In the Loupe
In the Loupe
Lenny from The EDGE's First Podcast Interview // LIVE!
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Recorded LIVE from the 2026 Punchmark Client Workshop in Charlotte, NC!
Mike sits down with Lenny Prion, the voice and educator so many jewelers know as “Lenny from The Edge,” to talk about the early days of The EDGE Point of Sale system and what he learned from working for many years in a retail jewelry store. We dig into how reporting, reorders, inventory aging, and smart automation can make a store run calmer, faster, and more profitably.
He also teases the biggest feature update to The EDGE in the last 25 years... you wont want to miss this!
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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 And The White Whale Guest
SPEAKER_03Welcome back everybody to In the Loop. What is up everybody? My name is Michael Burpo. Thanks again for listening to In the Loop. And this week, man, we got one. It's one of my white whales. It's Lenny from the Edge. And if you don't know Lenny Brian, uh, you probably already do, you just don't know that it's him. He is the uh one of the faces of the Edge point of sale system. He's been with them since the very beginning, and I got a chance to interview him live at the Punchmark Client Workshop in Charlotte, North Carolina. This was a really cool conversation because there are few people who uh are not a direct owner or founder of a company or as ubiquitously known uh for that company like Letty. Uh he is definitely someone who I admire for the industry. He has a wonderful presence, and people absolutely adore him. He's the director of education and operations at uh The Edge, and he talks about how the point of sale system has kind of molded and adapted uh over the years, and what he's learned from working as a retailer at one point, and how he carries that into his day-to-day of educating retailers. It really is one of my favorite conversations. He's fantastic on the mic, and really is one of those people who I feel like is driving the industry forward, and people look to for uh you know a lot of leadership, whether they have him as an account manager or not. All that to be said, please enjoy my conversation with Lenny from the Edge.
SPEAKER_00This 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 punchmark.com slash go. And now back to the show.
Who Lenny Is And Edge Basics
SPEAKER_03Alright, everybody. So we're gonna do our second one. And this one, I made a joke, it's at the very beginning of my first episode of this season. We're in season seven. So my first episode, I actually started the episode of with this year, I'm going white whale hunting. And what I mean by that is I'm finding all the people I've always wanted to interview that have not yet said yes, and I'm going to get them to come on the podcast. So this is my first white whale. I'm very excited. You all already know it's Lenny from the edge. How are you guys? So what's funny is you end up if you're in the industry long enough, you kind of build this, like your last name just becomes from the company that you're with. So we have Jason from Punchmark and we have Lenny from the Edge. Um when you introduce yourself, how do you do it? I am Lenny from the Edge. There you go.
SPEAKER_01That's literally what it is. Um that's how most people know who I am.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And the edge is um, I was saying it's a bigger word than I normally use, but it's pretty ubiquitous with the uh with the Julie industry. Um, what's like the overall like elevator pitch for the edge right now?
SPEAKER_01So we've been around a long time. Um the edge itself has been around since 2000, so we're 26 years there. But even before that, Dick started his original software back in 87. Wow. So we've been doing this a very, very long time. So our biggest thing is not only do we do everything that a store needs to run, but we know who you guys are. We've been in the industry, and we have the the biggest team there to help you. There's 50 of us sitting under our roof that are there, and most of them are in support and training. So we're there to do that. And we're also, there's not a single other person in this space that you're gonna talk to that actually has a training department, that actually has someone that teaches you how to do this. Yes, they get on and they'll try to get you through things, but we actually have a training department. That's what their whole job is. So for us, it's always been the service behind it, and and we're always just looking to push this industry further forward and help them because the more we help you guys and and get you to the points that you should be at, the better off we don't. So it's all comes back at that way. So you're the director of education.
SPEAKER_03Director of education and operations. In operations. So when it comes to the education aspect, I'm sure that there is a business mind to it where a well-educated client is uh is a high retention client, someone that comes through. Do you find that if you are educating these clients, it's also improving their business, or do you find that POS systems in like the success of a business are more or less independent?
