January 14, 2025 • 40 mins
Join Michael as he speaks with William Jones IV from Sissy's Log Cabin as we explore JewelLink, a cutting-edge recruiting tool revolutionizing how jewelry stores find the perfect candidates. Whether you're an entrepreneur looking to expand or a jeweler seeking top talent, you'll gain valuable insights into refining your hiring process, focusing on skills and entrepreneurial potential.
Learn more about JewelLink here: https://www.jewellink.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Welcome to In the Loop and we're talking about
Sissy's Log Cabin, but this timeI specifically wanted to talk
about their kind of likerecruiting platform, jewel Link,
and what's so cool about it isit works with their academy
education system and this JewelLink provides a great way that
solves a problem they werehaving with hiring and Sissy's
(00:40):
Log Cabin.
They're in the process ofopening, I think, their seventh
and eighth store.
And Stacy's Law Cabin they'rein the process of opening, I
think, their seventh and eighthstore.
So, as a result, they need tohave a way to interview and hire
smartly if that's even a wordbut in a way that makes sense
and they're not just siftingthrough thousands of applicants.
It's more about you know,situational awareness, aptitude
and understanding so that theycan hire people who are good
(01:04):
fits.
It's a really cool conversation.
I am very impressed by this guyand I think he's very aware of
some of the important thingsthat you should be paying
attention to when hiring.
I hope you enjoy and we're backnext week, tuesday, with
another episode.
Cheers, bye.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
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Slash go.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
And now back to the show.
Welcome back everybody.
I'm joined by William Jones IVfrom Sissy's Log Cabin Actually
the second time I've gotten achance to speak with you.
How are you doing today,william?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I'm doing very well, enjoyed our last conversation
and it's funny because peoplecan't see you're in a hat and it
looks like a cold area and I'msitting in Arkansas and it's
about to snow.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
It's definitely.
I'm dealing with some sub-zeroweather, so when it's negative
zero, I allow myself to wear ahat on my Zoom calls, because
otherwise, oh my goodness, itgets a little frosty.
But what I wanted to talk aboutis your new product, or one of
your products, I guess, jewelLink, and I was reading and
watching some of the contentthat you've been putting out and
(03:07):
it seems so exciting.
It's so different than what alot of people have out there.
I was hoping to have you on totalk about it a little bit more.
So could you set up whatJewelink is, in case people
don't know what it is for thelisteners?
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Yeah for sure.
So Jewelink, in the form thatit is now, is a filtering tool
for existing applications orinterviewees you might have, and
so the way this thing functionsnow is that in jewelry the
majority of us now the hiringpool has gotten so small.
(03:40):
In jewelry is that the majorityof us the easiest way to get
applications is through Indeed,through ZipRecruiter, through
LinkedIn, through all thesedifferent avenues.
And so the real game inrecruiting is how many
applicants you go through topick your best ones.
And so before we had morerecruiting help, one of the
(04:02):
things you would do is like amanager would go through there
and post a job and theninterview.
He had time for about three orfour interviewees and pick the
best one from there.
And so what we started doingwhen we got better and better
recruiting at Sissy's was goingthrough more and more
applications.
We've got someone who's really,really good at recruiting and
kind of just listening to herabout what she did and kind of
going through there and figuredout like, oh God, we you know
(04:25):
there's way more talent outthere.
It's just the amount of time ittakes to sort through that is
difficult, and then so we wantedto build a tool that helped you
understand that person'saptitude, their skills, how they
transition into jewelry, howthey fit into your sales team
and then also give them someexposure if they've never been
in Jory before.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Wow, what an awesome tool.
Because you're totally right, Ihandle actually all of the
interviewing and hiring atPunchmark and at this point it's
kind of weird, I've hired likea quarter or a third of the
company at this point and onetime I was talking with my boss
about what was I looking for andthen I asked him what were you
looking for when it came tohiring me?
And he's like well, you know,this stood out.
(05:12):
I previously owned an apparelcompany.
He's like well, this stood outbecause it showed that you have
this, the entrepreneurial spirit, which was important, because
Punchmark was very small at thetime, there was only eight or
nine of us and he saidentrepreneurs have this
understanding of what it's liketo grind.
But what I've always foundinteresting when it comes to
(05:33):
resumes and applications is Ididn't put entrepreneurial
spirit, I put something else,and a lot of the times there you
have to make this jump, and Ican only imagine what that's
like in jewelry, where you know,oh, I am into fashion jewelry
or I'm into fashion.
That could mean one thing whatis it that you're sort of
looking for or have found a lotof success with when it comes to
(05:58):
, like you know, talking aboutpeople.
Are you looking for people thathave worked in other jewelry
stores or are you looking forpeople that have a you know a
history in retail sales Like?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
what is it that you're always looking for
generally?
So it's really funny is becausethis was like a big, big thing
for us, cause we we've done youknow, we have the jewelry sales
Academy, we've built all thistraining.
We and I've gone through andpersonally trained, probably at
this point, hundreds of newassociates.
And the thing about it to me iswhat I used to really think,
(06:33):
like if it were just me staffinga store, what I'm looking for
are resilience and how extralike an extroverted person for
sales, because they've got to beable to put themselves out
there and they've got to be ableto fail a lot.
So like one of the things thatwe did was such a big deal for
us was we started doing improvcoaching in our training, like
(06:56):
in the first month that somebodywould go there and it would be
so embarrassing.
You'd have to sing and danceand clap your hands and like do
all this stuff.
But I remember thinking thefirst time thing you have to
sing and dance and clap yourhands and like do all this stuff
.
But I remember thinking thefirst time I was like, oh my God
, the people who are really goodat this are like really good at
sales.
I was like okay, so we're goingto just do this for everything
and this is going to filter outwho we do and don't need.
Well then, when you're runningmultiple different locations,
(07:17):
those that type of personalityhas certain advantages and
disadvantages, like.
So for me, in trying to drivesales, I can deal with those
things pretty well because Ilook at that, I know how to
train.
Everything to me is aboutgrowing the people that are
around me and building a team.
The difference in that is whatyour manager's like and you know
(07:40):
, for a lot of people there's nospecific like I'm not the same
as another one of our managers.
I've been over the last yearreally trying to recruit in
people that were more similar tome, because that just makes the
whole business easier,especially when you're at seven
and eight locations, because ifwe're all closer in a
personality range for thatdriving sales, it makes
(08:02):
everything easier, and apersonality range for that
driving sales, it makeseverything easier.
But outside of that, what welearned was that it was more
important to build a store andthen coach that individual
manager and then pick people outfor that.
And so, like I'll say, it'lldepend completely is that you've
got guys in jewelry who.
Some people, some managers in asmaller store can go out there
and they are like the big seller.
(08:25):
They're out there, they're outthere closing every single sale.
They're living on the floor,they're doing these things like
that.
So that type of person might belooking for somebody who's more
support-based, like a personwho can help them operationally
with inventory accounts etc.
They don't need a staff that'sso built for sales.
Then again you've got somebodyelse who's operationally minded.
(08:47):
They need people that have thatbig sell drive to them, and so
it really depends on thatmanager and how that floor looks
.
And that was one of the thingsthat there's other systems out
there for staffing that startwith the manager and go through
and say, hey, based on thismanagement profile, this is the
team that goes through there andthen understanding how you hire
(09:08):
each person, how that fits intothat staffing matrix.
And that's the second phasethat we're doing through this is
actually trying to understandwhat that person's personality
traits are, how they're going toimpact into your store and if
that's the type of personalityyou need or want in your store
as well too.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Wow, there's so many moving parts to it and there is
no one size fits all kind ofapproach when it comes to
staffing or building out teams.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Well, that's not.
That is when you have a singlelocation it is.
It's simple, and especially ifyou've got a manager who can
drive sales or you've got a lotof experience or you've got
something like that.
If you have a really strongcentral leader, you can do that.
But from what we've seen, it'shard to keep that.
It's hard to keep that inretail, and so it can be simple,
(09:58):
but for the majority of peopleit's not.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
We all make mistakes.
We all make mistakes instaffing and hiring etc.
It's just figuring that outfaster.
While at Punchmark, again, wewould probably be considered a
single store because for a longtime we were all under one roof
and it was sort of like we weretrying to concoct a culture with
(10:35):
culture fit and things likethat.
