In the Loupe
In the Loupe
Wrapping Up 2024 - The Best Bits
It's the final episode of Season 5, which means Mike is giving you a tour of all of the best bits from this season.
This is the 50th episode from this season, and we've interviewed some impressive and distinguished members of the jewelry industry this year. We hope you'll enjoy a look back on some of our favorite moments from Season 5! We will be back January 7th with the first episode of Season 6!
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Welcome back everybody to In the Loop. What is up everybody? My name is Michael Burpo and, for the final time of season five, thank you so much for listening to In the Loop. This is the final episode for our season. We're going to be taking a quick break between now and the New Year's. We're going to be returning on the first Tuesday of January I believe it's going to be the 6th or the 7th and I really want to, at the end of every season, recap some of my favorite moments.
Speaker 1:These aren't necessarily the episodes that get the most downloads or track the most clicks, though some of them are, but it's some of the conversations that I most enjoyed getting a chance to be a part of. Some of them are solo, though some of them are, but it's some of the conversations that I most enjoyed getting a chance to be a part of. Some of them are solo, some of them are with some esteemed guests, some of them are with my co-workers or bosses, and I always love getting a chance to look back on the season and, you know, see where we've covered as well, as we're starting to get prepared for season six, which is crazy to think about. What we always do is we have a compilation episode and I hope you stick around and enjoy some of the best bits of season five. All right, enjoy.
Speaker 2:This episode is brought to you by Punchmark, the jewelry industry's favorite website platform and digital growth agency. Our mission reaches way beyond technology. With decades of experience and long-lasting industry relationships, punchmark enables jewelry businesses to flourish in any marketplace. We consider our clients our friends, as many of them have been friends way before becoming clients. Punchmark's own success comes from the fact that we have a much deeper need and obligation to help our friends succeed. Whether you're looking for better e-commerce performance, business growth or campaigns that drive traffic and sales, punchmark's website and marketing services were made just for you. It's never too late to transform your business and stitch together your digital and physical worlds in a way that achieves tremendous growth and results. Schedule a guided demo today at punchmarkcom slash go. And now back to the show.
Speaker 1:Before we jump into all the clips, I just want to say a quick thank you. First of all, I want to say thank you for listening. This is our 50th episode of season five, which is the most we've ever produced in a single season. I think that consistency comes with, you know, time in there and also some good planning, also just having a system that works well. And also I want to say thank you. We actually were just named In. The Loop was just named in the 45 best jewelry podcasts. We were ranked number two, which is pretty exciting. It was by Feedspot they compile podcast lists and being number two, I mean I'm quite proud of ourselves. I think that there's some impressive podcasts that we're shoulder to shoulder with that I certainly listen to and admire, but I can't thank you all for being a part of us. I mentioned it in episode 200 earlier this season. But genuinely, this is my favorite part of my job. I love getting a chance to speak with some people who I am so proud of and so admiring of, but also with some of my coworkers, and also just the opportunity to share my exploration of the jewelry industry with you all these episodes at the end of every season offer me the unique opportunity to go back and sort of get a feel for the season I think season five. We really covered a lot of ground and we changed a few things about ourselves. We wanted to be a little bit more topical, so, you'll notice, when there was breaking news, we tried to be one of the first people to be on that. So, whether that was interviewing Craig McBean with OSPI to talk about his acquisition of Victor Corporation and also getting the chance to speak with Alexis Padas when she was named the new president of AGS, being on top of that has allowed us to sort of fit ourselves into the jewelry industry news cycle, which is something we previously hadn't been attempting before. But also I have started doing some more solo episodes to sort of share an unfiltered view into how a soon to be 30 year old experiences e-commerce in the jewelry industry and what is standout to me. I think that in the future we're going to take a lot of these lessons and apply them to future episodes. I want to do more in-person interviews if possible. But I also want to say thank you so much for allowing us to have some of this advertisement for Punchmark on here as well. I know that no one loves listening to podcast advertisements. I'm sure some people are skipping through them, but allowing Punchmark to use this as a vessel to get our message across as well is part of what allows me to do this as part of my job, and it allows us to kind of, you know, build a connection with our clients beyond just through an email, and for that I can't say thank you enough.
