It's the final episode of Season 4! Which means another Best Bits episode!
In this wrap up, we covered highlights from:
S4 E33 -Exclusive First Interview with IJO’s New President, Stephen Barnes
S4E23 -What Led to the Creation of the Geller’s Blue Book; an Interview with David Geller
S4 E24 - Stop Making These 10 Social Media Marketing Mistakes!! // Diamond Diaries
S4E5 - Dazzling Diamonds for Mom ft. David Douglas Diamonds & Jewelry
S4E7 - I Went to RJO San Antonio and All I Got Was This Podcast Episode
S4 E10 - Breaking Down the Best - StockX
S4 E28 -Let’s Talk With: Ring Buyers (Part 3)
S4E36 - I Tried Every Vertical Video Platform So You Don't Have To (TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels)
We are taking a week off next week, but will be back on January 2nd with Season 5!
Thanks for listening, and the support.
-Michael
Send feedback or learn more about the podcast: punchmark.com/loupe
Learn about Punchmark's website platform: punchmark.com
It's the final episode of Season 4! Which means another Best Bits episode!
In this wrap up, we covered highlights from:
S4 E33 -Exclusive First Interview with IJO’s New President, Stephen Barnes
S4E23 -What Led to the Creation of the Geller’s Blue Book; an Interview with David Geller
S4 E24 - Stop Making These 10 Social Media Marketing Mistakes!! // Diamond Diaries
S4E5 - Dazzling Diamonds for Mom ft. David Douglas Diamonds & Jewelry
S4E7 - I Went to RJO San Antonio and All I Got Was This Podcast Episode
S4 E10 - Breaking Down the Best - StockX
S4 E28 -Let’s Talk With: Ring Buyers (Part 3)
S4E36 - I Tried Every Vertical Video Platform So You Don't Have To (TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels)
We are taking a week off next week, but will be back on January 2nd with Season 5!
Thanks for listening, and the support.
-Michael
Send feedback or learn more about the podcast: punchmark.com/loupe
Learn about Punchmark's website platform: punchmark.com
Welcome back everybody to In the Loop. What is up everybody? My name is Michael Burpo. Thanks again for listening to In the Loop. This week is our last episode of Season 4. We're going to be taking next week off and then we'll come back on. I believe it's the second of January and that'll be the first episode of Season 5.
Speaker 1:This season we've covered kind of a lot of ground and at the end of the year, on the last episode, I like to pull some of my favorite clips, favorite interviews from that season and sort of highlight them. Maybe you'll go back and listen to them, just to kind of show where In the Loop was this year. So this is kind of the end of year wrap up show. So I don't know, maybe grab a drink, pull yourself up and enjoy looking back on Season 4 of In the Loop. Alright, let's start this thing. This episode is brought to you by Punchmark, the Julie Industries favorite website platform. Whether you're looking for better e-commerce performance, business growth or campaigns that drive traffic and sales, punchmark's website and marketing services were made just for you. It's never too late to transform your business with a user-friendly, point-of-sale, integrated website platform designed for growth and results. Sign up for your free demo today at Punchmarkcom. While you're enjoying this week's episode, take a moment and leave us a star rating on the Spotify mobile app. Or, if you're on Apple Podcasts, leave us a star rating and a review. It's the best way to help us grow into show that you really enjoy in the show. Thanks, and now back to the show.
Speaker 1:This next clip is from Season 4, episode 33, my exclusive first interview with IJO's new president, stephen Barnes, and this episode was very important to me.
Speaker 1:It's actually our best performing episode of the entire year by a very wide margin, because we got so many people who had never heard of In the Loop. We're very interested to hear Stephen Barnes' new direction for IJO now that he is the newly announced president and we secured the first interview. This was his first time speaking kind of after the show, and to say we put a little bit of focus on it is an understatement. It was very cool to get a chance to feel like I was doing something for the industry and interviewing someone who was so important, and also because I had actually interviewed Stephen twice before once at the end of Season 3, all about succession and retirement planning, and then also at the client workshop just a couple months before he was announced as new president, so I hope you enjoy these clips. Welcome everybody. I'm speaking with Stephen Barnes and for the first time ever and a podcast at least I get to introduce him as president of IJO. Stephen, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to speak with you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Michael. I am so excited to be here and giving you my first interview.
