Bench Jeweler Memes

Things We Don't Do (or Outsource) in 2026 Ep.44

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**NOTE: the Audio got messed up during recording... My Bad!**

Episode 44 – What should you actually be doing in-house in 2026… and what should you kick to someone else?

Brad and Dusty spend the next hour spilling the tea on what they outsource, what they refuse to outsource, and why those decisions have worked for them. Some of our answers might surprise you… and some might make you yell at your speakers.

This isn’t us telling you how to run your shop. Every jeweler’s situation is different. We’re simply pulling back the curtain on the choices we’ve made, the mistakes we’ve learned from, and why we’ve landed where we are today.

Take it for what it’s worth. Agree, disagree, argue with us in the comments… we can take it.

As always, expect a few rabbit trails, questionable opinions, and the usual Bench Jeweler Memes shenanigans


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SPEAKER_01

Hey guys, it's Dusty, and yep, you're probably wondering what the heck's going on. Where's the episode? Well, I'm right here trying to edit the episode that me and Brad just recorded a little while ago. Got home, opened the laptop, and realized something went wrong. Our audio is gone. Um, the camera picked up some audio, and thanks to AI, we brought in BJ Mandrill, if you know what I'm saying, to kind of see if we can salvage it. I apologize. This is not the audio quality we're used to, and it's definitely not the quality that you're used to. It is what it is. We can't re-record a one-hour episode, and it definitely wouldn't be authentic. But this is kind of like when you're working on somebody's repair and something everything starts going wrong, and here we are, we're making the best of it. I apologize. It is what it is. We'll make sure this doesn't happen again. Enjoy episode 44. Now my computer went blank. This is gonna be a fun one. Have fun. Well, good morning. Evening, fortnight. Bradford, how are you doing today? I ain't doing man. It's been uh it's been a while since we've I felt like you haven't waited that long, but you have to wait a lake? Yes, I enjoy it. Well, yes. The short answer is yes. You know, it's it's just what we do every year. So it's funny. You know, read regional part. But uh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. My in-laws got this lake house a long time ago. Did they really? How long ago did they get it? I don't know. It's been a while. Well, my father-in-law, you know, his family has had places on that lake forever. I didn't know that, no. Oh, yeah, since he was a kid. He'll he'll point out like me and my my granddaddy built that house.

SPEAKER_00

Dang.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, they've been he's been like third generation on this lake.

SPEAKER_00

Dang, that's crazy.

SPEAKER_01

But um, we're I like it because our kids are at the age. Why are we doing this to start? This should have been the bancer. It should have been the preacher stuff. All right, we have a topic for today. We do, and we have a good topic. Um, it's a topic to shopping. So we were definitely not trying to figure this out late last night before we came in today. But man, July is crazy. July, we have a guest coming up in July, and we're gonna pre-record a couple episodes to get ahead of it because July has turned into one of the busiest months of my life. We've added so much more stuff than we ever do. Um, so we're gonna and we're making sure for the algorithm that we do not miss any. I feel I'm looking at myself, but I should be looking and that that's what I'm saying. I know this is so weird. Um the computer up. I'll just pretend like I don't I'm not looking. Um we gotta figure out like a little situation there. But um no. Um July is it's it's for us, it's a slower, kind of slower, but I don't know if it's slower because we take so much random days off of the fourth and for vacations, or if it's it's a combination of the two, maybe. I figure like when we're closed, people can't come in. So that makes it a slut easier. Yeah. But we're I mean, should we start off with shop talk?

SPEAKER_04

Shop, shop, shop, talk, where we talk, shop, shop, talk. Let's talk shop.

SPEAKER_01

Woo I feel like that's long enough. I never know. We really gotta add that to the sound pad. We're just guessing, y'all. Shop talk is convenient right now because we before we recorded today, we came in and it's our Monday off. Well, we work on Monday, but the store's closed. And I think I think tomorrow when we come in, neither one of us are gonna have more than a couple jobs to do at a time. So that tells you how the summer has been. And we've just been closed, so like and you weren't here on Thursday, so usually you would come in, it would be swapped, but we're not we were busy, but not that easy. Yeah, leading into the holiday weekend, and then but we've already since we're closed on Mondays, we have been for a few months now, and we already had a couple people walk up to the door. Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. Um, that doesn't stop them. They do not, and we were closed for an extended holiday weekend anyway, but we're always closed on when I shouldn't say always, but we have been always recently. It it's on our it's on our Yelp page that we're closed, I can tell you that. But um anyway, so shop talk. Um I I'll wait again. Now, what I did want to think, what I want to talk about, though, we're not doing it again. Oh, because I think my basket's looking pretty good. Uh as well. You're both of ours. Poor Ari, I think her basket is I think she's busier than we are. I know her and Jake Fox will see this. Yes. Actually, I'm gonna circle back to this because we're gonna talk about CAD in a little bit. So I'm gonna save that. But me and Brad's basket repair basket is looking pretty good. I'm not gonna lie. But something happened while we were working before we started recording that I wanted to address. Um, because if we get plain wedding bands in, like most jewelers, um, we will stretch or shrink. Yep. And I swear here lately, every plain wading band that we get, someone has soldered it. And it's not like when we heated up, I could see it was sized up, it was sized down. And it just, I don't understand because inevitably, so somebody had so we had two brought in today. It was, I guess it was a husband and wife, and they both needed to go up like a half size. Easy stretching job, very easy. But um one of them was not, but the the ladies' version was sized down because it was one solder seam. And typically when we're just sizing down, like we charge less because we could just compress it and polish it up. And I know we're supposed to check. I know we're supposed to check before we give the price, but we don't. So how are we supposed to check? How do people do that? Just heat it, heat it up because the seam will show up. I mean, do you do that? Why? Because we're yeah, because yeah, we should be we should be doing it. Um, but here lately, because I don't want to charge full geller to size it down if I'm just gonna compress it and polish it up. But uh, we really should be either either checking or just charging full gallery. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02

What about just giving them both op well not options, but what if we just say where does that get to the like if you say like, hey, it's the same breaks, we have to charge even full price.

