In the Loupe
In the Loupe
Wrapping Up 2025 - The Best Bits
We close the season by revisiting ten standout moments that shaped a year of change, from AI pricing and buying group leadership to gold’s surge, fancy color diamonds, and how Tahitian pearls really form.
• AI pricing tools and the case for fair markup
• JewelCraft as the jeweler’s jeweler for scale
• Google Workspace as a collaboration backbone
• IJO ownership shift and long-term vision
• Gold price drivers from rates to geopolitics
• Reporting crime with care, not hype
• Fancy color diamonds and profit logic
• JCK Las Vegas
• RJO's leadership focus on systems and learning
• Pearl farming truth beyond the sand myth
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Welcome to In the Loop. What is up, everybody? My name is Michael Burpo. Thanks again for listening to In the Loop. And this week it's our final episode. This is our wrap-up. And what I do every year, I've been doing this for I think four or five seasons of this, is I uh recap my 10 favorite episodes. Not always the best performing ones, but some that I think either allowed me to talk about a topic that I think is very interesting, or a guest that turned out to be uh really influential or had a profound impact on me, or even some uh new types of episodes. I've been doing interviews for the entire time Inalupa's been out, but what I'm starting to get more into is the solo episodes and they're a quick way if you know an interview backs out or I'm struggling with an episode. I have a couple of topics that I think are really fascinating, and I would love to kind of explore them in a deeper long-form way. And everyone's been very nice and been able to listen to those episodes, so it's kind of encouraged me to do more. So without further ado, here are my favorite moments from 10 episodes from season six of In the Loop. Enjoy.
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SPEAKER_07:Okay, everybody. So here are 10 of these episodes I think are very interesting. Um again, some of these episodes actually were a little bit slept on, and this is kind of my way of being like, hey, this episode it's was really interesting. I think you should give it a shot. And also some of these are from the most popular episodes. I always make sure um we get a Spotify wrapped from uh Spotify as a producer. So because we publish on Spotify, they actually show us what our best episodes are. And one thing that they show us is uh what our most um downloaded episode was. And for this past year, it was episode 28 of season six, an AI-powered ring designer that actually works featuring Stone Algo. And I think these guys are amazing, and I thought they were so fascinating that I actually uh am having a follow-up episode in early of season seven, so be on the lookout for that. So enjoy transparency. So transparency is one of those things that some people don't actually want transparency because inside of the transparency is where you can actually have a lot of wiggle room and markup. And I do think that for a long time, jewelry did it as a luxury. I think backing up even further, I think luxury as an entire industry enjoyed uh a lack of transparency for kind of a substantial amount of time, you know, all the way, you know, through the 1900s before, you know, these very complicated um methods for you know uh accountability and things like that were actually discovered and implemented. One thing I think about all the time is, for example, cars, buying a car. It's one of the last uh vestiges of bartering. Um it doesn't seem like it exists anywhere else. And as a result, personally, I hate that. I want to walk in, I want you to tell me what the price of the car is. And I want to be like, is that the lowest? And then to be like, that is what the price of the car is. And for me to buy it and then walk out. There should be no difference me buying, you know, some bananas versus buying a uh, you know, a truck. And I think that diamonds um were kind of in that realm where there was like the bartering, if you knew a guy, if you, you know, had this kind of relationship, that they would give you this deal. And even still, there is still a lot of deal and like kind of like, you know, working through because Julie does experience this uh a lot of time, Keystone markup at every level. Do you think that that's kind of where the core of um pushback was coming from? Is people people felt like you were eroding their markups and their ability to actually run a business that the way that they have been for the last, you know, hundred plus years? Or was it something more along the lines of like you were divulging trade secrets kind of thing?
SPEAKER_05:I think you kind of hit the nail on the head. So we have a fair price estimate, which is like a Zillow's estimate for diamonds. And it doesn't take in all information, to be clear. Like it's not perfect. Uh a Zillow's estimate's not perfect either. I think everybody knows that, right? Like it's taking in whatever information it can get, but it doesn't know necessarily that the countertops in the kitchen are Carrera marble and it's not going to price that in uh versus like, you know, some uh look-alike countertop that's not as expensive. And so like everyone in everyone listening to this podcast probably knows that uh two diamonds that are graded the same by the GIA could be priced completely different and it's rational because they're very different items. Where it gets irrational is where two items that are very, very similar or identical are listed at totally different prices because one guy is you know baking in more markup than the other. And then it's like, like you're pointing out, um, you're if you're gonna, if you're gonna give transparent information to the consumer, you're going to be eroding the ability for somebody to add extra markup. Uh ultimately you're going to converge to like what is the fair markup. And I think what this industry is missing on the diamond side is MSRP. And I don't think it's an easy thing to solve. Um, with diamonds specifically, it's, you know, on the dealer side, it's I think a little more straightforward because you have professional versus professional. And even then you'll look on RapNet and you'll see like there's discrepancy in inventory pricing, and you'll be like, you know, it's a bad make, or you know, it's just it's grainy, it's it's not it's not uh good material, like whatever, whatever it is. Um and and there's a reason why the pricing is different. At the consumer level, you have all those discrepancies plus markup differences. And the markup differences can be really significant across retailers. Um and so yeah, I think that a big issue is that there's not some sort of a concept of MSRP. We actually are very directly tackling this um within our new product and uh not on the diamond side, although that is something we've we've talked about solutions for, and I think we can get closer to that over time, but it is complicated. But I do think, like, when you look at like, for example, there's an MSRP. Like you have to sell at a certain price, you can't sell a new online. Like, there's all these decisions that have been made about how you create a uh premium experience for the consumer and you protect the brand, right? And I think the jewelry industry, some jewelers are very cutthroat, some jewelers are trying to bake in as big a margin as they can, and most are somewhere in between. Um, and there does need to be a fair amount of markup because there is a fair amount of overhead and labor and um all sorts, and and returns are a huge issue now, especially with you know, lab and natural. People are ordering multiple diamonds at a time sometimes, and like creates a lot of additional overhead cost for everybody.
