In the Loupe
In the Loupe
Steering the Ship: Exclusive First Interview with RJO's New President, Bill Becker
In the Loupe EXCLUSIVE
Bill Becker, new President of the Retail Jewelers Organization (RJO), shares his perspective on the organization's growth from a small collective buying group in 1966 to a powerhouse with nearly 1,200 members today. As both a multi-store jeweler and industry leader, Bill offers unique insights into RJO's success factors, current challenges, and his vision for supporting independent jewelers.
Michael was honored to sit down for the first in-depth conversation with Bill to discuss taking over for Terry Dickens, now RJO President Emeritus, collaborating with Sarah Streb, CEO of RJO, and his vision for the future or the group.
Learn more about RJO: rjomembers.com
Learn more about our sponsor, Jewel-Craft: jewel-craft.com
Send feedback or learn more about the podcast: punchmark.com/loupe
Learn about Punchmark's website platform: punchmark.com
Inquire about sponsoring In the Loupe and showcase your business on our next episode: podcast@punchmark.com
Welcome to In the Loop when he took over for Terry Dickens, who'd been leading the buying group for a number of years. Up to this point, bill, as a retail jeweler himself with Becker's Jewelers, understands the future and roadmap of the industry as well as anybody and he shares his views and kind of hopes for the industry on In the Loop and it was a really cool talk. If this is your first time listening to In the Loop, I consider subscribing. Wherever you get your podcasts, whether it's Spotify or Apple Podcasts we have new episodes every Tuesday. Thanks and enjoy the conversation.
Ross:This episode is brought to you by Punchmark, the jewelry industry's favorite website platform and digital growth agency. Our mission reaches way beyond technology. With decades of experience and long-lasting industry relationships, punchmark enables jewelry businesses to flourish in any marketplace. We consider our clients our friends, as many of them have been friends way before becoming clients. Punchmark's own success comes from the fact that we have a much deeper need and obligation to help our friends succeed. Whether you're looking for better e-commerce performance, business growth or campaigns that drive traffic and sales, punchmark's website and marketing services were made just for you. It's never too late to transform your business and stitch together your digital and physical worlds in a way that achieves tremendous growth and results. Schedule a guided demo today at punchmarkcom. Slash go.
Michael Burpoe:And now back to the show. Welcome everybody. I'm joined by Bill Becker, the RJO president. How are you doing today, bill?
Bill Becker:I'm great, Michael. Thanks for inviting me. I appreciate it.
Michael Burpoe:I'm so excited to get a chance to speak with you. Like I was mentioning before we jumped on this call, I follow the news in the jewelry industry quite closely, whether it's National Jeweler or several different publications, and when I saw that you were going to be the next RJO president, I was really excited. Another, another punch mark client, um leading, uh, leading the charge. I kind of wanted to ask you can you explain your background as a jeweler as well as your relationship with RJO through the years?
Bill Becker:Sure, I'd be happy to Um. So our store. Let me start there. My dad started the store as a lot of guys did back after World War II with the GI Bill. He opened up a repair shop, started selling jewelry, then engagement rings, moved to a bigger location and then my mother got involved. They grew again and it became your proverbial mom and pop store. Then they moved to another location. I started in the business and I bought it shortly thereafter and then we opened up another location in a nearby community and a freestanding location and then, with RJO, we've always been a member. In fact.
Bill Becker:Rjo got started back. I think it was in 1966, where a small group of guys got together. They decided that they'd try buying as a collective to get better prices and my dad was part of that group actually and they found that it worked and the word got out. So it grew and grew and grew and I think as of today we're up to close to 1,200 members. So it obviously shows what the power of group purchasing can do. Some of the things that we do differently is one we guarantee payment to the vendors. So you can imagine that has a large role in how we negotiate with our vendors and being able to get better pricing. And we do streamlined billing, which helps in doing the book work for a lot of jewelers and so on and so such.
Michael Burpoe:Yeah, and I think that collective buying is definitely one of those real kind of forces of nature, even in the jewelry industry, and you start to see that it's allowed a lot of vendors to kind of spread their wings by, you know, having that guaranteed payment and sort of that. I don't know, standardization kind of has allowed people to know what to expect, but also by it almost kind of gives a seal of approval or a stamp for the members in there as well. Could you maybe talk to me a little bit about what the role of a president is in one of those groups?
