If you’re procrastinating, it’s often because you don’t know the next appropriate action. It can help to ask yourself what it is that you need to find out, decide or do. “Usually the roadblock is one of those three things,” productivity coach Liz Sumner told INC. “What information do you need to locate? What decision is up in the air and what are the choices? What needs to be done so that the rest of the pieces fall into place? These questions will get you moving again.”

PRODUCTIVITYHighlight Outsourcing Opportunities

If you suspect you’re not focusing enough on important tasks, Lauren Edvalson, CEO of Edvalson Marketing, suggests logging your productivity every day for a week. At the end of the period, take a highlighter and mark anything you can delegate for say $50 per hour or less via apps such as elancer and Upwork, she tells INC. “I like to do this exercise quarterly so that I can measure my progress and also have some accountability for letting go of time-sucking tasks that don’t serve my business goals.”

MARKETINGPound the Pavement

Summer means different things to different people. At Midwest Jewelers and Estate Buyers in Zionsville, IN, it means it’s time to pound the pavement. The store prints up marketing materials focusing on its estate buying services and then two staff members head out, targeting businesses that might be interested. “They called on local banks, insurance agents, nursing homes. When they walked in you could just see the employees thinking, ‘Oh no, not more solicitors,’” recalls owner Brian McCall. “But after the initial introduction, they were excited to find a business where they could send their clients. We saw a large uptick on the buying side of the business. When the sun starts shining, we will be back at it!”

MANAGEMENTBuild a Better Comment Box

Lots of businesses have an idea or comment box. That’s great, but innovation consultant Bryan Mattimore, author of 21 Days To A Big Idea, suggests you take it to the next level by adding some structure. At his company, the Growth Engine, managers post an organizational challenge on a whiteboard and invite their co-workers to submit suggestions. “After a week’s time, the manager records (and then pursues) the best ideas/suggestions on the whiteboard. He or she then posts a new weekly challenge. It’s easy to do, doesn’t really cost anything, and it has created some huge productivity improvements/wins for our clients,” says Mattimore.

MARKETINGSought-after Invitations

Cooper & Binkley Jewelers’ annual trunk shows are keenly awaited events for its regular customers — although probably not as much as the actual invitations. Each year, the staff at the Brighton, MI, store try to top themselves with “invitations that are more unique, creative and surprising than the previous year,” says co-owner Barb Binkley. Examples include a three-part invitation that built anticipation over three weeks, a message in a glass bottle, a chocolate candy bar with the message on the wrapper, a jigsaw puzzle that had to be assembled and a cookie with the designer logo.

CUSTOMER APPRECIATIONBest Seat in the House

Do you live in a city that has a restaurant where it’s almost impossible to get a reservation? Impress your customers by booking a table (better yet, a prime table at the prime time of the night). You can do it far in advance. You can do it every week. Then give the reservations to a customer who purchases a big piece from you.

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Upcoming moving season in May is a great opportunity to introduce yourself to potential new customers. Burkes Fine Jewelers in Kilmarnock, VA, has it down with their welcome. “We acquired the county new tenant list, and each month, we send a personalized ‘Welcome to the River’ package to every new Northern Neck resident,” explains Sydney Moss. The box includes a welcome letter hand-signed by each staff member, as well as Burkes Jewelers branded koozies, jewelry cleaner, pens and stationery.

BUYINGPrioritize Relations with Suppliers

With the economy outlook so uncertain, this is not the time to “tick off vendors,” notes Erich Jacobs, president of the Jewelers Board of Trade, because when “things start to go south, suppliers will help their better customers by making inventory available or providing better terms.” It’s something that is baked into the training at Thollot Diamonds & Fine Jewelry in Thornton, CO, which includes how to work with suppliers and ensure their requests are handled promptly and invoices are paid on time or even early. “Everyone talks about customer service and taking care of staff,” says co-owner Troy Thollot. “We have discovered it is equally important to take care of our vendors.”

MERCHANDISINGReflect the Change of Season

As summer approaches, the world takes on a lighter, warmer air. Your merchandise should too, says Krystal Shiklanian of Radiant Fine Jewelry in Plymouth, MI. “If I have a large collection of a certain brand, I’ll switch out the heavier, darker stone pieces and display light and airy pieces for a spring/summer look.”