But then eventually I kind ofrealized while we were hiring
that it's not always abouthaving a culture fit, it's about
having a role, that the personneeds to fit the role, cause
there are some roles that, um,you know, by nature are actually
not, uh, always going to fit,like a wider persona or wider um
(10:56):
culture.
For example, you knowsalespeople you mentioned, uh,
salespeople tend to just beextroverted and willing to fail
and move fast.
And on the flip side of things,I deal with a lot of developers
and in hiring our developers, alot of the times they are more
introverted and a lot more safeand things like that, and I
(11:18):
learned that if you're trying tomeet in the middle or skew one
way or the other, you're notgoing to be able to find the
best at either of those roles.
So I can only imagine,especially with dealing with,
for example, back of housepeople for your multiple
locations Is that also?
Are you using Juul Link forlike back of house positions as
well?
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Yeah, we do it with everything.
So what we do is, like you know, there's countless different
books, studies, programs outthere that use like the 12
essential hiring traits.
They go through like passion,resilience, all these different
things.
So what we want to do is wewant to figure out we give a
blanket I don't even likecalling it an aptitude test,
(12:00):
because if you ever have to seehow we actually built it, it
took about nine months to gothrough test, because if you
ever have to see how we actuallybuilt it, it took about nine
months to go through.
But one of the consultant thatworked with Delta Airlines on
building their aptitude test,he's like I don't want to call
him that coach, but he's likethe guy that works with me once
a month and basically tells mewhat I could do better, and so
this was a system that he kindof helped direct me of how he'd
(12:22):
done it before.
And so what we're looking foris like this is jewelry specific
for traits, and so what thisallows you to do is just in
those 12 traits, every one ofthose questions is weighted, and
so you can see that and send itto every single person.
It's unlimited to send it.
That's the cool thing about it.
So, no matter who you're hiring, you can do that and like
(12:43):
that's what people ask me.
Like, well, is this tested?
I'm like, well, the best thingto do is send it to your best
people, figure out how they teston there in those positions and
then just go from there,because right now it's in beta
testing, we're doing all that.
But you said a couple thingslike a developer versus like a
salesperson and this is what wehear all the time is like people
go well, you know my bestsalesperson oh my God, if I had
(13:04):
10 of those, I would do.
You know X number of dollars, amillion dollars, yeah, yeah,
yeah, no, you're probably morethan likely your store would
burn down.
Yeah, you know, what we've seenis like really identifying.
What we're trying to reallyhelp with is what do you really
need help with?
Because you've got a certainturnover and basis of time,
because you've got a certainturnover and basis of time.
But then in jewelry it takesabout two years for a person to
(13:28):
get set up in jewelry on thesales floor to really work, even
if you bring somebody in withgreat experience to build a
clientele, because the majorityof jewelry store sales happen
from existing customers comingback in.
That's why, like, if you use theEdge POS, you can run like your
top 100 report and it's like 30to 60% of the stores overall
(13:49):
sales.
So you've got a big risk inhiring somebody and so you also
you've got to.
When you roll the dice hiringsomebody, you got to really
understand what you're trying toget, because what we found is,
like the people who become topsalespeople that type of
personality, if you actuallyfind it, like if you say I want
(14:09):
to hire a top salesperson andyou actually correctly pick that
personality and those traitsand that knowledge of that top
salesperson, they come onlinereally really quick, like they
sell really fast, quick, likethey sell really fast.
But then on the other side ifyou were to tell me you were
like, hey, I want to hiresomebody in sales management or
management or for something likethis, and you actually hired
(14:33):
somebody who was very good atthat, it takes a lot longer to
get them there Because thetraits that make them great at
that also make it to where ittakes them longer to establish
like that leadership.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Yeah, more like an emerging thing.
Yeah, it's fascinating.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
A lot of people get frustrated because you're like I
need a top seller and then youhire somebody who has the
potential to be a great managerand then you get frustrated with
them because you know it takesthem longer to come online.
Or you're like I need somebodyin management and you're a great
salesperson, or the owner's agreat salesperson, so they say
this person's like me, they'llbe great at management.
(15:09):
I hire that person.
They're great at sales and theysuck at management, and so it's
really hard because jewelry'sall it's an emotional business.
It's not really tied to anyhardly any economic factors
except for, like, the wealtheffect.
Outside of that, it's prettymuch how good you are building a
team at your store.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Man.
What a really cool observation,though, about you know quick to
emerge versus slow to emergekind of personality traits.
What's really fascinating is,for myself, is I actually.
I always say like when I gothired I was not great at my job
and I still maintain I was.
I got hired to be a webdesigner and I was pretty
(15:48):
middling, maybe even slightlybelow average, when it came to
what I was expected to do, andfor the first year of my
employment at Punchmark, I wasactually.
I was definitely struggling,but as they gave me more
specialized roles or leadershiproles, that's when I started to
kind of come online a little bitmore.
And you know, I've been here foreight years at this point, and
I think that those types oftraits, though, do develop, or
(16:12):
maybe not even develop, theyshowcase themselves much slower.
But at the same time, we alsohave some people that are the
individual contributor.
For the people that arelistening, this is such a tech
kind of, or like such acorporate kind of term.
There's individual contributorsversus management positions,
(16:33):
and the IC individualcontributor those people you can
just get like some studs.
You know some all-stars thatare just they take that role and
they smash.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
But yeah, think about that.
Okay, so what makes and whatdid you say?
I went to school in SouthArkansas, so you got to.
So what's an IC?
It's an independent contributor.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yeah, an individual contributor.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Okay, so like, what, like.
What do you want out of thatperson?
Speaker 1 (16:59):
It probably needs to be a self-starter.
Someone who is self-motivated,self-driven, is quick to learn
and able to focus on themselvesis pretty much what I would call
an IC.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Okay, so who you're just talking about is massively
resilient, very risk, tolerant,quick to make decisions and is
very, like, driven andpassionate.
What you just described issomebody who's like, think about
that in sales, that's great.
But then you take that samepersonality and you put them in
(17:32):
a management position wherethey're having to manage 15
people and you're like, hey,this guy's quick to make
decisions, he's not afraid ofmessing up, he will take really
risky decisions and he's reallypassionate about his own
performance.
And you're like, no wonder he'snot.
He wouldn't be a good manager,yeah, and so you see, and then
you look at that, but no wonderthat person comes online so
(17:52):
quick, like that's a greatperson in sales.
That person comes online soquick, like that's a great
person in sales.
And not to say that you can'tget that person to be great in
management, but like who youwant in management, you want
somebody who's calm, you wantsomebody who's understanding,
who doesn't make brash decisions, who takes others into account,
who builds other people up.
Like you take those traits andyou're like, god, no wonder it
(18:14):
takes so long for somebody toget in that position, because it
takes longer for them to buildrespect on the team, to learn
the different things, andthey're not.
Typically a person like thatperson is going to feel like an
imposter if they try and go intheir first week of work and act
like they're number one.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yeah, definitely.
I mean, the imposter syndromeis definitely a real part of it.
I guess I kind of wanted to tagthat into these certs and
aptitude tests which are relatedto Juul Inc.
I think that they'reinteresting in that.
I think that they can measurethat kind of initial ability to
(18:53):
jump in.
What is it that you're lookingfor when it comes to, for
example, like an aptitude test?
How do you make it specificenough that someone from a
jewelry store coming into yourjewelry store is going to do
well, but also maybe someone whodoesn't have experience at a
jewelry store is still able tokind of make a mark enough that
(19:16):
you'd be willing to give them achance?
Speaker 3 (19:18):
That's the thing and like you've got to understand
that I like to say this I'm notvery educated.
I mean, I went to a publicschool in South Arkansas, so
we're like just aboveMississippi.
So like that's when I talkabout people with, like I talk
about things to people and andthey get frustrated with me and
I'm like maybe my definitionsaren't right, like maybe I don't
(19:39):
use the same words, so I don'treally like to use like aptitude
test, maybe like a traits testwould be a better way of
explaining that.
