Victoria Wieck is an American Entrepreneur Rags to Riches Story Who Has Sold Over $500m on Home Shopping Network (HSN)

Summary

Victoria Wieck is the American Entrepreneur dream story of going from rags to riches. 

She’s warm, funny and fierce.

Immigrating from South Korea to America with her parents with only thirty dollars, she has built a multi-million dollar business with over $500 million in retail sales.

She shares her amazing story from a series of corporate jobs, to  starting her own company in 1989 on a shoestring budget to spend more time with her family.

For the past 23 years (19 years on Home Shopping Network (HSN), and 4 years on Shop HQ), Victoria has been sharing her jewelry designs with millions of viewers during her own monthly shows.

Learn how to sell your product on TV with shopping networks like Home Shopping Network and ShopHQ.

You’re going to love this episode!

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Brandon: 

Hello Friends. Welcome to the show. Today we have an amazing episode with victoria Wick who is a american entrepreneur rags to riches story and I say american entrepreneur because she came to this country with $30 in her pocket and she’s grown a business selling on T. 

Brandon: 

V. To reach over $500 million worth of jewelry. You are going to love her story, she’s warm, Funny and fierce and provides a ton of tips whether you are starting your business from scratch like she did or scaling your business from 50 million to several $100 million. 

Brandon: 

Let’s not waste any more time. 

Brandon: 

Brandon: 

Here we go. Welcome to build the business success secrets. The only podcast that provides straight talk for entrepreneurs whether you’re an entrepreneur starting with an idea or growing your business. This show is for you, we’ll teach you how to build a strong mindset, powerful body and profitable business so you can achieve success and here’s your host Brendan. 

See white victoria, how did you get started in selling products on T.V. 

Brandon: 

Um so you have to go way back to my journey. 

Brandon: 

Um so I I’m an immigrant from South Korea came here when I was about 13 years old and um my parents you know we didn’t have any money so they both worked two jobs a piece that meant that they were out of my house by about 66 30 every morning and didn’t come home till it was dark so I didn’t see my parents most of the time. 

Brandon: 

In fact none of my siblings saw them either. 

Victoria: 

So you know as I grew um and you know they were very loving parents, very loving and nurturing and they made enormous sacrifices for the future generations and we got here and uh so as I grew and I you know got all hyper educated. 

Victoria: 

I went to U. C. L. A. U. S. See all these places got my jobs I find myself working similar hours. 

Victoria: 

I was working um you know from seven a.m. To eight p.m. Most of the time it’s what it’s like trying to climb the corporate ladder. You know you’re always trying to finish the job, you always have too much to do. 

Victoria: 

So then I had an hour and a half commute um from santa Monica to Burbank. So you know I didn’t want that life for my kids so I have to find a different path besides the fact that I was like suffocating in these corporate um you know a lot of times when you’re creative you have creative solutions, you know what your customers want. 

Victoria: 

But it’s mostly you have to go get approval process from something like a CFO or someone like that that holds the purse strings that don’t understand your customers and don’t understand what makes something creative. 

Victoria: 

What’s what’s the saleable creative thing? 

Victoria: 

Like a lot of times you can be creative, it doesn’t sell. 

Victoria: 

So um wait, could you uh this could be what, what victoria is going to determine Brandon singer? 

Victoria: 

But I have two questions. One is how did you? 

Brandon: 

Was it hard to put yourself through school? I mean you went to U. C. L. A. You came here from South Korea. You were born in south Korea. Did you speak english? 

Brandon: 

When? None whatsoever. 

Victoria: 

So how did you like, what did you, you just figured it out? 

Brandon: 

No. 

Brandon: 

Okay. 

Brandon: 

Brandon If it was that simple, that’s why I’m asking. 

Victoria: 

I know, I know. 

Brandon: 

Okay, so here’s the thing um for all of you who are listening right now to the sound of my voice, I know that sometimes things can, you know, we all have moments when you’re like, is this it like I’m going to fail or jeez, I’ve got everything I can and you know, I just feel like right here, I haven’t gotten anywhere, you know, when you get those moments when you’re sort of self pitting or especially entrepreneurs, you’re like, I gave it all I got and you know, I’m not getting away, I’m not getting attraction, right? 

Victoria: 

So at that point, I was looking at what is it, what is the one thing I can do? 

Victoria: 

I didn’t speak english and have their parents, they have a car, what is the one thing you can do to change your future? 

Victoria: 

And for me, that one thing was, first of all, I had to learn how to speak english, so the way I communicated with people, like I went to school and my teacher would say something like do you understand something and I wouldn’t understand something. 

Victoria: 

And so when I want clarification for something, I would actually draw it out. 

Victoria: 

Um So that’s how I communicate in the very beginning. 

Victoria: 

And then what happened was my, I told my dad to randomly pick out words from an american dictionary. English english dictionary. So he was just, he didn’t speak english either. So he just literally randomly picked every 10th word or whatever, He circled it and then I would Right the definition of it. 

Victoria: 

And then so if you try to learn a foreign language, like if you’re learning to speak let’s say Korean and U at a Korean word toward the Korean word, there’s all these other words you don’t understand in the definition portion of this, so then I would list those, so I ended up with like 200 words a day and I would memorize them and uh and I had him test me the next morning. 

Victoria: 

So anything that I missed then I would, I would be on the list. 

Victoria: 

So that was the one thing I did. 

Victoria: 

So within about two years I was pretty proficient in English and I found out that most Americans actually live on 2500 words or not. 

Victoria: 

I was trying to say that us americans are limited compared to people from south Korea victoria. 

Victoria: 

I’m joking. 

Brandon: 

I’m joking. I’m joking. 

Brandon: 

I know, but if you’re, if you’re, if you’re not for people listening, I’m joking. 

Victoria: 

I know you are. But I think what I have, I learned, it was like um I think americans are very polite in some ways and they have this culture that is kind of a love hate in a way that when I first came here at first I used to think that these people are just so chill like you know, they’re so welcome and this and that and yet there was a formality to them like so, but I think that if you know when you were talking to somebody, you don’t want to sound like your Harvard educated. 

Brandon: 

So even if you knew a word, you would try to be at that level, you know what I mean? 

Victoria: 

So I’ve heard that 2500 words was plenty. 

Victoria: 

So I wasted all that time learning more. 

Victoria: 

Apparently now you’re now you’re now you’re smarter. 

Victoria: 

And it turns out that anything over 1/4 grade reading comprehension is very hard for people to either understand or comprehend when it comes to sales, marketing or communicating a message. 

Victoria: 

Did you? 

Victoria: 

I agree. 

Brandon: 

100%. 

Brandon: 

Yeah. I have trouble understanding. 

Victoria: 

Yeah, me too. Right. Like you can’t read a wall words. I just did. And the reason is I just went on this whole rant. 

Brandon: 

I think the podcast came out today about people who are doing their sales and marketing and they forget that copy is actually one of the largest parts of marketing because it can’t write copy that will hook the customer or stop them in the scroll or stop them in the magazine or stop them from flipping the channel. 

Brandon: 

Right? 

Brandon: 

Tv You’re done right. 

Brandon: 

Exactly. 

Brandon: 

So I discovered all that. 

Brandon: 

I mean mostly by having things not work for me. 

Brandon: 

So, so you, you come here from south Korea by away. 

Brandon: 

My sister in law is south korean. 

Brandon: 

Her mother came here from south Korea. 

Victoria: 

She must be a good person. 

Brandon: 

Oh, good company. 

Victoria: 

Of course. She’s a wonderful person. My nephew is 1/4 korean. 

Brandon: 

He’s the world champion. Uh Professional shooter of all things. I guess. South Koreans are also fast. I’m hoping that he got some genes from my brother and I, but you know, you never know, you could always claim that. 

Brandon: 

Well yeah I tried to I tried to latch on, I mean his name is maximus, how can you compete with the name called maximus? 

Victoria: 

Yeah, no I know. 

Brandon: 

And then he was born uh in the year of the pig. 

Brandon: 

Is that right? 

Brandon: 

That’s like a big thing in south Korea. 

Victoria: 

Yeah, I think I don’t understand it. 

Brandon: 

My family was never into like the I I know I was born like the year of the dog or something. 

Brandon: 

I don’t understand what those things mean really. 

Victoria: 

Um But I mean it’s fun so It worked out. 

Victoria: 

So you come here, you memorize effectively 2500 words, you teach yourself English. 

Victoria: 

And I mean even living in California I mean I have to say that getting into use L. A. is generally a competitive hard thing. Is that something that you had set your sights on because you wanted to go to a top school or was it, how did you decide and what did you study? 

Brandon: 

Uh So going back to studying I think um I decided that the one thing I could do for myself was to learn to speak english. 

Brandon: 

But the other thing I could do for myself was to let my parents know that when they left me and the and their their five kids basically I was one of five. 

Brandon: 

I am one of five that they would be taken care of. 

Victoria: 

So I got up right about when they got up you know at that age I was that took a lot of this is going to do that. 

Victoria: 

So I got up when they got up so with that you know I fed them, took them to school. I took my brother on a bus to school you know city bus dropped him up at a like a little daycare and um so I had all this time during the day and I had you know no friends, I don’t understand that you know responsibilities I don’t trust in speaking because I have no friends. 

Victoria: 

So I had all this time to study. 

Victoria: 

So I poured myself into now I didn’t have to worry too much about math and world history because Korean schools actually teach that pretty early on. So English literature and American history kind of gave me a little trouble. But American history is only 200 years old. I’m in Korean history is like 10,000 years old. So you know it was like it was kind of fun and um so I did pretty well on my S. 

Victoria: 

A. T. I got to U. C. L. A. I worked about 30 hours a week for the Century City Chamber of Commerce And I made some great connections there because you know that was where a lot of the business was happening right between Beverly hills and west. 

Victoria: 

But and um I had a great boss, his name was Joel Baker and he took such a pity on me. He knew I was a hard worker and so he gave me um like 30 almost 35 hours a week. I was paid hourly monday Wednesday friday and saturday. 

Victoria: 

So saturday I don’t have to come to work but I did a lot of the brochures and all that. So monday Wednesday friday. I worked 10 hours a week 10 hours a day and then I went to school Tuesday thursday and what that meant was I didn’t have a choice of classes And I was in school from eight am to like you know pretty late because I took whatever concepts were awkward on Tuesday Thursday because I want to just get out of school and I studied economics and um it was a great school. 