SPEAKER_01

I don't mind doing that when it's going larger but smaller. I mean, that's so weird. It just I don't know. I I mean I don't know. Are we gonna offend someone if we say, hey, if somebody brings you in a wedding band and it's just sized out, just compress it. Don't don't cut it. Because the next dueler will appreciate it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because right now I hate whoever worked on those screens before us. It's like super annoying. Sure it is. Uh but we should have checked. So who's worse? Them or us? Never us. No. We I guess that was our shop talk, huh? Any any interesting or bad or annoying repairs or anything you've been flooded with recently? No. No. Elaborate. Um, I do have some electron figures that are the buttons. We'll also get into that. So we started with shop talk, so let's just transition to what we actually planned on talking about today.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

And I don't really know how to do it, but we thought last night when we were talking, texting, we said, hey, we should do an episode on all the things that we don't do. And which I'm sure we've touched on these. We've probably mentioned them all vaguely, but I wanted to go into here, like for our jewelry store, again, reminder for I know a lot of people are repeat listeners, but it's primarily me, myself, me, myself, and I, and also Brad and Ari. It's like a team of five. It's me, Brad, and we have a part-time girl Ari, who we'll get to in just a minute as well. Who's gonna be on the podcast? She will be on the podcast eventually. Or she'll be fired. It's gonna be a requirement. You hear that, Ari? She was she tuned in on the uh live chat uh last time. By the way, we do a live chat um usually on Fridays around 4:30. Um, unless there's a holiday weekend, we had to switch it up. Um, it is a pre-recorded episode, but we it premieres on YouTube, and there's probably sometimes there's 10 of us in there just goofing off and whatever. Uh for right now, that's gonna take place eventually. We'll do live, but we're getting to rough with the subject. But we wanted to talk about all the things at our jewelry store, we're a small jewelry store, that we don't do. And we realize that there are jewelry store people who work in a jewelry store or own a store or work at a store who does I repeat myself? I don't know. I don't this way I hear wild well. And they might have a staff of 10 people with two or three bench jewelers. They might be two people team, it might be a one-man team. And so the heart of this is not to tell you what to do or not to do it, it's to explain our perspective, and then you can take this information and say, how does this apply to me and how can I make myself happier and make my store more profitable? Right? Bingo. So we thought for us, we will go over like these are all the things that customers call and say, Hey, do you guys fill in the blank? And we go, hey, we actually don't do that. And some of the things, it's not that we say we don't do it, we just don't do it in-house. Well, we do most everything in-house, as far as at least when customers bring in stuff for repairs, 98% of the time we're doing it in-house. There's some specialty things that we send out. But there are so there's we're gonna um what's the word I'll put it before? Differentiate. Oh, the twin of linkage what we just don't do and what we outsource, and we'll explain. And then, and you guys let us know in the comments, like, hey, as we go on through this, comments down here. Uh we we love that. We love it, it fill it feeds the algorithm so more people will see it. But talk about in your store, hey, we've started outsourcing this, or we started saying we just don't do this anymore. Yeah, and uh let us know in the comments. All right, so what is the first uh item up that we when people actually this one let's just talk about pearl restringing, let's just get right to it. So we don't say that we don't do it. Well, well, there's pearl restringing and then like beads, bead restringing. Okay, exactly. So all right, so why don't you go into the differences? So bead restringing would be more arts and crafts. It's usually not stretchy books, yeah. Yeah, stretchy. They're on wire or stretchy, and it's just not something we do. And we don't send it out, and we just we don't the black light is into ours. So could we do it, Brad? Uh yes. So there's do it without loops of everything. And so we used to, like yeah, when I open when we opened the store, I think when you are new to opening a jewelry store, you just want to say yes to everybody. Yeah, and you kind of have to because you're trying to pay the rent. Yeah, and so if somebody brought in a little stretchy cheek bracelet, that's you know, something that my daughter would wear, or or you know, we see them on all age types, and the string would break, you would I would just go to like a Michael's or a graph store or order online and like Amazon, the little stretchy stuff and put all the little beads on and tie it up and call it a day. And then there was the kind that are on like that little steel table that you kind of wire through and then cramp shut. So why why why do we tell people we don't do that? Uh because the time it takes, it's not our specialty.

SPEAKER_02

It takes a lot of time and we don't make a lot of money on it because people must spend a lot of money on that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I mean, it is it's hard to explain to people. We only have so much time in the day, and when there's ring sizing and chain solders and custom uh orders to be assembled, for us to stop what we're doing and to restring a $20, $30 necklace or bracelet, it's just and plus I mean, honestly, I get it. I'm a little jaded because I just want to tell people like you can do it yourself. Yeah. I mean some people can get it. A lot of old people would love to do it. I get it.

SPEAKER_00

But like a fun, you know, somebody making it. I don't we're not it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's just it's just one of those things. We just it's not that we cannot do it. And we have to be we have to be very clear to people when they ask. We just we say, hey, I'm sorry, we don't we don't you know do the service. I get it. Man, there's something about talking, it's like this microphone makes me hurt. But it's just like suck area, like in your mouth, like as you're you don't read softly. Oh that's yeah, it's just one it's just that that specific thing. It's just something we just say, hey, we we don't do that here. You can go to Michael's Hobby Lobby, go on Amazon, order all the stuff, figure it out. Maybe you have a grandkid or a daughter or a son who wants to do it. It's just it's time consuming. It inevitably they lose a beat or two, and and then it's too small, then they're oh, it's a little too tight, or or something like that. And what are you gonna charge them? That's the problem. Yeah. 15, 20 bucks. Let's just say it's $20. Yeah, it's gonna take an hour, two hours. Yeah, I mean, it probably doesn't take that long in most cases, but it feels like you have to like stop everything and like go sit down. Like it feels like it takes an hour. It's to us, we just don't do it. I'm sure there are a lot of stores who say, Oh, yeah, we could do that. And they take it in and it's a good will to the customer, and the customer eats it up. Not us. And are those really gonna be your good customers? Yeah, maybe they are. I don't know. Maybe. I mean, I guess honestly, if it was a uh if it was a really good customer and they just needed a favor, maybe, maybe. Yeah, I can see that. I don't know. But even still, I don't probably still know good. Pastor, my terrorist can be like, y'all do this for me? And I'm like, no, I'm just kidding. I probably would do it. Uh I'd that I'd make Ari do it. Like, here Tom, you learn some some bean restraining. All right, now that is different than that's a little different than Pearl Restraint. And rats. Because that's people who I actually ate for just worth it. So I know everybody, I don't even know what Geller charges for pearl restraining. We should look it up. But in our area, for us. No, I don't want to. I can I can see our old book, right? Underneath this camera. Yep. Um, but I'm not gonna look it up. Yep. If you know what the Gellar pricing for permal restrain can, let us know in the comments. We don't follow that part there. Nope, I should just get hooks. Um, so for us, we don't personally do it. I don't even want to learn how to do it because I think if I learn how to do it, I'll feel the pressure to do it in a pinch, and I just don't want to. For us specifically, before I even opened this shop at the old place, me and Brad both worked. There was a lady who would come every week or two and just pick up and drop them off. And I don't I don't want to say too much because people can be like, I'm gonna start sending any of my pro restringings. We will not accept it. But she literally charges us uh one dollar per inch to do it wholesale. So we just save up until we have you know four or five, six of them, and I'll text her and say, Hey, I got some restringings. Her or her husband will come pick them up. Yep. She'll restring them a week later, or if she's busy a little bit longer, or we get it back, we just tell people three to four weeks because we might sit on it for a while. And it's just something that I have enough interest in doing for the same reason, it's just time consuming. Um, but it's something we outsource. I don't know if he does his power test, but I know how to know how to curse.