Speaker 1:First exclusive one baby. Let's go. That's so exciting. I, as soon as I heard I was just so excited to have someone such as yourself at the helm. Can you kind of just explain in your own words what it means to be president of IJO?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. So. My whole life and career kind of has focused around IJO. I was very, very fortunate at a very young age, in my early 20s as I was really getting my feet wet in the industry to have the luxury of being a part of IJO. And once again, just when I found out about IJO, my family joined IJO in 1999. And so I went to a couple of shows and it's just, I was so enthralled with the fact that, oh my gosh, there's other people out there just like me that go through the same challenges. And now I've got an organization or people to lean into. And I'll just tell you, over the last 25, 30 years that has just meant the world to me to be able to have those people to lean into.
Speaker 1:Where do you see IJO going in? You know five, 10, 15 years.
Speaker 2:Sure. So I actually have a 50 year vision for IJO 50 years. So IJO celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, I believe it was, and we had a big celebration of that, and it got me thinking. You know very few companies last 50 years, very, very, very few companies last 100 years. But it takes true vision to be able to get a company to 100 years old. Now I probably won't see that 100. If I do, I'm going to be in my late 90s, which is a possibility, but so, but what I hope to do is I hope to create a vision that will last for the next 50 years for this organization. And I hate to sound like a beating the same drum again, but it goes literally back to our mission, our vision, our core value.
Speaker 1:During season four of In the Loop, I had a chance to interview quite a few very impactful people in the jeweler industry and one of those people was David Geller, and this is from season four, episode 23,. What led to the creation of Geller's Blue Book? An interview with David Geller and I'm sure 99% of you who are listening already know who David Geller is, but he's the creator of the conflict, this Bible that all jewelers are going to be using at their store for setting the price of repairs or of services and anything that they need to charge for. They show exactly what that cost is, so that way people aren't just setting them willy nilly and undercutting each other or going to expensive things like that. And he was very easy to talk to and just one of those guys that has really had a big impact on the jeweler industry. So enjoy, welcome back everybody. I am so honored to be joined by David Geller. You might know him a little bit better as the author of the Geller Blue Book If you were to have.
Speaker 1:You know, I've always wanted to get my family crest engraved into my ring and I brought it somewhere and it was quoted yeah, like $2,500, because they assumed that I wanted it hand engraved and then when it comes down to it, I was like, well, I just want the crest in there, can you just use a laser? So I imagine that those must be much different. In pricing, I'm assuming you have the jeweler's best interest in mind. So when you're setting these prices, are you still kind of setting the floor to be not as steep of a jump as you know it could be, or are you trying, because you know, like you said, you're 50% of the jewelry stores, are you trying your best to kind of keep the floor at a certain point that is kind of feasible for a jewelry store?
Speaker 3:Well, I'll tell you, the book is based upon time.
Speaker 1:Time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I'm figuring $100, $150 an hour. So if hand engraving that crest by hand and doing it by hand will make it deeper into the ring, the laser won't be as much as my edging. But let's just say a hand engraver took three hours. They might charge $200 an hour. Three hours. So it's a $600 job If the machine takes an hour and a half, two hours. If I figured $150 an hour times two and a half hours and the book will be 275, it's based upon time, Based upon time when I had the store and in the book there's a company called Haraldica in New York and they have French engravers and very talented people.
Speaker 3:So whatever they would charge, I would put that in the book and I would double it. I have a price list from them from last year. So if someone quoted you $2,500, that's a premium. It's probably a six or $800 job. But anyway, everything in the book is priced on time. But going back to the laser, I have laser pricing specifically in the book and this is the David Gellar philosophy If using a laser it makes the work go faster, we're not gonna charge extra. So as a, for instance, a charm bracelet with the charms been sold for a hundred years Normally with a torch. This is how we had to put on 10 charms for the torch and it would take, say, 30 minutes. If we use the laser and it took only 12 minutes, I would just charge the regular price for the 30 minutes and make the extra money because it went faster, yeah, On the other hand, there's a reason to charge more money for a laser.