Because think about it this waywhat you're really looking for
is you've got to have experiencein a massive population of
(20:01):
sales associates and then youbreak that down into traits and
you say, okay, I've looked at Xnumber of people and I'm going
to identify these 12 things,because that's pretty synonymous
with every.
If you read a recruiting book,they're going to talk about the
12 traits.
So the thing is is like, okay,that's pretty common language
from everybody.
(20:21):
And then like, let's take atrait like customer focused, all
right, so in jewelry, let'srate that.
So how most of these tests workis that every answer is
weighted that goes to thatpoints total.
So what we're looking at islike, okay, what would be the
least?
And I'll just ask you, if youwere trying to judge somebody
(20:44):
customer-focused in jewelryspecifically for retail, what
would be the least, what wouldbe the worst answer that they
could have for that?
Speaker 1 (20:53):
If they're customer-focused.
I guess if they didn't care.
They were only.
They only wanted the commission.
They were only focused onmaking their own money.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Yeah, okay, so that that goes into it.
That would be like more whatdrives you, like passion or not,
but like, like, let's say, andyou word the question like this,
like you've got an upsetcustomer in front of you, out of
the following situations, whatbest describes the action that
you would take?
And then you try and make it towhere it seems like a real
world situation, and the answersrange from number one being
(21:26):
like I would just go upon, Iwould let the customer know
company policy and that would bethe end.
Okay, that shows right there,when you put this all together,
that this person's more focusedon operational strategy than
they are customer relationships.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, I know.
But then in the top questionwould be like I take the
(21:46):
customer's side, no matter what,and, you know, do something
from there.
And so you create thesesituations.
And the tricky part about thisis is you have to make it and
write it in a way to where it'sreal, to where somebody who goes
and has experience in retailthat goes oh my God.
You know customers lie all thetime.
They pick a real answer versussomebody who goes well, this is
(22:10):
my customer and these are whopay my bills, like, although
there's risk assigned with thisanswer, I'm going to answer it
this way, and so it's reallyjust how do you write these
questions?
And then how do you make themjewelry specific, so like you're
actually trying to figure outhow this person's going to
interact in here, because aresume can't show that, a resume
(22:32):
can't say you know, people cansay that in keywords, but when
they have to pick a realsituation and all four or five
of them seem like the rightanswer and they actually have to
pick the right one for them,and then every single person
like that's where it getsdifficult.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Definitely.
All right, everybody, we'regoing to take a quick break and
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And now back to the show, andwe're back.
(23:48):
And so when you took this testand handed it to your own
employees and you were, like youknow, essentially retrofitting
it and handed it to your ownemployees and you were, like you
know, essentially retrofittingit, what did you?
Did you find that youremployees did tend to fall into
the categories that you weresort of expecting them to, or
were there surprises or what?
Did you find anything as aresult?
Speaker 3 (24:10):
I went into this and I was like God, this is going to
be a problem, like this isgoing to take forever to do and
I don't know if I can actuallydo this.
And then, as I went through it,I was like this is actually way
easier than I thought it was,because you know, everything you
do is constantly being testedand again, this is in beta
testing too.
So we're going through, we'retesting against other tests,
(24:43):
we're going through and we'redoing all this and we're finding
it more and more.
But, um, not really, you know,uh it.
It's very like when you put realworld situations out and say,
hey, take this test the best ofyour abilities and you got.
You know, give it back to me asfast you can, like I don't know
what.
When a person they're biased,they think they're right in the
way they act, and so when youput it out there and you word
these questions correctly, likeit does it.
The tricky part of it, the hardpart of it, was actually
writing it in a way where eachquestion carried enough weight
(25:07):
to where you could shorten thetest to where somebody could
take it in 15 minutes.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
That was the hard part.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Wow it's easy because originally and probably why I
said it's going to be so easy isbecause I tried like 60
questions at one time.
Yeah, and that's not usablewhen you're just sending it to
an Indeed application orapplicant Like they're going to
say, well, I don't really wantto do this or I'm going to get
bored with it and go from here.
So the hardest part about it ismaking it very non-time
(25:34):
consuming.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Wow, what a cool, really cool experiment.
This is like background inpsychology.
Would have like a field daywith this.
It sounds fascinating.
Oh they would probably pick meapart.
No way, no way.
So if it worked for you andwho's to say that you're wrong?
But I wanted to ask, so yousaid it's in beta.
But I wanted to ask, so yousaid it's in beta, Do you plan
(25:56):
to make this available to thewider jewelry industry or will
this stay as an internal tool?
Speaker 3 (26:04):
What do you hope to use it for?
We've already got probably 30stores using this right now.
Wow that's amazing Messingaround with it, because I mean
you tell people like, hey, youcan use this for free and you
know, et cetera, and just messaround People in jewelry love
this, you know, et cetera, andjust mess around People in
jewelry love this.
That was the weirdest thing, isthat?
And my favorite thing was whenyou're a retailer and you go to
these shows, it's weird becauseother people don't want to talk
to you and things like that.
But then once you start on thevendor side of things like
(26:26):
everybody wants to know adifferent thing, like people
love messing with it and somecool things on here too as well
it's like like it's not justtraits tests and skills tests,
like there's a product knowledgetest so you can send somebody a
product knowledge test.
It's like 24 questions and itbreaks it down in the categories
of what they're going to know,so you can send somebody this
and see, okay, this person hasno knowledge in jewelry, or they
(26:47):
know a little bit aboutdiamonds, they know a little bit
about gemstones and things likethat.
And then also from the academy,we've got probably around 12
different courses on here so youcan actually send somebody a
course and get, and they're allshort courses so somebody can
get a really good idea of howyou want to sell or what to
expect when they come work onyour sales floor.
(27:08):
And that's going to be the.
The original portion of thiswas a business recruiting funnel
.
It wasn't the filtering tool,and I can get into some of that
too.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
I mean, that was really my cool thing I wanted to
make.
It's such an exact fit for aproblem I could definitely see I
wish I had.
On the one hand, I do think itwould be effective for hiring,
for example, developers anddesigners and stuff like that,
for us, just for the traits andthe situational kind of
(27:43):
understanding of stuff.
But at the same time I do kindof I'm fascinated to hear how it
would like take someone from adifferent industry.
Because, again, one of thethings I'm always curious about
is like jewelry is sometimesfeels so insulated and so kind
(28:04):
of siloed into itself.
You know, the people who arejewelers have been jewelers
their entire lives and they alot of the times, like yourself,
starts at a very young age in ajewelry store and they just
continue to stay at the jewelrystore.
So they this comes secondnature.
But for jewelry to continue toexist and stay healthy, it does
(28:25):
also need to take from otherindustries.
So I guess, uh, man, I wish,would you ever like consider
publishing, like and I don'tknow any of like the the
findings that you get from fromhaving these people?
Speaker 3 (28:39):
every and like we were talking about this on the
uh color, there's like I don'tmake, like I had the academy out
.
It does a lot of revenue a year.
I reinvest every dollar of thatlike we hadn't taken a dollar
out of anything.
Wow, it all just getsreinvested to build the tools
because, like I said, we're thisis.
I hate to sound like a nerd onthis, but like I look at it,
(29:04):
like this is okay.
If you're a single, if I managea store and I do two and a half
million dollars a year, allright, there's only so much you
learn from that, all right.
So then, once you manage eightstores, you're learning 10 times
as much a day.
Then, when you go into otherthings like it's almost like a
(29:27):
language model, like whatthey're training, the more they
expose it to, the smarter itgets, the better it gets, and so
that's why I look at that andthat's why I'm not afraid to get
into some of these things.
Uh, but as we're going throughhere I'm sorry I've got people
walking in, that's quite allright.
Everything on here like thatwas one of my dad's biggest
things is like there are nosecrets, like it's just how can
(29:49):
you get better at it, andespecially when it gets into
hiring is because the better weare at hiring, like, in all
honesty, other stores go andrecruit from other stores, and
then the pool that you have injewelry like if you lose
somebody and you're a retailer,they're probably just going to
go work for somebody else on theroad, and so if that's all we
feed off of, like we're in badshape.
(30:10):
And the thing that it's funnybecause about a year ago I was
in dinner in Chicago.
We had this great dinner withthis uh waiter and we all gave
him business cards and we'relike, we're sitting there and
we're like, oh yeah, you canwork for us, you can work for
this guy, etc.