SPEAKER_07:Okay. Another episode I thought was really fascinating was this episode with Jewelcraft. Full disclosure, I think that Steph is awesome from Jewelcraft. She's one of the people who I hang out with at the um at the shows quite often. But what I also found really fascinating is that she also seems to be at like kind of this center point between vendors and retailers, and she has garnered a lot of trust from the industry. And I think a lot of that's because Jewelcraft not only does really good work, has really good turnarounds, but they also are pretty transparent. Um, I affectionately refer to them as the man behind the curtain, kind of like in um Wizard of Oz. And I thought that uh this interview kind of revealed them to be uh sort of this really impactful, silent force that's in the industry and really does a great job of keeping things on track, uh, especially for some of these smaller jewelers uh who can kind of maybe punch above their weight class a little bit more with these custom features or repairs if they don't have the the tools or expertise in-house. So this is from season six, episode three, The Jewelers Ace Up Their Sleeve, featuring Jewelcraft. I'm joined by Stephanie Westhorpe from Jewelcraft. How are you doing today, Stephanie?
SPEAKER_09:Hey, I'm good, Mike. How are you?
SPEAKER_07:Doing all right. I was trying to explain to my uh my parents who I was interviewing, and I was like, oh yeah, jewelcraft are kind of like uh the man behind the curtain for a lot of jewelry stores. Is that kind of a is that a fair assessment, you know, the kind of the people who are getting some of these jobs done uh behind the scenes? Is that sort of like a fair kind of summation?
SPEAKER_09:Definitely. We we are the jeweler's jeweler. A lot of people don't know that we're here, um, but that's exactly what we do. We're here to have the retailers back and make sure that they've got everything that they need for all of their repairs or any custom.
SPEAKER_07:Nice. Yeah, because I guess that my parents have always uh I'm sort of explaining things throughout the years to them. Like, hey, did you know that not every jewelry store does uh the custom jewelry in in-house sometimes? They're like outsourcing it, they work with professionals that do it for them, or same thing with repair jobs. And they're like, No, I thought that they would do it in-house. And it's like some do, but also some people just don't have the staff or the technology or the materials or just even like they don't care to. Okay. One of the topics that I have tried to get into a little bit more is this series, recurring series called Breaking Down the Best. And this is my way of kind of talking about these um either user experiences or tool sets or websites that I think are really outstanding. And they're ones that I use a lot of. So I in the past I've done website experiences that I think are fascinating, and I've done um, you know, different uh buying experiences online or in-store that I found really cool. And one of these um that I actually did early in the year, uh back in uh on February 4th, was breaking down the best, talking about Google Suite. So Google Suite is drive, docs, sheets, forms, and slides. And I talk about why I like them so much. Uh I use probably two or three of these tools every single day. And it's pretty okay to say that this suite runs punchmark as much as any other tool. Um, we're all using it. We all use Google Sheets to uh document things and kind of have the sheets uh staying live, if you will. And then Google Docs, I mean, anytime I write copy, I have to go with Google Docs. So enjoy from season six, episode five. This is breaking down the best of Google Suite. So, like I mentioned in the intro, this is going to be about the G Suite. That's what I'm referring to it as. That is Google's uh suite of products, and they all work really well together. What I'm primarily referring to is Gmail. It is the industry standard and very, very much understood to be the industry standard. It's free. And all of these tools are free. You pretty much access it with a Gmail. Uh Google Drive, which is sort of like a Dropbox, but it connects and contains all of the files for the other ones. Google Docs, which is sort of like uh Microsoft Word, except it's cloud-based. Google Sheets, which is just like Excel. This is the only one which I will accept uh people using um Microsoft Excel for certain instances if you're like really deep into making pivot tables and data and stuff like that. Google Forms, which is the industry standard. I honestly recommend using Google Forms over any other form, unless you have a CMS like HubSpot. Um, then maybe it makes sense to pipe it into your CMS, but I would recommend uh Google Forms for any other reason. And Google Slides, which is just like a uh a slideshow, um, you know, Microsoft PowerPoint, essentially. So let's talk about Drive, Google Drive. So Google Drive is one of those things I actually got into when I was in college. We organize all of our work through Google Drive. And the reason why I recommend Google Drive is that again, it's cloud-based, which means that everything can be edited all at once with all of the different edits being synced. So you can actually have multiple people in the Google Drive or on the same documents, and they'll be syncing in real time. And what that is really great about is uh, for example, if you're using um uh Dropbox