Speaker 1:That said, we have our 10 favorite clips, or my favorite clips, from season five, and I hope you'll stick around for season six, which will be starting very early next season on January 7th. Until then, thanks everybody, enjoy. Our first clip is from episode six of season five, the Brilliance of a Diamond Marketplace, featuring Novota, and this was my interview with a co-founder of Novota, and we're talking about how they changed the prices on their diamond marketplace to accurately reflect the changes and how they're constantly adapting for the price fluctuations of lab-grown diamonds. This is our best episode in terms of performance. It kind of weirdly went super viral. We got about seven or eight times more listens on it than what a normal episode does. I think it's in part because people are really excited by what Novota is coming out with. So please enjoy. How do you guys kind of see that? Is it just about staying nimble and updating your prices frequently, or do you have a different approach to it that allows you to kind of safeguard yourself from the changing price?
Speaker 3:Right, so we update prices every 5 to 15 minutes. Wow, depending on the level of integration that we have with each of the suppliers. And you're absolutely right, especially on LabGround, it's been trending down, although I must say that the last couple of months it's been tapering off a little bit. So obviously impossible to tell if that's going to stay the same into this year, but it seems that we are starting to hit a little bit of a plateau, at least for some of the fast selling categories. But yeah, it's critical to make sure that the prices are accurate, and this applies to natural as well as a global marketplace. We have to make sure that things can change on a whim and they have to be reflected accurately on the platform as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1:I guess I'm always curious about that is we obviously want to offer any product that someone is looking for. I think that that's one of the key things I've learned about vendors is that if there's a market for it, we need to have it, because otherwise they'll just go somewhere else. Yeah, one of my favorite interviews from this season was episode nine, behind the Sparkle, sarah Schoenling's journey in high jewelry design at Tiffany Co. And Sarah is a high jewelry designer, so she's the one that's creating these pieces that can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and they're one of a kind and they are truly works of art. And I got a chance to ask Sarah a lot of questions I've always had about Tiffany Co and about the process of actual high profile jewelry design and what that kind of process is like. And it was so cool because Sarah was remarkably transparent talking about how she goes about designing these pieces for, especially for the Tiffian Co Blue Book every year which she contributes to. It was one of my favorite conversations. I hope to interview her again one day and I hope you'll enjoy.
Speaker 1:I think this is one of those episodes I'll go back and I'll listen to again, I'm assuming because of the fact that there is this really boutique and, like you know, customized process, the process behind the actual design probably is a little bit more all encompassing. Do you start, you know, I guess, with concept images, or what kind of how do you begin with the design of your jewelry? Is it, I guess, sketching? Is it? Do you jump right into into CAD, or how does that kind of begin?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so well. Firstly, I do start with a lot of research and I research for inspiration. I'll make a vision board and a mood board and just to kind of conceptualize and visualize my ideas. And then I go on to sketching and I will sketch figurative drawings, very rough, to try to explore a concept. And I'll typically start with the necklace, because everything for me derives from the necklace.
Speaker 1:Oh cool, I never knew that. That's a really cool idea.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, that's that's how I personally like to go about it. The necklace is the showstopper, so you want to put the most work and attention to detail into the necklace and get that perfect so that you can then delineate from there, yeah, to the rest of the pieces, yeah, so there is a lot of sketching and there's a lot of refining, and then you scan these pieces into the computer and you're on photoshop, uh, rendering and drawing on there, and then you know it's just more revisions, more reflections and, if needed, we we will take it into CAD and design it three-dimensionally, print it to understand how it's working in the round.
Speaker 1:Yeah, One of Punchmark's yearly events is we have the client workshop. It's usually at the end of April or in the beginning of May and we have two days of educational training for our clients. It's in Charlotte every year and we have our clients in and we usually have events at the rooftop bar after the end of day one. So this year I decided to give out a couple of awards to acknowledge some of our clients that were in attendance. So this is me giving a speech for some awards at Fahrenheit. This is from episode 19 of season five.
Speaker 1:I went to the third Punchmark Client Workshop and all I got was this podcast episode. Be warned, the audio is a little scuffed because it's from a video recording and it was a little windy up there, but I still think it's fun. Bear with me. We have four awards for clients, four for Punchmark people, so just bear with us. It was important to us that we recognize some people that travel here and also some of the people that help figure websites not going down Right, right, right, I think I'm going to call out we'll do the client's birth because it's the client workshop.
