Welcome to Day 2 of the World’s Greatest Bulletin for Jewelers.

You can call us Greatest, and we want you to think of us as part of your store staff.

No, we can’t pop out to the local beanery to pick up your team’s coffee orders. And we're not able to help you Windex your glass or corral the dust bunnies hiding under your display cases. And we’re really sorry, but you can’t put us on your store website and then give us a $50 Outback Steakhouse gift certificate because we won your store’s “Employee of the Month” contest. (You know what? That last thing? You can do that if you want. We’d be honored … Bloomin' Onions, YUM!)

What Greatest WILL do — what we are, in fact, absolutely RELENTLESS about doing — is find fresh ideas and new angles to help you, Ambitious Jewelry Store Owner, sell more, manage better and have a blast while doing it.

Our mission is to consume oceans of information to find even a few tidbits that will be useful to you. Our favorite thing to do in this world is find the information you need, at the moment you need it.

In sales, that might be a fresh approach to your biggest sales event of the year or merely a fun promo idea to perk up a slow week.

In management, that might be a new approach to incentivizing your team or just the right phrase at the right time to say to a salesperson who’s struggling.

In Greatest’s opinion, one of the very best questions you can ever ask an employee is this: “How do you like to be managed?”

If there’s one thing that Greatest appreciates in a boss or manager, it is this:

Bias towards action.

Having a bias towards action is challenging. Energizing. Fun.

We know there are only so many hours in the day, and only so many initiatives you can take on, so you’ll probably say “no” to about 95% of Greatest’s ideas.

That’s fine. But we just want to make the point that you should regularly, almost constantly, be experimenting with new ideas. Whether it’s a big, critical project like a store redesign and rebrand, or a seat-of-the-pants, iterate-fast test project, launching new stuff and experimenting with your business is exciting for everyone and the best way we know to grow.

Anyway, even if you say “no” to 95% of the ideas Greatest shares with you, that still means you’ll say “yes” to 5%.

And we’re confident that that 5% is more than enough to keep your business whizzing, merrily, forward.

PS: Did someone say “exciting test project”? That’s exactly what “World’s Greatest” is for INSTORE.

We’re now on Day 2 of our free one-week preview, and hope you’re enjoying reading these as much as we’re enjoying creating them. If you are starting to get a better sense of how this email might help you do more business, please subscribe below.

Questions? Write [email protected].

We need your help to spread the word about “World’s Greatest Jewelry Bulletin”. Here’s what you can do.

METALS REPORT

Gold finds buyers again at $3,000.

At midnight New York time, gold prices were up 0.11% to $3,015.70; platinum was down 0.10% to $981.00; and palladium was up 0.32% to $979.00. (Go to Kitco.)

Here’s a bonus tip from Evan James Deutsch on benefitting from high gold prices.

AROUND THE INDUSTRY

Los Angeles jeweler has unique way to deliver engagement rings — his very own airplane.

Gem groups call for urgent action on irradiated rubies and sapphires. / Bailey's Fine Jewelry expands to Charlotte with acquisition of Morrison Smith. (PAYWALL) / 4 execs leaving Signet as reorganization gets underway.

Today’s Dates

• “Days” of the Day: National Medal of Honor Day (hail heroes!); Waffle Day (see our thoughts on food-related holidays below); Maryland Day (Maryland jewelers, toot your horns!), Tolkien Reading Day
• “DAYS” THIS WEEK: Teachers' Day (March 28), National Mom and Pop Business Owners Day (March 29), National Doctor’s Day (March 30)
• MILESTONE Birthday: Happy 60th to Sarah Jessica Parker!
• Entertainment Anniversaries: It’s the 40th anniversary of the release of Chris de Burgh’s Into the Light, which contained the deathless ballad “Lady in Red”(which reached the top of the charts a year later). Many love “Lady in Red”. (Greatest, not so much.) But if you’re a fan, maybe a “Lady in Red” event selling ruby, garnet or rubellite?
• ALSO: It’s the 20th anniversary of Sandra Bullock’s Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous. (That sounds like a “wrist mess” bracelet promo to Greatest.)

10 Things To Do In Your Store Today

• STYLE ICON: As mentioned up top, it’s a milestone birthday for one of our era’s most influential style icons — Sarah Jessica Parker. In yesterday’s “World’s Greatest” bulletin, we gave you a range of ideas (from zero-effort to high-effort) to celebrate SJP’s big day.
• TRAINING SESSION: For now, for the purposes of the World’s Greatest Bulletin for Jewelers, we’re going to suggest once-weekly 30-minute sales training sessions on Tuesdays. You might do these on a different schedule and frequency.
  SESSION ONE: Selling bridal jewelry to customers over 40. This is a little bit different than selling to customers under 40. Shane Decker tells you how to sell them.
• BOOK REPORT: Speaking of your sales meetings, don’t forget the homework assignments. Greatest suggests having a member of your team read a business book and share their favorite 10 pieces of advice each month. That way, your team gets 120 great new business ideas a year. Make sure the advice sticks by printing out ideas, sharing on the company wiki and emailing everybody after the meeting.
  
