E.E. Robbins - The Engagement Ring Store - Our Blog

Mokume What?

When a lot people think of a jeweler, they imagine a guy in a shiny suit wearing a big diamond pinky ring. However, none of us guys at E.E. Robbins would even come close to that description, least of all me. In fact, most of the time, you’ll find me wearing my jeans (and they’re not even designer jeans), my Ecco loafers (the most comfortable shoes on the planet) and a loose, comfortable shirt (all of which were probably purchased from Nordstrom). However, I do love my wedding band. It’s very subtle, extremely unique and ergonomically designed, not to mention very cool.

My band is made from an ancient gold-smithing technique called Mokume-Gane by one, or rather two, of our favorite designers, Michael Parrish and Daniel Jenkins, two goldsmiths from the appropriately named town of Cool, California.

So what is Mokume-Gane? First of all, it’s pronounced (moh’coo-may gah-nay), which is the art of fusing layers of precious metals together to form a single piece with unique markings represented by the different colors of the metals used. Mokume Gane was first developed in feudal Japan in the 17th century by Denbei Shoami to make Japanese samurai swords. These swords were sold back then for the equivalent of a king’s ransom and the ancient technique of making them remained a closely guarded secret. Then in the 1970’s, a few modern artisans studied with the great metal-smiths in Japan and brought this ancient art to the west where today only a handful of goldsmiths are able to produce this magnificent metal art. Michael Parrish and Daniel Jenkins’ company, Michael Daniels, has developed a proprietary combination of heat, pressure, forging and carving to produce their wedding bands and more.

You can read more about Mokume Gane and Michael Daniels by visiting www.mdmokume.com or visiting one of our stores and seeing these unique wedding bands for yourself. If you’re anything like me, and you like cool but subtle stuff, wedding bands just don’t get any cooler than these.

Thank God for Mark Schneider

Mark Schneider has won more design awards than any other jewelry designer in modern history. In fact, the long list of prestigious jewelry design awards that he has won just got that much longer after winning several more honors for his bridal collection this past spring. He is one of the few jewelry Designers in the entire world to have his works exhibited in the Smithsonian Institute.

We are very proud to be among a handful of exclusive stores in the country to represent his beautiful ring line. However, it is not his unrivaled design talent or his beautiful ring creations that are the key reason why we are so grateful to feature Mark’s prestigious line of engagement and wedding rings.

The overwhelming reason we are so proud to represent his line is because Mark Schneider is simply one of the nicest people you will ever meet. He comes up to visit our stores several times a year and he knows most of our associates by name. He appreciates each and every one of our associates. He brings donuts or bagels in the mornings when he visits us. He asks about our families and shows that he truly cares about our company’s best interests, our associates and our customers. He is kind, sincere, thoughtful, humble and honest. He encompasses not only what we look for in a vendor, but the qualities you want in a close friend. I wish every one of our vendors could be like Mark Schneider. Our work would be so much more enjoyable if everyone was able to conduct their business like Mark, his wonderful wife Nancy and his caring and attentive staff.

While we do have a handful of other vendors that we love and appreciate working with; unfortunately I have to say that based on our experience, most jewelry manufacturers and Designers have proven to be the diametric opposite of Mark. All of these Manufacturers are naturally hungry for your business, but through the years, we’ve sadly learned that when it comes right down to it, most don’t really care about our company, our associates or our clients. What the majority of them seem to care about is how much you buy from them and how quickly you pay your bills. I guess this is the sad reality of the business world; maybe even the world in general. However, since I admittedly tend to be an idealist, I find this reality disturbing.

We at E.E. Robbins very much believe that a business relationship, in order to be successful, needs to be based on mutual trust and respect. A relationship where each party truly wants the other to be successful and realizes that in order to do this, both must understand and care about the others wants and needs. Just like a successful marriage, it’s best if we share common goals and views of how we want to the world to be. I guess it comes down to doing business with people who live by the Golden Rule; who believe in treating others just as we ourselves want to be treated. While this unwritten rule sure seems simple enough and most everyone talks the talk; unfortunately we have found vendors like Mark Schneider to be very rare indeed.

If you like believe in karma as we do and you are looking for a unique and beautiful engagement or wedding ring, you just can’t do better than a ring from Mark Schneider to symbolize your lifelong commitment to each other. In any case, we remain thankful that we have the privilege of doing business with people like Mark Schneider.

Symbols of our City

I can still remember going to the 1962 World’s Fair as a little tyke. (I guess that tells you I’m now an ol’ codger). I still remember being blown away by the height and majesty of the Space Needle, originally built for the World’s Fair. Ever since then, the Needle has served as the worldwide symbol of our city. In fact, there are probably just a handful of iconic symbols on the entire planet that identify a city as well as our own Space Needle does ours.

It’s difficult to even imagine Seattle without the Space Needle. Every time I pass by it, whether under its shadow or viewing it from a distance, I still get a thrill from seeing it. We have some other wonderful symbols here that serve as reminders of how fortunate we are to live in such an amazing place. Pike Place Market is known around the world as a must-see place to visit while here and the outdoor sign is recognized all over the world. Seeing the ferry boats traveling across Puget Sound never fails to thrill me as does crossing the 520 bridge and looking over at the quaint houseboats on Lake Union. Of course, if we include one of nature’s creations, then nothing even comes close to Mt. Rainier as a symbol of our region.

There is, however, one other great symbol of our region that we have let get away. An icon that I find to be totally unique and impressive. It saddens me that our city didn’t embrace it. If I had Bill Gates or Howard Schultz like money, I would have found a way to help fund the restoration of this metallic relic of the past. I’m speaking of the Kalakala, the ultra cool ferry billed as “the world’s first streamlined vessel”.

Built back in 1935, the Kalakala was used off and on in our ferry system and was even voted the second biggest attraction of the World’s Fair after the Space Needle.

If you haven’t seen the Kalakala or don’t know much about it, I’d encourage you to check it out at www.kalakala.org

Steve Rodriques has been working for many years to have this amazing ship restored to its original magnificence. If after checking it out, you agree that the Kalakala should not be lost to us, you can even help save this incredible vessel.

What to do?

