July 29, 2025 • 46 mins
In the Loupe EXCLUSIVE
Bill Becker, new President of the Retail Jewelers Organization (RJO), shares his perspective on the organization's growth from a small collective buying group in 1966 to a powerhouse with nearly 1,200 members today. As both a multi-store jeweler and industry leader, Bill offers unique insights into RJO's success factors, current challenges, and his vision for supporting independent jewelers.
Michael was honored to sit down for the first in-depth conversation with Bill to discuss taking over for Terry Dickens, now RJO President Emeritus, collaborating with Sarah Streb, CEO of RJO, and his vision for the future or the group.
Learn more about RJO: rjomembers.com
Learn more about our sponsor, Jewel-Craft: jewel-craft.com
Send feedback or learn more about the podcast: punchmark.com/loupe
Learn about Punchmark's website platform: punchmark.com
Inquire about sponsoring In the Loupe and showcase your business on our next episode: podcast@punchmark.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Michael Burpoe (00:19):
Welcome to In the Loop when he took over for
Terry Dickens, who'd beenleading the buying group for a
number of years.
Up to this point, bill, as aretail jeweler himself with
Becker's Jewelers, understandsthe future and roadmap of the
industry as well as anybody andhe shares his views and kind of
hopes for the industry on In theLoop and it was a really cool
(00:39):
talk.
If this is your first timelistening to In the Loop, I
consider subscribing.
Wherever you get your podcasts,whether it's Spotify or Apple
Podcasts we have new episodesevery Tuesday.
Thanks and enjoy theconversation.
Ross (00:55):
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Slash go.
Michael Burpoe (01:49):
And now back to the show.
Welcome everybody.
I'm joined by Bill Becker, theRJO president.
How are you doing today, bill?
Bill Becker (02:02):
I'm great, Michael.
Thanks for inviting me.
I appreciate it.
Michael Burpoe (02:05):
I'm so excited to get a chance to speak with
you.
Like I was mentioning before wejumped on this call, I follow
the news in the jewelry industryquite closely, whether it's
National Jeweler or severaldifferent publications, and when
I saw that you were going to bethe next RJO president, I was
really excited.
Another, another punch markclient, um leading, uh, leading
(02:26):
the charge.
I kind of wanted to ask you canyou explain your background as
a jeweler as well as yourrelationship with RJO through
the years?
Bill Becker (02:34):
Sure, I'd be happy to Um.
So our store.
Let me start there.
My dad started the store as alot of guys did back after World
War II with the GI Bill.
He opened up a repair shop,started selling jewelry, then
engagement rings, moved to abigger location and then my
mother got involved.
(02:54):
They grew again and it becameyour proverbial mom and pop
store.
Then they moved to anotherlocation.
I started in the business and Ibought it shortly thereafter
and then we opened up anotherlocation in a nearby community
and a freestanding location andthen, with RJO, we've always
(03:17):
been a member.
In fact.
Rjo got started back.
I think it was in 1966, where asmall group of guys got
together.
They decided that they'd trybuying as a collective to get
better prices and my dad waspart of that group actually and
(03:37):
they found that it worked andthe word got out.
So it grew and grew and grewand I think as of today we're up
to close to 1,200 members.
So it obviously shows what thepower of group purchasing can do
.
Some of the things that we dodifferently is one we guarantee
payment to the vendors.
(03:58):
So you can imagine that has alarge role in how we negotiate
with our vendors and being ableto get better pricing.
And we do streamlined billing,which helps in doing the book
work for a lot of jewelers andso on and so such.
Michael Burpoe (04:17):
Yeah, and I think that collective buying is
definitely one of those realkind of forces of nature, even
in the jewelry industry, and youstart to see that it's allowed
a lot of vendors to kind ofspread their wings by, you know,
having that guaranteed paymentand sort of that.
I don't know, standardizationkind of has allowed people to
(04:37):
know what to expect, but also byit almost kind of gives a seal
of approval or a stamp for themembers in there as well.
Could you maybe talk to me alittle bit about what the role
of a president is in one ofthose groups?
Bill Becker (04:52):
Well, sure, yeah, you were talking about the
guaranteed payment.
I mean, you can imagine howimportant that is to some of the
vendors, knowing that they'regoing to get paid when they deal
with people, and I've heardsome people refer to that as
having the biggest bat in theindustry.
So, as far as my role aspresident, I've been on the
board for a long time, probablyabout as long as Terry Dickens
(05:15):
has, so I've kind of seen howthings go and what to do and so
on and so forth.
But I think that, as far as theguiding force on what this is,
I think it's important to notnecessarily change things but
work in cooperation with theboard that's there and being
able to make important decisionsand have great buying shows and
(05:40):
basically making sure that theneeds of the members as an
individual store are being met.
Michael Burpoe (05:47):
Yeah, and you know I was going to ask later on
, but it brings up a great pointTerry Dickens, former president
, but now I don't even know howto pronounce this word,
president Emeritus, somethinglike that how are you?
Did you get a chance to, youknow, collaborate with him?
Is he kind of still in your ear?
What's that relationship like?
Bill Becker (06:08):
Well, and you know, with with him as being
president emeritus, that's justbasically means that he's going
to be there to help out and ifwe have any questions and such,
to kind of help me becomeassimilated into being a board
president.
So with him being there, it'sreally helped because he's been
president for so long.
It's kind of second nature tohim.
(06:29):
So it's really something that,in my eyes, I think is a big
plus for me being able to bethere when we need him to be
there, when Sarah or the staffneeds him, and so on and so
forth.
It's just a great thing thathe's elected to do and I really
thank him greatly for being, forstepping into that position.
(06:52):
So he's going to be there aslong as as he wants and as long
as I think we need him.
Michael Burpoe (06:58):
Oh, that's great .
And so there's yourself.
You know, terry.
There's this, this board, whichis really cool.
I've actually had theopportunity to interview on In
the Loop two different boards atthis point last year and then I
believe it was from now.
I guess it was three and a halfyears ago prior to that.
But what I really admire aboutthe board is you guys pick very
(07:20):
different kind of I don't wantto say mainly different types of
businesses.
You have people with multiplestores, people with single
stores, people in small towns,major cities, men, women, old,
young.
I think it's a really kind ofwide-ranging collection.
Is that kind of?
(07:41):
A main focus is to make sureyou have everybody in the room
that kind of can say their piece.
Bill Becker (07:47):
Well, I think it's important that we have a cross
section of jewelers in RGO,because we really represent a
little bit of everything in ourgroup, and I will say that the
board that we've got now isreally, really a strong group.
I'm, you know, I might bepresident, but it's the board
that really runs thisorganization.
(08:07):
They're all very vocal, they'reall very active in our
decision-making process and thefact that they do come from many
different walks of jewelers outthere it really helps us get to
see a good cross-section of whoour membership really is.
Michael Burpoe (08:25):
And there's, you know, one missing player that I
haven't mentioned yet SarahStreb, ceo of RJO.
I've had the chance to meet herat one of the RJO shows.
What is the relationship likebetween a CEO and a president?
I must admit I'm not superfamiliar with larger companies
Our company at Punchmark we justhave a CEO.
Is there kind of like adivision of power, or do you
(08:46):
guys check each other?
How does that work out?
Bill Becker (08:49):
Well, you know, sarah's been an amazing gal.
She actually grew up in thejewelry business so she knows
the ins and outs of what ittakes to be a jeweler.
She's been in our jail for sucha long time that she's had a
chance to grow with theorganization and she's just
really amazing.
She's very dedicated to herposition.
(09:10):
She almost has an instinctivesense of what to do and how to
do it.
You know, it's like they say ittakes a village and she's
developed and become an amazingleader in our group and become
an amazing leader in our groupand really I can't say that I'm
doing anything amazing, but shedoes.
She's really taken that stepand developed and nurtured an
(09:35):
amazing team to help run thegroup.
Back at our headquarters We'veactually set up a system just
recently where we developed theposition of chief operating
officer where we moved a girlinto that position and another
one is a chief financial officer, so she can kind of delegate
(09:56):
some of the responsibilities ofthe day-to-day business and then
concentrate herself as runningsort of the big picture, or
creative thinking, if you will,when it comes to running RGO.
But I can't mention enoughabout how important she is as
being the chief executiveofficer of RGO.
(10:17):
She's really what gets thingsdone.
I'd like you know the boardwould like to take credit for
that and we do steer a lot ofthe decisions that we make, but
it's really Sarah that followsthrough and makes sure that we
hit the pavement running.
Michael Burpoe (10:32):
That's really, really cool.
I think that starting to splitup decision-making and roles
just so that I always say letexperts be experts you know the
development team they don't askme how to code and you know the
design team we don't ask thedevelopers how to design and I
think having a flow ofcommunication so that people can
(10:53):
kind of see what's going on isimportant.
But I do think that lettingexperts kind of have their
domain is the sign of a strongcompany and it's really cool to
hear how you guys are startingto even break that out even
further as you start to grow.
Because, like you said, rjo,you know, not so many years ago
was just a group of people in aroom trying to get a better deal
(11:13):
on their jewelry, and now it'sa conglomerate of what 1200 plus
stores.
I'm sure that with that scalingcomes increased.
Sure that with that scalingcomes increased more complexity
of decision making.
Am I right in that?