Training Retailers To Use Reports
SPEAKER_01So it depends. Um, in my situation and our software, yes, if you know how to use my software, your business is gonna be 100% better. Because we're not just a point of sale system, we're not just there keeping track of what's happening so you can pull those numbers and figure things out. We have a whole reporting system built behind it. We have all your weekly and monthly reorderings built in. If you follow those steps that are using your numbers and what's happening in your store, and you just follow that lead and do what it's suggesting that you do, you can't get worse. You could only get better. Yeah. So if you know how to use the edge and you know what these numbers mean and you know where these reports are, there is no way you can't do better in your business. So, yeah, so for our purposes and what we do, it's more of a management software than just a point of sales software. Yeah. And if you do that daily stuff and you take care of your things and you're putting your data in correctly, it's easy enough to hit a button every week that says, this is what we need to do. This is our buying plan for next week, and it's all based on what just happened. Yeah. So, you know, everyone that's been here has been talking about trends and fast sellers and how things are moving. We are a fashion industry, whether we want to believe that or not, things change. So the best thing to do is look at what happened last week to figure out what we should be doing this week and moving forward. So, and again, if you're just doing your normal stuff and getting your data in there and just following along with that, hitting those buttons takes eh 15, 20 minutes a uh a week, and all of your reorders for that following week come in and they're better than they were last week. Yeah. So you're always improving.
SPEAKER_03I always I always joke about there's these uh like real like um terms that people just say all the time, they beat them to death. And you one of the ones I always bring up actually came from you, which is order your fast sellers, reorder your fast sellers, and then the other one is get rid of your aged inventory. And I think that the edge actually speaks to both of them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so not only do we have that weekly reordering and and and continually showing you what you should do, but part of our monthly is helping you reduce that old inventory. So old inventory, it's the vein. Everybody knows that. We don't need to beat that over the head. What's considered old? Depends on your store. Um, every store's a little different. I mean, if you wanted if you wanted me to, if if I was to give you a general number, I would probably say 365. That's that's when we're gonna call that number and go forward. Even in a single store, there's gonna be categories of things that age quicker and age slower. So if you have a very fashion forward silver line, that should never reach 365. Yeah. Because it's changing, it's moving, and they are always adding new things that are going to be changing with the fashion. So those things age quicker. Something staple, diamond studs, diamond hoops, they may last a little longer because the just of what they are. So it it's really based on the store, what type of store it is. Destination stores are different than uh tourist stores and things like that. So everyone's got a little bit of a different thing. And it's as you start to use these things and see them, and you start looking at your return on investment and looking at your reports and seeing where things are, that's gonna help you learn where your age falls. So just following those those reports and watching them, they're they're basically your uh testing points of what is old. Because once once you're starting to lose your return on investment, that's the age for that thing. And again, if it's a fashion thing, you may say that your return on investment starts going lower after 10 months. Yeah. Well, that's your age mark. We want to get it out by 10 months, and if not, we want to do something to get it and get something else in there that fits. So it's really, really personal to that store. So it's really kind of interesting.
SPEAKER_03You're talking about these reports, and there's so many reports and so much data and so much information that can come out of the edge that you've already even there's another company that literally does exactly that with the Edge Retail Academy. I just had on um Becca Johnson Kibbe. She's amazing. Like she's the new CEO and she's fantastic, uh, a big fan of hers. And it sounds where do you draw the line with like what their territory is, if you will, and what is needs to be like an in the box set of data and reports that need to come out as opposed to what might need to be added on and from uh you know add-on.
SPEAKER_01So they don't they don't change anything. They don't change anything. Um what Edge Retail Academy does as our sister company is they teach you how to use the information from the edge reports to actually manage your story where these things should happen. So when they see that you have old inventory, instead of just being the edge saying, hey, these are things that we could do, they're gonna see that, oh crap, you have 853 pieces that are over 540 days old. I see. So we're not even at a year, we're at 18 months, and there's so many things. They're gonna give you strategies of working that down because the edge, we can help stop things from becoming old. We can warn you when things are getting to this point, we can tell you you need to do something, but that's from the beginning. Once you have 60% of your inventory at age, there's not a lot I can tell you this is this is all age, but I don't that the edge itself can't say hit these things first. So that's where you need someone like Edge Retail Academy to come in and say, okay, these are our goals right now. Let's work on getting some of this stuff here taken down. But now from this point on, for all new stuff that's getting entered, let's use the edge to stop accumulating the old inventory. And that's where the edge comes to play. We can help stop it. We just can't do something once it's already there. I see. Does that make sense?
Reordering Fast Sellers And Aging
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think so. But it sounds like, I mean, you you were just talking about like the archetypes of jewelry stores. And one of the things I've getting a jewelry to fill out a survey is really difficult, unfortunately. And I've always wanted to uh break down, we we talk about personas in user experience where we actually have personas for our our clients, and uh whether we share them publicly or not, it's like we have people that are relying on custom jewelry, and we have people that are relying on e-commerce or our luxury or that kind of thing. But what's you guys probably have something where you can you were just talking about a destination store versus a probably someone in a strip mall versus in something else. Uh you have a background in working in a store. Yes. Uh what kind of store were you working in and what was that like?