Speaker 7:So you guys are in the name.
Speaker 1:So we have two people that have come to every workshop. This is the third year, and so we have these two workshop warriors, and the first is Caleb from Fall Jewelers.
Speaker 7:Oh, there you go. Hi man You've been that long time from Fall Jewelers oh there you go.
Speaker 1:And then the other one is going to be Bob from Wear Jewelers, hey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, next up Wear jewelers. Hey, in attendance we have the longest standing client. Punchbox has been around for 15 years, so this person has been with us for 13 years, I believe, and this is Kristen from Selman Jewelers. And then we're always looking for forward-looking indicators. So, like what is it most likely? To have a very successful website or be doing well or whatever that means, and the number one thing we've seen is logging in a lot is going to lead your website doing well. So we have the most active and engaged for the most logins to their site manager, and this is with over a thousand logins.
Speaker 1:Just last year is Liz with Georgetown Jewelers At the client workshop. Every year I am very fortunate I get the opportunity to do a live podcast recording in front of an audience, which sort of accentuates the episode a little bit. It kind of makes us, you know, even more enthusiastic and it's something I really enjoy and I always record it and then we create an episode out of it. And this year I decided to do a next generation jewelry retail roundtable. I had on Falls Jewelers and Kiefer Jewelers and we talked all about what being a next generation jeweler means to them, some of the kind of current projects that they're working on and how they are always kind of improving as a next generation jeweler and what they're doing to stay kind of abreast of current trends. And I really enjoyed how this one turned out. You can have a much better flow or kind of rhythm to the conversation when you're in person. You're able to nod along and sort of, you know, frame the questions a little bit more naturally because they can see your facial expressions or you can lean in to kind of get them to finish an answer. I just really enjoyed how this one carried out. This is from season five, episode 20,. Enjoyed how this one carried out. This is from season five, episode 20, live next generation jewelry retailer roundtable featuring Falls Jewelers and Kiefer Jewelers.
Speaker 1:I'm joined by Caleb and Alex and we're going to be talking about a couple of I don't want to call them polarizing topics, but topics that people seem to have some strong opinions on when it comes to the jewelry industry. So things like e-commerce, things like lab grown versus natural diamonds Not that it's I don't want people to have to take a stance too strong on either side but it's more that I want to have an idea from retailers, because I'm not a retailer. I work for Punchmark and we do websites, but you guys are having the on the ground experience and understanding it better than I do, so I want to check in with you guys as well. So, alex and Caleb, I kind of want to start with jewelry e-commerce, because we just spent, you know, the last day and a half talking about how you guys can optimize your website as best as possible, hopefully to sell a little bit online. I guess I want to start. Alex, do you sell online?
Speaker 9:I do sell online.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how is that going so far for you?
Speaker 9:It's going well. I mean, I definitely feel like it's never going to replace or even try to compete with our brick and mortar business. But you know there's lots of fringe benefits from having your inventory online. I mean, almost multiple times a day now probably, people just come in with their phone. I want to see this item, you know, and like the sales already half made for you. Um, we get a lot of the where people buy online and then do the in-store pickup makes our lives super easy, especially during the holidays. But I do ship stuff to all 50 States. I've shipped to Puerto Rico. It's, yeah, it's pretty amazing actually to where it's gotten at this point. It is a lot of work, though I will not downplay that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:As In the Loop, has started to kind of establish itself inside of the jewelry industry. One of the benefits has been I've been able to start to interview people as breaking news is happening and I do my best to pay attention to National Jeweler and a few different news sources so that I am able to stay abreast of what's important in the industry. And sometimes when news breaks and someone is going to be stepping into a leadership role, I try my best to reach out to them as soon as I can to get a opportunity to interview them for In the Loop and to kind of share their message early with the rest of the industry. And one of the cool interviews I did this season was on episode 23,. And I interviewed Alexis Pattis and it was for her first exclusive interview as new president of AGS, the American Gem Society, and Alexis shared what her vision for AGS was and kind of how she hopes to direct the group into, you know, the next frontiers, whatever they may be. She's so well spoken and she was very giving with her time. I really appreciated her taking an interview with me. It was super cool getting a chance to speak with her and definitely one that I'll be following her career and hopefully we have a follow-up later this upcoming year.