Bill Becker (11:34):
Well, there's obviously the bigger we get and
the more business that we do,there's a lot of a paperwork
that comes in and out of theoffice.
There's a few more headaches,but really they're the same type
of headaches that you'd havewith a smaller organization.
But you know things like tryingto find a great venue for our
shows.
There aren't as many placesthat can handle the size of
showroom that we need to have.
We need to have well over Ithink it's 100,000 square feet
(11:57):
to hold the shows Wow.
And then the rooms.
When you include all of thestores that show up, all the
vendors that show up, there'shardly any properties that can
fit us into one place.
So we have to have backuphotels and lodging facilities
and so on and so forth.
So you could imagine what kindof things that does to planning
(12:17):
a show.
But it's just part of theprocess.
Some people would call itgrowing pains, but we look
forward to that, we accept it.
We like that, I accept it.
We like that, I love it.
Michael Burpoe (12:26):
Bill, we're going to take a quick break and
when you come back I want tostart talking about your goals
and vision for RGO as thepresident.
So everybody, stay with us.
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Learn more about them in theshow notes below.
And now back to the show.
What's up?
Everybody Still speaking withBill Becker, rjo president.
So, bill, let's talk about yourgoals and vision for RJO.
So you are uniquely positionedto be able to actually start
(13:52):
kind of steering and directingwhere RJO is going to go, and
already it's been a pretty, youknow, substantial amount of
growth.
I've been in the industry foreight years and it feels like in
that time RJO has really grown.
Can you give me an idea on whatthe key issues and main focuses
are for RJO for, like the next,you know, less than three years
(14:15):
?
Bill Becker (14:15):
Sure, you know, I think the issues right now is
just trying to get our systemsin place for the size of shows
that we have, trying to takecare of all the housekeeping
things, because, you know,looking back in the past five
years, even before COVID, we'vegot the golden egg.
We just have to figure out howto hold on to it.
So when it comes to that, Ilook at my role here and I'm
(14:40):
really not trying to changeanything.
I'm just trying to keep thisship pointed in the right
direction.
And I got to keep steering backto the board of directors as as
, uh, these guys are really theones that put all the decisions
together and try and uh, steerthe ship in the direction that
it's going and offer up, uh,some of the new programs that
(15:02):
we've got going on and so on andso forth.
But I would say, you know, I'mreally not trying to change
things.
I'm just trying to keep thingsheaded in the same direction and
bring on all the problems thatcome what may and deal with
those as they come on board.
Michael Burpoe (15:17):
So what about the post-COVID kind of aspect?
So you mentioned that thingshave changed in the past five
years, or even more recently.
I saw COVID as an impact one-commerce and just luxury
buying online and, because ofthe fact that travel was
suddenly shut down, people hadtheir luxury budgets, if you
will, for a family and ahousehold suddenly got poured
(15:40):
right into tangible assets,usually jewelry, which created
this large boom.
Incredible couple of years,record-breaking years for
jewelers.
It's starting to simmer off andI've seen some stores you know
have tougher years in, just youknow, the past one or two,
especially with an uncertainlike economy.
Is this something that you arespeaking with jewelers about and
(16:04):
how to?
I don't know, keep, keep thingsflowing well for an average,
average-ish independent retailstore.
Is that something that you guysare trying to solve as RJO, or
is it about giving them thetools to solve it themselves?
Bill Becker (16:20):
You know, I think none of us expected what to
happen during COVID.
That actually happened and Ithink we all benefited from that
.
In many ways, we were all kindof surprised to that fact and,
like you said, things aregetting back to normal, but I
think that's the sort of thingthat really brings RJO into
(16:40):
limelight.
Those people are the sort ofthing that really brings RJO
into into limelight.
Those people are.
They need us.
We need them more than we everdid, and it's now is is a good
time to to go to an RJO show andand go to those educational
seminars and learningopportunities and networking
with other jewelers, becausewe're all going through the same
thing.
We really haven't experiencedany significant downturn in our
(17:03):
economy.
We've really had to watch ourinventory, We've had to watch
our staffing, but I thinkeverybody's going through that
and that's the type of thingthat I think that going to an
RJO event will help youaccomplish.
You are able to go to learningopportunities and seminars and
(17:23):
educational things to learnabout what people are going
through and how to staff better,how to control your inventory
better, what to do with thatinventory that you get left over
with.
I mean, everybody's got agedinventory, but it's what you do
with it.
But that's kind of the thing.
I think that what is one ofRGO's strong points is that
(17:44):
we're all in this together.
Michael Burpoe (17:47):
Now, bill, let me ask if you don't mind me
asking a more personal questionare you still running Becker's
Drillers?
Bill Becker (17:54):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, we have two stores in.
Michael Burpoe (17:56):
Iowa.
So two stores and you're stillinvolved on the day-to-day with
those businesses, Correct?
When you go as to these shows,I'm sure you have a million
responsibilities as presidentand you probably got to go
through.
People want to stop you and askyou a million things.
Are you also having to do someof the buying at the shows as
well?
Bill Becker (18:17):
Yeah, you know, obviously being at the show and
being a board member and beingpresident and being on other
committees and so on and soforth, that does take a lot of
the time from the show floor.
But I'll take two or threepeople with us with a plan
obviously on how to buy whatwe're going to do and have
appointments set up.
(18:37):
But that's another thing islearning how to live through.
If you will a trade show, youknow it takes planning.
You can't just go without aplan.
It's like they say failing toplan is planning to fail.
But no, I enjoy the shows, Ienjoy talking with people Many
(18:58):
of the people that I've runinto've I've run into for for
many years and develop goodfriendships with them and, uh,
it's a good thing.
Michael Burpoe (19:06):
I enjoy the shows, so that's really
interesting because you know yougo to these shows and on the
one hand, there's retailers andthat's kind of who we're
thinking of is these retailjewelers.
They're the attendees, they'rethe people that are kind of the
the lifeblood of theseorganizations.
There are clients as well, butthe other part of the equation,
(19:28):
if you will, when it comes toretail jewelry, are the vendors.
Punch Bark is a RJO vendor, andwhat defines success for RJO?
Because, on the one hand,everybody wants the best deal.
Why did RJO start?
It's to get better deals forretailers.
How are you able to balancesuccess for, like you know,
(19:52):
retailers, everyone wants to paya little bit less and sell for
more.
But also you have vendors, I'msure in your ear, saying you
know, we don't want to sell forless, we want to sell more.
Saying you know we don't wantto sell for less, we want to
sell more.
Do you have to?
Is that, like a, you know, abalancing act that I can't envy,
having that position of?
Bill Becker (20:11):
having to satisfy both parties of an equation.
Well, you know, with withregards to the vendors, I think
we're in a unique relationshipthat we can honestly say.
Our relationship with thevendors is not a we against them
, because we understand thatwithout our vendors we wouldn't
be who we are today.
So we stand with them and Ithink they appreciate them.
Obviously, there's somenegotiating that goes on before
(20:34):
a vendor belongs or joins RJO,and they understand that.
I mean, we bring a lot to thetable, a lot of jewelers,
guaranteed payment.
But I would say, you know,since we're really growing, I
think they are riding that samewave that we are, and I think
that true success should bemeasured not only by the fact
(20:56):
that we're growing and maybedoing bigger numbers, but the
multiple benefits that weprovide are being met by the
individual store, and that couldbe from educational seminars.
We do a lot of other things thathelp.
We started many years ago theRGO succession experience.
It's a getaway to understand ifyou're thinking about getting
(21:20):
out of the business or handingit down to Offsprings or selling
it to someone else.
It kind of lays out thegroundwork for that.
We have industry experts thatcome in and speak about how to
value your business attorneysand how to set up that
transition other people thathave done the same thing and can
share their experience.
(21:40):
We also offer the benefit ofthe RGO Foundation where,
through the generosity of ourmembers, we have provided many
scholarships that we give backto the jewelers.
In fact, we've awarded wellover $100,000 in scholarship
funds exclusively to our members.
(22:03):
We also are working on a RJOmanagement development program
through our friends at OptimumRetail Solutions.
They're developing a strategiccourse where we're offering a
two and a half day you mightcall it a boot camp off campus
of RJO I think it's in Chicagoand that's going to be an
(22:24):
ongoing thing and basically it'sgoing to teach people who are
wanting to get into a managementposition, or who may already be
in a management position, onhow to do just that and develop
their management skill, how towork with employees and so on
and so forth.
So we're really excited aboutthat and that's something that's
(22:45):
coming up this fall.
And then, obviously, there'sthe patronage dividend that
we're offering and that wealways have, since we're a co-op
, and the fact that we're anon-profit.
Whatever you buy, obviouslythere's some fixed costs with
running the organization andonce those fixed costs are met.
(23:06):
Whatever's left over at the endof the year, we give back to
the jeweler and that's probably,I would say, our number one
drawing card.
In fact, last year we gave$16.5 million back to the
membership.
Michael Burpoe (23:24):
That's a couple bucks, just unheard of.
That's more than I'm making awhole week.
Bill Becker (23:27):
Oh my goodness well , you have to.
You have to talk to your bossabout that yeah, yeah, yeah, um,
bill, that's really quiteinteresting.
Michael Burpoe (23:35):
I'm glad the education is one of those things
that I really do feel is is soinvesting in and something we
focus on as well.
We talked about, you know, wehave the Punchmart Client
Workshop.