Bill Becker:Well, sure, yeah, you were talking about the guaranteed payment. I mean, you can imagine how important that is to some of the vendors, knowing that they're going to get paid when they deal with people, and I've heard some people refer to that as having the biggest bat in the industry. So, as far as my role as president, I've been on the board for a long time, probably about as long as Terry Dickens has, so I've kind of seen how things go and what to do and so on and so forth. But I think that, as far as the guiding force on what this is, I think it's important to not necessarily change things but work in cooperation with the board that's there and being able to make important decisions and have great buying shows and basically making sure that the needs of the members as an individual store are being met.
Michael Burpoe:Yeah, and you know I was going to ask later on, but it brings up a great point Terry Dickens, former president, but now I don't even know how to pronounce this word, president Emeritus, something like that how are you? Did you get a chance to, you know, collaborate with him? Is he kind of still in your ear? What's that relationship like?
Bill Becker:Well, and you know, with with him as being president emeritus, that's just basically means that he's going to be there to help out and if we have any questions and such, to kind of help me become assimilated into being a board president. So with him being there, it's really helped because he's been president for so long. It's kind of second nature to him. So it's really something that, in my eyes, I think is a big plus for me being able to be there when we need him to be there, when Sarah or the staff needs him, and so on and so forth. It's just a great thing that he's elected to do and I really thank him greatly for being, for stepping into that position. So he's going to be there as long as as he wants and as long as I think we need him.
Michael Burpoe:Oh, that's great. And so there's yourself. You know, terry. There's this, this board, which is really cool. I've actually had the opportunity to interview on In the Loop two different boards at this point last year and then I believe it was from now. I guess it was three and a half years ago prior to that. But what I really admire about the board is you guys pick very different kind of I don't want to say mainly different types of businesses. You have people with multiple stores, people with single stores, people in small towns, major cities, men, women, old, young. I think it's a really kind of wide-ranging collection. Is that kind of? A main focus is to make sure you have everybody in the room that kind of can say their piece.
Bill Becker:Well, I think it's important that we have a cross section of jewelers in RGO, because we really represent a little bit of everything in our group, and I will say that the board that we've got now is really, really a strong group. I'm, you know, I might be president, but it's the board that really runs this organization. They're all very vocal, they're all very active in our decision-making process and the fact that they do come from many different walks of jewelers out there it really helps us get to see a good cross-section of who our membership really is.
Michael Burpoe:And there's, you know, one missing player that I haven't mentioned yet Sarah Streb, ceo of RJO. I've had the chance to meet her at one of the RJO shows. What is the relationship like between a CEO and a president? I must admit I'm not super familiar with larger companies Our company at Punchmark we just have a CEO. Is there kind of like a division of power, or do you guys check each other? How does that work out?
Bill Becker:Well, you know, sarah's been an amazing gal. She actually grew up in the jewelry business so she knows the ins and outs of what it takes to be a jeweler. She's been in our jail for such a long time that she's had a chance to grow with the organization and she's just really amazing. She's very dedicated to her position. She almost has an instinctive sense of what to do and how to do it. You know, it's like they say it takes a village and she's developed and become an amazing leader in our group and become an amazing leader in our group and really I can't say that I'm doing anything amazing, but she does. She's really taken that step and developed and nurtured an amazing team to help run the group.
Bill Becker:Back at our headquarters We've actually set up a system just recently where we developed the position of chief operating officer where we moved a girl into that position and another one is a chief financial officer, so she can kind of delegate some of the responsibilities of the day-to-day business and then concentrate herself as running sort of the big picture, or creative thinking, if you will, when it comes to running RGO. But I can't mention enough about how important she is as being the chief executive officer of RGO. She's really what gets things done. I'd like you know the board would like to take credit for that and we do steer a lot of the decisions that we make, but it's really Sarah that follows through and makes sure that we hit the pavement running.
Michael Burpoe:That's really, really cool. I think that starting to split up decision-making and roles just so that I always say let experts be experts you know the development team they don't ask me how to code and you know the design team we don't ask the developers how to design and I think having a flow of communication so that people can kind of see what's going on is important. But I do think that letting experts kind of have their domain is the sign of a strong company and it's really cool to hear how you guys are starting to even break that out even further as you start to grow. Because, like you said, rjo, you know, not so many years ago was just a group of people in a room trying to get a better deal on their jewelry, and now it's a conglomerate of what 1200 plus stores. I'm sure that with that scaling comes increased. Sure that with that scaling comes increased more complexity of decision making. Am I right in that?