I never like to talk about our competitors in a negative way and I doubt you’ve ever heard me do so in our radio ads. However, there is also a part of me that believes people have a right to know certain key facts about the products and companies that they are considering in their shopping quest. If we don’t at least inform customers about some of these potential problems, how else will they know? We can be sure that these companies won’t be volunteering information that they don’t want the public to know about.

Do we keep our mouths shut in the interest of never besmirching our so-called competition or is our allegiance to the customer who needs to know important facts that could greatly impact their potential purchase?

For example, do we inform people to be careful when considering a highly advertised Designer line? We carried a well known Designer line for several years, but we found that while they do a great job in marketing their line and building brand name awareness; they didn’t seem to put the same amount of effort in making sure that they produce a quality product. Even worse, they don’t even seem to care about this critical part of their business. So we felt we had no choice but to drop the line even though it is one of the most well known designer bridal lines around.

There was one series of ring styles that this manufacturer came out with that became especially popular. However, every store that carried these attractive designs had constant quality problems with these rings. The dainty shanks on these rings would invariably break and diamonds would often fall out within weeks or months of purchase. However, this manufacturer, instead of pulling these ring styles from their line or re-making them to resolve the quality issues, just continued to sell them. They even had the audacity to bill the store an excessive charge to have the faulty merchandise that they had originally manufactured repaired. Most stores would then in turn charge the customer for these costly repairs.

I find this especially disturbing because the company knowingly continued to manufacture these defective rings even though they knew these were someone’s engagement or wedding rings; the ring that symbolizes their love and commitment to each other. Although we obviously had no choice but to drop this popular line, customers still come in asking for this Designer brand due to this company’s heavy national magazine advertising. And I’m sure many continue to buy the questionable product made by this heartless but well known company.

Don’t customers have a right to know such vital information before they make such an important purchase? What happens if the customer falls prey to this company’s marketing prowess and they end up buying one of their rings only to have their cherished ring fall apart? Aren’t we a bit guilty of not protecting our customers if we don’t at least warn them?

Another example of this is in regards to a famous jewelry store chain that often touts their lifetime warranty in their radio ads, but naturally, they don’t bother to mention to their customers that they are currently mired in Chapter Eleven bankruptcy? What good will a lifetime warranty do their customers if this company is unable to successfully emerge from their Chapter Eleven problems and they end up going out of business? This is obviously vital information to know if one is considering an engagement or wedding ring and a lifetime warranty is an important part of their purchasing decision.

Where is our allegiance? Should we remain silent and focus on being a so-called “stand-up” company that never “knocks the competition” or do we instead inform customers about certain issues and potential problems that they need to be aware of when they are shopping for their most important engagement or wedding ring?

Under no circumstances, would I feel comfortable using a competitors name in a radio ad or publicly trying to negatively slur their name and reputation. The greater question is, do we inform customers that are shopping at our stores for engagement, wedding rings and/or diamonds of potential things to look out for or do we take the so-called “high road” and keep our mouths shut and if the customer decides to keep looking, let these customers do their own due diligence? In other words, caveat emptor - let the buyer beware?

What do you think? I’ve often struggled with this dilemma and would love to get your opinion. Send me an e-mail and tell me what you think is the right thing to do? I look forward to hearing from you.

You can reach me at emerson@eerobbins.com

Thank you for reading my blog.

Give me a break! An insider's look at sales and discounts

On sale now! Everything in the store 50%, 60%, 70% Off!
Mother’s Day Sale, Pre-Christmas Sale, Christmas Sale, After Christmas Sale, Christmas in July Sale, Presidents Day Sale, Spring Sale, Summer Sale, Fall Sale, Back to School Sale, Easter Sale, St. Patrick’s Day Sale, Groundhog Day Sale, Millard Fillmore Birthday Sale…

How many names and reasons for sales can you name? I’ll bet a lot.

Everywhere you look today there seems to be a sale going on. The word “sale” has become one of those magic words in the shopping vocabulary right up there with “free”. But does it really make sense? More often than not, an overemphasis on sales is no more a substitute for a lack of quality or not having the right merchandise in the first place, so the company is forced to move less desirable merchandise.

A company that has sales or discounts has to work on a higher mark-up to begin with to allow for discounting. If a company discounts it’s prices, whether it’s for one sale or one day, they have to at some point make up for that loss of business another time. Every business has a target profit that they need in order to stay in business... it's Business 101. Almost everyone understands and recognizes this truth.

There are several different approaches to pricing. One is that a store marks up their merchandise to allow for sales or discounts. Another is that a store prices their merchandise as low as possible and sells that merchandise at the same low price every day.

I would personally be especially wary of jewelry stores that hold sales constantly or throw out easy discounts. One has to question that if they can give 40, 50, 60 and 70% off, what is their mark-up to begin with? Most importantly, ask yourself, what is more critical than trust and integrity in choosing a store?

After all, most people aren’t usually experts on diamonds, gold and platinum rings, etc., so they should seriously consider buying from a store that they can trust. Stores that discount and that are constantly having “sales” are, in essence, often trying to deceive people with their pricing. Can they be trusted to deliver the same quality that they are representing if they are trying to fool customers with deceptive pricing and sales?

Another consideration is that when most stores have big sales, they often times put away their best selling merchandise in the back and instead offer up only their slow moving merchandise. And in fact, for many sales, including but not limited to “going out of business” sales, outside companies bring in merchandise that has not sold at other stores around the country to help fill the cases. So you are not usually getting the most desirable merchandise at these sale prices.

Quite often customers will also ask about a discount and many more who don’t ask will wonder about a discount, so it’s important that I explain the reasons that we at E.E. Robbins don’t believe in discounting.

To begin with, is it really fair that the better negotiator gets a better price than someone else?

Is it right, for example, that a school teacher or a social worker, who may have devoted his or her life to better our society and struggles to exist on a meager salary should have to pay a higher price than for example, an attorney who makes a salary five or ten times that of the school teacher and happens to be an expert negotiator? Or fair that a store offers a sale price one day, but cannot offer that price on the day that may be best for you to buy? We don’t think so.

At E.E. Robbins we also believe that because we are selling engagement and wedding rings, i.e. rings that represent one’s commitment of love to each other, that these symbols should not be tainted with the distasteful practice of having to haggle over price. We all would love to own a new car, but yet most of us hate shopping for a car because of all the “sales games” that one often has to go through to buy one.

