DCA Color Course Helps Increase Sales
Nashville, Tenn. The jewelry industry's self-proclaimed "community college system," the Diamond Council of America (DCA), has now added colored stones to its educational repertoire with a three-part course that dissects the gem world, from asterism to zircon, through informative, graphically appealing lessons designed to help associates increase their color sales.
"What we strive for with this course is a high completion rate," said Janice Mack Talcott, an Olympia, Wash. based educational consultant who helped write the course, which took about two years to develop. "If you know about the gemstones, and you understand them, you will have enthusiasm and passion and that equals sales."
The course's 16 lessons cover the gem world in impressive detail. There are sections on how to describe color, the myriad treatments gemstones undergo, gemstone jewelry manufacturing methods, ways to brand your store using gemstones and sales techniques specifically designed to promote your color inventory. The course also contains a comprehensive review, four tests, the Colored Gemstone Compendium and a glossary.
The compendium, a 123-page reference guide, is a stand-alone book meant to be used as a quick sales fix. Students can look up specific gemstone's history, origin, geological makeup and care instructions just seconds before relaying that information to their customers. In the DCA's promotional literature, it says that roughly 30 percent of the coursework is "dedicated to moving the information from the text to the student and then to the counter."
DCA members can order the course through the Nashville office for $115.