50+ Years. One Team. Zero Regrets: How Eric Loch Built a Jewelry Business

Intro:
Hello everyone, this is Guy with Southern Jewelry News and this is another episode of the Pearls of Wisdom Jewelry Podcast. Enjoy the episode.

Guy:
Hello everyone, this is Guy with Southern Jewelry News and this is another amazing episode of the Pearls of Wisdom Jewelry Podcast. And today I have our special guest, Eric Loch from Eric J. Loch Diamond Jewelers. I believe you're in Allentown, PA. Is that correct, Eric?

Eric:
Yes, I'm more of… outside the city limit, but the zip code still lists me as Allentown.

Guy:
Got it. Fantastic. Well, thank you for joining us and thank you for sharing your experience. Could you tell me about Locks Jewelers, your store?

Eric:
Yeah, sure. And again, a huge thank you for even reaching out to me and giving me this opportunity. I opened the store in 1984 in a small town about a mile and a half away from me. Outgrew that location and wasn't ready to retire so i need to do some i needed a new playpen uh for myself so we moved to our current location uh where we're at now uh i think i i learned uh throughout the process that i did not i did not necessarily have the right people working for me so over the course of a good 10 years plus got the right team in place things are motoring along and i'm very fortunate at this point now um having over 40 years in retail and over close to 50 years in different aspects of the lapidary gemstone jewelry consulting industry that uh my team primarily you know run run the show i'm kind of the captain i guide the ship um but and so far things are are going awesome i'm very very pleased and very thankful for that

Guy:
fantastic, so um yeah you know having a great team of people behind you to handle things. That's very key and important. And when you did not have the right team, what kind of stress and challenges did you face when you still were looking for that team to help you?

Eric:
Growth and pain built because we just weren't making the kind of money that we needed to make, that I wanted to make for myself as well. And we just weren't having the growth that I expected I should have had by moving to a different location. We're a freestanding building now outside a very small local mall that's pretty much dead in the center. But we came for the road that's outside my store, which has 25,000 cars a day on it. And we're roughly 60 feet off that road. So we used that for visibility. But yeah, the biggest thing was I wasn't growing. Obviously, I went from owning my building to paying $50,000 a year in rent. which was kind of a scary endeavor to begin with. And then the stress was working just a lot more hours when you had to let people go.Doing those 60, 80-hour weeks gets very tiring after a while, but I wasn't going to put just anybody back in place.

Guy:
Right, right, right. So you had the wrong people in place, which caused lots of stress, work, and more in place. Do you think, thinking back now, would you have kind of looked for the right team earlier, kind of thinking back?

Eric:
Yeah, most definitely. Again, they were lovely people. I loved every single one of them. But they just weren't performing. I didn't know how to train them also. So I worked at how do I become a better captain of my ship and training and what's involved in training. because I've used some of the sources for testing people and all that, my gut being one of them also, and found most all of them all have their play, but none of them are the secret pill that that's the person you've got to hire and they're going to turn out great. They still need coaching and guidance. So that's why I developed my skill set into doing things like that.

Guy:
Right, right, you didn't quite necessarily have all the skills to train them right and lead them in the right way was that also did that kind of provide a little bit of anxiety or challenge you know you're a little scared because you're like oh i i don't you you know uh if i get rid of these people would it be difficult to find new people did that did that ever come in play like you're like i let me just see what i can do with this crew and but Did that ever come in play?

Eric:
No real anxiety issues. I'm always one of those. If I have to run the company myself, I'm going to run the company myself. Even though, yes, that would be somewhat impossible. But it's like I never let an employee run me. I run the company kind of thing, which, again, took a learning curve to understand that, yes, employees don't run me. I run them. And then just realizing that sometimes they just have to go. You've got to part company.