INTERIOR DESIGNThe Kids Are Alright

Young kids can be a sales-killer in a jewelry store. Or, if you find a way to keep them engaged in your kids room, they can be something that draws people to your store. Carter’s Jewel Chest in Mountain Home, AR, has installed a baby monitor strategically close to their diamond island to allow parents to keep one eye on their kids and one on the fine jewelry in front of them.

PRODUCTIVITYBeans Mean Work

Want to know what white noise sounds like in 2023? Download Coffitivity, an app that creates the hum of a coffee shop to play as background music. (Choices include Morning Murmur, University Undertones and Brazil Bistro.) According to the makers, “Coffitivity recreates the ambient sounds of a cafe to boost your creativity and help you work better,” adding that the benefits are “proven and peer reviewed.”

COMMUNICATIONSPhone Form

When you meet with someone in person, make a point of shutting your phone completely off, says Chris Bailey, author of Hyper Focus. “(It) shows them they’re important to you, and that you’re ready to give them 100 percent of your attention,” he says.

COMMUNICATIONSShorten Your Emails

Email is great, but it often takes too long to respond to, resulting in continuous inbox overflow. The solution? Treat all email responses like tweets, but with a set limit of five sentences, web designer Mike Davidson told ENTREPRENEUR Magazine. Add the rationale in your signature — that your policy is designed to save everyone time — and you may find everyone in your email circle getting to the point faster.

The post Tips for June Include Adding Vendor Management to Your Training and A Baby Monitor to Your Diamond Area appeared first on INSTOREMAG.COM.

Dan Reitman of Dan’s Pet Care in New York views his staff as family, but also as potential mobile billboards. He offers his pet sitters and dog walkers the option to wrap their personal cars in his company’s logo, at his expense, and receive $200 a month in exchange. Ten employees have currently taken him up on the offer. Reitman told INSTORE’s sister publication PETS+: “We get so much business from it, and it adds to the perceived legitimacy of your business in the eyes of the consumer when they see you everywhere.”

MARKETINGGet Carded

Join the sales team at J. David Jewelry in Broken Arrow, OK, and you get a good job, training … and a company credit card. “Just another way we can empower them to serve our guests well by buying gifts, dinner, or just a little something special,” says owner Joel Wiland.

OPERATIONSClear to Neutral

When you enter a kitchen and find the sink piled high with dishes, you’re less likely to want to dive into cooking the day’s meal. The same applies to the workshop when tools and findings are scattered around, or even your office when you have to clear a pile of stuff off your desk to start working. Enter the idea of “clearing to neutral” — a ritual where “whenever you finish an activity, you [move] everything so [it] is in neutral position.” According to Thanh Pham, at the blog Asian Efficiency, when you return to such an environment, it eliminates all of the friction — both physical and mental — and you can quickly get started with what you need to accomplish.

MARKETINGPlaying the Long Game

Get ’em while they’re young. Barnes Jewelry in Amarillo, TX, gives a special bracelet to every girl who comes in the store, and in doing so turns them into “a Barnes girl.” As owner Vess Barnes notes, “Barnes girls become Barnes brides.”

MANAGEMENTDeclare an Email Holiday

Need to hunker down to work on an important project? Set up an auto-responder saying you’ll be away for a couple of days, and then tackle whatever you need to get done, writes Chris Bailey in Hyper Focus. (Leave an alternate email address or even phone number for “genuine” emergencies.)

MANAGEMENTBetter Brainstorm

If you want to foster ideas from your staff, don’t tell them to “be creative.” They’re likely to freeze up. A better approach, according to a recent Businessweek article, is to say: “Do something only you would come up with — that none of your colleagues, friends or family would think of.” This has been shown to yield twice as many creative responses.

PRODUCTIVITYUse Your Boss Voice

Andy Frisella, the social media entrepreneur behind the “75 Hard” self-improvement challenge, recommends labeling negative inner monologues as your “bitch voice” and then replace it with your “boss voice” to take control. Here, “bitch voice” is the label for the voice that’s saying things like: “Not now,” “maybe tomorrow,” or “I’m not in the right mood.” Having a label like “bitch voice” makes it easier to recognize these thought patterns and turn them into more productive ones, says Frisella. “It allows me to greet them like an old friend (‘Oh hey, bitch voice’), smile, and do the exact opposite of what it’s telling me to do,” he says.