Bill Becker:Well, there's obviously the bigger we get and the more business that we do, there's a lot of a paperwork that comes in and out of the office. There's a few more headaches, but really they're the same type of headaches that you'd have with a smaller organization. But you know things like trying to find a great venue for our shows. There aren't as many places that can handle the size of showroom that we need to have. We need to have well over I think it's 100,000 square feet to hold the shows Wow. And then the rooms. When you include all of the stores that show up, all the vendors that show up, there's hardly any properties that can fit us into one place. So we have to have backup hotels and lodging facilities and so on and so forth. So you could imagine what kind of things that does to planning a show. But it's just part of the process. Some people would call it growing pains, but we look forward to that, we accept it. We like that, I accept it. We like that, I love it.
Michael Burpoe:Bill, we're going to take a quick break and when you come back I want to start talking about your goals and vision for RGO as the president. So everybody, stay with us. This episode is brought to you in part by Jewelcraft. Running a jewelry store is no small feat. That's where Jewelcraft comes in. They're a fourth generation family owned business based in Kentucky that's built their reputation on being the reliable behind the scenes partner that jewelers across the country trust, whether it's jewelry repair, manufacturing, custom design or appraisals. They can handle anything that your jewelers don't have the time for and help scale your projects. And because their work is done right here in the USA, you avoid the hassle of overseas production delays or tariffs. That means faster turnarounds, consistent quality and peace of mind. With a team of seasoned experts and decades of experience, jewelcraft is your one-stop shop for everything you need to keep your jewelry business running smoothly, so you can stay focused on what matters most your customers. Learn more at Jewelcraftcom that's Jewel-Craftcom. Learn more about them in the show notes below.
Michael Burpoe:And now back to the show. What's up? Everybody Still speaking with Bill Becker, rjo president. So, bill, let's talk about your goals and vision for RJO. So you are uniquely positioned to be able to actually start kind of steering and directing where RJO is going to go, and already it's been a pretty, you know, substantial amount of growth. I've been in the industry for eight years and it feels like in that time RJO has really grown. Can you give me an idea on what the key issues and main focuses are for RJO for, like the next, you know, less than three years?
Bill Becker:Sure, you know, I think the issues right now is just trying to get our systems in place for the size of shows that we have, trying to take care of all the housekeeping things, because, you know, looking back in the past five years, even before COVID, we've got the golden egg.
Bill Becker:We just have to figure out how to hold on to it. So when it comes to that, I look at my role here and I'm really not trying to change anything. I'm just trying to keep this ship pointed in the right direction. And I got to keep steering back to the board of directors as as, uh, these guys are really the ones that put all the decisions together and try and uh, steer the ship in the direction that it's going and offer up, uh, some of the new programs that we've got going on and so on and so forth. But I would say, you know, I'm really not trying to change things. I'm just trying to keep things headed in the same direction and bring on all the problems that come what may and deal with those as they come on board.
Michael Burpoe:So what about the post-COVID kind of aspect? So you mentioned that things have changed in the past five years, or even more recently. I saw COVID as an impact on e-commerce and just luxury buying online and, because of the fact that travel was suddenly shut down, people had their luxury budgets, if you will, for a family and a household suddenly got poured right into tangible assets, usually jewelry, which created this large boom. Incredible couple of years, record-breaking years for jewelers. It's starting to simmer off and I've seen some stores you know have tougher years in, just you know, the past one or two, especially with an uncertain like economy. Is this something that you are speaking with jewelers about and how to? I don't know, keep, keep things flowing well for an average, average-ish independent retail store. Is that something that you guys are trying to solve as RJO, or is it about giving them the tools to solve it themselves?
Bill Becker:You know, I think none of us expected what to happen during COVID. That actually happened and I think we all benefited from that. In many ways, we were all kind of surprised to that fact and, like you said, things are getting back to normal, but I think that's the sort of thing that really brings RJO into limelight. Those people are the sort of thing that really brings RJO into into limelight. Those people are. They need us. We need them more than we ever did, and it's now is is a good time to to go to an RJO show and and go to those educational seminars and learning opportunities and networking with other jewelers, because we're all going through the same thing.
