Behind The Counter   

I am up to my ears in merchandise from my folks store (they closed their store in May). Fortunately, much of it is absolutely beautiful and extremely saleable. But of course there are many pieces that I can remember being around from their first free standing store—sometime in the late 80’s. Much of it dad and I have pulled out the diamonds and then scrapped but many pieces are just not worth scrapping. The ones that aren’t worth scrapping I was thinking to put into a case with a 40% off sign year round—or until they’ve been sold. Do you all have a sale case in store? Do you think having one case donated to slow turning merchandise makes everything else look less expensive or of lower quality? I’m hoping most of it will go during my annual sale but if it doesn’t I think I will be stuck with them forever. What do you do?

It will be a year since I opened my new store in North Carolina and what better way to celebrate than with an “Annual Sale” This week I have set-up appointments with the local newspaper, radio stations, etc to decide what areas of marketing would be best for the store’s annual sale. More importantly—I have finally decided to offer 20% on everything in stock but loose diamonds. I am wondering if any of you have discounted loose diamonds during such an event. I am discounting remounts mounted with solitaires but not loose diamonds, repairs, special orders, and custom designs. I have blogged about this in a previous post here—but still want to know from others—regarding how deep of a discount and if there are limitations to certain designers and or product categories.

How much should staff members know about a firm's financial status? Does openness boost morale and productivity or cause confusion and resentment? I’ve read some articles saying how sharing financial data with your staff allows them to understand the larger reality of the business—not me. I believe in showing staff their numbers against the others during evaluations. I believe in making staff understand how much pays their wage and how much they need to sell to make money for the company. But I don’t believe in them knowing my total monthly and yearly numbers. What do you think? And if you do share financial data is it with all staff members…or only managers? If you do share—has it really helped? Have you shared and it hurt the business instead of helping?

To go green in your office, start by figuring out what types of recycling programs are in your area. Once you decide which type of recycling program you'll use, the next step is to figure out what you'll recycle. The most commonly recycled office items include newspapers, boxes, paper, plastic and glass. Electronics such as computers and cell phones can be recycled, too, but you'll want to check with your recycling center to make sure they can be dropped off at the same location. Of course, there are costs associated with going “green”, as recycled products are often more expensive than their counterparts, so here are some steps a small business on a limited budget can take to go green:

1. Provide recycling bins for

The search for seasonal staff is already in full swing. Here are a few ways to fill your staffing quota this holiday season:

1. Place an ad for seasonal work at no charge on Craigslist.org.
2. Holiday-time work is usually a second job, and traditional benefits such as health care and retirement plans don’t apply so offer a nice paycheck, deep employee discounts, and signing and retention bonuses.
3. Sales commission is another way to motivate seasonal worker to take on a second job and often results in more ringing of the cash register.

In the last blog I talked about selling from a catalog—I just read Unique Settings of New York is offering the never-out-of-stock promise. Whether is be 14K, 18K, platinum, or palladium, Unique Setting of New York now provides retailers with any item in its line in 48 hours as a mounting and three to five days as a finished piece. Does this help to push a remount from a catalog?

When I don’t have a particular remount in stock I find it terribly difficult to sell from a catalog. What do you all do to make catalog buying easier? My staff and I don’t have a problem selling a cross, charm, or even simple colored stone mountings from a catalog—but when it comes to remounts—the customer seems to always say—I have to be able to try it on.

How do you respond to a statement like that? How do you make catalog shopping easier? How do you close the deal on a remount from a catalog? Have you tried throwing in the CD of high resolution pictures and turning the screen to the customer—does it help? Have you tried this?

It's the season, when thoughts and minds turn to politics. A political discussion is a wonderful thing—with friends. But it has no place in the store. Where political issues get troubling is when employees bring political buttons, signs, bumper stickers, AND especially when they want to turn the TV to the democratic and republican convention. So aside from keeping your own views to yourself, what else can you do to make sure your employees keep their views to themselves while at the workplace?

1. Prohibit political statements made to customers or the general public while on company time.
2. Adopt and enforce a no-solicitation/no-distribution rule that limits soliciting support for and

In my last my blog—I mentioned I didn’t give each employee a sales and repair goal until their 9 month evaluation. The store opened October of last year and I knew how much each needed to sell to make their wage but I really didn’t know how well the store was going to do so I wanted to wait until I had more concrete data. From my understanding an employee should be paying their wage at six months to a year and by the time they are there one year they should be making money for the company. Now I understand some employees are not only sales associates but handle much more and take pride in the store as if it were their own. I do have a couple of employees like that—ones that will pack the showcases with gift boxes when they are running low, clean the microwave and fridge whenever they see a mess, run to the store when you need ga...Read More

I give each one of my employees an evaluation every 90 days and at their 9 month evaluation I gave each ones goals they must accomplish—letting them know X amount covers their individual wage and X amount means they are making money for the company. I gave each a repair and a sales goal—reminding them individual goals will go up at their one year evaluation. The other day I was considering setting product goals as well—meaning X employee needs to sell X amount of diamond studs this month or X amount of Scott Kay, etc. Is that something any of you have done?

I haven’t sent my employees to many training seminars outside the store because we offer our own instore training program—but every once in awhile there is a product’s understanding best learned from the company that produces the line. Any training program outside the store is pretty costly—so how does the store take advantage of what they’ve just learned. Do you set goals for the employees going? Do you test them when they come back to the store? How do you know they can now take what they’ve learned and increase sales? Why send them if they don’t come back armed with knowledge to sell more?

I hope you’ve all read the latest news about EGL introducing this new report that confirms the diamonds and precious metals in the evaluated piece are responsibly sourced in conflict-free and environmentally conscious methods.

Giving a full-circle emphasis on environment friendliness, EGL-USA delivers the Report on recycled paper with soy-based ink. In addition, the report includes the signature elements of EGL USA's renowned diamond certificates: professional evaluations of shape and cutting style, carat weight, clarity, color, measurements, finish and cut grade, National Jeweler.