Buying an engagement or wedding ring should be one of the most exciting experiences of one’s life, an experience that’s informative, enjoyable and romantic. Haggling would instead turn this experience into an adversarial and combative struggle.

At E.E. Robbins, we avoid sales and bogus discounts. We offer up our fine quality products at very competitive prices and don’t try to entice customers with sales, gimmicky offers and other questionable promotions.

We believe that everyone is entitled to the same low price everyday of the year, no matter whom you are, and no matter when you’re ready to buy.

At E.E. Robbins, our priority is offering the finest quality engagement and wedding rings possible at a very fair value, and warm and truly caring service to help enhance the shopping experience. We treat our customers just like we want to be treated when we go shopping. We think this is the best way to do business. I hope you agree.

Emerson Robbins

Be wary and wise

When you purchase a diamond engagement ring, you are connecting with the company that you’re buying from for life. I say this because an engagement ring requires cleaning and inspections every so often to keep your diamond safe and your ring looking its best.

So you want to be sure that the company you buy from is going to be there for you down the line. Unfortunately, there are a few misleading practices in the jewelry industry that are fairly commonplace, so you’ll need to be careful when you purchase from many jewelry companies. The following are a few tips to keep you safe.

First off, it is really important that you have complete protection for your purchase. You likely have spent thousands of dollars or more on the ring(s) so it is very important that you have adequate insurance coverage from a respected and well rated insurance company.

Many jewelry companies including most regional and national chains will offer an enticing free lifetime diamond and/or jewelry guarantee. Some companies even try to sell you their Warranty for several hundred dollars or more. However, the problem with these warranties is that they lead you to the false impression that you are fully covered. The reality is that the number one most likely issue you will face in the future is the loss of the ring. Loss accounts for the vast majority of all jewelry insurance claims. Diamonds can crack and they can fall out of the mounting. However, these are not common occurrences. Much more common is mysterious disappearance where he or she simply misplaces the ring. And I doubt you’ll find any jewelry company warranty that will replace a lost ring for free.

The next most likely occurrence and reason for a jewelry insurance claim is that of burglary or theft. These are also not covered by any free warranties given out by jewelry companies. Thus, it is vital that you obtain an insurance policy for your cherished diamonds and jewelry. Chances are that you might not be covered under your basic homeowner’s policy. I thought the same thing until I found out last year, that for the past ten years or more, my wife’s diamond engagement ring was not covered under our homeowners and it turns out that her diamond engagement ring has been at risk all this time. When you have the proper jewelry specific insurance policy, you’ll not only be fully covered, but you’ll also have little need for one of these misleading lifetime warranties. They may sound great, but may have you believing that you don’t need to have insurance for your ring and/or diamond. These insurance premiums for jewelry are usually quite affordable and give you excellent protection for loss, for damage to your ring or diamond and most other possible. Where your jewelry company’s warranty can come in handy is with the free cleanings and inspections. Some company’s warranties will cover minor repairs and maintenance at no cost, which can save you money over the life of your ring.

Another very important point to consider, especially in today’s challenging times, is how long your jewelry company will be around. You may want to make sure that they are not already in Chapter Eleven or some other form of impending bankruptcy. This is unfortunately becoming quite common in the jewelry industry just as it is in many other industries. One major jewelry company with multiple locations here in the greater Seattle area just went out of business and another well known company is in Chapter Eleven as you read this, with more on the brink. The bottom line is that you want to think about the company you’re buying your diamond jewelry from. Are they going to be there for you after the sale? Do they stand behind their products? Is theirs a solid business that will still be around in the years to come? One thing I’ve learned, is that you find out what kind of company you are doing business with, not when you are buying the product, but when you have a problem.

Hopefully, wherever you decide to spend your hard-earned money, you’ll choose wisely.

Speedboats and Freighters

During the course of my business career, I previously co-founded a company which became a fairly large national company before opening E.E. Robbins, a relatively small company.

The company I co-founded, Robbins Bros., became the world’s biggest Engagement Ring Store chain with stores around the country. Along the way, I learned that both big and small companies each have their advantages. However, for me there is no question which I prefer being a part of.

I knew when I first founded E.E. Robbins that I would have no desire whatsoever to expand outside of Western Washington. We are that rare company that has no desire to become a national chain. I like knowing all of our associates and being able to visit each of our stores in a single day’s time. I learned that I not only like the flexibility of being able to make changes quickly; I have found it essential to my impatience as an entrepreneur. In times like these, where technology seems to be moving at the speed of light, it definitely helps to be able to make changes within days or weeks rather than months or years.

I liken owning a small company to being at the steering wheel of a speed boat zipping along at 40 mph versus being in a humongous sized freighter moving at a snail’s pace. In the speedboat, we say, “hey, let’s go that way” and all it takes is a sharp turn of the wheel and we’re instantly on our way in a whole different direction.

Whereas on the freighter, the Captain issues the order to change directions and the order goes down the rank from one station to another until many moments later, the big ship turns a barely noticeable ten degrees. By the way, isn’t that why the Titanic hit an iceberg and sunk?

One major example of rapid changes that we at E.E. Robbins have made is in our product lines. Over the past year or so, we have almost completely revamped our merchandising model. We have gone from carrying mostly high end national brand Designer lines that sold well in the pre-recession “gravy” years to designing and manufacturing the majority of our rings.

Why did we make this change? Mostly because our customers voted for it by wanting more value. Most national Designers lines do a huge amount of national advertising in order to promote their brand to the public and have their brand name known. The more advertising they do, the more they have to charge for their product. So these Designer rings often end up costing anywhere from twenty to fifty percent more than they would if we manufactured these same rings ourselves. The more well known a Designer line is, chances are the more it costs.

In times like this, most people refuse to pay more for a product than is necessary, and rightly so. Therefore we decided to cut out the middleman mark-up and design and manufacture many, if not most of our own rings. We still very much value our relationship with some of our smaller boutique Designers who still offer both exclusivity as well as competitive pricing. However, we no longer wanted to be associated with the huge national designers that believe that the prestige of their brand entitles them to charge excessive prices for their rings.

In addition, we wanted to take advantage of one of our greatest strengths, which is our own creativity and the understanding of what our engagement and wedding ring customers want. A national Designer or manufacture has to design styles that work in every city and state in the country, thus many compromises in styling have to be made. While we as a local family owned company can design and manufacture for our own Western Washington customers.

