Calendar for Jewelers: March 2016

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Similar to the Go Red for Women campaign and the issue of heart disease, Dress in Blue Day seeks to raise awareness about colon cancer and to remember people who have been lost to the disease. Its focus on the color blue also makes it a cause that is a particularly good fit for jewelers. Sapphires, aquamarines (March’s birthstone), blue topaz, zircon, lapis, kyanite … there are few gemstone color groups as glorious. For ideas on how you can get involved, see the Colon Cancer Alliance website instr.us/2161.

This article originally appeared in the February 2016 edition of INSTORE.

1-7 National Consumer Protection Week provides a number of opportunities for businesses to get involved. The most obvious for jewelers is simply to help people become better informed about the goods they sell. Master gemologist appraiser Martin Fuller of Martin Fuller Appraisals in McLean, VA, did that two years ago, hosting a session at the local county offices on diamond grading. At his hands-on workshop, he invited consumers to bring in a diamond to see if it was “a true gem or a brilliant deception.” What ring owner could resist such an offer?

4 “If you persist in writing, ‘Good food at it’s best,’ you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.” So says Lynne Truss in her best-seller, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. In short, there are people who feel strongly about grammar, and that anyone who is careless with language will be careless with everything else. If the rules of English are a weak spot for you, do two things on grammar day: Go buy yourself a copy of The Elements of Style, and be sure you have Word’s grammar check turned on at all times.

8 Daylight Savings: Invite customers to save on jewelry during your Great Leap into Spring Fashion celebration with daylight “savings” for today only.

12 Girl Scout Day can make a good claim to being the most under-appreciated date on the jeweler’s calendar. The moms love it, the kids love it, and the staff gets a kick out of it. Borsheims in Omaha, NE, did a fun event last year in which girls from a local troop were invited in to work with jewelers to create charms they felt best represented the Girl Scouts. The two finished bracelets were later auctioned off at a fundraiser.

15 In honor of the NCAA’s March Madness basketball tournament, which begins today, host a game of horse, the sales version. Create a list of goals such as “Sell a $100 item” or “Obtain an email address” and write each one on a piece of paper. The salesperson who draws the first goal from a hat must achieve it on his next interaction with a client or forfeit his turn. If he’s successful, the next salesperson in line must replicate his feat or earn an “H”. And so it goes. Last man standing after a weekend of action wins a prize.

20 The birds are chirping, the sun lingers and the snow has receded, leaving the question of, where does the white go? … and you with spring cleaning work to do. This year, forget the lights and carpets and focus on your inventory. Gather whatever is old or unfashionable and melt it down, eBay it, redesign it or mark it down. And all the while, remember to whistle while you work. It’s spring, after all.

27 To celebrate Easter and its own delicious inventory, London jeweler 77 Diamonds last year collaborated with a leading chocolatier to create the “World’s Most Extravagant Easter Bunny.” The jeweler provided two 1.7-carat diamonds for the eyes of the rabbit, which was put up for sale with a promise to create (for free) a bespoke piece of jewelry featuring the solitaires “once the bunny had been devoured.” Could you do something similar?

STORE ANNIVERSARIES

70 Years: Harold Jaffe Jewelers

Toledo, OH

➤ Like many of America’s great jewelry stores, Harold Jaffe Jewelers has its origins in the small intricate world that exists between watchback and crystal. Founder Harold Jaffe was a “watchmaker’s watchmaker.” But he also had an eye for unique, distinctive pieces and a passion for what the store calls Ultimate Customer Satisfaction. This combination, supported by active community involvement, especially in the arts, has helped the store to become one of Toledo’s best known. Over 70 years the store, which is now run by Harold’s sons, Jeff and Ivan, has won a string of Best of Toledo awards as well as America’s Coolest Stores Contest honors in 2005.

BIRTHSTONES

Aquamarine

As its Latin-inspired name suggests, aquamarine has traditionally been associated with the sea. Ancient sailors believed mermaids’ lower bodies were made of aquamarine. And they traveled with aquamarine crystals, believing it would ensure a safe passage. Perhaps that is what makes it such an appropriate gemstone to mark 19th wedding anniversaries: A stone for long journeys and safe returns.