Four Stories That Reframe Jewelry & Luxury Business

Mike talks through four topics not about jewelry that he has been paying attention to that can help reframe the jewelry conversation in a new and interesting way. 

The crashing of the rare plant market, an Olympian who capitalized on the spotlight, how publishing Instagram Reels helps with reach in 2026, and a book release event.

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Transcript

Solo Setup And Theme

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome back, everybody, to In the Loop. What is up, everybody? My name is Michael Burpo. Thanks again for listening to In the Loop. And this week we're going solo. This time I wanted to talk about, I have four topics that I think are very interesting, and they're all sort of tangentially related to our normal topics for In the Loop. They're all about, you know, an almost like an allegory for the lab versus natural diamond kind of conversation, framed in a different way. I also saw this girl from my hometown who went to the Olympics, and she used her own platform on Instagram to launch a different business, and I kind of wanted to just share it. It's just topics like that that I found to be very interesting and compelling, and they stand out enough to me that I thought if I put them together that they would be interesting for someone to listen to. I did one of these episodes back in I think November, and it did really well. I think that people sort of enjoy when I just kind of yap a little bit instead of having a real strict interview like I have been for the past few interviews, and I wanted to, you know, share some things that I think are interesting. Alright, let's jump into it and enjoy.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

This episode is brought to you by Punchmark, the jewelry industry's favorite website platform and digital growth agency. Our mission reaches way beyond technology. With decades of experience and long-lasting industry relationships, Punchmark enables jewelry businesses to flourish in any marketplace. We consider our clients our friends, as many of them have been friends way before becoming clients. Punchmark's own success comes from the fact that we have a much deeper need and obligation to help our friends succeed. 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 and stitch together your digital and physical worlds in a way that achieves tremendous growth and results. Schedule a guided demo today at punchmark.com slash go. And now back to the show.