Not only has it been a blast designing and manufacturing these unique rings, our customers very much appreciate both the exclusive styling of our rings and the better values that we can now offer. As a small company, we have been able to respond at lightning speed to this new economy. Were we a big chain, this transition may have taken many years. The end result is lower prices for our customers, faster delivery and a much more exclusive product. Not to mention that we have more control over the product since we handle these rings from their inception to their final creation.

There are numerous changes that we have made just this past year alone and in every facet of our business. We have been able to make these changes quickly because we aren’t some huge company that has to first work everything out in endless and lengthy committee meetings or have changes approved by a Board of Directors before moving forward at a snail’s pace. Being a small local company, I can and do personally answer customer e-mails or address a problem within hours of hearing about it so that our clients can receive the most responsive and attentive service possible. If you’re still not convinced, try reaching the CEO of one of our national competitors either on the phone or by e-mail and then send me an e-mail at emerson@eerobbins.com. You’ll very quickly see the difference for yourself.

There are so many advantages to being small. While it’s true I’ll never have the coin of a Howard Schultz or Warren Buffett owning a small company, that suits me just fine. Maybe you’ll agree that being at the wheel of the nimble speedboat versus trying to captain a huge lumbering ship definitely has its advantages.

The Wild West

I look at blogs a bit like the old Wild West of the past century. I’m sure you’ve seen many of the same movies I have where gunslingers would commonly gun down each other in the dusty streets of Laredo, Tombstone or other untamed western towns.

In a way, the worldwide web is not much different except people have traded in their six shooters for keyboards. People readily post blogs that shoot down another’s reputation, without seemingly giving it a second thought. While this obviously isn’t as cold blooded as shooting down someone with a gun, it can nevertheless be very damaging.

In a way, it’s almost as if they shot the person in the back and the victim never even had a chance to see the “killer” coming. Similarly, the blogger can post whatever mean-spirited and even untrue statement they want and do it anonymously and without consequence. If this were a newspaper, they could easily be sued for slander. But on the worldwide web, anyone and anything seems to be fair game. It often doesn’t matter if there is even a shred of truth. If you write it, some people will believe it. Many believe anything they see or read on the web as if it came from the ultimate authority on the subject.

Last year, the company that my brother and I co-founded, Robbins Bros., World’s Biggest Engagement Ring Stores was forced into Chapter Eleven bankruptcy protection. Other than being in the Robbins Bros. radio ads, I had not been actively involved in Robbins Bros. for over ten years. Way back in 1999, my brother, Steve, wanted to go national and I had no interest in doing so, so I sold my partnership interest to him. Then years later, my brother in turn sold a large interest to an outside investment firm, and Robbins Bros. proceeded to pursue an aggressive national expansion plan.

Unfortunately, like many other businesses found out, timing is everything and when the economy went south, the company eventually was forced into Chapter Eleven. Robbins Brothers has now since emerged from this, but my brother is now completely out of the business. During this difficult time, I had the opportunity, from a distance, to read the hundreds of blog entries that were written about Robbins Bros. and about the brother whom I love and the many friends I still have at Robbins Brothers. As a somewhat knowledgeable bystander, I had the displeasure of reading many inaccurate and unkind statements which gave me a greater insight into the world of blogs and bloggers.

I’ve also read many blogs about other issues - politics, sports, even some about our own company, E.E. Robbins. So now I can say with some authority, that I just don’t get it. I am continually amazed when reading blogs at how mean people can be when posting comments and how unintelligent and/or poorly written many of the comments are. What is this phenomenon all about anyway? Why are so many people so mean-spirited, so filled with venomous rage? Is it because people can post their thoughts and feelings anonymously? Is it a result of people feeling powerless in their lives and wanting to lash out at someone else, knowing that in their anonymity, they can clearly get away with voicing whatever it is they want to write? Is this the same mentality that motivates people to watch Simon of American Idol publicly humiliate those less talented Idol contestants or the same reason that people go to a car race to see life threatening crashes?

Frankly, I don’t get it. While I don’t pretend to be kind in everything I say to others one hundred percent of the time, I at least try to be thoughtful and considerate. I try to think about another person’s feelings before saying or writing something negative or critical. Isn’t there a way to politely disagree with a statement or act without expressing it in such a hateful and hurtful way? A healthy and considerate disagreement that allows another to see your side of an argument can be highly productive and informative. However, for those who are not entirely sure of their subject matter, please consider this quote by Sam Rayburn, “No one has a finer command of language than the person who keeps his mouth shut”. And for those “blog assassins” who just thoughtlessly and viciously attack others, I’ll leave you with the words my Mom used to tell me and maybe what yours told you, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”

The Heart of Hiring

Coaching a soccer team is so much like running a company. I’m amazed at the similarities. Find talented people, provide them training, make sure they’re enjoying what they’re doing, have core values that are non-negotiable, motivate them, inspire them and lead them. It’s the same thing in a company; it’s just not with a soccer ball. Take hiring for example. The key is hiring the right people in the first place; matching the person to the job and the culture of the business.

At E.E. Robbins, the qualities we look for are the same qualities our customers look for. In the engagement ring business, you have to find people that truly and sincerely care about their customers. That is what our brand is built on. What we’ve discovered over the years is you cannot teach someone to have heart who doesn’t have heart. You cannot train someone to care who doesn’t care. Yes, you still have to train employees, but most of the training is product knowledge rather than how to be nice to people, because they already know how to be nice to people.

How do we discover these qualities in the folks we interview? We have two or three interviews, as well as written tests to measure a prospective employee’s ability to learn quickly. It’s both subjective and objective questions to discover their aptitudes and personality. And most of it is in the person-to-person type questions. You’ll ask them, what was their favorite job? You’ll ask them questions like what did you like about your previous job, what are your interests, what didn’t you like…? You just get a feeling of them as a person. You want to make sure that they’re right for the job for your sake and for theirs. It’s important, not only for our company —the amount of time, energy and money we spend on training someone—it’s also important for that person’s life. You want to make sure they’re in the right place.

We try to find the natural talents of potential employees. In their book, Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton share results from a research study aimed at understanding the basis for employee success in the workplace. The research indicates that employers should start with these two assumptions:

•   Each person’s talents are enduring and unique.
•   Each person’s greatest room for growth is in the areas of his or her greatest strength.

