can do with it? So that's when it got started. So initially, we used to make all kinds of jewelry, it was just jewel jewelry. That's why our name is Sampat Jewellers. If it was now I would change it to something more specific. But we started it that way. So I position it that way. But the product is quite specific at this time.

Gresham Harkless 8:21

Yeah, I love that. I'm a big blogger, obviously. So I love anything that starts out from a blog. And I think a lot of times when people have an idea about creating something, a lot of times, you're like, Okay, I need funding, I need this, I need that I need all those things. But a lot of times, just putting it out in a blog or a podcast or asking a few friends, whatever that might be, you can actually see if you have an idea and you do have something like that. So it was great to hear. That's how that started. And great to hear that you're continuing with it.

Jinal Sampat 8:50

Yeah, it was exciting at that time, it was just all of these positive ideas that were like flowing in my mind. And it was a hard decision to just focus on one thing, but I think it's our best decision. It makes me happy and my team happy. So it's just better that way or else it gets diluted in all the jewelers and all the jewelry companies basically.

Gresham Harkless 9:14

Yeah, it's obviously getting to be too much so and would you consider that to be your secret sauce or is it the fact that you have been able to focus on that one thing?

Jinal Sampat 9:24

I think so. I need a strong concept to keep me going if I'm working on something. If it's a generic bracelet or generic bangle, I am not. I'm not that excited. But if there's a story, there was a lady who was celebrating her 25th anniversary, so there's a story behind it. So that keeps me excited, like some kind of concept and it actually is more exciting for the client too because when they're wearing it, they can see what each diamond means in that piece. So yeah, it's always meaningful to do something. I say no to people that are like this. Give me a designer, can you make this? And I'm like, I don't want it, even if I make it, but I don't want to copy someone else's design. This happens a lot in the jewelry industry, they see a design somewhere else, and they want a vaccine. But it's something that I don't enjoy. So we don't do that at all.

Gresham Harkless 10:22

Yeah, that makes perfect sense that it's not quite the same. But a lot of like web design. And always try to ask people what their story is about what makes them unique things like that. Because you can show that just like you can in the piece of jewelry, you can tell the story in a symbolic way. And a lot of times, if you don't know that story, or people don't want to tell you that story, then a lot of times you miss on what can be really a phenomenal piece. So I definitely understand that.

Jinal Sampat 10:46

Yeah, definitely.

Gresham Harkless 10:48

Yeah, and I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Jinal Sampat 10:58

So I recently started doing this 80-20% rule. And I think I really am enjoying it. So basically, every Sunday, me and my husband both write down 20% of the things that when we'll make it 80% will move us 80% ahead, like just focus on three or four smaller things that can be achieved after noontime or in the morning time, focus on the top 20%. That moves you forward, I think that just keeps you very focused, because I work from home.

And it's just very important for me to like, stay focused and learn a lot of new things. Because we have an E-commerce business, it's an E-commerce thing. And there's a lot to learn with SEO and all of these, like email marketing, a lot to do constantly. And these people change. So you have to be focused, constantly make those revisions, and learn new things. So yeah, I think the 80-20% rule is really helping us so far.

Gresham Harkless 10:58x

Yeah, definitely. I definitely agree with that. And yeah, especially in the digital marketing world, there are so many things that are changing, sometimes you have to also figure out, what is something you should pay attention to, versus something that maybe should put off to later or not even pay attention to, which often is the case as well. So it's great to hear that rule. Because it's definitely important for every business owner. So now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice. Or if you can happen to be a time machine, what would you tell your younger business?

Jinal Sampat 12:36

So I think every time we try to do something I used to always say, Oh, I don't have a store. That's why we are not getting customers, for example. I still say that sometimes, but like there's more to it. Like, think about how you can do it with what resources you have. And also at the end, what experience you're giving to the customer basically I didn't want myself to complain. What I didn't have worse is work with the resources we have. We have internet. I mean, that's super powerful. I don't think we need anything more we are already on a better side.

Gresham Harkless 13:15

Yeah, I think that's very true. And especially in this day and age, just like he touched on with the internet and all those things out there. There's the unlimited ways you can build a business and you can build a business according to you. So you have to make sure that you measure, what is success and what is not success. Because a lot of times if you're listening to external influences that you don't have this, you don't have that or you should do this, or you should do that. You will never ever reach success, because you're always going to have to do the next thing well, even if it's not in alignment with what you want. Now, I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on this show. So Jinal, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Jinal Sampat 13:53

Being a CEO is not actually working in the business, but it's actually working on the business. That's the number one lesson if I catch myself doing smaller tasks, like Photoshop or something crazy, then I'm not actually doing the right thing. So it's a different thing to have a vision, but it's a different thing to get work done.

Gresham Harkless 14:16

Absolutely right in line with the E Myth, which is a phenomenal book, it talks all about working on the business, not in the business because it's hard to grow when you're doing that. And because you get so busy with all these things. So I think that's an incredible definition. And, I truly appreciate your time, what I want to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know. And then of course, how they can find out about all the awesome things you're doing.

Jinal Sampat 14:39

Yeah, sure. So one thing I would like to tell everyone is, to expect the least from your close family members and your friends. When you're starting a company I think that's a mistake I made. So you think your friends would buy for your family extended family would buy from you to support you. But I think that's a really fast expectation. Like don't tell people right away Okay, I've done this but show people what you have done to get the most support because I've seen a lot of people who start their company, create the Facebook page right away, and get likes from their friends first versus like if they actually found likes from the real audience that you're trying to woo, the family will come automatically, they can definitely check out our work on our website, sampatjewellers.com, and our Instagram sampatjewellers, I'm really active on that. Instagram. So our process behind the scenes and everything is mostly on Instagram. Because it's such a cool, fun platform. That's one of the 20% things I have on my list this time to do more on it.

Gresham Harkless 15:57

Yeah, definitely a great platform especially for visual content and images and businesses like yours. So we will definitely have those links in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you. But I appreciate you so much again, and I hope you have a great rest of the day.

Jinal Sampat 16:10

Thank you, Gresham thank you for finding us really nice chatting with you, and being able to see you actually make a huge difference.

Gresham Harkless 16:15

Exactly, exactly.

Outro 16:18

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

[/restrict]