Episode Summary

Nick Gurney and Rodney Roberts talk about different aspects to choosing a new point-of-sale system. Rodney shares some of his insight earned from 16 years of experience implementing point of sale systems for the jewelry industry.

They discuss how the system you choose can play a major role in how you run your business and meet your personal and professional goals.

Key Insights

• The technology you choose can shape the way you run your business.
• Choose a point-of-sale system that helps you grow your business by giving you actionable information.
• Making a change to newer technologies can cost a lot of less than you think and should save you even more on an ongoing basis.
• New systems may not correct the errors you have in your system, but it should enable you to clean and reorganize your data.
• Look for technologies and business systems that enable you to look at your business in a different way.

Episode Highlights

• When you’re choosing a point of sale for your business you’re really choosing a framework or a guideline for how to run your business.
• There’s no point in running a system if it can’t give you information to help you make changes in the business. 
• With the systems now that are available in the cloud, they’re much better, faster, easier to integrate with, and safer. There’s also much lower total cost for ownership for running something like that because you don’t need to have the infrastructure, you don’t need to provide servers, you don’t need connections between the stores.
• So if you’ve got a mess in your data, all we can really do is bring that same mess through. But once the mess is brought through to our system, we’ve got great tools to help you clean it up and get it right, and to prevent that mess from happening again. 
• A lot of us in the jewelry industry kind of are more self-employed than business owners.

Guest Bio

Rodney Roberts is a customer experience manager with Jewel360. Rodney has16 years of experience implementing point of sale systems for the jewelry industry.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Nick Gurney: All right. Welcome everybody to the Master Stones podcast. Today we’re joined by Rodney Roberts. Many of you might know Rodney. He’s been in the industry a long time. He spent about the last 16 years implementing point of sale systems for the jewelry industry. He joined us on the Jewel 360 team here last June. He’s been doing the same thing here that he’s been doing all across the industry and really helping our team succeed with implementing point of sale systems. And today we wanted to bring Rodney on the podcast so we could talk a little bit more about what it means to implement a point of sale system, what that looks like, things look out for your business, and maybe help you decide if this is something that you’re looking at doing.

Anyways, Rodney, welcome. Glad you could join us. 

[00:01:02] Rodney Roberts: Thanks, Nick. It’s always good to be here. Thank you for having me on the show today. This is the first one of these that I’ve ever done, so it’s a kind of new experience. Should be a bit exciting. As Nick said I’ve been at this implementing systems for quite a long time and I’ve been with the Jewel360 team since about June of last year. Really excited to be a part of the company. Seen a lot of really good things already. Really exciting kind of platform to be a part of. And today I just wanna talk a little bit about changing, point of sales, choosing, point of cell implementing it, and what goes into that. 

[00:01:30] Nick: Perfect. Yeah. And you know, we’re gonna cover a lot of different things today. First and foremost, the things we want to outline is, exactly like, what this means for your business. At the end of this episode you should be able to understand exactly what goes into choosing a point of sale and things to look out for.

And of course, we, and Rodney are here on the Jewel360 team, but these things apply for any system that you might be implementing at your store and any software that you might be exploring. And so the, these will definitely drop parallels with that. 

So first, Rodney, let’s dive into like, what it means to choose a point of sale. I mean, there’s lots of offerings out on the market right now. Cloud base of course is the new hot term when it comes to this type of stuff. But let’s dive into a little bit of what choosing a point of sale looks like. 

[00:02:08] Rodney: So when you’re choosing a point of sale for your business, you’re really choosing a framework or a guideline for how to run your business. So some systems will be more flexible, allowing for you to kind of make them your own and configure them in such a way that you can do it your way. Others are a bit more rigid, where you really need to stick to the way the system was designed. And um, the others are kind of just a mix somewhere between the two.

So one of the things that you really wanna consider when you’re looking at a new system for your business is just making sure that it’s going to support you in growing the business. Because if you put a new system in and you do everything exactly the same as you’ve always done, then what was the point? You’re gonna get all the heartache and all the headache of switching systems with none of the benefits, none of the payout that you’re gonna get from the benefits of a new system. So regardless of what system you’re looking at or whether you’re happy with the system that you already have, it’s a good idea to always be looking at ways you can improve the business and finding the right tools to help you do that.