It's a big focus on our part aswell, because we don't want to
just send people out into anever-changing world and have
them just try to adapt or diesort of thing.
To me, it's about equippingthem and giving them tools.
(23:57):
I kind of I guess that bringsup, you know, one of the topics
I really wanted to ask you about.
I guess that brings up one ofthe topics I really wanted to
ask you about.
There's a running joke on In theLoop that when is the episode
coming out on tariffs?
And I keep saying whenever thetariffs are ready to hit,
because I still don't know whenthey're supposed to start.
I guess there's some, but Idon't really know if they're
(24:21):
fully going to happen or ifthey're on or off.
I want to talk to you about asa retailer but also the
president of a major independentjewelry store organization what
are you hearing and what areyou feeling about these upcoming
uncertain times with tariffsand the price of gold.
How are you viewing this kindof a nimbulous, you know
omnipresent thing that's outthere kind of a nimbulous, you
know omnipresent thing that'sout there?
Bill Becker (24:42):
Well, with regards to tariffs, as you know and you
may have heard, it fluctuates.
It seems like weekly.
You know.
There are tariffs announced andthen they're postponed.
There are tariffs announced andthen they're reduced.
When we heard that there weregoing to be some significant
tariffs, I remember thisdistinctly.
I just happened to be with agroup at the RGO headquarters
(25:05):
and so we had a Zoom call withone of our largest vendors, also
had some significant lengthytalks with other vendors, and we
quickly realized that tariffsaffect our vendors differently
from vendor to vendor to vendor.
For instance, if you're a loosediamond vendor and all your
(25:26):
diamonds come, say, from Antwerp, it's pretty straightforward
because Antwerp's affected inone way, so a certain amount of
tariff goes on top of that right.
But if you're a manufacturerand you use gold that's sourced
from the United States, but yourdiamonds are from Antwerp but
(25:48):
your colored stones are fromIndia or Africa or whatnot, now
you've got a whole different setof rules for each particular
piece that goes into thatparticular item.
So how do you deal with that?
And then there's maybe aCanadian manufacturer who
sources enough of his productfrom the United States, even
though it's manufactured inCanada, that he's exempt.
And then, of course, you haveyour US manufacturers that there
are no tariffs on, so it'sreally kind of a juggling act.
(26:11):
It's not really that clear toanybody, even the manufacturers.
So it's just one of those things, such as the price of gold,
that adds to the cost of an item, and it's something that, as a
jeweler, we have to pay veryclose attention to.
It seems like every time we getan invoice from a gold company,
(26:32):
everything keeps going up, and Ithink the main thing to
remember about that is that weneed to instill upon our
jewelers is that, hey, you'vegot to watch your inventory and
mark your items up accordingly,because if you don't, when you
go to turn around and repurchasethat item, you're going to get
blindsided by what that itemcosts to replace it.
(26:53):
So, and we really try andencourage our jewelers to
participate in, say, forinstance, our RJ exclusive
Facebook group, because we talkabout things like that in
addition to many other things,and if you're on there regularly
, you would know about thesethings and what to do about them
(27:15):
.
And a lot of people ask, hey,what do I do about this?
Or what do I do about that?
And a lot of people ask, hey,what do I do about this or what
do I do about that?
And a lot of those topics arediscussed.
Hopefully they're answered, butit's one more benefit to our
network with our RJO membership.
Michael Burpoe (27:31):
Yeah, I mean one of the I always think of a
group of people has a lot ofinherent value just into itself.
I think that when you startgathering people, you have this
strength in numbers.
Do you find that the onus ofstaying informed and up to date
is on the individual jeweler, ordo you think that the
(27:52):
responsibility of likedisseminating all that
information is theresponsibility of like an
organization or like a group?
There's a lot to stay on top of.
I feel like you know, the first35 minutes of my day is me
reading news about the jewelryindustry.
a lot of the time, and I feellike, is everybody doing that at
the same time, Do you think Imean you're a jeweler that has
(28:16):
to stay on top of it?
Are you encouraging people tostay in touch on their own, or
do you find that RJO is tryingto kind of pass that information
on as well?
Bill Becker (28:25):
Well, you can't cover all the bases all the time
, but I'm kind of like you.
When I do those, I see thosenewsletters pop up in my email
or trade publications come out.
Probably one of the firstthings I do is get online and
see what other people are sayingabout it.
You know, hey, did you readthis article about this?
Or man, did you see what goldprices did?
Or man, there's some tariffscoming up at the end of the
(28:48):
month.
What do we do?
So, yeah, we try and talk aboutit, but ultimately it's kind of
up to the jeweler to keep upwith things, and I think that's
again that's part of the wholenetworking process.
You got to find your own familygroup that you belong to,
whoever that may be, and findyour answers and find your
friends, and you'll find theanswers there.
Michael Burpoe (29:10):
Yeah, I think it's.
I mean, there's so much to stayon top of.
I felt like I told this storybefore, but I did a whole bunch
of work on a tariff episode andI, man, I was researching that
thing.
I spent an entire day writingdown these notes.
I was going to interviewMichelle Graff from National
Jeweler, the editor-in-chief,and we said it and they
(29:31):
postponed them like literallythe next day and I had to scrap
the whole thing and then we justlike kicked it down the road
and I feel like I'm stillkicking and I don't know.
I mean, we're about to have thisepisode is about to air in the
middle of the RJO show and Isometimes wonder, like, is there
advice for how jewelers shouldbe stocking for themselves?
(29:54):
Because, again, gold price isall time high.
Every single day seems like anew record.
Is that?
I mean, you probably don't havea crystal ball with you to tell
you.
Are they going to continuegoing all time highs, In which
case you're buying it low rightnow, or is it?
Do you expect that some peoplemight be a little bit
conservative with theirpurchasing ahead of the holiday
season?
Are you able to speculate onthat kind of stuff?
Bill Becker (30:16):
Well, let me look into my crystal ball.
Michael Burpoe (30:20):
He just busted it out, let's go, come on Bill.
Bill Becker (30:24):
You know it's all part of doing business.
You know, if it's not the priceof gold, it's interest rates.
If it's not interest rates,it's tariffs.
So you know, I see a lot ofpeople that you know we used to
be kind of the same way.
We'll go to the stores or theshows and whatnot.
We see things that we like andwe buy those.
(30:46):
We see things that we like overhere and we buy those.
But you've got to run yourbusiness, your jewelry store,
like a business and you've gotto buy what you need.
You've got to look at what yousold in the past six months or
whatever it is for Christmas orwhatnot, and you've got to buy
according to what you used to do, not based on what's in your
heart, because you'll end upbuilding a museum rather than
(31:09):
something that might turn aprofit for you.
And trust me, I know I've beenthere and unfortunately, that's
how you learn.
Most of the time is by mistakes.
I should be a very educated manby now if that were the case.
Michael Burpoe (31:23):
You know, nothing teaches a good lesson
like a few stinkers in yourdisplay case.
So I totally understand that.
But, bill, I wanted to alsotalk about something that's very
important to me, which is thisdigital age, and increasingly
things are becoming digital.
I mean, obviously, stores arenot going away, brick and mortar
(31:44):
is not going away, but we areseeing increasing amounts of
relevancy for how people marketonline, driving traffic to their
stores, how e-commerce isplaying a factor in their just
bottom line in general, but alsowhat they're stocking in their
stores and listing online andhow that relationship kind of
(32:05):
develops with an omni-channelapproach.
Is RJO approaching that topicas kind of a frontier?
Is that something that isbecoming a focus?
Because I know very easily alot of times I'm trying not to
do this anymore a lot of timeswe view jewelry as lagging
behind when it comes totechnology.
Is that something that you hopeto kind of address as a
(32:28):
president?
Bill Becker (32:29):
Well, I think that goes with the educational
opportunities that we provide,and being part of Punchmark mean
you you've got to be right onon top of things and and know
that this is, this is the future.
I mean, that's, that's wherethat's where it's at.
From now, if you're going toadvertise it's it's no longer as
(32:49):
much newspaper as it used to be, it's no longer as much TV as
it used to be.
It's not as much radio as itused to be.
It's all, it's all digital.
It's all about attracting and,as in my case, we try and go
after the engagement ringcustomer and they're all about
online presence.
As far as competition goes, heck, everybody who's got a website
(33:15):
is my competitor technicallyspeaking.
But it's not so much differentas if you say, sold a guy an
engagement ring, now his kidsare at that age of getting
engaged, but now they moved outof state but their dad is
telling them to go to the localjeweler Hopefully that's me
right and we do a lot ofbusiness that way.
(33:37):
Or what about the guy thatbought an engagement ring and
his pals are now at that pointwhere they need an engagement
ring, but they might live out oftown or out of state.
So it's really hasn't changed.
It's just changed in adifferent manner and you have to
adapt those tools to sourceyour needs, whether it's.
(34:01):
I think we do a lot ofcommunication to those people
that I just mentioned througheither emails or now, texts or,
you know, text through thewebsite, and that's really a
great opportunity because, hey,they've reached out to you
directly to ask a question aboutsomething.
So it's a lot more direct, it'sa lot more precise and I think
(34:23):
the rewards are a lot better.
But it's hard to monitor that,it's hard to say, you know, are
we doing anything to controlthat?
But it really isn'tcontrollable.
I think you just have to seethat opportunity and grasp it
and use it to the best of yourabilities.