Speaker 1:Welcome back everybody. I'm joined by Alexis Pattis. How are you doing today, alexis?
Speaker 7:I'm great, Michael. Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be here.
Speaker 1:Wow, an honor is all mine. I'm so excited to be speaking with you First interview as new president of AGS. Could you tell me a little bit about your background and also about being president of AGS?
Speaker 7:Oh, absolutely, but it's going to take a little bit. I apologize, I'm here for it. Pattis Jewelry we're based in San Francisco. We very much like a lot of the businesses in our industry, are family owned and operated. We're actually celebrating our 50th year in business this year, so we're very excited. It's, you know, one of those things when your parents start the company and you got to see very early on what those steps look like during that process, you have so much more respect for all that went into getting us to this 50 year mark. Uh, so it's really a joy. We are based in the San Francisco Bay area. We have five locations, uh, three of which are in San Francisco a location in Walnut Creek, which is a suburb of the Bay area, kind of East of San Francisco, and then we have a location in Napa, uh, which is where I call home, and it is a combination of a jewelry store and tasting room. We also have Pattis Vineyard, our second family-owned and operated business.
Speaker 7:We deal in booze and bling. It's a fantastic combination, and you know true to form, with a lot of the next generations that have joined the business. I joined it begrudgingly.
Speaker 1:Following in the vein of getting a chance to interview some individuals that I definitely admire and find very impressive in the industry. I was very fortunate to get the opportunity to interview Podium co-founder Dennis Steele, and it was so inspiring hearing about how he and his friend started in their friend's garage creating this solution for one of their friend's father's tire shop and how this eventually led to the industry powerhouse that is Podium. But also he was incredibly candid to talk about some of the shortcomings and hurdles that they've come up against in recent years and also how they have gone about rectifying those situations and they're doubling down on jewelry and focusing back on this industry. That really has been a key part for their business. He was very candid and transparent about the steps that they've taken and it was definitely something I came away with a much greater respect for the company and also for Demis.
Speaker 1:I think this is going to be one that I'll look back on in future years as Podium continues to make waves in the industry, and something I'll return to to see how, you know, it's changed in recent years. So Podium always has had really great products, but for the past I don't know, maybe two, three years you guys have had kind of like seemingly super large ambitions, changing it to more, not just jewelry focused, and that's kind of what a lot of jewelers really appreciated. What has the last couple of years been like from like a leadership and management perspective and seeing the full picture?
Speaker 5:Yeah, it really has for us been focusing on our core customers. That made us successful in the first place and that has made such a difference. And you know, I think any business owner can relate to this. You know you have ups and downs, sometimes you lose your way a little bit on some of your core principles that made you successful originally. And we learned some lessons a couple of years ago when we realized that, you know, with all of the funding and the pressure to scale the business rapidly, we started to go broader and broader, because Podium and the things that we serve, the needs that we serve for local business, are ubiquitous and they're very broad and you can apply it to almost any business out there. And so, you know, like you said, ambitiously we were kind of trying to attack the opportunity and we had. We started to have more of a broad focus across all industries and all local businesses.
Speaker 5:And there was a key lesson that we learned in that and that was I talked a little bit about the relationship that jewelers get to have with their clients because of the emotional purchase and we kind of lost sight of how important it is for us to have close relationships with our clients and our customers at Podium and really understand their businesses and their use cases, because the use case for a jeweler can be so different than the use case for a dog groomer or any other local business that you can think of.
Speaker 5:And so what we did about, you know, 18 months, two years ago to 18 months ago is we shifted the strategy to hone back in on our core customers, and that's only a handful of verticals where we are dedicating all of our resources from a product perspective, a customer service level perspective, because we had some degradation there.
Speaker 5:We weren't serving the use cases as well as we had been from a product perspective, designing the product specifically for the things that jeweler needs to do. And from a service level perspective, because they have different needs from a support, training and onboarding perspective. And so I'm really proud of what the team has done with shifting that strategy back into place, putting additional resources into the jewelry industry, because it is one of those handful of industries that we have as our core strategy. And then, on the product side, we've made huge advancements to serving that specific use case, and a lot of that has come with integrations with some of our top systems partners like the edge, um, and now, as we move into AI, there's some really exciting use cases that we can focus on. But focusing on the specific use case of a jeweler, um it, there is just a ton of value from that, and so that's been, you know, a huge learning for me as an entrepreneur and as business owner.