Speaker 1:One of the biggest additions to season four of In the Loop was the addition of Alex Shlinwine, also known as Diamond Diaries, to come on as our recurring guest. So she made eight appearances this season and always talking about things that were either really important to her store or that she has done well at her store, or also about social media, which she is something of an expert of. And it was really cool having a real retail jeweler on as a recurring guest so that I could ask the questions that I might not be as familiar with, having not owned a jewelry store. I think that she shines a real light on so many parts of the jewelry industry that a lot of owners would know but not very many other people might understand, and it allowed for me to kind of get a deeper insight into a jewelry industry that I had only seen as a vendor. So I think you'll enjoy this episode from season four, episode 24,.
Speaker 1:Stop making these 10 social media marketing mistakes with Diamond Diaries. Welcome back everybody. I'm joined by Alex Shlinwine, also known as Diamond Diaries, also co-owner of Keeper Jewelers. The rules about posting what consistently means has changed. It used to be once a day and then at one point it was like once every other day or once a week. What's your kind of motto behind this?
Speaker 6:Yeah. So I've done a lot of research about this and what I've found is that it doesn't really matter what the cadence is. You just need to decide what a reasonable cadence for you will be and stick to it. So don't post five times one week and then two times the next week and then four times the next week. You need to just find a cadence that you can stick to and do that for a consistent amount of time too. So also, like, posting once a day for a week is not gonna you're not gonna really see any difference from that. You need to post every day for six months before you're really going to see a difference. So I find that jewelers just kind of post whenever they feel like it or whenever they have something to post, and that's usually not effective because it's not consistent. They'll come, they'll show up a lot one day, and then not for a while.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite parts about the jewelry industry is the kind of emotional connection that sometimes jewelry can bring out of other people, and it's been really interesting to get a chance to feel that connection to the love and meaning behind jewelry that a lot of retailers still have, no matter how many years they spend working in business. And one of those stories was from my episode five from season four, dazzling Diamonds for Mom, featuring David Douglas Diamonds in jewelry, and so I got the chance to talk with Doug and he runs this event where he has all the kids from I think it's kindergarten through fifth grade write a little essay, a short essay, about why their mom deserves a diamond. And it's this great promotion he's done for many, many years and even going back and finding this clip, it really made me. I listened to the whole episode again because it's such a heart warmer and I think, as we go into the jewelry, the end of the jewelry season and holidays, I think that this is kind of maybe the best one to be listening to right now and it's something I hope to do more of in the future.
Speaker 1:Episodes like this enjoy. Welcome back everybody. My name is Michael Burpo and I'm joined by Doug from David Douglas Jewelers. How you doing today, doug.
Speaker 4:Doing good, michael, it's good to be here.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited to get a chance to speak with you. I actually was just meeting you for the first time at RJO San Antonio when you stopped by the booth and you were telling me about this amazing I guess it's kind of like a campaign fundraiser sort of thing you guys do at your store colonizing diamonds for mom. Could you sort of set it up for the people listening at home?
Speaker 4:Sure, 20 years ago well, let me back up a minute More. Like about 34 years ago I lost my mom to cancer. She was pretty young, she was in her mid 50s when she passed away, and so I was just trying to think of different things to do to honor my mom and just looking at different ideas. I am not the most creative guy stand alone, but I get inspired by what I see other people doing, and I just started seeing some of these other contests out there around moms even around Mother's Day, different things like that and so we kind of took that idea and took it to the schools. We decided to be a little bit more community involved and we put together a writing contest to where the kids could write and tell me why their mom deserved a diamond. And and.
Speaker 4:I actually had a writer for a magazine article helped me name it and she came up with the idea of dazzling diamonds for mom, which I just loved, and so that was really cool. And now fast forward. This is our 20th year of doing it, and so making a few changes this year to kind of celebrate that 20 years.