SPEAKER_01So I worked in uh more of a uh a smaller downtown regional store. So um been doing this 28 years. Um when I first got into it, I was actually a computer person. I I that's what I went into the industry. I I went into computer science. I was hired originally back at IBIS, which was Dick's first company, um, as tech support. So I started working there and literally just jumped on the phones. I was the fourth person in the company um and just started answering questions. But my first call ever, I'll never forget it. Uh, she was a sweetheart. I answered the phone. She's like, did I call the right number? Because it's been the same person. It was one person in tech support. They answered the phone every single time. Now there's this new voice that's there. So I said, Yeah, yeah, you did. I'm brand new. She's like, Oh, that's great. She's like, um, okay, so I can't figure out where to put the culet. And I'm like, Okay, yeah, I could probably help you with that. Um, what's a culet? And where does it belong? Because I have no idea about the jewelry industry. So she was sweet, she laughed with me. Uh, she explained what it was. She's like, He's a little point at the bottom of the diamond. I said, Oh, so it should be in the inventory in some kind of details there. She's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. And hopefully she doesn't hear this, but all I did was we were DOS at that point. But if you looked at the program and you just followed the directions, it said go to two for inventory, one for items. And when you got to the item, there's literally a little bar at the bottom that said press F7 for stone details that would pop up and it wasn't there. She's like, Yeah, that's where I went, it's not there. But if you looked at the bottom again, it said press F10 for more details, and I said press F10. She's like, Oh my god, you get you're amazing.
SPEAKER_03And the rest is history.
SPEAKER_01That was it. All I did was read the screens. Nice. So that's a long way to see. I I didn't know a lot about jewelry at all. So I asked more questions in that first year than probably they asked me. But what I decided was that I really wanted to understand what's happening.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_01Um, we had a new customer that had come up that was not far from where our office was. And we were on the phone, we were talking about tag printers and tags, and uh she's like, Yeah, I'm looking for holiday help. So this was probably end of August, beginning of September. I'm like, Oh, really? And uh and she said, Yeah. And I said, Well, you know, I'd I'd really actually be interested in that because I've been trying to figure out what you guys do on a daily basis and understanding what half of these words are that you're talking to me about that I don't know. And she's like, Yeah, definitely. So in August of '99, I went in for holiday help. And uh I gave my notice in October of 2007. Wow. That uh I was just working way too much and uh three kids at that point, and I had 12 days off that year. I'm like, yeah, I really need to let something go. And obviously, I worked at the edge the whole time too, so I wasn't letting that go. But uh, so my last uh my last day of work was actually Christmas of uh 2007. Wow. So I ended up working at that store for eight years. Were they an edge client? Yeah, absolutely. That's actually how that's how I got to know them. Wow, it was when we were on the phone. Actually, it was it would have been an IDIS client at that point, it was early enough. Um, and then it switched over. But um, but yeah, so I I got to use the software. I was uh salesperson, I was inventory, I learned how to use a laser welder, so I did the simple solders and things like that. I obviously changed watch batteries, even though I would never ever want to do that ever again. Um but yeah, so I mean I learned every all aspects of the store and did pretty much everything in there.
Edge Retail Academy Vs Built-In
SPEAKER_03Man, so do you think that I I've always like toyed with the idea of like, should I go into like a store and see if I can do like a crash course for uh the thing is for me to do it, it would cost the store money, uh you know, and very much so in the short term. And would I like be able to go in and like work for like a month or something like that, make a whole series on it? Do you find that a lot of the tech people in um jewelry have come from other places and even um a lot of the the jewelry tech people as well came from vendors and like they've uh made the transition. Do you think that like if more people had retail store experiences that they would uh Julian issue would be like, you know, more well-rounded? Yes.
SPEAKER_01Um all of my guys that I bring out as trainers, I try to get them to go visit at least one of my local stores.
