Artur Salyakayev is an art entrepreneur, founder of the International Jewelry Academy (IJA) and the INCRUA jewelry company. He has initiated and developed successful projects in jewelry industry and services sector. He is also a leading expert in jewelry retail sales in Russia and the CIS countries.
Artur Salyakayev told Rough&Polished about the intricacies and mysteries of the jewelry trade, about founding the Jewelry Academy, as well as about his own brand and plans for the future.
Your first business was an advertising agency opened by you at the age of 17. How did it all begin?
I embarked upon my career quite early. At first, I entered employment and joined my mother, who had worked at a confectionery factory for 15 years. I helped the loaders and fed chocolate and took part in the production of ‘Bird’s Milk’ filled chocolates that I still like. At the age of 15, I got a job as an advertising specialist and worked there for a year and a half. Having realized that there was a shortage of qualified promoters to arrange promotional campaigns, I decided to invite my acquaintances to do this work. I started looking for promoters, coming up with promotion ideas, and developing my own designs. As a result, I decided to start up my own business when I helped some clients giving them my recommendations.
When I moved to a separate apartment and received the Individual Entrepreneur status, I set up my company Profi2Profit, which means a ‘professional-to-profit’. From that moment on, I began to get acquainted with the jewelry industry because one of my clients was a jewelry company, and we successfully helped the company in its marketing and increased its sales. Gradually, this resulted in giving new consultations and recommendations and, ultimately, in setting up the Jewelry Academy.
By the way, I sold my advertising business about ten years ago, so I am not the owner of this company now.
Why did you choose the jewelry industry?
It was solely out of love for this business. We started working with the Monarch jewelry company, and later on, we were recommended to other companies. I liked the jewelry product, its aesthetics, as well as the ethics of jewelry owners and their work culture. The consultants were nice and easy to talk to. I was young and could not help but got interested in this area.
Soon, I had a dream to connect my life with the jewelry business. Ideas for collections, services, training and marketing systems started coming up. At one of the conferences, we formed a strong community - at that time, business communities did not exist, webinars or web-based courses were not held. It was a long time ago, back in 2012.
In recent years, my partners and I have launched many projects in the jewelry industry, and I am proud of my INCRUA company.
This is a family business, with its own manufacturing facilities where we make jewelry and precious gifts studded with natural gemstones. We opened a jewelry store in Moscow. My parents, wife, daughter and 60 more dedicated people work in the company. This is, perhaps, one of the most striking projects that I like to talk about.
You are recognized as the most effective business coach. Although the word ‘coach’ has recently acquired a negative and ironic connotation, hasn’t it?
In my entrepreneurial journey through life, I always used to play different roles. I was a founder of a group of companies, and at the same time I played several other roles - I was a speaker, an author of books, methodologist and, of course, a coach. For several years, I studied andragogy - the science and practice of adult learning, with a narrow specialization in skills development. My goal was not to conduct motivational training or retell theoretical aspects, but to discover - ‘diagnose’ - the skills of sellers through game mechanics and exercises, to identify their strengths and weaknesses, and to improve their performance based on this data. I was always interested in the evidence base and economic feasibility of any training, because the product of training is the ability to apply knowledge in practice.
For five to seven years, I was engaged in coaching and certified more than 50 coaches, provided them with my ‘educational tools’ and shared my experience with them. My task was not only to coach, but also to leave an ‘internal’ – in-house – coacher in a company who would support the level of new employees’ training.
So, what makes you the most ‘effective’?
As for this word, I perceive it with a smile. I have not been involved in coaching for about five years now, but when I was in this role, I always took great responsibility to it. There was not a single coaching session that I conducted using the same materials - the specifics of every company, product matrices, standards and regional mentalities were always taken into account. It was important for me that each participant took at least one step forward after my coaching course, and often, the results were truly impressive. Of course, they are usually influenced by many factors, but I am still proud of the strong performance and good results I managed to achieve.
I read about your plans to write 100 books for managers - are so many books really needed?
Perhaps, this was mentioned in some context, but, of course, I have no such plans. We have already published about five books, mainly for the jewelry industry. In the future, I see an opportunity to systematize my personal experience and knowledge to better understand them and share my experience and knowledge with other people. For me, writing a book is not only a way to share my experience, but also an in-depth study that helps in better understanding myself and my work. As I already mentioned, the key point is a careful ‘diagnosis’ before starting coaching. It is important to honestly assess the reality - how the best salespeople work, what standards are met, and where some discrepancies are. Having understood these patterns, it’s possible to determine what minimal changes can give the maximum result and what should be focused on in the course of coaching - whether that be presentation skills, or training the way of putting up objections, or even just improving the beginning of a dialogue with a client. For example, high-quality work at a stage of greeting a client can improve performance by 20 percent, which immediately has an effect on sales.
You are considered to support practical skills, prefer them rather than theoretical knowledge. What is the essence of your methodology as an expert?
I would rather say that theory without practice has no real benefit for achieving a result. Theoretical concepts are important, especially if they are based on real experience, and not on a compilation of data from various books and articles. However, to develop skills, it is not enough to just study theory - it should be applied in practice. It’s like swimming: you can study books, but until you are in the water, you cannot learn to swim. The same is true for sales.
My methodology lies in gradual changes through small practical steps. This way may be called ‘microlearning’ now, but the essence is the same - small iterations confirmed by real results. And these results are seen immediately - at the end of the day at the cash register.
What main sales techniques can you highlight?
Let’s start with education in the company’s philosophy: a sales consultant must understand the values of the company, the unique advantages of goods and manufacturers, know the special features of gemstones and jewelry collections, and also meet a certain level of mental and visual training. This is the basis for further training.