Lab Diamonds And Perceived Value

Pokemon, Scarcity, And Supply

Branding As A Value Layer

Olympian Turns Maker

Building A Durable Personal Brand

Local Reels Strategy That Worked

Niche First, Then Spillover

Collaborations And Analytics Wins

The Singles Night That Was A Launch

Trojan Horse Event Marketing

Broader Takeaways And Closing

Credits And Listener CTA

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Alright, before we jump into this, I gotta apologize. I am a little bit sick, as seemingly everybody is, so my voice is extra bassy. So do apologize. The first thing I wanted to talk about was the rare plant market crashing, which you're probably like, wow, Mike, that is a bit of a reach for uh the connection to in the loop. But just give me a second to explain. So, first of all, to set up the story, I am really into plants. I've I have a lot of plants in my studio. Um, in my house, I have a space that has uh it's almost kind of like has surrounded by windows. And in each of all the windows, I have tons and tons of plants. I have a special affinity for Monstera, uh especially Monstera Delioso, which is the uh you know, the Swiss cheese plant, the big, big, enormous leaves with the beautiful inner fenestration holes. And I've always kind of been interested in expanding my collection, and I, you know, love giving out the cuttings. And I recently watched this YouTube video that was titled, I accidentally crashed the rare plant market. And it's by this creator, Plants in Jars, which I've actually never watched her content before. And this episode found its way into my feed on Instagram by someone reacting to it, actually calling it a lie. And then I went in and I wanted to do my own research. The long and the short of the episode is this girl found a way, or I guess she applied a method to use tissue culture for these very expensive, rare, quote unquote rare plants in order to clone them. And then if she wanted to, she could have sold them. But if something is uh rare, you shouldn't be able to mass produce it. And to bring into like another kind of topic, she actually compares a lot of things to it. One of them is lab-grown diamonds, so like if you can produce them ad nauseum, then you can drive down the price. And as the popularity goes up, so too does the demand, so does the production, which then races to the bottom. What's fascinating is also it just like she compares all of these different types of luxury niche businesses. And I don't want to spend too much time getting into each of these topics because I have a whole episode to do, but what I found fascinating is that she talks about how if the means of reproduction are enabled to individuals, and even individuals could be individual companies, instead of one thing, then that value suddenly a matter of um people agreeing on the value. That's a terrible way to describe it. But what I thought was very fascinating is that she was saying that, you know, the common discourse around her um, you know, tissue culture plants and these what you might call natural plants, is that in some some people are saying, like, oh, the natural ones are better because they grow better. And she was like, Well, that's not true because they are, you know, scientifically the exact same plant. So how could one grow better than the other? And she goes on to describe, you know, lab grown versus natural diamonds. Uh, you know, some people say that some of them shine better, or they are naturally better. And she makes a very valid point where she's like, well, how can that be true when scientifically they are identical? So it's almost like you need to decide whether or not you're going to agree with the science of it all. What I thought was also very interesting is I have uh a nostalgia for uh Pokemon cards. And in case you have no idea what I'm talking about, Pokemon cards and even Magic the Gathering cards are these uh trading cards that you know came out in the 90s and now they're still existing today. And especially for Pokemon cards, they actually hold seemingly their value. But the thing that's fascinating is there's no inherent value to them other than what is agreed upon, as is true for other things. What I found to be different, and I kind of was grappling as I I watched this this video like three times, is when you talk about Pokemon cards, uh, the company that produces the trading card game, they actually keep some of these prices um up because of the fact that they have agreed to not crash the market. So, for example, here's an here's one. The most valuable, one of the most valuable Pokemon cards is a Charizard, and the Charizard is from you know the 1990s, late 1990s, early 2000s, and there's specific values and rarities to them because of one, how old they are, two, because there's demand for them. And since there's a limited supply, the demand keeps it up. If the company, the Pokemon company that produces these cards, if they were to release that card again and it would be identical to the original one, the value would come down, though the production would go up. And I thought it was very interesting because why is the value dependent on the number of them? And it's like, oh, I guess it's supply and demand. But when you go to it and you have these plants, anybody can make these. She actually sells her own um, you know, plants in jars starter kit on her website. And it was just one of those things having plants and having diamonds and having Pokemon cards compared in the same video and sort of uh contrasting it with other um you know luxury goods is suddenly very interesting. Like, what if you were to mix other luxury goods into this conversation? Like, let's talk about Louis Vuitton bags. Louis Vuitton bags, they hold your bags, they hold your stuff the same way as like uh, you know, a garbage bag or you know, a brown paper bag if you wanted to. But it's something about the demand and the way that they're made. But like you can get