[00:02:57] Nick: That’s great. Now you mentioned there, and I know we’ll dive into this a little bit further in the podcast, but you mentioned, you know, trying to implement new things when you implement a new point of sale. Like, what are some of those things that you wanna make sure that you’re doing right? So you don’t always do the same things that you’ve done? 

[00:03:11] Rodney:  to look at your processes and your procedures. You gotta be looking at things that you’re doing well, things that you can improve upon, things that your competitors are doing well, things that you can improve upon that they’re doing. And just really finding your differentiating point within the market and making sure that you have the tools and resources to help you to achieve that. 

So, looking into a system for one thing you’ve gotta go out and you’re gonna need some basics, right? You’re gonna need a system that takes inventory in, produces receipts, keeps track of customers, keeps track of your inventory, of course, put tags onto jewelry.

These are some of the very, very basic things that you need. So any system that you’ll look at has gotta be able to cover those basics. Further and apart from that, you’re gonna need some other things outta your system as well. You’re gonna need information. There’s no point in running a system if it can’t give you information to help you make changes in the business. You’re gonna need features, you’re gonna need integrations, you’re gonna need to know that your system’s gonna be there to support you as the business grows and changes. 

Right now, you know, as the jewelry industry, we’ve been fairly lucky the last couple of years. We’ve had a lot of really good strong sales. Most of us are doing month over month, better and better, but that could always change. And when it does, we need to be looking at what we can do to stay ahead of that curve so that we’re always getting the best out of the market. There’s always gonna be those out there that succeed and those that struggle. And so what we wanna do at Jewel360 is we really wanna lift you up and give you the tools to make sure that you’re in the group that always succeeds. 

[00:04:26] Nick: That’s great. I love that. And those are really good points that, you know, your business needs to be the thing that you’re trying to help grow and succeed. And I mean, that sounds kind of silly to say that outright like that, but sometimes we get so caught up in the day-to-day that we forget that this is something that we’re trying to improve upon continually, right? And switching a new system can definitely help encourage some of that. 

So I think one thing um, I always get a lot of questions about Rodney, maybe you can speak to, is a little bit about the team at Jewel360. I mean, it’s no secret we launched at JCK last year. And so I’m curious if you could share a little bit more about the team at Jewel360 and you know, how that affects my decision as I, you know, choose to implement a point of sale at my business. 

[00:05:06] Rodney: That’s great. That’s a great thing to ask. I’ve been fortunate because I’ve been working with the team closely. The team is very good there. It’s a large team, a lot of people and all very clever and, you know, kind and supportive. It’s really good to be uh, I feel kind of amongst peers where everybody is willing to help, everybody’s willing to kind of jump in there and take care of things, and everybody’s just really smart.

So that’s been a very kind of positive thing that I’ve seen with Jewel360 and just the size of it. I’m not gonna lie there, there’s, I’m just struggling sometimes with names because there’s just so many of us. So, that really is a good and exciting thing. In the past I’ve worked with big teams, small teams, medium teams, but I definitely, I feel like with the resources of a large team, it really kind of helps to make sure that we can take the best care of people. It also gives us a really big pool for good ideas and good suggestions. So I really feel like we’re getting the best of the best out of the team that we have. 

[00:05:53] Nick: That’s great. That’s great. And how about, in terms of like, the product, right? So we’re choosing a point of sale. I’m trying to decide how it affects my business. I mean, what’s the difference between all these different products on the market?

[00:06:05] Rodney: Well, as I said earlier there’s some basics that they all need to do and, and they’ve gotta do those. And if they don’t do those, you shouldn’t be even looking at ’em. 

One of the other big changes out there that’s come that you kind of mentioned is the cloud systems versus locally deployed systems. So you’re looking at basically two things. You’re looking at, will you install the system onto a computer that you control at your location? Or will this system be installed in the cloud running on a server that you can access from anywhere? Now, traditionally, a lot of people have done onsite local deployments, but technology has changed.