Bill Becker:We really haven't experienced any significant downturn in our economy. We've really had to watch our inventory, We've had to watch our staffing, but I think everybody's going through that and that's the type of thing that I think that going to an RJO event will help you accomplish. You are able to go to learning opportunities and seminars and educational things to learn about what people are going through and how to staff better, how to control your inventory better, what to do with that inventory that you get left over with. I mean, everybody's got aged inventory, but it's what you do with it. But that's kind of the thing. I think that what is one of RGO's strong points is that we're all in this together.
Michael Burpoe:Now, bill, let me ask if you don't mind me asking a more personal question are you still running Becker's Drillers?
Bill Becker:Oh yeah, oh yeah, we have two stores in.
Michael Burpoe:Iowa. So two stores and you're still involved on the day-to-day with those businesses, Correct? When you go as to these shows, I'm sure you have a million responsibilities as president and you probably got to go through. People want to stop you and ask you a million things. Are you also having to do some of the buying at the shows as well?
Bill Becker:Yeah, you know, obviously being at the show and being a board member and being president and being on other committees and so on and so forth, that does take a lot of the time from the show floor. But I'll take two or three people with us with a plan obviously on how to buy what we're going to do and have appointments set up. But that's another thing is learning how to live through. If you will a trade show, you know it takes planning. You can't just go without a plan. It's like they say failing to plan is planning to fail. But no, I enjoy the shows, I enjoy talking with people Many of the people that I've run into've I've run into for for many years and develop good friendships with them and, uh, it's a good thing.
Michael Burpoe:I enjoy the shows, so that's really interesting because you know you go to these shows and on the one hand, there's retailers and that's kind of who we're thinking of is these retail jewelers. They're the attendees, they're the people that are kind of the the lifeblood of these organizations. There are clients as well, but the other part of the equation, if you will, when it comes to retail jewelry, are the vendors. Punch Bark is a RJO vendor, and what defines success for RJO? Because, on the one hand, everybody wants the best deal. Why did RJO start? It's to get better deals for retailers. How are you able to balance success for, like you know, retailers, everyone wants to pay a little bit less and sell for more. But also you have vendors, I'm sure in your ear, saying you know, we don't want to sell for less, we want to sell more. Saying you know we don't want to sell for less, we want to sell more. Do you have to? Is that, like a, you know, a balancing act that I can't envy, having that position of?
Bill Becker:having to satisfy both parties of an equation. Well, you know, with with regards to the vendors, I think we're in a unique relationship that we can honestly say. Our relationship with the vendors is not a we against them, because we understand that without our vendors we wouldn't be who we are today. So we stand with them and I think they appreciate them. Obviously, there's some negotiating that goes on before a vendor belongs or joins RJO, and they understand that. I mean, we bring a lot to the table, a lot of jewelers, guaranteed payment. But I would say, you know, since we're really growing, I think they are riding that same wave that we are, and I think that true success should be measured not only by the fact that we're growing and maybe doing bigger numbers, but the multiple benefits that we provide are being met by the individual store, and that could be from educational seminars.
Bill Becker:We do a lot of other things that help. We started many years ago the RGO succession experience. It's a getaway to understand if you're thinking about getting out of the business or handing it down to Offsprings or selling it to someone else. It kind of lays out the groundwork for that. We have industry experts that come in and speak about how to value your business attorneys and how to set up that transition other people that have done the same thing and can share their experience. We also offer the benefit of the RGO Foundation where, through the generosity of our members, we have provided many scholarships that we give back to the jewelers. In fact, we've awarded well over $100,000 in scholarship funds exclusively to our members.
Bill Becker:We also are working on a RJO management development program through our friends at Optimum Retail Solutions. They're developing a strategic course where we're offering a two and a half day you might call it a boot camp off campus of RJO I think it's in Chicago and that's going to be an ongoing thing and basically it's going to teach people who are wanting to get into a management position, or who may already be in a management position, on how to do just that and develop their management skill, how to work with employees and so on and so forth. So we're really excited about that and that's something that's coming up this fall. And then, obviously, there's the patronage dividend that we're offering and that we always have, since we're a co-op, and the fact that we're a non-profit. Whatever you buy, obviously there's some fixed costs with running the organization and once those fixed costs are met. Whatever's left over at the end of the year, we give back to the jeweler and that's probably, I would say, our number one drawing card. In fact, last year we gave $16.5 million back to the membership.