Victoria: 

I mean great school to be a beautiful scenery, great people. 

Victoria: 

Um classes were just really high caliber and but I did work off campus quite a bit so I didn’t make a lot of friends there either. 

Victoria: 

So you know I was focused and I think in many ways not having that ability to make friends and having the college life of you know, sorority, all that stuff. Actually I think it kind of helped me at the end. I was like focused and getting my things done well. 

Victoria: 

That’s that’s exciting. 

Victoria: 

And that’s really hard. 

Brandon: 

Yeah, it’s hard. 

Victoria: 

So you graduate, you sell a with a degree in economics and you decide that you’re going to do what? 

Brandon: 

Well I wanted to get a job and I didn’t get a job that I thought that I could live with for the rest of my life. 

Brandon: 

So like I got jobs for as I got loan office esko officer, loan officer, uh insurance salesperson, you know, all these things that had nothing to do with creativity. 

Victoria: 

So I thought, you know, in my, my dad used to say when I would say to him, I wanna um you know major in art or something. 

Victoria: 

And my father would say well have you ever heard of Stevie wonder? 

Victoria: 

And I said well yes. 

Victoria: 

And he says well what does that have to do with this conversation? He says well do you think he went to Juilliard? 

Victoria: 

I said no. 

Victoria: 

So he said if he went to Julia department around him, so art is something that’s within you. 

Victoria: 

They don’t teach you that. So you don’t need to waste money learning how to you know, basically pain or do do whatever you have to do, so go get a real job. So I, you know, got my degree in economics and I just you know, in the interview process they would ask you um you know, all the typical questions and then they would ask do you have any questions? 

Victoria: 

And I would say well what’s my typical day going to be like? 

Victoria: 

And then when they told me I was horrified, so I couldn’t see myself do that. 

Victoria: 

And the best thing to do was to go and get myself another degree. 

Brandon: 

So that’s how I went to USC, which is where I got my Master’s degree. 

Victoria: 

Um You’ll find this interesting, what you’ll find this interesting. So I got myself in the NBA program and I thought marketing is like so great, so exciting because you know, I can graphics um all the different ways I can be creative, that’s great. And then as far as uh coming up with you know like buzz words and all that, I thought they would be really great for me. 

Victoria: 

So I was like all set. And then when I was studying my class is one of my professors, marketing professor actually took me aside one day and told me I just wasn’t going to be very good at it. 

Victoria: 

Um He said that I didn’t really understand the nuances of marketing and that you know whenever they would do case studies for example, here’s a great example they told me and they still teach this believe it or not. 

Victoria: 

Uh That the most powerful word of marketing is free, the second most perfect world. 

Victoria: 

And marketing is new and improved. 

Victoria: 

Okay so first of all I said well if it’s improved why is it new? 

Victoria: 

Um English is my second language. 

Victoria: 

But isn’t that kind of contradictory to one another? Um You know questions like that. And I was when they say free even back then I would say well does anybody really believe anything is really free? Like isn’t that like a lie? 

Victoria: 

Like how would you build a relationship with the customer with the life? The first thing you tell them is a lie. 

Victoria: 

It’s not free. 

Victoria: 

Um So my marketing professor issue with my ability to not understand things. 

Victoria: 

So um So he’ll alert $500 million TV later. 

Brandon: 

You obviously must have known something, right? 

Brandon: 

But choking. 

Victoria: 

So he based on his word because I was I was a kid. 

Brandon: 

I don’t know what that I was doing. So I then quickly switched my major to finance. 

Victoria: 

So my M. B. A. Actually is dual track finance and marketing. So I kind of didn’t want to steal that grow up then I had taken too many classes to kind of give it up. So I went out and got both degrees and um Yeah so years later um you know they did invite me to come back and speak in front of because I was apparently pretty successful. 

Victoria: 

Um And you know. 

Victoria: 

Yeah that’s so that that’s what happened and so I threw you off track there but I appreciate you sharing that story because I think it’s important for people to understand, I mean someone is listening to you or sees you on tv and thinks that it’s this, you know, everybody thinks that it’s the instant overnight success and it’s nothing there’s nothing like that. 

Victoria: 

So you graduate from USC with two degrees, you go out and now we’re back to where I think a little bit off track, but I wanted to know that you’re working in corporate America, but basically you’re dying every day. 

Victoria: 

I mean the community people, the bureaucrat very proud, what is it? 

Brandon: 

Bureaucracy? 

Brandon: 

Office politics, I would say. 

Victoria: 

And yeah, so what happened was from that point, so when I got out of use U. 

Brandon: 

S. 

Brandon: 

C. 

Victoria: 

I actually had the jobs I was offered was much more elevated. 

Brandon: 

You know I got some great job offers and but they were all in different places like new york Chicago were usually like Wall Street because of the finance under marketing degree. 

Brandon: 

So, um, but I couldn’t leave. 

Victoria: 

My parents were still immigrants in trying to sort of like take care of the rest of the siblings. 

Victoria: 

I mean, they were by that point they were pretty, I wouldn’t say well off, but they weren’t like struggling with two jobs each, but I still, um, there was a hesitancy from for me to leave to another state. 

Victoria: 

So I wanted to stay in Los Angeles and I ended up with a job in a jewelry company and I always thought that was gonna be kind of temporary. 

Victoria: 

I didn’t see myself as jewelry designer. I did not see myself as a consumer marketing person by any means, but I’m a person that if you give me something, you know, I always give up my 100%. So, you know, I started asking simple questions like why are all the chains sold in like 18 age, 28 24 30 that was all standard and it still is to this to this day. 

Victoria: 

And um you know, bracelets were all like size seven and if you wanted a different length they charge you $40 to make a bigger one or small one. 

Victoria: 

And um so I started asking him like you know, have you thought that like most korean people for example, and I understand that there aren’t that many korean people living in America, but um asian people, there’s a lot of people they can’t wear seven inch bracelet, they’re wearing like six and I have six inches and then there are quite a few people that can’t put into a 7.5 that they need eight inches, they’re not big, they just have a bigger list. 

Victoria: 

Right? So why do we have this rule? 

Victoria: 

So when my boss actually did little things like offer different sizes, um you know, 16 inches, 17 inches, the 16, and that was like an extra 25% of his business just by simply changing sizes. 

Victoria: 

Um You know, I was told, well that’s how we inventory our system, I would tell them what that’s how that’s what’s convenient for you, but what’s convenient for our customer? 

Brandon: 

It’s a whole different thing and you’re going to find that you might just find that to be a really big deal. 

Victoria: 

And it was so one day when I was driving home and it was a particularly hot day, like august something and I was like, I don’t understand why I’m sitting here making my boss like 100 $200 million extra. 

Victoria: 

Just you know, and I also like they didn’t have a designer, they were really on staff so I would squabble some things here and there and they worked out and I was able to market the one thing about that company I loved is that company was also run by a couple of immigrants and they were growing by leaps and bounds and they didn’t, they let me do a lot of things that better company wouldn’t you know, do they trusted me. 

Victoria: 

So it grew like crazy they had, they were the first company to market you know italian handmade brands and all that because he was part italian so um I thought you know what, I could do this for myself and all I want is like 35,000 bucks a year. 

Victoria: 

So I could remember this was back in 1989 I could um you know spend four or five days a week, you know six hours a day, making 30 40 grand a year. 

Victoria: 

Then I can stay home with my kids and then I can figure out what to do and I don’t need to make millions of dollars, I just need to be able to you know have some stability at that level. 

Victoria: 

So you were married at the time? 

Victoria: 

Yeah and we were both broke. 

Victoria: 

Oh my God, where did you meet your husband believe it or not? 

Victoria: 

I met him at a dance studio, at the Murray stan studio. 

Victoria: 

Um It was like a group class, it was like a one of those free coupon things you you signed up for and it was around the corner and I was always kind of I always wanted to do it, you know you see this glamour of the ballroom dancing and all that and I was like that we were the only people under the age of 50 at that time, so we ended up getting paired. 

Victoria: 

So um anyway, we were married, we had no money, we were both young and um you know, but we had jobs so he was a great emotional support, you know, person for me, he didn’t he didn’t he was like an engineer and didn’t understand jewelry or creativity whatsoever, but he believed that with my work work ethic and uh my abilities, if anyone was going to make it, I could so but he didn’t make me promise though, if you don’t make any money, okay, I’ll go get a second job. 

Victoria: 

But if you start losing money Then after two years you gotta shut it down. 

Victoria: 

That’s a fair deal. 

Victoria: 

Yeah, it was it was a very fair deal. 

Brandon: 

Yeah, I didn’t lose money though, thank God. 

Victoria: 

So what did you, what did you do? 

Victoria: 

Don’t me just ask you this because in my experience, at least in my life as an entrepreneur and in people that I talk with, fellow entrepreneurs like yourself, there’s what I call this pivotal moment where you basically just do a mic drop right? 

Victoria: 

Like you walk out on this one day or this one moment or whatever it is. 

Victoria: 

So did you have do you remember that one moment? 

Victoria: 

Well, and what, what was it? 

Victoria: 

Well, I, You know, I was just talking to my boss about my race and I think we were talking about $5,000 or something and I got it, I got the raise and I was driving home and even though I got it, I didn’t feel good about it because I felt like why did it take me like hours of talking to him to justify my existence? 

Victoria: 

You know, after I made him all this extra money, right? 

Brandon: 

And I was giving it my heart and soul. 

Victoria: 

And so I thought, you know what, I’m just gonna just go do it. 

Victoria: 

And you know, my friends were saying, you should start aside how soldiers. 

Brandon: 

You know, I said, no, I’m just gonna quit like this that day I gave him notice. 

Victoria: 

I actually stayed for about a month or so, but I decided that, you know, this was my thing and many people listening to me might disagree. 

Brandon: 

But this was my thinking. 

Brandon: 

In fact, if I were to do it again today, I might have done it differently. 

Brandon: 

But at that time I was thinking to myself that I was giving my company the best hours of my life, my life at that time. 

Brandon: 

So you wake up in the morning, you have 24 hours a day, you’re sleeping eight hours and you’re in commute or whatever for 3-4 hours. 