better, you know, made bags elsewhere, but I guess it then it comes down to branding. So now branding isn't is like this kind of extra layer. So not to get start tucking myself into circles, but I watched this really interesting video and it had me thinking about the lab grown and natural discussion in a different light, and it also has me thinking about plants in like kind of this uh capitalistic sense, which is kind of an interesting thought, you know, quandary. So, anyways, that's one about uh the plant market crash video. I thought it was very interesting. All right, next one. Okay, so the next one I wanted to talk about was this girl from my uh my hometown, um, you know, Lake Placid, Saranac Lake area. Her name is uh Sophia Kirkby. She is a oops, she is a uh winter Olympian. She just competed for Team USA, and she's a women's doubles luge competitor. She actually was on the first sled that ever competed in that category because this was the first Olympics uh that that happened. What was really interesting to me is this girl, uh, I didn't really know her. Uh I I don't really know her at all. But what was fascinating is she goes on to be an Olympian and she really took advantage of the spotlight and of, you know, the international um, I guess, attention for, you know, just athletes in general, the fact that her uh competition is happening for the first time. I really thought it was very interesting how she took advantage of this and uh is spinning it out to then promote a different business. And that business is her own. She's a ceramicist. And I thought it was really interesting, and it had me thinking about seizing the moment and taking the momentum that comes around, which it doesn't come around all the time. So, what Sophia did is she kind of adopted the moniker of the pin trading queen and she handmade her own ceramic pins. In case you don't know anything about the Olympics, uh, pin trading, very popular. You know, every a lot of the athletes have their own national pins, but you can also have your own personal pins. So some people, like Snoop Dogg, who was at the Olympics, had his own personal pins. And if you interacted with Snoop, then you could trade him a pin and he would put it on his lanyard, and then he would give you one, and that was kind of like your way of saying, Oh, I bumped elbows with um with Snoop. With Sophia, she made her own and they look very different because they're ceramic instead of you know metal or enamel. And I thought that she did such a good job of capitalizing on it, and she also was making these reels talking about how uh she was looking for looking for a date or looking for love at the Olympics. Uh Valentine's Day took place at during the Olympics, and she was saying, like, hey, I'll trade a pin for a date. And it was just kind of this cute like thing that she was doing. But what was really quite interesting along the story, uh long and short of the story, is that she went on and she was very successful with growing her platform. Uh, she added 50,000 followers, which is that's a lot. Uh she started out with I think like 3,000 followers before the Olympics, and then she went out and she got her story, got picked up a couple times. She was posting a lot, and you know, NBC Olympics and the Olympics page kind of promoted that she was this, you know, first-time Olympian going on to um you know making these handmade ceramics, and it kind of had me thinking, what is the value in 50,000 followers of attention? And I think that she made uh she struck while the iron was hot, and what I found is very interesting is she's going to be able to leverage that if she chooses to then go on to uh promote her own ceramic business. And I think that that is, you know, really the the modern, I guess, entrepreneurial dream is you have this opportunity, and she went in and she really took it, and she is using it that the Olympics are, you know, they ended. They ended already. And as a result, what can she keep with her? You know, she's only an active Olympian during the Olympics, but she can take the followers and the attention and the moniker and the the brand of it all and carry that forward. It reminded me a lot of you know, Alona Mar. Alona Mar, she plays for the uh women's USA rugby sevens team, I think. I think she plays for sevens. Uh, she is just really well spoken, she's very cool. Um, she's from uh Burlington, Vermont. So as a result, uh I had lived there for a little while. Everybody, you know, loves her because she's the hometown hero. And she did a great job of parlaying her. She, I think they won a silver or bronze for the first time, you know, women's rugby won a won a medal at the Olympics, but she went on and and she's still um in the zeitgeist, or still popular today, two years after, you know, that star could have faded. And it had me thinking a little bit about what is the power of personal brand in 2026. I mean, 50,000 followers in 2015, you could have been the most popular person in the, you know, you could you could have moved mountains with that. Nowadays, follower counts are are are sort of are strange, you know? They don't really matter a ton, but they do matter a little bit. And it had me thinking about like, if you own that brand, how can you centralize and like um what is the word? Like really boil it down into something tangible and more valuable. I think that's one of the reasons why you see these people moving people onto uh Patreon, for example, or they move them onto a secondary platform, and that way you don't have to worry about the algorithm kind of gobbling you up and and making your brand less valuable. But, anyways, I thought that uh if you want to follow her, Sophia.kirkby is her Instagram handle. Uh, she makes really cute content, and the I'm interested to follow how she's going to take this new kind of budding stardom and turn it into something more long-term. Uh, it was just one of those uh feelings or brands that I kind of that jumped