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Guy:
Right, right. Sometimes it's hard to come to that realization. And I've heard from many owners that they were afraid to take the leap into the unknown. You don't know what you don't know, right? So sometimes you think, well, this might be the best I can get or best I can have right now. And let me just see what I can do and let me live with the situation. And, you know, you said some key things there. You don't let employees run you. I think what I'm gathering from that is you had standards that you wanted to meet in terms of taking care of your customers, providing products and so forth, and possibly your team wasn't meeting that standard, and you needed to find a better team, and that's what you did.

Eric:
Yes, and the process of learning that skill came from two places. One, when I joined the independent jewelers organization in 1996, which was great. I also signed on with ARMS Software in 1994, but also started working with them in 2012, doing some jewelry store coaching and all that, and realized a lot of people have that same issue and that fear of, well, I got bodies coming in. Yeah, but they're not. You're still working six days a week. You're not making the kind of money you want to make. Something's got to change the course of this ship or you're going nowhere. And I decided to grab that bull by the horns and say, this is what we've got to do. There's times I've gone for six months without a full staff because I just won't put anybody in.

Guy:
Yeah, right, right, right. I mean, after you've got connected with other people, got training, got the right staff. How long did it take for you to kind of really get it fine tuned so that it's running well for you?

Eric:
It was probably about 10 years, a little over 10 years time. Yeah, it was not easy. I didn't burn through a lot of people, but went through a fair amount of lovely people that they just, what I had to determine then is whether they had, yep. true ability to sell or not and I found all my best hires came from outside the jewelry industry.

Guy:
Got it. Why do you think that is?

Eric:
I don't have a good answer. I just know that they come with bad habits sometimes. They come with bad habits, right. And I'm not a commission store. I'm incentive-based. We're bonus-based. So if you can't sell without a discount, you're not going to work and fit in my store anyway. But I learned more. It's all about the personality. We can train them. If they can learn, we can train them having the right personality uh as well as the ability to take that sale to fruition and not just get people to like you right you know uh that's so and uh still a constant learning curve we signed up with JEWELRY SALES ACADEMY about three years ago yeah my team like it a lot we we do sales training every day and the store short while they're setting up uh we do sales training to figure it's somewhat wasted time so to speak So it's an ongoing process all the time.

Guy:
Yeah, no, that's really key. And that's great that you take the initiative to have tools like Jewelry Sales Academy and then also take that downtime and use it to maybe role play or talk about situations and how to handle situations better. And how does your team… respond to that training and drills every day of being better salespeople?

Eric:
Well, they responded well because it's directly linked to their vacations. Yeah, there you go. And the fun thing that they want to buy in life, I reward them well. I have a minimum goal that they… When they're hired, they know they're required to sell eight to ten times whatever their net cost is to my company. That's their minimum. And if they go above that, then I will raise their hourly and commensurate with wherever they're at. So I empower them to earn as much money as they want to earn. And I'm not giving it out until you've earned it.

Guy:
That's perfect.

Eric:
And they've enjoyed it also realizing. I'm kind of off that education floor now, my sales manager. For our weekly Friday meetings, I'll still be here. But it's more of, okay, you guys are running things. So sometimes coming from a third party helps, but can sometimes create friction because she's newer to the company. So longer-term employees might say, I'm older than you, I'm more seasoned. So there were some frictions, and we said, look, we have to sit down and iron this out. And we also have worked with a growth coach now who has a neat module that you can actually go in, give your situation. And it's using AI through a psychiatric type of AI that says, here's the conversation to have when you have this situation happen. And we just used it just several months ago. Two of them had some friction at the end of the day. They both came in the next day. My office manager then got involved in it, which never should have done. And it's like, gang, go to this module thing, post out what happened, resolution, and see what you all think of it. And they again all realized, yep, okay, all of them could have handled things a little bit better, and everything was all resolved. So again, I just like to empower the team. We're only a thousand square foot showroom, so everybody's close. So it's just like, gang, we all just want to work together here and accomplish the same goal.

Guy:
Fantastic. The model, the incentive base, and how you structured the pay for them to really take it in their own hands sounds really smart. Why do you think that's a better model than like a commission-based situation?

