MAINTAINING CUSTOMERS & SALES

By James (Jimmy) DeGroot, Jewelry Store Training, www.jewelrystoretraining.com

To Train or Not To Train

Green Bay, WI--I was staring out the jewelry store window on a beautiful fall day in 1997 thinking about business and why I only have two cars in the parking lot. One customer was a forever browser and one was in for… you guessed it, a watch battery.

Frustrated, I decided to take a drive down the road and found no less than a dozen cars in the parking lot of our newest competitor. Walking inside to introduce myself I met the manager who happened to be a past rep for a line we carried. I convinced him I was taking him to lunch and there I learned that they were on track to surpass our volume (a 20 year journey, theirs was only a twoyear journey thus far). After I nearly fell off my chair I learned that their secret was two things, MARKETING and TRAINING. And thus began my venture to become proficient at both.

Fast forward a few years and the now two stores have grown exponentially and continue growth to this day. Now marketing is an entirely different article and for another day. So today it’s all about training. I’ve found through many years of training people that the magic is in DISCUSSION.

Your people talk and talk and talk. They talk while setting up in the morning, pulling at the end of day and constantly between the two.