Michael Burpoe (34:42):
You know, I totally agree.
I guess fortune favors the boldor the forward thinking and
people that do actually startlooking forward.
I think it's already startingto pay off for them.
But I want to ask does RJL havelike an exclusivity rule?
Is there a mileage for thenearest competitor can join RJO,
(35:05):
Like if someone, if a store, isin RJO, so-and-so's down the
road, can't join RJO as well?
Bill Becker (35:11):
Yeah, we do.
You know, we've always had thatand because we have stores in
all 49 states, we have stores inlarge communities, we have
stores in small communities.
It's not the same for eachcommunity, so it might be
different for me than somebodywho has a store, say, in the
(35:32):
Chicago area or the Phoenix area.
So we do have that.
It's not really black and white, it's something you have to
look at the community and wekind of take that on a
one-to-one basis.
But in short answer yes, butit's not as easy as saying, yeah
, you've got a certain amount ofmileage radius around your
(35:52):
store.
You know, if somebody opensanother store in somebody else's
territory, that kind ofconfuses things a little bit,
but that does happen.
Michael Burpoe (36:00):
Yeah, it's again .
It's something that I've beenthinking about increasingly so,
like if we start to accept theidea that online presence is
true presence, is omni-channel.
So if there is, like this,online version of a store as
well as your brick and mortar,the online versions, I mean, I
can compete with you, you know,in California, with if I'm in
(36:27):
New York, the buyertheoretically should not care if
they type in, you know,engagement ring, it's kind of
whatever shows up.
There's a whole bunch of otherrules that go along with it and
things that pop up.
Do you think that the onlinekind of increasing value of
online presence, is that goingto change those exclusivity
rules Because of the fact that,like, you could go either way?
(36:48):
It's like, oh, I'm competingwith like in Charlotte we used
to talk about Asheville, whichis, you know about two hours
away.
Are those people competitorsbecause they have, like a good
digital marketing ad wouldprobably be targeting someone in
Asheville from Charlotte?
Or do you find that, because ofthe fact that everybody can
compete with everybody, itstarts to kind of break down the
(37:10):
rules of exclusivity?
Bill Becker (37:12):
So therein lies that question.
You talk about targetingsomeone from one store in
another community.
You're talking about somethingas specific as, like,
retargeting or that sort ofthing.
I don't know how you wouldcontrol that, michael, it's,
it's.
I don't know how you wouldpolice that, or even if we would
want to.
(37:32):
You know you kind of want, youwant to give people the reins to
grow their business.
You want to give people thereins to grow their business,
and if they're doing that sortof thing, I don't know how you'd
stop it, or even if you wouldwant to per se, because that's
that's the nature of the waythings are right now is is it's
all about digital, it's allabout social media, it's all
about a website, and I don'tknow, are you experiencing any
(37:56):
of that from from your point ofview and in your business?
You?
Michael Burpoe (38:00):
know it's kind of one of those things.
It's like could RJO, forexample, say to a store hey, you
can run digital marketing ads,but we're going to prevent you
from running ads targeting likea pull effect?
So like like we're talkingabout with Charlotte, you could
theoretically target a, set up,a radius that could pull someone
(38:23):
from Asheville.
Well then, the Asheville storeis, you know, kind of the loser
in this situation.
And I'm not sure if RJO wouldever plan to say, no, you can't
target competitor cities, whichwould be pretty hard, I think,
with so many stores cities whichwould be pretty hard, I think,
with so many stores.
But I didn't know if that, ifyou plan to be laissez-faire
when it comes to the digitallandscape, with that kind of
(38:46):
stuff.
Bill Becker (38:52):
Right, you know, over the years I'm sure there's
been an incident where somebodyin a neighboring community that
are both RJO members hasadvertised in their community
and they're just.
That's just not something thatI think we would want to start
or could enforce or, you know,like I said, would even want to,
but I don't see that in thefuture.
Having a physical location andgiving an exclusivity or
(39:13):
exclusivity for that particularstore is one thing, but trying
to control their advertising orthe reach of their advertising,
that's just not something.
Who we are, that's good to know.
Michael Burpoe (39:24):
Now, bill, I want to end this on.
I opened this up for somequestions in the RJO exclusive
Facebook group, so we give thelisteners an idea if you're not
in RJO, there's a Facebook groupthat you need to be an RJO
member or a member of a store ora vendor that's part of RJO to
be able to go there.
It's really interesting.
I think it's because it's allkind of set up by that kind of
(39:46):
stuff.
I do find that RJO members tendto be pretty forward thinking
in that they are a higher levelof tech literacy and tech
fluency.
You know, in general.
I guess that's a rather largegeneralization for 1,200 stores.
But still and I asked thisquestion, hey, I'm interviewing
Bill, the RJO president.
What kind of questions do youhave?
So one of them was this one.
(40:08):
It's from the RJO account.
I hear you have a bit of aclassic car collection.
Can you share what you'vecollected so far and any grails
you might be chasing?
Bill Becker (40:19):
Yeah, I'm kind of a gearhead.
Some people say I have gasolinerunning through my veins.
Oh, I love it.
No, I'm into the old Corvettes.
I've restored an old 67 manyyears ago and currently
restoring a 72, and justrecently was able to procure an
extremely rare 72 with rareoptions, with only 8,000 miles,
(40:43):
and actually tomorrow morningI'm taking it to a National
Corvette Restorer Societyregional event to put it on
display.
And actually they've used thatparticular car for the cover of
their new judging manual.
So it's a very nice car.
But I enjoy old cars.
I've got a couple 69 Camarosthat I like to drive around.
(41:04):
It's a lot of fun and you knowthere's a lot of other members
in RJO that have the samehobbies and we tend to gravitate
towards one another because wehave a lot to talk about.
Michael Burpoe (41:16):
I'm sure.
I'm sure that's so cool.
I just had a classic car showcome through my hometown, where
I'm at, and they brought everytype of car imaginable.
I got to sit in a 1930 Model A,ford Model A and it was like
this car is older than my house.
What the heck man, it's so cool.
(41:37):
I think I mean what you saideight or nine thousand miles.
That must have been sitting ina garage for for all those years
.
Bill Becker (41:45):
Yeah, it's very well kept, All original.
You have to come by sometimeI'll take you for a spin.
Michael Burpoe (41:51):
Oh my gosh, that would be so cool.
I would love that.
And, bill, you know I asked, Iasked this question, I got that
one.
And, bill, you know I asked, Iasked this question, I got that
one.
That was a great question.
But I had a lot of questionsabout you and the RJO staff just
saying how much you love them.
What is the?
What is that?
That kind of community and thenature of that relationship for
(42:13):
the RJO staff and you joiningthem as the president, joining
them as the president.
Bill Becker (42:17):
Well, I'm in a really unique position and I
feel so blessed to be affiliatedwith the group that I work with
(42:37):
.
They make it so easy for theboard.
Um, the girls that are thereare really nice, very friendly,
very hardworking, very dedicatedto what they do and they're a
lot of fun to be with.
So when we we get together atthe shows, um, we have a lot of
fun.
A good friend of mine, jeffWorkersham, the vice president
and the head of the MRCcommittee, got together some of
(43:01):
us to go down to the office andhe brought a griddle and I
helped him prepare lunch forthem and they all had a really
good time with that.
It was all fun and games andkind of brought a sense of
camaraderie to the group and weall had a good time.
But that's just kind of what itis.
(43:21):
We work together and we playtogether as well.
Michael Burpoe (43:24):
Man, I really, really love hearing that.
I think that the jewelryindustry it's my it's kind of
crazy to think that this is myfirst foray into being a
professional.
I've been here for eight years,or over eight years at this
point, and what really strikesme is just like is the community
(43:47):
of jewelers and the industry?
It's not as, not as cutthroatas I, as you'd expect, and it's
very transparent when it comesto the sharing of ideas and also
just the we're all in thistogether.
I don't know if that stems fromthe whole, you know,
independence versus everybodyelse sort of kind of mindset,
which you know I get behindbecause I'm training for jewelry
stores, you know, to beat outthe big boxes.
It's cool to hear that that isalso true on the, I guess, the
(44:08):
more micro level with leadershipinside of these organizations.
So really excited to hear thatBill.
Bill Becker (44:13):
Good, good.
Yeah, you know, might've been alittle bit more competitive in
my younger years, but after awhile you kind of realize that
we're all in this together.
Yeah, you may lose something tosomebody one day, but you'll
gain it back from that guy, youknow, a month later.
So you know it all evens out inthe wash, but I think
ultimately you need to have funin what you're doing and enjoy
(44:34):
the ride, as they say.
I like to say we at RJL.
People may come for thepatronage dividend, but we stay
for the friendships that we make.
Michael Burpoe (44:44):
Love it.
You know what, bill, maybewe'll leave it right there.
I really appreciate your timeand I'm going to be following
your tenure as president veryclosely.
Hopefully I make it out toanother RJL show real soon,
maybe the one in January.
Anything else before we wrapthis thing up.
Bill Becker (44:58):
I think you got it, man.
I appreciate it.
It's been a good ride so farand I hope things continue the
way they are Awesome.
Michael Burpoe (45:05):
Well, thanks everybody.
I appreciate you listening tothe end.
If you're new here, maybe dropus a follow.
We have new episodes everyTuesday, all about what
independent jewelry stores arelooking for, so make sure you
subscribe.
