It's a hot steamy August Sunday in Lafayette, Louisiana, and I've been invited to join jewelers from across the country to spend a few days with Stuller Inc. We've come here for a three-day conference designed to close the gap between Stuller and its customers.  The event is called Bridge and at Bridge, you're in good company with Stuller Inc. 

My name is Adam Voss. I'm a traveler, an entertainer, and I am a man on the move.  From the biggest cities to the smallest towns, I'm on the hunt for cool companies and what makes them so successful.  Right now, you're in good company.

It's day one of Stuller's August 2017 Bridge event.  Welcome to Bridge and we are so happy to have you out here.  We hope that you come out of this and you want to change something about your company.  You may be doing great but where's that next level?  This is the third of five conferences this year, each attracting around a hundred or more customers to learn, be inspired, and network with fellow jewelers.  We can be better as a company in terms of how we serve you.  You can be better for your customers and we want to help you do that.  You know, originally Bridge was called Project Engage. And we wanted to get customers in here so that we could you know spend time with them face to face and it's been an incredible learning experience. 

Is this your first Bridge event?  Yes we went to the jewelers, the Bench Jewelers a few months ago.  This is our first Bridge because everyone was raving about it.   I've had many people from Stuller contact me, inviting me to Bridge.  So it finally worked out to where I could be here.  I've loved every minute of it.

What are some of the reasons that you would give to your customers to come to Bridge?  Generally I would tell them if you've adapted to every change that's come about in the last decade, stay home.  If you haven't, come here.  How about that?  It seems like more than ever that our customers are really willing to adapt today and they understand that competition is getting more and more fierce.

Day two begins with a van ride to Stuller headquarters.  Bridge attendees stay at the same hotel, and food and lodging during the event is covered by Stuller.  Today our schedule is jam-packed with a full day of seminars, social events, and a walking tour of Stuller's nearly 700,000 square foot facility.  Here we are in Stuller's headquarters in Lafayette, Louisiana.  The first thing that happens is the size of the facility, kind of they're going, "wow it's different than I thought it would be.  Ot's much bigger than I thought it would be." And that's really cool because the customers built that building, you know.  They built the business. 

Welcome to Stuller. My name is Jason Lemaire and I'll be your tour guide.

Matt Stuller built the business on the independent jewelry retailer.  That passion and love for their success remains here 47 years later.  For most Stuller customers, selling a piece of jewelry often begins by browsing a Stuller catalog or their website and then placing an order.  So at Stuller, you can buy the finished piece of jewelry or you can buy the metal to make your finished piece of jewelry, but this is where it all starts.   But before that precious metal or gem or piece of jewelry shows up at the jeweler's door, it begins its life here at Stuller.  To see that birthing process step by step is truly an amazing experience.  For those of you who've never seen how a wedding band starts out, this is a wedding band.  It's actually a bunch of them.  So this is the kind of the finished product that we're talking about.  There's a very emotional core to your industry.  Every single day at Stuller we're gonna you know, cast a ring, we're gonna sprue a ring, we're gonna clip a ring, we're gonna polish a ring, we're gonna set it with stones.  And some guy somewhere in America is going to get down, yeah this is gonna happen, he's going to get down on his knee and ask somebody to marry him.  And what makes this business so unique is 50 years from now that somebody's gonna have that ring on their hand and it's gonna be filled with emotions and it's gonna be filled with meaning.  That's a very special business to work in.

So much of the culture of Stuller is that Lafayette, you know it's it's the Cajun lagniappe that goes with everything you guys do. I don't think you can pull it off at any other place.  I don't either.

Well the most compelling thing about Bridge is not just Bridge, it's Stuller.  Because Stuller knows what they're doing and I want to learn from the best of the best and I think Stuller is the best of the best.  

Well welcome. Bill and I are here to talk about customer experience with you guys.  Day two and three of Bridge features multiple seminars designed to help customers understand the jewelry market and learn how to make the changes that will make their businesses more successful.  Think about also your tone and your language on social media.  How do you come across?  Do you want to be playful? Do you want to be an expert?  It's worth taking the time away from your store to just kind of step away for a minute, really breathe, and think about what you need to do differently, what kind of goals you want to set.  I know that you guys have probably been brow bashed about the millennials and how important that generation is.   Subjects include marketing and branding, customer experience, and the state of the jewelry industry.  But overall we're in a very very healthy industry. 

But with all the expertise at Bridge it's often the knowledge from fellow jewelers and the peer-to-peer interaction that proves to be the most useful.  I tell all the presenters here at Bridge we may think we are the stars but we're not.  It's the peer-to-peer learning is much greater than any presentation is.  That was fun, brainstorming with everyone.  Hearing that everyone has all the same problems and concerns and then their experience with Stuller and their experience at CounterSketch and ever&ever Bridal, how much more they're selling than we are, it makes me realize that we need to be focusing more on selling solutions and CounterSketch.

Before day three wraps up, customers have an opportunity to shop, get instruction on Stuller software, customization, and prototyping solutions like CounterSketch and their ever&ever collection.  Customers also have a chance to browse Stuller's fully functional model store called 302.  This is amazing, tell me about this space.  Oh well 302 is actually a room that we designed to feel like a real jewelry store right inside the Stuller building.  Down to the smell? Down to the smell that's right, absolutely.  It's got a signature scent.  We've showcased all the jewelry, some of it in case, some of it out of the case, so you can kind of see different ways that a jeweler might showcase their jewelry in the store.  The people here, I know that they're here to help us succeed and I really really feel that energy and I feel that love they have for us too.

The final day of Bridge is when all this new knowledge becomes a call to action for each jeweler.  You can tell that they leave very motivated and that they really know that they have to change. I'd like you to write down one thing that you're committing to go back and change about your business based on the last two and a half days.  You're gonna turn those in to us and we're gonna mail them to you in the future.  Did they learn one thing that three years from now is sticking on the inside?  That's really what Bridge is all about.  We want to thank everybody for coming out.  I really have enjoyed these last few days.  It's been a blast. I'm looking forward to coming again next year and learning more.  It's a really really great advantage to have them in our corner.

This year's Bridge has eclipsed even my greatest expectations.  It's really cool.  Stuller did all of this for Bridge.