The post Staff Cars as Billboards, Free Bracelets for Kids, and More Business Tips appeared first on INSTOREMAG.COM.

How to stay upbeat in tumultuous times? Nate Zinsser, director of the performance psychology program at West Point, told Bloomberg one of his favorite strategies is to “Flash a Stop Sign.” “When your mind throws you fear or doubt or worry, visualize an actual stop sign. You want to deliberately cease those thoughts and replace them with optimistic thoughts. Talk back to the negativity the same way you would talk back to your obnoxious brother when he’s talking garbage,” Zinsser says.

SALES FLOORIt’s Play Time!

Given the importance of the symbolism and the money involved, it can, at times, be easy to forget that the experience of buying jewelry should be enjoyable. That’s hard to do at Midwest Jewelers and Estate Buyers in Zionsville, IN. “We are fun! As a store we are very low pressure. One of our favorite phrases is ‘Let’s play!’ We encourage everyone who walks in the door to try on the $225,000 diamond ring. Hey, you never know, right? We are you!” says owner Brian McCall.

PRODUCTIVITYThe 2 Percent

Can you achieve 2 percent of your goals for the year in the next week? Yes, it doesn’t seem much time, but that’s how the math breaks down. It’s too often fairly easy to punt a week — but when you think of it as 2 percent of a year — it changes the calculus a bit.

PRODUCTIVITYLeverage the Dread

One of the ironies of procrastination is that it often stems from the mildly discomforting things in life, such as doing taxes. In contrast, you don’t indefinitely put off a root canal. You want to get it over with. According to a trio of new studies out of the University of British Columbia, you can use this psychological quirk to your advantage when you find yourself avoiding a task: Tell yourself that it will be horrible, the absolute worst. “The key to getting tasks off your to-do list is to harness the psychological discomfort of dread, which is negative and unpleasant — and therefore a feeling that most people seek to relieve,” noted an article about the finding in Fast Company.

STYLINGBuild a Capsule Wardrobe

Does choosing an outfit for work take an inordinate amount of time every morning? Try a capsule wardrobe: a collection of a limited number of clothing items that complement each other and can be mixed and matched effortlessly. The benefits, according to sustainably-chic.com, are less decision fatigue and stress in the morning, while you also save money and lead a more environmentally friendly life.

MARKETINGA Welcome to Remember

Quite a few jewelers give new customers a tour of their store. Perry’s Diamonds & Estate Jewelry in Charlotte, NC, takes it up one level by giving them a welcome bag as well. The staff is trained to ask everyone coming through the door if this is their first visit. If yes, the customer gets a brief tour of the store and a little bag of swag containing various Perry’s branded items such as lip gloss, nail clippers and hand-sanitizer or a $5 Starbucks gift card simply for checking out the showroom. “Potential clients love this small gesture, and it helps break down some of the defensive barriers that potential new customers sometimes come in with,” says owner Ernest Perry.

SELF-AWARENESSBetter Than Perfect

Perfection isn’t just impossible, it’s counterproductive, notes Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist and author of the bestseller Think Again. “Perfectionists are more likely to burn out and less likely to embrace new challenges. Success depends on high standards, not being flawless. The target is not perfection — it’s excellence.”

The post Talk Back to Negativity, Overcome Procrastination, and More Tips From March appeared first on INSTOREMAG.COM.

TRAININGIntroduce “Desirable Difficulties”

The training paradox: Being challenged results in faster learning, but it also shows us how little we know, which makes us feel ignorant. A recent study of a Harvard humanities class found introducing such challenges upped test scores by 33 percent, but the students involved thought they were learning more from non-active lectures. The lesson: Introduce “desirable difficulties” into your training, despite the pushback you’ll likely encounter.

PSYCHOLOGYShare the Self-Love

It’s the month of Valentine’s Day, the perfect time for a reminder on the importance of sharing the love – with yourself. “The biggest life hack is to become your own best friend. Everything is easier when you do,” says mindfulness teacher Cory Mascara.