Speaker 1:This season for In the Loop, I started to lean a little bit more heavily on the solo episode and I think I've gotten a little bit better at making them. I've started to slow down how quickly I speak but it allows me kind of a lot of breathing room to sort of dive really deep into an experience that I find incredible. So I did this with breaking down the best and also trying out vertical videos last season, but this season I used the opportunity to talk about omni-channel experiences, and one in particular that I had when I went to Lowe's around Memorial Day for buying these railing planters, and the experience was so seamless and profound and so quality that I felt like I needed to make an episode to exemplify how well done it was and this is, I mean, lowe's is not a small company and the way that they had their website and their in-store experiences and multiple in-store experiences working so seamlessly that it was just, I mean, chef's kiss. So this is from episode 25 of season five Omnichannel Examples in Everyday Life. This is probably more of an evergreen episode. This is probably going to be one that we bookmark and we send to people when they don't understand Omnichannel experiences, but I'm quite proud of it and I hope you go back and check it out. If we define Omnichannel, I just looked up a definition, just because sometimes when I explain it it has to take a lot of words. So here's the explanation I found.
Speaker 1:Online Omnichannel retail is a business model that integrates multiple digital and physical channels to create a consistent customer experience across all touch points. The goal is to provide a seamless transition between online and offline shopping and to make it easy for customers to move between channels. So it's important to just kind of dial in on a couple points. When they say channels, they mean marketing channels or just like spaces that you cultivate. So this could be your website and then your in-store presence and maybe it could be your marketing and it could also be your signage and things like that. So if you were to have a sale, it's important to have the sale in all spots. So maybe you're having a discount or a sale on, you know, pearl necklaces. It's important that you have the sale online on your signage. So you're like you know your advertisements. Like maybe something you have flyers or maybe you have an advertisement in your local paper. It's important that you have the sale there but also in your store, so everything should be talking to itself Instead of having it only marketed through one channelichannel is for product availability and also for just kind of ease of finding your way around and explaining things. So I'm going to explain one situation I had recently where I had an incredible Omnichannel experience and as I was going through it I was like, wow, this is so cool. As I was going through it I was like, wow, this is so cool.
Speaker 1:One of my personal favorite episodes for this season was a one-on-one episode I had with my boss, ross Cockrum, and what was really cool about this conversation it was season five, episode 27, innovation and Family Balance a conversation with Punch Mark's Ross Cockrum. We sat down and we talked about some of the exciting things that Punchmark's doing, but towards the back half of the episode we really talked about what Ross's kind of mantra for you know work and why are we working. Why do why? Is Punchmark even exist? You know, how are we making the world a better place? Are we just, you know, shuffling money around from person to person? And Rostov is also very candid and talked about his upcoming well now past paternity leave and talking about you know why he is working for his family and how he balances. You know his one baby, his business, you know that he co-founded and a new baby, and it was really kind of a fun and introspective episode that I kind of want to do more of. In on In the Loop, I felt like we were talking about something that isn't talked about enough in a tangible setting. A lot of times it's like, oh yeah, man, you gotta work, work, work and grind and never stop. But talking about why we're doing what we're doing was a really nice kind of conversation that I would like to do more of and I think needs to be talking about, maybe even at your own business. So definitely a good episode.
Speaker 1:One thing that you posted recently in the IGL exclusive Facebook group it was this poll and this kind of I mean harkens back to what we were just talking about. About these topics that are, it's not just about sell, sell, sell. Sometimes you got to just ask a question or you got to just be engaged, so you had this question out there and to just to to do a bad job. Uh, summarizing it, it was essentially you asking are you annual sales milestone driven Like? Are you? Is your goal with your business to to meet a specific annual sales milestone or are you putting, like, a lifestyle and family in the forefront for running your business, or is it? Are you trying to just set yourself up to retire and you ask these questions?
