Big Earrings – Big Dreams!

Where Customers are “All Ears”!

A unique, woman-owned unique business finding, collecting, selling…big earrings!

We were struck by the enthusiasm, energy, and single-minded approach Sharon Woodhouse to this new midlife encore career undertaking. Her tagline “Admire, Collect, Wear, Live, Repeat” could be considered an appropriate metaphor for the passion and aspirations women bring to their over-50 career and life choices in midlife and beyond, both personal and professional.

This is such a unique and unusual business, and Sharon’s excitement is infectious. Learn more about Sharon here, check out her website, Facebook and Pinterest pages, and maybe add a little ‘big earring attitude’ to your life!

Meet Sharon Woodhouse of BigEarrings.com

Sharon Woodhouse is a 52-year-old book publisher, small business coach, and publishing consultant who has loved big earrings since her very first pair at 13. When her friends were getting dainty studs, it was a shocker. After all, she was the book worm…what was she doing with outrageous, dangling ear jewelry?

Sharon grew grew up in a non-girly, Mid-Western blue collar family wearing mostly flannels, sweatshirts, and jeans. Her enjoyment of and collecting of big earrings has been a mainstay most of her life, but always in the background. Just the “…10 seconds of joy I’ve experienced every morning for many, many years choosing which big earrings I’ll wear for the day” as she says on her website.

Early on in the 2020 pandemic, working from home and spending more time in front of her computer, she happened to buy 4 different pairs of earrings after seeing digital advertisements that kept flashing before her on the screen. She truly did admire them, but they turned out to too big even for her. Even though she didn’t wear them, she didn’t regret buying them. She saw them daily and they made her smile.

Like a true natural-born entrepreneur who keeps many projects on the back burners, at one point something hit Sharon about these four questionable purchases. She researched a domain name she had been watching mostly on a lark for 15 years: bigearrings.com. It was for sale.

Not one to pass up an opportunity that presents itself, even so unexpectedly, Sharon made a deal with herself that she would pay $x for the site and not a dollar more. If the buyer accepted, then she would consider her next undertaking to be a purveyor of big earrings. Well, the buyer didn’t accept at first or second or third, but within six weeks of negotiations she was the owner of an awesome web address, and a new business venture!

BigEarrings.com has been open for about just a few months, and Sharon is having fun! This type of business is a world away from the publishing environment. A book can take 18-24 months, hundreds of hours, a team of 5 freelancers, and thousands of dollars to release before you can start marketing, selling, and earning that money back. Her new midlife endeavor is quite a bit more immediate. lighthearted and joyful.

Most of Sharon’s customers currently are women, 40-65, many of them referred via Facebook ads, as well as referrals from friends and colleagues.

Marketing The Dangly

Sharon has taken full advantage of the joy she has received from these earrings and translated that into her marketing approach:

1. All earrings come with tongue-in-cheek pairing suggestions as if they were wine or cheese. In lieu of reviews, there’s an inspirational or humorous quote.
2. A good portion of her Tweets are devoted to showcasing everyday and middle-aged women (some being leaders and celebrities) wearing big earrings while going about their lives. (https://twitter.com/BigEarringsShop)
3. Sharon looks for women to contribute photos of themselves wearing big earrings in a “Save us from stock photography” campaign. If she uses their photo on the site, they receive a $20 in-store credit.

If you have a unique encore career or entrepreneurial journey in mind, contact us at [email protected]!