Brandon: 

So you have like, you know, just but a few hours left, and I’m giving 12 to 15 hours a day to my boss. 

Victoria: 

So I thought, you know what, like um if I do it as a side hustle, I know myself, I know I would all, if I’m getting paid from someone, I’m going to give him what he deserves and it never ends. 

Brandon: 

So for me, my business had to be a priority. 

Victoria: 

That was the only way I was going to be able to make the 35,000. 

Victoria: 

So I quit, give him notice. 

Victoria: 

And he kept saying, are you sure you really want to do this? 

Victoria: 

Um And I said, yeah, I really want to do this. 

Victoria: 

And so, you know, he did tell me your chances of succeeding is pretty low in the job industry. 

Victoria: 

You don’t know anybody. 

Victoria: 

You don’t know anything. 

Victoria: 

Uh and you haven’t risked anything. 

Victoria: 

So you know it’s pretty low and if you ever need to find another job, make sure you come back to me. 

Victoria: 

You know, I’ll have a place for you. And I told him you know I will also give you my word. I will never compete with you directly. 

Victoria: 

Even though I never signed an N. D. A. Or anything like that. I would never compete compete with you directly in any information I have from you would be yours, you know proprietary information for you. And he did mostly change. And to this day that’s the one thing I actually have never done. I’ve always you know bought from people like him, you know he sold his company to but I bought from him several years after. 

Victoria: 

So um yeah it was that mike drop moment which was, it didn’t matter if I made anybody, you know 50,000,200 it doesn’t matter you’re still looking for that 5 10 grand extra. 

Victoria: 

And I just didn’t, it didn’t sit with me. 

Victoria: 

So did you save? 

Brandon: 

Well I mean in these pivotal moments were not always prepared. But did you have any savings stored away? 

Brandon: 

Yeah I had a few $1000. We maxed out our credit cards. Um One thing great about getting a brand new degree. Everybody wants to give you credit cards free. So maxed our credit card. 

Victoria: 

Um And I think in total I invested like $15,000 including the credit card to my business. And jewelry business is notorious for requiring a lot of money to start your business. It’s a business that has some barrier to entry because of the money that you need to start up with. 

Victoria: 

What do you need the money for inventory. 

Brandon: 

Um Travel making samples. 

Victoria: 

Those are all you know um money. 

Victoria: 

And did you have a business plan? I mean it sounds like you had a business plan in your head at some point, but did you actually write it down on a piece of paper and say I’m gonna do a jewelry business, here’s my distribution chant. 

Brandon: 

You did? 

Brandon: 

I did do that. I had some time. I just gotten out of the NBA school. So that was one thing that was easy to do, but let me tell you something this is where um I think that this is a sneaky question because not that you’re trying to trick me, but I think it’s it’s a question that needs to be answered by and I’m sure I know you interview a lot of entrepreneurs and what I learned at that very moment is this it I did several business plans. 

Victoria: 

The first one I did, I was like okay well this is how I would do it if I were going to go get a bank loan from like an S. 

Victoria: 

B. 

Victoria: 

A. 

Victoria: 

Loan or something. 

Victoria: 

But I didn’t want to get along because if you get alone, you know, they kind of kind of rule your life for a while, you know, they control your purse strings and I didn’t think that I was going to get it as a whole long process. 

Victoria: 

So I wanted to do it on my own uh and I didn’t want to do the credit card by the way. 

Victoria: 

So when I wanted when it was my money and it was just my money no longer so nothing. 

Victoria: 

You know when you go to NBA school, they teach you how to do gold setting. 

Victoria: 

They teach you all these things how to do your business plan. Okay, Well, as you know, if you ever written a business plan, it’s all theory until it comes to real life, right? 

Victoria: 

You’re you’re making educated guesses as to what you think, you’re going to generate, what you think your expenses are going to be. You know, these are all guesswork. I mean they’re educated, but they’re guesswork. 

Victoria: 

So If you make these plans and you’re in corporate America and you are running a division of Brandon white enterprises and uh, somebody comes in and there’s all these goals were going to increase our profits 30 next year or whatever and you don’t meet that goal. 

Victoria: 

I mean, there there are probably so many people in corporate America today, going to their bosses this week or next month saying why didn’t meet their goal? 

Victoria: 

There was Covid, there was this, there was that, that wouldn’t meet the goal. We’ll get, that makes sense. You get to keep your job or maybe you get fired, but you don’t go bankrupt when you’re a small business owner And you miss your goal by 30%,, you will go bankrupt. 

Victoria: 

Right? 

Victoria: 

So I did my business plan, but I had to learn a new way to do it. 

Victoria: 

And that new way was highly, highly centered around risk management. 

Victoria: 

Um and it’s shaped and when you think about that, when you think about The money, for example, like jewelry business back then, if you go back to 1989, I mean you don’t look old enough to be Alive in 1989, but Well, I appreciate that. 

Victoria: 

But I was okay, 19 You go back to 1989 and you looked at before the internet before, you know in the web, the way you sold your product was to come up with fancy catalogues or postcards. 

Victoria: 

Right? 

Victoria: 

And they were expensive. 

Victoria: 

There were anywhere from 8 to 10, you know, and there was economies of scales or whether you 100.5000 or five, it was the same price, right? 

Victoria: 

It’s expensive. 

Victoria: 

And that was one huge expense that I had to forego. 

Brandon: 

So what I did was I got myself like a Polaroid camera at first and I would take pictures And I send only like four of them at a time because four of those would fit in a first class postage envelope. 

Victoria: 

Okay, so I would send them like 50 of those and I, you know, I would contact Neiman, Marcus Nordstrom is you know, all these bases and all these um you know in those days where bollocks, Robinson’s and all that. 

Victoria: 

Um, and I would send them every week, You know, here is like hot off the press. 

Victoria: 

It’s so new. 

Victoria: 

It’s not even didn’t even make it to our catalogue, you know, take a look at because I I, you know, curated this for you based on my personal visit to your store, you know, so it was really great because they felt like they were getting something brand new that was curated just for them, that they’re going to have this opportunity by it, just just there because it’s not and it’s so exclusive that you can have this, secondly, I did this every week so that, you know, every vendor makes a mistake there usually hooked up to some vendor, you know, they have a jewelry business, they’re buying from somebody, but vendors make mistakes and every time somebody doesn’t ship or it sells out too fast that they can’t fulfill it or whatever, the buyer is under a lot of pressure. 

Victoria: 

And they’re like, you know, this is like the second time that vendors shoot up on me, I need to find a new, I need at least find the back of vendor and when they look for the back of vendor and they need somebody quickly, they’re like, oh my God, you know that victoria wig thing when she sent that Polaroid, you know what That name sounds familiar to me all of a sudden because she’s heard that from me for 50 weeks now, right? 

Victoria: 

So at some point, you know, there’s a familiarity that goes with that. 

Victoria: 

So, you know, they would call me and say, hey, you know, can you come over? 

Victoria: 

So, so not not producing any catalog. 

Victoria: 

So it kind of eliminated all my marketing expanse. 

Victoria: 

Um, I also went to the local stores and asked like the managers of the stores, they used to have a lot more say so the stores like biblical stories and so forth. 

Victoria: 

So they got me do that. 

Victoria: 

And then they also had me do like trunk shows with look books like I would sketch them. 

Victoria: 

And uh, you know, I would tell the customers like individual customers, same thing. 

Victoria: 

You know, for this could be like $50,000 purchase price. 

Victoria: 

I mean you don’t want something that’s already made for you. 

Victoria: 

Do you like, you know if there’s a sketch and you know, tell me which one you like the most. 

Victoria: 

So I had the individual customers and I had a corporate customers kind of emerging at both ends. 

Victoria: 

And so I had kind of made a name for myself. 

Victoria: 

I was in the Neiman Marcus catalogue a lot and then somebody from HS and call me and ask me, you know, would you like to be uh in fact one of my, she’s now my dear friend, but she actually um isn’t information world now, but her job at one time was to be the eyes and ears of um the Ceo at the time of HSN. 

Victoria: 

So she was supposed to go look for a new business. 

Victoria: 

So she called me one day and said, you know, hey, we’d like to talk to you and how big was your company by this point? 

Victoria: 

Uh It was several million dollars at that point and had a factory in L. 

Victoria: 

A. 

Victoria: 

I had, I bought from overseas. 

Victoria: 

So that’s a whole other conversation. 

Victoria: 

You know, I I guess the first, so when you let’s go back, because this is a kind of, you didn’t ask me this question, but it’s kind of important. 

Brandon: 

Um When I got my things sketched and I was getting some bites on certain styles right? 

Brandon: 

I decided there was about eight styles that really got a lot of people interested. 

Victoria: 

So I wanted to make some samples and I contacted some factories overseas. 

Brandon: 

A couple of them in china, a couple of them in Korea. 

Victoria: 

And and I thought I had an advantage with the korean factories because they made higher quality products at that time. 

Victoria: 

There were a little bit more expensive. 

Victoria: 

But also I spoke the language and I understood the culture. 

Victoria: 

Um so when I was talking to them, a couple of them actually said, you know how many, if we make the samples cost money, if we make the sample for you for free, how many can you sell? 

Victoria: 

So being truly honest. I have no. I was so new to the business world. I told him, I have no clue. 

Victoria: 

I don’t, I don’t know if you are able to execute my designs exactly the way I do them for one thing. And secondly, I’m not sure what price are we talking about and even if it was looked perfect and if it was cheap, I don’t know how many I’m going to sell. I don’t know if I can sell two or 2 50 or 5000, I don’t know. 

Victoria: 

So what happened much? 

Victoria: 

Brandon, I never got those samples. 

Victoria: 

I went to the first trade show. Jobe has betrayed Joey. Industry has a trade show in las Vegas. I went to the Vegas show to find new vendors and you know, whatever to make connections. And I saw my samples all over the trade show floor. So he started to my competitors because he knew I was a little girl with no money. 

Victoria: 

So obviously if he made they can all people who have been in the business a long time, they saw the value of my design house available. 

Victoria: 

They were. 

Victoria: 

But I mean if I got the order, if I got an order from, you know South or whoever, he probably knew that I didn’t have the money to actually kind of float that money. 

Victoria: 

So I saw the designs on the market. 

Victoria: 

Are you mad? 