and you have all these um Microsoft documents, the people can be editing and then someone might have another version and then they merge, and then one gets overwritten, and suddenly all that work was lost, which happens a lot. I highly recommend if you're doing something collaborative, you consider working with uh a Google Drive. It's super easy to figure out. It kind of the utility of it doesn't reveal itself until you start working with two other people, and then suddenly it's like, wow, this is really useful. Okay, another one is now that we've been doing uh this podcast for a pretty substantial amount of time, or well over 250 episodes. One of the things that's been really cool is I've been able to follow these very impressive uh figures through their careers and have these recurring interviews. And uh people are so generous, they are willing to join me and talk about um you know what's going on in their life and has their increasingly um you know guiding the future of these either organizations or power players. And one of those people is Steven Barnes. Uh Stephen Barnes recently was announced, or I guess recently at the time of the episode, as the uh new owner of IJO. IJO, one of the major buying groups in the jewelry industry, they have a lot of sway and a lot of impact, one of the places that we go uh twice a year. And uh he um was longtime president, or I guess president for a couple years, and then he was able to buy IJO and become not just the president but the owner. Uh, this is big news in the jewelry industry. This really had an impact and sent a lot of waves, and uh, this episode really did super well. And I think it's because people have this appetite sometimes to hear a longer form of these conversations. I mean, that's why podcasts kind of grew, and I think it allowed Stephen Barnes to kind of explain his future and what it meant now to have the reins fully in his hands. So without further ado, this is season six, episode 10, from president to owner, an interview with Steven Barnes of IJO. I am interviewing Steven Barnes, the president and now owner of IJO. How are you doing today, Steven?
SPEAKER_01:Man, I am fantastic, Mike. I am on top of the world. Life is grand.
SPEAKER_07:Very cool. This is uh now the third part in our kind of recurring uh series. And I'm just you know interviewing you anytime there's a change in your title, it seems like. Uh, very exciting news. It was just announced at uh IJO Palm Springs that you are now the uh sole owner of one of the largest, if not the largest, uh jewelry organizations, you know, in North America. Can you explain to me what being uh owner and the new sole owner means to you?
SPEAKER_01:Sure, absolutely. Well, if it's a dream come true uh in many um aspects, Michael. Um, you know, I've been a member of IJO for over 25 years, or our family's uh jewelry store has been a member of IJO over 25 years. I just remember coming to my very first show and just how impressed I was and just blown away with the organization as a whole. And so I became very, very involved, very passionate about the organization. And and truly a dream of mine one day was to just work for IJO. And then as things progressed along, it's like, man, that re that became a reality. And then on top of that, like I never thought I'd have the opportunity of being an owner of IJO one day, but uh, but it it became a reality. And uh so yeah, definitely have been the dream. Um, very passionate about um my role um in this company um and how we can make everybody around us better.
SPEAKER_07:It's really a cool, cool thing to watch. So you were announced uh it's just about been two years or one and a half years, I guess, uh, since you assumed the the president role. And that was uh a pretty exciting move because you had been a longtime member, like you had mentioned. We had our follow-up interview actually to the day, uh last year on August 1st, I believe. And from there, you kind of provide a little bit of a checkup talking about your goals for unity inside of IJO, which was uh really cool to hear, and how that's something that only someone who's a real member could kind of target as a focal point. Now, as owner of IJO, I wanted to ask: are you still president? Is there a delineation between those roles? Or was president sort of the title before you could become the owner?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so I think it was definitely a stepping stone into ownership. Um, coming from a retail background um and a consulting background, I had to really learn um about the organizational from a corporate uh standpoint versus just, you know, I mean, I understand business, I understand um all those things, but it just understanding the IJO way and how IJO runs things. So I think it was definitely a stepping stone towards getting to where I am today. Um, as far as what changes, nothing really changes in my role. I'm still gonna, you know, assume the role of president. I'm still going to um be the leader of this company. Um, I feel like I've got 20 more good years in me to make this happen. And so I'm looking long term on this. I'm I'm setting up 20-year plans right now and goals for you know the next 20 years of how I can uh bring everybody along with me. So yeah, it definitely is nothing really changes for me in this ownership role. Um, still gonna be the visionary, still gonna provide the leadership that this organization needs. I love that.
