Meet Megan Collins | Jeweller & Jewellery Business Coach

We had the good fortune of connecting with Megan Collins and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Megan, where are your from? We’d love to hear about how your background has played a role in who you are today?
I grew up in the mountains in South Africa, in a small village called Hogsback. So one could say that I had an unconventional upbringing, to say the least. While others my age were playing with dolls, I could be found up a tree, building a bush shelter, or foraging for blackberries and mushrooms.

I loved problem-solving and coming up with creative ideas to make fun projects with whatever I could find around me.
It was never a case of thinking about what I wanted to make and then going out to buy those materials. It was rather, “what do I have and what can I turn that into?” I was a real entrepreneur from a young age – around 5 years old and loved selling my creations at the local market. As the years went on, my creations and business savvy only improved.

With my wild and wonderful upbringing, I really developed a strong connection with nature, and my sense of responsibility toward protecting our environment has been a strong motivating factor ever since and feeds into everything I do now as an adult.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I am a jewellery designer/maker and have been running my Scandinavian-inspired minimalist jewellery brand, Megan Collins Jewellery since I graduated in 2015.

I always knew that I wanted to turn my passion for making jewellery into a profitable business. It may have taken me a little while to reach my goal, but I got there in the end. When I started studying jewellery design and manufacturing, I was waitressing at the time and hardly had enough money for rent. But I managed to eventually get a teaching job, with help from my tutor, as I had gained some teaching experience in South Africa and this really helped get my head above water and start taking my dreams seriously.

So while working part-time as a Design and Art teacher at the International School of London, I burnt a lot of the midnight oil to grow my jewellery business on the side. Then slowly this started to grow and grow until I couldn’t keep up, so I asked to reduce my hours at the school and then, after 7 years, I was able to finally quit the teaching position, move to Belgium and work on my jewellery business full-time!! A real dream come true!

It took me so long to reach my goal, and I think that that was largely due to the lack of information out there in terms of what to do once you know how to make jewellery. I had to spend 15K on different courses over the years to teach myself everything I needed to know, such as how to build strong business foundations, branding, identifying my actual target audience, marketing etc. the list goes on.

So this lead me to develop my jewellery business coaching program, where I have taken everything I have learnt over the past 9 years and turned that into a jam-packed online course – the Consistent Sales Academy! My aim with the course is to help other jewellers like myself build the businesses of their dreams so that they too can quit their 9-5 and work on something that they are good at and truly passionate about!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Seeing as I am still relatively new to Brussels, I am still exploring it myself and am constantly finding new little gems.

So here’s what I would do…

I’d start the day off by having brunch at the Woodpecker cafe in the forest near where I live and have a walk around the lake.
Then I’d head to the climbing gym Base Le Camp, also conveniently close, for a fun climb. I’d then jump on the bus and head to the old center to my favorite super cute chocolate cafe that has a wide selection of fresh handmade chocolates and a chai latte to die for. We’d then go look at some of the numerous galleries and take in some culture and then head to Pho for dinner. Their seitan curry is my favorite!

Then the rest of the week would include going for more walks around and exploring the neighborhood and all the cute little shops and cafes. I’d have to also include hopping on a train and taking a trip to the coast. There’d be plenty of games evenings and listening to live music! Friends of mine are musicians @vlou on Instagram, so they always keep me up to date with all the fun events in Brussels. Brussels literally has something fun happening all the time, so we would not get bored.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There have been so many people along the way that have inspired, supported, and encouraged me, but if I were to dedicate this article to one in particular, that would have to be my partner Emile. He has been my rock and my biggest supporter for the past 4 years. He even went as far as to quit his job to join me in the business so that we can really give it our all!

So I’d like to give him some acknowledgment, as a lot of what he does is behind the scenes.

Website: https://megancollinsjewellery.com/ and https://www.megancollins.co/

Instagram: @mcjewellery & @megancollins.co

Youtube: Megan Collins: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYpeKzUn5FtjXSAlNltF1lg

Other: I have added both my jewellery and my coaching details.