Brandon: 

Oh, are you kidding? Yes, I was mad, wouldn’t you? 

Victoria: 

I was that you just seemed so calm about it when you’re talking about it that I want to I mean upset, Mad, frustrated. I mean 100 different words. 

Brandon: 

Right? Yeah. It was devastating and I felt such a betrayal. But I learned from that point. 

Victoria: 

So what happened was, um, obviously this guy is out of the picture. But for Future Guys though, um, I actually did have, I made sure that I had copyrights. 

Victoria: 

Um, I learned how to do them on my own. You can do that pretty inexpensively now. So I learned how at that time it was like $10 a design, so it was pretty cheap. So I learned how to do that. 

Victoria: 

And also I was very careful about what I said. 

Victoria: 

And I didn’t have samples made from that point forward until I had some orders that I can kind of say, you know, I have a potential order depending on this for how many pieces And you know, and that continued on to like I still got screwed over a few times since then because you know, the fact is, I don’t have the money and, and I wasn’t gonna lie. 

Victoria: 

So, but you know, make a long story short, I ended up with some great vendors that stayed with me for 30 years since then. 

Victoria: 

And that was your model, was was that you would be designed in California, manufactured somewhere else, really. 

Brandon: 

The Apple model in any way. 

Brandon: 

And then you really didn’t need a ton of people on your payroll. 

Brandon: 

I did not, I did have a small office and I had, because we needed people to kuwait quality control in our office and ship and pack. 

Brandon: 

Eventually I did job that out because when I when my business got to be so big that I was literally receiving 30, 40 50,000 pieces of jewelry per shipment, we just didn’t have the capacity or demand with. 

Victoria: 

So I contracted that out to companies that specialize in helping you to weigh and storage and warehousing package and ship it. 

Victoria: 

Well, can we just talk about one thing, because it’s important for a lot of entrepreneurs out there as it relates to cash flow? 

Victoria: 

How did you, when you got burned, you didn’t have the money somehow. You figured out to either get money or get the preorders some. 

Brandon: 

How did you manage that? 1st, 2nd, 3rd order, Because that’s really what kills you, right, is that when you start to grow fast from a cashflow perspective, you’re you’re having to put money down before their landed and then these Neiman Marcus or wherever these big people are in general, probably, I would imagine are not extending 90 day terms to you. 

Brandon: 

So how does that work? 

Brandon: 

Right, so back then, um and I actually have a, you know, a whole philosophy about negotiating. 

Brandon: 

So back then the standard terms of doing business was 30 days I would build Neiman Marcus, 30 days from the date of my invoice. 

Brandon: 

And the vendors usually gave me 30 days also to pay them. 

Brandon: 

So what I would tell them is, you know, look, I just went, I was very transparent, I would tell people, look, I’m a little girl, I’m not gonna screw you over for anything. 

Victoria: 

Um here are the clients that I’m dealing with, here is a purchase order. 

Victoria: 

I can go to the bank and get it factored, I can go to the bank and get a loan on this or whatever. 

Victoria: 

But if you work with me, you give me 45 days to 60 days just for the next you know six months. 

Victoria: 

I’m going to remember who made me successful and I’m going to remember who helped me. 

Victoria: 

So you can either be that person and be on a success train. 

Victoria: 

I mean job industry is a dinosaur. People have been selling jewelry for 2000 years, Things haven’t changed now, 89 was the beginning of the Ronald Reagan recession in 80 90 91 was a pretty tough and it actually ended bottomed out in 94 with the whole California Real estate market, you know, meltdown. 

Victoria: 

So I told them things are tough out here. 

Brandon: 

If you want to continue doing everything the same way it was for the last 500 years, go do it. But if you want, somebody would hold new new fresh blood. Now back in 89, let’s go back to what was happening in the macro economics. 

Victoria: 

Um I guess that was a little fancy term. 

Victoria: 

But what was happening in the economy was this the we were the first generation of people going to work. 

Victoria: 

Females going to work in a management capacity okay, before females were working. But you know, they didn’t try to break the glass ceiling. We didn’t have chief merchandise, anything, we didn’t have chief whatever at that time were the first generation of women who are hyper educated, who were equally educated as men. 

Victoria: 

And they were working in workplaces, juror B was always sold nighttime jewelry, daytime jewelry. 

Victoria: 

Nighttime julie was a fancy diamonds, you know uh the glitzy stuff you work for your social events, daytime julie was pretty junky plastic jewelry, things that turned on you because nobody really wanted that. 

Victoria: 

So in the workplace, when do you remember a lot of women who went to work? 

Victoria: 

I mean, I remember a lot of us went to work in like pencil skirts, you know, rule pencil tailored skirts with the white like shirt like men would and we had a little pumps and stockings. 

Victoria: 

Okay. 

Victoria: 

We we we all look like we are uniform salespeople. So women who wanted a look that was polished, that was elegant, uh, slightly understated but made you look like you were successful. 

Victoria: 

You know what you were doing? 

Victoria: 

There was nothing like that. So when into my mass produced pieces, I kind of specialize in that affordable pieces that could be heirloom, but still you could have some variety and it made you successful. You know, also in workplace, you can’t go up to somebody and say, you know, what do you want a job? 

Victoria: 

Brandon? 

Victoria: 

You’re gonna ask me, you know, why do you want to work at work here? And I can’t go and say, well Brandon, can you look at me, I’m successful, I’m pretty, I’m smart, I can do everything that if you did that, you would never go get a job. 

Victoria: 

But if you had all the right pieces that said you were successful, elegant, you’re going to happen this company really well. You were noticed, right? 

Victoria: 

So in my marketing packages, I actually would would say those things, you know, all the things that you don’t, you can’t say about yourself, your jewelry can. 

Victoria: 

So that’s a great marketing line. 

Victoria: 

Yeah. 

Brandon: 

So what happened was thank you. So what happened was I was like burning my candles at all ends and I was telling them, look how many people do you know that’s talking to sex and you’re getting orders and it’s not, we’re not talking a huge amount of money here. 

Victoria: 

So you can either help me 45 days and you know, deliver it on time. 

Victoria: 

And so and then I would also tell my buyers at those companies, you know, look, I really am a small company. 

Victoria: 

You know I and all the buyers want to be the person who discovered the next new it thinks so you know I was like that new it think so I would tell them whatever you could do to call you you know uh accounts payroll people and to make sure like my check was right on money. So I had a really great track record in sales as well as in from the vendor side. 

Victoria: 

So pretty soon I mean I think by the time I got the H. S. And I was already doing business with like all the cruise lines. I was on Princess Cruises, Royal Cruise line, celebrity holland America. I mean all that many department stores. Um I was in duty free shops all over the airport on in flight duty free. I was on like 30 different airlines. 

Victoria: 

I had all these representation in europe asia. 

Victoria: 

So by the time HSN called me it was like who are you? Like, why? Why would I wanna go on tv so well? 

Victoria: 

And I just want to ask were you using the same techniques or was it this flywheel that you did? 

Brandon: 

The I mean, that was absolutely incredibly brilliant thing to say that you were curated. And I think another important point that another important point you made, that I want to point out to everybody is You said 50 weeks and it could have been 50 weeks, but it could have been 100 weeks. 

Brandon: 

I don’t you know, it didn’t happen overnight. But did you use that same tactic with everybody else? Or was it once you’ve got that break that you were just waiting for that, that just steamrolled into these other opportunities? 

Brandon: 

Both. 

Brandon: 

I still use the tactic today. So when I, you know, talk to anybody new, I don’t go in with all the things I could do, I do the homework. 

Victoria: 

I figure out who their customers are. 

Victoria: 

I figure out what what there is currently selling and where there is a void. And I would curate the 12 pieces. You know, here are the 12 pieces that I think I would, you know, my center thing is I would go to a department store and I say, look, I, you know, do my homework. 

Victoria: 

I stood in front of your store number five or you know your South Coast Plaza store for two days, watched people shop, watched women of the women, of the women going and trying out the bracelet, but she didn’t buy it. So I then checked out your competitors and I find that you know, whoever supplying your basic stud earrings are doing a great job. But when it comes to the bracelet, you got a problem here and here is potentially what could be wrong with it. And here’s you know what I can supply you and just give me 36 inches of space and I, you know, so well learned and usually, you know, I usually I end up getting the business, I end up moving everybody else out, I end up taking the whole thing eventually cause I figure out what, you know, I’m not somebody who’s just gonna let everybody else do the, do the business. 

Victoria: 

But I believe, you know in marketing now, this whole buzzword of snitching down, you know, be focused And I think I practiced that going back to 89 because I couldn’t, I didn’t have the bandwidth to compete with everybody on everything. 

Victoria: 

So I started with eight Bangles. 

Victoria: 

Then I went to tennis places, which was a huge thing for a while. 

Victoria: 

Um then I went to other things and so now I have the freedom to do what I really want to do. 

Victoria: 

But I did stick to the principle, some of those basic principles that work for me back in 89 still working today, like flawlessly because their basic, their basic, it’s just great habits, you know, I mean even now when I send something, if I’m sending you a letter and say, you know, I want to tell you, I don’t know a real estate, let’s say I want to sell you an island, which I don’t have. 

Victoria: 

And I say Brandon I have this wonderful island. 

Victoria: 

You know, I’m I’m a broker for such as a company and I’ve heard that you’re, you know, you have the financial means and you’ve been looking for an island, you may not be looking for one, but if you ever was this is great. 

Victoria: 

I sent the picture. 

Victoria: 

Somebody at that level. 

Victoria: 

I would probably send it Fedex. 

Victoria: 

And then I would also send them a first class mail. 

Victoria: 

And I will send them an email because that way they’re getting it. They were getting the three shots, the first class mail is still coming there. 

Victoria: 

But it’s like by the time they pick up the phone, they feel like they’ve talked to. They feel like, you know what Maybe this woman’s right. 

Victoria: 

You know that islands only 10 million and you know, maybe that is a good investment. 

Victoria: 

I don’t know who to talk to. 

Victoria: 

You know, but she’s she’s pretty, pretty well known. 

Victoria: 

She has to be because I’ve heard her name before. 

Victoria: 

You know, it does it does work. I will admit you did that. 

Victoria: 

I get I get a lot of requests. I’m not saying this podcast super popular. It gotten popular amazingly after a year right of keep publishing. 