MANAGEMENTInstitute a Progress Ritual

One of the biggest problems with being the boss is that few people will give you direct feedback on your performance or offer kind words to inspire you when things get difficult. And yet studies show that the single biggest motivator of performance is the feeling of making progress in a meaningful task. But if your underlings aren’t likely to do that, you have to go out and find the feedback yourself. And the best way to do that, says business author Dan Pink, is to establish a progress ritual. “At the end of every day, take just 60 seconds to record and memorialize what progress you made that day.” You may well be pleasantly surprised by just how much you get done.

OPERATIONSLog and Laugh

The healthiest work environment is one where people take their jobs seriously but can also laugh about and learn from the ups and downs of retail life. To support this, keep a “Daily Disappointments” booklet of funny things that happen throughout the year. As one of our Brain Squad members told us: “We go out as a team twice a year for a nice dinner. We review the booklet together over drinks and get some good belly laughs in!”

MANAGEMENTAim High, Settle for Less

If the “Door-in-the-Face” technique is in your bag of management tricks, feel confident in bringing it out — a group of psychologists from the University of Cologne has proven it works. According to the study, if you were to make a big request of staff (“Please work the next three weekends without a day off”) that is rejected, but then follow up with a request for a smaller favor (“How about this Saturday?”), you are 40 percent more likely to have the second request granted than if you hadn’t primed your employee. Devious? Perhaps. Luxury goods retailers do it all the time, positioning a very expensive item near the front of the store to make everything else look downright reasonable.

MANAGEMENTReward Small Victories

On the way to a grand goal, celebrate the smallest victories as if each one was the final goal, writes WIRED co-founder Kevin Kelly on his blog: “No matter where it ends, you are victorious.”

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INVENTORY

Kill Two birds with Small Stones

David Blitt, owner of Troy Shoppe Jewellers in Calgary, AB, does something similar to get a jump on wedding season. “I try to prepare some of my loose melee in small bands that I can use at blow-out prices. Gets rid of small goods and reminds clients it is wedding band time,” he explains.

MARKETINGNew Year Preview

Give customers a sneak peek at what you have planned for this year. Are you introducing new products? Have you grown your staff or expanded your services? Send out an email recapping the past year and let people know what you have planned for the New Year, recommends Constant Contact in their monthly marketing newsletter.

GOAL-SETTINGKnow when to Quit

A little negativity can be a good thing, argues Annie Duke in her new book, Quit: The Power Of Knowing When To Walk Away. “Optimism causes you to overestimate both the likelihood and magnitude of success and stick to things too long,” she says. “Unchecked by realism, it prevents you from quitting when you ought to walk away.”

SALESShow and Tell

Keep a gemstone with super interesting inclusions handy to show under magnification, urges GIA-accredited jewelry pro John Nicolosi, adding that it doesn’t have to be flawless or even a diamond. “Flawless doesn’t really exist,” he says. “Because clarity is graded at 10x mag. Zooming in beyond 10x can reveal extremely minute characteristics, even in flawless diamonds. Remember, Mother Nature—or humans, for lab-grown—made every diamond different,” which is a powerful attraction to a potential buyer.

MANAGEMENTFeed it forward

Providing feedback has long been considered an essential skill for leaders. But according to executive coach Marshall Goldsmith, there are two problems with it: It addresses something in the past and it makes the recipient defensive. In its place, he recommends “feedforward,” which is suggesting a couple of things that could help one of your workers improve their performance. “It can be very specific and still delivered in a positive way. The manager can cover the same points without feeling embarrassed and without making the subordinate feel even more humiliated,” he says.

MARKETINGA New approach

You may not be enamored with Valentine’s Day as a selling date but set aside money for advertising for the last two weeks of January and the first two weeks of February regardless. “It gets your name in the minds of guys who don’t want to propose on cliche holidays but want to propose soon,” notes Jennifer Farnes, owner of Revolution Jewelry Works in Colorado Spring, CO. “Like it or not, everyone is pitching Valentine’s to them, so they are thinking about it anyway. Just advertise it differently.”

The post Give Customers a Sneak Peek at What You Have Planned for the New Year and More Tips for January appeared first on INSTOREMAG.COM.

