Jewellery Store Washed Away in Flooding

Best wishes, and prayers go out to Wayne & Joanne Austen of High River, Alberta whose newly renovated store was nearly gutted by the flooding last week.  As the waters began to encroach upon downtown streets where Austen Jewellers is located, Wayne was attempting to “batten down the hatches,” when the first of the large picture windows in an adjacent gift-shop imploded.  He then helped a few ladies through the chest-high water to safety, during which time he had an acute revelation of how dangerous the forces of this rushing water could be.

Today the Austens remain in nearby Okotoks, awaiting the green light to return to their home, which thankfully appears to have sustained very little water infiltration.  Having lost three vehicles to the flooding, one has already been settled with insurance.  Still no word on what roll insurance will play in the building which plays host Austen Jewellers, a gift-shop, eye-wear store and other businesses; nor on whether his business insurance will cover the furniture and fixtures.  The initial news reports state that homeowners insurance would not normally cover over-land flooding, but Provincial and Federal disaster relief will be in-place shortly to help repair what insurance doesn’t.

If insurance and disaster-relief fails to help the Austens rebuild their store, can anyone out there suggest a way in which we as an industry can pull together to assist them?  I haven’t asked, but maybe some temporary showcases will be required until insurance and contractors are arranged.  Let me know if you have any thoughts.  I won’t try to “pass the hat,” or organize anything until we know more about available aid. 

For now, just keep them in your thoughts.  Send them an encouraging note if you know them.  Appreciate your warm and dry store, knowing that any one of us could have been affected by a natural disaster.

3rd Avenue West looking West - High River

3rd. Avenue West looking East - High River

Austen Jewellers is located where the beam is sticking out of the window

Bat-Sheba Gift Shop, adjacent to Austen Jewellers - where the first picture window let-go

Alberta Premier Allison Redford sees first-hand the incredible destruction

Let’s Think This Through…

In Vegas, Martin Rapaport stood-up and made a haunting statement.  With regards to the various grading standards among competing diamond grading labs, he stated “at least we have something to complain about.”  So, let’s think this through.  Were there no diamond labs, what would our industry look like?  Well, assuming there is still an I3 through FL clarity scale and D-Z color scale, I would speculate that there will still be diamond dealers who apply those descriptions with strict integrity, and those who “stretch” a bit, and then those who “stretch” a lot.  There would remain those jewellers who choose their dealers based upon their own level of integrity.

What would be missing?  The official looking piece of paper that can be used to convince unwitting consumers that they’re getting a great deal; and which can also be used to assure savvy consumers that they’re getting the quality they desire.  If there were no diamond labs, that might be good for Gem Scan, I.G.L. and Harold Weinstein because some consumers would insist upon an unbiased “second opinion” because they don’t trust their local jeweller.

In all likelihood our Canadian appraisal labs would generate their own reputations, and you’d end-up with one taking the moral high-ground, one catering to those who want a preferential grade and one would land in the middle. 

Is this just human nature, or is it our industry?  I’m not totally sure, but I’m going to interview people from various other industries and just see if there are similar problems elsewhere in our crazy world.  Watch for the results in an upcoming Canadian Jeweller Magazine article by yours truly…

JCK Vegas Days 2-3-4

JCK Vegas Day 2-3-4

…chiming in a little late.  That’s Vegas for you.  If you can live on 5 hours of sleep per night, this is your town.

As the show is now in its’ final day, I’ve worked a few mornings at the Lashbrook booth, provided input to purchases for Steve’s store, and selected some new gemstones for future Customgold designs and added new skus to Courtney Gold’s offerings.  Besides show-business,  there have been social gatherings including a 24kt club Canada dinner organized by Gunther Mele’s Darryl King, a dinner with Fishers, Austen’s and team Foster at P.F. Chang’s (our favorite!), a CJG cocktail reception, and the ever popular “JCK Rocks the Beach” pool party.

This year’s beach bash featured a live performance by Maroon 5.  Word to the wise: If you’re coming to future shows, try your best to register for “Luxury by JCK”.  Without those badges, you might have waited in line for two hours, like some of our friends and not made it into the much anticipated event.  I, fortunately, had such credentials by being affiliated with Steve’s store.  Maroon 5 did all of their famous songs including “My Heart’s a Stereo,” “Moves Like Jagger,” “Payphone,” and “One More Night.”  The place was packed, and it was hard to move.  Many Canadians gathered together, and those who made it in had a lot of fun.  Thank you to the CJA for hosting a cabana and some drinks for Canadian members!

