They’re offering the ‘Ack the Deck’ boot camp.
(Press Release) SALT LAKE CITY, UT – Jewelry industry consultant/sales trainer Shane Decker and jeweler marketing coach Jim Ackerman are announcing two “reboots” of their two-day “Ack The Deck Ultimate Jewelry Sales and Marketing Boot Camp” for independent jewelers, to be held in Denver, CO, on Wednesday and Thursday, Aug. 2 and 3, just ahead of the RJO show there, and on Wednesday and Thursday, Aug. 9 and 10, in Atlanta, co-located with The Atlanta Jewelry Show.
“The event was so successful last year, with many of the 60 plus attendees claiming it was the best thing they’d ever done for their businesses, repeating the event for 2017 was a no-brainer,” Decker said. “With an offer from The Atlanta Jewelry show to co-locate our boot camp in advance of the August Atlanta Jewelry Show, we decided to double down and provide jewelers with an opportunity to select a date and location that works best for their schedules.”
According to Ackerman, it’s one thing to have a stimulating and successful event, but the most gratifying part is to see attendees go back to their stores and immediately put what they learned to work.
“Michael Marusak is an 18-year-old kid just out of high school, moving into his father’s business and starting on the sales floor at Ace Diamond Jewelers. The week after his Ack The Deck experience, he employed Shane’s WOW technique and turned a guy who had come in for a simple $250 men’s wedding band into a diamond sale worth $50,000. That’s what I call instant results,” Ackerman said.
But it didn’t end there. Dad, Carl Marusak, who also attended Ack The Deck, had his marketing team apply some of Ackerman’s copywriting techniques and tripled open rates on an email blast, getting one such effort to 43 percent. Their previous high was about 27 percent, but most open rates are in single digits.
Kyle Bullock expected to be down by 20 percent due to challenges in the oil industry in his New Mexico town. But after the boot camp, and via the program’s on-going coaching efforts, Kyle deployed a private sale that generated unprecedented results. “It was the best promotion we have ever done in our business, and I’m a fourth-generation jeweler, so that’s a long time,” Bullock said. The event helped him eliminate the expected deficit and beat his goal numbers for the year.
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Other success stories include 50 percent increases in sales from an annual customer appreciation event, a 12 percent response rate and $61,000 in sales generated from an $1,100 marketing investment to just 312 customers for an estate sale, and many others.
“With all the management, merchandising, inventory and employee training there is out there, it continues to astound me that the industry has never before brought the engine and the fuel that powers every jewelry store – marketing and sales – together at the same time and place, to help jewelers ‘get more customers who will pay them more money, more often’ the fastest, easiest, most cost-effective ways possible,” Ackerman said. “Shane and I were the first to do it, and the results have been so astonishingly gratifying for all, that we feel absolutely obligated to do it again.”
According to Decker, “There is no doubt that application of specific selling techniques can make a dramatic impact on sales results. The challenge is, it’s not just about knowledge of these techniques, it’s about building skills and systems for their use. And that is tough to do in one and two-hour presentations. Having two intensive days to help attendees actually work on these things has proven to be able to geometrically improve the every-day results they get.”
Ackerman echoed Decker’s sentiments. “Perhaps you can go to a class, get some information and know what you have to do to make inventory decisions. It doesn’t quite work that way in sales and marketing. These are skill, habit and system-based disciplines. And for that, there is no substitute for time,” he said. “What makes our program different from anything the industry has ever seen is not just the two intensive days, but the follow-up coaching, access to turnkey programs and other pre and post-event support. There really is nothing like it anywhere.”
Attendance at each of the two boot camps is limited to 137 stores, and enrollees will receive substantial pre and post-event assignments and follow-up, to make sure boot camp time is most productive for every individual participant and rapid, effective implementation is assured for each store.
In addition to a roughly even division of time between Decker and Ackerman during the two-day sessions, there will be a three-hour evening session specifically for owners addressing a variety of sales, marketing, management, merchandising, inventory, pricing and promotional issues.
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The exclusive event carries a hefty price tag at $2,500 per person to participate, but when considered against what participants would have to pay for either of these two jewelry industry gurus consulting or coaching services, value will exceed cost geometrically.
Early bird enrollees can save up to 60 percent, depending upon how early you reserve your spot, and the two presenters encourage jewelers to reserve their spots now, because both events are expected to sell out.
“We’ll have more information forthcoming in the coming weeks and months,” Decker said, “But one thing I can tell you right now is that every attendee’s investment will be absolutely protected with our unprecedented, performance-based, Triple Fail-Safe Guarantee.” Decker recommends going to the website to discover the details of the guarantee.
Further, detailed information about the event content and pre and post requirements can be found at www.ultimatejewelrysalesbootcamp.com.