And I remember thinking I waslike how could we get that guy
to come in jewelry?
(30:31):
Because he has no experience,his resume probably wouldn't
look very great.
Uh, that's a great greatthought experiment.
He, I mean, and he's probablymaking pretty good money because
, uh, he's good at his job andso the chances to get him to
jump industries are very, verysmall.
(30:51):
And so that's where we startedthinking.
I started thinking about thisand I hate to say this, I could,
could not quit thinking aboutit, and so my idea was like all
right, we needed more time torecruit this guy, because time's
a big factor, so I don't needsix minutes in this guy to throw
away my business card.
I need his information for sixmonths, or even years if
possible.
(31:11):
The next thing is I've got todo a better job of giving this
guy expectations of what it'sgoing to look like in jewelry
and then giving him enoughknowledge because it's a
confident guy to confidentlycome in here and feel like I can
make a living doing this.
Wow.
And so I went back and we builtlike a business careers portal
for sissies where it was justlike it showed videos, it
(31:33):
brought in resumes and like itjust kind of sold coming to work
for us.
And then, with Jewel Link, thatwas what I really wanted to do.
It wasn't so much the filteringtool made it to where people
would actually want to sign upand use it, but the whole idea
was to create a portal for abusiness.
Like, think about they don't.
Most jewelers don't have arecruiting page.
(31:54):
No, and if they do, it's neverup to date because they've got
to call their IT guy or they'vegot to do something like that,
and then they lose theirapplications and they never keep
up with them, and those peoplejust fall through the cracks.
And so what Jewel Link wasreally designed to do was create
a business profile page for astore, allow them to put that as
their career portal on theirwebsite, update everything they
(32:17):
wanted to do and advertisecoming to work in their store,
show benefits, videos etc.
Collect that person'sinformation and then give that
person information to trainingand preparation for, you know, a
future interview or just to beexposed to jewelry sales in
general, and then keep thatinformation and then hopefully
continually advertise working inthe jewelry industry to people.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Wow, what a fascinating thought experiment
of.
First of all, did you ever hearanyone?
Ever hear back from the waiter?
Speaker 3 (32:50):
No, of course not.
Oh God man.
No, absolutely not.
As a matter of fact, I'm goingto have to go back there.
It wasn't like Morton's orsomething like that.
It wouldn't like.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
I forgot, hey man, just so you know, we built an
entire product because of you.
You know that's so cool becauseI think you're right on.
They always say that there's,you know, all these highest
echelon type of careers, whetherit's Navy SEALs or NFL
quarterbacks, that a lot of thetimes it's the, sometimes the
(33:22):
skills can be well, notquarterbacks, but SEALs and some
of these higher impactpositions.
The skills are secondary.
A lot of times it's the mindsetor the soft skills or things
like that.
The hard skills can be taught,but if you have all the rest of
the package, the hard skills are, you know, pretty secondary.
You can just go in and teachthem.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
So what a really fascinating experiment, though,
and so in all honesty, like moststores you know, most stores
that we work with it's a singlestore owner operator, or maybe
two stores.
Like that guy knows what he'shiring for, he doesn't need
aptitude tests, he doesn't needall this other stuff like that,
but what he needs is to be ableto be able to access more
(34:05):
applications to hire thatposition.
Like, instead of just takingthree applicants out of 10, you
need to be able to take fiveapplicants out of 100.
And if you do that, it getsbetter.
The problem is the time aspectof it.
That's where the search statuscomes in, is it sorts everything
.
It's like having a recruiter atyour office where it sorts it
(34:27):
out automatically.
A large percentage of thepeople you send this to won't
even fill out, won't even take a20-question test, won't even go
through a 15-minute course, andso first level, second level is
actually results and then thirdlevel is interview process.
So you've got a wholerecruiting team of like what's
as good as signets right at yourfingertips, and then all you're
(34:50):
trying to do is, instead ofletting every one of those
people fall through the cracksbecause maybe one of those
people didn't get the job, butlike they get a login and they
tell their buddy like dude, yougot to check this out.
Like they've got jewelrytraining out there, you could go
work there.
And so it's just a network andit's just a snowball just trying
to push it down the hill.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
So this is very cool, william, if people are
listening to this and they wantto give it a shot.
I know it's um.
Uh, you said that you haveambitions for it in the future.
Um, if people wanted to try itout right now, uh, is there a
spot that they could contact youor sign up for this for their
own store?
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Yeah, they can just go to as of right now.
They can just go to joelingcom.
Uh, every signup comes with asix month free trial, so that's
180 days on the paymentprocessor.
You you put a card in there butit's not going to charge you
for six months.
We're set.
The idea is to, because what youget so many tools as a business
owner, at some point we aregoing to make it to where it is
(35:47):
a charge model.
But the whole idea is like it'sfor a smaller store.
It's got so much training andso many tools in it.
It's going to be like a hundredand something bucks a month and
you basically get basictraining for all your new hires.
Uh, we don't know when we'reactually going to charge.
Start charging people.
Uh, and I hate to say this, Imight even Zach was making fun
(36:09):
of me the other day because he'slike God is January, just like
your free month or what.
And uh, we're just trying toget as many users as we can
because something like this,it's going to grow over time,
but really using it and gettingfeedback at the first end,
because software is reallydifficult, like somebody's first
opinion of it.
It's not great, like you know.
(36:33):
That's.
All you have to do withsoftware is make great software
and make it work, and so thewhole goal is get as many people
as we can, get as much feedbackas we can, and build it out as
quickly as possible to whatpeople want to use, and then
just go from there.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Wow, it sounds so exciting.
I'll make sure I include thatlink in the show notes below
because I'd love for some In theLoop listeners to give it a
shot.
And then let me know how thatgoes, because it sounds like
it's solving a problem thatyou're going from, a real
problem that you experience, andfinding a result that you had
already identified as what theideal result would be, and then
(37:11):
finding ways to connect the two,and I think that that is such a
successful and resounding wayto approach something, whereas
just being like hey, do what.
People want more education, sowe're going to just throw more
education out there.
It's finding education for astore, a single store, or
finding education to, or ways torecruit people for your own
(37:32):
businesses, the people that youwant to hire.
I think when you start with theend goal in mind and then
connect it to a real lifeproblem, I think that you're
you're finding a lot of stuffalong the way, so major claps to
you.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
That sounds awesome.
That's how.
That's how we turn and think ofthings like I'm just mad,
something like this didn'talready exist.
So I feel, yeah, just had tostart building it.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Well, william, um, is there anything else?
Before we wrap this thing up?
I've got a lot I want to tryout, juulink, at this point I'm
probably going to see if I cangive that aptitude test or sorry
, the traits test to some of myother employees as well, to see
if we'd all kind of think alike.
But it sounds like a reallygreat time.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
Yeah, I was about to say get on there and more than
likely you're going to find somebugs and issues with it.
As a matter of fact, I've justgot a message right now saying
that there's something wrongwith one of the questions.
So that's what we're here for.
We're putting something outthere that is it's malleable.
We're wanting to put somethingout there that jewelers use,
(38:35):
that people use and that peoplewant, and we're honestly asking
and we're not going to chargefor this at all we just want
feedback coming back from it.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Heck, yeah.
Well, thank you so much forjoining me again on In the Loop.
We'll have to do another one totalk about your academy as well
, because, it's crazy, wehaven't even gotten to that yet.
But everybody, thank you somuch for listening.
We'll be back next week,tuesday, with another episode.
Cheers Bye, all righty,everybody.
(39:03):
That's the end of the show.
Thanks so much for listening.
This week my guest was WilliamJones IV from Sissy's Log Cabin
and we were talking about hisproduct, jewelink.
It's a really cool one.
Give it a shot.
It's Jewelinkcom.
(39:31):
It's going to be in the show.
Thank you on Spotify and ApplePodcasts and leave us feedback
on punchmarkcom slash loop.
That's L-O-U-P.
Thanks, and we'll be back nextweek, tuesday, with another
episode.
Cheers Bye.