1. Find better solutions by basking in the problem.

Planning season is here but don’t rush it, says Tina Seelig, a Stanford business professor and author of “Creativity Rules: Get Ideas Out Of Your Head And Into The World”. Rather, let yourself bask in the issues for a while. If you go straight to the solution, you will likely end up thinking too narrowly, whereas if you frame wider, you can often come up with a creative answer, she says. “Living in that problem space and falling in love with your problems is one of the most powerful ways to unlock really innovative solutions,” Seelig writes. (Note that this applies to creative issues: For day-to-day problems, we often know what to do straight away, and what we call “deliberation” is actually just dithering.)

2. Stretch your stretch goals.

Setting stretch goals of, say, a 5 percent improvement for employees may be attainable through extra hard work and efficiency. But what if you told your staff you’d like them to improve their performance in a certain area by 30 percent? Impossible? Yes, but that’s the point. They would have to totally rethink how they go about hitting their numbers. To kickstart innovative thinking, you often have to first destroy the old ways of doing things.

3. Test your prices weekly.

Once a week, in store meetings, pass around a number of items and ask your sales staff if the price is too high, too low or just right, based on the look and feel of the product and customers’ reactions. The idea, says former GIA president Bill Boyajian, is to use this test to see if more profit margin can be squeezed out of an item, or if you’ve hit the peak of what a jeweler can ask for it.

4. Be nice to people who are leaving.

It’s no secret that staff turnover in the retail industry is high, especially right now. But that is no reason to treat departing workers the way you would an expired bottle of milk. On the contrary, handling them well has benefits for your business, HR magazine quotes Gail Gunderson of Ohio State University as saying. If you treat exiting workers with understanding and respect, they may decide to change their minds. They may also tell you the real reason they are leaving, which is important information if you suffer from high turnover. Parting on good terms potentially leaves the door open for them to return. And even if they don’t, they will have positive things to say, which could attract others. Finally, a cordial exit signals to remaining staff that you’re a decent boss who cares about his workers as people, which is good for morale.

5. The secret words to make an annual review productive

Employees generally hate reviews. Managers generally hate giving them. With the right approach, however, both sides can leave the meeting feeling they’ve been involved in something productive and looking forward to improved performance. In his book CULTURE CODE: THE SECRETS OF HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL GROUPS, Daniel Coyle recommends using these 19 words to deliver the feedback: “I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them.” Why does it work? According to Coyle, it builds trust, signals belonging, and combines high standards with the assurance that people can reach those standards.

6. Offer complete rings – they are the ultimate unshoppable bundle.

It’s rare to see a customer try to price-shop a complete ring because there is more than one component and there aren’t any generic specs on the semi-mount portion of the ring like there are with a loose diamond. It can also simplify the process, particularly for the budget-conscious shopper, who can be interested in rings displayed in categories with signae such as under $1,500 or under $2,500, says Megan Crabtree, founder of Crabtree Consulting. Ask vendors for them or make them up yourself. It can be a way to turn aged merchandise, or to get even better turns from top selling semi mounts, she says.

7. Do less.

“The Underachiever’s Manifesto” doesn’t sound like a book you’d find on the shelves of the ambitious business owner. But it should be. Written by a doctor named Ray Bennett it advocates a path to a superior kind of achievement based on the idea that you need to leave some slack in your life to take advantage of the serendipity of the world, and to give yourself the elbow room you need to excel. He quotes that Spanish underachiever Pablo Picasso: “You must always work not just within, but below your means. If you can handle three elements, handle only two … In that way, the ones you do handle, you handle with more ease, more mastery, and you create a feeling of strength in reserve.”

8. Want to be a great boss? You need to have confidence — and doubt.

“The best leaders have ‘the attitude of wisdom’ — the confidence to act on their convictions and the humility to keep searching for evidence that they are wrong,” writes Stanford business professor Bob Sutton in a column for the HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW. “Yes, you need to carry yourself in a way that shows you are in charge, but it’s vital to couple that strength with a humbleness that ensures you realize you will often be wrong, and which encourages people to suggest alternative ways of doing things,” he says.