SPEAKER_03Oh, really?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um it's I have a couple stores that I know really, really well in Connecticut, and I will literally just send them down and they'll just they'll just sit behind the counter and watch what they do and listen to what they say. There is no better way to understand what our customers need than to be in their shoes for a day.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, I try to push that knowledge on because again, I worked in a store for eight years. I actually still have many friends where if I'm in their town and something crazy is going on, I'll work the store for a day.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_01You know, they'll have a crazy event, a grand opening, they're like, hey, you gonna be around? I'm like, actually, I would love to come to your grand opening. Oh, that's so good. And not only do I go to the grand opening, I'm like, uh, here's a set of keys, go have fun. I'm like, uh, sure, I didn't know I was coming to work, but I I actually do, I I I really miss working in the stores, so I enjoy when I get to do that. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. So what was like you've been what was it called? Ibis? Ibis. So our our our company was Ibis, and our software was the jeweler. The jeweler, okay. So what's the what was the main differences that prompted the edge? So so there was partners. Um so when I started with Ibis, uh Dick and Paul King were partners, and Dick was the the main salesperson and driver to gab it, was the driver of the of the software. Paul King was doing the writing. Um and we were doing we went from DOS to Windows, um, we we brought up a new Windows program. But as it got further and further, they just their their thoughts were in different ways. Paul was kind of stuck in his way, and Dick was always trying to think of what the next best thing is going to be. So they split in 2000. Um, and that's actually where Dick got uh partnered with Joe Shapiro and then started writing the Edge software. So in 2000 is when the Edge first started. 2002 is technically when the first sales happened for the Edge. Um, I was still with IBIS at the time. I had um by the time in 2006, Paul King had sold back to Dick, the company. Uh he sold like our clients and our software rights. Um at that point, we had a little over a thousand customers at IBIS. Um, and my first year and a half job was to bring my customers from the jeweler to the edge.
SPEAKER_03Oh gosh.
SPEAKER_01And in the first year and a half, I brought roughly around 750 of my customers from IBIS to Edge. Wow. So that's the early days.
SPEAKER_03And I one thing I've I've learned is that there's uh no one here, obviously. A lot of uh jewelers that uh were using quite the archaic system for inventory management and looking at and like keeping their books in like pencil and pencil and paper.
Tech Support Origins And Retail Years
SPEAKER_01So so again, I started back in '99 and there are 98, sorry, there are a couple people in here that I've known for quite a long time. Yeah. Um, I've known them for probably since 99, 98. Um, but when I started, when we were selling jewelry stores, the software, their inventory management, and some of you guys may know this, were green bar books. Oh yeah. So they were these books that had leather front and backs with these big old pins on the end. And that you'd unscrew them and you flip the cover off and you add more pages to it. And they were massive 11 by 14 pages with dark green and light green lines with all columns across, and that's how they would keep their inventory. Oh my gosh. When they sold something, they would find the right line on the green bar graph and they would cross it off and then put the sale number and who sold it and who it sold to, and that's how they kept inventory. Oh my gosh. It was the craziest thing I've seen of my life.
SPEAKER_03So is that essentially what the edge was designed to replace? Or was it not really not like designed to be a replacement and at all? It was something entirely different.
SPEAKER_01So we're probably going a little further back to Ibis days when we were replacing green bars. Um when we first started, there was not a lot of uh software out there. There was four main competitors out there, and some of them were$80,000 in 1999. What? Um big VAX systems with tape drives and everything else, and uh that was the one of the main ones. And then there were two others that were similar to us. Um so in that state, I would say we were replacing all the hand and paper. When Edge came around, it was a better technology, it was there to replace the older versions of jewelry store point of sale. That being said, on average I bring on 200 new clients a year. Out of those 200 new clients, does anyone do you want to take a guess how many don't have software? Oh maybe, maybe a third quarter? Half? Uh a little less than a half. I would probably say about 40% of the stores that you still bring on don't have any kind of real software behind. And it's all manual kind of thing? Not so manual to me now, even is Excel spreadsheets. Yeah. Um so it could be physically manual where it's actually pen and paper still, or it could be I have a spreadsheet where I knock things off and that kind of thing. But to me, that's not a software anymore. Yeah. So I mean we still have about 40% that come on that don't have any kind of uh software history to them. That's incredible.
SPEAKER_03So like there's a whole support system as well. So one of the things that kind of makes me laugh is that if you call, if you call punch mark, you're going and you even if you don't have a support, uh, you have non-dedicated support, that's what we call it, you'll eventually kind of find your way through the phone tree and you could talk to someone. But the edge has a whole different system where you get these like uh it's almost like wishes with a genie. Uh can you explain what like no no support is and what will come through that?
