Imagine we were all trying to survive in the wilderness. Conducting an online business as much like surviving in the wilderness and just like out in the woods, if we were trying to survive.

Our success or failure would depend largely on the tools that we have at our disposal. So this lesson is called technology strategy and tool stack. A lot of people that get into e-commerce jewelry do enjoy the technology because they enjoy the equipment of their jewelry business. But we also have to emphasize the importance of a technology strategy in this lesson. Because a full with a tool is still a fool. This is a saying that we have here at jewelers advantage because just. Having a tool doesn't mean that you're using it correctly or using it as part of a system that leverages other tools in order to build a successful business. So let's get into some common problems by being here and getting this awareness, you're already going to sidestep a lot of these problems.

And of course, the asset that we have at the end of this module in Excalibur is going to automatically sidestep the many of these problems

especially when we deploy the tool stack into the project management tool to activate it. So let's just go over the common problems real quick. Don't feel bad if any of these sound like you, you're probably doing at least one, two or three of these, but we do want to have a quick sanity check.

So some common problems with technology. In an e-commerce jewelry business, R one, a lack of clear strategy and goals. You don't really know what you're doing with the tools. Number two. You're over-complicating the tool stack. You're just throwing tool after tool, after tool at what you're doing, that doesn't typically work. Number three, you're ignoring integration and compatibility issues. So you're ignoring the ability of the technology to work with other technology. Number four, understanding data management and analytics, what gets measured gets managed. And if you don't understand the data aspect of what you're getting back, how do you know that the technology is even working? Number five failure to train staff and stakeholders because humans need to be using the technology to make anything mean anything. For the business, number six. Neglecting customer experience and feedback. So if a customer has a complaint, it probably speaks to something in operations and you will later learn that that has something to do with technology. Number seven. , lack of continuous evaluation and optimization.

So if you're not measuring the tools, how do you know if you can improve upon how you're using the tools? Number eight, you're overlooking cyber security and compliance. That could be a big problem. If you're trying to sell into the EU. Or if you are trying to have effective anti-fraud, which will put you out of business in a quick hurry. If you don't know what you're doing in that regard, number nine is choosing cost over quality. So just because it's a tool doesn't mean it's an effective tool. If it's cheap. Sometimes and a lot of the time you get what you pay for, , technology is deflationary and commoditized and you might as well get the cheaper option. We'll go over certain examples that fit into that category. And number 10 resistance to change and innovation. If you're in Excalibur, that's probably not you. So that's the good news. So again, this is just a sanity check.

Don't feel bad if you relate to any of these, because we're here to get you on the right track with an actual technology strategy. Moving forward. So let's remember a few things.

For starters, we have to remember that e-commerce is not a diamond district hustle. A lot of people in the jewelry industry get caught up in the momentum and the hustle of the game, or at least the old way of playing the game in the jewelry industry, which was very hustle friendly. And if that's your mindset and you try to take that into a place where you have to be calculated with your chess moves. As they are with the technology, you're going to make mistakes.

You're probably going to lose money. And that is not the game that we're playing. So don't chase shiny objects. This is the jewelry industry, but when it comes to technology and entrepreneurship, in this regard, we do not chase shiny objects. We do not shoot from the hip and just make flash judgments on the type of technology we're going to use. And call it testing or experimenting. Some controlled experimentation is great, but we're here to give you the guard rails so that you don't go run off to Pluto and try something that really doesn't make sense in the context of your business. And you just saw a video about it and it got you excited. We really can't do that. E-commerce is not a diamond district hustle. We also want to remember that we want eyes on the road, not the wall. We have to keep our eyes where we're trying to go.

So by following Excalibur, you sidestep the mistakes I mentioned earlier. So we will focus more of our attention on the track. We're going to focus on what you need to be doing. Not what you should avoid doing. That's the wall. So we're going to focus more of our attention on the track on what's ahead, not the wall. And you can see the asset that we have attached to this lesson. For a full breakdown of the common mistakes that are listed above as well as everything that you're going to learn in this lesson.

So let's come back to technology strategy. Of course, the whole underlying theme of Excalibur is to develop a relationship with AI. So that way you can amplify your imagination and your own thoughts and strategies and build an awesome business. But let's remember why we're doing this. If we think back to the jewelers advantage maturity model, we are trying to build businesses that land within a three and a four. That is the purpose here of Excalibur is to get you to a place that is scalable.

And we know that if you're landing between a three and a four. The business probably won't break at scale. There's not some land mine, somewhere that we don't know about. So this lesson has a broad sweeping impact on your jam score. So keep an eye on this lesson. Watch it multiple times, because this is going to be a big reason why your jam score gets up to above a three average. Of course that is going to come down to having an effective technology strategy and tool stack. So this lesson is in two parts. When it comes to technology strategy, there are four key sticking points that we want to be aware of in this order. And that is going to be being an AI first company. That leverages human decision-making. To drive towards specific outcomes and operational processes. All while aligning with lean startup efficiency. So what does this all mean? Let's get into what it means to be an AI first. Company.

