Agents seized 2,193 pieces, a mix of counterfeit Cartier “Love” and “Juste Un Clou” bracelets, and Van Cleef & Arpels’ “Alhambra” design.
Squirrel Spotting: 10 Random Sales Tips for the Season
Smile, Peter Smith says, and stay away from chronically negative people.

As we approach the critical holiday season, I thought it might be fun to share a few random tips that you might want to think about on the sales floor.
Have fun and be great!
1. Smile
Smiling engages the mirror neurons in our customers. They don’t care about our motivations, they’re just happy to see a warm smile, and they are more likely to reciprocate and adopt a more positive and friendly attitude as a result.
2. Use Hand Gestures
Effective communicators tend to use their hands more when they are speaking. It makes you appear warmer and more relatable. Let your hands help with your communication.
3. Avoid Negative People
There is no value whatsoever in choosing to associate with chronically negative people.
We all need to vent occasionally, but some people seem to have been born to complain and they must be avoided at all costs. You can’t be successful in sales unless you bring a positive attitude to work and maintain it throughout the day.
4. Don’t Information Dump
Great salespeople are not information-dumpers. They don’t use customer interactions as an opportunity to spew every fact and feature of their products. It is important to know your products well enough to speak to them, but the goal is to connect on an emotional level.
5. Be Authentic
Always present an authentic version of yourself to your customers. There are so many elements that contribute to our communication, verbal and non-verbal, so trying to present an inauthentic version of yourself will be taxing for you, and not terribly convincing for your customers.
6. Features and Benefits Are Irrelevant Until We Connect Emotionally
Features and benefits mean absolutely nothing unless you connect with your customer on an emotional level. Once that has been accomplished, you can underscore the connection with select features and their respective benefits to your customer.
7. Set Goals for Yourself
Having goals is like a GPS system for your own performance. The most obvious example is a daily/ weekly/monthly sales goal. But there are other measures to drive your own performance.
What is your average sale? Can you improve your personal conversion rate? Can you make X amount of add-on sales? If you work for a store that does not provide goals, set them yourself.
8. Use Your Colleagues
Using your colleagues to help shows them respect and demonstrates humility and curiosity on your part.
9. Sell Value, Not Price
Value and price are separate but often confused terms.
If I buy something for the cheapest price and it breaks or underperforms, did I get a good value? If I pay “more” for something than I might have wished, and it performs beautifully for years, did I pay too much?
Establishing value requires the salesperson to understand the underlying motivations behind a customer’s questions and to probe beneath the surface of requests for cheap prices and discounts. Do the work and sell the customer something she or he won’t regret buying. That’s value.
10. Build Your Customer Base
The difference between good and great salespeople is that good salespeople get a solid share of walk-ins, while great salespeople get a solid share of walk-ins and drive their own customers.
Every interaction is an opportunity to build your customer base. Don’t waste that opportunity during the holidays when you have more customers to work with. Capture key information and follow up after the season. These are the seeds of next year’s business.
Have a great season!
Peter Smith is president of Vibhor, a public speaker and author of “Sell Something” and “Hiring Squirrels.” He spent 30 years building sales teams in retail and wholesale and he can be contacted at dublinsmith@yahoo.com, peter@vibhorgems.com, or on LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.
The Latest

The designer brought her children’s book, “The Big Splash Circus,” to life through a collection of playful fine jewelry characters.

The trade association has chosen the recipients of the funding initiative it formed to foster the growth and sustainability of the industry.

The Seymour & Evelyn Holtzman Bench Scholarship from Jewelers of America returns for a second year.

The organization has also announced this year’s slate of judges.


Associate Editor Natalie Francisco shares 20 additional pieces that stood out to her at the Couture show.

The “Marvel | Citizen Zenshin” watch is crafted in Super Titanium and has subtle nods to all four “Fantastic Four” superheroes on the dial.

The countdown is on for the JCK Las Vegas Show and JA is pulling out all the stops.

The “XO Tacori” collection was designed to blend luxury and accessible pricing.

Pritesh Patel, the lab’s chief operating officer, will take over as president and CEO of GIA.

National Jeweler and Jewelers of America discuss the standout jewelry trends and biggest news to emerge from the shows this year.

Signatories to the “Luanda Accord” committed to allocating 1 percent of annual diamond revenue to the Natural Diamond Council.

The winning designs captured the “Radiance” theme.

Nominations in the categories of Jewelry Design, Media Excellence, and Retail Innovation will be accepted through July 30.

The singer’s ring ticks off many bridal trends, with a thick band, half-bezel setting, and solitaire diamond.

The bracelet references vintage high jewelry and snake symbolism as a playful piece where a python’s head becomes a working belt buckle.

The heist happened in Lebec, California, in 2022 when a Brinks truck was transporting goods from one show in California to another.

The 10-carat fancy purple-pink diamond with potential links to Marie Antoinette headlined the white-glove jewelry auction this week.

The Starboard Cruises SVP discusses who is shopping for jewelry on ships, how much they’re spending, and why brands should get on board.

The historic signet ring exceeded its estimate at Noonans Mayfair’s jewelry auction this week.

To mark the milestone, the brand is introducing new non-bridal fine jewelry designs for the first time in two decades.

The gemstone is the third most valuable ruby to come out of the Montepuez mine, Gemfields said.

Founder and longtime CEO Ben Smithee will stay with the agency, transitioning into the role of founding partner and strategic advisor.

Associate Editor Natalie Francisco shares 20 of her favorite pieces from the jewelry collections that debuted at Couture.

If you want to attract good salespeople and generate a stream of “sleeping money” for your jewelry store, then you are going to have to pay.

The top lot was a colorless Graff diamond, followed by a Burmese ruby necklace by Marcus & Co.

Gizzi, who has been in the industry since 2001, is now Jewelers of America’s senior vice president of corporate affairs.