Welcome to In the Loop and we're talking about
Sissy's Log Cabin, but this timeI specifically wanted to talk
about their kind of likerecruiting platform, jewel Link,
and what's so cool about it isit works with their academy
education system and this JewelLink provides a great way that
solves a problem they werehaving with hiring and Sissy's
(00:40):
Log Cabin.
They're in the process ofopening, I think, their seventh
and eighth store.
And Stacy's Law Cabin they'rein the process of opening, I
think, their seventh and eighthstore.
So, as a result, they need tohave a way to interview and hire
smartly if that's even a wordbut in a way that makes sense
and they're not just siftingthrough thousands of applicants.
It's more about you know,situational awareness, aptitude
and understanding so that theycan hire people who are good
(01:04):
fits.
It's a really cool conversation.
I am very impressed by this guyand I think he's very aware of
some of the important thingsthat you should be paying
attention to when hiring.
I hope you enjoy and we're backnext week, tuesday, with
another episode.
Cheers, bye.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
This episode is brought to you by Punchmark, the
jewelry industry's favoritewebsite platform and digital
growth agency.
Our mission reaches way beyondtechnology.
With decades of experience andlong-lasting industry
relationships, punchmark enablesjewelry businesses to flourish
in any marketplace.
We consider our clients ourfriends, as many of them have
(01:46):
been friends way before becomingclients.
Punchmark's own success comesfrom the fact that we have a
much deeper need and obligationto help our friends succeed.
Whether you're looking forbetter e-commerce performance,
business growth or campaignsthat drive traffic and sales,
punchmark's website andmarketing services were made
just for you.
It's never too late totransform your business and
(02:07):
stitch together your digital andphysical worlds in a way that
achieves tremendous growth andresults.
Schedule a guided demo today atpunchmarkcom.
Slash go.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
And now back to the show.
Welcome back everybody.
I'm joined by William Jones IVfrom Sissy's Log Cabin Actually
the second time I've gotten achance to speak with you.
How are you doing today,william?
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I'm doing very well, enjoyed our last conversation
and it's funny because peoplecan't see you're in a hat and it
looks like a cold area and I'msitting in Arkansas and it's
about to snow.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
It's definitely.
I'm dealing with some sub-zeroweather, so when it's negative
zero, I allow myself to wear ahat on my Zoom calls, because
otherwise, oh my goodness, itgets a little frosty.
But what I wanted to talk aboutis your new product, or one of
your products, I guess, jewelLink, and I was reading and
watching some of the contentthat you've been putting out and
(03:07):
it seems so exciting.
It's so different than what alot of people have out there.
I was hoping to have you on totalk about it a little bit more.
So could you set up whatJewelink is, in case people
don't know what it is for thelisteners?
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Yeah for sure.
So Jewelink, in the form thatit is now, is a filtering tool
for existing applications orinterviewees you might have, and
so the way this thing functionsnow is that in jewelry the
majority of us now the hiringpool has gotten so small.
(03:40):
In jewelry is that the majorityof us the easiest way to get
applications is through Indeed,through ZipRecruiter, through
LinkedIn, through all thesedifferent avenues.
And so the real game inrecruiting is how many
applicants you go through topick your best ones.
And so before we had morerecruiting help, one of the
(04:02):
things you would do is like amanager would go through there
and post a job and theninterview.
He had time for about three orfour interviewees and pick the
best one from there.
And so what we started doingwhen we got better and better
recruiting at Sissy's was goingthrough more and more
applications.
We've got someone who's really,really good at recruiting and
kind of just listening to herabout what she did and kind of
going through there and figuredout like, oh God, we you know
(04:25):
there's way more talent outthere.
It's just the amount of time ittakes to sort through that is
difficult, and then so we wantedto build a tool that helped you
understand that person'saptitude, their skills, how they
transition into jewelry, howthey fit into your sales team
and then also give them someexposure if they've never been
in Jory before.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Wow, what an awesome tool.
Because you're totally right, Ihandle actually all of the
interviewing and hiring atPunchmark and at this point it's
kind of weird, I've hired likea quarter or a third of the
company at this point and onetime I was talking with my boss
about what was I looking for andthen I asked him what were you
looking for when it came tohiring me?
And he's like well, you know,this stood out.
(05:12):
I previously owned an apparelcompany.
He's like well, this stood outbecause it showed that you have
this, the entrepreneurial spirit, which was important, because
Punchmark was very small at thetime, there was only eight or
nine of us and he saidentrepreneurs have this
understanding of what it's liketo grind.
But what I've always foundinteresting when it comes to
(05:33):
resumes and applications is Ididn't put entrepreneurial
spirit, I put something else,and a lot of the times there you
have to make this jump, and Ican only imagine what that's
like in jewelry, where you know,oh, I am into fashion jewelry
or I'm into fashion.
That could mean one thing whatis it that you're sort of
looking for or have found a lotof success with when it comes to
(05:58):
, like you know, talking aboutpeople.
Are you looking for people thathave worked in other jewelry
stores or are you looking forpeople that have a you know a
history in retail sales Like?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
what is it that you're always looking for
generally?
So it's really funny is becausethis was like a big, big thing
for us, cause we we've done youknow, we have the jewelry sales
Academy, we've built all thistraining.
We and I've gone through andpersonally trained, probably at
this point, hundreds of newassociates.
And the thing about it to me iswhat I used to really think,
(06:33):
like if it were just me staffinga store, what I'm looking for
are resilience and how extralike an extroverted person for
sales, because they've got to beable to put themselves out
there and they've got to be ableto fail a lot.
So like one of the things thatwe did was such a big deal for
us was we started doing improvcoaching in our training, like
(06:56):
in the first month that somebodywould go there and it would be
so embarrassing.
You'd have to sing and danceand clap your hands and like do
all this stuff.
But I remember thinking thefirst time thing you have to
sing and dance and clap yourhands and like do all this stuff
.
But I remember thinking thefirst time I was like, oh my God
, the people who are really goodat this are like really good at
sales.
I was like okay, so we're goingto just do this for everything
and this is going to filter outwho we do and don't need.
Well then, when you're runningmultiple different locations,
(07:17):
those that type of personalityhas certain advantages and
disadvantages, like.
So for me, in trying to drivesales, I can deal with those
things pretty well because Ilook at that, I know how to
train.
Everything to me is aboutgrowing the people that are
around me and building a team.
The difference in that is whatyour manager's like and you know
(07:40):
, for a lot of people there's nospecific like I'm not the same
as another one of our managers.
I've been over the last yearreally trying to recruit in
people that were more similar tome, because that just makes the
whole business easier,especially when you're at seven
and eight locations, because ifwe're all closer in a
personality range for thatdriving sales, it makes
(08:02):
everything easier, and apersonality range for that
driving sales, it makeseverything easier.
But outside of that, what welearned was that it was more
important to build a store andthen coach that individual
manager and then pick people outfor that.
And so, like I'll say, it'lldepend completely is that you've
got guys in jewelry who.
Some people, some managers in asmaller store can go out there
and they are like the big seller.
(08:25):
They're out there, they're outthere closing every single sale.
They're living on the floor,they're doing these things like
that.
So that type of person might belooking for somebody who's more
support-based, like a personwho can help them operationally
with inventory accounts etc.
They don't need a staff that'sso built for sales.
Then again you've got somebodyelse who's operationally minded.
(08:47):
They need people that have thatbig sell drive to them, and so
it really depends on thatmanager and how that floor looks
.
And that was one of the thingsthat there's other systems out
there for staffing that startwith the manager and go through
and say, hey, based on thismanagement profile, this is the
team that goes through there andthen understanding how you hire
(09:08):
each person, how that fits intothat staffing matrix.
And that's the second phasethat we're doing through this is
actually trying to understandwhat that person's personality
traits are, how they're going toimpact into your store and if
that's the type of personalityyou need or want in your store
as well too.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Wow, there's so many moving parts to it and there is
no one size fits all kind ofapproach when it comes to
staffing or building out teams.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Well, that's not.
That is when you have a singlelocation it is.
It's simple, and especially ifyou've got a manager who can
drive sales or you've got a lotof experience or you've got
something like that.
If you have a really strongcentral leader, you can do that.
But from what we've seen, it'shard to keep that.
It's hard to keep that inretail, and so it can be simple,
(09:58):
but for the majority of peopleit's not.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
We all make mistakes.