out at me, especially for the Olympics, and I'm sort of excited to see what she does with it. Um, I'd love to get a chance to meet her and and and hear if she had that as a plan going into it. Okay, next one. On the topic of social media, and I again we've already agreed, social media isn't really uh everything these days, and uh increasingly I'm kind of conflicted about where social media plays a role in my life. I sometimes feel like uh I definitely am probably spending too much time on it, and I sort of want to get away from using social media a little bit uh right now. It's just that it's also my ticket to uh a ticket to making more money and growing my watercolor business. But one thing I thought was very interesting is I kind of took the lead from some of these Olympians and I went on and recently I went and created a series of Instagram reels about this event that goes on in my town. It's called Winter Carnival, it's nine days long, it goes from a Friday until um the following Sunday, so you know, a week and a bit, and I love it. I I mean, don't get me wrong, it is my favorite time of the year, and it happens in the middle of the winter. Um, there's a parade, there's a theme, you dress up every day, there's live music every single day of carnival, there's uh themed events, there's a cornhole tournament, there's uh races, and there's all sorts of fun stuff. We build this giant ice palace out of blocks of ice that we cut from the from the lake, and I'm very involved in it. And it had me thinking a little bit about capitalizing on the moment, kind of like with uh Sophia's conversation, but also about a the idea of making content that is spur of the moment and being like the source of of news about a topic. So over the you know, over that time, I made uh over the stretch of winter carnival, nine days, I made five Instagram reels. So I made one about the opening night, I made one about the uh the first weekend, I made one about an event I sponsor called Artist Night at the Palace. So that's like one of the events that I run and I kind of document myself watercoloring in you know negative 10 degrees Fahrenheit weather. Uh, I did one about the rest of that week, and then I did one about the parade that happens on Saturday. And that content has done better than I've ever done before. I had a 40% reach more to non-followers than I had any other time. And what was really interesting is I went on to find the I dove into the analytics of it a little bit, and the content that did really well was absolutely the reels. But the way I changed my content throughout the week had me sort of thinking about how could a jewelry store or a business capitalize on an event in their town or their city and be this cool like, how can you make yourself a source of of interest? And what I was realizing is as I went through the week, more and more people would share the reels with each other to be like, hey, have you seen this one? And you can see that on your your metrics, you can see people sharing that information, uh, sharing your reels with others, and it kind of each time they do it, there's like a little bump. And I think that that is an underrated aspect. I sometimes wonder, are we reaching too wide? I think that one time Punchmark had this client who wanted to uh compete globally with like Brilliant Earth. And I remember we counseled them, we were like, you know, it's really hard to uh compete with that brand. And they were like, no, we want to be a national brand. And I remember it's it's so hard because when you're a generic national, or when you're a national brand, you become generic. But it's almost like my my town is like 4,000 people, and if you can saturate that 4,000, I do think it spills over, and then you have this much more uh immediate splash point, even, with your content, as opposed to reaching broader and hoping it coalesces around some, you know, crystallizes around some. And I thought that it was one of the first times I ever successfully made a series about winter carnival or like about an event and had the follow-through sort of build into like a crescendo. Did it turn into like sales? Well, that's that's a hard question. I did do some sales, you know, and I sell some stuff that is specific to Winter Carnival, and I probably could have done a better job promoting the products better, but I think that it really did a great job of brand. Um, I don't know, stabilization or building, you know, and then the content you make afterwards is a result of that, uh, is better. But one thing I will actually mention is so I'm a member of this guild. This guild is a gallery, and what I was doing for some of my content is I was tagging them as a collaborator. On some of the reels, and as a result, it would appear in their feed. What's really interesting is the guild has then gone on to gain, like not an exaggeration, like 350 new followers in the last um less than a month. And it's because a lot of the people that my content was reaching was like, oh, let's follow this gallery, and it's more of like a business. Mine is in my personal account is more of like a person, and they wanted to follow a business either instead of or in addition to my account. So kind of like a funny knock-on uh effect. My I also run the guild's Instagram account, and so sometimes I would go in and I would look and I'd be like, Why is this account gaining you know 50 followers a day and I'm getting, you know, gaining whatever? It doesn't followers don't really matter. It's a vanity metric a lot of the times. But I will say it was kind of funny to see it actually working. Um, just another kind of topic I thought was uh really quite interesting. The other thing I thought was was worth mentioning is that the stories really do matter quite a bit. Uh the stories of the um that you share with the reels. So I would post the reel and then I would immediately share it to my story, and I would tag a couple of accounts if they were