9. Reboot your phone every week.

That’s part of the National Security Agency’s recently released “best practices” guide for mobile device security. While it won’t stop a sophisticated hacker, it will make them work harder to maintain access and steal data from your phone. “This is all about imposing cost on these malicious actors,” Neal Ziring, technical director of the NSA’s cybersecurity directorate, told the Associated Press. The reason is that the latest malicious software typically targets your phone’s root file system. But the newest phones can detect and block such malware during a reboot.

10. Force a real decision.

The next time you ask an employee or partner for their opinion on a business-related matter, say to rate a job candidate, a new line or a business proposition, ask them for a score between one and 10 but tell them they can’t choose seven. Seven is a fudge, says speaker and author Kyle Maynard. Force the person to choose between at least an eight, an indication that they’re genuinely excited by the prospect, and a six, which usually means they’d pass on it.

11. Always add, “which means…”.

To boost the impact of your sales presentations and really, REALLY ensure your prospective customer understands the benefits of what you’re selling, always add “which means…” after every feature you share, says “Wizard of Ads” author Roy H Williams. “You can add these words verbally, or you can add them silently, but this habit will bridge you into language the customer can see in their mind,” he writes in his weekly Monday Morning Memo. Williams provides the following examples: “This blade is made of Maxamet steel, which means you’ll never have to sharpen it” and “This is a 52-week schedule, which means your name will become the one people think of immediately and feel the best about.”

12. Preparing goodie bags for a ladies night or other end-of-year event? Put together more than you need.

The spares will appease unhappy customers or cap off a customer’s purchase experience in the future. “It smooths ruffled feathers, makes up for late or unexpected difficulties in a job, and makes customers really happy because along with a great present, they have an extra pre-sent,” says Denise Oros, owner of Linnea Jewelers in LaGrange, IL. Oros recommends filling the bags with store-branded cleaner, polishing cloths, nail polish, emery boards, hand lotion and handmade silver dangle earrings. “Customers RAVE over the bags,” she says.

13. When following up with customers, let the juniors listen in.

Bill Jones, the CEO at Sissy’s Log Cabin in Arkansas, aims to call 10 to 15 existing customers every day “just to check in with them and tell them thank you for doing business with us,” he says. “We do these calls with our salespeople listening so that they understand how important every one of our customers is; whether they purchased a 10-carat diamond or had a ring sized.”

According to Jones, the goal is not to sell the customer anything but to fulfill a promise of exceptional customer service and build a relationship as a lifelong jeweler and friend. It is something he wants both sides of the transaction to know.

14. Sales ninjas need not apply.

There has been a trend in recent years to list available jobs using creative language, like describing a sales associate’s position as one for an “obsessed sales ninja,” but such language may actually deter some promising candidates, particularly anyone with outside obligations like children or elderly parents. According to a recent report in THE ATLANTIC, most small business owners would be better advised to go with more technically precise job description and focus your creativity on selling the workplace: “We’re a family-run progressive business in one of the city’s best neighborhoods that wants to grow in tandem with our staff. If that sounds like the kind of place you’d like to work …”

15. Include local businesses in events.

If you’re hosting a bridal-centric event, invite a wedding-related local business to participate, such as wedding photographer or a wedding caterer .

It’s a win-win, Jackie Johnson, VP of Crabtree Consulting: You’ll end up with free photos of your event, free food for your event, and the local business operators will get to meet people who need a wedding photographer or caterer. A plus? Your guests can sample their offerings, and it will keep them busy when you need to bounce from guest to guest.

16. When it comes to lab-grown diamonds, think beyond millennials.

Gen X and baby boomer women experiencing FOMO (fear of missing out) may turn out to be one of the biggest demographics for growth in the category of lab-grown diamonds in finished jewelry. They’ll be looking for eternity bands to studs and statement necklaces, says George Prout, president of Revelation Lab Grown Diamonds. Expand your demographics in your marketing and sales floor approaches. Show lab grown diamonds to more than just young women looking for 2-carat engagement rings.

17. Punishment sends a message … as does its absence.

The point isn’t that people need to be threatened in order to perform. “It’s that if you aren’t willing to go to the mat when people violate your core values, your organization and its culture lose their moral force,” says BYU management studies professor Kerry Patterson in his bestseller “Influencer: The Power To Change Anything.”