  Here are a few favorites from INSTORE readers and editors:
• Selling Luxury by Robin Lent
• Little Red Book of Selling by Jeffrey Gitomer
• Purple Cow by Seth Godin
• Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard
• Rhinoceros Success by Scott Alexander
FURTHER READING: Here is Inc.com’s “Top 10 ‘How to Sell’ Books of All Time”: 1. Spin Selling by Neil Rackham, 2. The Little Red Book of Selling by Jeffrey Gitomer (tied with The Sales Bible by Jeffrey Gitomer); 3. Secrets of Closing the Sale by Zig Ziglar; 4. The Greatest Salesman in the World (Og Mandino); 5. How to Master the Art of Selling (Tom Hopkins); 6. Perfect Selling (Linda Richardson); 7. Strategic Selling (Robert Miller and Stephen Heiman); 8. The Psychology of Selling (Brian Tracy), 9. Mastering the Complex Sale (Jeff Thull); 10. Selling to Big Companies (Jill Konrath)


• HOLIDAY FUN: Tomorrow is Make Up Your Own Holiday Day. That’s fun. Again, this is short notice, but is there a way to celebrate creatively and maybe make a couple extra sales? Brainstorm: announce on social media that tomorrow is “National Repurpose Your Old Jewelry Day” and whip up an official-looking proclamation (with your favorite “Olde English” font) with an appealing redesign offer.
• FOR THE MOMS: The next “real” jewelry-selling holiday on the calendar is Mother’s Day. If you haven’t started planning yet, get busy. To help, Greatest will share his favorite Mother’s Day sales tips and promo concepts for you to consider in the coming weeks.
• FOOD THOUGHTS: Today is Waffle Day. There are a ton of food- and drink-related holidays and you simply cannot celebrate them all. (Or, maybe you COULD but, by the end of the year, you and your staff would likely need a forklift to move around the store.) But here’s a strategy to benefit from these days:
• The majority you will ignore. (After all, there are probably 300 of these days a year.)
• Once in a while (maybe once every month or two months), you can celebrate a food day and treat your staff to something delicious.
• Other times, use your appropriate social media channel to note the day and share your recommendation for the celebrated food type. For example, in the case of waffles, “Happy Waffle Day, everybody! One of my favorite waffle places in town is Wild Waffles on Main Street. Delightfully decadent. My rec: the Nutella-banana waffles with caramelized hazelnuts!” Great way to supply your customers with useful, timely information and connect your business to other local businesses.
• Finally, for your absolute favorite types of food, consider a store event to celebrate with customers. (This could be co-organized with a restaurant, bakery or winery.)
Waffle Day might be none of these. But you can choose how to handle. (Speaking of food and drink “holidays”, here’s a three-month calendar – AI-generated, so re-check before committing resources – of upcoming events.)


• STAFF: Continue with employee reviews this week. (Got a bad review to give? You can share bad news with sensitivity, but remember: Your responsibility is to be honest so the employee has a chance to improve.)
• INVENTORY: If you haven’t done it yet, buy white cotton gloves for everyone to wear when they’re moving product around — they keep skin oil off jewelry and prevent sterling goods from tarnishing.
• SALES FLOOR: The counter where you do battery changes is likely to be one of your store’s most heavily trafficked areas. Put some promo material there — maybe a list of the bench services you offer — or some lower-priced merchandise ($200-$500) to encourage impulse buying.
• MARKETING: Brush off the cobwebs in your old marketing files. This is a great time to revisit successful promotions from the past and reconsider ideas that might deserve a second look. It doesn’t always have to be new.

TV Stars

Aside from the familiar behemoths (Tiffany & Co., Cartier, Bulgari, etc) who are operating in an entirely different stratosphere, both financially and creatively, some of the very best jewelry retail TV ads we’ve seen come from Thacker Jewelry of Lubbock, TX. (Here’s their 2017 INSTORE Cool Store feature.)

In this warm and funny 2023 spot, Thacker's leans into their business’s western roots with cinematic quality and genuine humor.

Like it? Here are two more from the series.

COMMENT: We know that, in the era of social media and streaming services, local TV isn’t what it once was. But reduced competition could mean an opportunity to dominate a medium that still has power to impact audiences. Is there another jeweler in your community doing TV? Maybe yes, maybe no. Is there one doing commercials as creative and fun as these? Unlikely.

Productivity Enhancers

SANEBOX

One of Greatest’s all-time favorite tools, this Google Mail plug-in is a dead simple way of taking control of your email box. It’s got a suite of features that save you time and give you power over your email. Have a pesky repeating email you NEVER want to see again? Drag it to the “SaneBlackHole” email folder and voila, it’s nuked – the current email and all future ones. Curious who answers your emails? Activate “SaneNoReplies”, which reminds you of emails you’ve sent which no one has replied to. (Trigger alert: seeing how many emails you send to which no one responds can be confidence-shaking.)

But, in Greatest’s opinion, the KILLER app of SaneBox is the ability to send yourself an email at any point in time: four hours from now ([email protected]); a day from now ([email protected]); a week or year from now ([email protected], [email protected]); or on any specific day and even time ([email protected]).

Used in conjunction with a good task-management app, SaneBox is a foolproof way to stay organized, manage work flow, and never, ever lose an important idea.

Cost: $4.13 a month for a limited plan; $7.04 for regular plan.

Our review: Double thumbs up and straining skywards!

FEEDBACK, PLEASE: Do you have a productivity enhancer you’d like to share with “World’s Greatest”? Send your review to us at [email protected] and we may feature it here. (Product reviews may be edited for length, clarity and flow.)