SPEAKER_01So we do have a serve support contract, obviously. That's what drives the edge. Support is what builds our development and everything else. So when people are paying support, that's what's making us get better. Um you don't have to have a support contract to use the edge. So if you buy the edge and you use support for two years and you say, you know what, I'm I'm happy where I am. You could be off support for a while. What happens if Something does come up, we basically uh do the three-strike rule. So you have three times that you get to call me, and I'm gonna help you out, and I'm gonna help you out as best as I can as long as it doesn't involve an update. If it involves an update, I can't help you. You gotta pay to get back on. But we're gonna try and help you through those couple of steps. But once you've reached that third mark, we're getting you over and saying, okay, it's time to get back onto support because obviously you're not happy with where you are, and we need to help you with that. And we get you up to the newest copy, and now we get you back on support for a year. But we we try as best we can to help everyone out and keep it going. But yeah, as you guys know, I know you do it and you don't, you shouldn't be, but you can't repair something forever. If it keeps breaking the same spot, there's something wrong. And if you sold it, you're gonna fix it by giving them a new piece. You're not gonna do the same repair 8,000 times and lose that money 8,000 times because you can't. You can't stay in business. Same way with us. We can't just keep supporting without having that background. Because again, support, it's not sales that drives our business, it's our support. Support is what maintains everything and keeps it going. So we can only do a certain amount without having support.
SPEAKER_03It's a really interesting kind of concept for it where it's like the actual commerce driver is is the support system, but like the the software is almost like the medium for that, which is the actual product, though. Correct. What a cool way to like, because for us, I think that ours is the product and the support is the peripheral kind of aspect of it. So it's almost uh like a putting it uh the other way around. But what about is it is it hard sometimes? Do people like get frustrated? Like, no, no, I just need a quick question. I just need like a really a really easy one.
SPEAKER_01So so yes, of course, you're gonna get into those kind of things. Um that's where someone like me gets involved. Yeah. Um, you know, I've I've I've heard some fairly loud conversations across the way because we are under one roof. We're an open floor plan, so my office is right here, everyone else is there, so I hear when something's happening, and I'll literally just get up and walk out to the support floor and I'll stand behind them listening to see what I could hear, and then I'll just say, I'll take the phone. Oh, that's great. And then most of these people know me. They know I'm I'm a very straightforward person. I'm gonna help you if I can. But if the support guy's telling me this is the 15th time we've called in the past three months and they haven't had support for a year and a half, I'm gonna give them that same story that I just told you guys. I can't do it. I can't do it. If I did it for you, I'd have to do it for everybody. And the only way we can make ourselves better is by having support. And honestly, 88% of our customers do support on a yearly basis. So we do something right and we're constantly moving stuff forward. So there's not a reason to say, oh, I don't want to do this. I see. So that's kind of where I come in.
SPEAKER_03So the one of the things that I have that made you a white whale for me was it feels like was there a conscious decision by the Edge to develop you to be an asset for the company? Was there like a decision to be like because we need a face? Well, yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, so Dick was was one of the faces, yep. And Dick is now um older, and now Mike is is very involved and he's helping lead the uh he's there the main salesperson, I'm assuming. Yes, he's the main salesperson, yeah. And then there's also this this other guy that's employee number four. So what was that? Was that a decision that you had a conversation with them about? No.
From Green Bar Books To POS
SPEAKER_01No, no, um, not at all. Um again, it just happened that I if it if you take anyone in my company, I don't care who it is, head of development, all the way down to the best support person to Dick Abbott, to anyone else, if you ask them who knows the most about how the edge works, runs, interacts, how it's done, it's me. And it again, it is back to the days of me running it working in a store. I've done this all this time. I'm in stores teaching these guys, I'm doing all of this. So it just happened that when someone wanted someone to talk about the edge, it ended up being me. I'm shy, obviously, I don't like to talk a lot, but um so it was just a kind of a natural progression that whenever we did, you know, it used to be Dick all the time doing the seminars, and I did my first seminar, and Dick got the first call saying, Oh God, Lenny's such a great. He's like, How come you didn't call when I did it last week? And you're calling about Lenny. So it just kind of turned into me talking a lot just because I like to do it. I I'm fairly engaging, I know what I'm talking about, and I can literally close my eyes and tell you everything about the edge without anything there. So it just kind of rolled into it. That everybody knows at the edge. It literally, my name went from Lenny Prion to Lenny Edge. Lenny from the Lenny from the Edge. That's that's who I am. If you ask anyone, do you know Lenny? They're gonna say, Lenny Edge. Absolutely. That's how it is. Yeah. And that's just what it became. And everybody knows it. Uh Dick knows it. He's like, they'd rather see you than me now. Um, and no, it wasn't ever a conscious decision.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it was just it's one of those things I I've noticed in the in the industry that these these some of these companies do develop these. Um, I don't want to call it like a figurehead, but more like like the face of the company. I think for a lot of us, I mean we have our three three owners, but they cycle who goes to shows. But now we have Jason goes to all the shows and people knew him, and he was the voice on the other end of the line for a lot of people. He was the only CS person that we had for many years. Uh and I there's all these vendors that I know as well. You go to the shows, and it's like, I don't even I assume that they're like the CEO or like the VP or something. It's like, no, they're just like the sale guy. And it's just like, oh, that's crazy. Um what about like so as we get into this and we kind of bring it home, I wanted to like what are people using, like what's like the actual main use case for the edge? And then what are people like sleeping on? What is uh like the use case that you think is actually the value?