Speaker 1:In season four of In the Loop we started a new series of episodes called I Went To and All I Got Was and this one is I Went to RJO, san Antonio, and All I Got was this podcast episode. It's from season four, episode seven, and this documented my trip to San Antonio for this jewelry show. I hadn't been to one in about two years so it was really still very novel to me and I tried to vlog what it's like going to a jewelry show. I thought it was so cool. I met with so many different people and also it documents kind of what it's like being a vendor, which is a lot of sitting around, a lot of kind of waiting for people to come up to you. But also I show some of the thrills where you make a sale or you don't make a sale, and going to the events like there's a lot of cocktail hours. So I thought it was a very cool experience and I hope you enjoy listening as well.
Speaker 1:Alrighty, day one, day two overall, but day one of the show started at two. Why did it start so late? I didn't really understand that there must have been like kind of tutorials or something like that. But first hour of the show. Gasper already closed his first website sale.
Speaker 7:Pretty cool what do you think, gasper, I shout out to me.
Speaker 1:That was really cool, I would like to thank first of all myself.
Speaker 7:Yeah, good stuff. The person who sat down with us was someone who was aware of us for a while and who was in contact with us for a while, and we get those people coming back to the booth a lot. It's people who we've already talked to before. Sometimes, even if you don't close something within the first month, you do within the first couple of years, so you just never know.
Speaker 1:So after the first day let out, we actually went immediately to this Antwerp buying trip informational session and Punchmark actually sponsored this session and we wanted to go and get a chance to hear the stories about trips to Antwerp. I'd actually been to Belgium before, but never to Antwerp, so it was really cool hearing about the trips that these people went to and how excited they were for the next one.
Speaker 8:I think it's going to be a very informal night. We're just going to give you a little overview of what's coming. We have information on all the tables. Most important, we want this to be a little meet and greet, a chance to mix and mingle and talk to our sponsors, our hosts and fellow travelers and learn all you can tonight. To start with, I wanted to just thank Punchmark, who is sponsoring this event.
Speaker 1:Another one of In the Loops mini series that I started this season for season four was Breaking Down the Best, and what that is is a solo podcast of Just Myself and I'm getting a chance to explain, kind of as I'm going through it, what I love so much about certain websites that I shop on, and maybe that sounds kind of self-serving, but what's really interesting is, as a UX designer, having gone to school for this and spent many years studying websites or building websites in the industry, it allows me to kind of pay attention to these things a little bit more as I'm shopping. And some websites, especially the luxury ones, have really great user experiences and I want to highlight them because there are lessons that we can learn in how we leverage our own websites. So I think that this one kind of shows what I'm looking at when I analyze my favorite website, which is StockX, where they sell sneakers and luxury goods secondhand. It's kind of like an expensive eBay, and this is from season four, episode 10. I hope you like the clip. Another thing I think is really interesting that I wanted to kind of call out is their use of these one-off landing pages, and I'm going to try to kind of explain it in the most simple terms, because you can't see what I'm seeing, but they have this thing so I had talked about it just a little bit before. They have this limited offer called the limited edition Tiffany Co X, nike, air Force One, low, and they say for one US dollar and you know what? Those things that we're just selling for $900. What you can do is you can basically enter into a raffle or like a giveaway.
Speaker 1:Probably our most popular series that we really kind of started to make a name for ourselves on, in the Loop With is. Let's Talk With Ring Buyers, and this is actually the third installment that we had this season we skipped a season on it and what I do is I get a chance to talk with people in different types of relationships or people who just got engaged, recent ring buyers and what goes through their head as a consumer. And in this one I talked with one of my friends and his journey to purchase a non-diamond center stone engagement ring, as well as my friend and project manager at Punchmark, lorenzo, as he was shopping for his husband, and we talk about engagement rings for men and how thin the supply is and what he was looking at as he was going through it. It's one of our most popular series and I hope to do more of them, and you can find this one as season four, episode 28. Enjoy, welcome everybody.