We'll see you next week Tuesday, with another episode.
(45:34):
Cheers bye, or Spotify.
This episode was brought to youby Punchmark and produced and
hosted by me, Michael Burpo.
This episode was edited by PaulSuarez with music by Ross
Cockrum.
Don't forget to leave usfeedback on punchmarkcom slash
loop.
That's L-O-U-P-E.
Thanks.
We'll be back next week,Tuesday, with another episode.
Cheers Bye.
Welcome to In the Loop when he took over for
Terry Dickens, who'd beenleading the buying group for a
number of years.
Up to this point, bill, as aretail jeweler himself with
Becker's Jewelers, understandsthe future and roadmap of the
industry as well as anybody andhe shares his views and kind of
hopes for the industry on In theLoop and it was a really cool
(00:39):
talk.
If this is your first timelistening to In the Loop, I
consider subscribing.
Wherever you get your podcasts,whether it's Spotify or Apple
Podcasts we have new episodesevery Tuesday.
Thanks and enjoy theconversation.
Ross (00:55):
This episode is brought to you by Punchmark, the jewelry
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Slash go.
Michael Burpoe (01:49):
And now back to the show.
Welcome everybody.
I'm joined by Bill Becker, theRJO president.
How are you doing today, bill?
Bill Becker (02:02):
I'm great, Michael.
Thanks for inviting me.
I appreciate it.
Michael Burpoe (02:05):
I'm so excited to get a chance to speak with
you.
Like I was mentioning before wejumped on this call, I follow
the news in the jewelry industryquite closely, whether it's
National Jeweler or severaldifferent publications, and when
I saw that you were going to bethe next RJO president, I was
really excited.
Another, another punch markclient, um leading, uh, leading
(02:26):
the charge.
I kind of wanted to ask you canyou explain your background as
a jeweler as well as yourrelationship with RJO through
the years?
Bill Becker (02:34):
Sure, I'd be happy to Um.
So our store.
Let me start there.
My dad started the store as alot of guys did back after World
War II with the GI Bill.
He opened up a repair shop,started selling jewelry, then
engagement rings, moved to abigger location and then my
mother got involved.
(02:54):
They grew again and it becameyour proverbial mom and pop
store.
Then they moved to anotherlocation.
I started in the business and Ibought it shortly thereafter
and then we opened up anotherlocation in a nearby community
and a freestanding location andthen, with RJO, we've always
(03:17):
been a member.
In fact.
Rjo got started back.
I think it was in 1966, where asmall group of guys got
together.
They decided that they'd trybuying as a collective to get
better prices and my dad waspart of that group actually and
(03:37):
they found that it worked andthe word got out.
So it grew and grew and grewand I think as of today we're up
to close to 1,200 members.
So it obviously shows what thepower of group purchasing can do
.
Some of the things that we dodifferently is one we guarantee
payment to the vendors.
(03:58):
So you can imagine that has alarge role in how we negotiate
with our vendors and being ableto get better pricing.
And we do streamlined billing,which helps in doing the book
work for a lot of jewelers andso on and so such.
Michael Burpoe (04:17):
Yeah, and I think that collective buying is
definitely one of those realkind of forces of nature, even
in the jewelry industry, and youstart to see that it's allowed
a lot of vendors to kind ofspread their wings by, you know,
having that guaranteed paymentand sort of that.
I don't know, standardizationkind of has allowed people to
(04:37):
know what to expect, but also byit almost kind of gives a seal
of approval or a stamp for themembers in there as well.
Could you maybe talk to me alittle bit about what the role
of a president is in one ofthose groups?
Bill Becker (04:52):
Well, sure, yeah, you were talking about the
guaranteed payment.
I mean, you can imagine howimportant that is to some of the
vendors, knowing that they'regoing to get paid when they deal
with people, and I've heardsome people refer to that as
having the biggest bat in theindustry.
So, as far as my role aspresident, I've been on the
board for a long time, probablyabout as long as Terry Dickens
(05:15):
has, so I've kind of seen howthings go and what to do and so
on and so forth.
But I think that, as far as theguiding force on what this is,
I think it's important to notnecessarily change things but
work in cooperation with theboard that's there and being
able to make important decisionsand have great buying shows and
(05:40):
basically making sure that theneeds of the members as an
individual store are being met.
Michael Burpoe (05:47):
Yeah, and you know I was going to ask later on
, but it brings up a great pointTerry Dickens, former president
, but now I don't even know howto pronounce this word,
president Emeritus, somethinglike that how are you?
Did you get a chance to, youknow, collaborate with him?
Is he kind of still in your ear?
What's that relationship like?
Bill Becker (06:08):
Well, and you know, with with him as being
president emeritus, that's justbasically means that he's going
to be there to help out and ifwe have any questions and such,
to kind of help me becomeassimilated into being a board
president.
So with him being there, it'sreally helped because he's been
president for so long.
It's kind of second nature tohim.
(06:29):
So it's really something that,in my eyes, I think is a big
plus for me being able to bethere when we need him to be
there, when Sarah or the staffneeds him, and so on and so
forth.
It's just a great thing thathe's elected to do and I really
thank him greatly for being, forstepping into that position.
(06:52):
So he's going to be there aslong as as he wants and as long
as I think we need him.
Michael Burpoe (06:58):
Oh, that's great .
And so there's yourself.
You know, terry.
There's this, this board, whichis really cool.
I've actually had theopportunity to interview on In
the Loop two different boards atthis point last year and then I
believe it was from now.
I guess it was three and a halfyears ago prior to that.
But what I really admire aboutthe board is you guys pick very
(07:20):
different kind of I don't wantto say mainly different types of
businesses.
You have people with multiplestores, people with single
stores, people in small towns,major cities, men, women, old,
young.
I think it's a really kind ofwide-ranging collection.
Is that kind of?
(07:41):
A main focus is to make sureyou have everybody in the room
that kind of can say their piece.
Bill Becker (07:47):
Well, I think it's important that we have a cross
section of jewelers in RGO,because we really represent a
little bit of everything in ourgroup, and I will say that the
board that we've got now isreally, really a strong group.
I'm, you know, I might bepresident, but it's the board
that really runs thisorganization.
(08:07):
They're all very vocal, they'reall very active in our
decision-making process and thefact that they do come from many
different walks of jewelers outthere it really helps us get to
see a good cross-section of whoour membership really is.
Michael Burpoe (08:25):
And there's, you know, one missing player that I
haven't mentioned yet SarahStreb, ceo of RJO.
I've had the chance to meet herat one of the RJO shows.
What is the relationship likebetween a CEO and a president?
I must admit I'm not superfamiliar with larger companies
Our company at Punchmark we justhave a CEO.
Is there kind of like adivision of power, or do you
(08:46):
guys check each other?
How does that work out?
Bill Becker (08:49):
Well, you know, sarah's been an amazing gal.
She actually grew up in thejewelry business so she knows
the ins and outs of what ittakes to be a jeweler.
She's been in our jail for sucha long time that she's had a
chance to grow with theorganization and she's just
really amazing.
She's very dedicated to herposition.
(09:10):
She almost has an instinctivesense of what to do and how to
do it.
You know, it's like they say ittakes a village and she's
developed and become an amazingleader in our group and become
an amazing leader in our groupand really I can't say that I'm
doing anything amazing, but shedoes.
She's really taken that stepand developed and nurtured an
(09:35):
amazing team to help run thegroup.
Back at our headquarters We'veactually set up a system just
recently where we developed theposition of chief operating
officer where we moved a girlinto that position and another
one is a chief financial officer, so she can kind of delegate
(09:56):
some of the responsibilities ofthe day-to-day business and then
concentrate herself as runningsort of the big picture, or
creative thinking, if you will,when it comes to running RGO.
But I can't mention enoughabout how important she is as
being the chief executiveofficer of RGO.
(10:17):
She's really what gets thingsdone.
I'd like you know the boardwould like to take credit for
that and we do steer a lot ofthe decisions that we make, but
it's really Sarah that followsthrough and makes sure that we
hit the pavement running.
Michael Burpoe (10:32):
That's really, really cool.
I think that starting to splitup decision-making and roles
just so that I always say letexperts be experts you know the
development team they don't askme how to code and you know the
design team we don't ask thedevelopers how to design and I
think having a flow ofcommunication so that people can
(10:53):
kind of see what's going on isimportant.
But I do think that lettingexperts kind of have their
domain is the sign of a strongcompany and it's really cool to
hear how you guys are startingto even break that out even
further as you start to grow.
Because, like you said, rjo,you know, not so many years ago
was just a group of people in aroom trying to get a better deal
(11:13):
on their jewelry, and now it'sa conglomerate of what 1200 plus
stores.
I'm sure that with that scalingcomes increased.
Sure that with that scalingcomes increased more complexity
of decision making.
Am I right in that?
Bill Becker (11:34):
Well, there's obviously the bigger we get and
the more business that we do,there's a lot of a paperwork
that comes in and out of theoffice.
There's a few more headaches,but really they're the same type
of headaches that you'd havewith a smaller organization.
But you know things like tryingto find a great venue for our
shows.
There aren't as many placesthat can handle the size of
showroom that we need to have.
We need to have well over Ithink it's 100,000 square feet
(11:57):
to hold the shows Wow.
And then the rooms.
When you include all of thestores that show up, all the
vendors that show up, there'shardly any properties that can
fit us into one place.