“You send a powerful message about your values when you do hold employees accountable,” writes Patterson, although he urges you “first take a shot across the bow to let people know what’s coming before you drop the hammer. ”When it comes to people being dismissed, there should never be an element of surprise,” he says.

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The end of year is a time to reflect … and then move on. To help with the process, business author Dan Pink recommends a small ritual based around a toy toilet (there are an astonishing number on Etsy). Simply bring the error, missed goal or disappointment to mind, and then hit the toy toilet’s trip handle and flush it away. “Extract lessons, but it’s also important we don’t wallow in those mistakes,” says Pink.

STAFFSpa Time

Dinner out is a tested and tried way to improve team bonding when you need staff to come together for a demanding period like the holiday season. But there are options, especially if you have a mostly female staff … or guys who appreciate a pampering. We’re thinking a trip to a spa. Apart from the fun, your entire team will go into the key selling season with immaculate fingers — all the better to show off your immaculate jewelry.

SELF-IMPROVEMENTDo a Good Deed

Good deeds are good for the world, and the doing of them is surprisingly good for us. In his book, Give And Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success, organizational psychologist Adam Grant introduced the term “5-minute favor.” It is the practice of carving out five minutes of your day to do something that will benefit others: call a sick friend, go the extra mile in mentoring a seasonal temp, remember to compliment your neighbor’s storefront — without expecting anything in return. It will put you and your store in the right positive frame of mind for the holidays, which are, of course, about giving and celebrating sacrifice.

MARKETINGImages Work Quickly

The brain can process images at amazing speeds, with recent research measuring it at about 1/20 of a second. What does it mean for you? Images are a great way to get your message across quickly in your holiday email bulletins. The blog team at Constant Contact compiled a handy list of tools and resources for Christmas-y images (view it at rb.gy/eshg7i) to help you quickly create more engaging holiday emails and social media posts.

MARKETINGPartner with Micro-Influencers

If your holiday season marketing needs a late boost, consider a micro-influencer (fewer than 100K followers) to help get the word out in your local market. According to a recent article in Forbes, they work fast, can target a niche audience, and are “often considered more reliable by their followers as well.”

SALES FLOORBring the Joy

You’ve done everything you can to prepare for the holidays. Now your job is to enjoy the company of your precious friends and customers, urges Denise Oros, owner of Linnea Jewelers in La Grange, IL. “Bring your joy skills to the store every day. Create that overall experience, from the greeting to the festive employee atmosphere to the awesome-sauce exchange and perfect packaging pick-up. Customers have to feel loved. It’s time to be Santa!” she says.

MARKETINGEschew Old Photos

In much the same way that glass smears can erode the allure of a case of jewelry, so can poor images in your social media channels. “Whatever you do, don’t post pictures on Facebook featuring old elements, not to mention poor photography,” advises Gene Spratford of Spratford Fine Jewelry in Overland Park, KS.

MANAGEMENTTweak Your Goal-Setting

2023 draws closer, and with it the tantalizing thought of what you might be able to achieve. The consultants at McKinsey recommend setting an “aspirational goal” and an “acceptable result.” An ambitious goal raises your odds of success. But it also boosts your odds of feeling like a failure. In contrast, if you fall short of the aspirational goal but hit the acceptable one, you haven’t failed.

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This is likely a time of year when you need to tap your reservoirs of creativity for an end-of-season marketing campaign or just for planning for the new year. Keep in mind that creativity unavoidably involves changing gears, especially if you’re the typical hard-charging business owner or manager. “One can optimize for productivity or one can optimize for creativity, but it’s hard to do both,” notes widely followed tech entrepreneur Naval Ravikant on Twitter

MANAGEMENTInvest in People

A weakness for bright shiny tools is common among business owners. But, according to management scholar Tom Peters, investments in people often pay off better. “Capital enhancements are important. They’re also cool. You can get your picture taken next to a new robot. People investments are invisible and hard to measure. The tendency is to favor the hard stuff over the soft stuff. But the soft stuff is invariably more related to long-term strategic success than the hard stuff,” says the author of In Search of Excellence.