Michael Burpoe:That's a couple bucks, just unheard of. That's more than I'm making a whole week.
Bill Becker:Oh my goodness well, you have to. You have to talk to your boss about that yeah, yeah, yeah, um, bill, that's really quite interesting.
Michael Burpoe:I'm glad the education is one of those things that I really do feel is is so investing in and something we focus on as well. We talked about, you know, we have the Punchmart Client Workshop. It's a big focus on our part as well, because we don't want to just send people out into an ever-changing world and have them just try to adapt or die sort of thing. To me, it's about equipping them and giving them tools. I kind of I guess that brings up, you know, one of the topics I really wanted to ask you about. I guess that brings up one of the topics I really wanted to ask you about.
Michael Burpoe:There's a running joke on In the Loop that when is the episode coming out on tariffs? And I keep saying whenever the tariffs are ready to hit, because I still don't know when they're supposed to start. I guess there's some, but I don't really know if they're fully going to happen or if they're on or off. I want to talk to you about as a retailer but also the president of a major independent jewelry store organization what are you hearing and what are you feeling about these upcoming uncertain times with tariffs and the price of gold. How are you viewing this kind of a nimbulous, you know omnipresent thing that's out there kind of a nimbulous, you know omnipresent thing that's out there?
Bill Becker:Well, with regards to tariffs, as you know and you may have heard, it fluctuates. It seems like weekly. You know. There are tariffs announced and then they're postponed. There are tariffs announced and then they're reduced.
Bill Becker:When we heard that there were going to be some significant tariffs, I remember this distinctly. I just happened to be with a group at the RGO headquarters and so we had a Zoom call with one of our largest vendors, also had some significant lengthy talks with other vendors, and we quickly realized that tariffs affect our vendors differently from vendor to vendor to vendor. For instance, if you're a loose diamond vendor and all your diamonds come, say, from Antwerp, it's pretty straightforward because Antwerp's affected in one way, so a certain amount of tariff goes on top of that right. But if you're a manufacturer and you use gold that's sourced from the United States, but your diamonds are from Antwerp but your colored stones are from India or Africa or whatnot, now you've got a whole different set of rules for each particular piece that goes into that particular item. So how do you deal with that? And then there's maybe a Canadian manufacturer who sources enough of his product from the United States, even though it's manufactured in Canada, that he's exempt. And then, of course, you have your US manufacturers that there are no tariffs on, so it's really kind of a juggling act. It's not really that clear to anybody, even the manufacturers.
Bill Becker:So it's just one of those things, such as the price of gold, that adds to the cost of an item, and it's something that, as a jeweler, we have to pay very close attention to.
Bill Becker:It seems like every time we get an invoice from a gold company, everything keeps going up, and I think the main thing to remember about that is that we need to instill upon our jewelers is that, hey, you've got to watch your inventory and mark your items up accordingly, because if you don't, when you go to turn around and repurchase that item, you're going to get blindsided by what that item costs to replace it. So, and we really try and encourage our jewelers to participate in, say, for instance, our RJ exclusive Facebook group, because we talk about things like that in addition to many other things, and if you're on there regularly, you would know about these things and what to do about them. And a lot of people ask, hey, what do I do about this? Or what do I do about that? And a lot of people ask, hey, what do I do about this or what do I do about that? And a lot of those topics are discussed. Hopefully they're answered, but it's one more benefit to our network with our RJO membership.
Michael Burpoe:Yeah, I mean one of the I always think of a group of people has a lot of inherent value just into itself. I think that when you start gathering people, you have this strength in numbers. Do you find that the onus of staying informed and up to date is on the individual jeweler, or do you think that the responsibility of like disseminating all that information is the responsibility of like an organization or like a group? There's a lot to stay on top of. I feel like you know, the first 35 minutes of my day is me reading news about the jewelry industry.
Michael Burpoe:a lot of the time, and I feel like, is everybody doing that at the same time, Do you think I mean you're a jeweler that has to stay on top of it? Are you encouraging people to stay in touch on their own, or do you find that RJO is trying to kind of pass that information on as well?