SPEAKER_02

But I how do I not know that?

SPEAKER_01

Uh, because I don't tell anybody because telling the world right now. Well, I'm also telling everybody I'm not touching them. Uh and it's in a pinch if you need somebody, Brad.

SPEAKER_02

Nope, nope, in a pinch. Learn it yourself. No, I got one of those tools, the little uh you like loop it around and then poop and then push the thing off, and then the knot cones on it, but it it is gosh, it's horrible.

SPEAKER_01

It is it's worse than watch services. Well, the lady that does it for us, uh, she said she just does it while she's watching. She I think she treats it like crochet. She just watching TV, it just it just does it. And see, I know there's different types, and that's like the the cheat code is to do it the way with the tool. And I've seen people do them with like tweezers, and I think that's more you could more like crocheting.

SPEAKER_02

Um, but yeah, there are times like I would do it, and then you do like three-quarters of the the necklace, and then it pops off of the tool wrong, and you're just like, Well, crap, I have to cut them all off, start all over.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, I just our good our uh good friend Casey. Uh she does it. She does. Oh. Um watch this in the next six months and get back to it. She won't. But I think her and some other people have been like, I can show you how to do it. I'm like, no, it's okay. I don't even want to know how to do it. Because now it's easier for me to be honest when I tell people, I don't know how to do restreaming. Sorry, I send it off to this lady, so it's gonna be three or four weeks. Well, I really need it for the wedding next weekend.

SPEAKER_02

Yep.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I can't help you, but now I know Brad. Casey can. We'll just send you that. Well, we need it by this weekend, Brad, for the wedding. Oh, well, you can do it. Overnight shipping. We should do it. All right, I threw my tool away. Hey, so I'm going home and throwing it away. Speaking of things that we threw away, so we because above all else, I'm an honest person. If nothing else, he's honest. Nothing else, I'm honest. So if I knew how to re restring pearls, I would not be able to lie and tell people that I can't. But when I first opened, speaking of things you just randomly do uh just because you can, uh, hand stamping stuff was like a You are the man. And people found out, like other jewelry, like having to send you some stuff to hand stamp. So I legit, after a year or so being open, like because it was like the same thing, time consuming. It's like it's stamping on like aluminum and copper. I'm telling you, when you first open a store, you will do anything for money. But uh I legit throw away all the hand stamping stuff now. Sorry, yeah, yeah, I got rid of that. There was even a time we did a uh project for somebody, and like two or three years later, they're like, I want another one made for like Mother's Day. What's my I'm like, I literally cannot hand stamp anything for you. I'm not buying the tools. Nope. And I felt bad, but I say pop, I don't feel bad because two seconds. Yeah. I was like, oh man, I'm so sorry. Uh you can order all the stuff and try it yourself, though. Yep. Man, it was I'm but it legit just threw it away that way. Because I knew if I kept it, I'd be like, I'll just do this. I can do it. I'll just do this as one time, and then it'll be that same repeat customer like every three years that has a new grandkid.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, all right.

SPEAKER_01

We've moved on, right? Yes. All right, so the other thing that we get of phone calls all the time, and this is something we just say we don't do it. And that's appraises. Yeah, we don't. We get these phone calls, which I'm sure every jewelry store does. Hey, you guys do appraisals. First off, when people call and ask that question, 50-50 chance that they actually don't want an appraisal. They want to sell gold or they want to see something real, yeah, or something like that. Yeah. But they don't want an official appraisal that is typed up and that they pay for. But in the event that someone actually really does want an appraisal, we just say, I'm so sorry, we don't do appraisals. Now I will give the caveat to what if we do a custom ring where we supply everything, all the diamonds, center, accent, everything, I don't mind doing an appraisal then because I know exactly what I'm doing. Now there's a couple reasons we don't um there's a couple reasons we say we don't do appraisals. One, I think if you want to do an appraisal appropriately and correctly, you should probably have some type of schooling for that and education for that. Yeah, I would say so. Um, neither of us went to uh GIA to get our GG or anything like that. To me, I've never had a desire to do that. No. Um now, part-time girl Ari, um, she's expressing some interest in this, so this might be something that we walked down, and I told her that you know this would be a good opportunity for extra money for her because I would treat that more of like a wholesale account and just say, hey, you know, I have an appraisal for you, and she kind of does it on her own time outside of work. Yeah. Um, but that's that's a future thing. So that's one of the reasons. I just, yes, if you do this long enough, you could probably get pretty close on the color and clarity of diamonds and do the research.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But the main reason I say no is because I hate with a passion doing them. And I know there's people that enjoy it, but I am not one of them. What what do you dislike about them? Everything. There's nothing I like about it. It's just it's just another interruption of my life and day. If I'm in the groove of soldering, repairing, setting stones, helping customers, and to just to know I have to set down time to measure stones, to do math, to type everything up. Like I hate it. I don't know why. I just hate it. That makes sense. Your wife used to do appraisal to she liked. Thing. Um you know who speaking of, we mentioned Casey already. She is a GG and also doesn't do appraisals. Why did why what did she do it for then? Well, I mean I'm sure the only reason people don't get their GG just so they can do appraisals. Why else do they do it? To be uh the expert in their store when it comes to all things gemology and diamonds.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

unknown

Cool.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, we know just enough to get ourselves in trouble in and out of trouble, but we're no experts by any means. Um I just hate doing them. I don't I don't really I feel like I should explore this a little bit, but I there is no part of me that has any interest ever in doing appraisals. Why amazes me that Casey does it. Does has she ever told you why she does it? Probably the same reason that I don't just hate doing it. Like even when let's just say there's an instance, which we'll get to. Let's just say um we had uh Jake Fox do a ring from start to finish. And and sometimes that happens, which we'll get to, uh, just from start to finish. CAD casting, stone setting, just send me the finished job. Yeah, and then he'll even send me like, hey, here's the uh let's just say it's a three karat lab ground, here's the report for it, here's the weight of all the the melee, and I have everything at my disposal. I hate just doing typing up just to have to sit there and walk over to the computer and type up an appraisal because I just part of me just thinks appraisals are stupid, and I know they're important, I know people need them, but I just I hate it. I would just see it. Yep. I wonder if I can start asking Jake, like, hey, before you ship this, can you type up an appraisal? Does he do appraisals? I'm sure he does. Okay. I don't know. He's smart. He probably does. He probably has like a he can probably just talk to the computer and then AI does it. No, I think we're we're getting there. I mean, there are programs I think where you can like plug in the stuff and it um it'll kind of do it for you. But you probably have to buy into it. Maybe we'll get a sponsor with one of those companies. I'm just kidding. That would be so annoying. I would never, guys, I promise you right now. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna do that to you. I promise. If somebody came and said, hey, well, I guess if they offered a lot of money, the way we could spin it is like, hey, we hate doing you hate doing appraisals? We do. Well, here's a word from our sponsor. Okay, never say never. Right, exactly. But uh, but I don't want to pay for the service to even have it sped up. I just don't want to do it. So again, yeah, in your store, if you have a GG there or you have someone that loves it, I think is a great moneymaker for the store. I don't even know what the Gorn rate is for appraisals. I feel like it's like 100 to 200, maybe. But and I feel like most of the time, so 50% of the time when people ask, do you do appraisals? They're truly only asking if you do an actual written appraisal. And then I want to say 50% of that 50%. Oh, oh, do we oh, we're so good. 50% of that 50%, I feel like what they have is not even worth appraising. Yep. And so it's just a lot of it's a lot of conversations, a lot of words, a lot of typing, and I just don't care for it.

