A NOTE FROM MIKE: In the introduction of this episode, Michael mistakenly states Day's Jewelers have 10 locations. At the time of publishing this episode, they have 8 active locations.
Nikia Levesque, VP of Marketing at Day's Jewelers, joins Michael for a chat that traces her ascent from intern to VP of Marketing and delves into her latest leadership venture with the WJA Foundation.
We talk about her membership in the 20 Under 40 list, as well as some of the hurdles that comes with trying to market for a business with 8 locations!
Check out Day's Jewelers here: https://www.daysjewelers.com/
Learn more about our sponsor NIVODA: https://nivoda.com/intheloupe
Send feedback or learn more about the podcast: punchmark.com/loupe
Learn about Punchmark's website platform: punchmark.com
A NOTE FROM MIKE: In the introduction of this episode, Michael mistakenly states Day's Jewelers have 10 locations. At the time of publishing this episode, they have 8 active locations.
Nikia Levesque, VP of Marketing at Day's Jewelers, joins Michael for a chat that traces her ascent from intern to VP of Marketing and delves into her latest leadership venture with the WJA Foundation.
We talk about her membership in the 20 Under 40 list, as well as some of the hurdles that comes with trying to market for a business with 8 locations!
Check out Day's Jewelers here: https://www.daysjewelers.com/
Learn more about our sponsor NIVODA: https://nivoda.com/intheloupe
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. I'm joined by Nikaia Leveque and she is the VP of Marketing at Day Drillers and they have like 10 locations all around the Northeast in Maine and she didn't always start out as the VP of Marketing. She actually began her career with them as an intern and worked her way up to VP.
Speaker 1:It's a pretty impressive story and very inspiring, and not only that. She was actually announced as the Women's Jewelry Association, the WJA, their vice president for their filmthropic armed WJA Foundation, and that was all around National Jeweler and all over the news. It's very impressive already and if that's not it, she also was a member of the 2023 class of the 20 Under 40. So we just had an episode about that. She was in last year's group. She is so interesting to speak with, she has so many experiences and she's fantastic on the mic. I hope you enjoy listening to her as much as I enjoy speaking with her and you feel a little inspired afterwards. Cheers and enjoy and now back to the show. Welcome everybody. My name is Michael Burpo and I'm speaking with Nikaia Levec from Day's Jewelry. How are you doing today?
Speaker 3:Good, how are you?
Speaker 1:I'm doing so well, so excited to speak with you. One of our clients, stuart, actually made the recommendation that I reach out to you. You've been in the industry and kind of had a pretty meteoric rise. I've never actually used that term before. I feel like that's something that like the news uses, but you've had quite the career so far, pretty early on. How do you introduce yourself to people when you get the chance to meet someone new?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so again, nikaia Levec. I work for Day's Jewelers. Currently my position is the vice president of marketing. But I have quite the story in history here. So I actually started with Day's when I was only 16 years old. So I started in our service department within our Waterville location and I just absolutely loved it, worked there through high school, following high school, like many other kids.
Speaker 3:At that age you don't really know exactly what you want to do, so I was in no rush. I loved what I was doing, I loved the company that I worked for. So I ended up staying with Day's and I went and transferred on to our sales floor, which I loved that even more. So from service to sales. From there I did decide to go on to college and I ended up going to Main Maritime Academy, which is based out of Castine, maine, to pursue a bachelor's degree in international business and logistics. From there I really knew that I wanted to stay in the jewelry industry but have a more focus on the business operations side. So, whether that be in procurement, merchandising, marketing, so on and so forth. So my sophomore year of college I actually did a internship with a Fortune 500 construction company called QIT.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 3:And I worked on a huge power plant build out project. So I lived in Kansas for a summer and, while that was amazing, I really really missed my time and my family at Day's Jewelers. So my junior year going into senior year, that summer I needed to do an internship and I did one here at Day's within our merchandising department and I had onus of our main tourmaline project which we had accured almost, I think, 3700 carats of loose main tourmaline. So it was my job to sort all the loose gemstones way and then start kind of like a manufacturing and marketing plan for that loose main tourmaline. So following that, I went into my senior year at May Maritime and then COVID hit. So, yeah, it was March of 2020. Just got back from spring break and we received word from our president that we all had to leave campus.
Speaker 1:Don't come back yeah.