SPEAKER_07:All right. One of the, I mean, most important topics in the jewelry industry for all of 2025 has absolutely been the price of gold. I brought it up uh a million times in a million different episodes, but I actually want to do a very specific episode uh for why the price of gold was pushing even higher than it normally was. And uh it's still all time highs pretty much right now. Um I've even looked into trying to buy some gold as like a means of investment. And I sat down, I really Reached out to some people and it was like, who should I talk to that's an expert on this? And a lot of people pointed me to uh this guy, David Sminsky. And he is so interesting. He was very articulate about the outside factors that impact the price of gold and why it's not just an arbitrary thing. And by sitting down with him, he started to explain to me what uh is causing this, and also he made some predictions. I thought that was very bold of him. Uh, I definitely want to speak with him again in season seven. Um, I saw him at JCK, and he was so nice. Uh, very cool episode. So, this is from season six, episode 13 Why is the price of gold so darn high? Featuring David Sabinsky.
SPEAKER_06:This is one of some of the factors if that basically uh effectable the value of the US dollar, the U.S. interest rates, the economic conditions in a country. Now what happens is aka like China, but now you can actually throw in their tariffs. Throw in tariffs, strikes and other pipeline issues when it comes to actually getting it out of the ground and getting it to market. The geopolitical factors, you know, we we're living at right now, and every country we're living at right now. The supply from producers and the demand for jewelry, the actual demand from the consumer, okay? Inflationary trends, the gold reserves. Like I know they were gonna go try and go into Fort Knox and see if the gold was there. I haven't heard a report if the gold's there yet or not.
SPEAKER_07:I haven't heard it either. My my boss actually asked me to ask about what if they go in and it's not and it's all gone.
SPEAKER_06:What if they go and it's not there? The investment demand, speculation in the market for the traders that are speculating, and a safe hazen, a safe haven, you know, you know, where people's stocks are too volatile so they run to gold. Those are like the 10 factors that actually affect the price of gold. And it's like I always tell people it's even like uh from that standpoint, even if you fix five of them, they're still or feel with five of them, five of them are still out there running wild. So what happens is, and after I used to say this, I used to say, and there's one thing that always happens if somebody fires a missile, all bets are off. So if someone fires a missile, how does that change the gold market? And then believe it or not, after I said it after one of my seminars, a missile was fired from one country to another, gold went up that day,$50 okay, right away, and by the next day it returned. You know, so it's like what's actually moving it so it's that valuable at this point, you know. Like I said, every one of the every one of these little things I just listened are part of the the part of the the influence, but what what is really the main driver, I think, was really what your question was. What was the really the main driver? And I think it's all the drivers, Michael. I think it's all fascinating. No matter where you're coming from.
SPEAKER_07:Okay. One of the things that's important about running a jewelry podcast is I have to make sure I get my news um from a reputable and reliable source. Um, there's a lot of news out there that I think is interesting, but it might not also be impactful for the jewelry industry. And when I say the jewelry industry, I mean specifically the retailers, vendors, and maybe tech providers and the people that are like kind of pushing things forward. Uh, you know, my family might be interested in, is maybe different than what our listeners are going to be interested in. But the group that I get a lot of my news from, even some of my topic ideas for future episodes, is National Jeweler. Um I'm subscribed to their email blast, and they, you know, I read it every single time they come in. I read the headlines typically and I try to read at least one uh of them. And I think uh the episode I did with Michelle Graff, who is the editor-in-chief at National Jeweler, was super fascinating. And I think that she, again, is one of those people that has seen the industry through a lot of change and will be with us uh through even more change. And having someone that kind of is comfortable and understands uh where we've been and where we're going uh is it just makes for an excellent interview and an excellent topic uh to speak with. So uh enjoy this episode. This is season six, episode 17, what the heck is happening in the jewelry world featuring Michelle Graf, editor-in-chief at National Jeweler. On the topic of you know, smash and grabs and and and robberies, um, it's a topic that I have, you know, we're 250 episodes into this. I've always wanted to do an episode specifically about uh security and and and and robberies and and things like that because it is inherently a part of the industry. It's not something that people love to to discuss that much, and that's one of the reasons why I don't know how to go about it. Should I be speaking with someone who was just robbed or had a case that was that was covered or um has been resolved? You guys have always um covered these with a lot of touch, I might say, or grace or whatever that word is, because we don't want to sensationalize it, though news can be sensational, you know, can be um, I mean, it there's tons of movies about about robberies and and about and it's usually from the the thief's point of view. Uh how do you balance that kind of that that topic where it's it's educating the public, it's in you know, conveying the the information, but it's not that sensationalism which like might be giving kind of almost encouragement to the act.