SPEAKER_00

And customers have two pushbacks usually. One that it costs 150, 200, whatever it is now. And and they probably have they might have like six, six pieces or seven, six or seven.

SPEAKER_02

The other thing that people complain about is if if they just want to pay more in insurance, and they get real mad if the thing that was appraised 20 years ago is now just five hundred dollars more than it was 20 years ago. Yeah, for some reason.

SPEAKER_01

Oh we're staying there. I think I think we should just keep pressing because I it'll still record even if it freezes up on the internet. Okay, as far as I know. Oh we're trying something new again. Yeah, the pushback is why did it appraise for that much or why did it appraise for that little?

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, exactly. No, if you're somebody that loves appraisals, love doing them, and love talking about it, to me, it sounds painful. And if that's you, let me know in the comments. Hey, we might have you off. Can you try to convince try to convince us that it's cool and it's fun to do appraisals? It's not, if it's not. Um, so again, that is that is something that we don't do. And as a store, if you have a way to do that, you have somebody on staff who can do that in their time and and they have the freedom to do that and they enjoy doing it, I think that's fantastic. Um but if you're a smaller store and it sounds dreadful and it sounds time consuming and you're busy and you're short staffed, just say you don't do it. I would like to get to a place where if, and I think some stores do this, if they have someone locally that there's some people I know that they just do appraisals or jewelry stores. Okay, and I wouldn't be opposed to that if there was someone local we did a good job that we could trust and say, hey, and we and maybe in your story you say, hey, you know, the second Thursday of every month we have uh Gigi here who sits down and and does appraisals you can schedule appointments for them to sit down and you know they were born to be a praiser. But it's got there's if your name is Gigi and you have your GG. Let us know in the comments. We want to talk to you. I would like to actually talk. That would be interesting. Somebody's gonna be like, Well, my name is George Garrison, and I go by GG. There's a George Garrison out there. Surround the hole. All right, so appraisals, yeah, we don't do. Yeah. Um, and that's why. Yeah, because we hate it. Yeah. And you know what? While we're on this topic, there anything in your jewelry store that you don't want to do is perfectly acceptable to tell finance we don't do that. And don't explain it, just say, oh, I'm so sorry, we don't do that, and then just stare at them. Because if you give them an inch, they will take it. Oh well what what about this? Can you do this? Yep. And because I the longer we're 10 years into the store being open, and the longer I do it, I'm uh getting a lot better at saying, like, yeah, we'll we'll do that. Oh, well, can't you adjust? Yeah, I could adjust, but I'm not going to. That's not something we do. We're really busy with repairs and custom work, and so that's just not something that that we'd have time for.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Well in Tab Houston in. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Don't know what to tell you. Somebody's taken this straight to heart and they're just like, oh, I don't like to do chain soldering, so I'm not gonna do that. Well, hollow rings. Hollow chain repairs. We do them. Yeah, a lot of people don't. And a lot of people don't. Yep. I and if if you're somebody that's like, oh, I don't touch them, I get it because honestly, sometimes I'm like, me should stop doing this. Um, whatever, I just think as jewelry stores, whether you're a staff or an owner or a bench tooler, we have to like be okay with just saying no to stuff.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And I don't know what it is about this industry that just makes us not want to say no. But man, we we got to we gotta get past it. Yep. All right, Brad. Uh, the next one on the list is your favorite. Um, servicing watches. Yeah. Yeah. Now why don't you break it down to what we do and what we don't so we do batteries, we do link removal, we do crystals.

SPEAKER_02

If they're browned, if they're any other shape, we don't do them. Um stem and browns occasionally and movements. Um but I'm starting to hate movements as well. And it's it's more like you were saying, of just like, okay, I gotta stop what I'm doing. Uh I gotta get everything situated, order the parts, and does it take a long time?

SPEAKER_01

No, but it it's just the stopping what I know is productive and profitable and doing something that is just not that great. Now, I will say, which I think we're getting better at what we do take in a watch for just for the movement replacement. I think we just gotta keep raising the price. Eventually it's I think it's I don't know who it is. Uh and I'm not speaking high or low of them. I just know there's somebody that occasionally uh advertises on JHJ about you know doing wholesale watch repair and they give like the price list. And the wholesale price list that they're charging is like sometimes very close to what we charge retail. No, shoot. And so it is a sign of the times that I think all jewelers, again, another thing we struggle with is raising prices. I'm not saying just across the board, sweeping raising prices, because there's some things we don't raise the price on for a long time.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But things, especially if you hate doing it and it's a pain in the butt to do it and you don't want to do it, yeah, just at minimum raise the price to where people where most people are saying, I don't really want to, I don't want to get that movement replaced on the fossil watch for you know 125. Yeah. Where in the past we might have, you know, back in the day charge, you know, 50 bucks and then 75 depending on the movement. Yeah. And now I just think we need to be at, if we're gonna do it, like it needs we need to be able to make that 100 bucks at it's like 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's like batteries.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, you know, we got tired of stopping what we're doing to do batteries, so we just raise the price to where it's less annoying. It's less math to keep going. Obviously, because we would still bring me in. And there's stores that just don't do watch batteries, yeah. And again, I get it. I think Jake Fox has said or does, or maybe he was talking hypothetical, or maybe he just doesn't do it. It's just like, yeah, we don't do we don't do watch batteries. And it's okay, not it's okay. I'm I'm shocked that um clients that come into a jewelry store and just think that we can do like 40 different things well.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

It's like, you know, can you engrave, fix my clock, fix my watch, can you fix my chain? Can you do a custom job? Can you do this appraisal? Can you fix my iPhone screen? And it's like the list goes on and on. I'm like, I can't. Yep. And we try to explain people in the jewelry industry, there's lots of facets to focus on. Yep. And there are people who are like, man, I I love to hand engrave, I love to do some watch repairs, and I can dabble in some clocks. That's fantastic. Do it. But we have to, I think we have to normalize, letting customers know that we can't do everything. Like, oh, I got these rocks I found in a you know, with gym mining. Can you cut them and set them? It's like, okay, I can set them, but I don't cut stones. Yep. And there might be a guy out there somewhere who's like, oh, I can cut stones and hand fabricate jewelry, and he loves doing that. That's fine. That's awesome. Do you. But I can't, you know, have a laser engraver, hand engrave, you know, make, you know, cast, CAD, cut stones. Like it's just, I think it's cool when you can, but we can't do it all. Yeah. And going back to watch batteries, I understand Jake's point because when you take in a watch battery, there's times, I mean, we all it doesn't happen to us much anymore, but you could bring a stem, you could bring the crystal, you can have people, well, this was working just fine, and then you're ending up having to replace a movement.

