Here’s How Jewelers Knew They Had ‘Made It’

RETAIL JEWELERS SAY they knew they had “made it” when they drove home a new Porsche or an Escalade. But they REALLY knew they had a success story when they could take a day off once a week, take a vacation, or their stress level “dropped to zero.”

• My daughter wanted to work here.
• I sold a $10,000 sapphire sight unseen over the phone to an established customer.
• The mayor dedicated a day of the year in our name.
• My customer base exceeded 5,000.
• I got my store name printed on our plastic bags, our ribbon and our tissue paper.
• My accountant said I have net worth and should make a will.
• I could retire.
• My stress level dropped to zero.
• I hit my first million-dollar store.
• Dad said he was proud of me.
• I see my work around someone’s neck or on their finger and I see them show off their jewelry and point to me and tell the other people, “She is the one that created this for me.”
• A four-day work week.
• I consistently started selling 2-carat diamonds and larger.
• I drove home my brand-new Porsche.
• I bought my Escalade.
• I bought my building.
• When I heard the sleigh bells on the rooftop.
• I stopped getting a tax refund.
• I can take a vacation.
• I was at a local restaurant and ran into a client. She began to sing the store’s jingle from our radio ads.
• I reached my goal of a million dollars cost in inventory with no debt ever.
• I pay my parents more than they have ever made in their lives not to come to work.
• I was no longer concerned with December’s numbers. It’s not that I don’t care. I just don’t worry about it. Pay for your inventory during the year and you will have a relaxed December!
• An engagement ring client said our store had been around his entire life and of course he was coming here to buy!
• My customers and people I don’t know tell me how good of a jeweler I am.
• I was sitting across the boardroom table from Nicholas Oppenheimer at the CSO in London.
• I wake up smiling because I get to come to work. I’m unemployable anywhere else and I love (mostly all of) it!
• Everyone wanted my job.
• I heard the hammer fall on an empty chamber.
• I don’t need to be in the store and sales happen and customers are happy.
• I quit advertising and sales continued to go up.
• We made it past our first 10 years in business.
• I no longer did more wholesale than retail.
• Customers were coming in from three states away.
• I finished this survey.
• My competitors came to visit our new store.
• I didn’t have to worry about the rent.
• The first year I had to pay taxes on the store profits!
• I could afford to blow 100 bucks on dinner.
• I saw the logo stamp.
• New England Patriots come in my store for jewelry.
• Big-name brands I couldn’t get to take my calls suddenly started calling me.
• A local charity expected us to make a 6-figure donation.
• People started handing me their jewelry in the grocery store to bring in for repair.
• At a recent chi-chi charity fundraising event, four of the high-profile attendees are clients in the middle of big projects.
• She put her hands on her hip and said to him, well.
• When people introduce me as Rosanne from the jewelry store.
• Gold prices went to $1,800 per ounce.
• I survived 2010.
• They were actually sad at my funeral.