Speaker 3:Don't come back, we'll figure out what we're going to do so you can graduate and finish out the semester. So went home, finished out the semester and Jeff Corey, who was previous day's owner and vice president of marketing, reached out to me and see if I'd have any interest coming on to their marketing department. So I ended up coming on May 2020 full time as the company's marketing coordinator. And then, yeah, from there is really where I found my groove within the industry and this company and started as marketing coordinator, like I said, went on to marketing manager and then now as vice president of marketing. So, yeah, wow.
Speaker 1:That's the dream. There's so many stories about people who become executive chef after they started out as a dishwasher or something like that and I sometimes wonder what kind of skills do you learn along the way that kind of feed into you becoming as effective as you are at your current role? Yeah, I guess that's kind of like an open-ended question. Is there anything that you can kind of put your finger on, like being an intern, being working on the sales floor? Is there anything that you've taken from those different positions that sort of help you with what you're doing now?
Speaker 3:It's absolutely everything. Wow, yeah, I personally, especially being younger I hate to use that term, but it is a thing and I think people also tend to question credibility to being younger and not necessarily having the years and years of experience that other executives or managers may have. However, my experience from working at many, if not most, of the facets here of our organization has really prepared me to serve as an effective leader. In this role and also, being in the marketing department, you really get a better understanding of what are the needs of our customers, what are the needs of our merchandising department, what does that all work holistically to better serve our customers? Operate as a marketing team and department. So, you know, realistically, it's just looking at everything that I've done and realizing that every single step has only helped me get to where I am today. You know I still think of when we're making decisions or, you know, thinking about how we're going to roll something out. I often, you know, put myself back in the shoes of a salesperson and it just it helps greatly.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I think it's like informing some of the decision making.
Speaker 1:I think that in user experience, which is what I do, a lot of times we preach like oh, you need to do these user interviews, but like the best way to do them is to go and live a life of someone who is experiencing your product.
Speaker 1:So I think that one of the best things that Punchmark has a you know, a habit or tradition or has done in the past is we've had customer success managers start in the CS department and then they move on to other roles that actually allow them to be as effective. So, for example, nicole, our scrum master started out as a CS rep and then CS team lead and then eventually became a scrum master who oversees our development team. And I think you're totally right. It's like who would have thought that you know these specific things are going to have an effect on doing something rather unrelated. But I think it's more about like the getting your mind into the end user or for yourself, probably thinking of like how is a sales person going to sell and then kind of moving that backwards to how would you market it. I can definitely see how that would feed into each other. That's so cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and just to kind of relate that back to days, you know, one thing that's really cool about us is there is so many people within our organization who started. You know we have similar stories to me and have just grown through the business in our company. So it's really, really amazing the company and the culture that we've built here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so maybe just to stay on that for a moment. So you're obviously rather fond of days. If you're willing to, you know, work there, go away, see the world and then come back to it and it sounds like you have your life kind of built into there. Let's talk about days for a minute. Where are you guys located and how how large of a store do you guys have and what's like the general kind of clientele that you guys are servicing at days?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, so we actually have eight locations across Maine and New Hampshire.
Speaker 1:Eight locations? Yes, yeah.
Speaker 3:So we have six in the state of Maine, spanning, you know, north up in Bangor, maine, down south to South Portland, and then our two locations, one in Manchester, new Hampshire, and the newest store that we have in Nashville, new Hampshire. So, yes, spanning across two states, serving a variety of clientele and customers, and that's, you know, always been kind of, you know, the day's way. We offer something for everybody. You know we have our regulars that come in. You know every, you know not the same people, but you know we we do watch batteries on site, which is not a service that you can find, you know, really anywhere else. We have an expansive, you know, bridal selection, both loose diamonds, finished diamond, engagement rings, our colored stone selection and collection is, you know, unlike many of our competitors, our main term, lean alone has been a really unique offering for us. You know, since that we're manufacturing a lot of those, those pieces, internally, we're really able to, you know, gauge what our customers are wanting and turning that into something that they're going to want to see in our cases across both states. So, you know, having our on site jewelers and all of our locations as well is a huge bonus, you know.