Strengths can be developed, refined. But they cannot be taught. We look for the strengths that best match our needs…and for good reason.
The cost of a wrong fit can be incredibly high, anywhere from one to five times annual salary. ADP even has a “bad hire calculator” to help figure out hiring risks.   These only take into account, things like advertising costs, the time involved in the interview process, productivity losses, training investment and relocation. Numbers alone don’t tell the complete story.

There are also opportunity costs as well for the employee. For example, while the employee is working in a job they’re not suited for, you’re going to cause them a lot of anxiety, a lot of questions of self-worth if they haven’t succeeded. There’s also going to be a stall in their game plan of life, finding the right career. In a sense they are on hold. I feel an obligation to make sure this doesn’t happen.

But I’m not going to tell you that we haven’t made a couple mistakes along the way, because we have. Nobody bats a thousand in hiring; whether you are hiring for the CIA or looking for a preschool teacher.

No matter which side of the hiring equation you’re on, look at the man in the mirror. Take personal responsibility. When I coach soccer I am sure tell my players, you can’t control the world, you can’t control everybody on your team, you can’t control the other team, you can’t control the ref. But you can control yourself.

Dedicated to Mr. Caris

I’m dedicating this article to Phil Caris, a man who taught me a great deal about business and more importantly about life. Mr. Caris, (as I always called him) passed away last month. In writing a condolence letter to his family, I couldn’t help but realize that the way he lived his life could teach us all a lot in these difficult times we’re facing.

Phil Caris first worked with my Dad at my Grandfather’s famous store –
Ben Tipp Diamonds on the corner of 3rd and Pine in downtown Seattle.
Ben Tipp was my Grandfather - my Mom’s Father. Working for Ben, I’m sure, was no picnic. Ben had a far-reaching reputation of being a very tough guy. Being the son-in-law, I’m pretty sure my Dad had it tougher than anyone.

However, from what I’ve been told, my Dad’s hard work ethic and integrity earned Ben’s respect and they ultimately struck a deal whereby my Dad after so many years would ultimately buy the store from Ben. However, after my Dad had worked in the business for approximately seven or eight years, my Grandmother passed away unexpectedly. Afterwards, Ben became quite despondent and within days sold his landmark store to Zales.

The following day, Grandpa Ben came over to our family’s house in Magnolia and shocked my parents with the disturbing news that he had sold the store. My Dad was crushed as he had been told that he was going to be able to purchase the store and he had worked extremely hard toward that goal. However, he soon recovered and subsequently decided it was time to move on. So the family packed up and moved to Southern California, where Dad would open his own store.

After searching for the right opportunity for almost a year, my Dad bought a store in Pasadena, CA from a gentleman named William Pitt.
I was only about four years old at the time, but I can still remember meeting Bill Pitt at our North Hollywood house.

Upon buying the store, the first person my Dad asked to join him in this new enterprise was Phil Caris. Mr. Caris and my Dad had worked together as sales associates for quite a few years at Ben Tipp Diamonds and over that time had earned each other’s friendship and respect. At first Mr. Caris (Phil) didn’t want to leave Seattle, but my Dad persisted and after a while, he persuaded Mr. Caris to move to Southern California with his young family and manage this new store.

From the time I was in grade school and on, I had to work in the family store every Christmas season after school got out and in later years every summer as well.

I sure didn’t want to be there, but I did get a great education by working in that store and I got to know Mr. Caris pretty well over the years. It was obvious that this affable man could sell ice to an Eskimo, but what was more obvious was that you could instantly see how much he was loved and respected by the associates that he managed as well as the thousands of customers that he helped over the years.

It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I found out more about Mr. Caris’s personal life. And it wasn’t from Mr. Caris that I learned it, but rather from my Dad. I knew Mr. Caris had a wife and three children because he’d occasionally talk about them with even more of a twinkle in those vivid blue eyes of his.

But my Dad told me the full story - how Mr. Caris had married the love of his life, a beautiful woman by the name of Rose. And how Rose, not long after giving birth to their third child was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Anyone who knows anything about MS, knows that this dreadful disease can cause the body to deteriorate over time until one can become totally incapacitated. This is what happened over the years to Rose Caris, the mother of his children and the love of his life.

Mr. Caris eventually had to hire a full-time nurse to care for Rose when he was at the store. Then when he returned home after a long day at work, Mr. Caris spent the remaining fifteen or more hours providing loving care for his invalid wife.

He would bathe her, turn her so that she wouldn’t develop bedsores, clean her, and feed her first by mouth and in later years, through a tube. One can only imagine how heart-breaking it was for Mr. Caris to hour by hour, day by day watch his beautiful Rose slowly lose control of her body until she could not even perform the most basic of human functions on her own.

Yet, every day that Mr. Caris worked in that store, over the forty-some years until he retired; you would never have known that Mr. Caris had a care in the world. Not even once did he ever complain about his life.
When he walked in that door first thing in the morning until he locked up the store and left in the evening, the man had a smile on his face and a new joke or a funny story to tell. And every remaining hour of his life was spent taking care of Rose until she finally passed on, just a year or two before Mr. Caris finally retired.

Mr. Phil Caris will forever be one of my heroes. A man who smiled and laughed, because he knew he had a job to do. And he would do that job as well as it could be done because he knew that was the only way in which he could provide the best possible care for his wife and three children.

There is no doubt that these are difficult times and they’ll likely get worse before they get better. We’re in the throes of the worst economy any of us have ever experienced. Some of us are making less money than we need to pay our bills. Many people have lost their jobs and many more will. Most of us have likely lost some or all of the money that we have invested or saved. Thousands of families are losing their homes.

However, what I might suggest that if we and the ones we love have their health, we truly can count ourselves fortunate. And to remember that whatever happens to us, feeling sorry for ourselves will only make matters worse.

There’s a saying that goes, “the optimist survives”. Mr. Caris never complained and never stopped smiling, even in the face of great tragedy. I’ll always be grateful that I had Mr. Caris in my life to remind me to keep smiling.

The Long Term Risks of Short Term Thinking

I absolutely loved and respected my father, not a day goes by when I don’t still miss him.