SPEAKER_01So I mean the the real value of the edge is getting the information out in the end. I mean, there's any a lot of things can collect your data and just give you your numbers that you need to report to the taxes and stuff like that. But you can't do anything without having that information right first. So I mean that is a big portion of it, getting your daily stuff in there, inventory being entered correctly, point of sale happening, following those rules, taking that money, making sure you're collecting your customer information. That's all needed. But really, where it comes into play, and we actually talked about it at this seminar, is using that information we now have to make everything in our life easier. So we talk about um CRM and following up and this and that. If you go to if I go to any store and ask them what's the one thing if you had time to do that you would do more often, it is always contact our customers, get a hold of our customers, follow up with our customers. It it we need the time, we don't always have it. There are certain things though that if you're following the the steps and you're putting all the data in, there's things that the edge can take off your plate and do it for you in a nice way where it's not just an automatic. So when we're talking about CRM, one of the simplest things to do is follow up with the customer and saying, hey, how is that? If it's a sale and things like that, yeah, you might want to talk about them a little bit more and get a little involved in it and try to get them back in for something else. But when it's a repair, who's gonna call every single repair customer a week after they come in to say, hey, just check in on that repair? We'd love to. We'd love to. Yeah, but it's one of those lower things on our totem full. Well, if you're using notifications, text, email, things like that, you can just tell the edge a week after a job's picked up, follow up with that customer by text or email, however they decided, and say, hey, just check it in, want to make sure everything's good. Every single customer that does it that uses one of those notifications, he's gonna get that message.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
Support Contracts And The Three Strikes
SPEAKER_01We never have to think about it again. And it's something that we want to happen. And yes, a lot of people want to call and do this, but when it comes to a repair, are you gonna call every single person that got a sizing done to say thank you? We'd love to, but it's just not gonna happen. So letting the edge take those kind of things over and just automatically do it for you. And then the other side where it's bigger things where we do want that voice to happen, instead of having the edge do it automatically, making that associated task automatically, once it happens, it says, Hey, don't forget to follow up with that customer a week later. So now I don't have to chase, I don't have to go out and say, what do I have to do today? I click one button on my calendar and everything that has to happen is sitting there. Those are the benefits that I think everyone's missing because they get into the daily, I need to do this, I need to do this, I need to do this, I need to do this. They're getting their numbers that they need for the accountant, for the taxes, for everything else. But taking that one, maybe, maybe, and I'm I'm being real generous here, giving it a lot of time, taking that 20 minutes to sit down once and set a couple of these things up, you'll never have to think about it again. It just happens. Yeah, the amount of time saved by having that text or email go out to every repair customer to say, hey, just checking in, that one person who left you who didn't say anything when they picked up that job, but they looked at the piece and they were not happy. And now they're they're wearing it, and someone says, Oh, I uh what I love that ring. Yeah, I I went to the store and I went to have to do this. I'm not not not that happy. So they're just out there kind of not really digging on you, but they're not happy. Yeah, well, now they get that text. They're like, Well, you know, I'm not so happy with it. You would never have known that. They're not gonna call you. It's not to that point where it was something so horrible, they're going to put a review, but they're not happy. They're just kind of out there festering a little bit. But that text came out to them, or that email came out to them, and they replied saying, Yeah, you know, I just keep getting that prong stuck. It's not, I'm just not happy with it. Now you have a way of knowing that and being able to go in and say, come on in. Yeah, let's let's get that done. We we we want to know this, we'll get we'll make this better. Those are the kind of things that, again, without your work, you don't have to do anything. And that happens. So those are the kind of things that I get excited about. I get excited about the CRM, the follow-up, the that kind of stuff. Obviously, ordering. If you hit one button once a week, it tells you everything you need. Your fast sellers, your below reorders, your stuff that wasn't old, but not it didn't, it it didn't sell fast. These are the places you need to fill your holes. And by the way, these are all the things that you were lucky to sell because they're well over uh a year old. Take that money, put it somewhere better. And not only are we telling you to do that, we're telling you the spots to put that money in that are actually gonna do something for your store based on what you do. So I mean, these are the things that once you get past that initial is how I put the stuff in, that's really where the the the actual power of the edge is. It's it's helping you do the things that take a lot of time. The comfort of it. Yep.