So with the systems now that are available in the cloud, they’re much better, faster, easier to integrate with, and safer. There’s also much lower total cost for ownership for running something like that because you don’t need to have the infrastructure, you don’t need to provide servers, you don’t need connections between the stores. You don’t have the trouble with trying to manage VPNs and connections between so really it takes a lot of that headache out of it. So rather than having, you have to have an IT person and run a whole IT team and servers and God knows what to make a system, you know, from an older time continue to work, with this you just log in and you’re ready to go. Doesn’t matter what device. Doesn’t matter if you’ve got Mac, we’ve got Mac. If you like Windows, we like Windows. If you’re into Linux, that’s crazy. But we can do Linux as well. So, I mean, all that essentially to say that it’s a much more flexible system, much more kind of future, if you wanna say it’s leaning into the future. It’s recently developed code. And so with that, we know that it’s got a lot of life in it still. Whereas some of the older systems maybe have a little less life left in them. 

[00:07:30] Nick: Sure. I love that. as we’ve explored the industry and as we’ve learned more, you know, it really does kind of fall into those two camps, right? Am I gonna go choose something that’s cloud-based, or I’m gonna choose something locally installed? One way that I like to talk about it is, you know, when was the technology built? When is it planned for? Right. A lot of the existing systems on the market, they were built you know, 20, 30 years ago, and they’ve ran your store really well for the last 20 or 30 years. But at a certain point you have to ask yourself, what’s the next 20 years look like? What’s next 30 years look like? You know, when cloud systems came out, we saw a lot of locally installed options go away. And so you’ve gotta ask yourself like, what’s my business gonna do in that kind of event?

[00:08:07] Rodney: Well, and, and I mean, it’s something that it’s, it’s made way to the jewelry industry, but you will have noticed other industries are already there. When you get your haircut they’re doing it at an iPad at the station. You’re getting a text message right away. Same thing when you get an oil change, whenever you’re dealing with these little businesses, you get your cup of coffee, they’re all running on these cloud-based systems. Now they were much smaller systems, much smaller stores. But as the technology has evolved, it’s to the point now where the jewelry industry is ready for it. And that’s what we’re seeing. We’re seeing a lot of the younger generation that wants to come in and make sure that they’re safe, they understand the risks of uh, data security and cyber attacks, which are just more and more and more every day right now. Seems like all the time you’re hearing about a bank or a large company or somebody who’s had customer information compromised, and if they can’t protect the data what hope do you have? I mean, your job is to manage your jewelry store and to grow your jewelry business, not to become a computer or cybersecurity expert, or to run the risk of losing that information.

What would it be worth if you could protect your client list? I mean, what, what would it be like to have to lose your entire client list, your entire stock record list that says to everybody what your cost is and what your retail is. Losing that kind of data could be catastrophic for a business. So a lot of people are looking to just protect it by moving it to the cloud. 

[00:09:14] Nick: Yeah. I love that. I love that. I think there’s this misnomer a little bit in the industry that, you know, the cloud is unsafe, right? And it couldn’t be further from the truth. You know, maybe back in the day when it was first released, there were some questions around that. But you know, if you’re building your cloud technology on the right stack that it’s absolutely safer than anything you could implement in your store. So those are really good points. 

Let’s talk a little bit about the actual process of implementing. And putting in a point of sale system. What does that look like for a retailer from the beginning, all the way to the end? What’s that look like? 

[00:09:43] Rodney: Well, the first step is realizing that you need to make a change. So when you realize that you’ve got a problem and the problem’s been going on long enough, you need to make a change, that’s really the first step to, on your journey, to getting another system. 

Now along that path, there’s a lot of choices to be made, and there’s a lot of mistakes to be made if you’re not careful. So what you really wanna do is you wanna make sure that you’re looking into the system. Once you’ve selected one, you wanna be looking at the size of the company, you wanna be looking at the size of the team that’s gonna support you. You wanna be checking to make sure that they’ve got a good roadmap for development and that they’re releasing updates frequently. You wanna check and make sure that there’s a succession plan for the company. Some of these older companies, they, you know, may or may not have a plan for the future. 