SPEAKER_02

And if you don't have some resource to do that, like that's a good opportunity to stop dual batteries.

SPEAKER_01

Yep, because if you're not willing to say, like, okay, uh, I I know this guy down the street, or I can ship this off, have this done, or I do it myself, then you probably don't need to do watch batteries.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

It's going to end up frustrating customers and yourself. People ask us all, there's all and there's almost a slew of things under the watch category that we tell people. Like when they come in, it's like, hey, you know, as soon as we flip it over and see it's an automatic or vintage wind up watch, we just say, hey, we don't, we don't do those. Yep. Because now in our area, and even it's just hard for us to, I don't even know who to recommend anymore.

SPEAKER_02

And that's a great place to be too, is because before we would we really have to push, like, okay, but you can take it to this guy, or you can get over here, and then people would be like, well, I've been to him and he's not any good. So now we're just like, I really don't uh let us know if you know of anybody, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um and and there's other stuff too. It's like, you know, if they bring you like a two-tone watch or a watch that's you know brushed and um high shine, and it's like, oh, can you polish this up? We just say no. It's not that we can't do it, it's not that we don't know how to do it. Yeah, it's just not worth it for us because people think can you just throw it on there and shine it real quick when they've got you know it's the shiny down the middle and polished satin on the side and it's stainless steel. And I'm like, no, we're just we're just not gonna do it. Right. Yeah. Has nothing to do with not being able to do it. Has everything to do with it's too time consuming. Yep, we don't want to do it. And if we charge the way we charge for jewelry repairs to polish a watch, people would, oh I can't believe those guys they charge that much just to polish my watch. It's easier in some cases, instead of saying this high price, to just say, oh, we don't need that. Uh there I feel like that is the case sometimes on why we don't do certain things, because it's like if we just say a high price to get them to say no, then we're worried they're just gonna go tell all the friends, well, don't go to that place because they charge some overcharge on everything. I don't want that reputation either. It's just easier to say no.

SPEAKER_02

But a two-ton stainless steel bracelet like or for a watch, I mean, probably $500 is a fair price to do it.

SPEAKER_01

Uh, for us to stop what we're doing, put the wheels on that that for that, change everything up. Um and they're gonna be like, man, I just only paid $400 for this city. Exactly. Exactly. And like it's gonna be the same result. They're gonna say no. So we might as well just say you don't know. Okay, we'll do it. Yeah, you can make up a high price and hear them say no, or you can just say, we don't do that. Nope. All right. Um, this one transitions uh right into clocks. I don't know a single jewelry store that does clock repair anymore. Well, I do. I'll know that we've watched and clock, he's gonna hate us. You know what's funny is so uh I've mentioned this before, but my wife's grandfather uh was a watchmaker in our area for 60 years. And even he knew how to repair clocks. He knew he knew how he was trained to do it. Yep. And I think after like 10 years of his 60, he was like, Yeah, I don't do clock repair. Uh-huh. This is horrible. And it was probably the same reason. It's just it's just a pain in the butt, and then you get it running perfectly. We I only I can speak of the sum of this experience because to the place we worked in the past, there was a couple guys that would uh do clock repairs that worked with us or for us or whatever. And it's just, you know, you get it perfect and everything's perfect, you take it to their house, and then they want to screw around with it or adjust stuff or clean it themselves or falls off the shelf or the wall. Anyone that was kind of a genuine. Obviously, we don't do clock repair and no jewelers shit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I remember back then the walls were just covered with clocks because people would leave them and not pick them up or whatever, and it'd be just like, do you all sell clocks?