As a young boy, I had to work in the family business every summer and Christmas vacation - believe me it wasn’t by choice. There were many things that I saw while working in my Dad’s jewelry store that I didn’t agree with. One of the main things was that the store had many customers who could barely afford to clothe and feed their families – yet, we were supposed to sell them jewelry and get them to make payments at high interest rates…

As soon as they approached their final payment, the goal was—they had these little payment books—to try to sell them something else to keep them “on the books”, so to speak. I was never successful as a sales person in that store because I didn’t believe in it. I felt people should be spending their money in other ways.

Those payment books are, in many ways, a dinosaur in today’s world. Businesses often extend credit to their customers. Used carefully, credit can benefit both the consumer and the business. However, done without regard to the customer’s financial health, it poses serious risks to the customer, and ultimately the business.

A salesperson with strong sales incentives as their primary focus, may pressure a customer to spend more than he or she can really afford. Today, with access to a customer’s credit report, the salesperson can spread the purchase across several credit cards to maximize a sale. This additional debt can put the customer in financial danger. Although the business has met a short-term sales goal, it’s been at the expense of a customer now too in debt to make future purchases.

Another example of this short term thinking is the way credit card companies encourage students to take on debt they aren’t in a position to easily repay. Colleges and alumni groups sponsor these credit card companies onto campus, providing lists of student names, phone numbers and e-mail addresses for event marketing and telemarketing campaigns. The college collects hefty participation fees in exchange for their cooperation. Did you know that today the average college student graduates with $20,000 in debt?

Students get cards with the college logo or mascot and a teaser rate that quickly escalates to a much higher rate. One of my sons goes to college and he somehow was given a credit card in his name. I’m not sure how, as he doesn’t have a full-time job and cannot really afford to make payments. Now if a college student has a job, no problem. Let them have a credit card just like everyone else. The question is how do you give a credit card to someone who isn’t working?

Anybody who has been a parent knows there are things that our parents would do to us when we made mistakes. The message is, “Here’s what happening to you – here’s why it’s happening, take responsibility – learn from it. When your earning power is bigger and you have the ability to get even more credit, you’ll realize that credit is a two edged sword. One side is dull and it’s fine, touch it. The other side will cut you wide open.”

Lending and borrowing without thinking about the long-term consequences, affects our entire economy. The current crisis in the U.S. financial markets is the result of irresponsible lending to service a need for short-term growth in profits. Consumer savings are down, household debt is at historically high levels and personal income has actually declined (when adjusted for inflation) during the last seven years. When people are that choked with debt, their ability to purchase goods and services is severely limited.

The wise use of credit is a mutual responsibility. In the long run, a stronger customer makes a more prosperous and sustainable business.

The Conflict over Conflict Diamonds

As a businessperson, you always worry about how customers might react to news in the media that has a direct bearing on the products you sell. However, in some cases silence may be an indication your customer has assumed the worst. One such example is conflict or "blood" diamonds.

A few years ago, a controversy erupted over conflict diamonds, fueled in part by a movie called Blood Diamond starring Leonardo diCaprio The story was about diamonds sold to diamond merchants by rebel groups in Africa to pay for arms. The UN officially defines conflict diamonds as "...diamonds that originate from areas controlled by forces or factions opposed to legitimate and internationally recognized governments, and are used to fund military action in opposition to those governments, or in contravention of the decisions of the Security Council." While conflict diamonds never represented more than about 4% of the diamond trade, retail customers were rightly concerned that their purchases might be funding atrocities taking place in war torn countries. It concerned me too.

At E.E. Robbins, we had serious discussions with our primary vendors asking: "how do you know", "how can you tell", "how can you be sure." Those kinds of questions. It was important that we were not carrying or selling any conflict diamonds and contributing to something so horrible.

Diamond Trading Company (formerly known as DeBeers, the diamond cartel, took immediate action attempting to remove these diamonds from the market and provide assurances that customers would not be sold these diamonds. First, it worked closely with the United Nations, governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to create the Kimberley Process Certification System This system was formally adopted in 2003 and guards against conflict diamonds entering the legitimate diamond supply chain. Seventy-four countries have now incorporated the process into their national law. The diamond industry also adopted a voluntary System of Warranties to assure consumers that their diamonds are from sources free of conflict. We issue a Guarantee Care with every diamond and actually laser inscribe on the girdle of each diamond a Conflict Free Guarantee so our customers could be sure that they are not in any way contributing to the atrocities committed by these rebels. We chose to be among the first in our industry to guarantee this for our customers. Today, conflict diamonds are estimated to be less than one-half of 1% of the diamond trade and tremendous progress has been made in countries like Botswana.

A crisis like conflict diamonds can happen to any industry. Recently, the pet food industry was rocked by reports that tainted pet food imported from China had caused the death of thousands of animals in the United States. The pet food was manufactured in China, but marketed under familiar U.S. brand names. The industry, at first in denial, quickly took action to discover the problem in the manufacturing process. Then they made changes in the supply chain to eliminate the problem. The broken trust with American pet owners may take longer to repair.

Situations like this allow us to examine our beliefs and make a commitment to follow our moral compass. I think about people before I think about profits. I think there is a right and a wrong. If it was critical to our business, and had not been handled, I wouldn't be in this business. However, we are also customers. And we have to ask ourselves: would we want to do business with companies that wouldn't do what is right for our communities and us?

Mission Statements

A lot of companies believe in mission statements. We don’t happen to be one of them. It’s not that I’m opposed to mission statements, but for me, a mission statement is kind of like trying to describe why I love my wife. I can’t really sum that up in one paragraph. It’s pretty much the same with trying to put into a capsule sentence or two what E.E. Robbins is all about. Sure, we’re about engagement and wedding rings, but that in itself would be way too limiting.
The following are some of our core philosophies, but I sure haven’t been able to narrow them down into one short paragraph.

Getting engaged is one of the happiest times in a person’s life.
The shopping experience should add to these wonderful memories-to-be.
We think the experience should always be relaxing, informative and fun!

Invest in your customers. Take the time to educate them about your products and give them the knowledge to confidently buy their engagement and wedding rings. If you have the best quality, styling, etc. and price your products fairly and affordably, then your customers will see that and you’ll earn their business. If you don’t, you don’t deserve their business. Your customers should be the ones designing your business. After all, if they don’t appreciate how you do business, how can you possibly be successful? And if they love the way you do business, how can you possibly not be successful?