We all make mistakes instaffing and hiring etc.
It's just figuring that outfaster.
While at Punchmark, again, wewould probably be considered a
single store because for a longtime we were all under one roof
and it was sort of like we weretrying to concoct a culture with
(10:35):
culture fit and things likethat.
But then eventually I kind ofrealized while we were hiring
that it's not always abouthaving a culture fit, it's about
having a role, that the personneeds to fit the role, cause
there are some roles that, um,you know, by nature are actually
not, uh, always going to fit,like a wider persona or wider um
(10:56):
culture.
For example, you knowsalespeople you mentioned, uh,
salespeople tend to just beextroverted and willing to fail
and move fast.
And on the flip side of things,I deal with a lot of developers
and in hiring our developers, alot of the times they are more
introverted and a lot more safeand things like that, and I
(11:18):
learned that if you're trying tomeet in the middle or skew one
way or the other, you're notgoing to be able to find the
best at either of those roles.
So I can only imagine,especially with dealing with,
for example, back of housepeople for your multiple
locations Is that also?
Are you using Juul Link forlike back of house positions as
well?
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Yeah, we do it with everything.
So what we do is, like you know, there's countless different
books, studies, programs outthere that use like the 12
essential hiring traits.
They go through like passion,resilience, all these different
things.
So what we want to do is wewant to figure out we give a
blanket I don't even likecalling it an aptitude test,
(12:00):
because if you ever have to seehow we actually built it, it
took about nine months to gothrough test, because if you
ever have to see how we actuallybuilt it, it took about nine
months to go through.
But one of the consultant thatworked with Delta Airlines on
building their aptitude test,he's like I don't want to call
him that coach, but he's likethe guy that works with me once
a month and basically tells mewhat I could do better, and so
this was a system that he kindof helped direct me of how he'd
(12:22):
done it before.
And so what we're looking foris like this is jewelry specific
for traits, and so what thisallows you to do is just in
those 12 traits, every one ofthose questions is weighted, and
so you can see that and send itto every single person.
It's unlimited to send it.
That's the cool thing about it.
So, no matter who you're hiring, you can do that and like
(12:43):
that's what people ask me.
Like, well, is this tested?
I'm like, well, the best thingto do is send it to your best
people, figure out how they teston there in those positions and
then just go from there,because right now it's in beta
testing, we're doing all that.
But you said a couple thingslike a developer versus like a
salesperson and this is what wehear all the time is like people
go well, you know my bestsalesperson oh my God, if I had
(13:04):
10 of those, I would do.
You know X number of dollars, amillion dollars, yeah, yeah,
yeah, no, you're probably morethan likely your store would
burn down.
Yeah, you know, what we've seenis like really identifying.
What we're trying to reallyhelp with is what do you really
need help with?
Because you've got a certainturnover and basis of time,
because you've got a certainturnover and basis of time.
But then in jewelry it takesabout two years for a person to
(13:28):
get set up in jewelry on thesales floor to really work, even
if you bring somebody in withgreat experience to build a
clientele, because the majorityof jewelry store sales happen
from existing customers comingback in.
That's why, like, if you use theEdge POS, you can run like your
top 100 report and it's like 30to 60% of the stores overall
(13:49):
sales.
So you've got a big risk inhiring somebody and so you also
you've got to.
When you roll the dice hiringsomebody, you got to really
understand what you're trying toget, because what we found is,
like the people who become topsalespeople that type of
personality, if you actuallyfind it, like if you say I want
(14:09):
to hire a top salesperson andyou actually correctly pick that
personality and those traitsand that knowledge of that top
salesperson, they come onlinereally really quick, like they
sell really fast, quick, likethey sell really fast.
But then on the other side ifyou were to tell me you were
like, hey, I want to hiresomebody in sales management or
management or for something likethis, and you actually hired
(14:33):
somebody who was very good atthat, it takes a lot longer to
get them there Because thetraits that make them great at
that also make it to where ittakes them longer to establish
like that leadership.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Yeah, more like an emerging thing.
Yeah, it's fascinating.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
A lot of people get frustrated because you're like I
need a top seller and then youhire somebody who has the
potential to be a great managerand then you get frustrated with
them because you know it takesthem longer to come online.
Or you're like I need somebodyin management and you're a great
salesperson, or the owner's agreat salesperson, so they say
this person's like me, they'llbe great at management.
(15:09):
I hire that person.
They're great at sales and theysuck at management, and so it's
really hard because jewelry'sall it's an emotional business.
It's not really tied to anyhardly any economic factors
except for, like, the wealtheffect.
Outside of that, it's prettymuch how good you are building a
team at your store.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Man.
What a really cool observation,though, about you know quick to
emerge versus slow to emergekind of personality traits.
What's really fascinating is,for myself, is I actually.
I always say like when I gothired I was not great at my job
and I still maintain I was.
I got hired to be a webdesigner and I was pretty
(15:48):
middling, maybe even slightlybelow average, when it came to
what I was expected to do, andfor the first year of my
employment at Punchmark, I wasactually.
I was definitely struggling,but as they gave me more
specialized roles or leadershiproles, that's when I started to
kind of come online a little bitmore.
And you know, I've been here foreight years at this point, and
I think that those types oftraits, though, do develop, or
(16:12):
maybe not even develop, theyshowcase themselves much slower.
But at the same time, we alsohave some people that are the
individual contributor.
For the people that arelistening, this is such a tech
kind of, or like such acorporate kind of term.
There's individual contributorsversus management positions,
(16:33):
and the IC individualcontributor those people you can
just get like some studs.
You know some all-stars thatare just they take that role and
they smash.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
But yeah, think about that.
Okay, so what makes and whatdid you say?
I went to school in SouthArkansas, so you got to.
So what's an IC?
It's an independent contributor.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Yeah, an individual contributor.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Okay, so like, what, like.
What do you want out of thatperson?
Speaker 1 (16:59):
It probably needs to be a self-starter.
Someone who is self-motivated,self-driven, is quick to learn
and able to focus on themselvesis pretty much what I would call
an IC.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Okay, so who you're just talking about is massively
resilient, very risk, tolerant,quick to make decisions and is
very, like, driven andpassionate.
What you just described issomebody who's like, think about
that in sales, that's great.
But then you take that samepersonality and you put them in
(17:32):
a management position wherethey're having to manage 15
people and you're like, hey,this guy's quick to make
decisions, he's not afraid ofmessing up, he will take really
risky decisions and he's reallypassionate about his own
performance.
And you're like, no wonder he'snot.
He wouldn't be a good manager,yeah, and so you see, and then
you look at that, but no wonderthat person comes online so
(17:52):
quick, like that's a greatperson in sales.
That person comes online soquick, like that's a great
person in sales.
And not to say that you can'tget that person to be great in
management, but like who youwant in management, you want
somebody who's calm, you wantsomebody who's understanding,
who doesn't make brash decisions, who takes others into account,
who builds other people up.
Like you take those traits andyou're like, god, no wonder it
(18:14):
takes so long for somebody toget in that position, because it
takes longer for them to buildrespect on the team, to learn
the different things, andthey're not.
Typically a person like thatperson is going to feel like an
imposter if they try and go intheir first week of work and act
like they're number one.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yeah, definitely.
I mean, the imposter syndromeis definitely a real part of it.
I guess I kind of wanted to tagthat into these certs and
aptitude tests which are relatedto Juul Inc.
I think that they'reinteresting in that.
I think that they can measurethat kind of initial ability to
(18:53):
jump in.
What is it that you're lookingfor when it comes to, for
example, like an aptitude test?
How do you make it specificenough that someone from a
jewelry store coming into yourjewelry store is going to do
well, but also maybe someone whodoesn't have experience at a
jewelry store is still able tokind of make a mark enough that
(19:16):
you'd be willing to give them achance?
Speaker 3 (19:18):
That's the thing and like you've got to understand
that I like to say this I'm notvery educated.
I mean, I went to a publicschool in South Arkansas, so
we're like just aboveMississippi.
So like that's when I talkabout people with, like I talk
about things to people and andthey get frustrated with me and
I'm like maybe my definitionsaren't right, like maybe I don't
(19:39):
use the same words, so I don'treally like to use like aptitude
test, maybe like a traits testwould be a better way of
explaining that.
