There are 8 success secrets for jewelry store owners that can be the difference between being highly successful, average, or preparing for a “Going Out of Business” (GOB) sale.
These 8 keys to success run in parallel with a book titled, “Success Secrets of the Motivational Superstars”, by Michael Jeffreys – Prima Publishing (1996) – ISBN 0761506128.
As you look down through these 8 keys you quickly see that those who are successful not only in our jewelry trade but life in general, follow these same traits.
1 – Take 100 percent responsibility for your business.
Stop blaming others for your store not achieving the level of success you had envisioned.
Time and again, I have seen jewelry stores rise to a certain level then stubbornly refuse to grow any further.
The reason normally is that the store owner/manager has reached a “mental plateau”.
In their mind, they have begun to blame outside influences for their growth.
Here are a few of my favorites: 1) The price of gold is too high, 2) The Internet, 3) Competition is discounting too much, 4) We don’t have great sales associates, 5) Our location isn’t as good as the jeweler down the street, 5) We don’t have the right product lines.
The complete list could fill up several pages, but I think you see my point.
All of those “excuses” revolve around the dreaded “If Only”.
If only we had Pandora, etc then we could be successful.
Don’t wallow in what you don’t have.
Assess what you do have and how you can use it to your advantage.
The key here is to take 100% responsibility for your business by taking 100% responsibility for your attitude and actions.
The first step is to walk over to the mirror, look into it and say, “The reason that my store is not producing at a higher volume is because of the limitations I am placing on myself and my team”.
Don’t give away your power for success to the circumstances of the moment.
Tough love to be sure, but understand this to be true.
Until you get over this particular hurdle nothing else will allow you to reach the level of success that you could and should achieve.
2 – Run your jewelry store with a sense of purpose.
The successful jewelry stores know why they are in business, not just to make a profit, but the real, underlying reason they are in business.
You can feel it the minute you walk into a jewelry store.
The energy, the direction, and the sense of purpose are palatable to everyone who darkens your doorstep.
This reason permeates the organization from top to bottom.
Independent jewelers often start out with a clear vision for why they are in business, but over time the minutia of the daily grind causes that vision to fade.
Those jewelry stores that rise to the pinnacle have a team that knows why they are there, understands the importance of their contribution to the team, and share a common vision of where they are going.
All too quickly jewelry organizations fall into safe, least conflict, least resistance roles.
The team finds their comfort level of success and slips it into cruise control.
This is why your sales have flattened out.
Run your business and your life with a sense of purpose every single day.
3- Be willing to pay the price.
Everyone wants success.
We sit on the sofa and watch others achieve success all of the time.
As a culture, we have become mesmerized by watching total strangers struggle to climb the ladder of success on reality TV shows.
Just as entertaining seems to be sitting around the water cooler the next day talking about how and why others failed.
Are you willing to pay the price now for greater success?
Sure, early on most independent jewelers paid a significant price on a daily basis, but what happens when they reach a safe level of success?
4- Stay focused.
Every day we are bombarded with hundreds of tasks, phone calls, messages, and everyone competing for our time.
Focusing requires giving up something in the present because you are investing your time in something that will pay off to a larger degree down the road.
When Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen compiled their first “Chicken Soup for the Soul” book, they were turned down by 30 publishers.
But instead of giving up, they stayed focused on their goal.
“We did three to four radio or newspaper or magazine interviews a day, five days a week for a whole year,” Canfield recalls.
In every interview, they talked about why the country needed this book now more than ever.
Eventually, a small publisher called Health Communications, Inc. decided to take a chance and published the book.
It not only became a #1 bestseller but also hatched an entire series of Chicken Soup books that have sold more than 10 million copies!
That’s the power of staying focused on your goal.
Has your store lost that focus?
Have you been swept away by the deluge of information flowing over your desk?
If you have, then I suspect your jewelry is hitting a sales volume plateau.
5 – Become the expert.
Top jewelry stores strive to be more than just a neighborhood jewelry store.
They are constantly learning, adapting, and planning how they can be the very best.
If someone followed you around all day with a video camera in your jewelry store, would it be a tape you would be proud of or embarrassed about?
Make the decision today to work at being the best at what you do.
Push yourself, and challenge your team to be better than yesterday.
Is your competition beating you?
The quickest way to become more successful is to find out what best practices they are using and adapt them to your organization.
Once you stop striving, you, in essence, stop achieving.
6 – Write out a plan for achieving your goals.
Brian Tracy, one of America’s most successful business sales trainers and speakers, I believe said it best, “Goals that are not in writing are not goals at all. They are merely wishes or fantasies.”
It doesn’t start to become real until you write it down.
Refer to your written plan often, jotting down successes and setbacks along the way.
Far too many jewelry store’s only plans for the day is to open the doors and hope for more business than yesterday.
Obviously there is room for a wee bit of improvement here.
Write down your organization’s goals, adapt when needed, but keep moving forward.
7 – Never ever give up.
Never, never, ever give up. As someone once eloquently said, “Inch by inch, it’s a cinch”.
When you are fully committed to achieving your goal, giving up is not even on the table for discussion.
Fail?
Sure we can have setbacks because all businesses do eventually, but to just give up or perhaps more common, just be apathetic, cannot happen on your watch.
This phrase, “Never give up” sounds easy; however, in reality, jewelry stores do it all of the time.
In one form or another the competitive flame dies out and the sales stop growing.
Is this the real reason your store’s sales have flat-lined?
Time for a gut check if it has.
8 – Don’t delay.
A workable plan today is better than a perfect plan next year.
Far too many people want a sure bet before they jump in.
Death and taxes are the only sure bets in life.
Granted you have to carefully analyze your options.
No one is suggesting you run around blindly but you will never, ever have all of the information you need to make a decision.
In business as in life, no decision is actually a decision because circumstances will make the decision for you.
Real success in business or in life seldom happens without a daily striving to attain a future goal.
Don’t be like so many jewelry stores who have lost their way, and now settle for what comes through the door.
Strive to be more, because it is in you and your team to be more successful today than you were yesterday.
Long term success is seldom about the big changes as it is in the small changes each and every day.
Review these 8 success secrets to ensure you and your team are achieving at the highest level possible.
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The host of “Inside the Jewelry Trade” Radio Show – Jewelry Business Strategist – President of Four Grainer LLC. Author of the business books “A Reason To Chant,” and “A Reason to Chant – Jewelry Trade Edition.” Rod lives in Atlanta with his wife and two almost-human cats.