SPEAKER_08:Right. Um, so why am I telling people this? This was also covered on their local news, it was in their local newspaper. People posted about it on next door or on Facebook or whatever. But we want to point out like, hey, in this situation, this is what happened. These are things that could have been done differently to prevent the crime or mitigate the losses. And that's what we always try to keep in mind. Um, and if you want to talk to someone about security, call the jurors the security alliance. Um, John Kennedy is he just retired. He was great, he ran it for years. Jennifer is doing a great job, and they absolutely will help you. And anytime they put out a bulletin, an alert, you know, there was a, you know, a massive safe robbery at XYZ, they always include a list of tips. You know, don't put your safe here. You know, X one, two, they just include a list of five, six tips about like, you know, here's what this situation happened, or and this is how like this is how things could have been handled differently. And it's not a way to criticize the store where it happened, it's just to say if you're faced, you know, here are things to think about in your store. And, you know, it's also good. Another reason we cover it is if there are people who are, if you will, repeat offenders and we have good pictures of them, you could say these three people have now, you know, committed smash and grabs or grab and runs or distraction thefts that, you know, stores in these states. So if you're kind of in this radius, be on the lookout for these individuals.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah. No, that's uh, I think that that might be the angle is not again, not celebrating it. It's more if you can come at it from an educational standpoint. I do think that there is inherent value in that because it's like, hey, learn from this, you know, tragic incident and and being able to like come out the better from it. But I do think that, yeah, the way that you guys handle it is something. Um, I hate to say this, I I am very interested in it. It is something that I I read the articles because I do find that fascinating.
SPEAKER_08:But I mean, honestly, almost everybody does. Just look in general, like what a big genre true crime is. And you know, I can tell you from our standpoint, those articles are some of the most read on the site. But you know, it's for jewelers, it's universal. They all have valuable things that people want, they all have valuable things that are small and portable and easily moved along. And they all have to think about this.
SPEAKER_07:Okay, it's all well and good to be interviewing all these very impressive people that I meet online, you know, Dave Siminski and Michelle Graf. Uh, they're very interesting. But it's also really cool to meet these impressive people that I also just get along with really well in person. And one of the people who um I just became friends with at uh actually the Punchmark Client Workshop was this guy, Kyle Pantis from Gems by Pantis. And he specializes in these uh incredible pieces of jewelry, especially fancy colored diamonds, is what his specialty is. And it was so cool getting to speak with him because uh I just felt very comfortable. And I think you can really hear in the uh podcast recording, because sometimes when I speak with people, uh they are just it's more of like a business conversation. But with Kyle, I got the chance to be like, hey, I'm really interested in what you do. Can you just explain it to me? And what was very fascinating is um he took it from you know a very high-level perspective and then got into a couple of the nitty-gritties, which I think is makes for a very interesting episode. A little bit more atypical, not exactly uh a linear conversation, but he was uh a great guest. And this is from season six, The King's Diamond Dealer, featuring Gems by Pantis. So how often are you buying, are you typically buying these fancy stones um in singles? Or do you you is there an opportunity to buy in lots? And lots, I at least for me, what I think lots mean is like parcels. That's I think actually the more of the term. So do you is that like kind of an angle? Does that increase the value, or is that actually it seems like when you're selling a parcel, a lot of times the price is actually coming down because they're in in groups. It doesn't seem like it actually behooves you to do that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so so if I buy in parcels, you're gonna get you're gonna get a discount on the price per carrot, which allows you to average cost, right? You're always gonna have excess material out of that parcel, even if it's polished goods that are gonna be your dogs and your winners, right? So then you're able to take your winners, maximize your profit, and then you do what you can with the dogs, right? So there's that angle. We do buy stuff like that, um, depending on what it is. And then in the in the higher end stuff, like a lot of times I'm getting leads from stores, clients that own stuff for 20 years, 10 years, 15 years, whatever, that want to sell. Um, I just actually bought something last week off of an auction house, which was kind of cool. There was an opportunity to buy something off auction. So I paid even the auction their you know, buyer fee or whatever it was, you know, it's still okay. It's still a retail type of deal, but you know, there's value there. I saw opportunity and I, you know, I hit the strike, the strike, as they say. Um, so things come from all over the place for us.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, mainly because I was thinking about, for example, there's this one watch company, which I won't even mention, uh, that does a uh a rainbow watch and uh you know it has uh rainbows right around the bezel, and it's I mean, it's just incredible. Yeah, I tell you. Uh and what I always think about anytime I see it is man, that must be so hard to get uh a parcel that is the full spectrum because undoubtedly you're gonna have like you know 90% of it. And then it's like, okay, I need a stone that sets in between this color red and this color orange because that's the way the spectrum works.
SPEAKER_04:Well, and and and in their case, in the gemstone world in particular, it's a little easier to cut the material. So it's it's it's a little easier to maintain to mass produce that a little bit more in volume than it would be in the color diamond world.