SPEAKER_03I so the edge is is the edge considered jewelry specific? Which would you say that? So it's so it's have you ever like seen like weird, like a fringe case of using the edge, whether it's like, hey, we use it for like organizing, I don't know, like like call clubs or something like that. Lingerie store.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um really? So I have three. Three three three in the all the time that I've been there. We had a really good customer whose wife decided she was gonna open up a lingerie store. Good for her. She worked at the jewelry store forever, never knew how to use the edge. And she called and asked if she could have the edge, if she could buy the edge for her lingerie store. I was the one who answered the phone, and I'm like, um Let me check. Yes. Yes. I said, You do know like everything that's in there is she's like, Yeah, I know that. But I have the lists, I could change the lists to be what I want them to be. So instead of metal, I have lace, I have this, uh, and she's going on and on. My face is all bright red because she's talking about some of these things that she's putting in there, and I'm like, oh. I said, but yeah, if yep, absolutely, if you want to try this. And and she did. She was in business for 10 years, and she used the edge the whole. So that was one art gallery. Oh, that's cool. We actually have two or three art galleries that use the edge. A lot of overlap in there. A lot of overlap. So that that kind of made a little bit more sense. I said no to one.
SPEAKER_02Oh, really?
CRM Automation Stores Miss Most
SPEAKER_01And I don't I don't know how they were ever thinking this was going to work. Same thing, jewelry store owner, I've known them forever. And he's like, hey, my son is opening a store. I'm like, oh, okay, great. What you know, blah, blah, blah. We started talking. It was a deli. A deli. A deli. I'm like, uh, no, no, that I can't even think of a possible way that you're gonna be able to convert the edge into a deli software. I said, there's just gonna be way too much that they're gonna have to ignore, they're gonna have to change. No, we can't do that. Yeah, but lingerie and uh and art gallery, yes, we've done those towns.
SPEAKER_03Funny, because you know, uh probably a lot of people don't know this, but like so Punch Park is Julie specific. We probably saw it. But we do have uh we have one, we have one pizza shop, and uh no one really knows. We've they've been in business, they they don't have a service plan, they've just been there forever, and uh they they're out in in New York uh out in Vegas, Vegas. Yeah, in Las Vegas. Shout out Joey's Pizza, yeah. So it's so funny. Uh you ever go in the back end of um all of our admin stuff, and it's like, are they a retailer? Are they a vendor? Are they a marketer? And there's one, it's a pizza shop. It's in there in all of the drop downs, and I always laugh about that. I always thought it was a bug, and it's not. And then I met the guy, he's he's out there. That's awesome. Um Lynn, the one question I wanted to ask, and this is a personal question I wanted to ask. This is a hard one. Okay. Um I've always wanted to know, I think that there's a lot of value in like uh a cloud-based version of these things. Okay. And because with e-commerce, we are cloud-based, and a lot of our um our integration with you is reliant on having like the uh the TPW, the transfer protocol W? One of those ones. Uh those it relies on the relationship with the machine itself. Correct. Um, can you explain the edge's decision to be based off of a machine, being local, as opposed to being cloud-based?