So we have to have backuphotels and lodging facilities
and so on and so forth.
So you could imagine what kindof things that does to planning
(12:17):
a show.
But it's just part of theprocess.
Some people would call itgrowing pains, but we look
forward to that, we accept it.
We like that, I accept it.
We like that, I love it.
Michael Burpoe (12:26):
Bill, we're going to take a quick break and
when you come back I want tostart talking about your goals
and vision for RGO as thepresident.
So everybody, stay with us.
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Learn more about them in theshow notes below.
And now back to the show.
What's up?
Everybody Still speaking withBill Becker, rjo president.
So, bill, let's talk about yourgoals and vision for RJO.
So you are uniquely positionedto be able to actually start
(13:52):
kind of steering and directingwhere RJO is going to go, and
already it's been a pretty, youknow, substantial amount of
growth.
I've been in the industry foreight years and it feels like in
that time RJO has really grown.
Can you give me an idea on whatthe key issues and main focuses
are for RJO for, like the next,you know, less than three years
(14:15):
?
Bill Becker (14:15):
Sure, you know, I think the issues right now is
just trying to get our systemsin place for the size of shows
that we have, trying to takecare of all the housekeeping
things, because, you know,looking back in the past five
years, even before COVID, we'vegot the golden egg.
We just have to figure out howto hold on to it.
So when it comes to that, Ilook at my role here and I'm
(14:40):
really not trying to changeanything.
I'm just trying to keep thisship pointed in the right
direction.
And I got to keep steering backto the board of directors as as
, uh, these guys are really theones that put all the decisions
together and try and uh, steerthe ship in the direction that
it's going and offer up, uh,some of the new programs that
(15:02):
we've got going on and so on andso forth.
But I would say, you know, I'mreally not trying to change
things.
I'm just trying to keep thingsheaded in the same direction and
bring on all the problems thatcome what may and deal with
those as they come on board.
Michael Burpoe (15:17):
So what about the post-COVID kind of aspect?
So you mentioned that thingshave changed in the past five
years, or even more recently.
I saw COVID as an impact one-commerce and just luxury
buying online and, because ofthe fact that travel was
suddenly shut down, people hadtheir luxury budgets, if you
will, for a family and ahousehold suddenly got poured
(15:40):
right into tangible assets,usually jewelry, which created
this large boom.
Incredible couple of years,record-breaking years for
jewelers.
It's starting to simmer off andI've seen some stores you know
have tougher years in, just youknow, the past one or two,
especially with an uncertainlike economy.
Is this something that you arespeaking with jewelers about and
(16:04):
how to?
I don't know, keep, keep thingsflowing well for an average,
average-ish independent retailstore.
Is that something that you guysare trying to solve as RJO, or
is it about giving them thetools to solve it themselves?
Bill Becker (16:20):
You know, I think none of us expected what to
happen during COVID.
That actually happened and Ithink we all benefited from that
.
In many ways, we were all kindof surprised to that fact and,
like you said, things aregetting back to normal, but I
think that's the sort of thingthat really brings RJO into
(16:40):
limelight.
Those people are the sort ofthing that really brings RJO
into into limelight.
Those people are.
They need us.
We need them more than we everdid, and it's now is is a good
time to to go to an RJO show andand go to those educational
seminars and learningopportunities and networking
with other jewelers, becausewe're all going through the same
thing.
We really haven't experiencedany significant downturn in our
(17:03):
economy.
We've really had to watch ourinventory, We've had to watch
our staffing, but I thinkeverybody's going through that
and that's the type of thingthat I think that going to an
RJO event will help youaccomplish.
You are able to go to learningopportunities and seminars and
(17:23):
educational things to learnabout what people are going
through and how to staff better,how to control your inventory
better, what to do with thatinventory that you get left over
with.
I mean, everybody's got agedinventory, but it's what you do
with it.
But that's kind of the thing.
I think that what is one ofRGO's strong points is that
(17:44):
we're all in this together.
Michael Burpoe (17:47):
Now, bill, let me ask if you don't mind me
asking a more personal questionare you still running Becker's
Drillers?
Bill Becker (17:54):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, we have two stores in.
Michael Burpoe (17:56):
Iowa.
So two stores and you're stillinvolved on the day-to-day with
those businesses, Correct?
When you go as to these shows,I'm sure you have a million
responsibilities as presidentand you probably got to go
through.
People want to stop you and askyou a million things.
Are you also having to do someof the buying at the shows as
well?
Bill Becker (18:17):
Yeah, you know, obviously being at the show and
being a board member and beingpresident and being on other
committees and so on and soforth, that does take a lot of
the time from the show floor.
But I'll take two or threepeople with us with a plan
obviously on how to buy whatwe're going to do and have
appointments set up.
(18:37):
But that's another thing islearning how to live through.
If you will a trade show, youknow it takes planning.
You can't just go without aplan.
It's like they say failing toplan is planning to fail.
But no, I enjoy the shows, Ienjoy talking with people Many
(18:58):
of the people that I've runinto've I've run into for for
many years and develop goodfriendships with them and, uh,
it's a good thing.
Michael Burpoe (19:06):
I enjoy the shows, so that's really
interesting because you know yougo to these shows and on the
one hand, there's retailers andthat's kind of who we're
thinking of is these retailjewelers.
They're the attendees, they'rethe people that are kind of the
the lifeblood of theseorganizations.
There are clients as well, butthe other part of the equation,
(19:28):
if you will, when it comes toretail jewelry, are the vendors.
Punch Bark is a RJO vendor, andwhat defines success for RJO?
Because, on the one hand,everybody wants the best deal.
Why did RJO start?
It's to get better deals forretailers.
How are you able to balancesuccess for, like you know,
(19:52):
retailers, everyone wants to paya little bit less and sell for
more.
But also you have vendors, I'msure in your ear, saying you
know, we don't want to sell forless, we want to sell more.
Saying you know we don't wantto sell for less, we want to
sell more.
Do you have to?
Is that, like a, you know, abalancing act that I can't envy,
having that position of?
Bill Becker (20:11):
having to satisfy both parties of an equation.
Well, you know, with withregards to the vendors, I think
we're in a unique relationshipthat we can honestly say.
Our relationship with thevendors is not a we against them
, because we understand thatwithout our vendors we wouldn't
be who we are today.
So we stand with them and Ithink they appreciate them.
Obviously, there's somenegotiating that goes on before
(20:34):
a vendor belongs or joins RJO,and they understand that.
I mean, we bring a lot to thetable, a lot of jewelers,
guaranteed payment.
But I would say, you know,since we're really growing, I
think they are riding that samewave that we are, and I think
that true success should bemeasured not only by the fact
(20:56):
that we're growing and maybedoing bigger numbers, but the
multiple benefits that weprovide are being met by the
individual store, and that couldbe from educational seminars.
We do a lot of other things thathelp.
We started many years ago theRGO succession experience.
It's a getaway to understand ifyou're thinking about getting
(21:20):
out of the business or handingit down to Offsprings or selling
it to someone else.
It kind of lays out thegroundwork for that.
We have industry experts thatcome in and speak about how to
value your business attorneysand how to set up that
transition other people thathave done the same thing and can
share their experience.
(21:40):
We also offer the benefit ofthe RGO Foundation where,
through the generosity of ourmembers, we have provided many
scholarships that we give backto the jewelers.
In fact, we've awarded wellover $100,000 in scholarship
funds exclusively to our members.
(22:03):
We also are working on a RJOmanagement development program
through our friends at OptimumRetail Solutions.
They're developing a strategiccourse where we're offering a
two and a half day you mightcall it a boot camp off campus
of RJO I think it's in Chicagoand that's going to be an
(22:24):
ongoing thing and basically it'sgoing to teach people who are
wanting to get into a managementposition, or who may already be
in a management position, onhow to do just that and develop
their management skill, how towork with employees and so on
and so forth.
So we're really excited aboutthat and that's something that's
(22:45):
coming up this fall.
And then, obviously, there'sthe patronage dividend that
we're offering and that wealways have, since we're a co-op
, and the fact that we're anon-profit.
Whatever you buy, obviouslythere's some fixed costs with
running the organization andonce those fixed costs are met.
(23:06):
Whatever's left over at the endof the year, we give back to
the jeweler and that's probably,I would say, our number one
drawing card.
In fact, last year we gave$16.5 million back to the
membership.
Michael Burpoe (23:24):
That's a couple bucks, just unheard of.
That's more than I'm making awhole week.
Bill Becker (23:27):
Oh my goodness well , you have to.
You have to talk to your bossabout that yeah, yeah, yeah, um,
bill, that's really quiteinteresting.
Michael Burpoe (23:35):
I'm glad the education is one of those things
that I really do feel is is soinvesting in and something we
focus on as well.
We talked about, you know, wehave the Punchmart Client
Workshop.
It's a big focus on our part aswell, because we don't want to
just send people out into anever-changing world and have
them just try to adapt or diesort of thing.
To me, it's about equippingthem and giving them tools.
(23:57):
I kind of I guess that bringsup, you know, one of the topics
I really wanted to ask you about.
I guess that brings up one ofthe topics I really wanted to
ask you about.
There's a running joke on In theLoop that when is the episode
coming out on tariffs?
And I keep saying whenever thetariffs are ready to hit,
because I still don't know whenthey're supposed to start.