The size and scope of the show, the entertainment, and the venue all combine to provide a compelling draw for Canadian Retailers.  There was even talk of creating a “Canadian Pavilion” in the international section of the show.  I’m not so sure that exhibitors such as Corona and Beverly Hills would want to move to such a location, but with something like 1,700 Canadians registered for last year’s show it’s possible that more Canuck exhibitors could join-in.

I met Phil Payne, the new owner of the Canadian jewellery shows last night, and he confirmed that each show, Toronto and Edmonton will be awarding a brand new Lexus to one lucky retailer in attendance.  Not a one-year lease, not a two-year lease, but a free Lexus.  The car giveaway sponsor is to be announced soon.  Make your plans now for your chance to win!

Exhibitors we spoke to reported strong sales, and there seemed to be a bit more action in Vegas than in most years I’ve been here.  Maybe the US economy is on the mend, or maybe more Canadians coming here is keeping the Vegas lights bright!

More reflections on seminars to come; including thoughts on the Rapaport diamond conference.

JCK Vegas Day 1 - Seminars

While all of the main-show vendors are setting up, Luxury exhibitors are busy selling, AGTA vendors are up and running and the conference halls were quite busy with seminars.  The day kicked-off at 8:00am with a breakfast session featuring Barbara Corcoran.  She is a New York rags to riches real estate broker, who you might recognize if you watch The Shark Tank.

Although during question time she offended pretty much the whole room by admitting that she’s a millionaire who doesn’t wear fine jewellery, she shared some very inspirational lessons from her 65 years of living.  She encouraged us to be good at failure; not striving for it, but tempting it often, and learning from it.  She shared how she built her own celebrity by writing free reports with well-researched information to establish herself as an expert.  When she was setting-up real estate offices, she always could base each location on two key people; and expander (creative, sales and development oriented) and a container (organized administrative type.)

She went on to urge that “the best leaders kiss down,” not up.  By that she shared stories of pouring her life into the people below her who were responsible for making her business money.  Even though some in the room felt they didn’t have the kind of capital that she began to amass once she sold her business for $65Million, she admonished that small guys have creativity, and during tough times when big money people stop spending it, creativity can be poured-out in order to increase your market share.  The final two points of her presentation were that “fun is good for business” and “you have the right to be there.” 

The stories were excellent, and as an occasional watcher of Shark Tank, she was pretty candid about her fellow panelists.  She also had a few things to say about “The Donald” who cost her $500,000 in lawyer fees to collect a $5Million commission.

After the keynote presentation, I attended sessions on “Successful Online Marketing and Web Presence,” “Working with new alloys and Metals,” “Pricing Stratagies for Custom Design,” and Brad Huisken’s “Sixteen Principles of Sales Management.”  I may go into detail on some in future articles, however even though he picked on me a little bit, Brad shared some particularly great wisdom.  The overall theme of his sixteen principles had to do with taking ownership over your salesperson’s success.  He has seen a lot of stores where the management is pretty laissez faire.  He acted-out a manager telling a sales associate to “go sell more,” contrasting that with one who says, “Hey, I noticed that your average sale is down 8% from the store average, so I’m going to watch your next few sales presentations and see if we can’t identify a few things we need to work on in order to improve that.”  If you’re not having weekly sales training and sitting down with each of your staff individually for 15 minutes per week, he considers you “out of touch.”  For a copy of his notes, just email me and I'll ask Brad if I can forward them to you.  There's lots of good stuff in there.

Doing it Right

As I look forward to Thursday's seminars at JCK Las Vegas, I’m reminded of Brad Huisken’s saying, “sales training doesn’t work…” Huh?  He really said that?  Further, he explains, “…sales training doesn’t work if it’s an event.  It has to be a process.”

After completing my Spring visits around Western Canada, I’ve been doing some renos at home.  The new home we moved into in March isn’t exactly the Taj Mahal, it needs some TLC and personal touches before we can call it our own.  The flooring guy said they could install the new lino in about a day, and the carpet could be done in another two days.  One corner of our basement had to be filled-in as the pad had sunk long ago and two layers of previous carpet failed to hide the flaw.  Before the flooring goes down, the baseboards have to come off.  If we’re replacing the baseboards with a newer style, the door casings won’t match, so might as well take them off too.  If you’re going to replace all of the trim, it’s an ideal time to paint.  In order to paint, there’s some patching that needs to be done.  Oh, and by the way, the exposed concrete footing wall should be framed, insulated, drywalled, trimmed and painted too.  Okay, so the three days of flooring installation requires three weeks of other work; without which the new features will be dragged down by everything else in the room.