Server Vs Cloud And Hybrid Future
SPEAKER_01Yes. Um, so I'm gonna start off by saying, yes, I can explain it, and I'm going to explain it. And then I'm gonna say, but I'm also changing my uh my pitch at the end of it. So again, we've always been server-based. One of the biggest things about being server-based in the store is there is nothing that can cause a speed issue unless your network is down. No outside force can slow you down, no outside force can make it so you can't find something. There is nothing that can stop you from having the edge in your store when it's server-based. Um does anyone in here want to guess for a jewelry store what's the busiest time of year? Holidays, obviously, right? When is the absolute slowest time for the internet in the year? The holiday season. So if you're fully server-based or fully cloud-based, you're totally relying on outside forces. So when they're doing their shopping and using the internet the most, that's when your software is going to be the slowest. If your internet goes down and someone calls and says, hey, how much do I owe you? You don't know. You have no idea. You can't find anything. There is also a limit on most of these programs for number of records. It's not number of records per table, it's number of records. So once you get to a certain point, there's not even an option of saying, hey, I want to buy more records. You can't. Yeah, you're done. You have to stop there. I found some things recently that in my head just boggle my mind. I have someone who's coming back from one of those. So they they decided they needed cloud base. And when I asked them why, they couldn't tell me. They couldn't give me an answer of why they need a cloud base. They just needed it. I was like, okay, fine. They're coming back to us. We're doing a conversion back, and they told me that they needed the top 500 customers that bought from this vendor. I'm like, oh, okay. They're like, they didn't have a way of doing that. They have 22 reports, and if it's anything beyond that, we have to send them something, and they run it for us. And they get it back within 24 hours. They don't add it to my software though. So if something's wrong, I gotta send it back again. I'm like, you mean you get you're stuck to 22 reports in your system? And they're like, yep, and if we need another one, we have to send it to them, and within 24 hours we'll get an answer. And if it's wrong, I gotta start over again. Those are the kind of things in my head that boggle my mind. I mean, uh I get it in the beginning when you write a software, there's always gonna be new things, and we're always adding new things. But there's certain things that are pretty basic that I don't I think if you don't have, there's there's a problem. I see. Um, but that being said, in the stage, yeah. Uh so we are we're going hybrid. Uh-huh. So you will have an online database that is accessible from outside the edge. Um so probably within six months, our first versions of that will be out there. Wow. Um, the first versions are just really going to be for backup and things like that. So automatic backups will happen. You'll never have to worry about anything happening. It'll be on our redundant servers and everything else like that. Um, once we have that out and up like that, the next steps will be getting access to things. So probably first quarter of next year, all of that fun CRM stuff that you always want to know when you're standing with a customer in the middle of a gala event and they're like, hey, remember that thing I bought? Well, now you'll just be able to go in. Anything that has an internet connection, let me look it up. Hold on. Oh, yeah, that's the thing you're talking about. You'll be able to see their account, their activity, all that kind of stuff will be at your fingertips no matter where you are. That your store database is still gonna be the main one. That's the one that's going to be the controller. So if there's something that's different between here and here, it's good, this one's gonna win. But if there is no internet connection, you can still read all that stuff that's up online. You just won't be able to make changes. So you will have access outside, and eventually you'll have almost all access from wherever you are. First part's gonna be that CRM stuff. Next part's gonna be when you're out of show. If you want to look up inventory, if you want to see what's selling, what's old, what's new. So when you're sitting with a vendor, you have all that information in front of you versus having it reports. So all of that stuff will eventually work its way down the line. But again, that first one is probably gonna be the CRM. And it's not even CRM outside. You could be standing with a customer in your store at this case, and they say, I want to add that to my wish list. Just be able to open up your phone, click on their customer and scan and scan that barcode and say, Okay, it's on your wish list. It's done. So that's where we're moving towards that. So we will always be server first, but when we move to hybrid, you'll have access to all of that stuff from outside. Wow, that's really exciting. I think that is kind of the best of both words in my in my opinion.
Where To Find The Edge
SPEAKER_03Yeah, for sure. Now, Lenny, where if people wanted to learn, you know, learn more or maybe give the edge a try or um maybe ask some questions for free. Um, where would they go and how would they get in contact with you?
SPEAKER_01Quickest, easiest way to find us is the edgeforjewelers.com. Edgeforjewers.com brings you our website that this wonderful company hosts for us. Um their name is Punchmark, just in case you're wondering. Um, and all of our contact information is there. You can set up a demo online. Um there's actually some videos and some core stuff up there, but all of our contact information is there. We're always willing to answer questions to walk you through stuff, but that's the easiest place to space.
SPEAKER_03That was the first website I one of the first websites I ever designed. I was very proud of it. Look at that. Yep. So thank you so much, Lenny. Everybody, Lenny from the Edge. Thank you. And if you haven't already, go check out the Edge for Jewelers. They're fantastic, and I highly recommend them. 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 Cocker. Don't forget to rate the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and leave us feedback on punchmark.com slash lead. That's L-O-U-P-E. We'll be back next week, Tuesday, with another episode. Cheers. Bye.