Because think about it this waywhat you're really looking for
is you've got to have experiencein a massive population of
(20:01):
sales associates and then youbreak that down into traits and
you say, okay, I've looked at Xnumber of people and I'm going
to identify these 12 things,because that's pretty synonymous
with every.
If you read a recruiting book,they're going to talk about the
12 traits.
So the thing is is like, okay,that's pretty common language
from everybody.
(20:21):
And then like, let's take atrait like customer focused, all
right, so in jewelry, let'srate that.
So how most of these tests workis that every answer is
weighted that goes to thatpoints total.
So what we're looking at islike, okay, what would be the
least?
And I'll just ask you, if youwere trying to judge somebody
(20:44):
customer-focused in jewelryspecifically for retail, what
would be the least, what wouldbe the worst answer that they
could have for that?
Speaker 1 (20:53):
If they're customer-focused.
I guess if they didn't care.
They were only.
They only wanted the commission.
They were only focused onmaking their own money.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Yeah, okay, so that that goes into it.
That would be like more whatdrives you, like passion or not,
but like, like, let's say, andyou word the question like this,
like you've got an upsetcustomer in front of you, out of
the following situations, whatbest describes the action that
you would take?
And then you try and make it towhere it seems like a real
world situation, and the answersrange from number one being
(21:26):
like I would just go upon, Iwould let the customer know
company policy and that would bethe end.
Okay, that shows right there,when you put this all together,
that this person's more focusedon operational strategy than
they are customer relationships.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, I know.
But then in the top questionwould be like I take the
(21:46):
customer's side, no matter what,and, you know, do something
from there.
And so you create thesesituations.
And the tricky part about thisis is you have to make it and
write it in a way to where it'sreal, to where somebody who goes
and has experience in retailthat goes oh my God.
You know customers lie all thetime.
They pick a real answer versussomebody who goes well, this is
(22:10):
my customer and these are whopay my bills, like, although
there's risk assigned with thisanswer, I'm going to answer it
this way, and so it's reallyjust how do you write these
questions?
And then how do you make themjewelry specific, so like you're
actually trying to figure outhow this person's going to
interact in here, because aresume can't show that, a resume
(22:32):
can't say you know, people cansay that in keywords, but when
they have to pick a realsituation and all four or five
of them seem like the rightanswer and they actually have to
pick the right one for them,and then every single person
like that's where it getsdifficult.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Definitely.
All right, everybody, we'regoing to take a quick break and
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(23:09):
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(23:48):
And so when you took this testand handed it to your own
employees and you were, like youknow, essentially retrofitting
it and handed it to your ownemployees and you were, like you
know, essentially retrofittingit, what did you?
Did you find that youremployees did tend to fall into
the categories that you weresort of expecting them to, or
were there surprises or what?
Did you find anything as aresult?
Speaker 3 (24:10):
I went into this and I was like God, this is going to
be a problem, like this isgoing to take forever to do and
I don't know if I can actuallydo this.
And then, as I went through it,I was like this is actually way
easier than I thought it was,because you know, everything you
do is constantly being testedand again, this is in beta
testing too.
So we're going through, we'retesting against other tests,
(24:43):
we're going through and we'redoing all this and we're finding
it more and more.
But, um, not really, you know,uh it.
It's very like when you put realworld situations out and say,
hey, take this test the best ofyour abilities and you got.
You know, give it back to me asfast you can, like I don't know
what.
When a person they're biased,they think they're right in the
way they act, and so when youput it out there and you word
these questions correctly, likeit does it.
The tricky part of it, the hardpart of it, was actually
writing it in a way where eachquestion carried enough weight
(25:07):
to where you could shorten thetest to where somebody could
take it in 15 minutes.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
That was the hard part.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Wow it's easy because originally and probably why I
said it's going to be so easy isbecause I tried like 60
questions at one time.
Yeah, and that's not usablewhen you're just sending it to
an Indeed application orapplicant Like they're going to
say, well, I don't really wantto do this or I'm going to get
bored with it and go from here.
So the hardest part about it ismaking it very non-time
(25:34):
consuming.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Wow, what a cool, really cool experiment.
This is like background inpsychology.
Would have like a field daywith this.
It sounds fascinating.
Oh they would probably pick meapart.
No way, no way.
So if it worked for you andwho's to say that you're wrong?
But I wanted to ask, so yousaid it's in beta.
But I wanted to ask, so yousaid it's in beta, Do you plan
(25:56):
to make this available to thewider jewelry industry or will
this stay as an internal tool?
Speaker 3 (26:04):
What do you hope to use it for?
We've already got probably 30stores using this right now.
Wow that's amazing Messingaround with it, because I mean
you tell people like, hey, youcan use this for free and you
know, et cetera, and just messaround People in jewelry love
this, you know, et cetera, andjust mess around People in
jewelry love this.
That was the weirdest thing, isthat?
And my favorite thing was whenyou're a retailer and you go to
these shows, it's weird becauseother people don't want to talk
to you and things like that.
But then once you start on thevendor side of things like
(26:26):
everybody wants to know adifferent thing, like people
love messing with it and somecool things on here too as well
it's like like it's not justtraits tests and skills tests,
like there's a product knowledgetest so you can send somebody a
product knowledge test.
It's like 24 questions and itbreaks it down in the categories
of what they're going to know,so you can send somebody this
and see, okay, this person hasno knowledge in jewelry, or they
(26:47):
know a little bit aboutdiamonds, they know a little bit
about gemstones and things likethat.
And then also from the academy,we've got probably around 12
different courses on here so youcan actually send somebody a
course and get, and they're allshort courses so somebody can
get a really good idea of howyou want to sell or what to
expect when they come work onyour sales floor.
(27:08):
And that's going to be the.
The original portion of thiswas a business recruiting funnel
.
It wasn't the filtering tool,and I can get into some of that
too.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
I mean, that was really my cool thing I wanted to
make.
It's such an exact fit for aproblem I could definitely see I
wish I had.
On the one hand, I do think itwould be effective for hiring,
for example, developers anddesigners and stuff like that,
for us, just for the traits andthe situational kind of
(27:43):
understanding of stuff.
But at the same time I do kindof I'm fascinated to hear how it
would like take someone from adifferent industry.
Because, again, one of thethings I'm always curious about
is like jewelry is sometimesfeels so insulated and so kind
(28:04):
of siloed into itself.
You know, the people who arejewelers have been jewelers
their entire lives and they alot of the times, like yourself,
starts at a very young age in ajewelry store and they just
continue to stay at the jewelrystore.
So they this comes secondnature.
But for jewelry to continue toexist and stay healthy, it does
(28:25):
also need to take from otherindustries.
So I guess, uh, man, I wish,would you ever like consider
publishing, like and I don'tknow any of like the the
findings that you get from fromhaving these people?
Speaker 3 (28:39):
every and like we were talking about this on the
uh color, there's like I don'tmake, like I had the academy out
.
It does a lot of revenue a year.
I reinvest every dollar of thatlike we hadn't taken a dollar
out of anything.
Wow, it all just getsreinvested to build the tools
because, like I said, we're thisis.
I hate to sound like a nerd onthis, but like I look at it,
(29:04):
like this is okay.
If you're a single, if I managea store and I do two and a half
million dollars a year, allright, there's only so much you
learn from that, all right.
So then, once you manage eightstores, you're learning 10 times
as much a day.
Then, when you go into otherthings like it's almost like a
(29:27):
language model, like whatthey're training, the more they
expose it to, the smarter itgets, the better it gets, and so
that's why I look at that andthat's why I'm not afraid to get
into some of these things.
Uh, but as we're going throughhere I'm sorry I've got people
walking in, that's quite allright.
Everything on here like thatwas one of my dad's biggest
things is like there are nosecrets, like it's just how can
(29:49):
you get better at it, andespecially when it gets into
hiring is because the better weare at hiring, like, in all
honesty, other stores go andrecruit from other stores, and
then the pool that you have injewelry like if you lose
somebody and you're a retailer,they're probably just going to
go work for somebody else on theroad, and so if that's all we
feed off of, like we're in badshape.
(30:10):
And the thing that it's funnybecause about a year ago I was
in dinner in Chicago.