Speaker 1:Another one was like I'm trying to, like I'm just trying to grow my business in any way I can, and you kind of like left it at that and I thought that that was really interesting because I went to go check out the answers and the comment section was fascinating because suddenly people were sharing their mindset and ideas for balancing, for balancing, you know, business, like why are we all here? It's because we are trying, hopefully trying to make a lot of money and retire and live our best life and all those things and hopefully make a difference in the world. But I thought that the answers were overwhelmingly I put lifestyle and family above business growth. So what, what is your current mindset when it comes to that? I mean, you've been CEO of Punchmark for 15, almost 16 years 16 years actually, I think in May. What's your view on that right now?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, here's the thing when you look at why you start a business, you look at why you start a family. Those are two different things. Right, there's this, you know, inherent drive that we all have, that we want to be better, we want to be the best version of ourselves, we want to, you know, work out. We want to run, we want to do other things outside of life, but we also want to be smart, we want to be competent, right, we want, we want all these things. And you know a few things that I'm really trying to do.
Speaker 2:Um, as my continue, as is, remind myself why I go to work every day, and not only just in the work field of I go to work every day to help clients succeed, but why I go to work every day for me. You know, I do it for my family, so that I can spend time with my family. But then I could say that, but then I need to act on that and not just say it. So you know, it sounds whimsical, but my new mantra is to spend it now, and by spend it I mean my time. So I want to avoid bad words Like as soon as I get this done, life will get so much easier, right, or? Hey, I'll have plenty of time when I retire, right, like, like, seriously like that's the American dream, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's that's what I always think about. It's like why am I, why am I working so hard? Oh, it's so that I can retire when I'm I'm, you know, 60. And it's like, really, I'm going to work so hard for the next 30 years just so I can retire, it's like, but what about now? What about what about when I'm young?
Speaker 1:Now that In the Loop has been around for well over 200 episodes, at this point I've actually been able to develop a couple of relationships and kind of points of contact in the industry which have been very cool to experience. And one of those people that I really look up to is Craig McBean. He's the president, fourth generation owner of OSPI, who is a jewelry vendor and a real powerhouse in the industry, and I have a recurring interview with Craig and I had booked up this interview and to go and have him on in the loop just to talk about what's been going on for OSPI, and news came out like one day later, after booking the interview, that Osby had just acquired Victor Corporation and that is huge news. In case you didn't know, Victor Corporation has been around in the jewelry industry since like 1945 or 46. And Osby has also been around for I mean well over 100 years. At this point, and hearing that there was going to be a merger between the two and that Craig was going to be at the helm of it all was really a big deal and also so cool to kind of get a chance to speak with Craig as these events were unfolding. It was something that I was really grateful to Craig for allowing me into and also something that kind of is a milestone marker or sort of like a timestamp on the year, because pretty much everybody heard about the news.
Speaker 1:So this is, from episode 28 of season five, an inside look at OSPI's acquisition of Victor Corporation. With Craig McBean I scheduled this appointment to interview you and then, like two days later, the big news came out. I want to talk about this at first and right in the beginning OSPI just acquired Victor Corporation, which is a huge name in the jewelry industry. Can you tell me a little bit about what that means for OSPI and what that means for you as an owner?
Speaker 8:Yeah, no, first of all, we're super excited about it. John and I go back a lot of years and I think that's one of the cool things about this industry is just the interactions that we all have. Even on the vendor side, the manufacturing side. We might compete against each other, but there's still a friendship and a respect that goes on there. And I got to know John Euclid a few years ago. We served on some boards together and just always admired him, how he ran his company, the success that they had, and you know, over the years we just kept talking. And, um, you know, over the years we just kept talking. And then recently he, I think, had come to the decision that, um, he'd reached that point where, uh, you know, there's no pockets in a coffin and maybe it's time to retire and go on to that next chapter in his life, and he didn't have any family members that were interested in going into it. So we started talking and it really turned out to be a great.
Speaker 8:The more we talked, the more I realized it was a great fit for us for just so many reasons. Their product line meshes with ours really well. They're strong in some areas of the country that were not as strong. When I ran our customer lists against each other, there really was very little overlap, surprisingly little overlap. So from that standpoint, it really helps us open some avenues into some new stores. In addition, they do some things really well from the marketing side, product side, just like we do. But the ability to combine those product offerings, service offerings and everything that they bring to the table with what we bring to the table, I really think that it gives us a really comprehensive program to support the independent jeweler.