Speaker 3:I don't know how many times when I was working in the store or even go to work in our stores now and you're doing an intake repair for a customer and you know there is their first time and they don't want to leave that heirloom or that really special piece that they have and it's so amazing to say like no, look over there in that window or that that glass wall and you can see our shop and our jewelers are right there. It's never going to leave. You know the premise and we're going to take great care of it for you. So you know, for me, the biggest thing you know that I love about days and what keeps me here is our people, and I mentioned that a little bit before. But you know, our customers echo the same thing. Our customer service and our customer care is hard to beat and we, you know we respect each other as co-owners. Now we became employee owned in November of 2021. Yeah, we have a respect for our customers first as well.
Speaker 1:So Very cool and I mean what a really interesting kind of setup you guys have, especially being across state lines. As the VP of marketing, what would you say are some of the challenges that you have to face? Because I don't know if I I'm thinking back, I don't know if I can think of very many of our clients that have not just multiple locations we do have several stores that are like that but across state lines. Do you feel like you have to change how maybe you're phrasing things or how you're positioning your products for people in, for example, in Maine, versus people in, I think, did you say, in New Hampshire?
Speaker 3:New Hampshire yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's even different from our Bangor store to our self-portrait store. And you know one thing that and I mentioned this to you earlier that we've been really focusing on as a marketing department is building out a framework for our brand guidelines and our brand voice. So you know, we don't want just because you know there's, of course, different market needs and you need to be able to pivot that but you want to ensure that the brand voice is the same. You know, if somebody is going to our Auburn store and then they visit our Manchester store, you want that to be the same experience for that customer. So, yes, you know there's definitely certain like product categories that are gonna do better versus markets, and then we have to determine, you know, how we're gonna push that out to that customer.
Speaker 3:However, the underlying message in the day's brand voice is going to remain the same across states, which I, you know, we feel is very, very important for brand recognition, for reach, for growth. You know, with the consideration of, you know, wanting to expand someday, you need to go into it with. You know you need to have that framework and that concrete vision built out so that you, you know when you're building or you know what's the store gonna look like, what's it gonna look like, what product's gonna be in there. It needs to echo the same as all the others. You know you look at a brand like Cartier or Tiffany's and you could go, you know, in Milan or you could go in New York City, and it's gonna be the same experience.
Speaker 1:I totally agree. So just maybe for some of our listeners they might, you know, mind that being marketing. Just to kind of give an overview some of these brand guidelines I mean, it's not just like the verbiage or the colors and things like that or the which brands are being displayed or which logos are gonna be displayed. That are days. What other things that you do? Were you surprised, actually, how to be considered when it comes to kind of putting these rules and guidelines into concrete? Is there anything that was kind of like surprisingly granular that you're now having to make decisions on?
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh. Yes, so, so many. But I think the biggest hurdle because this is kind of a newer journey for us having eight locations, you know some spanning from inception to only a few years ago. You know the signage and the materials that we have across locations. What are the touch points? That where our customers are seeing and even our employees are seeing, so we have a very large, large project amount and that we're climbing and really consolidating all of those materials. What are our different messaging, what needs to be updated, what you know, what can be kind of like what's being used in Augusta and what can you know could be replaced in another location. But really just updating all of those materials to make sure that they are in line with our brand, our new brand guidelines and style guide, is a huge project and you know I don't feel bad, but our creative director and our graphic designer certainly have their work cut out for them the next couple of years with tackling that project and just building that cohesion across all of our locations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's one of those things. I think that sometimes people they create a style guide and it's like a brand guide and it's very well. I would refer to it as shallow, it's very surface level. So lots of oh, it's going to be this hex color and this is our Pantone, this is our, the variations of our logos. And then they kind of they package it up and they say all right, that's about it.
Speaker 1:And I think that sometimes people don't really have the appreciation for how much work goes into. For example, it's not just, you know, high fashion brands like the ones you mentioned Cartier and Tiffany but also, I mean, there's tech brands like Apple. If you go into an Apple store in New York City versus in Charlotte, it's going to be a very similar, feel like distinct but similar. But also when you go to it's even like places like a KFC. They're very similar and unified, so that you kind of have that brand loyalty and that's kind of what they're angling for. So definitely you can appreciate the amount of work that your designer and creative director are going to be going through. That's very cool.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:So I guess one more thing I wanted to ask about in your journey as being an integral part of days I wanted to ask about do you ever miss being an individual contributor?