I guess there's some, but Idon't really know if they're
(24:21):
fully going to happen or ifthey're on or off.
I want to talk to you about asa retailer but also the
president of a major independentjewelry store organization what
are you hearing and what areyou feeling about these upcoming
uncertain times with tariffsand the price of gold.
How are you viewing this kindof a nimbulous, you know
omnipresent thing that's outthere kind of a nimbulous, you
know omnipresent thing that'sout there?
Bill Becker (24:42):
Well, with regards to tariffs, as you know and you
may have heard, it fluctuates.
It seems like weekly.
You know.
There are tariffs announced andthen they're postponed.
There are tariffs announced andthen they're reduced.
When we heard that there weregoing to be some significant
tariffs, I remember thisdistinctly.
I just happened to be with agroup at the RGO headquarters
(25:05):
and so we had a Zoom call withone of our largest vendors, also
had some significant lengthytalks with other vendors, and we
quickly realized that tariffsaffect our vendors differently
from vendor to vendor to vendor.
For instance, if you're a loosediamond vendor and all your
(25:26):
diamonds come, say, from Antwerp, it's pretty straightforward
because Antwerp's affected inone way, so a certain amount of
tariff goes on top of that right.
But if you're a manufacturerand you use gold that's sourced
from the United States, but yourdiamonds are from Antwerp but
(25:48):
your colored stones are fromIndia or Africa or whatnot, now
you've got a whole different setof rules for each particular
piece that goes into thatparticular item.
So how do you deal with that?
And then there's maybe aCanadian manufacturer who
sources enough of his productfrom the United States, even
though it's manufactured inCanada, that he's exempt.
And then, of course, you haveyour US manufacturers that there
are no tariffs on, so it'sreally kind of a juggling act.
(26:11):
It's not really that clear toanybody, even the manufacturers.
So it's just one of those things, such as the price of gold,
that adds to the cost of an item, and it's something that, as a
jeweler, we have to pay veryclose attention to.
It seems like every time we getan invoice from a gold company,
(26:32):
everything keeps going up, and Ithink the main thing to
remember about that is that weneed to instill upon our
jewelers is that, hey, you'vegot to watch your inventory and
mark your items up accordingly,because if you don't, when you
go to turn around and repurchasethat item, you're going to get
blindsided by what that itemcosts to replace it.
(26:53):
So, and we really try andencourage our jewelers to
participate in, say, forinstance, our RJ exclusive
Facebook group, because we talkabout things like that in
addition to many other things,and if you're on there regularly
, you would know about thesethings and what to do about them
(27:15):
.
And a lot of people ask, hey,what do I do about this?
Or what do I do about that?
And a lot of people ask, hey,what do I do about this or what
do I do about that?
And a lot of those topics arediscussed.
Hopefully they're answered, butit's one more benefit to our
network with our RJO membership.
Michael Burpoe (27:31):
Yeah, I mean one of the I always think of a
group of people has a lot ofinherent value just into itself.
I think that when you startgathering people, you have this
strength in numbers.
Do you find that the onus ofstaying informed and up to date
is on the individual jeweler, ordo you think that the
(27:52):
responsibility of likedisseminating all that
information is theresponsibility of like an
organization or like a group?
There's a lot to stay on top of.
I feel like you know, the first35 minutes of my day is me
reading news about the jewelryindustry.
a lot of the time, and I feellike, is everybody doing that at
the same time, Do you think Imean you're a jeweler that has
(28:16):
to stay on top of it?
Are you encouraging people tostay in touch on their own, or
do you find that RJO is tryingto kind of pass that information
on as well?
Bill Becker (28:25):
Well, you can't cover all the bases all the time
, but I'm kind of like you.
When I do those, I see thosenewsletters pop up in my email
or trade publications come out.
Probably one of the firstthings I do is get online and
see what other people are sayingabout it.
You know, hey, did you readthis article about this?
Or man, did you see what goldprices did?
Or man, there's some tariffscoming up at the end of the
(28:48):
month.
What do we do?
So, yeah, we try and talk aboutit, but ultimately it's kind of
up to the jeweler to keep upwith things, and I think that's
again that's part of the wholenetworking process.
You got to find your own familygroup that you belong to,
whoever that may be, and findyour answers and find your
friends, and you'll find theanswers there.
Michael Burpoe (29:10):
Yeah, I think it's.
I mean, there's so much to stayon top of.
I felt like I told this storybefore, but I did a whole bunch
of work on a tariff episode andI, man, I was researching that
thing.
I spent an entire day writingdown these notes.
I was going to interviewMichelle Graff from National
Jeweler, the editor-in-chief,and we said it and they
(29:31):
postponed them like literallythe next day and I had to scrap
the whole thing and then we justlike kicked it down the road
and I feel like I'm stillkicking and I don't know.
I mean, we're about to have thisepisode is about to air in the
middle of the RJO show and Isometimes wonder, like, is there
advice for how jewelers shouldbe stocking for themselves?
(29:54):
Because, again, gold price isall time high.
Every single day seems like anew record.
Is that?
I mean, you probably don't havea crystal ball with you to tell
you.
Are they going to continuegoing all time highs, In which
case you're buying it low rightnow, or is it?
Do you expect that some peoplemight be a little bit
conservative with theirpurchasing ahead of the holiday
season?
Are you able to speculate onthat kind of stuff?
Bill Becker (30:16):
Well, let me look into my crystal ball.
Michael Burpoe (30:20):
He just busted it out, let's go, come on Bill.
Bill Becker (30:24):
You know it's all part of doing business.
You know, if it's not the priceof gold, it's interest rates.
If it's not interest rates,it's tariffs.
So you know, I see a lot ofpeople that you know we used to
be kind of the same way.
We'll go to the stores or theshows and whatnot.
We see things that we like andwe buy those.
(30:46):
We see things that we like overhere and we buy those.
But you've got to run yourbusiness, your jewelry store,
like a business and you've gotto buy what you need.
You've got to look at what yousold in the past six months or
whatever it is for Christmas orwhatnot, and you've got to buy
according to what you used to do, not based on what's in your
heart, because you'll end upbuilding a museum rather than
(31:09):
something that might turn aprofit for you.
And trust me, I know I've beenthere and unfortunately, that's
how you learn.
Most of the time is by mistakes.
I should be a very educated manby now if that were the case.
Michael Burpoe (31:23):
You know, nothing teaches a good lesson
like a few stinkers in yourdisplay case.
So I totally understand that.
But, bill, I wanted to alsotalk about something that's very
important to me, which is thisdigital age, and increasingly
things are becoming digital.
I mean, obviously, stores arenot going away, brick and mortar
(31:44):
is not going away, but we areseeing increasing amounts of
relevancy for how people marketonline, driving traffic to their
stores, how e-commerce isplaying a factor in their just
bottom line in general, but alsowhat they're stocking in their
stores and listing online andhow that relationship kind of
(32:05):
develops with an omni-channelapproach.
Is RJO approaching that topicas kind of a frontier?
Is that something that isbecoming a focus?
Because I know very easily alot of times I'm trying not to
do this anymore a lot of timeswe view jewelry as lagging
behind when it comes totechnology.
Is that something that you hopeto kind of address as a
(32:28):
president?
Bill Becker (32:29):
Well, I think that goes with the educational
opportunities that we provide,and being part of Punchmark mean
you you've got to be right onon top of things and and know
that this is, this is the future.
I mean, that's, that's wherethat's where it's at.
From now, if you're going toadvertise it's it's no longer as
(32:49):
much newspaper as it used to be, it's no longer as much TV as
it used to be.
It's not as much radio as itused to be.
It's all, it's all digital.
It's all about attracting and,as in my case, we try and go
after the engagement ringcustomer and they're all about
online presence.
As far as competition goes, heck, everybody who's got a website
(33:15):
is my competitor technicallyspeaking.
But it's not so much differentas if you say, sold a guy an
engagement ring, now his kidsare at that age of getting
engaged, but now they moved outof state but their dad is
telling them to go to the localjeweler Hopefully that's me
right and we do a lot ofbusiness that way.
(33:37):
Or what about the guy thatbought an engagement ring and
his pals are now at that pointwhere they need an engagement
ring, but they might live out oftown or out of state.
So it's really hasn't changed.
It's just changed in adifferent manner and you have to
adapt those tools to sourceyour needs, whether it's.
(34:01):
I think we do a lot ofcommunication to those people
that I just mentioned througheither emails or now, texts or,
you know, text through thewebsite, and that's really a
great opportunity because, hey,they've reached out to you
directly to ask a question aboutsomething.
So it's a lot more direct, it'sa lot more precise and I think
(34:23):
the rewards are a lot better.
But it's hard to monitor that,it's hard to say, you know, are
we doing anything to controlthat?
But it really isn'tcontrollable.
I think you just have to seethat opportunity and grasp it
and use it to the best of yourabilities.
Michael Burpoe (34:42):
You know, I totally agree.
I guess fortune favors the boldor the forward thinking and
people that do actually startlooking forward.
I think it's already startingto pay off for them.
But I want to ask does RJL havelike an exclusivity rule?
Is there a mileage for thenearest competitor can join RJO,
(35:05):
Like if someone, if a store, isin RJO, so-and-so's down the
road, can't join RJO as well?
Bill Becker (35:11):
Yeah, we do.