SPEAKER_01

No, this is all crap. One step further, even the clocks that are the little battery-operated ones with the little thing on the back that you can easily order and change out yourself. I've done it a million times, but I refuse to do them anymore. And I felt bad because these the little old women and old men come in, and it's just that I'm just like, we don't do it. It's along the same lines of the beat restraining. Yeah, yeah. Like it's one of those things you can't do yourself if you're capable. If not, you know, I it's not something we're not doing. With YouTube and AI, figure it out. We gotta start training people, but there's some things you can just do yourself. Or your friend, child care, big period. Um one of the next ones, which we've teased with Ari and Jake talk. Um, Jake gets a lot of air time on here. He does. He's just start paying us. She's probably gonna be like, why would I pay guys for more customers when I want less clients? Oh, well, you can pay us to stop talking about it. Oh bring us to remote. We should start putting his email, put his email right here right there. So yeah. Just kidding, Jake. We love him. Um so this goes into this. This would have been fun if he was part of this conversation. It could probably be a more detailed conversation, but um, obviously, if you've been paying attention to us for any time, you know that neither of us were already do CAD and we don't cast in-house. I'll start with the casting. We have a very, very tiny shop. Like I'm sitting in the shop and it's standing room only. Even if I really knew how and wanted to cast, I don't have the space for it. We simply don't. Now, if we move someday and I get really curious, find which is why I've never even learned, because people are like, well, you know, it sounds kind of lame that I don't even know how to cast, but I've never had to. Never had the space, and honestly, I don't really have a strong desire to learn. Uh, but I have some friends that do, thankfully. Yep. But so casting is for one, we just don't have the space. Uh, even if I really wanted to, even if I knew how, I probably still wouldn't do it. Because whether you uh whether you have a buddy in the business who can do your casting for you, or if you use some of the big casting houses that do a great job, to me, it just makes way more sense to to outsource that.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And I know there's stores that they do all the, you know, maybe they'll do the CAD in-house, but then the casting house will do the casting and then they they receive it. So when I'm working with um a couple different friends in the business or even Jake Fox, depending on the job. Sometimes I'll say, hey, just you know, CAD, cast it and then ship it to me. They call the clipping ship, and I'll do all the finishing here. Um, if we're really busy, then I'll say, Hey, can you set you know the hidden halo for me? So I don't have to do it. And um, and then sometimes I'm like, hey, can you just do this whole job because we're we're crazy busy right now, and uh and I adjust the times accordingly. Um so that's for the casting part. So even if I learned how to do CAD tomorrow, I would probably still outsource casting. Again, if you are a store like uh Monarch Jewelers or uh we have some friends, uh Mike and Elise up in Virginia, we got our buddy Mac who's been on the show down in Walterboro. They are fully capable of casting, they have the space to do it, and they can do all this stuff in-house. I think it's awesome for them. It's just not not for me. And I think um as a jewelry store, you have to figure out you know what are the things that we can do and do well, and what are some things that we can actually unload this and put it off on another company or another person and free up our time to focus all other stuff.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. I think casting is one of uh it it it sound it seems easy, it sounds easy. I think people think they can get into it very uh easily just because you know it it seems simple, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um, but to to be really good at casting, it it takes a while and it takes a lot of money and it's not yeah, you gotta have the right equipment and the right ratios and formula and weights, and there is there is an exact science to it, which is probably why I don't like it. It's kind of like baking to me. It's like I I would like to go out to the grill and grill something up or put something in the oven, but to like bake a cake because everything is precise and there's more of a science to it. It's just how I'm wired. I would love that. Maybe I should maybe you should get in the casting. Um, CAD, CAD is the other one. Um, me and Jake have had so many conversations about this because you see it all the time on all the forums. It's like, hey, I want to learn how to do CAD. Um, how do I get started? And Jake sometimes comes across as maybe a bit pessimistic, but I think he's more of a realist in the sense of, okay, are you really prepared to do all that it takes to become good and efficient at CAD? And I again, if you have a store, like we we mentioned Mac, he has his son in-house, who he has the freedom to kind of like send him to a couple schools or a couple programs, and that gives him the time to kind of learn. And I think that's great. We don't have that luxury, and that's okay. Again, I've never really had a desire to learn CAD. But if Brad or Ari were like, I really want to do this, and um, they were committed. I know, I know you don't. I would be open to that. And so what I have figured out is I started doing the math. Like, let's just say I really wanted to get into CAD. Let's say I want to get into casting, both. I have to, you know, you have to have a computer that can support the program. You have to buy the program and the licensing. You have to spend probably a thousand of hours to actually get good at it. I'm not saying within a few hours you couldn't do like the basic stuff. I get that. But to really get good at it, yes, it's so much time and money. Yep. And I'm not dissuading anybody. From doing that because we need good CAD artists who know what they're doing, who can design jewelry that's actually meant to last, which is why there's people like Jake that we you know speak so highly of. Because he's done it so long and he's so fast and efficient at it. He actually saves me money by doing the CAD for us. And like I said, there's times when I say, hey, just clip and ship that casting and and let me do all the work if I have the freedom to do it. And I know if we have too many custom jobs lined up and one of them's too detailed, there's too many stones, or I'm gonna be on vacation, then then there's different levels that we can kind of to help keep our business moving because there's nothing worse than um just overpromising stuff and not being able to deliver.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. I think if you're going to get into CAD, just treat it like any other job. Like, okay, this I'm not going to be great at this for two to three years, and I'm gonna have to build a foundation and we'll have to go slow.

SPEAKER_01

It's not something that you learn a program, and in six weeks you're doing every type of CAD possible. Now, this you said something, right? This is a it's not a sponsorship or anything like that, but I've mentioned that Discord um from Bench Tulers. Yep. Um I I've been trying to put the link in this in this video where you're watching it. I'll I'll put the link somewhere in the description.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Um but there is uh one of the uh categories in there, and I that's why it's not a page modern ship, because I don't remember all the names, but there is a school there or a link to a school or a guy who does like training for CAD. And apparently it's pretty it's pretty awesome. Nice. I know Stellar does it, I know New Approach. There's so many you could learn a lot on YouTube. Um so I think if if if that's something you're interested in, I think you should go for it. I think you just have to have a proper perspective of it's gonna take a lot of time and money to get really good at this and to and to make it quick and um and good. Um, but if you know some guys or you know some gals who are good at this, or even some there's a lot of companies out there now that offer you know CAD and casting and all that kind of stuff. I think it's I don't judge stores when they're like, hey, we outsource all of our custom jewelry, and then there's stores who we do a hundred percent of it in-house, yeah, and then we're kind of in in the middle, kind of figuring it out, but you have to do what's best. I think that's the whole point of this episode is uh we're just explaining what we do and why we do it, but it's not how you should do it. Right. For some of you watching, it's gonna be hey, we can do way more than what they're doing. And for some of you, it's like we can't even do to that extent, because I'm starting I started seeing on um some of the I don't know if it was Discord groups or JHJ or menstrual groups, but there's as time goes on, people are having a hard time finding bench jewelers. And I saw a post, I'm paraphrasing as basically like we've always had an in-house jeweler, but now he's since retired for whatever reason, gotten too old to do it. And so they're trying to figure out okay, well, now we're shipping out repairs, and there's this it's as time goes on, this is the reality. We're gonna have to get better at I think it's I think there's not as many stores as we think who are doing everything. Right. We're fortunate enough to know a few that do everything, and I think that's awesome, but also we figured out like, hey, that's not for us, at least not in this season. Yeah. And so, and there's nothing wrong with that.

SPEAKER_00

And I think some people can stretch themselves too thin, trying to be everything, um, just so they can say, Oh, yeah, we do everything in-house, and and their quality suffers because of it, instead of just taking a measured approach.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, if you have been doing CAD for five years and you know, have it dialed in the casting process, hey, just send your cat out to a casting house and let them do it, and when you get it back, you can just finish it. Um, or hey, I can do all the casting and I love it. I just never learned cat. Okay, well, find you an awesome CAD guy, sit the while, you print it, you cast it. Like there's so many variations, which is you know, I've if I've said it once, I've said it a million times. This is why I get sometimes so frustrated with the comments and JHJ when people ask questions because everyone acts like there's a one answer that fits all.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_01

And we're here, in our opinion, to say that that's not the case. The one answer is there's there's not an answer. Yeah, that's it. There's not like what we do. Some of you might go, I can't believe they don't do some of that stuff. And for others, they're thinking, man, like I feel so like behind because I can't do all that stuff. And then there's a few people that are, you know, just like us. And there's everything, every variation of the in between. I think that's perfectly fine.

SPEAKER_03

Yep.