As for skills, let’s look at each stage. At the stage of acquaintance, it is important to give a client time to look around. Queues are seldom in jewelry stores, but sometimes, a buyer feels uncomfortable due to unnecessary care from sales consultants when all attention is focused on a customer. You need to give a person time and space so that a customer can calmly familiarize himself (herself) with the assortment.
When approaching a client, do not ask common questions like ‘Can I help you?’ or ‘Are you looking for something specific?” It is better to tell a client about some feature of a jewelry piece and ask a more personal question - whether a client is choosing something for himself (herself) or as a gift, does he (she) prefer a classic design or something unusual.
The next important point is not to ask “Would you like to take a closer look?” An experienced sales consultant should take the initiative and open the display case, take out a jewelry piece and offer to try it on. It is very important to understand what is most important to a client when choosing, and build your presentation on this.
The process of identifying the client’s preferences is a sincere acquaintance with his (her) desires. And only after this, the presentation becomes easy and natural. An experienced sales consultant knows how to ‘translate’ product characteristics into clear and meaningful benefits for a client, making the presentation interesting and exact.
Many people recognize your high level of energy and optimism. How do you manage to keep it? And what is your Personal Efficiency System for Managers - The Life with a Goal (Russian: PriTSELnaya zhizn, where ‘TSEL’ means ‘goal’)?
As for the personal efficiency system, it is of intimate nature. This idea came up about eight years ago. I have always been an advocate of personal development and continuous self-perfection, I was interested in exploring my ‘boundaries’ as for health, strength of spirit, body and mental strength. I took various types of training and applied them in practice. Some things worked out better, some worse, but constant development invariably led me forward.
Communicating with my friends - owners of jewelry companies, I shared what I like and what helps me with them. This is how the idea came up, voiced by friends during our dinners, to combine the experience we used in different areas during the year, including the experience in business planning, family life, financial management, and health activities. I wrote down these questions and consolidated them over several days or weeks, relying on my practice. At that time, I did not yet work on the ‘wish marathons’. We usually met once a year, in January, to support each other and start a new year paying attention to our health and planning our activities.
You are the founder of the International Jewelry Academy, IJA. What are its activities?
IJA is a company engaged in professional training of specialists in the jewelry industry. We introduce and implement regular training and distance corporate university educaion. When you open a store and need to train a director who is responsible for its results, or sellers, we can offer courses aimed at adaptation for this. We have a team of tutors who check practical assignments, make checklists so that managers could evaluate all the skills of their employees. This is serious systemic training that we have built over 10 years of work.
We have also built a large community of entrepreneurs - thousands of business owners united in a ‘big brotherhood’. We hold meetings as part of conferences and business tours aimed at exchanging the experience. This is a concept of openness and mutual assistance that helps specialists in the jewelry industry to develop and get knowledge.
You call yourself an art entrepreneur. What do you mean by these words?
In addition to the fact that ‘art’ is an abbreviation of my name Artur, it is also the result of my search for harmony between different roles. Four years ago, I became interested in the art direction. I graduated from the RMA business school, began to actively study art and wanted to integrate it into our projects. This is how the concept of ‘Living in Art’ has come up. We started creating jewelry items that reflected the feelings and philosophy of artists, as well as designing precious gifts, such as Christmas tree decorations that echoed certain trends in painting. We made a collection called Abstract, and I started practicing an art. We established a corporate scholarship for students of art schools. All this became part of my cultural code as an entrepreneur.
Even the business tours arranged by our Jewelry Academy turned into art-trips. We visit various museums and exhibitions of contemporary art. For me, an art entrepreneur is a person who explores his cultural code and understands the language of his desires and implements them in an entrepreneurial language in his projects. This could be, for example, a ‘conceptual restaurant’ where a musician realizes his ideas, creating something valuable for a certain audience.
You have built your own brand INCRUA. What makes it different from other brands, and how do you promote it?
My love for the jewelry industry and my awareness of jewelry trend inspired me to create new collections. We decided to design and create things that are in harmony with the world of art, using natural gemstones. We produce precious gifts, Christmas tree decorations and art-objects. I was inspired by the Dalí Theatre and Museum (Spanish: Teatro-Museo Dalí) in Figueres where I saw large art-objects made of natural minerals, decorated with gold and silver. This gave me an impetus for creating museum exhibits and art-objects.
A conference with your participation was recently held. What was interesting at it?
At the conference organized by our Jewelry Academy, there were many enthusiasts with admiring glance who came to exchange their experiences. We focus on practical presentations by owners of jewelry companies and people who have implemented successful projects. There was a great variety of topics discussed at the conference, and we had several groups so that everyone could choose the most important for themselves.
What topics do you consider relevant for discussion in the jewelry industry?
Today, these are the topics of taxation, labeling systems, online and offline marketing as there are fewer people in jewelry stores, and the cost of attracting customers is growing.
What interests you most as a person, an expert and a business owner?
I am interested in art as one of the languages that helps get to know the world around us, including contemporary art. I also started painting and practicing an abstract art.
New technologies, such as artificial intelligence and robotics, are also of interest to me. These areas are shaping the future of retail. I am also interested in changes in people’s behavior, since new technologies affect all areas of life.
From the point of view of my company, I do my best to make a sustainable company. I strive to create values and products that will inspire future generations and top managers. My plans are not to withdraw from business, because I love what I do. For me, happiness is freedom to make my ideas happen and create valuable products.
Galina Semyonova for Rough&Polished