Brandon: 

But um you knew you knew everything and people and I was like, I need to go actually look into this victoria lady. 

Brandon: 

And I was like, oh my God, is this real? 

Brandon: 

Is this real first of all? 

Brandon: 

And then I did some research and you had given me and we made it really easy. 

Brandon: 

So and I think I think anybody listening out there, I think the lesson here is is that if you do your homework Yeah. 

Brandon: 

And you make it easy for that person I keep I’ve always said this victoria, I don’t know if people listen to me or not. 

Brandon: 

I have no idea. 

Brandon: 

But here’s what I do know from a psychology background is motivation won’t work. 

Victoria: 

You got to make it easy. 

Brandon: 

And if you make it easy eventually, I don’t want to say you’ll break them, but you did like, you’ll get there right, you’ll get that break, you will. 

Brandon: 

And I think that the lesson, you know, I just want to state that I everything we just had such a great time talking. 

Brandon: 

Um I want to tell you that there’s I come with so much gratitude because my career, when I hear other people read my bio and I’m speaking or something. 

Brandon: 

So it’s almost like they’re talking about somebody else Because I never intended to be rich or famous or being on TV or anything. 

Brandon: 

You know, I just want to make 35 grand so I can spend time with my kids. 

Brandon: 

Um so I come to this network, you know, to this podcast anywhere I go, I come with a lot of gratitude and I know a piece of luck was probably involved as well. 

Victoria: 

Well now you are prepared. 

Victoria: 

I’m so grateful to have you to be honest. I was like, can I actually, I, because I watch all this stuff, you know, we’re talking earlier, I watched this stuff and I was like, wow, this is this is a lady who has created this 100 million, multi $100 million dollar empire, selling jewelry and knows all this stuff. 

Brandon: 

So I’m I’m actually super grateful that you even reached out and and shared the story, but we’re not done yet. 

Brandon: 

So because HSN calls you and when most people get a call from HSN today, there are over the moon, but you, it sounds like we’re questioning if you should even consider going there. 

Brandon: 

Yeah, at the time of my life was so good at that time. 

Victoria: 

So, you know, I, as I said, I didn’t even know HS existed at that time. 

Brandon: 

You know there were a lot smaller company and HSN’s journey as a whole, I mean amazing journey as a company as well, but at that time, you know I was in all the major department stores worldwide, I was in all the duty free stores, you know if you remember airline travel used to be kind of a glamorous thing, so you know, especially first class airline travels, I was in all the different airlines and so when HS and called me, I was like you know, who are they and like how is that going to impact the rest of my business? 

Brandon: 

So if I were selling HSN it didn’t, you know the average price point for jewelry was like you know 2030 bucks and if I couldn’t sell it there, how am I going to sell my stuff at Neiman Marcus for 500,000 bucks? 

Brandon: 

Right, So that was a really legitimate concern. 

Brandon: 

So it had the potential to maybe diminish my career or impact some customers for sure because there used to be this snap factor of the Neiman’s and Saks and you know people who bought those wouldn’t wouldn’t go to, you know, send something lower tier. 

Brandon: 

So that was a concern. 

Victoria: 

Um so you know, I had to really think about how that’s gonna work and but there was one thing that really was attractive for me too about the whole HSN thing and that was by that point I was traveling millions of miles on airlines. 

Victoria: 

If I, you know I was going to London a couple times a year, I was going to you know and I did all the european cities I went going to Asia about three or four times a year because I was going there for sourcing. 

Victoria: 

plus also for my my customers, I department store customers there as well in Tokyo in south Korea. 

Victoria: 

Then you add into the two or three trade shows here plus market week, which happens in new york. 

Victoria: 

You know, I was I I then at that point it was just at the point where I was just really questioning myself about, ok, I started my business, I can spend more time with my family and now I’m working more than I ever imagined and the money is really good, but like how much money do I really need? 

Victoria: 

And is this now getting me back to my childhood where when my kids at that point were really, you know like preteens and you’re like this is when they really are most impressionable and this was always the same age and I thought no, I have to like, you know put a stop to this. 

Victoria: 

So luckily we always lived below well well below what means, you know when you’re entrepreneur, you know when you have a rainy day, especially in a creative feel like I was so we’ve always saved money and when I said I didn’t want to go traveling and I was already starting to shed some of the borderline customers that we’re starting to causing problems like too tight over that line and all that. 

Victoria: 

Okay then when they call me, I thought, you know what if this thing actually if I can make this work, I would only have to go from L. 

Victoria: 

A. 

Victoria: 

To Tampa once a month and I would make almost the same volume, but I just didn’t know how to make that work, but I thought that would be really amazing. 

Victoria: 

So um you know, after I think a few visits to back and forth, they made it pretty easy for me. 

Victoria: 

But going back to your um summary about making it easy, I think that entrepreneurs and even if you’re like struggling at a job right now, make it easy for your customers. 

Victoria: 

And I know like older entrepreneurs who who say, well, you know, I have author friends who are like, I don’t want to be on social media, I don’t understand it. 

Victoria: 

You know, facebook is so old. 

Victoria: 

And I I took a friend one time and said, you know what? 

Victoria: 

You just say? 

Victoria: 

The word I like three times. 

Victoria: 

Okay, this isn’t about you. 

Victoria: 

This is about your customers. 

Victoria: 

If you have this wonderful book that you just wrote, okay, you have so much to share. 

Victoria: 

But if your customers have to go to 50 different cliques to find you, you make it impossible for them to even love your book, love you or your of your book. 

Victoria: 

Make it easier for them to find you. 

Victoria: 

That’s the only thing they’re asking you to do. 

Victoria: 

So you know um And while I’m at the subject um The one thing I’ll tell you about tv and it doesn’t matter where you go. 

Victoria: 

I’m currently on Sharp HQ. 

Brandon: 

It doesn’t matter where you go. 

Victoria: 

And I’m going to tell you the people that last on tv. 

Victoria: 

But just people who don’t last on T. 

Victoria: 

V. 

Victoria: 

And this may be very subtle but here’s the thing if you make it about you and you talk about you and you know we’re told all the time to be relatable to do all those things. 

Victoria: 

So some of those people come on and they’ll say you know I designed this wonderful piece of jewelry, designed this wonderful collection and you know I wore this out to you know, um a fabulous Oscar party in Beverly Hills and I was on a yacht with a bunch of people and they were all like, you know this star movie star in that movie star and they were all complementing on me and um so I think you’re just gonna another, okay, that’s one way to present your jewelry. 

Victoria: 

So so this person just said the word like I love this. 

Victoria: 

I was seeing, I’m rubbing shoulders whatsoever like six different times. 

Victoria: 

I go on tv and I would say something like you know what don’t you guys love it that we are finally coming out of Covid and summer is here because summer is when we all go out and just experience life. 

Victoria: 

There’s a summer fun. 

Victoria: 

You know, you get to experience life with your friends and family. 

Victoria: 

Your kids are from home from school and I designed the most fabulous jewelry that you can share those wonderful memories with your family. 

Victoria: 

So when you wear this to your barbecue, when you were this honor lake, you know, you know with your kids and you’re going to pick up your kids from the field or whatever and everybody is drooling over your jewelry and knowing that you didn’t spend a fortune on this is going to have to make you look great. 

Victoria: 

You know what are the best thing about this too is when you are done from this earth and you’re gone. 

Victoria: 

Somebody from your family is going to remember your personality, how smart you are, how elegant you are. 

Victoria: 

So I’m going to tell you something sharp it, if you make this so easy for you, you can pay like $6 today and get at home and start enjoying life with the people that matter to you the most. 

Victoria: 

So I use the word you. 

Victoria: 

So I would argue the most powerful word in marketing is the word you not pray not new and improved. 

Victoria: 

Contradictory words by the way, tom smiling because you’re so good because that is that I, I think one of the things victoria that I tell entrepreneurs is I don’t tell them sometimes I react to them is I’ll get pitched because they want money from investor, which is a whole different discussion that you and I, you touched on and really summed it up. 

Victoria: 

You probably took all the wind out of my sails that you summed it up in like 30 seconds. 

Victoria: 

I’m kidding is that, hey, look, if you take money understand, they’re going to have some control your company. 

Victoria: 

But at the end of the day, there’s no, there’s no debate in that. 

Victoria: 

I mean that’s that’s the truth. 

Brandon: 

And they’ll start they’ll start By talking about themselves and what I say. 

Brandon: 

And I learned this the hard way I am raising my hand right now and saying I was always guilt. 

Brandon: 

I say always I was guilty for a really long time. 

Brandon: 

There’s actually a guy who’s uh we were on a sales call for a really big, it was like a Fortune 20 company account. 

Brandon: 

And I pitched myself because I thought that I needed to establish my credibility. 

Brandon: 

And he pulled me aside. 

Brandon: 

He said in the next two meetings which it was this whole day affair we were going through. 

Brandon: 

He said, just tell them the problem you’re solving that we’re solving for them and only talk about your background if they ask because they are either being polite and interested or they want to know what your background is and I did that and actually I don’t even like this guy was on the sales call with candidly but I’m open to feedback, I did that and it worked and what I tell entrepreneurs is never start your pitch with your background, your this tell them to solve the problem you’re solving and I’m I’m saying this to you, but the listeners out there because that’s what you just did in that last pitch is you solved a problem for them about how they are going to feel important, how how they’re going to feel good, how they’re going to be the center of attention, how their family is going to save this piece of jewellery and think of them, it’s all about them, about them. 

Brandon: 

Yeah, exactly. 

Brandon: 

And just like this show is all about our audience, right? 

Brandon: 

So I think that if you watch you know average brand on tv last like two shows because they think just like you they think that they have established authority. 

Brandon: 

So they will talk about you know um I won like 40 different awards and I want this, I want that and you’re like you know what? 

Brandon: 

Okay well so like the audience is listening going like so what’s in it for me? 

Brandon: 

And then you know what’s really bad is so those of us who have like the big Today’s special value, you have to come back, you know you’re on like several times a day. 

Brandon: 

So each time you go on so I had a color one time called me and said you know what I um everything that I ever thought about you, you just validated because when she called me on the testimonial line, you know I said oh my God, how is your family? 

Brandon: 

And she said everything that I ever thought about you, you just validated because a lot of the guests go on and talk about. 