Bill Becker:Well, you can't cover all the bases all the time, but I'm kind of like you. When I do those, I see those newsletters pop up in my email or trade publications come out. Probably one of the first things I do is get online and see what other people are saying about it. You know, hey, did you read this article about this? Or man, did you see what gold prices did? Or man, there's some tariffs coming up at the end of the month. What do we do? So, yeah, we try and talk about it, but ultimately it's kind of up to the jeweler to keep up with things, and I think that's again that's part of the whole networking process. You got to find your own family group that you belong to, whoever that may be, and find your answers and find your friends, and you'll find the answers there.
Michael Burpoe:Yeah, I think it's. I mean, there's so much to stay on top of. I felt like I told this story before, but I did a whole bunch of work on a tariff episode and I, man, I was researching that thing. I spent an entire day writing down these notes. I was going to interview Michelle Graff from National Jeweler, the editor-in-chief, and we said it and they postponed them like literally the next day and I had to scrap the whole thing and then we just like kicked it down the road and I feel like I'm still kicking and I don't know.
Michael Burpoe:I mean, we're about to have this episode is about to air in the middle of the RJO show and I sometimes wonder, like, is there advice for how jewelers should be stocking for themselves? Because, again, gold price is all time high. Every single day seems like a new record. Is that? I mean, you probably don't have a crystal ball with you to tell you. Are they going to continue going all time highs, In which case you're buying it low right now, or is it? Do you expect that some people might be a little bit conservative with their purchasing ahead of the holiday season? Are you able to speculate on that kind of stuff?
Bill Becker:Well, let me look into my crystal ball.
Michael Burpoe:He just busted it out, let's go, come on Bill.
Bill Becker:You know it's all part of doing business. You know, if it's not the price of gold, it's interest rates. If it's not interest rates, it's tariffs. So you know, I see a lot of people that you know we used to be kind of the same way. We'll go to the stores or the shows and whatnot. We see things that we like and we buy those. We see things that we like over here and we buy those. But you've got to run your business, your jewelry store, like a business and you've got to buy what you need. You've got to look at what you sold in the past six months or whatever it is for Christmas or whatnot, and you've got to buy according to what you used to do, not based on what's in your heart, because you'll end up building a museum rather than something that might turn a profit for you. And trust me, I know I've been there and unfortunately, that's how you learn. Most of the time is by mistakes. I should be a very educated man by now if that were the case.
Michael Burpoe:You know, nothing teaches a good lesson like a few stinkers in your display case. So I totally understand that. But, bill, I wanted to also talk about something that's very important to me, which is this digital age, and increasingly things are becoming digital. I mean, obviously, stores are not going away, brick and mortar is not going away, but we are seeing increasing amounts of relevancy for how people market online, driving traffic to their stores, how e-commerce is playing a factor in their just bottom line in general, but also what they're stocking in their stores and listing online and how that relationship kind of develops with an omni-channel approach. Is RJO approaching that topic as kind of a frontier? Is that something that is becoming a focus? Because I know very easily a lot of times I'm trying not to do this anymore a lot of times we view jewelry as lagging behind when it comes to technology. Is that something that you hope to kind of address as a president?
Bill Becker:Well, I think that goes with the educational opportunities that we provide, and being part of Punchmark mean you you've got to be right on on top of things and and know that this is, this is the future. I mean, that's, that's where that's where it's at. From now, if you're going to advertise it's it's no longer as much newspaper as it used to be, it's no longer as much TV as it used to be. It's not as much radio as it used to be. It's all, it's all digital. It's all about attracting and, as in my case, we try and go after the engagement ring customer and they're all about online presence.
Bill Becker:As far as competition goes, heck, everybody who's got a website is my competitor technically speaking. But it's not so much different as if you say, sold a guy an engagement ring, now his kids are at that age of getting engaged, but now they moved out of state but their dad is telling them to go to the local jeweler Hopefully that's me right and we do a lot of business that way. Or what about the guy that bought an engagement ring and his pals are now at that point where they need an engagement ring, but they might live out of town or out of state. So it's really hasn't changed. It's just changed in a different manner and you have to adapt those tools to source your needs, whether it's.
Bill Becker:I think we do a lot of communication to those people that I just mentioned through either emails or now, texts or, you know, text through the website, and that's really a great opportunity because, hey, they've reached out to you directly to ask a question about something. So it's a lot more direct, it's a lot more precise and I think the rewards are a lot better. But it's hard to monitor that, it's hard to say, you know, are we doing anything to control that? But it really isn't controllable. I think you just have to see that opportunity and grasp it and use it to the best of your abilities.