We had this great dinner withthis uh waiter and we all gave
him business cards and we'relike, we're sitting there and
we're like, oh yeah, you canwork for us, you can work for
this guy, etc.
And I remember thinking I waslike how could we get that guy
to come in jewelry?
(30:31):
Because he has no experience,his resume probably wouldn't
look very great.
Uh, that's a great greatthought experiment.
He, I mean, and he's probablymaking pretty good money because
, uh, he's good at his job andso the chances to get him to
jump industries are very, verysmall.
(30:51):
And so that's where we startedthinking.
I started thinking about thisand I hate to say this, I could,
could not quit thinking aboutit, and so my idea was like all
right, we needed more time torecruit this guy, because time's
a big factor, so I don't needsix minutes in this guy to throw
away my business card.
I need his information for sixmonths, or even years if
possible.
(31:11):
The next thing is I've got todo a better job of giving this
guy expectations of what it'sgoing to look like in jewelry
and then giving him enoughknowledge because it's a
confident guy to confidentlycome in here and feel like I can
make a living doing this.
Wow.
And so I went back and we builtlike a business careers portal
for sissies where it was justlike it showed videos, it
(31:33):
brought in resumes and like itjust kind of sold coming to work
for us.
And then, with Jewel Link, thatwas what I really wanted to do.
It wasn't so much the filteringtool made it to where people
would actually want to sign upand use it, but the whole idea
was to create a portal for abusiness.
Like, think about they don't.
Most jewelers don't have arecruiting page.
(31:54):
No, and if they do, it's neverup to date because they've got
to call their IT guy or they'vegot to do something like that,
and then they lose theirapplications and they never keep
up with them, and those peoplejust fall through the cracks.
And so what Jewel Link wasreally designed to do was create
a business profile page for astore, allow them to put that as
their career portal on theirwebsite, update everything they
(32:17):
wanted to do and advertisecoming to work in their store,
show benefits, videos etc.
Collect that person'sinformation and then give that
person information to trainingand preparation for, you know, a
future interview or just to beexposed to jewelry sales in
general, and then keep thatinformation and then hopefully
continually advertise working inthe jewelry industry to people.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Wow, what a fascinating thought experiment
of.
First of all, did you ever hearanyone?
Ever hear back from the waiter?
Speaker 3 (32:50):
No, of course not.
Oh God man.
No, absolutely not.
As a matter of fact, I'm goingto have to go back there.
It wasn't like Morton's orsomething like that.
It wouldn't like.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
I forgot, hey man, just so you know, we built an
entire product because of you.
You know that's so cool becauseI think you're right on.
They always say that there's,you know, all these highest
echelon type of careers, whetherit's Navy SEALs or NFL
quarterbacks, that a lot of thetimes it's the, sometimes the
(33:22):
skills can be well, notquarterbacks, but SEALs and some
of these higher impactpositions.
The skills are secondary.
A lot of times it's the mindsetor the soft skills or things
like that.
The hard skills can be taught,but if you have all the rest of
the package, the hard skills are, you know, pretty secondary.
You can just go in and teachthem.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
So what a really fascinating experiment, though,
and so in all honesty, like moststores you know, most stores
that we work with it's a singlestore owner operator, or maybe
two stores.
Like that guy knows what he'shiring for, he doesn't need
aptitude tests, he doesn't needall this other stuff like that,
but what he needs is to be ableto be able to access more
(34:05):
applications to hire thatposition.
Like, instead of just takingthree applicants out of 10, you
need to be able to take fiveapplicants out of 100.
And if you do that, it getsbetter.
The problem is the time aspectof it.
That's where the search statuscomes in, is it sorts everything
.
It's like having a recruiter atyour office where it sorts it
(34:27):
out automatically.
A large percentage of thepeople you send this to won't
even fill out, won't even take a20-question test, won't even go
through a 15-minute course, andso first level, second level is
actually results and then thirdlevel is interview process.
So you've got a wholerecruiting team of like what's
as good as signets right at yourfingertips, and then all you're
(34:50):
trying to do is, instead ofletting every one of those
people fall through the cracksbecause maybe one of those
people didn't get the job, butlike they get a login and they
tell their buddy like dude, yougot to check this out.
Like they've got jewelrytraining out there, you could go
work there.
And so it's just a network andit's just a snowball just trying
to push it down the hill.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
So this is very cool, william, if people are
listening to this and they wantto give it a shot.
I know it's um.
Uh, you said that you haveambitions for it in the future.
Um, if people wanted to try itout right now, uh, is there a
spot that they could contact youor sign up for this for their
own store?
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Yeah, they can just go to as of right now.
They can just go to joelingcom.
Uh, every signup comes with asix month free trial, so that's
180 days on the paymentprocessor.
You you put a card in there butit's not going to charge you
for six months.
We're set.
The idea is to, because what youget so many tools as a business
owner, at some point we aregoing to make it to where it is
(35:47):
a charge model.
But the whole idea is like it'sfor a smaller store.
It's got so much training andso many tools in it.
It's going to be like a hundredand something bucks a month and
you basically get basictraining for all your new hires.
Uh, we don't know when we'reactually going to charge.
Start charging people.
Uh, and I hate to say this, Imight even Zach was making fun
(36:09):
of me the other day because he'slike God is January, just like
your free month or what.
And uh, we're just trying toget as many users as we can
because something like this,it's going to grow over time,
but really using it and gettingfeedback at the first end,
because software is reallydifficult, like somebody's first
opinion of it.
It's not great, like you know.
(36:33):
That's.
All you have to do withsoftware is make great software
and make it work, and so thewhole goal is get as many people
as we can, get as much feedbackas we can, and build it out as
quickly as possible to whatpeople want to use, and then
just go from there.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Wow, it sounds so exciting.
I'll make sure I include thatlink in the show notes below
because I'd love for some In theLoop listeners to give it a
shot.
And then let me know how thatgoes, because it sounds like
it's solving a problem thatyou're going from, a real
problem that you experience, andfinding a result that you had
already identified as what theideal result would be, and then
(37:11):
finding ways to connect the two,and I think that that is such a
successful and resounding wayto approach something, whereas
just being like hey, do what.
People want more education, sowe're going to just throw more
education out there.
It's finding education for astore, a single store, or
finding education to, or ways torecruit people for your own
(37:32):
businesses, the people that youwant to hire.
I think when you start with theend goal in mind and then
connect it to a real lifeproblem, I think that you're
you're finding a lot of stuffalong the way, so major claps to
you.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
That sounds awesome.
That's how.
That's how we turn and think ofthings like I'm just mad,
something like this didn'talready exist.
So I feel, yeah, just had tostart building it.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
Well, william, um, is there anything else?
Before we wrap this thing up?
I've got a lot I want to tryout, juulink, at this point I'm
probably going to see if I cangive that aptitude test or sorry
, the traits test to some of myother employees as well, to see
if we'd all kind of think alike.
But it sounds like a reallygreat time.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
Yeah, I was about to say get on there and more than
likely you're going to find somebugs and issues with it.
As a matter of fact, I've justgot a message right now saying
that there's something wrongwith one of the questions.
So that's what we're here for.
We're putting something outthere that is it's malleable.
We're wanting to put somethingout there that jewelers use,
(38:35):
that people use and that peoplewant, and we're honestly asking
and we're not going to chargefor this at all we just want
feedback coming back from it.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Heck, yeah.
Well, thank you so much forjoining me again on In the Loop.
We'll have to do another one totalk about your academy as well
, because, it's crazy, wehaven't even gotten to that yet.
But everybody, thank you somuch for listening.
We'll be back next week,tuesday, with another episode.
Cheers Bye, all righty,everybody.
(39:03):
That's the end of the show.
Thanks so much for listening.
This week my guest was WilliamJones IV from Sissy's Log Cabin
and we were talking about hisproduct, jewelink.
It's a really cool one.
Give it a shot.
It's Jewelinkcom.
(39:31):
It's going to be in the show.
Thank you on Spotify and ApplePodcasts and leave us feedback
on punchmarkcom slash loop.
That's L-O-U-P.
Thanks, and we'll be back nextweek, tuesday, with another
episode.
Cheers Bye.
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