Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in jewelry but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Vanessa Nornberg, Owner and CEO of Metal Mafia, located in Secaucus, NJ, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

Metal Mafia is the leading supplier of body piercing jewelry in the United States. For the last 18+ years, our mission has been to put the highest quality piercing jewelry in the hands of professional piercers at prices that they can afford. Piercers having access to well-made jewelry made from the safest materials means that end-consumers--whether that consumer is a college student getting her navel pierced, a child getting her first ear piercing, or a mom getting an ear project done--will have the best chance of a safe piercing experience. I believe in ethics and accountability at every level of our business, from choosing the right metals to making metal certificates easy to review to treating our employees and customers like they matter.

Tell us about yourself

I actually opened my company after being fired from another company for trying to do the right thing. I felt that customers were consistently shortchanged in the body piercing industry because companies were more interested in making money by any means necessary than in making easy-to-understand pricing, making stock available when piercers needed it, and making superior customer service that relied on deep knowledge of piercing products and how they are used. Eighteen years later, I am still motivated every day by this same idea. People have a choice as to where they spend their money. In order to be a resource, you have to be committed to delivering what you promise. And most importantly, you can choose to behave ethically in all business-related matters and still make money--enough for the lowest-paid person in your company to be far above minimum wage.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

When I speak with high school students about entrepreneurship, I always tell them that the thing I like most about being a business owner is that I can change the world within the walls of my company and that those changes have implications far beyond those walls. Paying my employees good wages and treating them with respect improves their lives and their families. Manufacturing the highest quality products and choosing never to cut corners allows my customers to be able to run their businesses with confidence and peace of mind that the jewelry they put in people's bodies will not harm them, and that, in turn, means that literally thousands of people getting pierced every year will have better, safer body modification experiences.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

One of the hardest things about being a business owner these days is finding the right ways to keep employees who are engaged and motivated. The people who have been with us for a long time have a good work ethic--they have a real commitment to my company and are dedicated to the mission of doing business in an ethically correct way. People looking for jobs now, for the most part, whether because past employers burned them or because they are just not motivated, are unemployable at my company because we work together as a team, doing our absolute best for every minute of the day that we are clocked in, whether in person or remote and because of that, we all go home on time at a reasonable hour every day and live full lives outside of our professional ones.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

Anyone considering running their own business should not be doing it because they think it will result in flexible hours or a fast financial home run. She should do it because she feels there is a problem she can solve or a niche that she can fill that will, in some way, make the world better. Making the world better does not imply, on a grand scale, solving world hunger or climate, or the like--it means changing the lives of each person you can touch. On a practical level, the most important thing to think about when getting started is cost and pricing. If you don't get those two things right from the start, you won't get your profit structure right. Profit has to be there, or the business becomes an exercise in futility. No company can stick around if it can't afford to keep the doors open and the staff paid.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://metalmafia.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/METALMAFIABODYJEWELRY
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/metalmafiabodyjewelry/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/vanessanornberg
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessa-nornberg-033974/

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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