mentioned, and getting that pickup is actually was very effective. So just that I mentioned that one. Kind of cool. Okay, and then the last one. This one was kind of like a little flyer, and this is one of the first times I feel like I got tricked a little bit, but I'm not mad. I went to a it's gonna sound cringe, but don't judge me. A singles night. I went to a singles night at a bookstore, which is like, wow, Mike, you really uh you're really trying your hardest, aren't you? I went to a singles night, my friend put it on, she works at the bookstore, and this bookstore did a release for a book. It the singles night was like a few days before Valentine's Day, and I think that it was hopefully getting people to mingle with each other and like make new friends or or find a find a lover, that kind of thing. But to walk you through it, I bought this ticket because my friend was putting it on and I wanted to support her, and the ticket was really expensive, uh, relatively to around here. It was like a$25 ticket. And I remember I was like, wow, that's kind of expensive for a singles night. But what's really funny is it comes with the fact that you also get a free book at the singles event. And I go, I went to the event, and when you're there, they have your book set aside for you. They had you get a free beer in going, and the author for the book was was there. And I got a chance to speak with the author. The book uh in question was, you know, like a romance book, and so it kind of fits the theme, and it's you know, it's a little bit cornball and whatever. But the author was there and kind of did a little talk and was like, hey, thanks so much for coming, and sort of made it feel like an event. We all stood around and there's different people there, and I got a chance to meet some new people. But when I was leaving the event, I I got my book and then I had the author sign the book. Uh, and as I was leaving, I was like, Oh, they tricked me. This was actually a book release, and it was branded differently because, you know, who really cares about a book release sometimes, you know. I I don't know if I would I wouldn't have gone if it was just a book release, but they branded it as like singles night, free beer, you know, come in and get the chance to meet an author, you get a free book with it, let's talk about the book. But the fact is it was actually just a book release, and it sort of had me thinking about how can we market different events at our stores better than just what they are. Does that make sense? Like, how can you be like uh it's a Black Friday sale, but how can you actually like reframe it to be like, oh, it's um, or it's a wish list um event where you put stuff on your wish list. Like, I think changing it to be, you know, try out a glam uh fitting day in making it so that it's like an experience in the less about your kind of Trojan horse in the commerce aspect of things. I thought it was just a uh an interesting, uh like I got I got scammed, but I'm not mad. I learned something. You know, could you do something where you have like a maybe a luxury or some type of brand fitting, you know, a suit try-on event, and people could try on like fancy suits, and then the jewelry is there, and you can try on the jewelry and then do like a photo shoot. But man, I I'd probably buy a piece of jewelry from that if it, you know, really fit the look and I buy the rest of the look. That's the sort of thing I was like, wow, how could you Trojan horse in some jewelry into these other events? You know, like the idea of I've heard about people sometimes memoing or allowing brides to wear fancy jewelry to their wedding, in addition to the jewelry that they sold them to sort of kind of glam up their their wedding day look, and then offering them like a really good deal on that piece of jewelry because maybe they've grown uh you know uh attached to it. Anyways, I got scammed into a call and into a book release, and uh, I'm not even mad. So, all of that to say, there's some really interesting, you know, market and marketing kind of conversations to be had if you look outside of the lens of jewelry. Uh, I thought about adding in here and like talking about the fact that, hey, gold is really mainstream, and I had my friends ask me about gold uh unprompted recently, and like what does that conversation mean for the rest of the jewelry store, uh jewelry industry if people are having these regular conversations? But I was more interested in the fact that people are still finding new and different ways to leverage the internet and to leverage their own creativity beyond just putting out a flyer and saying, hey, we have good stuff, come buy it. You know, it's just it's still kind of inspiring. If the fact that I can be inspired by, you know, capitalistic marketing techniques, um, maybe I've jumped the shark a little bit, but at the same time, I do find kind of find it exciting that people are creative out there, even if it means um creative in a different way. So, enough of that. Long rambling talk. I appreciate you listening. This is one of those conversations, this is so indulgent for me to be able to share this with you. I am really glad that you are all with me and able to listen. We had a uh we've had a great start to this season. Uh, it's been our most popular season so far by a long shot, and it wouldn't be possible without all of you listening to me talk about plants. So thanks everybody, and we'll be back next week, Tuesday, with another episode. Cheers. Bye. All right, everybody. That's the end of the show. Thanks so much for listening. This episode was brought to you by Punchmark and produced and hosted by me, Michael Burpo. This episode was edited by Paul Suarez with music by Ross Cochran. Don't forget to rate the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and leave us feedback on punchmark.com slash loop. That's L O U P E. Thanks, we'll be back next week, Tuesday, with another episode. Cheers. Bye.