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Merrick, NY—In our ongoing series titled “One Great Thing I Did Last Year (That You Can Do This Year)," The Centurion asks retailers to tell us about one outstanding thing they did in 2014 that turned out really well. This week, Laura Stanley of Stanley Jewelers, North Little Rock, Arkansas, shares not one, but two great things that really helped boost productivity and brand recognition: 

"The greatest thing we did last year was hire a person dedicated to busy work like typing, filing, running errands, keeping up with office issues," said Stanley. "We're a small staff where everyone multi-tasks but having her took a great deal of pressure off the rest of the staff. It allows us to better do our jobs, mostly selling and appraising. Hiring the right person for the right job is priceless."

And the second? "The second greatest thing we did was host a diamond mining trip for our customers to the Crater of Diamonds park in Murfreesboro, Arkansas," she said. The field trip was part of a larger promotional effort that included an in-store diamond cutting event with Embee Diamonds. "No one found anything at all but we cultivated 30 devoted brand ambassadors and received a ton of publicity in conjunction with a diamond cutting event here in the store," said Stanley. "We will definitely do it again!" 

See The Centurion's retailer profile on Stanley Jewelers for more background. 

The bus trip to the Crater of Diamonds state park  which happened on Loyd Stanley Day, as proclaimed by the Mayor of North Little Rock in honor of Stanley's birthday.

Top of page: Loyd Stanley (red tie) with master cutter Mike Botha of Embee Diamonds, and Ginger Beebe, then Arkansas’ First Lady, trying out the diamond wheel at the diamond-cutting event.