Brandon: 

You know they graduated from such and such design school, they won this award and she was like, I feel like telling them you told us already that last month and this morning and this afternoon like what else is? 

Brandon: 

So I don’t even I don’t even go there. 

Victoria: 

But I think for entrepreneurs when you start talking like I just did which is you you are self less. 

Brandon: 

You don’t matter in this equation, okay, You are just the agent delivering the problem solving solution. 

Brandon: 

And the other thing too is when you’re talking about invented product, think about why does your product even need to exist in the first place? 

Victoria: 

So in my jewelry I’m talking jewelry, nobody needs jewelry for human survival. 

Victoria: 

All right. 

Victoria: 

Yet, I was still looking at where is the void? 

Victoria: 

Where is the problem? 

Victoria: 

The problem was if you’re a professional working woman who just started to make some really good money and you need to differentiate yourself in a sea of, you know, like a uniform woman. 

Victoria: 

How do I find ways to say that I’m polish and I’m successful, But I’m still, you know, I have great taste and I’m understated. 

Victoria: 

There was no jewelry like that. 

Victoria: 

And so I upped it by offering that style. 

Victoria: 

That’s timeless. 

Victoria: 

But I did in silver. 

Victoria: 

So if you do it in silver, there is a silver and gold last a lifetime. 

Victoria: 

So it’s heirloom quality and price point was affordable. 

Victoria: 

So they could, you know, kind of have a nice wardrobe going on. 

Victoria: 

And then if they wanted to come to my private side and they wanted to have something like a wedding ring made or something like that, you know, then they can spend some big money. 

Victoria: 

So I had a, I had a frictionless transition to um you know, opening price point to, you know, they just so I have a huge millions of women who have bought pieces from me that kind of went through this whole journey with me, so they are now either nearing retirement or they’re entrepreneurs themselves, or they’re now recommending majority, their to their, you know, their kids and the grandkids, so if there’s one thing that I want to impart with everybody who’s listening is the entrepreneurship journey is not easy by any means, but it would be a lot simpler if you make it about somebody other than yourself, because because it just, it just makes it so much easier, it makes everything makes sense. 

Victoria: 

Like when you’re communicating with them, understanding who you’re talking to and when I say it’s about them, well who are them? 

Victoria: 

Think about like a person, if you say like, you know, my customers are, let’s say, you know, leaders in the community well, who are they, what do they lead? 

Victoria: 

Because if they’re leading Girl Scouts or whatever, you would have a different um, message than somebody who’s leading, you know, a different groups, a senior citizens group. 

Victoria: 

So, you know, be very specific and go all in and give them truly more than what they expect. 

Victoria: 

And you know, I just blow their mind out of the water about like, oh my God, I’m, I thought I was going to get this and I got that and this and that and that because, you know, that’s how you multiply and amplify right? 

Victoria: 

So yeah, So you really, I mean, I’m thinking as I’m listening to you, you basically understood your customer avatar better than any of your competitors. 

Victoria: 

Number one and number two, you knew what your value ladder was, which was low price entry point at mass market and still today and you can come on a journey with me and and have a private collection, which then moves them up even maybe even beyond, but maybe even into the Neiman Marcus realm. 

Victoria: 

But then even more into this private victoria experience that’s priced premium, but you get a premium product and you’re going to feel really good about. 

Victoria: 

Absolutely. 

Victoria: 

So my opening price point at HSN in 1998 the average price point was 1 23. 

Victoria: 

So it was half 14 Karat gold have uh, silver in the same show, you know, so we would make it very clear which ones were Neiman Marcus. 

Victoria: 

My average price point was about 55 95 $600. 

Victoria: 

And then my private clients, the people that came set one on one with me. 

Victoria: 

The average price point then was 15,000. 

Victoria: 

So basically, and you know there was plenty that paid 50,000. 

Brandon: 

But average price when you know the medium price point was 15,000. 

Brandon: 

So it was pretty frictionless in that way. 

Brandon: 

But going back to um what you touched on earlier and I’m sorry, I’m jumping a little bit back and forth. 

Brandon: 

But I just remember at this point why I had that, why I had such a diverse price point was this the one thing I did learn from the NBA school that I I would actually was say it was maybe not worth the whole thing, but worth a lot of it was The one thing they teach you is don’t let any customer be more than 10 of your total business Because somebody who is more than 10 of your business what it’s going to eventually control your life. 

Brandon: 

So that’s why I had the healthy mix of various price points and also the different kinds of customers so that if you know I mean it just was great. 

Brandon: 

But if they said you know what the toy you’re not working for me. 

Victoria: 

Bye bye. 

Victoria: 

It wouldn’t have made a whole lot of difference because I had such a rock solid wall around my customer base. 

Victoria: 

So so when you went on T. 

Victoria: 

V. 

Victoria: 

Because you obviously I mean anybody can google you and you can see that your shows and your videos and things like that. 

Victoria: 

Were you scared? 

Victoria: 

I mean you lasted. 

Victoria: 

I say you lasted. 

Victoria: 

I mean you did you’re still on you did a decade at home Shopping Network and then where you are now. 

Brandon: 

Um What was the I mean what’s the secret that you were talking about them? 

Brandon: 

I mean you had no unless I missed it and I know I didn’t fall asleep because it’s a very engaging conversation. 

Brandon: 

Is there was no tv training here. 

Brandon: 

Uh There’s I mean and that can be a very intimidating thing for somebody. 

Victoria: 

I do want to I’m like you I just one point I want to say before we move on to this but I want to talk about this is that I want to say to any listeners out there who does talk about themselves. 

Brandon: 

I think victoria, I’m interested in your feedback on this. 

Brandon: 

I don’t think they that all of us or I even I did it or other people do it because their ego maniacs in that sense. 

Brandon: 

I think I think it’s a lot of insecurities in us that come out because we’re doing such a hard thing that we want people to know that they are getting this product. 

Brandon: 

I just wanted to say that because I don’t want it to come across somebody out there could say well you know I’m not an ego, you know actually it’s not, I mean as entrepreneurs you gotta have an ego but it’s a lot of insecurities of why that happens and and and you really have to just be able to put those insecurities behind and and have utmost confidence that the problem you’re solving is on the mark. 

Brandon: 

Yeah, I think um I will say that I have seen some people that are very eager to schools, they’re on tv and they think they’re successful in other parts of their lives, especially a lot of celebs come from Hollywood and they talk about how, you know, they are doing this or that, and that’s part of their branding, a lot of them to be frank, it just doesn’t work on home shopping or you know, it could be seen then you have other entrepreneurs who believe that, oh my God, you know, I’m getting this huge meeting with the buyer or you know, uh investors or whoever, and um I need to establish my expert authority really quickly, so I need to let them know, you know, I acquired this degree and that degree and I got this award and all that award so that they think that I’m a bigger deal than what I appear to be right now because they don’t know me, you know, I’m not google able and I think that there is a fine line um that you do need to establish your expert authority and I would say that the best way you do it is your first opening line. 

Brandon: 

If you say for example, you’re doing a webinar and like I just did this today, I’m doing a free webinar for a friend of mine and she hasn’t decided which date yet, but I’m doing it for her for free. 

Brandon: 

And if you said, you know, come join victoria wig on such and such day, you know, she did this this this this stuff and she does all of this stuff. 

Brandon: 

You know, she, you know, was on HSN and she was on, you know, she’s on sharp HQ, she did this and all of that and she will be discussing these, well, you know what, that’s okay, but if you started out instead of that, you started out saying, you know, what are you tired of worrying about what’s going to come out next? 

Brandon: 

Are you tired of of working spinning your wheels faster and faster to get less and less? 

Brandon: 

You know, are you tired of all of this? 

Victoria: 

Well, guess what? 

Victoria: 

There are some really simple things you could do for yourself today to change that dynamic. 

Victoria: 

So by understanding who you’re talking, doing your homework, understanding who your audience is. 

Victoria: 

You know, if I went to some meeting and I said, you know, I’m a designer, I want all the resorts instead of that. 

Victoria: 

If I went to a bio and said, you know what, I did all this homework, I, you know, shopped uh you know, Bloomingdales and Saks and this and Northern taylor, all these stores and I noticed that you’re doing really well in this and you’re doing really well in this, but I really see that there is where your weakness is, you know, right here and let me just explain to you what I can do to help you. 

Victoria: 

And by the way, you know, if you’re interested here’s what my company does. 

Victoria: 

And so like you said, so eloquently if you identify that problem correctly, all of us, nobody wants to admit you’ve got a problem. 

Victoria: 

But if you really are hurting for something, okay, if you’re really hurting. 

Victoria: 

And that that was a true story. 

Victoria: 

By the way in, uh, it was, um, a ceasefire. 

Victoria: 

I went in and I mean I was a total, she was like my first major buyer that department store by the body anything. 

Victoria: 

And I told her, you know, here, I noticed that there was, you know, literally, I saw so many people, I didn’t see a single bracelet purchase, but a lot of people tried it on. 

Victoria: 

So you know, I watched them and she said you know what? 

Victoria: 

You’re so right that is the only area that I haven’t been able to craft. 

Victoria: 

I don’t know why it is. 

Victoria: 

This is my third vendor in that category and I just can’t do it. 

Victoria: 

And I know everybody else around me just having a heyday on this thing that there’s a whole trend going on. 

Victoria: 

So just by identifying that you know, and then she asked me After about 30 minutes. 

Victoria: 

So like I do business with this company company. 

Victoria: 

A company b tell me like one reason why I should do business with you. 

Victoria: 

I want to do business with you. 

Victoria: 

But I need in order for me to bring in a whole new vendors set you up as a vendor. 

Victoria: 

I have to justify this to my boss. 

Victoria: 

That’s what she told me. 

Victoria: 

So I said you know what, I don’t know what those other people do like I think I know what they do, but why don’t you ask them what they do? 

Victoria: 

Because I don’t want to stop. 

Victoria: 

You know, I don’t want to say anything. 

Victoria: 

But let me tell you what I do and how I can help you because I’d rather talk about me what my company can do. 

Victoria: 

So she signed me on and you know, pretty soon I did move. 

Victoria: 

I did get all of the other businesses from her. 

Victoria: 

So expert authority If you do, you know, it’s like um my kids play tennis, competitive tennis and the times when they don’t practice, you know, they wanted to go watch video games or whatever. 

