Sales Strategy
Jimmy DeGroot: AI is Our Biggest Advantage as Jewelers | February 16, 2026 (0 comments)
Appleton, WI--Yup, I’m still on my Rory Sutherland kick and in his book, Alchemy, he gives a glorious example of why AI is our biggest advantage as independent jewelers.
I’ll paraphrase for brevity. He explains that retail is slowly going to be taken over by AI and that humans will be replaced with mechanisms. Just visit your local grocer and go through the self-checkout line for proof. BUT, as this happens, people will place a much higher value on the personal touch, personal expertise and personal help. A few examples: Car rentals. You arrive in Phoenix and have a car waiting somewhere. It’s 110 degrees and the shade of the car rental facility is doing nothing to cool you down. Wouldn’t you pay a premium for someone to bring your car to you or at the very least, take your luggage from you, load it onto a hotel-style cart and walk you directly to your car. And then they would explain a few very basic things about the car such as, how to turn on the stereo, how to connect your phone to the car and how to open the trunk and operate the lights. How many of us have struggled with all this as we’re navigating ourselves out of the carpark to our hotel? The personal touch is gravely missing and the car rental companies are missing out on a huge profit opportunity by offering it to us.
Next, the Royal Mail. The English mail service spent millions to try to improve metrics of efficiency, reduce lost mail, reduce delays and increase customer satisfaction. After all their efforts, they learned that the one and only metric that was worth anything was “How happy were the clients with their postal carrier?” Did they know them by name? Did they know when you were on vacation and place your letters on the back porch? Did they smile and wave to you? The personal touch is what matters. They didn’t care if the letter was late. They wanted a friendly postal carrier.
Don’t let AI scare you. Use it to your best ability in your business, but as you do this, spend equal amounts of effort training and building a team that takes the term jewelry sales professional to the next level. Yup, I’m tootin’ my own horn here. If you want the very best in training for your sales team and managers, give me a call. Kyle Bullock and I are creating some great options for you. (920) 492-1191. jimmy@trainretail.com. There, horn tooted.
James (Jimmy) DeGroot is a professional jewelry sales and operations trainer from the jeweler’s side of the counter. Having been in management and the jewelry business for over 20 years, Jimmy offers weekly training to jewelers nationwide via the Train Retail website. Jimmy and his partner Kyle Bullock help jewelry stores grow their profits and their people to fulfill their greater purpose! We do it through one-on-one business coaching, sales training, and leadership development. Contact Jimmy at jimmy@trainretail.com%20or call 920-492-1191.