Going to JCK Vegas to attend a sales training event is like the carpet installation.  One or two days and “all’s good,” right?  Wrong.  Without some sales experience, you won’t know what the heck they’re talking about.  Without product knowledge, you’ll have a hard time filling in the blanks that the sales trainer is referring to when she talks about answering objections, or romancing the product.  Without an instore sales manager guiding your attempts at putting the training into practice, you might apply new knowledge to the wrong scenarios. 

Learning to be a superstar jewellery seller is no easy one-day fix.  It has to be important enough to spend the time continuously to learn, practice, refine and perfect.  If you’re not going to Vegas, pull that sales training kit off of the shelf, and give it a once-over this weekend.  Think about how nervous you were the first week on the sales floor, and how much more proficient you are today.  Now imagine another 5, 10 or 20 years, and how much more effective you’ll be at serving your clients then.  There’s always more to learn, and until you’re closing, adding-on and gaining referrals from 100% of the people who walk into your store, you’re not done.

Proverbs 1:2-5 “for gaining wisdom and instruction; for understanding words of insight; for receiving instruction in prudent behavior, doing what is right and just and fair; for giving prudence to those who are simple, knowledge and discretion to the young – let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance…”

Best wishes!

Those of you who deal with Courtney Gold surely know my friend Peter Keymer.  Pete has been handling outside sales in the Lower Mainland of Vancouver along with inside sales, marketing support, inventory management and photography.  Peter will be retiring at the end of May, and we will miss him greatly.  I want to extend a personal debt of gratitude for all of the ways he’s helped me, inspired me and made me laugh.

If you know of someone who may be a candidate to join the Customgold / Courtney Gold family’s sales team, will you please have them contact Steve Parker at 1-800-563-8949.  The ideal candidate will be looking for a full-time position, but those carrying complimentary jewellery lines will be considered.

Also, best wishes to John and Claudette Craft on their anniversary.  If John’s visiting your store today, remind him to call his wife and sell him something fabulous to bring home to her!

Copping a ‘tude

One day I had it illustrated to me in vivid side-by-side detail.  Two ladies came to see me in my store.  Both could have been sisters.  Same build, same hands, same finger size.  One said, “I can’t wear rings that are too narrow, I mean look at my hands.”  The other later told me, “I need something quite fine with these short fingers.”  And then it hit me.  It’s not about the length of fingers, it’s about their self-image: their attitude.  Thereafter, I paid better attention to the intensity of color they wear, the boldness of their accessories and the amount of makeup worn.  A brassy realtor with big hair, massive bejeweled hand-bag and outrageous high heels is going to be a good candidate for my biggest, boldest designs!  It’s all about the attitude.

Don’t we wish there were more “big attitudes” out there?  Well, we can have a hand in encouraging that.  Whenever I see the lady with her three-piece wedding set, anniversary band, family ring and her mom’s wedding set all piled-up onto her left ring finger, it’s a great opportunity to encourage her to spread things out a bit.  Since she’s been wearing 15 rings on one finger, she is open to wearing something wider on another finger, but might need some enCOURAGEment.  If you talk about the attitude of wearing bigger bolder jewellery; there are very few women who don’t wish they were a bit more fashionable, and exuded a bit more of a confident attitude.  I enjoy the challenge of getting a lady to put a ring on a middle finger or index finger for the first time, because it opens-up a whole new world of possibilities in her jewellery wardrobe.

Make it your personal mission to expand our industry by claiming new territory on every customer’s hands.  And when they’ve got rings for every finger, start working on rings for every occasion, and color palette.  If you believe that having more jewellery than you can wear on a daily basis is excessive and wasteful, you should probably examine your own attitude.  Start by searching through the store’s inventory every single day to see which jewellery would be ideal for the outfit you’re wearing and how you’re feeling.  Then imagine having such a vast jewellery wardrobe yourself.  There are ladies coming into your store with the means to build a stunning collection, and you should be excited to help them do it; if you’ve got the right attitude.