Michael Burpoe:You know, I totally agree. I guess fortune favors the bold or the forward thinking and people that do actually start looking forward. I think it's already starting to pay off for them. But I want to ask does RJL have like an exclusivity rule? Is there a mileage for the nearest competitor can join RJO, Like if someone, if a store, is in RJO, so-and-so's down the road, can't join RJO as well?
Bill Becker:Yeah, we do. You know, we've always had that and because we have stores in all 49 states, we have stores in large communities, we have stores in small communities. It's not the same for each community, so it might be different for me than somebody who has a store, say, in the Chicago area or the Phoenix area. So we do have that. It's not really black and white, it's something you have to look at the community and we kind of take that on a one-to-one basis. But in short answer yes, but it's not as easy as saying, yeah, you've got a certain amount of mileage radius around your store. You know, if somebody opens another store in somebody else's territory, that kind of confuses things a little bit, but that does happen.
Michael Burpoe:Yeah, it's again.
Michael Burpoe:It's something that I've been thinking about increasingly so, like if we start to accept the idea that online presence is true presence, is omni-channel.
Michael Burpoe:So if there is, like this, online version of a store as well as your brick and mortar, the online versions, I mean, I can compete with you, you know, in California, with if I'm in New York, the buyer theoretically should not care if they type in, you know, engagement ring, it's kind of whatever shows up. There's a whole bunch of other rules that go along with it and things that pop up. Do you think that the online kind of increasing value of online presence, is that going to change those exclusivity rules Because of the fact that, like, you could go either way? It's like, oh, I'm competing with like in Charlotte we used to talk about Asheville, which is, you know about two hours away. Are those people competitors because they have, like a good digital marketing ad would probably be targeting someone in Asheville from Charlotte? Or do you find that, because of the fact that everybody can compete with everybody, it starts to kind of break down the rules of exclusivity?
Bill Becker:So therein lies that question. You talk about targeting someone from one store in another community. You're talking about something as specific as, like, retargeting or that sort of thing. I don't know how you would control that, michael, it's, it's. I don't know how you would police that, or even if we would want to. You know you kind of want, you want to give people the reins to grow their business. You want to give people the reins to grow their business, and if they're doing that sort of thing, I don't know how you'd stop it, or even if you would want to per se, because that's that's the nature of the way things are right now is is it's all about digital, it's all about social media, it's all about a website, and I don't know, are you experiencing any of that from from your point of view and in your business? You?
Michael Burpoe:know it's kind of one of those things. It's like could RJO, for example, say to a store hey, you can run digital marketing ads, but we're going to prevent you from running ads targeting like a pull effect? So like like we're talking about with Charlotte, you could theoretically target a, set up, a radius that could pull someone from Asheville. Well then, the Asheville store is, you know, kind of the loser in this situation. And I'm not sure if RJO would ever plan to say, no, you can't target competitor cities, which would be pretty hard, I think, with so many stores cities which would be pretty hard, I think, with so many stores. But I didn't know if that, if you plan to be laissez-faire when it comes to the digital landscape, with that kind of stuff.
Bill Becker:Right, you know, over the years I'm sure there's been an incident where somebody in a neighboring community that are both RJO members has advertised in their community and they're just. That's just not something that I think we would want to start or could enforce or, you know, like I said, would even want to, but I don't see that in the future. Having a physical location and giving an exclusivity or exclusivity for that particular store is one thing, but trying to control their advertising or the reach of their advertising, that's just not something. Who we are, that's good to know.
Michael Burpoe:Now, bill, I want to end this on. I opened this up for some questions in the RJO exclusive Facebook group, so we give the listeners an idea if you're not in RJO, there's a Facebook group that you need to be an RJO member or a member of a store or a vendor that's part of RJO to be able to go there. It's really interesting. I think it's because it's all kind of set up by that kind of stuff. I do find that RJO members tend to be pretty forward thinking in that they are a higher level of tech literacy and tech fluency. You know, in general. I guess that's a rather large generalization for 1,200 stores. But still and I asked this question, hey, I'm interviewing Bill, the RJO president. What kind of questions do you have? So one of them was this one. It's from the RJO account. I hear you have a bit of a classic car collection. Can you share what you've collected so far and any grails you might be chasing?