Victoria: 

You know, they were at national level tennis tournament. 

Victoria: 

If they’re not ready, they’ll draw somebody who’s ranked 28 hours have been there petrified. 

Victoria: 

Okay. 

Victoria: 

But when they are ready and they scoped out their opponent, every single tree of their whole thing and they’ve scoped them out, they, you know, practice their weakness, all that stuff. 

Victoria: 

Now. 

Victoria: 

I remember one time my daughter do like the number one seed at the girls 16 or something like, you know what bring it on? Okay. I got this for that. So that’s how the confidence comes with preparation, right? 

Victoria: 

And you were never going to be sorry by doing too much preparation that when I came on your show, I listen to your latest episode and I listen to like the middle episode. 

Victoria: 

I listened to the short one and the long one to see like, you know, I mean, does you get tired in the middle? 

Victoria: 

Like what happens you want to, what was your assessment? 

Victoria: 

Do I get tired in the middle? 

Victoria: 

I know you don’t actually actually, I really enjoyed listening to because usually I will skip around because you know, I don’t have unlimited amount of time. 

Brandon: 

I’ll skip around to see how they beginning the middle and the end. 

Victoria: 

But I mean you were very engaging. I think that you have such a conversational style, but you also have that amazing knack of focusing on a problem that’s important. It’s like, you know, if you’re reading a whole volumes of something, you you pluck out the important things and kind of drill on that. 

Victoria: 

So I think that was really, you know, really nice and you you make it easier for the guests to be themselves and be authentic and you know, you’re not like um no, I think it’s I think you’re good. 

Victoria: 

Well let’s talk about you. 

Victoria: 

So you’re going on tv. 

Brandon: 

Okay, so you’re on tv for the first time. 

Victoria: 

And I mean look I mean speaking to you clearly you have this magic about you that you can figure these things out by really got uh what should I say? 

Brandon: 

You really observe reality and and understand where not not what you want to see but what is there in the dynamic is what you have this unique nap to see that dynamic. 

Brandon: 

So how did you do that? 

Brandon: 

Because I mean I I’ve been on sets uh I’ve been on tv for fishing shows back in the day on ESPN and things like that but it’s very different. 

Brandon: 

We’re in nature. 

Brandon: 

I mean it’s a little bit set up, you might be a little bit nervous but it’s sort of easy because you’re rolling this thing and you catch fish or you don’t uh there’s a little pressure to catch fish but that pressure um but you you’re catching fish you are fishing but you’re on this made upset. 

Brandon: 

I mean you know it’s a real tv set and there’s this camera in your face and you have to imagine that there’s millions of people watching in the home but I can imagine that’s very intimidating and that I mean how did you learn how to do this formula on tv because there is a formula? 

Brandon: 

Well you know when I first got on I was absolutely petrified. 

Brandon: 

They had to they gave me a whole thing about what’s gonna happen you’re gonna have five or six different cameras. 

Brandon: 

You know they went through the whole thing and I called them um at three o’clock I was going at seven p.m. I called him at three o’clock and I said look I’m throwing up, I’m having butterflies, I can’t breathe I don’t think I can go on tonight. 

Brandon: 

So they said, well, you know, you don’t really have to go on, but come to the set, you know, and um, you just have to sit next to host and let her do all the talking. 

Brandon: 

You have to sit, that’s what they told me. 

Brandon: 

So I went, of course, she started asking questions and you answer the question, but they have people like with like, like those white boards that say look this way and they would have these people like walk around and jump up and down because I didn’t know what camera to look at. 

Victoria: 

I was really petrified about because it’s live about what I might say. 

Brandon: 

That sounded really stupid, but luckily the host was very good and she asked questions only about the product, not about how much it costs you an intact. 

Brandon: 

So I was able to explain my designs and luckily things all that so fast, so about an hour and 20 minutes into a two hour show, they said to me, um, you sold out of everything. 

Brandon: 

So we’re going to have to get you off of this now, you know, thank you so much for coming by and you know, so they went to another programming. 

Brandon: 

So I thought just on the set, just like this like victoria, this has been great, thank you so much. 

Brandon: 

We sold out. 

Victoria: 

You’re done, you’re done. 

Victoria: 

So I was like, okay, so they had a thing called The Walk of Shame, which is they used to take you off if you don’t meet your dollars per minute, I didn’t know anything about this. 

Victoria: 

So you have to walk from the set, through the customer service like that. 

Victoria: 

All the operators were there, you know, at that time and you have to walk through all that to the green room and I’m walking there and I’m thinking to myself, oh my God, I probably said some of the stupidest things that ever was and the product probably sucked. 

Victoria: 

So I’m getting off air. 

Victoria: 

And then I thought to myself, oh my God, my poor buyer. 

Victoria: 

And uh, this woman who contacted me for all those years, like I’m like, what’s going to happen to them because my life wasn’t gonna change very much. 

Victoria: 

But I felt horrible about that. 

Brandon: 

Then when I got to the Green room, all of the executives, everybody just had balloons up and they were not cheering up and down. 

Victoria: 

And I, I looked at him like, what’s going on? 

Victoria: 

And they said, you sold out of everything. 

Victoria: 

And I said, I did. 

Victoria: 

And they said, yes. 

Victoria: 

I said, so when they have those numbers at the bottom, like comedy sold, is that like real numbers? And they said yeah of course it’s real numbers. 

Victoria: 

In fact it’s delayed because all the people are in the process until the credit card checks, you’re not encountered there. 

Victoria: 

So they’re like yeah, it’s delayed and you know, you saw that of everything. So I said, well so what do they do with the rest of their time? So they said, you know, they brought some other jewelry line, They were actually writing the shows like the minute I got on that they could tell how fast it was going. 

Victoria: 

So that was my first show. And you know when they would ask me things like, well you know, I love this and I love that and you know, would you wear would you wear two different grace to grace is you know, stacked up together and were that? And I would say, well, I personally wouldn’t because you know, I’m a pretty um plain jane and my host would look at me like I was just looking for real because they wanna show more than what is still more so, but it’s a process and believe it or not, even now when I am not prepared, like if I’m not prepared, I’m not prepared if they don’t go like a last minute show on me or something and um and I’m not perfectly familiar with which items are going to fit in that show. 

Victoria: 

I still get nervous because you are judged on the dollars per minute and you, you know, you’re not sure how smooth it’s going to be how choppy you’re gonna be talking. 

Victoria: 

And again, I respect my customers so much that I try to do a lot of homework on them as well, like who’s watching at what time of the day? 

Victoria: 

Um, you do get a little bit of demographics and the kind of words they want to hear because on tv your call lines go up and down based. 

Victoria: 

I mean as you were talking, so my producer would tell me, oh my God, you know when you talked about the soccer mom and this and that like the lines went through the roof in California and try to say that again. 

Victoria: 

You know, something like that. 

Victoria: 

So I knew that I had sacraments listening. Right? So what do sacrum moms wear? 

Victoria: 

So, you know, they’re telling me to go say that again. But in my mind I’m thinking, okay, well I got the soccer mom from California. I got, you know, the millennials coming back from the bar at one o’clock in the morning. So like every time they tell me something, I would make notes and when I design jewelry I would design with those things in mind. 

Victoria: 

And so next time I talk about hey I designed this for all your soccer moms. 

Victoria: 

You know I know like when you’re watching your kids play and you’re walking from one field to the next and your head is like turning and everybody’s looking at you. I know that makes you feel good and it’s only costing you $20 today. 

Victoria: 

So you know, so there are many different ways you can still connect with people, but again you probably heard me doing just you know I’m not gonna I really don’t want to sound like a braggadocious by any means. 

Victoria: 

But if somebody can take a day off from all that I probably could. 

Victoria: 

I mean in the T. 

Victoria: 

V. 

Victoria: 

World my name means something but I don’t I don’t take that day off. 

Victoria: 

If I’m on I do the homework. 

Victoria: 

I do the homework every day. The way I did a day one today if not probably more because I have more means to do the homework today. 

Victoria: 

So I think that’s the lesson you know? Um But it’s enjoyable homework. 

Victoria: 

I love finding about my customers. I love that. You know when they tell me what they want to hear from me, what they want to see from me. Um So because I really love what I do I don’t really feel like it’s a whole lot of work. 

Victoria: 

But if you do your homework and the other thing too is if you’re listening to my voice right now and you’re like you know I hear this a lot because I’ve been interviewed quite a few times. 

Victoria: 

People would say to me well how did you do this? 

Victoria: 

How did you that? You know, people say, well, well, but victoria, you’re you you’re so employees, you’re this, you’re that or you have a following. 

Victoria: 

Well, I didn’t have any of that before. 

Victoria: 

You know, you you you have to start from, we all came here with nothing and you have to start someplace and you’re all good. You just have to start doing that. One thing that every day think about, I don’t care what happens. 

Victoria: 

The one thing you can do to change your future and that will open up to four things tomorrow and on and on. 

Victoria: 

Because you you just heard my journey. I mean, I started with sketching because I couldn’t, you know, it was questionable if I could even afford the sketching stuff because the sketching stuff like the water colors were pretty expensive by the way. 

Victoria: 

If you do high, high quality water colors, they’re, you know, they’re like 20 bucks or two. 

Victoria: 

So yeah, you know what I want to do is coming onto shows is as you said earlier, motivation, encouragement, inspiration, all of these great words but action changes things and making it easy. 

Victoria: 

Yeah that’s a it’s an incredible journey that you had and you’re still on tv today shopping. 

Victoria: 

What what made you just out of curiosity, what what was it economics was it just cycles switch from HS end? 

Victoria: 

So many people have asked me that what’s going on. 

Victoria: 

Yeah. 

Brandon: 

So I went to H. 

Victoria: 

S. 

Brandon: 

N. 

Victoria: 

I had when my, when my contract was up the first time in 2004 I retired. 

Brandon: 

I wanted to spend more time at home with my kids. 

Brandon: 

You know, I’ve made money and I also felt like in this creative field that I’m in, you know a designer can only be so hot for so many years and I thought I’m just going to go out and die when I try to retire, it lasted for and you know, when you, when your brand is that big, when you retire, there’s still all that residual inventory that you have to help them clean up and all that. 