Speaker 8:And I think, most of all and you know you've heard me talk about it Core values are just super important to me and I really have a good feeling about what OSPI's DNA is, kind of who we are, and it's funny because those stores that kind of have that same DNA as us are our best partners and just getting to know John and his team and all they do, they really shared the same core values that we did.
Speaker 8:So from that standpoint, um, just everything about this really made sense and um, it's just been, it's really been an honor just to work with john and his team over the last few months to pull this thing off and um, what's fun about it is you know, sometimes these things can be contentious or things like that. It just never was. It really was two people with the same goal in mind, and that's for the legacy of Victor to continue and to be a part of OSPI and to make us stronger, to be able to support their customers with the same quality service that they've always received and their people that we're able to bring on board with us received, and their and their people that we're able to bring on board with us. And, um, it's just and I feel like John's gone from a kind of a colleague to a best friend over these last months and, um, he's still going to help us here in the next few months as we kind of finalize this integration. So it's been great, it's super exciting for us and I'm really happy for everyone involved.
Speaker 1:This year In the Loop hit a really exciting milestone, which was 200 episodes published, and for our 200th episode I decided to do a little kind of special episode and I got a chance to recap first of all how we started making In the Loop under a different name, the Jewelers Survival Kit, and also what it is now and why we're still making it. I also got a chance to interview some people that are very special to me and I really am proud of how this episode came out A little peek behind the curtain, I'll tell you, these landmark episodes don't actually perform as well in terms of downloads, which I think is kind of funny. But this episode was very special to me because I really am proud of what In the Loop has become and what we've been able to accomplish and you know, help some jewelers and I think that getting a chance to recap it it made me like almost a little bit emotional afterwards. Getting a chance to recap it, it made me like almost a little bit emotional. Afterwards I finished it and I published it and for once I really did feel quite proud of something I had made and you know we don't have any plans to stop and I hope you enjoy. So this clip is from episode 38 of season five in the loop, episode 200, transforming the Jewelry Industry Through Podcasting. Hope you enjoy.
Speaker 1:All right, everybody, welcome to episode 200 of In the Loop. This episode is going to be a little bit longer, I expect, and also more of like a mashup and compilation and port of force, even with a couple of different interviews. I think I know that Ross is going to be on. I think I might try to interview my editor, paul, who I've never spoken with before. I've communicated with him every single week, sometimes multiple times a week for five years at this point and I've never once spoken to him and I don't even know what he looks like. So I think I'm going to be able to interview him, which would be really cool. And also I wanted to get a chance to recap why we started In the Loop, what the early days were like and also where it stands now, because over the course of the last five seasons and it's more like five and a half seasons we have changed and redeveloped what In the Loop is like and I think I'd like to kind of explain because maybe you know you weren't listening back then, a lot of you weren't when we started, this was a very small podcast and we started under a different name. If you scroll all the way back in our catalog on Spotify or Apple Podcasts you scroll all the way back you'll notice that we have a different name. We were, for the first seven episodes, the Jewelers Survival Kit. We had different branding, different audio and it had a much more serious tone than what I like to portray.
Speaker 1:It was also produced as a group effort with a bunch of us. For example, ross was doing a lot of the editing and one of our developers was doing a lot of the voiceover and was like taking a different approach to it and I wasn't as involved. It was actually while I was out on vacation before COVID started. I was actually in Breckenridge, colorado, at the time for a wedding when the world shut down and I made it out on one of the last flights out of Colorado back to Charlotte, north Carolina, and went immediately into lockdown. And the reason why we started it is because a lot of our jewelers were freaking out a little bit.
Speaker 1:A lot of the times when I pick a guest for who I'm going to be interviewing, a lot of the times when I pick a guest for who I'm going to be interviewing, I am choosing one that I think will have like broad appeal or that retailers will find really interesting. But sometimes I pick one that I am really excited to speak with and I can almost leverage my platform of having a podcast to get a chance to interview someone that I would love to get a chance to speak with, and that was definitely the case for episode 40 of season five, the story behind Bad Art Nice Watch, featuring Brian Braddy and if you haven't seen Bad Art Nice Watch on Instagram, it's this account that where Brian illustrates these watches that people send into him and he tells the story that goes with them, and sometimes they are about milestone achievements oh, I got this watch upon my graduation. Or oh, I got my watch because it was my father's heirloom, but sometimes they're more I don't know like special behind them. Oh, this watch has been was lost at the bottom of the lake for three years and then it got found again, and the stories behind them are just delightful. And I you know he used the name bad art nice watch, but truthfully, the illustrations are awesome too, and I've mentioned a million times on In the Loop.