Speaker 1:So it's something that I've been thinking about more. As you know, I used to be a just you know, a web designer for Punchmark. I started out as designing the websites and helping to build them as well, and now I do a lot more management and just kind of starting new projects, and sometimes I do miss the experience of having a very cut and dry project that I feel like is very digestible, very achievable, as opposed to these nimblest concepts that are sometimes it's like trying to, you know, place an arrow through a cloud and I just feel like it moves. Do you ever miss that kind of aspect of it? Because I feel like so often the next generation, either jewelers or just I mean just creatives in general are sometimes hesitant to make that step and that leap into being a manager or into a management position because they feel like they're going to lose that individual contributor kind of fulfillment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I mean absolutely In some senses. You know just with, like you know, workload and responsibilities. However, you know, if you know you want to grow and that's your goal and your career, then you have to be comfortable with the no longer having that individual contributor role. You know one thing, speaking to my experience of having you know, different touch points and firsthand experience in those roles within the department and company again has just helped me in my role.
Speaker 3:You know, I feel like I can help our marketing coordinator with what she's doing, I can help our creative director with what he's doing, our graphic designer. It makes that peer-to-peer understanding a lot easier. And also I'm a huge proponent of building bench strength. You know you never want to put yourself in a position as a leader or a company where, if somebody was to leave tomorrow, your hands are tied and you can't do anything without that person. So you know, here there's many things that I can fill in and mold to same with you know our creative director, graphic designer, web manager, so on and so forth. So I feel like that's really important in its understanding you know your team's strengths and weaknesses and being able to flex those as well.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well, nakaya, we're going to take a quick break and then we'll come back, and I want to hear about some of the marketing kind of views that you have for 2024. Stay with us, everybody. This episode is brought to you in part by Novota. Strong margins in sales are key to running a successful jewelry business, but with cash tied up in stock and high diamond prices from limited suppliers, it can be difficult to gain an advantage over your competition. With access to over 1.6 million natural and lab grown diamonds, melee and gemstones at the best prices, novota's online marketplace levels the playing field, allowing smaller or growing jewelers to compete with the giants. And with Novota's team of experts handling everything from QC to invoicing and shipping, you'll have more time to focus on your customers and growing your business. But Novota doesn't only provide a place to source diamonds. They help you sell them too. And whether you operate online or run a brick and mortar store, with Novota's powerful retail tools you can showcase hundreds of thousands of diamonds to your customers via feeds on your website or the Novota Showroom customer facing platform to present them with the perfect diamond at their very first consultation. You'll never have to turn a customer away again when you always have exactly what they're looking for. If today is the day you decide to take your jewelry business to the next level, then book a demo at Novotacom. Slash in the loop, that's N-I-V-O-D-A dot com. Slash I-N-T-H-E, l-o-u-p-e. Thanks, and now back to the show. And we're back.
Speaker 1:All right, everybody still joined by Nikaya Laveck, and we're talking all about your views right now on marketing for day's jewelry, the VP of marketing and I kind of. I sometimes think that marketing is just a constantly shifting sand dune. I feel like it is always changing. Every year we make a new episode. That's like what's actually working in digital marketing right now, and it is completely different if you listen to it year to year. And it's not because we've changed our views, it's because, like, what's actually working is always changing. All that to be said, what is kind of your view on marketing right now? Do you feel like for a long time it was all about SEO, sem, and then it was about social, and then it was about SEO, sem again, and now I still don't 100% know what it is going to be for 2024.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's exactly what you said. It's a cocktail, it's a mixture, and it's ensuring that you do have an omnichannel approach. So for us, that's very important Because, like I said earlier, we are reaching multiple demographics and multiple clientele with different messaging across state lines and across different communities in both states. So what we do here is we really make sure that we're reaching those customers where they want to be reached at all times. So, whether that be with radio traditional radio or digital radio has also been a good win for us.
Speaker 3:With digital marketing, youtube has been phenomenal. Yeah, youtube Shorts has been great as well. We're lucky enough again to have a non-staff videographer, so having the flexibility to create that stuff ourselves and get them up. There has been fantastic Google Shopping and Google Search, for both the benefit of our stores, but also our e-commerce site. And then, like we talked about earlier, facebook and Instagram being very vital as well and just always focusing on the growth of those platforms. And, of course, they're ever changing, especially with Instagram. So staying in top of guidelines and best practices to ensure that we're relevant and reaching our target audience at all points. Another thing, too so print advertising, which we were doing newspaper for I don't know how many years so many years before I was born and we actually pulled back last year.
