Southern Jewelry News
  • Featured
    • All
    • Featured
    • Featured Retailers
    • Retailer Roundtable
    • Sponsored Content
    • Supplier Spotlight
    Jeweler brings Midwest to the Southwest
    Tara Fine Jewelry: Atlanta’s not-so-secret, best-kept secret
    Finding the Big Ones; Zambian Trophies for the Ages
    The Golden Girls of Gemstones
  • Latest News
    • All
    • COVID-19
    • Furry Friends
    • Industry Awards
    • Industry Events
    • NRF
    • On The Move
    • Other News
    • Tradeshow News
    • Video
    • What's New
    Education, networking, hospitality featured at Spring Atlanta Jewelry Show
    Designer Brenda Smith announces new Black ’n Gold ’n Diamonds Collection
    JBT-logo-cover
    Richard Katz, Richline Group appointed Chairman of The Jewelers Board of Trade®
    Alan Revere
    AJDC elects Alan Revere as President
  • Podcast
  • Columnists
    Is the customer always right?
    Successful Custom: Stressing the bench jeweler
    The Story Behind the Stone: Diamonds on Pins and Needles
    Jewelry Marketing Survival Guide
    The Story Behind the Stone: Out of the Blue
    What’s Hot Now!: Latest Designer Trends 2023
    A Winning Strategy: How SEO and buying intent can skyrocket your sales
    business people shaking hands
    Networking for small business owners
    Is the customer always right?
    Successful Custom: A Clean Disaster
  • Classifieds
  • Subscriptions
    • Newsletter Signup
    • Print Subscription
No Result
View All Result
Southern Jewelry News
  • Featured
    • All
    • Featured
    • Featured Retailers
    • Retailer Roundtable
    • Sponsored Content
    • Supplier Spotlight
    Jeweler brings Midwest to the Southwest
    Tara Fine Jewelry: Atlanta’s not-so-secret, best-kept secret
    Finding the Big Ones; Zambian Trophies for the Ages
    The Golden Girls of Gemstones
  • Latest News
    • All
    • COVID-19
    • Furry Friends
    • Industry Awards
    • Industry Events
    • NRF
    • On The Move
    • Other News
    • Tradeshow News
    • Video
    • What's New
    Education, networking, hospitality featured at Spring Atlanta Jewelry Show
    Designer Brenda Smith announces new Black ’n Gold ’n Diamonds Collection
    JBT-logo-cover
    Richard Katz, Richline Group appointed Chairman of The Jewelers Board of Trade®
    Alan Revere
    AJDC elects Alan Revere as President
  • Podcast
  • Columnists
    Is the customer always right?
    Successful Custom: Stressing the bench jeweler
    The Story Behind the Stone: Diamonds on Pins and Needles
    Jewelry Marketing Survival Guide
    The Story Behind the Stone: Out of the Blue
    What’s Hot Now!: Latest Designer Trends 2023
    A Winning Strategy: How SEO and buying intent can skyrocket your sales
    business people shaking hands
    Networking for small business owners
    Is the customer always right?
    Successful Custom: A Clean Disaster
  • Classifieds
  • Subscriptions
    • Newsletter Signup
    • Print Subscription
No Result
View All Result
Southern Jewelry News
No Result
View All Result
Home Columnists

It’s time you got Lazy

David Brown by David Brown
July 1, 2011
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
Reading Time: 5 minutes

Many of you will be familiar with the 4 quadrants style of management that has developed in the last twenty years or so. In this process it often talks about the 4 types of problems that a business has to deal with each day. They can generally be broken down into 4 categories:

  1. The urgent and unimportant
  2. The non urgent and unimportant
  3. The urgent and important
  4. The non urgent and important

We’ve found over the years that the most successful jewelers have been the one’s who have the greatest ability to avoid being caught up in the urgent but unimportant, and are able to concentrate their time in the non urgent and important.

Let’s give you an example of each type.

  1. Mrs. Smith brings in her watch for a battery and insists on speaking with the owner about getting a new strap fitted while it is being done.
  2. The marketing plan for the next 12 months needs to be completed.
  3. More rubbish bags are needed as you are down to the last three.
  4. The pricing tickets need to be completed for the sale starting tomorrow.

So how did you do matching them up? The urgent tasks are obviously Mrs. Smith and the sale tickets, but it would be fair to say that Mrs. Smith may fit into the category of unimportant (not to Mrs. Smith of course, but if you weren’t there to help her I’m sure she would be quite happy to deal with one of the staff) with the sales tickets being urgent and important.