SALESGo All Appointment

Request that all clients set up an appointment no matter what the reason for their visit, urges jewelry store consultant Megan Crabtree. “Even if they’re coming by for a ring cleaning, it’s an opportunity to give them this wow experience,” she says, adding that you may want to pull a few matching pieces for their collection to share with them while they are waiting.

SALESFloor Maintain “Conversational Discipline”

As many stores approach the busy season with less than a full roster of staff, it’s never been more important to ensure time is being used productively and that you exercise “conversational discipline,” says Scot Caniglia, manager at Josephs Jewelers in West Des Moines, IA. “We love those ‘bonding’ conversations, but we need to control them. Recognize when you are in a conversation that you are enjoying, but realize when you are exchanging story after story with your customer. Let the customer tell the last tale of the day and bid them adieu.”

SECURITY#Firstday Breaches

Young new hires are often a breath of fresh air to a business. They can also be a security threat, owing to their tendency to share. Stephanie Carruthers, the “chief people hacker” at IBM’s X-Force Red, estimates that 75 percent of security breaches are caused by interns or new hires as they post selfies or even video walkthroughs of their #firstday at work. Writing in Fast Company, she says the information can include unwitting shots of Post-Its with computer passwords, whiteboards revealing company plans, or posters promoting social or corporate events that allow hackers to craft credible phishing emails.

IDEASSave Good Concepts for Later

To be sure there are bad ideas, but there are also those whose time just hasn’t come. It’s this understanding that prompted author Oliver Burkeman to keep a running file of ideas from which virtually nothing gets deleted. “When I needed an idea, I’d peruse the list, and sure enough, most of the entries would still seem mediocre, stupid, or derivative. But for mysterious reasons, one or two entries – entries that might have sat there looking lifeless for months or years – would suddenly feel ripe, full of life, ready to be used.” Open a note in your phone today.

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After helping almost 100 owners sell their businesses, consultant Stephen Semple of Business Growth Guys says he has one core piece of advice: Run your business like you are planning to own it for the next 20 years. Buyers will often try to low-ball you at the very last minute, knowing full well that owners have often already sold the company in their heart. “The champagne is on ice and the owner is not emotionally capable of walking away from the closing table. To fight this, the seller needs to remain ready to walk. Walking away is the only power the seller has,” Semple says.

SALESIntuit Their Budget

It’s uncomfortable to ask a client for a budget, but it’s also useful information. What to do? Suggest taking a look at your website to show the prospective client the diamonds available, or simply give them an average price per carat size. “You could say, ‘Did you have a carat size in mind? Just to give you an idea, a three-quarter carat would start around $3,500 while a 1-carat may start at $6,000,’” suggests GIA accredited sales pro John Nicolosi. “They will then tell you the carat size based on the prices you shared.”

BUYINGUpgrade Your Business Card

Before your next trade show, get a digital business card made up. You’ll save time, money and trees. Nancy Guinn, the owner of Virginia-based independent pet food chain Dog Krazy, told our sister magazine PETS+ that with such a card, she can simply tap a new contact’s phone to upload their business information via NFC technology, or they can scan the QR code on the back, which can be updated online at any time.

SELLINGAs Easy As 3-2-1

This set of targets to drive action during what is typically a slower period of the year is called 3-2-1 selling. 3: Hand out three business cards a day outside the store. 2: Have staff show their favorite piece two times a day. 1: Try for one add-on sale a day. When your sales team turns these actions into habits, you should see sales rise and your customer base grow.

MANAGEMENTKeep Some “Slop” in Your Day

Do you keep 50 percent of your time unscheduled? If not, you’re probably not leaving enough slack in your day to manage optimally. That’s the view of Dov Frohman, a former VP at Intel, who during his corporate career also found enough time to invent EPROM, a widely used type of computer memory. In his book Leadership The Hard Way, he argues that bosses should ensure they maintain sufficient “slop” in their schedules to allow space for reflection and the assimilation of lessons learned from experience.

SECURITYAdd Screen Time to Online Sales

If you have suspicions about an online order, ask the customer to join you on Zoom or FaceTime. “Scammers will not do video chats,” says Mark Fenton, an online private investigator. The former Vancouver detective credits much of the work he gets now to “user idiocy.” Don’t be that person.

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