Eric:
From my experience and working with ARMS as well. Commission only works with absolutely everybody on the same page, and that's a very rare thing for it. So I have one team member who was selling 8 to 10 times her pay but wasn't really progressing past that point. It's like if you want to make another $10,000 a year, this is what you've got to do. And Commission wouldn't have had any effect on that whatsoever. They're a strong soldier for the company. But with training and what we've been doing has now elevated that person as well. They had like a 25% increase in their sales last year. And that told me the proof of spending $13,000 to $15,000 a year on education is worth it to me. Because just out of that person alone, I got almost an extra $150,000, $200,000 worth of sales.

Guy:
Right, right, right. Do you think, you know, if that jewelry store owner out there that is struggling with this problem, they have people that are not selling enough and they're not really paying off what…know, the store owners paying them and so forth. What advice would you give them? Maybe they're a little reluctant or not sure if this incentive-based situation is going to work or maybe they got a different situation. And what advice would you give that store owner that's trying to bridge, you know, kind of get past that challenge of motivating people enough to sell more? What would you tell them?

Eric:
I'd tell them that buckle up. It's going to be a rough ride, but if you want to achieve more, you're the captain of your ship. You've got to do it. The tools are there, and yes, you might have had people with you for 15 years. It's just time to have it. Again, I'm a big advocate. Train first. If they're untrainable, then you just have a sit-down conversation and say, love you. We're not achieving our goals. I've tried the best I can with you. It's time you move on to other opportunities. Yes, that's a hard pill to swallow, but as the old adage is, if you keep doing the same old thing, you're going to get the same old results. If you're tired of that rat race, the owner has to make a decision that I'm going to change this rat race.

Guy:
Absolutely. You know, I'm very big on quotes, and one quote that I heard in the last couple of years that really resonated and fits very well what you're saying is, things that you do not change, you choose.

Eric:
Yes, you're right.

Guy:
So things that you do not change. So if you're not getting better sales or better results or something, and you're not changing it, you're choosing to keep it that way.

Eric:
And I was in that mode for a bunch of years. Yeah, yeah. Because I didn't know also. And that fear, the fear of change is inherent in all of us. But yeah, I was definitely a person that quote applied to at one time.

Guy:
Right, right. So do you think, was it fear that kind of prevented you to kind of say, okay, forget this, I'm going to change it?

Eric:
Yes, definitely someone has always, you know, the fear they're known. And again, with the exception of a few players over the years, I've always had very nice people working with me, and numerous of them have been clients at the same time. They were clients first and then started working for me. Yeah. And also, I had to take the lead and admit my failure. Right. To sit with them and say, you know, things are great, but it's my fault. I should not have hired you for this position. Exactly. And let them know it's not really their fault. They're great. They're working as hard as they can work. It's just not going to achieve the goals that we've set out to achieve. I even had one team member leave one that I let go, and his words out the door was, you're all about the money. Like, well, yeah, I'm the business owner. That's how I get back. I don't get paid by things not happening.

Guy:
Smiles and handshakes aren't paying the bills.

Eric:
You drop a ton of sales in December. That should have happened. There's almost $10,000 in sales. You let go. Just having the gumption to understand you just got to do it.

Guy:
That's perfect. Having the gumption to just do it. Unfortunately, there's lots of hard things in life, but the most rewarding things in life are just not easy. They're difficult, take a lot of effort, but the reward is there. And that leads me to my very first favorite quote that I heard when I was 16 is, those who are afraid of the thorns will never be able to pick the roses. And, you know, yeah, again, there's these things that just catch my attention. I'm like, wow, that makes so much sense. It does. It does. I'm going to write that one down.