You know, we've always had thatand because we have stores in
all 49 states, we have stores inlarge communities, we have
stores in small communities.
It's not the same for eachcommunity, so it might be
different for me than somebodywho has a store, say, in the
(35:32):
Chicago area or the Phoenix area.
So we do have that.
It's not really black and white, it's something you have to
look at the community and wekind of take that on a
one-to-one basis.
But in short answer yes, butit's not as easy as saying, yeah
, you've got a certain amount ofmileage radius around your
(35:52):
store.
You know, if somebody opensanother store in somebody else's
territory, that kind ofconfuses things a little bit,
but that does happen.
Michael Burpoe (36:00):
Yeah, it's again .
It's something that I've beenthinking about increasingly so,
like if we start to accept theidea that online presence is
true presence, is omni-channel.
So if there is, like this,online version of a store as
well as your brick and mortar,the online versions, I mean, I
can compete with you, you know,in California, with if I'm in
(36:27):
New York, the buyertheoretically should not care if
they type in, you know,engagement ring, it's kind of
whatever shows up.
There's a whole bunch of otherrules that go along with it and
things that pop up.
Do you think that the onlinekind of increasing value of
online presence, is that goingto change those exclusivity
rules Because of the fact that,like, you could go either way?
(36:48):
It's like, oh, I'm competingwith like in Charlotte we used
to talk about Asheville, whichis, you know about two hours
away.
Are those people competitorsbecause they have, like a good
digital marketing ad wouldprobably be targeting someone in
Asheville from Charlotte?
Or do you find that, because ofthe fact that everybody can
compete with everybody, itstarts to kind of break down the
(37:10):
rules of exclusivity?
Bill Becker (37:12):
So therein lies that question.
You talk about targetingsomeone from one store in
another community.
You're talking about somethingas specific as, like,
retargeting or that sort ofthing.
I don't know how you wouldcontrol that, michael, it's,
it's.
I don't know how you wouldpolice that, or even if we would
want to.
(37:32):
You know you kind of want, youwant to give people the reins to
grow their business.
You want to give people thereins to grow their business,
and if they're doing that sortof thing, I don't know how you'd
stop it, or even if you wouldwant to per se, because that's
that's the nature of the waythings are right now is is it's
all about digital, it's allabout social media, it's all
about a website, and I don'tknow, are you experiencing any
(37:56):
of that from from your point ofview and in your business?
You?
Michael Burpoe (38:00):
know it's kind of one of those things.
It's like could RJO, forexample, say to a store hey, you
can run digital marketing ads,but we're going to prevent you
from running ads targeting likea pull effect?
So like like we're talkingabout with Charlotte, you could
theoretically target a, set up,a radius that could pull someone
(38:23):
from Asheville.
Well then, the Asheville storeis, you know, kind of the loser
in this situation.
And I'm not sure if RJO wouldever plan to say, no, you can't
target competitor cities, whichwould be pretty hard, I think,
with so many stores cities whichwould be pretty hard, I think,
with so many stores.
But I didn't know if that, ifyou plan to be laissez-faire
when it comes to the digitallandscape, with that kind of
(38:46):
stuff.
Bill Becker (38:52):
Right, you know, over the years I'm sure there's
been an incident where somebodyin a neighboring community that
are both RJO members hasadvertised in their community
and they're just.
That's just not something thatI think we would want to start
or could enforce or, you know,like I said, would even want to,
but I don't see that in thefuture.
Having a physical location andgiving an exclusivity or
(39:13):
exclusivity for that particularstore is one thing, but trying
to control their advertising orthe reach of their advertising,
that's just not something.
Who we are, that's good to know.
Michael Burpoe (39:24):
Now, bill, I want to end this on.
I opened this up for somequestions in the RJO exclusive
Facebook group, so we give thelisteners an idea if you're not
in RJO, there's a Facebook groupthat you need to be an RJO
member or a member of a store ora vendor that's part of RJO to
be able to go there.
It's really interesting.
I think it's because it's allkind of set up by that kind of
(39:46):
stuff.
I do find that RJO members tendto be pretty forward thinking
in that they are a higher levelof tech literacy and tech
fluency.
You know, in general.
I guess that's a rather largegeneralization for 1,200 stores.
But still and I asked thisquestion, hey, I'm interviewing
Bill, the RJO president.
What kind of questions do youhave?
So one of them was this one.
(40:08):
It's from the RJO account.
I hear you have a bit of aclassic car collection.
Can you share what you'vecollected so far and any grails
you might be chasing?
Bill Becker (40:19):
Yeah, I'm kind of a gearhead.
Some people say I have gasolinerunning through my veins.
Oh, I love it.
No, I'm into the old Corvettes.
I've restored an old 67 manyyears ago and currently
restoring a 72, and justrecently was able to procure an
extremely rare 72 with rareoptions, with only 8,000 miles,
(40:43):
and actually tomorrow morningI'm taking it to a National
Corvette Restorer Societyregional event to put it on
display.
And actually they've used thatparticular car for the cover of
their new judging manual.
So it's a very nice car.
But I enjoy old cars.
I've got a couple 69 Camarosthat I like to drive around.
(41:04):
It's a lot of fun and you knowthere's a lot of other members
in RJO that have the samehobbies and we tend to gravitate
towards one another because wehave a lot to talk about.
Michael Burpoe (41:16):
I'm sure.
I'm sure that's so cool.
I just had a classic car showcome through my hometown, where
I'm at, and they brought everytype of car imaginable.
I got to sit in a 1930 Model A,ford Model A and it was like
this car is older than my house.
What the heck man, it's so cool.
(41:37):
I think I mean what you saideight or nine thousand miles.
That must have been sitting ina garage for for all those years
.
Bill Becker (41:45):
Yeah, it's very well kept, All original.
You have to come by sometimeI'll take you for a spin.
Michael Burpoe (41:51):
Oh my gosh, that would be so cool.
I would love that.
And, bill, you know I asked, Iasked this question, I got that
one.
And, bill, you know I asked, Iasked this question, I got that
one.
That was a great question.
But I had a lot of questionsabout you and the RJO staff just
saying how much you love them.
What is the?
What is that?
That kind of community and thenature of that relationship for
(42:13):
the RJO staff and you joiningthem as the president, joining
them as the president.
Bill Becker (42:17):
Well, I'm in a really unique position and I
feel so blessed to be affiliatedwith the group that I work with
(42:37):
.
They make it so easy for theboard.
Um, the girls that are thereare really nice, very friendly,
very hardworking, very dedicatedto what they do and they're a
lot of fun to be with.
So when we we get together atthe shows, um, we have a lot of
fun.
A good friend of mine, jeffWorkersham, the vice president
and the head of the MRCcommittee, got together some of
(43:01):
us to go down to the office andhe brought a griddle and I
helped him prepare lunch forthem and they all had a really
good time with that.
It was all fun and games andkind of brought a sense of
camaraderie to the group and weall had a good time.
But that's just kind of what itis.
(43:21):
We work together and we playtogether as well.
Michael Burpoe (43:24):
Man, I really, really love hearing that.
I think that the jewelryindustry it's my it's kind of
crazy to think that this is myfirst foray into being a
professional.
I've been here for eight years,or over eight years at this
point, and what really strikesme is just like is the community
(43:47):
of jewelers and the industry?
It's not as, not as cutthroatas I, as you'd expect, and it's
very transparent when it comesto the sharing of ideas and also
just the we're all in thistogether.
I don't know if that stems fromthe whole, you know,
independence versus everybodyelse sort of kind of mindset,
which you know I get behindbecause I'm training for jewelry
stores, you know, to beat outthe big boxes.
It's cool to hear that that isalso true on the, I guess, the
(44:08):
more micro level with leadershipinside of these organizations.
So really excited to hear thatBill.
Bill Becker (44:13):
Good, good.
Yeah, you know, might've been alittle bit more competitive in
my younger years, but after awhile you kind of realize that
we're all in this together.
Yeah, you may lose something tosomebody one day, but you'll
gain it back from that guy, youknow, a month later.
So you know it all evens out inthe wash, but I think
ultimately you need to have funin what you're doing and enjoy
(44:34):
the ride, as they say.
I like to say we at RJL.
People may come for thepatronage dividend, but we stay
for the friendships that we make.
Michael Burpoe (44:44):
Love it.
You know what, bill, maybewe'll leave it right there.
I really appreciate your timeand I'm going to be following
your tenure as president veryclosely.
Hopefully I make it out toanother RJL show real soon,
maybe the one in January.
Anything else before we wrapthis thing up.
Bill Becker (44:58):
I think you got it, man.
I appreciate it.
It's been a good ride so farand I hope things continue the
way they are Awesome.
Michael Burpoe (45:05):
Well, thanks everybody.
I appreciate you listening tothe end.
If you're new here, maybe dropus a follow.
We have new episodes everyTuesday, all about what
independent jewelry stores arelooking for, so make sure you
subscribe.
We'll see you next week Tuesday, with another episode.
(45:34):
Cheers bye, or Spotify.
This episode was brought to youby Punchmark and produced and
hosted by me, Michael Burpo.
This episode was edited by PaulSuarez with music by Ross
Cockrum.
Don't forget to leave usfeedback on punchmarkcom slash
loop.
That's L-O-U-P-E.
Thanks.
We'll be back next week,Tuesday, with another episode.
Cheers Bye.
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