Speaker 1:I'm chatting with my buddy, nick Weber. How you doing, nick? I'm good. Michael, how are you Doing? All right? So just kind of the back story between us. You're one of my brother's best friends. You were in my brother's wedding and you guys played football together and now we play in the same fantasy football league but, more excitingly, you just got engaged. Congratulations, thanks, man, you're very exciting, yeah. So okay, like I just kind of just walk you through. We've got all these listeners that are interested in like kind of like the customer journey, the buying process, for you know a you know a male in his early thirties, early-ish thirties, and I kind of want to just like maybe cheer your process behind us. So can you like talk me through, like first of all, the decision-making, this big decision, and like how you kind of got to the point of deciding you're going to purchase a ring.
Speaker 9:Yeah, I guess. So I had a couple of different steps. The first was like I told my family about it, right? So I told my dad. I was like I'm going to propose and I was like the biggest thing, I really wanted to be no surprise. So right now, I've been together forever. I was like I wanted to be surprised. I don't want to come up to tomorrow and be like hey, what do you want for a ring? Yeah, so we're brainstorming and we're talking and we're like should I just like not get a ring? Like get a placeholder, do something where it's like yeah, you know, here's a fake ring, but we'll go get one together Like a ring pop or something. Yeah, me and my dad are like.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, great idea.
Speaker 9:And then I went and I told her sister she was like the first one from her family that I was talking to and pretty much unanimously, unanimously, everyone was like yeah, like not a great idea. And get a ring and like know what she wants. And thankfully her sister was like yeah, I know exactly what she wants.
Speaker 1:All right, everybody, I'm joined by Lorenzo Millican. How you doing today, Lorenzo, I'm good. Mike, how are you doing? I'm doing all right. So, project manager at Punchmark, you've probably spoken with every new client that we've picked up in the last what? Two and a half years? At this point, three years.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so it's super, super amazing, especially our client workshop. I found out that I know most of our new clients even more so than kind of our senior members. It was really nice to see that recognition there.
Speaker 1:So we're talking about? We're talking about the ring buying process and, to set this up for the people that are listening, lorenzo is the most, I guess, thorough consumer I've ever met, very into tech, very well versed, like reads up everything that he's going to purchase. Can you kind of talk me a little bit through about the research process and then we'll get into how you actually bought things? But can we talk about the research that you did ahead of actually buying your rings with your now husband and our fiance, I guess, and we can go from there.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so I, of course I am in. I'm looking at clients websites all the time for my job, so I started just kind of perusing. You know, when I'm going through QCN website just looking at the engagement ring selection for men, it's very, very restrictive in comparison to women's wedding bands. So that kind of narrowed down the search of good fit because, unlike wedding bands for women, men's wedding bands are. Each company has kind of a niche, each wedding band company. So, for instance, benchmark, they have a bunch of different collections and each collection has its own needs, whether it's meteorite rings or they just, or they have a collection that's just like classic gold bands and stuff like that. So I started researching that I already knew that I wanted Rose gold for me and white gold for Jonathan.
Speaker 1:For the first couple seasons of In the Loop, a lot of them were based around interviews or conversations or getting to know someone a little bit better, but in season four, I wanted to sort of explore a couple of different types of episodes, and one of them are these kind of deep dive, almost like verbal essays, where I discuss a topic that I feel like I might have something to add on and get into it a little bit more through my own eyes, and one of these was from season four, episode 36. And it's titled. I tried every vertical video platform, so you don't have to and that's on TikTok, youtube shorts and Instagram reels, and I discussed my experiences with each of them, and we also talk about what the strengths and weaknesses are of each and if I recommend you to use any of them all of them and we talk about the vertical video content as like a real concept and the role it might play in business in the future. I think it's a good one. I hope you check it out. Enjoy.
Speaker 1:This is Michael Burpo, and today I'm going to be talking about vertical video, and let's kind of define what that is. Vertical video is the new style of content and video that is very, incredibly popular on all social media right now. These primarily take place on three different platforms. We have Instagram reels, youtube shorts and TikTok. So I'm going to break down the strengths, weaknesses as well as my experience with each of them Because, as the title says, I tried every vertical video platform. So you don't have to let's break it down. I'm gonna kind of outline, maybe, what you should be thinking about, what if you are trying to kind of dive into this a little bit more, and you can make the decision from there. Well, everybody, that's pretty much all of the clips, but for a second I'm actually going to just talk kind of off the cuff and talk about how much this podcast really means, just to me and also to Punchmark, and that you guys and all the listeners are out there.