Never pressure your customers. I hate being pressured when I go shopping for something. So I encourage my staff to treat our customers how I would want to be treated when I go shopping?

Your associates are your public relations ambassadors. Their enthusiasm for your company and it’s products (or lack there-of) will determine how your customers perceive your company and your products. If they are not passionate about what you have to offer, then how can you expect your customers to be?

If you want your employees to care as much as you do, strive to make them part of the team. Our Managers have been given stock in our company. They are part owners. If I could figure out a way to make every long-term employee a part owner, I would.

Buy your diamonds direct from the source. This is why Brant and John (E.E. Robbins managers) travel to Ramat Gan, Israel four times per year to buy from one of the world’s top cutters. If you want average diamonds, buy your diamonds sight unseen or have average diamond buyers. Brant and John have been in the diamond business for a combined forty plus years. Their well honed eyes have been trained to cull out only the most brilliant and beautiful diamonds. This is why John and Brant hand-pick every single diamond that we carry. They go through thousands of diamond parcels representing many millions of dollars every time they travel overseas. For every diamond that we purchase, they have rejected many hundreds more. This may be one of our greatest advantages in business.
Our diamonds truly are world class!

A diamond represents your love and union. This important symbol should never be connected with anything that is not pure and eternal, which is why we have always made absolutely sure that our diamonds come from conflict-free sources.

An engagement ring is the most personal possession a woman will ever own and one she will wear more often and cherish more than any other. So make sure that your engagement rings are exclusive styles that she is not likely to see on another woman’s finger. This is why we work with smaller boutique designers rather than mass manufacturers that supply the national chains. We value our vendors relationships, they’re true partnerships. I believe, if you don’t care about their best interests, why should they care about yours?

Well, I know I’ve probably left out a lot and you’re probably tired of reading it. Maybe that’s why companies have mission statements - so their customer doesn’t have to read as much. Never-the-less, I still don’t know how to sum up our business in one paragraph. Maybe you have an idea on how to do this?
If so, I’d love to hear from you.
In any case, thanks for reading more about us.

A Bit Miffed!

I have to admit that I get bit miffed when I hear a certain national chain jewelry store owner constantly going on about how you won’t be pressured in his stores because “unlike other stores”, their sales people are not on commission.

The fact is, is that pressure doesn’t come from receiving commission or other incentives as much as it has to do with hiring the right people in the first place.

A perfect example of this is Nordstrom. Nordstrom is world famous for providing outstanding customer service and yet we all know that Nordstrom’s associates are paid in part on commission. Have you noticed that you rarely, if ever, get pressured at Nordstrom? I personally can attest to this, because I do most of my clothes and shoes shopping there. The associates at Nordstrom always seem to be educated about their product and do a great job of helping you find what you want. And I never feel pressured to buy. The reasons for this are that they hire outstanding people to begin with and then provide them with extensive customer service training. Nordstrom is a great model for any business that cares about offering the best possible customer service.

When I shop at many other stores; including those that don’t offer their associates any incentives, I’m usually disappointed with how difficult it is to get someone to even help me. There is nothing more frustrating than store employees who just don’t care.

I’ve always believed that pressure comes from top down. If you hire nice people; people who truly care about helping others and then you make clear to them that your company culture is that customers should be listened to and should never ever feel pressured; guess what will happen? Your customers will never be pressured. Conversely, if you hire overly aggressive people, who only care about making a sale and you don’t pay them even a nickel in commission, I can pretty much guarantee you that customers will still be pressured.

I’ve never understood when we live in a capitalistic society why commission is a dirty word. Shouldn’t those who work harder and perform better make more money? Why would we not want to motivate and reward those who do a better job? If you don’t offer an incentive for your associates, then how can you expect people to work harder for their customers?

The ironic thing about this is that while this particular owner that initiated this conversation talks about their associates not being on commission; they do in fact, offer other sales driven incentives that have the same effect as paying commission. Add to that the tremendous pressure placed on their Managers and sales associates to perform, and the end result is customers often leave their store feeling pressured and their associates know all too well that these ads are not accurate.

At E.E. Robbins, I freely confess that we do pay our sales associates a sales incentive. We believe that by doing this, our customers are better served.
We also reward our associates for outstanding customer service as measured by their customers. We constantly ask our customers to fill out a “Tell Emerson” Questionnaire (I read every one of these every single month) and every month we reward those associates who receive a given amount of complimentary feedback from their customers. More importantly, if our customers ever do feel pressured; our associates know that they will be reprimanded. They also know if such customer pressure continues, that associate will very soon be looking for another job.

Most importantly, our company culture is built on simply treating others as we ourselves want to be treated. Our goal, even more than sales volume, is to offer our customers a shopping experience that is relaxing, informative and fun.

We feel if we do this, then the sales will usually follow. Maybe it’s part of the reason that E.E. Robbins not only sells more quality engagement and wedding rings than any other stores in the Northwest, but we have also won national awards for customer service as well as been voted “Best of Seattle” for the past three years running. If I could sum up our entire philosophy in just one quote, it would be this, “Be kind to others. If by doing so, it doesn’t fill your pocket book, it will fill your heart”

Doing Business Locally

This is that time of the year when politicians start slinging the mud at each other. If you’re like me, you probably don’t enjoy hearing them slam each other. It’d sure be a lot better if they just told us straight up how they stand on the issues. But that’s probably a bit like asking Donald Trump to be humble. It’s just not in their DNA.

However, it is important to understand the issues in order to make the right voting decisions.

I think it’s pretty much the same when you’re shopping for a diamond or ring. While I don’t want to ever say anything negative about our competitors; it is important that customers know the facts before making such an important decision as buying their engagement ring. We know we’re not the only good place to buy a diamond or ring from (although I do passionately believe we’re the best place).

In any case, one of the frustrating things for us is when we hear customers mistake us for a national chain or think that some of our competitors are local businesses—neither could be further from the truth. We’ve always been a local family owned business. In fact, my Grandfather, Ben Tipp owned the premier Diamond store in the Northwest back when Nordstrom was just a tiny shoe shop.

His three-story store was on the corner of 3rd and Pine in downtown Seattle. More on that story later, but the point is that I was born in Seattle and here I am today with our original store just a few blocks from my Grandfather’s famous store.