SPEAKER_01

At the end of the day, we're all just trying to do our best, and we don't want to I don't know about everybody else, but I don't want to go home stressed out, irritated, um, or I don't want to live at work and feel like I have to come in early and stay late every single day. There's a measure to working hard that I enjoy, but I just don't want to be consumed with with work. Yeah, working hard is different than stressing open things. Yeah. Um, I said I was gonna mention Ari because we were doing Shot Talk. Yeah. And um she's been needed uh designer now, right? The reason we want her to be on here is because she's been at this for a little over a year, but then she missed some time with the uh with the birth of their first child. And so I've always said it takes about a year to kind of start getting like comfortable with talking to customers and being able to answer questions. You kind of know a little bit, but you don't know everything, but you know enough, you know more than the customer coming in. And so she's just started. We got to get her in here. I'm just teasing it though, because now when you watch this, we got to get her in there. I'd be curious to see her perspective on what it's like coming into the jewelry industry with no experience. And then in the last month, we've been really pushing her to like, hey, you email the CAD guy and you give the instructions, and then they're getting feedback, and I'm kind of prying in on the emails to make sure you know she's not uh leaving stuff out or taking shortcuts or or doing too much, which Aries don't be doing too much. She's the sweetest person on the planet, yes. Um, which is sometimes a hindrance in this business. It sure is. If you're too sweet, you gotta be straight to the point, Ari. Um, but she's she's gone from asking us everything, literally, like every take-in, like what's this, how much is it?

SPEAKER_02

So now, like she will set appointments for custom designs. They come in.

SPEAKER_01

We're in a good spot now, and she she handles it from top to bottom, and uh resting gonna have to start paying her for. This is this is already most of the day now. Yeah. Uh she's getting that experience of like, you know, you get all the information that the customer gave you for exactly what they want, and then she sends that email, and then we get, you know, Jake sends us a CAD back, and uh, and then they're like, oh well, actually, and then they have changed it because he said he got he got it to us faster than we thought. It's like, yeah. Like, welcome to this industry. Yes, welcome to the jewelry industry. So maybe I mean have BJ and your Lice Pump. Did you see that? He was at Ther's wedding. That's the Rubber. Supposedly. Couple people said it was not real, but it looked real. I mean, uh who knows what's real anymore. Are we real? I don't know. I don't know. I just know I saw a picture of him at that wedding. The last thing that I wanted to talk about that we don't do because he's engraving. Now I probably think that we're not like Ron. I didn't I didn't I actually think I would kind of like to learn hand engraving. I just don't have time. But um what I would like to do is like on a laser engraver, and um, it's a little bit of a space issue, but mostly what I think Brad, I wanted to mention laser engravings, because if somebody if some company wants to send us one for free so that we can review it, I'll try to see it. I'm joking, I'm joking. But I I am gonna plug that Discord group again. Let me pull let me pull it up. I could have just pulled up my phone right here. Um so the if you were interested in the CAD stuff, um CG Nouveau CAD uh Academy. If you join the I have a special link just for people who listen to Bench Tooler Memes. Uh, if you click that link, then the guy who runs it, Kevin, will know that uh you came from us. Uh but there is a section there. Do we get paid anything for that? No, we do not. Oh. But I'm gonna have Kevin on with it because I think he would be a cool guy. Um, but also there is another section. So there's kind of like a uh in the Discord, there is a section called uh discounts and sponsors. And so they'll do some giveaways, and there's the CG uh Nouveau Cat Academy. I hope I'm saying that correctly. But there's another section there for Unified Lasers. Um and this is our um I've never met him, but we have talked. Uh Tom Greenless, I believe is his name. If I said that wrong, I'm sorry. But he's in that group, and I think there's some special pricing in there if you're part of the group. And also uh uh guess one is in here as as uh they get a little a little discount for using that. We're we're working on something. Oh yeah. Yes, yeah, we're working on something. We're working on something. Grant, why why would you do that? Why would you do that? Uh but also in that discounts and sponsor is a little bench tooler meetings. And um Kevin said, I just wanted to give you your own little your own little channel there. Um I forgot that I asked uh last night, hey, anybody got any show of topic ideas? And I I didn't stick around to wait to see their answers on the still recording. Oh, so it's a all right, still are hacked in and they're like they're like, oh, we shouldn't have yeah. Um but man, it it's a good little thing. I don't it's weird that I'm plugging something that I have has nothing to do with me, but I genuinely think that it's a pretty cool thing that it started. Um we're gonna get Brad on there. I've already tried to get Drew Hadley on there. I'm trying to get Jake on there. Um I do think if you're new to the business or not new, or maybe you're experienced and you have some expertise to share, I think you should join the Discord. It's pretty fun. Uh as long as you're not a jerk. Can't be a jerk in there. Can't be a jerk in there. So they want to say. Um, but yeah, so we have some episodes coming up. I know we teased it, but I do believe we're gonna have Adam Kasen from Guest One slash Seasma on very soon this month, the month of July. Um we might have Kevin on from the Discord group. Uh we're gonna try to get Ari in here. Yes. And so I think having a guest kind of breaks up um sometimes when we just get to rambling. Um by the way, if you're listening this far, someone said that we were boring, and if you think that I am so sorry. But they didn't they did circle back, they they clarify clarified, it just does do this for you. Yeah, and I I will own it. Um, you know what you're supposed to do? Buy me a coffee. Uh if you listen this far, congrats, because most people don't. Uh, but there is uh the only way to square our show, because we've joked about people sending us laser engravers or sponsoring it. Maybe if you're in a basil company and you want to, I'm just joking. Um, we've gotten people who reach out and are like, hey, I would love to be on your show because this is what my business offers, and I don't know how much you charge. We honestly say no to almost all of that because we want to be true to ourselves, uh, which is why a company like Seller, who we love, would probably never you know sponsor anything like this, which we're okay with. They have a business to run and so do we. But um buy me a coffee is the only way to support the show, what we're doing here. We've actually upgraded lights, cameras, computer, microphones, all because of the listeners of this show have just sent in five bucks, twenty bucks, a hundred dollars. Uh so for so for that, we're actually very grateful for that. We appreciate it. Um, and because it's been a few weeks since we read Buy Me a Coffee, maybe that's why we don't have very many to read. Oh, because what do we do? I mean, buy us a coffee. We read it, we read it. Whatever we gotta say. Whatever you gotta say, I think the last one we read was we had mentioned Dahlia, and she just uh sent us $10 and said, I'm a girl. Yeah, I read that. I read that. So we're like, No, yeah, I don't know if that's a weird girl. I'm not gonna get an idiot. So there's only two to read. Okay. One is from a Donna. Adonna? Donna, but I don't know if that's a man or one. Uh Donna, thank you. She sent us $10 and said, Thank you for the laughs. Hey, you're welcome. I I assume she's done with me. Probably. All right. And now the next one is from uh Michelle. Uh she also sent us $10. Uh Michelle here. Just wanted to give a shout out to my local jeweler, Johnson Jewelers of Woodbury, Minnesota. Who I got hooked on the potty. Thanks for being awesome jewelers. Wow. So yeah, that's a little bit confusing because I said just want to give a shout to my local jeweler, Johnson Jewelers. Mm-hmm. And she got them hooked on the potty. And by potty, we mean podcast. So they got her. No, it sounds like them. Sounds like yeah, it sounds like she got them hooked on the potty. Hey. It's like crap. Um, what we really want to do is it sounds like we're asking for money, but I actually really do enjoy reading these because people type, if you listen in the past episode, people type some hilarious stuff, and we will always read it. Yep. Um, no matter what. We even had uh Pepe Tools uh send us like 10 or 15 bucks, and we and we read it. Very cheap sponsorship. Yeah, but not ever had Stoller do that. It was weird. They did send us a big box of dum dumps though.