Speaker 1:I started this podcast during COVID and it started out as the jeweler's survival kit and we realized after seven episodes that COVID was going to be around for a long time. But what I've learned is that the effects of COVID the shift into digital with an omnichannel approach for the jewelry industry was also going to be the longest lasting effect in the jewelry industry of COVID. People are okay with buying stuff online and I'm trying to be the shepherd to help our listeners through that. One of those ways is with In the Loop, and what In the Loop means to me is it's a way for me to make connections and meet interesting people in an industry that I've only been able to see from like kind of a narrow scope of view, and I've built more websites than I can count. Design-wise and helping code and working with the creative team at Punchmark, I've built I probably have built some of my listeners' websites, but what this has allowed me to do is hear about the incredible folks that are in the jewelry industry that make it continue to run. It's not just like we're selling used cars out here. We're selling something with a lot of meaning and things that take a lot of effort to pull from the earth and a lot of effort to craft and make incredible, and one of those things that I've really enjoyed is getting a chance to meet those people and hear their stories and share them with all of you. I have really enjoyed doing it. I don't plan to stop. I really find this to be my favorite part of my entire job. It's actually only a small part of what I do, but for me, it's the part that makes me feel the most fulfilled and like I'm doing something for the industry. If you enjoy genuinely, the best way you can pay me back is to share this with your other friends in the jewelry industry.
Speaker 1:When you go to shows and people ask you, man, where do you learn things, I would love if our name was brought up in that conversation. When people ask you know how, like what have you been reading? Or like what publications you know, there's a lot of newspapers out there for the jewelry industry what have you been consuming? I would love if In the Loop was one of the things that got brought up. This podcast with this two young guy gets on there and every week he discusses something else that's interesting and keeps me company, whether that's in the drive, while you're working at the bench or not. I really do hope that we get brought up. It may be at a future jewelry show. Whether that's at the punch mark workshop, which will be happening again this April You'll get a chance to meet me or at a jewelry show. If I'm ever going to one, I would love to get a chance to shake your hand and hear you know if you'd like the podcast, critique, anything that you want me to do better, I'm definitely always willing, and I don't generally give out my personal information, but if you want to reach me, you can always email me at michael at punchmarkcom and that'll reach me directly, and I would love to hear, if you like, in the Loop you know, how we can make it better and, if not, maybe just to say hi.
Speaker 1:I also want to thank very specifically the people who make this possible. So this episode is brought to you by Punch Mark and Punch Mark we make do websites for the jewelry industry and we have a marketing team and we like to think of ourselves as like a force for good for the industry. We are trying to keep jewelers adapting so that they aren't left in the mud or left behind as the technology progresses. This is produced and hosted by me, michael Burpo. This is kind of a one-man show when it comes to planning and executing, but there's a lot of other people that have helped me along the way, especially all the people at Punch Mark, especially Ross Cochram, who is our CEO and who allows me to kind of pursue this as a as part of what I do, as well as Paul Suarez.
Speaker 1:Paul Suarez is the editor for In the Loop and we just we got a chance to chat every single week over email, it seems like, and I really enjoy working with him. He's so proud and the best way you can also thank me is by, you know, getting a chance to support our sponsors. It makes us look good. I don't joke about that. This whole thing is funded by Punch Mark but also and subsidized by these sponsors, and it makes me look good when we have a sponsor and they enjoy coming on. That's why having them come back or you guys visit those links, even if it's just a look around, really makes a different source.
Speaker 1:And finally, I want to thank all of our guests for coming on sharing their story with me. We don't pay them, but they get a chance to kind of share their story with the rest of the world. I hope that that's enough. And finally, thank you. Thank you listeners, for allowing me to do this part and for, you know, being my favorite part of my job. I will see you guys again in just one short week off. I'll see you probably on I guess it's going to be January 2nd We'll have a new episode. It will start season five, but in the meantime, have a good New Year's Be safe. I'll talk to you soon. This is Michael Burpo. See you later. Bye.