Bill Becker:Yeah, I'm kind of a gearhead. Some people say I have gasoline running through my veins. Oh, I love it. No, I'm into the old Corvettes. I've restored an old 67 many years ago and currently restoring a 72, and just recently was able to procure an extremely rare 72 with rare options, with only 8,000 miles, and actually tomorrow morning I'm taking it to a National Corvette Restorer Society regional event to put it on display. And actually they've used that particular car for the cover of their new judging manual. So it's a very nice car. But I enjoy old cars. I've got a couple 69 Camaros that I like to drive around. It's a lot of fun and you know there's a lot of other members in RJO that have the same hobbies and we tend to gravitate towards one another because we have a lot to talk about.
Michael Burpoe:I'm sure. I'm sure that's so cool. I just had a classic car show come through my hometown, where I'm at, and they brought every type of car imaginable. I got to sit in a 1930 Model A, ford Model A and it was like this car is older than my house. What the heck man, it's so cool. I think I mean what you said eight or nine thousand miles. That must have been sitting in a garage for for all those years.
Bill Becker:Yeah, it's very well kept, All original. You have to come by sometime I'll take you for a spin.
Michael Burpoe:Oh my gosh, that would be so cool. I would love that. And, bill, you know I asked, I asked this question, I got that one. And, bill, you know I asked, I asked this question, I got that one. That was a great question. But I had a lot of questions about you and the RJO staff just saying how much you love them. What is the? What is that? That kind of community and the nature of that relationship for the RJO staff and you joining them as the president, joining them as the president.
Bill Becker:Well, I'm in a really unique position and I feel so blessed to be affiliated with the group that I work with. They make it so easy for the board. Um, the girls that are there are really nice, very friendly, very hardworking, very dedicated to what they do and they're a lot of fun to be with. So when we we get together at the shows, um, we have a lot of fun. A good friend of mine, jeff Workersham, the vice president and the head of the MRC committee, got together some of us to go down to the office and he brought a griddle and I helped him prepare lunch for them and they all had a really good time with that. It was all fun and games and kind of brought a sense of camaraderie to the group and we all had a good time. But that's just kind of what it is. We work together and we play together as well.
Michael Burpoe:Man, I really, really love hearing that. I think that the jewelry industry it's my it's kind of crazy to think that this is my first foray into being a professional. I've been here for eight years, or over eight years at this point, and what really strikes me is just like is the community of jewelers and the industry? It's not as, not as cutthroat as I, as you'd expect, and it's very transparent when it comes to the sharing of ideas and also just the we're all in this together. I don't know if that stems from the whole, you know, independence versus everybody else sort of kind of mindset, which you know I get behind because I'm training for jewelry stores, you know, to beat out the big boxes. It's cool to hear that that is also true on the, I guess, the more micro level with leadership inside of these organizations. So really excited to hear that Bill.
Bill Becker:Good, good. Yeah, you know, might've been a little bit more competitive in my younger years, but after a while you kind of realize that we're all in this together. Yeah, you may lose something to somebody one day, but you'll gain it back from that guy, you know, a month later. So you know it all evens out in the wash, but I think ultimately you need to have fun in what you're doing and enjoy the ride, as they say. I like to say we at RJL. People may come for the patronage dividend, but we stay for the friendships that we make.
Michael Burpoe:Love it. You know what, bill, maybe we'll leave it right there. I really appreciate your time and I'm going to be following your tenure as president very closely. Hopefully I make it out to another RJL show real soon, maybe the one in January. Anything else before we wrap this thing up.
Bill Becker:I think you got it, man. I appreciate it. It's been a good ride so far and I hope things continue the way they are Awesome.
Michael Burpoe:Well, thanks everybody. I appreciate you listening to the end. If you're new here, maybe drop us a follow. We have new episodes every Tuesday, all about what independent jewelry stores are looking for, so make sure you subscribe. We'll see you next week Tuesday, with another episode. Cheers bye, or Spotify. This episode was brought to you by Punchmark and produced and hosted by me, Michael Burpo. This episode was edited by Paul Suarez with music by Ross Cockrum. Don't forget to leave us feedback on punchmarkcom slash loop. That's L-O-U-P-E. Thanks. We'll be back next week, Tuesday, with another episode. Cheers Bye.