SPEAKER_07:Oh, interesting. I didn't even notice, I didn't know that that would be uh there'd be you know a level, a degree of difficulty compared to it.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, there's I mean, um, it's not easy, like it still takes time to color match these rainbow color gems. Like it's definitely a thing, but like if you have a supply chain for it, like it's the material the material is there.
SPEAKER_07:So, like I said, one of the things I'm experimenting with uh on in the loop as I've gone through a lot of episodes is I want to go out and kind of vlog these events. Um, anytime I I work from home, it kind of feels a little bit insulated. And sometimes it kind of feels like I'm uh locked in my room and I'm just exploring the world through a window. But when I get a chance to go out and experience something, I want to bring the podcast with me because I think that people find it also really interesting, especially because um I think that these vlogs have been very important to me um in you know different parts of my life uh growing up. I used to follow vloggers a lot on YouTube back when I was very popular. And it kind of lets me feel like that as well. But for uh you know, an industry that doesn't have a lot of vloggers, I don't really know if there's anyone else that's kind of making these audio vlog related uh pieces. If there is, maybe send them to me because I'd I'd be happy to give it a look. But I ended up going to uh JCK Las Vegas for the first time since 2021, and uh it has changed a fair amount. 2021 was a weird year, and uh this time I got a chance to really explore Las Vegas, walk around the show. Um, I spent a lot of time with Hope, our digital marketing manager, as we kind of walked around the different parts of the JCK show, and uh it was just a really cool time. So please enjoy the snippet from season six, episode 26. I went to the biggest jewelry show in the world. All right, so I just bought some jewelry at K and Out, Karma and Luck. It's in are we in the Venetian right now? Summer call. It's kind of late on uh Sunday, and we couldn't get into the Snoop Dogg concert. The line was too long. And we just went and bought a piece of jewelry, and honestly, that was the coolest experience, and uh like very different. And so we like went in and they have like all this like stuff that's like all about protection and like like different what what attributes? Yeah, and we were like looking at I tried on a bunch of stuff. Honestly, the stuff is very much my style. And we go and I like tried on like a couple things, and the lady was super helpful. What was so funny is so like we go to buy, I buy this, you know, necklace, and then she puts it in this bag, and like the bag is really nice. I'm looking at it right now. It's got this great illustration on it, and it's in like another like little box, and it's not even like that big of an expense. I like it's like you know, a hundred bucks. And and then she's like, Oh, would you like me to bless it for you? And I was like, absolutely. So we take it and she puts it in it. What is that bowl called? Singing bowl? A singing bowl. So we go and put it in a singing bowl, she puts it in there, and she like you know, hits it with like this like gong or whatever it's called. She hits it and it like you know, makes this nice noise, and she like said like a little, I don't know, prayer over it or something, and kind of makes me feel kind of cool about it. It's like more like yo, let's go. Like it's so funny, but like talk about like a cool experience. Uh isn't that worth like an extra? Because like realistically, probably could have just walked into JTK, the largest jewelry show in the freaking northern hemisphere, and but found something very similar to it and bought it for like half the half the price. But I get this cool bag and she blessed it. She blessed it. And she hit the singing bowl a couple times, so she did, you know, and I just won this money playing blackjack at dinner. So perfect. There we go. Very cool. 10 out of 10 experience, very Vegas. Okay. Like I mentioned, I've had a lot of these recurring interviews where I speak with people every year and I get a chance to hear what's new. But occasionally I interview someone who I've wanted to speak with for a long time, and I got a chance to do it for the first time this year with uh Bill Becker, who's RJO's new president, at least new when I interviewed him a little earlier this year. And what was really interesting is that Bill gets to kind of reveal what it's like to be a retail jeweler as well as leading um one of the Julia industry's largest buying groups. Uh this conversation, again, did really well online. I think that people were um interested to hear how RJO might be changing. RJO is very impactful, very large. And I think people were not exactly hesitant, but they were very keenly tuning in to find out if Bill was going to be making big sweeping changes, if he was gonna keep things running as usual. And as a result, uh this episode um was shared by a lot of people to each other. I think it's one of those ones that I hope to go back to in a year, listen to, and then interview Bill as a follow-up and hear if he's been able to kind of come through on some of those um, you know, decisions and policies that he was hoping to put in place. So without further ado, please enjoy season six, Steering the Ship. Exclusive first interview with RJO's new president, Bill Becker. What's up, everybody? Still speaking with Bill Becker, RJO president. So, Bill, let's talk about your goals and vision for RJO. Um, so you are uniquely positioned to be able to actually start um 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?
SPEAKER_02:Sure. You know, I think the issues right now is just uh trying to get our uh 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. We just have to figure out how to hold on to it. Um so when it comes to that, I you know, I look at my role here, and I'm really not trying to change anything. I'm just trying to keep this skip pointed in the right direction. And I 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 uh 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 and bring on all the problems that that that come what may and and deal with those as as they come on board.