Brandon: 

So I was kind of doing all that and um, I didn’t really love retirement that much. 

Victoria: 

I didn’t have a whole lot of other things to do and they made it very easy. 

Victoria: 

They at that point was the first time they actually made it so that I didn’t have to do so much financial risk of, you know, producing the stuff and all the production end of the things. 

Victoria: 

So they kind of took me up with the manufacturer that was going to do more of the financial risk portion of this that they made it pretty easy for me. 

Victoria: 

And at that point, all I had to do was kind of sketch and you know, a lot of the logistical stuff was taken off of my plate. 

Victoria: 

So I was able to do more of the things that I love to do. So my brand actually doubled at that point. 

Victoria: 

Um, my contract was up again in 20 expired in 2015 again And I tried to be tired again 2015. 

Victoria: 

And so you know, it was like a two year cleaning up inventory, trying to figure out how do we still work without signing another lengthy contracts. 

Victoria: 

So I retired for good in 2017 and I wrote a fiction called shattered sky, 94,000 word shattered sky. 

Victoria: 

And when I presented it to all of the writers conferences and you know, and I told I’m a very honest person. 

Victoria: 

So I told people, look, don’t waste time on me because I’ve heard that first time writers books suck in my problem mind probably does too. 

Victoria: 

So don’t waste time on me. But what I want to do is I like to get some feedback. So I want to get bit of my first book. 

Victoria: 

I mean, you know, I’m going to publish an ugly looking book and then I’m gonna go to the second book. So I when I talk to people, so many of them in the writing community, actually recognized me and my brand and you know, there were a couple of these editors, my fans like, why aren’t you writing a memoir? And I said, well, My memoir would be very boring. 

Victoria: 

First of all, I could be really interesting for about three chapters. But beyond that, I don’t know, I don’t have scandals or anything, so it’s probably not going to be all that interesting. So I didn’t want to do it. But after 2017 I wrote that book. My daughter got married in 2017. So I was able to design like a killer wedding. I mean, we designed everything from the floors to the tables too. 

Victoria: 

You name it? It was at 70 seater ranch. Uh, if you look it up, it’s the american number one. So we like took it over and did the whole thing. 

Victoria: 

It was great. And then in 2018, at the end of 2017, I, a very dear friend of mine was the ceo of sharp HQ and he actually helped me build my, my business at HSN and he had come out of retirement. 

Victoria: 

He went from HSN becoming a ceo of Tommy Hilfiger and then he went to shop HQ and he said, you know what victoria, I would rather have a little bit of you than none and I know you’re in retirement, so we’re not gonna like demand a lot of hours from you, but we’d like you to come when it’s, you know, just a, like a smaller schedule. 

Victoria: 

So that was very attractive to me. So that’s where I’m at now. Then I started my podcast, Million dollar Hobbies Two. 

Victoria: 

We in a way to connect with a lot of my viewers, I think there are about 15 million viewers that have bought a piece or two from me over the last 30 years, so I wanted to connect with them and also inspire other people to just really chase your dream because you know when I look at my, my dream, when I first came to America, my dream was to be able to buy an old Camaro because I saw a guy drive a Camaro and I thought oh wow that’s really cool. 

Victoria: 

Like if I could have that that would be like my whole life’s mission um And from that to you know finding my own apartment of my own like where I could pay on my own man and that was my second mission and then the $35,000 a year. 

Victoria: 

So you know you take wonderful action is blossoms and um and now I want to do good, I want to share my experiences, not just the good parts, but I went over a lot of the ugly parts today with you and there are uglier approach which I don’t want to burden people with but really I think that I just want you all know that everything that you want in your life is within you, but you have to take action and you have to want to do it. 

Victoria: 

And all of us have to start someplace. 

Victoria: 

And that starting point, I mean, today, you can just redefine your dream. 

Victoria: 

I mean all of us are trying to shift our priorities right? 

Victoria: 

And let me just explain to you what I’m saying, because sometimes words like what I have could bring hollow. 

Victoria: 

So, and I’m going to use this example if you say, you know what, okay, I just gained a few pounds during covid, so I’m going to lose some weight. 

Victoria: 

I’m gonna I’m gonna be healthier, I’m gonna lose some weight, you know, and that’s gonna be my focus. 

Victoria: 

I’m gonna work out more and I’m going to eat less, Okay, this is your goal. 

Victoria: 

Um If you do that, it’s great. 

Victoria: 

But until you can sit there and go, you know what, I am gonna be serious about this. 

Victoria: 

So I’m going to lose £10 in the next 10 weeks. 

Victoria: 

Well, if you do that, you go, well, that’s about £1 a week, which seems a lot more manageable. 

Victoria: 

Right? 

Victoria: 

And then if you say, well, so in order, so, you know, I can lose £1 a week. 

Victoria: 

That’s 10 weeks. 

Victoria: 

£10. 

Victoria: 

That’s pretty significant if you can keep that up, because you can do the next 10 weeks, right? 

Victoria: 

That’d be 20 weeks. But let’s say, just to lose the 10 £10 in 10 weeks, So it’s down to £1 a week. 

Victoria: 

And I if I cut out 300 calories, which could be like a soda or, you know, whatever, and I can walk my dog for 45 minutes a day. 

Victoria: 

I’m there already. 

Victoria: 

These are really simple things. So in your business journey, I did this with my, you know, if I want to do $35,000 a year, I needed $3,000 a month And what do I need to do to get the $3,000 a month. 

Victoria: 

And so I figured I sent out those little, those little polaroid things. 

Victoria: 

I sent out 50 of them a day every day. 

Victoria: 

I did the research And I figured if I get a certain, you know, I heard that return, it was like two or something. 

Victoria: 

So I actually did the numbers and I thought, well, because I’m new, I might get like 0.5 of 1%. 

Victoria: 

Well that whole pull away thing actually gave me a 10 return me believe it or not. 

Victoria: 

And so I, you know, did a, it was pretty good for me, but breaking it down so that it’s manageable. So that is something you can do every day. 

Victoria: 

So postage at that time was at nine cents And the envelope might be, I don’t know, 10 cents or something. 

Victoria: 

She was very inexpensive way to get things done. Eventually. I thought full rates were kind of expensive. So I did the, I got a camera and I went next door and the guy, you know, camera shop, I did it in batches so it was like 12 cents a copy. 

Victoria: 

So again, you know, if you, if you break it, if you want action and you break it down to small actions. These were not big actions, But I did $1 million 12 month period because my return rates on that. 

Victoria: 

Like I sold the Neiman Marcus american airlines. 

Victoria: 

I mean, I mean those are pretty big companies. 

Brandon: 

So think about that. 

Victoria: 

I think that’s created by victoria and I appreciate you sharing that. 

Brandon: 

I do have two more questions before we go and I know I’ve kept you and I’m grateful for you staying on. And I think this is one of those times when you’re supposed to like follow the host and sort of get to the end but I’m not done yet. 

Brandon: 

Um one question you could answer relatively quickly. Does it blow your mind That all you had 15 million people buy from you over the over the course of 30 Year career? 

Brandon: 

Yeah. 

Brandon: 

Yeah. 

Brandon: 

Does it blow your mind that you go on tv and these people are actually watching the T. 

Victoria: 

V. 

Victoria: 

And buying like doesn’t that seem crazy? 

Brandon: 

Yeah. 

Brandon: 

Yeah. It is it is crazy. And I’ve had to like go look at my records and everything. It is really crazy. 

Victoria: 

Like I said to you earlier I feel so blessed and because the journey that I’ve taken is so different that you know, most people like who grows up thinking, oh, I’m going to go on tv and south jewelry, like, you know, you can’t actually write a script like that. 

Victoria: 

It’s so stupid. 

Victoria: 

You know, you can’t do that. So working hard. 

Victoria: 

Um, and I don’t, you know, like I said, all these things just kind of came just by working hard every single day, putting introduced and respecting uh and just understanding the world around you. 

Victoria: 

You know, I do have the financial means now to treat all the people that I love in my family, to the life they deserve. 

Victoria: 

But I also remember where that all that is coming from. So really, um I’m very grateful and I i it does seem unreal. 

Victoria: 

It does seem unreal even now, like, somebody has to remind me, I mean people have reminded me your you know, it’s just an amazing astonishing whatever. And um it is, I just don’t know any other way to describe it. 

Victoria: 

But I also want to tell you Brandon, I hope if you are listening to uh Brandon and myself now that nothing I said today was trying to show off what I’ve done or to be braggadocious about all the things I’ve accomplished. 

Victoria: 

It’s really about the things that I’ve accomplished are being done by an ordinary person who came here with nothing who had nothing to look forward to, who held onto that dream, refused to let the dream go and to think that everything was possible. 

Victoria: 

If you just, you know, put your mind to it and While I sit here and tell you that, you know, the numbers I’ve done, which is pretty unbelievable. 

Victoria: 

Maybe a lot of people won’t do the 500 million, but you could do five million. 

Victoria: 

You can 500,000, you can do whatever. 

Victoria: 

That’s a great start. 

Victoria: 

I mean I’d be happy with that. 

Victoria: 

Well, me too. 

Victoria: 

And actually thank you so much for being on. It’s really wonderful. 

Brandon: 

Thank you. Thank you for you know, letting me share my story and I hope it’s changed somebody I want to come back and um here from somebody who said you know what when I listen to that victoria check, I mean she really made me like get off my butt and do something and look at the grandma and I wanna I wanna I wanna have one of those moments from your show. 

Victoria: 

I know I know that will happen after people listen to you. 

Victoria: 

So thank you so much for being open and sharing. Thank you. 

Brandon: 

Thanks for being generous with your time and joining us for this episode of build a business success secrets. Before we go, let me ask you a quick question, Are you the type of person who wants to get 100 out of your time, talent and ideas? 

Brandon: 

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Brandon: 

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Brandon: 

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Brandon: 

That’s B as in business success secrets dot com. 

Brandon: 

And until the next episode, remember you are just one business plan away. 

Brandon: 

I’m rooting for your success. 

Brandon: 

Mhm kiki hard hitter, I would say sneaky hard hitter. 

Brandon: 

Could you sound so harmless? 

Brandon: 

And but some of the questions you ask are like, oh yeah, that’s a little, I try to keep it real. 

Brandon: 

Yeah, I like that. 

Brandon: 

I love real

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