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Welcome to the first episode of JimmyCast, a new podcast from the INSTORE Podcast Network.
If you’re a regular consumer of INSTORE Online, then you probably know of Jimmy DeGroot. He produces the Jewelry Store Possible series of educational videos as well as the Gene the Jeweler series of satirical clips.
With JimmyCast, “The idea is we’re going to talk real,” Jimmy explains. The show also features Doug Meadows of David Douglas Diamonds in Marietta, GA.
“We’re going to get at the real issues and talk about those things that could be a bit uncomfortable to talk about in a general publication setting,” he says. Jimmy is a highly experienced jewelry store manager who spends his time training teams around the world at jewelrystoretraining.com and sharing marketing advice through his blog site at jewelrymarketingguy.com.
In the inaugural episode, Jimmy and Doug talk about how things have changed in the jewelry retail business, and how to adapt when the old ways stop getting results. Doug even gets specific about how he is reinventing his own business.
“We have to try something different,” Doug says, “because what used to work in the past isn’t working.”
Listen to this and other industry insights on JimmyCast! You can catch the video version below.
Show Notes/Show Chronology
Here are show notes of the conversation between Jimmy DeGroot and Doug Meadows.
- 1:14 Doug talks about his store’s origins, and his move to warmer climes.
- 1:59 Is David Douglas Diamonds the typical jewelry retailer in the U.S.?
- 2:12 On the two types of jewelers.
- 2:50 On the paradigm shift in how jewelry businesses are run.
- 3:56 On the days when jewelers were selling “those big mambo herring-bone necklaces.”
- 4:55 A discussion of the days when, as a jeweler, you hardly had to advertise at all, and yet everything was good.
- 6:20 On how this podcast came to be.
- 6:45 Doug talks about how he is reinventing himself. “We have to try something different, because what used to work in the past isn’t working.”
- 9:00 On grassroots marketing efforts that work in the absence of a large marketing budget.
- 12:06 Doug talks about the time he “went stupid” and expanded a grassroots marketing program to his whole county –including over 100 schools. He’s since cut back to 27 schools.
- 14:24 “There is no magic marketing pill. No matter what it is, it’s still consistent work. A lot of work.”
- 15:22 On what’s working for David Douglas Diamonds. Hint: “If you Google ‘moissanite Atlanta,’ nine times out of 10 we’re going to be the first organic search that shows up.”
- 17:00 Doug on why he embraced moissanite 20 years ago.
- 17:35 On the importance of getting more customers through the door, buying at lower price points.
- 20:30 A discussion of “that guy who is lying to his girlfriend about moissanite.”
- 21:10 An inspirational story of a guy who embraced inbound marketing by answering questions on his blog.
- 23:08 Doug explains, “I’m constantly asking myself, ‘What is it that a customer is asking and how can we answer it?'”