SPEAKER_02

They did mystery dum gumps, yeah, yeah, yeah. We called that, called them out on that, didn't we?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. We love everybody here too. We're just thinking, we're just thinking and agreeing. If if we don't oh yeah, I think we said it before. If we we picking, we call it. If we pick it, we love it. You can tell we have nothing else to say over here. We are just feeling but we're actually excited to do a full-length episode once again. This was an interesting topic. If you have topic ideas, uh first off, best place in the comments of the YouTube video. If you're not subscribed on YouTube, if you're listening to this on Spotify or Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts, we think that's awesome. If you could just switch over to YouTube, you don't have to watch it, but you can just go and hit that subscribe button because the last time I checked before recording, we are like one or two people away from hitting 300 subscribers, and we need to get to 500 as soon as possible so that we could tap into some of the uh monetary perks of YouTube. We'll get more of that later.

SPEAKER_00

I think we'll also do different things with YouTube as well. Yes.

SPEAKER_01

Like I'm pretty sure like the live stuff, we have to have a certain amount of yeah. We really want to do some some live stuff. Um when our when our schedule allows, we might do some just follow us where you can. Stay tuned. We try to do a really good job of keeping everybody up to date on what's going on, what's changing, what we're doing. Um, if you have sh show topic ideas, email them at email. I don't want to turn, I don't want to turn on this one, Paul. I gotta turn that on. Don't there might be some emails to read, but we're not gonna do it. Oh, think so. Um, so send us an email. Um sometimes people send us uh show topic ideas, and I think they're really great, but it's like a four-minute conversation, or it's just asking our opinion on it. And so maybe one day we'll just accumulate all those little quick topics and plow through them. Yep. Um, it's hard to you know talk for 45 minutes on my I don't know. Do you prefer claw prongs or just the regular ones? It's like claws. All right, dig next. I don't know. I don't know how I don't really have a preference to be honest. I like I like all prongs. Um as long as they're not worn down, like your bald tires or the threads, bald hands. Gotta top them off. All right, are we done? We're done. Thanks for listening. Thanks for supporting us. Thanks for sharing. Um keep doing those things because if y'all stop, then we won't record another episode. Well, thanks for listening to episode 44. Um, if you have any questions, comments, let us know. And we'll see you on the next episode. See you later, Brad. Bye.

SPEAKER_05

And everyone played. Back to the band. See you next week.

SPEAKER_02

Man, hey, look at you over there. I got a big toy seat.

unknown

Oh.

SPEAKER_01

Hey, don't worry about the boy pants. Alright, so quick check. How is your how is your mic?

SPEAKER_00

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_01

How's your ears? Good. How's your how's your headphones? Oh, they're good too. Oh. I just want to see how your ears would do. And how do you have eagles? Trying to figure out if I want to sit like straddle this thing. We gotta leave that in there or probably not. But probably take that out.

SPEAKER_02

No, we're gonna keep it there.

SPEAKER_01

Or do I want to sit more comfortably like this?

SPEAKER_02

I don't know. That's up to you, Dusty. You're like the customers that are like, uh I don't know. Do you think I should wear it like this or like this? This is too tight. Alright. I just as a as a center.

SPEAKER_01

As a center. We're a little far back, but it's okay. It's been a good one. Well, it's cool that we can see each other though. Well, yeah, we don't have to, but if we want to.

SPEAKER_02

Also, we're not gonna deal with that camera though, because we're looking down here, which is where our monitor is. Um oh, we should put the computer up above it. Yeah, we should.

SPEAKER_01

I can actually. No, I I can't raise it up, but I can get oh my god. I can get it closer at least. Oh, I just moved the camera, didn't I? Oh my god, look at that. We gotta clean that back room. Alright, I think we're I think we're good now. This is I mean, we're looking in the vicinity. Yeah. Yep. All right. Let's talk about mangelias. If I had good posture, this is all I bet I don't think. This is good though our our heads are kind of the same. That's good though. There's a wall here in case anybody was curious. I don't even know what episode this is. I think we discussed it was 44? Yes, this is 44. What are we doing? Are we ready? Alright. We didn't really do a lot of pre-show banter this time.

SPEAKER_03

I gotta tan.

SPEAKER_01

I gotta tan all the way to like I gotta look at you. All freaking all skinned between the coat between the beach and the lake in the last two weeks. You look at the laser is all wipe. How's how's how's your lighting? Is your face look pretty? Which looks fantastic. We gotta figure out something. We gotta cover up that TV behind you right now. That's where we should just put like a drape over it that says pinch shoulder memes. We're back in front of the sun. Finally. Oh, also I realized now you can kind of see our security camera back there. That was fine. Oh, okay. Speaking of freaking. Alright, just so you know, we only have like two bottom of coffee to read. It's been like what three weeks, and we've got two, so we really need to harp on that one. We gotta harp. Alright, let me see. Turn off my do not or do not disturb. Do not disturb. I got an email about our business license that has already been renewed at the same time. Alright, let's see. Mere, are we ready? Do we know what we're talking about? What's the approach we're gonna take with this? How are we gonna lead in? I don't know. Uh we're just gonna Because we said we were gonna sell it like how? You know. Like there's stuff we don't do, but here's the why. And we need to sell it in a sense of like don't think you have to do everything.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Because that's stupid.

SPEAKER_01

What's a good um it's gonna be a good episode title for this. That's why yeah, it does. Alright, are we just we're just gonna do it because we wasted enough time? Yep, let's do it. Okay. Alright, uh, I will clap because that'll help me know where to stop and put this towards the end. And we found out from Mike and Elise that when we put this at the end to clap, it just rolls right into the next episode, which is that's how you should listen to these. Or you should listen to them every week till they come out instead of waiting a month and a half. Yep. Whatever floats your boat. All right, are we ready? Yeah, real quick. I feel like I feel like I'm not ready, and I don't know why. I'm gonna get my coffee too. Did I move it again? You better know, uh I got coffee and water on Garth Books mug. I wonder if the people listen to this this far know that that's a garage book. David knows it's his birthday.

SPEAKER_00

We're recording this on his birthday. All right, this is your birthday present. You're welcome. All right, are we ready?

SPEAKER_01

Ready? All right, three.