SPEAKER_07: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 uh suddenly got poured right into tangible assets, usually jewelry, uh, 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 um in independent retail store? Is is that something that you guys are trying to solve as RJO? Or is it about giving them the tools to solve it themselves?
SPEAKER_02:You know, I I think w none of us expected what to happen during COVID that actually happened. And I think we all benefited from that in 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, they need us, we need them more than we ever did. And it's now is is a good time to go to an RJO show and go to those educational seminars and learning opportunities and networking with other jewelers because we're all going through the same thing. We really haven't experienced any significant downturn in in our economy. We've really had to watch our inventory. We've had to uh 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 RGO event will help you accomplish. It uh you are able to go to learning opportunities and seminars and educational things to learn about what people are going through and and how to staff better, how to control your inventory better, what to do with that inventory that uh you get left over with. I mean, everybody's got aged inventory, but it's it's 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.
SPEAKER_07:Okay. One of those things that I find uh always funny about having worked in the jewelry industry for kind of a long time at this point, eight and a half years, soon to be nine next year, is that I have like a little bit of a bleed over of what my job is and what my personal life is. So I a lot of times I'm doing research or working with clients, things related to social media, and as a result, my social media, my personal social media, is increasingly getting shown a lot of jewelry. And what I think is so funny is that uh I always joke that, you know, Google and all these uh, you know, cookies all think I am probably the most indecisive bachelor of all time. And one of the things though, that was a happy, you know, I guess, uh coincidence, is I ended up finding this brand that I absolutely love. And I thought that their storytelling was maybe the best I found all year. This is with Komoka Pearls. Komoka Pearls are uh based out of Tahiti, so way out in the ocean. And I spoke with Josh Humbert, and he talks about a ton of really interesting details related to pearl farming, and they farm these uh black pearls typically. And I this is again one of those interviews where I hope I didn't come across as unprofessional because all I could do was just ask every question I had about pearls, and they were so interesting. I very a-linear just me asking. But what was also really cool is I was interviewing him, and it was like uh, you know, you could hear roosters going in the background, and a couple of times people were like, you know, coming by and giving him new pearls, and uh he had pearls on the table, and he, you know, panned the camera down so I could I could look at them. Uh it was one of it's probably my favorite interview I did all this past year, just on a purely interesting level. And uh I hope that people go back and and check this one out because I don't even know if it got all the respect it deserved because I I think he was just a wealth of information. And what's also funny is um sometimes I try to um make myself seem smarter than I maybe am. And what's funny is with this one, I asked him, um, oh yeah, like how are like aren't pearls formed by sand? Because I remember that from this book, The Pearl. It was so funny is he's like, no, that's actually not how they're formed. They're that's a misconception. And I was like, oh, like let's not let's not cover that one. Like, let's cut that part out. And he's like, no, no, no, no, you should keep that in because it's it's important for people to know. And I thought that that was one of those like rare, unpolished human interactions on a podcast that I'm actually kind of uh very fond of looking back on that and how I learned something along with the the listeners. So enjoy season six, how a family pearl farm went viral featuring Komoko Pearls.
SPEAKER_00:So we're taking very specific cells that are shell building, and we're taking them from a donor oyster that's that's sacrificed, and we cut out the mantle and we we uh process it into little squares, and then we insert those squares into the body of a host oyster along with a nucleus. So then if all goes well, that little piece of tissue will grow over the nucleus and deposit shell on it.
SPEAKER_07:And the nucleus is typically sand, correct?
SPEAKER_00:No, not correct. Um sand is almost never at the core of any pearl, like natural or or otherwise.
SPEAKER_07:I guess I'm confused. I thought that uh that's what was causing the the pearls to grow.
SPEAKER_00:Right. So that that's a that's a common misconception, and and I I blame John Steinbeck from it for it. Paul, cut that out. Cut that out, Paul. No, no, don't cut anything out. It's all good because because that that's a common misconception, and that's that's what people think. And so it's good to be able to clear that up. So, Paul, leave it in. So basically, um oysters are are supremely uh suited to stop that from happening. Like they're really, really good at keeping sand out. And I actually have a friend, uh, he's a Mexican pearl farmer in the city of Cortez, and he he actually stuffed a bunch of sand in in oysters thinking, ha ha ha, I'm gonna make a bunch of pearls. And uh none of the oysters produce any pearls at all. So it's not that easy. Like they're they're really good at at just getting rid of sand. I mean, they they they live amongst the sand, so that that's not how natural pearls are formed. Uh, natural pearls are formed usually from a parasite that that drills through the shell, it pierces through the shell, and then the mantle will form a like a cup and then entomb the the intruder um in its own flesh to to suffocate it, and then it and then it forms pearl around it. So your your question is was not a bad question at all. And in fact, it's it's a really good question, and and it's a very common uh uh misunderstanding. Um it's not really misunderstanding, it's just it's just bad information, and it just comes from sort of uh, yeah. I mean, I I think I really think it comes all the way back. Uh it goes all the way back to John Steinbeck um in uh the Pearl where he talks about this, you know, this this giant pearl, and and it all came from a from a grain of sand. Uh we read that in high school. Yeah, for sure we did. It's poetic, you know, it's like it's what you want to believe. It's like, oh, you know, like transforming the difficulty into something beautiful, like just like humans. Like, oh, isn't that nice? Sure, it's nice, but it doesn't really happen that way. All right, everybody.