Speaker 1:I'm a semi-professional watercolor painter in my free time and finding someone who bridges the world of luxury jewelry and watercolor was. I don't know if there's anybody else out there that is bridging that gap besides me and him. So it was so cool getting a chance to speak with him, and it was definitely one that I'll probably go back and listen to in a year or so. Hope you enjoy. How did you kind of end up in this position? It's very, very unique one.
Speaker 6:Yeah, it is a unique one, and I kind of stumbled into this by accident, completely honestly. So I like to tell the story. My daughter, my eldest daughter, is really the origin of this whole thing. Um, she was four at the time. She's seven now, Uh, and we were sitting at our dinner table and she was just doing some coloring at the table and she said dad, would you color with me? I was like, absolutely. Um, she said color whatever you want. So I'm really big into watches.
Speaker 6:I've unfortunately been bit by that bug, and so I went ahead and drew a watch and it really just kind of kindled this childlike memory that I had of you know how much I loved drawing back as a kid, and so it was really a lot of fun. And so I had had a failed Instagram account. Just like a lot of watch enthusiasts, you know, you want to take photos, you want to be involved in the industry or just kind of play in the community, and so I had done a photography account and I was really frustrated with the output that I was getting. I wasn't willing to invest in a lot of money and, you know, getting really nice equipment or anything like that, and so when I drew this, I was like, oh, this might be fun. You know, just a little creative outlet, Just go ahead and throw up my drawings up there. I don't care if I get any likes, it's just something for me.
Speaker 6:But when I started drawing, I wanted to challenge myself and I had always been interested in doing watercolor. I'd never done anything other than those cheapy little school kits. You know, you got like an elementary school and so I was like, okay, I guess I'm going to give this a shot. And so I ordered some watercolors off of Amazon and really I mean I'm bad at it, but you know it's, it's been a lot of fun, it's a challenge. I didn't realize that I was picking one of the harder mediums when I went ahead and did this, but yeah, it's been a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:All right, everybody. That's the end of the show. There's going to be a little bit of a longer outro, so stick with it. I want to say a very special thank you to all of our guests on season five. These include Justin from National Rarities, trevor from Late Souls Jewelry, paige the Jeweler Andre from Novota, amanda Gizzi of Jewelers of America, sarah Schoenlink from Tiffany Co, penny Palmer from IJO, nakaya Levesque of Day's Jewelers, chris Coe and Adam Antelek from Co-Group Jack Custom Designs, caleb from Falls Jewelers, joe Chavone from Z's Fine Jewelry, joanna Groover from Joe Co Jewelers, jason Beatty from Gem Gallery, richard McCarthy and Jesse Corby from Jewelers Advantage, alexis Pattis from AGS, dennis Steele from Podium, cole Rowland from Where's Jewelers, craig McBean from Ospy, william Jones IV from Sissy's Log Cabin, hunter Taylor from Tailored Rings, stephen Barnes from IJO, marius from Pickup Media, lee Elgin from Elgin Fine Jewelry and Vincent Spolaccio from Arezzo Jewelers, my editor, paul Suarez, candice Palamalu from Zachary's Fine Jewelry and Birthright Foundry, brian from Bad Art, nice Watch, and also all the Punchmark employees who generously give me their time during the day to join me on my silly little podcast. I thank you enough.
Speaker 1:This episode was brought to you by Punchmark and produced and hosted by me, michael Burfo. This episode was edited by Paul Suarez. Thanks again, paul, for digging through all these clips with me and music by Ross Cockrum. Don't forget to rate the podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. It is the best way to help us grow and leave us feedback on punchmarkcom slash loop. That's L-O-U-P-E. Thanks, and we'll be back next season on January 7th with a new season of In the Loop. Thanks everybody. See you then. Bye you.