Guy:
Yeah. Those who are afraid of the thorns will never be able to pick the roses. And you may have those thorns, the challenges, employee time, bills, all kinds of things. But, you know, you got to get you got to do it the right way. You got to. you know, go through the fire, right? You got to go through and set up situations that you will become successful. It's going to take a while. And for you, it took 10 years, like you said, or, you know, around there. But going through all that challenge and stress, was it worth it?

Eric:
Yes, because the other big aspect I was just thinking of right now is when you're going down that road, allow your team to fail. [GUY] That's it.

Eric:
Just like raising a child. You've got to allow your child to fall down. [GUY] Absolutely.

Eric:
Help them back up and try and make sure they don't do the same thing again. [GUY]  Exactly.

Eric:
And it's like, oh, they lost that diamond sale. Well, let's understand why. [GUY] Right.

Eric:
And what can we retrain to do that so it's not a repetitive event.

Guy:
Absolutely. I totally, totally agree there. And it's tough. You know, as business owners, we want to try to do everything as well as possible, not let down clients and customers, not lose money, you know, but these are inevitable. They will happen. just work more and prevent it from happening but then you're just you're taking everything on yourself and you're not using the team to leveraging the team to solve problems handle situations and so forth and you just got a just a busier stressful job yeah if you're trying to solve everything yeah most of them

Eric:
when I was doing some coaching and working with some folks who they were in their 50s plus hadn't taken a vacation in years working six days a week it's like What are you doing? Where's your quality of life? You've worked hard. Let's get something out of this place. Unless you really enjoy it. You want to work six days a week? Go ahead.

Guy:
Absolutely. Definitely tons of pearls of wisdom right there. Eric, thank you so much. I want to switch gears a bit. I was reading up about you and your history 50 years, you know, a few years ago, right? But one of the things that I read and tell me if this is true is that you guys really work at supplying amazing diamonds and bring in lots of diamonds to make sure you have a great selection. Is that accurate?

Eric:
Yes. Well, you're not going to find 20 carats of diamonds in the store, per se, but I've always been focused on the most brilliant, beautiful-looking diamond possible. Our business started actually way back in the 70s where my father, as an engineer, taught himself how to facet gemstones, took a piece of quartz, and over a week of nights working at home would turn it into the most beautiful piece of quartz you ever saw. So I carried that. process into the jewelry store. So I've always been hunting for the most beautiful diamond possible. The one brand we have right now is doing very well. It's our number one brand in our store. It's called Facets of Fire.

Guy:
Yes, that's beautiful.

Eric:
It just has an amazing, as my one team member said, it releases 100,000 rainbows. And there's no other diamond on the planet that I've ever seen. And I'm back and forth to Antwerp several times a year, courtesy of the IJO. and all that, and I've just never seen a diamond that looks that gorgeous. And that's always what I want to offer our guests, is the most beautiful diamond possible.

Guy:
The best. Wow, that's great. And do you also deal with lab-grown, both lab-grown and earth-mined?

Eric:
We will if they ask for it. What's helped our store stay out of that marketplace, although right now we're always like 100 years behind in my location, what the rest of the world is doing. It's crept up to maybe be like 30% of our bridal sales now will be that lab. But there's nothing in the showcase. Everything is all down below. As my team originally said, hey, we need to be doing this. And I said, well, let's think about this a second. Your average retail sale is going to drop dramatically. Your bonuses are based on reaching goals every single month. How do you plan to do that? And they then said, yeah, I guess we want to stay selling natural. But we won't. As a great friend of mine, one of his best things to me years ago was, remember, I'm a businessman first. So I always keep that in the back of my mind as well. It's like if the guest wants this product, let's sell them the product. I don't want them going somewhere else because I'm losing all their future business as well. [GUY]  Absolutely.