 If any of those things are concerns that you have with your current company, that might be a good reason to be in the market to look for a change.

So you might be looking to say, Is there a feature that you don’t have? Are you sure that your data is good? Is the system hard to use? Is it hard to train? If those are some of the situations you’re actually seeing, then that could be chance to get into looking for a system. So once you’ve made a decision, you’re gonna look at some software, you’re gonna view demos, and you’re gonna pick one that you wanna go with.

So from there, you’re gonna get into a process where you’re gonna need to go through a data conversion or migration, where essentially you need to pull data from whatever system you’ve been using, whether that’s Excel sheets or an existing system, or maybe you’ve got it all on pen and paper, and it all needs to be entered by hand.

Whatever system you are in, you’re gonna need to convert your processes and procedures and data into a new system. And to a lot of people, that’s one of the biggest kind of, you know, worrisome things they look at is they need that data. They wanna make sure it’s migrated carefully and correctly.

And so that’s one of the things that we really take the time to do at Jewel360 that, that others don’t, is that we take time to get into data and get it right no matter how many times it takes. 

One of the other processes that we do have to get into, you know, some of the training and trying to kinda look and see what features are available in the system. There’s just a lot there. There’s a lot to unpack, Nick. 

[00:11:25] Nick: Yeah. Yeah, that was a big question to be honest.There is a lot that goes on when you’re talking about implementing a new point of sales system. But you touched on several points. I’d like to maybe dig into a little bit further.

Yeah. I mean, data migration, it’s always a concern, right? If you’re using an existing system, maybe a legacy system, like you mentioned, you wanting to move to the cloud, move to something more modern. You know, what does it look like when I want to give you my data and get it implemented into a new system?

[00:11:49] Rodney: Okay, so, getting data in. One of the first things is that we gotta just maintain, manage your expectations a little bit, because we all know that the data is not always perfectly clean. So if you’ve got a mess in your data, all we can really do is bring that same mess through.

But once the mess is brought through to our system, we’ve got great tools to help you clean it up and get it right, and to prevent that mess from happening again. So when we pull in data, we pull in however much data we can get. So depending on the system you have, if all you have is Excel sheets, that’s all we can get. If you’ve got a full database system with something like Access or SQL or FoxPro or whatever type of database you’ve got, we’re gonna actually pull that database. We’re gonna run a series of reports from your systems so we know what we’ve gotta balance to, cross check to, and then we’re gonna give it to our conversion team or our migration team. As they work through it, they’re gonna have questions about your data, they’re gonna need to know. What does this mean? Where does this go? So they’re gonna work pretty closely with somebody in your organization as this process is done. Then we’ll get the data into the system and the next step is to go through and verify and validate the data.

Now, I know we don’t always get it right the first time through, so that’s what the verification is for, is to go through and check some records, check some customers, make sure all the sales balance out, check for credits, make sure they’re all there. Run the reports from our system to balance the reports we got from your system.

So during that process, we’re verifying the data. Once that’s done, we consider our conversion engine built, and we’re ready to sync up your data just before you go live. So it is a multifaceted process and every step along the way is designed to support you and make sure that your data is fully migrated into the new system.

[00:13:17] Nick: Gotcha. I mean, that sounds a little bit intimidating to be honest. Is that stuff that the retailer has to manage? Is that stuff that you manage? Who takes care and makes sure that happens correctly? 

[00:13:26] Rodney: Thank God I don’t have to manage it. And thank God the retailer doesn’t have to do it either. We have a dedicated team of migration specialists and they can look at the database all day, every day. To me, it makes me go cross-eyed. I couldn’t do what they do, but they’re very good. So you’ve got a dedicated migration specialist that will make sure that your data gets through from one system to the next.

So they take all the heavy lifting and all the fear out of that equation, which is very nice. 

[00:13:48] Nick: Great. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

So how about like, getting trained up on the system, learning how to use it, and learning how to take in a layaway or process a refund? Like how does that all work? 