Speaker 3:It's a decision that we made, print costs being more expensive and you're not getting the same breaching impressions you can with digital marketing, so shifted some of those dollars over there and we've seen a benefit with that as well. So with marketing, again, I think it's just a constant evaluation of what you're doing and, again, in having that omnichannel approach, making sure that your messaging is consistent across all channels. Another thing, too is kind of more traditional, but billboards. So they're not legal in the state of Maine but they're legal Really.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we have no billboards in Maine, however, we have billboards in New Hampshire, so that's been interesting as well.
Speaker 1:Navigating that yeah, that's a fascinating I had no idea that there was out live, but I kind of like that. But I was very. I used to poopoo on print quite a bit, especially because we're interested in websites, and I would always say why would you use a print medium in order to advertise a digital product? But ever since I can't remember who did this, but someone just they got into mailing out postcards and they would just send postcards to their VIPs. They would send 50 postcards every other month or something like that, and it was always just like very hearts of flowers, no sell in them, and it seemed like it was just they were like oh, it's the best dollars we spend ever here. And it's just so funny to me because, yeah, like I'm one of the very few millennial zoomers that like actually reads a newspaper every single day and I read my hometown's newspaper, but at the same time I do not read the ads that are in those newspaper.
Speaker 1:I skip right over those bad boys. But I think it's just, they're not very, they're not very engaging, I think, in a newspaper format. I think that you can make TikTok ads, youtube shorts ads, just even Instagram ads that look like posts, and they're so much more engaging because they, in the end, they are original content. So I totally, I think I totally agree with you guys on that, on that decision to pull off of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're still doing, you know, we still do print in certain capacities and it is beneficial because you also have to think, you know, think of all the ads that people are getting served every single day on every single platform that they're on, and it becomes almost like you're kind of blacked out from it, you know, because nothing seems like unique or special anymore. So when you do get, you know, that print in front of somebody that is engaging and grabs their attention, that is really so very powerful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just think that there are. So it's so much, so many ads and I feel like I remember this era when Instagram was. There's no ads on Instagram.
Speaker 1:And now it feels like every other one is going to be one. But how is it that you are able to, for example, serve ads that are actually and not just effective, but are getting people to the right location with eight different locations? I'm sure you have to be very specific about either geo-fencing things or about targeting people. Based on past impressions. Is there anything that you can kind of share about that, about how it is that, for lack of a better term like waste your money?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely so the biggest win for us to add a plug here. But has been partnering with Punchmark. Let's go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for you know digital marketing because it is so vast and it's ever-changing and, again, you need to have experts and people who are constantly paying attention to those metrics for you to ensure that you are flexing your campaigns and ensure that you aren't wasting your money. So we view things weekly as a marketing team and then we have our monthly debriefs with Hope and Stuart from Punchmark, where we're able to really deep dive into those metrics and see what's working, what certain communities are responding to certain messaging and what's not working to ensure that we're making the most use out of our advertising dollars. And yeah, it's very interesting, very, very interesting. One thing that to that that we're going to be looking at implementing is Hot Jar on the website.
Speaker 1:Oh, interesting.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you've heard of that.
Speaker 1:I'm not totally familiar with it. I remember Stuart and Hope mentioning it to me, but I don't quite remember all the details.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's essentially heat mapping your website. So, yeah, it's so cool. It is it's kind of creepy Definitely, but it's just so cool what you can see. You know the customer journey. What is your most frequent? You know clicks. Where are people going on your homepage. You know you can glean a lot of information from that. What's the information that you might be missing or what could you highlight more of? You can see frustration points on your website, which is super cool. So I think it's just it's really getting granular and understanding the you know, consumer behavior.
Speaker 1:And you kind of have to get a little bit obsessed with your own website for yourself to gain those insights. We used to use a tool it was very similar to that, it was just a different name and what I used to love doing is you could watch individual sessions.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you can watch someone. Like they load the page and it's like first thing they do, it's like, oh, you think it would be to scroll down. It's like, nope, they're going right to the Julie page. Or they're going right to search and they're searching for that month's birthstone or something like that. Because that person does not care what your widgets say, they only want to see. I mean recording. Right now, in February, they only care about Amethyst jewelry and it's so. It's so fascinating to know that, like you can do all this cool stuff on your homepage and some consumers they don't care, they are going to go only with what they want, and that's important to know. Yeah, exactly, and, nakaya, we're going to take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsor. This week's episode is brought to you in part by Accessibi, punchmark's ADA compliance partner.