Eric:
So we're not against it. I don't care for it. But we're going to look at marketing starting probably next year. Back to all those bridal people. uh it is now time to upgrade that to a natural diamond

Guy:
yes is there is there certain type of uh certain uh strategy or um i hate to call it a pitch but what what do you tell uh someone starts shopping for a diamond why And I'm not sure if I'm saying this right, why they should choose an earthmine diamond over lab-grown. Or maybe you don't have that conversation. You just talk about earthmine. How do you handle it? [ERIC] We're big on emotional selling. [GUY] Emotional, yeah. And we've even had training on emotional selling. So part of the question is, how much emotion do you want to express with this gift? And it's going to be adequate to do that. My team are passionate. Diamonds are over a billion years old. You didn't go on Amazon and find your girlfriend. It took a long time. It's a natural one. It's kind of worked more edgy. Where I have understood today now, more so than the few years ago when it started, it's just that price-conscious consumer. A good mounting today is almost $3,000 to $5,000. They only had $5,000. So, okay, fine. We'll put a lab in the center. We know in the back of our minds we'll at some time look down the road. Maybe they want to change that over to a natural diamond. I remember in my early days, the engagement ring was a third of a carat. To me, nothing's changed. That younger person coming in today, even though they earn a lot more money, they're still broke because everything else costs money. So we understood that. it's almost nobody raises a concern now well you know the natural diamond industry is terrible for the world and all that we don't we had all those brochures initially we don't even go down that road at all it's not needed they just don't have the money Like, fine, let's get you something you're going to love for many, many years.

Guy:
Fantastic. Amazing. And, you know, I think a lot of jewelry stores sometimes sell themselves short or leave money on the table because they go right for the low price and so forth when, you know, it doesn't take much more to sell an earthmine diamond. Obviously, it costs a lot more, but when you're talking about emotion and the value long-term and so forth, there really isn't a huge argument that has to be made. But some people just have that budget, and of course, like you said, you won't let them walk out the door. You'll sell them a diamond. And that's good. That's great. So that's awesome to hear. And I think a lot of drillers have the same mindset that you do. And yeah, that's fantastic. You mentioned something earlier that you joined IJO and then you got training and then you got coach and everything. How important was it for your business growth and development? to be part of that buying group IJO

Eric:
uh very much it was the second business the second best business decision i ever made because now i have i have other other sources of information i can go to right the ijo is a well-run organization um we have you know our own chat channel every day to work on issues source stuff but yeah and and you're more willing to share what's going on because obviously you know you're non-competitive with other jewelers. So just that knowledge base alone. And there are times I've been maybe in Antwerp on a diamond buying trip, but picked up an idea that made me more money when I got back home than I did on the diamonds I got in Antwerp. So it's that networking with other like-minded individuals who have the same mindset to you. It's like, hey, well, how did you achieve that? And you just learn from them.

Guy:
Yeah,absolutely. I think the jewelry community as a whole is a great community and very willing to share. Obviously, you're not telling your competitors around the neighborhood what you're doing and how you're doing it, but that's why the networks like IJO are great and work well. um and um you know for for sharing contributing you know even you know having friends in the industry that have same issues challenges goals that you may have and so so that that's amazing and um i i think anybody any jeweler out there that's um that's you know facing challenges and not sure if they're doing the right things I think looking into the buying groups, IJO or others, could be very helpful to you for education, support, and more.

Eric:
Yes, I would highly recommend it just because we're not island. And for whatever reason, I have numerous car dealers that are guests of our store. They all get together every once in a while and chat. Even though they'll go tooth and nail at it on their advertising. And I tried doing that with some of the jewelers in our area about 20 years ago. It's like, no, not interested. It's like, well, the car dealers do it. They're just as competitive as we are. Why don't we just all sit down and say, what are the problems you're facing? You know, that type of thing. And for some reason, yes, we're kind of reluctant. We think everybody's going to steal everybody's business. Like, you know, your guests are walking around anyway to different jewelry stores. It's your sales team that will. make the whole difference whether you make any money or not. But why not get together once in a while and have a breakfast or something and say, yeah, you know, this gold stuff right now is driving us crazy or whatever. And what works?