[00:15:03] Rodney: Well, for me, what I would say is that the um, training process there’s something that kind of happens and that is you, you begin to understand kind of the design language or design philosophy of the system you start to understand what an edit button is gonna look like, what a button to add a product or add a work order or add something. And so as you kind of become used to it, you start to recognize what you’re looking for. Pluses, edit pencils, things like that just kind of stand out to you as the ways to control the system. 

So the way the training works is that we do it through Zoom meetings. We book ’em with you at times. They’re convenient, where you can have as many people as you want from your team join. We take you through the system in a step-by-step kind of process so that every time you’re getting training, it’s supporting the process that’s going on in your migration.

So one of the very first things we hit is product, because if we don’t get the product right, nothing’s gonna go right. So we start there and show you how you can get that looking right, get everything customized, so it’s gonna accommodate your data. And then we just kind of keep going through the training.

So the training is about six sessions, all in all, but you’re never done training until you say you’re done. So if you feel like you didn’t learn enough, you wanna schedule another one, you can schedule another one. If you wanna reach out to the support group, you can reach out to the support group and they train.

I mean, a lot of times when I don’t know, I ask them because I learn a lot from ’em that way. And we’ve got a really good um, online help and support of documentation that will kind of take you through. If you have a question in the middle of the night, you can always search it and find an answer.

[00:16:19] Nick: That’s great. I love that it’s tailored to the store and that it, you know what I mean, that there’s no limits on the training. It can be done. That’s fantastic. 

So, we’ve talked about data migration, we’ve talked about training on the system, we’ve talked about the team a little bit. What else goes on during the implementation of the system? 

[00:16:34] Rodney: Well, something that, for me, was really new when I joined Jewel360 is that we’re an all in one shop. We do the website as well, and I’m gonna say that again because I don’t know if that really resonates the first time, but we are doing the website as well as the point of sale system.

So historically, you’ve always had that be two different companies. You’ve had one company that’s doing your website and one company that’s doing your point of sale and your inventory system. And the trouble is, that no matter how tight their integration is, they’re always just a little bit out of sync.

So if your products on the website and it’s in the store and you sell it, how quick does the website know that the product is gone? With Jewel360, it knows instantly because it’s the same system. So it’s really cool that when you put a product in, when you put something into the system, it’s ready to go online for you and your customers immediately.

So during this process, we’re also gonna build out your website. If you’ve got a website, we can look at it to, you know, for inspiration to kind of start you off there or this could be a time to redo the entire thing. You get something that you like better. So we work with you to get all the colors, all the fonts, all the content, everything working well, so that your website can be online and ready to sell jewelry.

Now, historically jewelers have said, oh yeah, you know, a website would be good, but maybe they don’t sell a ton on a website. But that all kind of changed, do you remember, when all of a sudden the lockdowns happened and everybody was “shop from home,” it seems like every jeweler in the country was like, I need a website yesterday.

And so we were all in a pinch where we had to get pictures, we had to get websites, and it was a big rush for everybody to be able to service those customers in that new trading environment. 

And so I think that really kind of opened up people’s eyes that yes, they need to invest in having a website and the jewelry industry has always been a little bit slow to accept technology, but the jewels that are there now that are on the cusp of that, where they’re getting the websites in and being able to do transactions and do sales online, they’re seeing the business grow from it.

And I feel that’s just going to continue to grow over time as the next generation of consumers get more and more used to the idea of buying jewelry online. 

[00:18:21] Nick: Yeah. Yeah, that’s totally true. And when you talk about how, you know, Jewel360 is an all in one platform you know, it kind of points at some of the flaws, right, of the industry as it sits right? Managing all these different things. It’s hard on a retailer, right? When really all you want to be doing is designing, building, selling beautiful jewelry, and suddenly you feel like you need an IT degree, right? To run your business. And that can be a little frustrating for a retailer. And so that’s where, you know, Jewel360 tries to step in to be that all in one solution you know, with one support number to call, one team to talk to and we can manage all those things for you.

What are some of the things that you feel are best managed by a retailer versus managed by a team like Jewel360? 