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Speaker 3:So many, so many. So that is something that we really empower our people to take ownership of and be part of is their communities. I mean, when you think about it, the people who are coming in and shopping with you are part of that community. So how can we give back? And there's so much that we do. You know for one, we have a jeweler's badge training program for Girl Scouts. So we partner with both Girls Scouts of.
Speaker 3:Maine and New Hampshire to offer the training in all of our locations so that they can complete their badge. I personally love that. I'm so passionate about that because, you know, starting in the industry at a young age and just getting exposure to that I think is so important. That's great, you know. They're able to see all the different facets of working in a store and understanding different gemstones and different metals and sitting with our bench jewelers. And then, you know, casa of New Hampshire is another, another big one for us. You know, the list goes on and on and on.
Speaker 3:So two big things that we did this year is actually, you know, valentine's Day was just this past Wednesday and we have a promotion every Valentine's Day where you spend $99 or more and you'll get a dozen roses and chocolate for free. So we partnered with a local chocolatier this year, bixby Chocolate, which is also out of Rockland Maine, and it was. It was fabulous to just have that local tie. But what we wanted to do was, you know, we always donate our leftovers to local, you know, nursing homes or organizations. But it was like, what can we do to make more of a day of love impact? So we selected different, you know, charities or organizations within our communities and made donations. So we went to the Travis Mills Foundation here in Maine. We went to Casa, where they in New Hampshire, where they held a private luncheon for some of their tenured advocates in the state and we were able to, you know, donate the chocolates and roses. We went to a animal shelter in Auburn, maine, and we, you know, we put a huge box together of cat toys, dog toys, and then we also donated the chocolates and roses to the staff members.
Speaker 3:So it's just finding those unique ways to make people smile and you know, life can be hard. So what can we do in, you know, our world to make that a little bit easier for people in our community? You know, this past year or in 2023, you know the mass shooting in Lewiston, maine that happened in the. That really devastated our Auburn market in particular. You know what could we do as a meaningful give back for that community? So we launched a initiative and campaign where we pulled together a Maine jewelry themed collection and all of the purchases, the proceeds from the sale of that collection, went to a foundation of our choosing, the Maine Community Foundation, which had the Auburn Lewiston Area Relief Fund. So we ended up donating roughly $25,000 from that initiative. So we just we really value our communities and our people value our communities from all the way, from the top to, you know, the front line. So it's something that that's at our core and we continue to just grow upon.
Speaker 1:That's great. You know, I always I heard this one phrase it was 10 to the gardens you can touch, and I think that that's a really lovely way to view kind of community engagement or just giving back, because sometimes it's like, oh, you like it's too much focus around, like a just a monetary amount, oh, you got to donate this much dollars in order to be considered charitable. And I'm like, you know, like what you were saying, whether it's, you know, roses or chocolates or in a monetary amount, I think it does. It does make a difference and it also is definitely investment in your community, because, in the end, you're not just making all of your dollars online from people in, you know, california buying your jewelry While that could be the case, is definitely the people that are around your brick and mortar that you need to tend to, and I think that that's a fantastic that you guys see such an importance in that. That's great.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, our employees live in these communities as well, so that, that's, that's an also a huge emphasis for us as well.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and on just one final topic I want to make sure I mentioned this because we've interviewed members of the Women's Jewelry Association in the past and just recently you were selected as the new Vice President. Multiple Vice Presidents out here, many VP titles out here, the VP on the Foundation Board for the Women's Jewelry Association. Can you kind of just give an overview on what it is that the WJA are doing and what it is that you hope to kind of push for?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I started my kind of tenure with the Women's Jewelry Association almost two years ago and I was a member board of the trustees for the Foundation Board. So you know the WJA's mission is to really empower and support women within the jewelry industry and the foundation specifically is, to you know, provide scholarships to those women in our industry. So I'm just so, so excited and thrilled to be a part of this because, again, starting you know the industry at such a young age 16 years old you're not really aware of what opportunities are open to you at that point and the WJA has. There's so many different scholarships that women can apply for in all different facets of the industry, whether it be for design or sustainable business practices. It's so spanning across different roles and something that can really relate to anybody and it's just.