Guy:
Absolutely. Absolutely. And that really makes sense. And, you know, to be a good community member, not just in the jewelry community, but also your local community. I think that that's fantastic. Not everybody wants to reciprocate and do the same thing. You can't control what others do, but at least you have class and style that you go out there and make that offer. So that's great of You. It looks like you guys have been around for a while, over 50 years now. Do you see Eric J. Loch, Diamond Jewelers, continuing on for another 50 years or so?

Eric:
I would hope so. Myself, personally, yes. I'm almost like semi-retired. My team runs things. I'm not married to the business, so I'd like to get those 50 years of things I've given up back. Probably in the next several years, I will be stepping aside. How the business continues, we have some things that we've been discussing and some options on the table. If it does, great, but it's one of those I've given my life to it, so it's not the biggest thing to me. even one person i've chatted with like well if you were to think about buying it feel free to change the name i'm not married to the name either yes we've been in the community this long but look we're just we're a business entity and right if you can make a go of it as it is go for it um so uh yes i sometimes wonder when i stand at the door it's like what does my last day look like when i walk out the door you know type of thing so if it's there great if it's not I've given it my all for since 1972. So it's fine.

Guy:
Amazing. I could do that math because that's the year I was born. So congratulations. Congratulations on 54 years of… know, creating an amazing business and an amazing team. And even, I mean, if anybody would like to take a look, they have, your business has amazing reviews, five stars, tons, I think 1,700. So congratulations on creating. Just an amazing business, business that you do well with, that you are committed to, but not married to because you have work-life balance. You got a great team that's supporting you. You're driving, you're captaining the ship, but it's not your whole life. And that's amazing. Congratulations on that. Boy, one day I look forward to the same, you know, and I hope. I know a lot of people, you know, they love being jewelers, but it's a business, obviously. It's a business that they're doing for their career and make money and possibly for their family. But you have to, I guess everybody's goals are different, right? Everybody's dreams and goals and objectives are all different, but there's many people out there that want to do what you have done. Creating an amazing business and team.

Eric:
Well, that's one of the things I learned early on. I taught myself all the bench work and did it all. [GUY] There you go.

Eric:
My first couple of years, December, were 120-hour weeks. But I also then realized I can't run my company if I'm running the gold bench. [GUY] Exactly. And at one time,

Eric:
I had two and three goldsmiths working for me. And I was just bankrupting the company. So, again, I had to grab that bull by the horns and just say, this isn't working. We've got to make a change. Right. farmed out all our work ever since. And my business didn't deteriorate. We continue to grow. Yes, every once in a while I might still sit down and set a diamond or something, but other than that, it's like… nope, we've got a great team at Goldsmiths, and that's their job. And it didn't destroy my business.

Guy:
Right. Beautiful. Well, amazing. Thank you so much for speaking to me and sharing all your wisdom and all the experience that you've learned throughout the, you know, 50-plus years. So really appreciate you joining us. I hope to run into you at the, you know, maybe future IJO show or somewhere. [ERIC] Absolutely. Yeah, congratulations. [GUY] Thanks so much. And everybody listening, please give Eric and Eric J. Loch Diamond Jewelers lots of love. Check out their website. Check out their social media. You know, if you have ever worked with Eric and his team, you know, give them a great review because I'm sure they've given you amazing service. Amazing product. So congratulations on everything again. And thank you so much Eric, for joining us.

Eric:
And thank you. And thank the time for just the opportunity to chat. [ERIC] I'm also very big on giving back to people as well. [GUY] Oh, perfect. [ERIC] To help somebody. Awesome. That makes my day.

Guy:
I'm sure all the wisdom and experience and help that you've provided is definitely going to be helpful. So thank you so much. And everyone listening, thank you for listening and checking out Eric and Southern Jewry News, the Pearls of Wisdom Jewry podcast. We'll catch you on the next one. Thank you. Thanks, everyone.

Outro:
Thank you for watching another episode of the Pearls of Wisdom Jewry podcast. We'll catch you on the next one. Take care.