SPEAKER_07:So that's all the 10 episodes I wanted to earmark and maybe shout out. And I really wanted to maybe just in summary talk about season six. I learned so much during this. There was a nice little stretch in there when I felt like, man, we were firing on all cylinders. It was so cool. There's uh about four or five of those interviews that I highlighted came from a stretch during June through like July that really I felt like, man, I I had some awesome guests on and some really interesting interviews and did some cool things. And this time I'm I really feel like we really get maybe not just better, but we change a little bit. And this podcast, like I mentioned in in one of the intros, is that it sometimes can feel very insulated. Like I work fully remote from upstate New York, and I sometimes feel like I'm viewing the jewelry world through like a window, and it kind of feels like if I talk, it like you know, is anyone listening on the other side? And the fact that you're listening is very cool. But uh, we took this podcast, and I feel like from five to the end of season six, what did we learn? Man, we I think I interviewed some really interesting new people to the industry with Stone Algo and uh Komoka Pearls and just a few of the other ones, and um, I had some on some really interesting exclusive interviews with um, you know, just different presidents and even just speaking with uh a bunch of different vendors. That's something I'm hopefully gonna do a bunch more of in season seven as I do more with the premium vendor program at Punchmark, is hopefully I'll be able to speak with even more vendors. But at the same time, I say this a million times. This is my favorite part of my job. I love this part. It doesn't even feel like work a lot of the times. It feels like I just get to sit down and like interview someone and talk to them and hear their stories and hear what they're excited about. And what's even cooler is I see these people that are professionals, I can see that they take this also very seriously. Um, the jewelry industry, what I always find very endearing is that this stuff is important to these people. What are we doing? We're selling expensive pieces of metal and these rare objects, setin them, and we're um, you know, charging money for it. But there is something more about jewelry that I think pulls at the heartstrings and like the I don't know, the kind of the psyche and like the feeling of what it's like to be a human. And I think that that's part of what I hope to convey is when you speak with these people, whether they're talking about gold or pearls or about diamonds or about um, you know, their family business, man, it feels like they they really care. There's not a lot of people here, even though it is a luxury um industry, there's not a lot of people here who are just here for like, you know, the money. Um, a lot of these people, man, they care and they're continuing a story that maybe wasn't even started by them. It's a family business that's been around for 70, 80, 100, several hundred years. And I think what's so cool is uh those people, when they get on this podcast and they speak with me, they tell me about how excited they are to share that story with our listeners. And that's you. And so you're part of the equation, and I can't thank you enough for listening. You get to be my favorite part of my job. I think it's a really cool thing. I also want to say a very special thank you to my boss, Ross Cochran, and uh Dan and Brian for letting me continue to do this. It's uh, you know, it's not like it's for free. You know, it takes my time and they have to pay me a salary. So the fact that I get to uh do this and sit down with these people is it just feels like a real treat sometimes. Um I also want to say a very special thank you to my editor, Paul Suarez. Thank you, Paul. Um I really enjoy getting to work with him and he's the utmost professional. He really kind of has this thing dialed in to my partner in crime, even though we don't talk uh face to face hardly ever, but it's been uh a really cool ride. So just want to say we're not stopping. We're gonna keep on going. Season seven already started. We got off to a really interesting start with some really interesting um interviews, I think. Uh some people that are gonna be returning, and also a couple people um from uh that are vendors that I think maybe haven't been spoken to before. Um so be on the lookout for that. We're gonna be returning on January 6th, hopefully, and we'll have our first episode, our little intro episode, kind of set the scene, and then we're gonna be off to the races and we're back. If this is something you enjoy, maybe consider sharing in the loop with your friends, whether that's your friends in your jewelry store or your friends in the jewelry industry. I think that the more people who are in the know about everything that's going on, the better and healthier our industry is. I think that traditionally, jewelers are maybe a little bit slow when we update the technology. And this is kind of our way with how we started with to get people prepared for changes. And I think increasingly when in the loop gets brought up, I think that people kind of understand what our goal is. And I think that that's a fun thing, whether that's through PunchMark or just through our podcast. All right, I think maybe I'll leave it right there. Thank you so much for listening. And uh my name is Michael Murpo. I'm a director of user experience at PunchMark, and I host the podcast in the loop every week. Thank you so much. We'll be back next year. Thanks so much. See you then. Bye.