[00:19:02] Rodney: I mean, the retailer is best gonna be managing their customer relationships, the way they interact with the clients they’re standing within their communities. Things like that are the things that a jeweler can do to really get their name out there and really improve their business. 

But the things that we should be managing for you is making sure that your site’s secure, making sure that you can sell things online, making sure that you can get reports about what’s being transacted in your business. Let us handle the computer stuff and let you do the jewelry store business stuff, because that’s, That’s really a point of distinction out there. 

A lot of us in the jewelry industry kind of are more self-employed than business owners. What I mean by that is just that you have to go and you have to work in the store and you have to be there all the time because it requires you. And if something were to happen to you, then who knows what would happen to the business because so much of you is in it. And so something that a lot of jewelers try to work towards, especially as they start to get on in years, is that they want to get to the point where they’re a business owner and the business is running because they’ve got people in place that are running the business for ’em.

And when you get to that level, then you truly are a business owner and you can just pop into the store as much as it suits you just to make sure that it continues to turn over. But you know, when you sleep easier at night knowing that it’s gonna continue to go even after you’re gone. And that’s really the thing that I wanna try and help jewelers to get to is to make sure that they are business owners, not just self-employed.

[00:20:15] Nick: Yeah. I love that. That’s a really unique view and I really think that’s fantastic. To what I mentioned earlier, right, sometimes you just get so caught up in the day to day that you forget what your goal is, and maybe that’s the goal for a lot of business owners, you know, when they look to implement a new system or a new process, right. So that’s really fantastic. 

What about the future of, you know, you implement the point of sale, right? So you’ve gone through the process, you’ve chosen one, you’ve implemented it. What about, you know, after that? What are the things you should be looking out for? 

[00:20:42] Rodney: Well, once you got a system, you need to make sure that your system is staying up to date and that it’s still continuing to serve your needs.

Time’s changed, the industry changes. I mean, there’s some principles that will probably be around forever, but the market has changed and if you’ve been in the jewelry industry, you know that things have changed over the last 10, 15, 20 years. It’s something that’s happened. So something to look forward just to make sure that your system is constantly being updated, to make sure that it’s working in a way where when a new tool, or a new app or a new cool thing comes out that it’s integrated because nobody knows what the next great, awesome app is gonna be or what the next platform to change the world will be, but at Jewel360, I know that we’re built on the tools that will allow us to quickly integrate and take advantage of that. So being able to leverage that, to kind of stand on the shoulder of giants as it were, in terms of code, is just very powerful. 

It’s also important to know, like, you know, if your system develops a new feature, what’s it gonna cost you? Are they gonna charge you for everything they develop or is it included in your monthly fee? And that’s something that’s really cool at Jewel360, is that when we build something new, we just roll it out. It’s ready to go for you. If it’s a feature that’s available, you get it. It’s not only for those that pay for it or only for those that say they want it, you get a little update in your daily chalkboard and it just tells you, okay, this thing is ready to go. Turn on appraisals for instance. I know we just finished the appraisals module and so all of our jewelry stores get that now for free, which is really just kind of amazing. 

[00:22:03] Nick: Yeah, definitely a uh, a different take on you know, the industry, how it’s been. And, you know, a lot of the reason for that is, the design around cloud-based technology, right?

A lot of people might look at the downsides of the cloud of which there are a few and far between and disappearing more every year. Forget about the upsides, like things like this, right? The fact that we can continually roll out new features as they become available that we’re continually building new features.

A lot of existing systems only build new features as they are strictly required as opposed to Jewel360. I know I work a lot with our product team on talking about features that might be wanted or excited about, right? You mentioned earlier when you were speaking about how there’s a certain list of features that you just absolutely need, right?

You need to be able to print receipts, that’s checkbox, and a system is full of checkbox features that are absolutely required in order for it to be able to be sold in a market. But what’s more exciting to me are the features that are like, “wow features” and features that make the system exciting for a new business to implement. So those are some really good points. 

[00:23:05] Rodney: Yeah, it’s definitely one of the things that you wanna be looking for is that if you’ve got a system, if you’re with the system, you just wanna make sure that the company is healthy, that the technology is healthy, and that they’re continually doing things to make sure that they’re supporting, all of your efforts in the store to, you know, it’s a team effort. We should be working with our retailers to make sure that they achieve success because when they are successful, that’s when we’re successful. 