Speaker 3:I remember going to the 24-carat dinner my first year and there's a lot of tenured people within our industry, as we spoke to earlier. And it's so amazing to see organizations like the WJA trying to give back and build up the next generation, because truly, our industry leaders have paved the way. But we have to start thinking of, you know future. What's the next generation going to look like and what can we do as current leaders in the industry to help pave that way for the next generation? And that's exactly what the Women's Jewelry Association is doing. So I'm very, very proud and honored to be a part of it and just looking forward to amplifying that message and empowering young women to build a career in the industry.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and, like you said, it's so important it's definitely a focus of In the Loop. This year is trying to lift up the next generation and start to highlight the people that are going to be pushing the industry forward for the next 10, 20 years. It sounds like you've already made a substantial impact, not just at days, but also in the jewelry industry. But you know, give it 10 or 20 more years in the space and there's so much that can be accomplished. And I just want to make sure I plug this just so.
Speaker 1:While we're on to the topic of the WJA, their website, if you're interested in learning more about these scholarships, you can go to women'sjewelryassociationcom all spelled out and slash grant scholarships and you can learn more. It seems like there's a variety of options there and you know the application period. It looks like it's going to be running for student scholarships from March 1st until the end of April, so don't wait, or maybe recommend this to someone that you think could use it. I think that'd be a really, really great way to give back as well. Now, nikaya, is there anything else that you want to cover? It sounds like days has so much going on. I want to be cognizant of your time, because I'm sure that, being a multiple VP of multiple different things, that you probably have enough things filling up your hours. But is there anything that you want to mention before we end this episode?
Speaker 3:Yeah, last thing our website relaunch that we did last year. Oh, so exciting.
Speaker 3:Yes. So we had been on Magento for many years. So anybody who currently, you know, works within that platform or has had experience on it, knows how difficult it is to operate and manage. You really have to be a master, a web master, to code and you know change things. So we wanted to optimize our website and we wanted to make sure that it was mobile friendly, because our previous website was not. So we went out on the pursuit to find a platform that would do all of those things for us and also give us the flexibility to manage these things internally, rather than using a development company to make any changes.
Speaker 3:For us, Again, the plug to building bench strength and having that control internally is vital.
Speaker 3:So we ended up going with Shopify, and that was about a year-long project for us. We worked with a fantastic development team called Irish Titan, which we're working on the second phase of our website this year, so building out a custom engagement ring builder, a customer portal and credit portal so customers can view their you know in-store repair status, their wish list, pay their charge account online, so on and so forth. So that website launched for us on November 14th and it was amazing and it's still so amazing. There's still, you know, so much work to do, but that was a huge stepping stone for us in the right direction of getting our website up and running where it should be. You know, for many people, you know that your website is the first touch point, you know, for your customers, so you want to make sure that that is your best presentation, you know, before they make the choice to come in and shop with you or not. So we're so excited about that internally here, from you know the store level to you know the art marketing department.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so make sure you check them out, daysjewelerscom, and I really appreciate your time, nikai. Thank you, michael, it sounds like you have so much going on.
Speaker 1:I'm very excited to have got a chance to speak with you. It's so cool hearing about someone who has been so immersed in the jewelry industry Like we mentioned the beginning of the episode starting out, as you know, while you're still in high school and now able to kind of see the full field and have a vision for where you want to bring the company. It sounds like they're in really good hands and I can't wait to see what you guys do next. It's going to be great.
Speaker 3:Thanks, Michael.
Speaker 1:All right, everybody will be back next week, tuesday, with another episode. Thanks for listening, cheers, bye, all right, everybody. That's it of the show. Thanks so much for listening. This week's episode was brought to you by Punchmark and produced and hosted by me, michael Burpo. My guest this week was Nikaiah Levek of Day's Jewelers, and she is their VP of Marketing, as well as the WJA Foundation VP. She also was a 2023 class of the 20 under 40 list. This episode was edited by Paul Swars with music by Ross Cochrum. Don't forget to rate the podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. That's way to help us grow and leave us feedback on punchmarkcom Slash loop. That's L-O-U-P-E and check out our sponsors below. Thanks, and we'll be back next week, tuesday, with another episode. Bye.