Another truth is that most of the other jewelry competitors that you often hear advertising on the radio aren’t local stores. Most of them in fact are huge national chains. One of the names you always hear radio ads for has stores all around the country and are headquartered in Colorado. Another big radio advertiser locally is owned by one of the biggest jewelry conglomerates in the world. They also own many of the mall stores that you see in most of the malls around the country. And another of the big chains that you often hear on the radio is owned by world famous billionaire, Warren Buffett.

Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with doing business with a national chain, but you do have the right to know who you’re doing business with. Some people prefer to do business with a small local company and some don’t really care. It’s a choice. I should know. Earlier in my career, I co-founded Robbins Bros., World’s Biggest Engagement Ring Store. Robbins Bros. became an almost overnight success, but after a number of years, I wanted out. I sold most of my partnership interest when my brother wanted to go national and I didn’t. I found that I just didn’t enjoy the bureaucracy that is an inherent part of an ever-expanding business.

Many customers write in our Questionnaires that they’d like it if E.E. Robbins opened more stores, but we’re one of the few businesses around that has no interest or intention in becoming a big chain. We know that it would change our business forever and that we couldn’t offer the same kind of buying experience to our clients. We just want to be the best that we can be, not the biggest.

Maybe you like doing business with a local family owned company like ours and maybe you don’t care or maybe you enjoy some of the advantages a big company can offer like, for example, locations nationwide in case you move around a lot. It’s your choice, but either way it’s good to know about the company you decide to do business with. If you’re not sure who the company is that you’re considering buying from, you may want to look on their web-site and see how many other locations they have and where they are based out of.

In any case, we’ll always be proud to be a Seattle company.

My recent trip to London

I just returned from London, after visiting with DeBeers (now officially known as the Diamond Trading Company or DTC for short). When I first entered the business some 30 years ago (yeah, I know I’m now officially considered an old codger); DeBeers had a virtual monopoly on diamonds. They dominated the world diamond mining and distribution, controlling over 85% of the world’s supply of diamonds. However, over the years, as governments became more sophisticated, DeBeers’ world changed. Governments were less willing to just hand their diamond resources over to DeBeers for the shorter end of the profits.

Thus, some of these diamond producing countries began to mine and distribute their diamonds on their own. Many of the countries elected to form partnerships with DeBeers (DTC), in order to take advantage of DeBeer’s knowledge of mining and distribution and still participate in a greater share of the profits.

The bottom line was that over time, DeBeers lost more and more control of the world’s supply of diamonds.

Now here it is 2007 and DTC readily admits that they only control about 40 to 45% of the world’s diamonds. We now also know that their diamond supply is more hand to mouth. In other words, they have to keep mining diamonds or their supply will run out. Thus because their supply of diamonds has shrunk, the DTC has had to keep cutting the number of companies (otherwise known as Siteholders) that they sell the rough diamonds to. And because profits have dropped, they have been forced to put more of the cost and responsibility of advertising diamonds, as they themselves cannot afford to keep doing this on a world-wide basis.

DTC even sold the rights to the name DeBeers to the luxury brand company, LMVH which owns Louis Vuitton, Moet & Chandon, Dom Perignon, Hennessy Cognac, Tag Heuer watches, Givenchy, Fendi and many other luxury brands. This company has opened DeBeers diamond stores around the world including London, Paris, Beverly Hills, New York and many more to come. These stores are not wholly owned by the DTC but their famous name allows them to play on the consumer’s awareness of the DeBeers brand.

In any case, the DTC people could not have been more gracious. We met with many of their top people and came away feeling that they are more socially conscious that many of us gave them credit for. Maybe it is for selfish reasons, but they are very aware that they must continue to link diamonds with love and positive emotions and thus do all they can to see to it that diamonds help the people who mine them, the people who cut them and the people who distribute them. They have gone to great lengths to shut down the flow of conflict diamonds.

I came away from the meeting with DTC more convinced of several factors. First of all, I am now convinced that diamonds are becoming increasingly harder to come by and that because of this rarity in supply, the cost of mining these rare miracles of nature will continue to increase as the supply of diamonds dwindles.

And I am further convinced that we at E.E. Robbins buy our diamonds from one of the finest cutters in the world and that our close relationship with these cutters, allows our local three-store operation to be as competitive in our buying as any store in the world. Like many other natural resources, although a diamond is forever, the world’s supply of diamonds are becoming ever more scarce.

Best of Seattle

I’ve always believed that when it comes to an area that I don’t have much expertise in (which includes a whole lot of areas); that it’s best to use references. I will try to do some research or even better yet, get recommendations from friends and other people that I respect. Every business always tells us how great they are, but the true test is how their clients feel about them.

Following that line of thinking, we’re especially proud to announce that E.E. Robbins was just voted “Best of Seattle” for engagement and wedding rings for the third straight year. This is a special honor because the voters are both the readers of Seattle Bride Magazine, most of which have recently tied the knot as well as the top Bridal Vendors in the greater Seattle market. These Bridal Vendors including Bridal Consultants, Wedding Photographers, Caterers, Bridal gown salons and many more truly get the inside scoop from their clients as to what businesses provide the finest products and service.

So thank you to Seattle Bride Magazine, to the thousands of Seattle Bride readers and the hundreds of amazing Bridal businesses in our community for this great honor. You can be sure we will continue to work hard to offer the finest in engagement and wedding rings and the warm, caring service that we have become known for.

Our newly updated site and my blog

Thank you for visiting our web site and my blog. We're all very excited about our newly updated site. Many of the new features of our site were added as the result of feedback from our customers. We've added hundreds of photos of our rings and made it much easier to search through the selection.

We've also added a lot more product information about our rings and diamonds, more educational guidance and more about who we are and what we stand for as a company.

I'm sure that we can all agree that our time is more precious than ever before. That's why a web site should allow people to do some homework before they shop around so we can be more efficient and not waste our time visiting stores that don't fit what we're looking for. By looking at different sites, you can get a better idea of the personality of that particular company and the products they carry and see if it looks to be a store worth visiting.

I'm confident that we have truly captured the personality of our company, so if you like what you see on our site, you'll no doubt love our stores.

In any case, we'll never compromise on a few things, our integrity, our quality and our dedication to warm and caring customer service. You can always be sure that our priority will always be to just tell it like it is. We hope that you feel the same. And if you want to rant or rave, either way I'm always going to listen. Thanks again for visiting our web site.