[00:23:26] Nick: That’s great. That’s great. And it really puts the motivation in the right place, right? 

[00:23:30] Rodney: I think so. Keeps us all working together for the same goal. 

[00:23:35] Nick: Great. So do me a favor, Rodney.

Can you paint a little bit of a picture of what a business, you know, might look like after they implement a cloud-based point of sales system, how that might be different than how they operated before? Maybe some unique examples of like, you know, certain things they can do now they couldn’t do before or anything like that?

[00:23:51] Rodney: Sure. I mean, well, one of the things is that because there’s nothing to install, it’s very simple to add another workstation or to be able to conduct cells from another place. I know that stores, you know, they’ll get busy during Christmas and they’ll often need another register. With Jewel360, it’s easy as open a laptop. There’s nothing to install. Head to your browser, log into your site and you’re ready to go. So within the matter of just a few minutes, you’ve got something up and running. No need to call for support, no need to have anything installed. You’re just ready to go. Here’s a new station. 

You know, and also just being able to have a mixed platform, you know, you may have people on your team that love their Windows computers and wanna use that. You may have people that love their MacBooks and wanna use that. And so there is no limitation saying, Hey, in order to support our software, we have to be one way or the other. It’s “bring what you like.” You can use what you like, so that’s something that will really kind of help or be a difference for jewelers once they’ve made a change with the system.

And just depending on who they are and what they’re, they were doing before. They could be looking at all kinds of new information. You know, everybody’s had to measure things to a certain degree and get information about their business. But with the tools and the power of the Jewel360 system, you’re able to do that to a level that you may have never been able to do before.

So seeing the changes in your business, getting the information and taking steps to improve upon your business, that’s gonna give you a rush and kind of like a payoff that it’s hard to describe because when you’re really doing that, when you’re really achieving it you’re excited to go to work. You’re excited for what the next day brings. You’re not just turning the wheel, you’re making changes. You’re really cutting your own path. And I think that’s something exciting that people take from it. 

[00:25:17] Nick: Yeah, that’s fantastic. And you know, a lot of people might be a little skeptical, right? Like, could I really implement a software and have that big of an impact on my business? And when you ask yourself that question, you gotta ask, what is the software? Right. A point of sale is not just simply an enhancement to your business. A point of sale is something that runs your business, right?

It’s the software side of you as a business owner. And so it, by implementing the right point of sale, you can absolutely drive the kind of impact to your business that we’re describing here. It has such a, you know, an overarching effect on what you do as a retailer. And so I think those are really great points that you make.

[00:25:53] Rodney: Yeah, it’s a, it’s something that just really does change the way that you do your business, and it’s a great time when you’re doing a new point of sale. It’s a great time to revise a lot of your policies and procedures and just make sure that you’ve really created a strong and dynamic team of excited individuals that are happy to work and happy to work together to get a job done.

[00:26:10] Nick: Yeah. That’s great. Well, Rodney, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing you know, the information around a point of sale, helping our listeners understand it a little bit more. You know, in the Master Stones podcast, we are absolutely focused on bringing the best knowledge from the industry, those that wanna listen and hear it.

And, you know, bringing you on was a very easy decision, right? You’ve been in this industry a long time. You’ve seen, you know, the technology side of the business for a lot of years and from many different angles. And so we really appreciate you bringing your expertise here on the show. Anything else that you’d like to share with the retailers before we end? 

[00:26:44] Rodney: Yeah, I mean, just wanna say hello to some of my friends out there in the audience. it’s good to see you, as it were, in this. You know, I’m really excited about where I am and what I’m doing. I’m really excited to be a part of the Jewel360 team.

Nick, thank you so much for having me. It’s been my pleasure. I’d love to come back and do it again sometime. 

[00:26:59] Nick: Perfect. Yes, let’s plan it. Thanks, Rodney. Have a good one. 

[00:27:02] Rodney: All right, you too. Thanks.