The non urgent tasks are the rubbish bags (which are not important) and the marketing plan.

It’s at this point where many jewelers fall into a trap. Understandably every store wants to offer that personal service for their customers, that is the point of difference that the chains don’t offer. However, you need to do it in a way that you don’t finish up at your customers beck and call. Mrs. Smith’s strap is important; but not as important to you as getting your marketing plan prepared. It’s important you offer that special service to Mrs. Smith, but you must not compromise your business in the process – if you went out every time a Mrs. Smith asks to have her strap changed you would never get anything else done.

The urgent tasks, by their very urgency, tend to draw attention to themselves. The non urgent and unimportant are either not critical, or eventually become urgent and are dealt with. The great shame is the non urgent but important tasks that get left – such as preparing a marketing plan for the coming 12 months. The consequences of not completing these types of tasks are, on the surface, minimal, however their long term impact can often go unnoticed. Much like the frog that slowly boils to death when the heat gets turned up, these important areas can be neglected until it is too late.

Although these four types of tasks have been a relatively recent addition to management theory, the principles have been around for many years. The German Army over 100 years ago, used to divide it’s officers into 4 different types.

  1. The hard working and incompetent
  2. The lazy and incompetent
  3. The hard working and competent
  4. The lazy and competent

The first category were the most frightening and were effectively isolated. Their incompetence could result in loss of life, but because of their hard working nature they had the ability to cause even greater havoc than the lazy officer.

So which category did they prefer to promote? The German army sought to identify and promote the lazy and competent officer. They saw the laziness as a virtue as they realized a lazy yet competent officer would not waste time on matters that were of no consequence. These types of people had the ability to pinpoint the areas that got them the greatest results for the least effort – and they would conserve resources better as a result.

So take a lesson from the military handbook. Start practicing being lazy and force yourself to only work on those areas that will bring you the greatest results – the important but non urgent.

David Brown is President of the Edge Retail Academy, an organization devoted to the ongoing measurement and growth of jewelry store performance and profitability. For further information about the Academy’s management mentoring and industry benchmarking reports contact Carol Druan at carol@edgeretailacademy.com or 877-569-8657.

David Brown

David Brown

David Brown is the President of The Edge Retail Academy (sister company of The Edge), a jewelry business consulting company that provides expert advisory services to help with all facets of your business including improved financials, healthier inventory, sales growth, staff performance, retirement/succession planning - all custom-tailored to your store’s needs. By utilizing the power of The Edge, we analyze Key Performance Indicators that point to current challenges and future opportunities. Edge Pulse is the ideal add-on to better understand critical sales data and industry market trends to improve profitability. It benchmarks your store against 1200+ other Edge Users and ensures you stay on top of industry stats. 877-569-8657, ext. 001, Inquiries@EdgeRetailAcademy.com or www.EdgeRetailAcademy.com.

Related Posts

Is the customer always right?

Successful Custom: Stressing the bench jeweler

March 27, 2023

The Story Behind the Stone: Diamonds on Pins and Needles

March 20, 2023

Jewelry Marketing Survival Guide

March 15, 2023

The Story Behind the Stone: Out of the Blue

March 15, 2023

Latest News

Industry Events

Education, networking, hospitality featured at Spring Atlanta Jewelry Show

March 27, 2023
Columnists

Successful Custom: Stressing the bench jeweler

March 27, 2023
What's New

Designer Brenda Smith announces new Black ’n Gold ’n Diamonds Collection

March 27, 2023

Other News

Richard Katz, Richline Group appointed Chairman of The Jewelers Board of Trade®

AJDC elects Alan Revere as President

Kingswood Company President and CEO Kristie Nicolosi inducted into Private Label Industry Hall of Fame

Hardrock Summit to return to Denver in September 2023

Iconic Jewelry Firms is theme of ASJRA’s 18th annual Conference

DMIA members meet-and-greet and hear updates from GIA, NDC

Southern Jewelry News

© 2022 Southern Jewelry News.

Additional Information

  • About
  • 2023 Jewelry Trade Shows & Events
  • Media Kit
  • Contact
  • Sitemap
  • Newsletter Signup

Get Social with Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Featured Articles
    • Featured
    • Featured Retailers
    • Retailer Roundtable
    • Supplier Spotlight
    • Sponsored Content
  • Latest News
    • What’s New
    • Industry Events
    • Tradeshow News
    • On The Move
    • Other News
    • Furry Friends
  • Podcast
  • Columnists
  • Classifieds
  • Subscriptions
    • Newsletter Signup
    • Print Subscription

© 2022 Southern Jewelry News.