Focus is the industry leader in retail jewelry consulting. Over the past 30 years Focus has developed benchmarking standards using nearly a thousand retail stores, and has found that regardless of the sales volume of the store, the monthly and departmental sales percentages remain constant. Applying these standards in analyzing your business, the team at Focus can provide you with a crystal clear roadmap of what steps need to be taken to maximize your profitability though inventory, debt, and financial management.
We don’t take over your organization, tell you how to run it or run it for you. In these days of hot competition from corporate superstores, online merchants and mass merchandisers, an independent jeweler must be business-savvy, fleet of foot, carefully-located and well-capitalized. It also helps to have a partner who understands the business. That’s where we come in. We can help you ground your business in the present reality, and make sure that the store you want to maintain, create or purchase has the best possible chance of success. You benefit from our years of practical experience helping jewelers increase gross profits, control stock and grow their business
Focus Business Management Institute is committed to fostering a mutual trust, collaborative partnership, and professional ethics within the Jewelry industry. We dedicate our efforts to educating Jewelers, Suppliers, Buying Groups, Manufacturers and Wholesalers. Our ethics are driven by professional status and we stand by our reputation.
Business Consultation Services
Focus consults with the owners on all aspects of their business via monthly consultation telephone calls and in-person seminars to provide analysis and recommendations regarding:
Inventory Management
- Detailed reporting of what items the jeweler should restock
- Recommendation on what items to repurpose or scrap
Financial Management
- Detailed description of how to allocate funds to ensure that vendors are promptly paid and funds are available for taxes, stock maintenance, and necessary operational expense
- Guidance on when to speak to financial consultants
Staffing Decisions
- Analysis of employee performance
- Recommendation on how to motivate staff/increase sales
Succession Planning
- Guidance on items that need to be addressed for a successful succession plan
- Financial analysis and planning including recommendations for those areas or issues to address with financial planners, CPAs, and legal counsel
Software
- Our proprietary software interfaces with your existing software – you do not need to change anything
- We install our software program on your computer and it takes a ‘read-only’ snapshot of your POS database
- Our software aggregates your data and provides comprehensive detailed reports which we analyze and review with you to help you learn the real meaning and value of what your data has to offer and how to use the numbers to improve all aspects of your operations
Social Media and Internet Marketing
- Focus provides seminars and training on social media and Internet Marketing
- Website review and recommendations for optimization and user experience
- Provides an additional paid service for social media content management as well as SEO/SEM/Internet marketing management, which includes:
- Adding content to Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites
- Writing/posting press releases to various Internet sites
- Writing/posting articles to various Internet sites
- Posting product images to various Internet sites
- Website design and implementation
Seminars & Workshops
A core principle of the Focus process is not just to advise but to educate and enlighten our clients. Our process is custom designed to evaluate and address the unique problems of each jeweler and provide client-specific means of resolution and training to build on the strengths and eliminate the weaknesses.
We provide our clients with unlimited access to basic and advanced seminars and workshops throughout the year. We offer leading edge information for business growth and increased profits. We give you the tools and knowledge necessary to reduce the work and time needed to increase gross profits, develop supplier agreements, effectively manage debt, and improve sales volume and staff performance. We begin with the basics of improving store performance and move on to advanced programs that include establishing Defined Benefit Programs for store owners to utilize for the additional personal income produced through the implementation of our philosophies.
Our seminar/workshop programs are directed by a former watch maker and jeweler. He has first hand knowledge of what you experience everyday. His insights into what matters most to jewelers, has helped us design educational programs that give jewelers what they want and need most: Not just what to do . . . but how to do it!
One-on-One Consulting
Focus Management has a unique benefit to offer its prospective clients: Our services are based on hands-on practical experience doing exactly the same thing they are doing – running a retail jewelry store. We have been there. That is why we can solve some of the toughest challenges jewelers face today. Our analysts provide customized knowledge, analytic ability, and proven business-practice experience to help the prospective client not only address and resolve specific problem areas, but to also analyze and improve all facets of the client’s business operations.
We believe that problems can only be resolved permanently through the use of customized strategies designed to meet the client’s specific goals. Our approach is to first help our clients understand the choices they must make, helping them to understand what they most need to know to reduce uncertainty in making those choices, and then rapidly put into action our proven strategies. We have created a process that encompasses a great deal of efficiency recognizing that clients make not only a financial investment in working with us, but also an investment of their valuable time.
Because we are able to benchmark a client’s store against a host of other similar stores, we constantly test the client’s assumptions relying on facts, not instinct. Our philosophy has important consequences for us and for our customers. It requires us to be precise in defining objectives for our work with a client, clear in measuring the results, and honest in evaluating outcomes. It also challenges us to demonstrate the courage of our convictions.
Our approach places some burdens on our clients as well. Making tough choices, fast, requires the substantial involvement of the relevant decision makers and not simply in reviewing the “findings” of a report. We stress the need of our clients to work with us in defining the choices they face and the information they need to select from amongst the options available to them. In addition, they need to remove any organizational and individual barriers to change which might prevent action from occurring. The Focus Group works best with jewelers that want to improve their business and those with the courage to master the skills necessary to implement that change.
Ultimately, action is what matters. Our goal is not to simply analyze problems or discuss possible solutions. Rather, we seek to provide our clients with a definitive resolution to the questions they have raised with the goal of fundamentally enhancing competitiveness and profitability. The ultimate test of our effectiveness is whether or not our clients take action and whether those actions yield good results. Those that immerse themselves in our processes not only transform the way they work but also find their life in general is improved as a result of the efficiencies and improved profitability.
But don’t take our word for how terrific Focus Management really is!
Listen to our client testimonials, Jewelers just like you, as they tell you how we have solved their problems.