Essentially, it comes down to this and that is whichever company is most effective with AI in their niche will win. Period. If you are using AI effectively in your business and a competitor is lagging behind and isn't using AI across all functions of the business, especially in e-commerce. They're going to lose your going to win.

So being an AI first company means that we are always aware of the advancements of the most transformative technology of our time. The biggest. Leverage that we have in this business comes down to how we're using AI. And the good news is you already have put your hands on this. If you have your brand prism complete, . You have gotten a taste of what it means to be an AI first company, because you've seen the strategies that AI has come up with on the back of your own brand prism. You've seen unique products.

You've seen product descriptions, you've seen marketing ideas. You've seen various outputs that provide value to you. That could never be achieved as effectively or as quickly without AI. So if we have seen this value manifest in the brand prism, we have already adopted AI as a core strategy. So, if we've already brought about a breakthrough in the business by using AI, why would we stop there? We want to embed AI in all business areas for insights, automation, and optimization. Of course, this is giving you a competitive edge. So you leverage AI for faster decisions, personalization, and overall market dominance. If you can put in a headline from the news about a major market event that has just happened and cross-reference that with your brand prism, you can get ideas for how you're going to respond that day. That's a competitive edge and that's going to help you stay ahead.

So AI adoption is going to lower your costs because you can make decisions faster. You can anticipate the needs of the business and it enables quick market adaptation. So being aware that if something is happening out in the world, that is a big deal. Your first thought should be. How can I use AI to get ahead in this situation? That is what it means to be an AI first company.

The trick is AI is nothing without humans to assign meaning to the output. So this is a very interesting visual. You will notice that these are my original notes from Q1 2023. And these still hold true today. This is right when chat GBT was kicking off. And I realized what I was looking at almost immediately. And I do believe that this model still holds up today and that is that you can become a 1000 X entrepreneur. And an employee can become a 50 X employee. So let's break this down. The entrepreneur becomes the fulcrum point for these activities, performed with AI leverage and can realistically 1000 X their output and create a vast production Delta between themselves and competitors.

A Delta is a difference. So that would be a difference in how productive this entrepreneur is compared with somebody that is not using AI. . They experienced multiplied results on a faster timetable. There's a quote that I've heard that the future belongs to the generalist and a lot of entrepreneurs now. Haven't specialized in only one skill. That was an old way of thinking. You could say that this tracks back to bench jewelers, that only focus on their craft at the bench, but have ignored every other discipline. Whereas the entrepreneur of the future has had to learn a bunch of different things. They've had to learn a lot about product design.

They've had to learn a lot about marketing. Maybe they've had to be a manager and learned how operations work, maybe they took a finance class or an accounting class. Maybe they've had to learn how to write copy. Maybe they've had to learn. How to put on events and so on. Entrepreneurs usually are generalists and have had to dig into many different areas that form a networked skill set.

Now, if that sounds like you, the good news is you've built a network skill set that will compound when you use AI. Because as you know, when you ask questions to AI and you actually have a certain level of expertise or experience in a given field, you can go a lot further. Hence the estimation that an entrepreneur in a particular area. It's capable of 100, X-ing their productivity in a given area because they have the sophistication, they have the experience in a lot of different categories because entrepreneurs have to work harder than regular people. Hence why an entrepreneur can realistically 1000 X themselves. If they're using AI correctly, . Across many different business functions. This is what we're doing in Excalibur. So you should be very excited seeing this model and seeing that it is very realistic for you to start seeing yourself as somebody that can 1000 X themselves. Every business has senior end junior members, and we have to get the most out of everybody on the team and be realistic about what employees can achieve. So the model here, estimates that we can 50 X and employee, the employee becomes a fulcrum point for their activities as well. And because of AI leverage a good employee, can 50 X their output to be transformed into a superstar with minimal training. And that is because AI is essentially filling in the knowledge gaps of that employee.

Maybe they're not very experienced. Maybe they're a little bit young, but. Rather than being completely green and fresh in a particular area, the AI is filling in their gaps. They're standing on the shoulders of the IQ of the most advanced AI models. So as long as they're enthusiastic, You can put them on social media marketing. You could put them on customer service. You may find a few other areas where this employee may not have been capable in the past, but because of AI and a couple of training videos, all of a sudden they're a difference maker. So the 50 X employee thus becomes very realistic. If you have somebody that is enthusiastic and wants to be there at the business. So again, we have to remember that only humans can assign meaning to the AI outputs. AI is practically a super power. But only a human can decide that there's actual value in the output that it's bringing us. So one final thing to consider is something that I would call an emergent human behavior in AI, if a tool behaves in a new way that is unexpected, the industry calls that an emergent behavior. But I believe that there's also an emergent human behavior with AI. And that is because if we consider the 16 personalities from the NBTI tests that we did at the beginning of Excalibur, plus. This individual's a unique life experience. So we have the personality type. But also their unique road that they've walked in life. That can lead to an employee that you wouldn't expect becoming a superstar, or you having emerging abilities in the business by filling in your gaps that you wouldn't expect. That's why this is a huge part of the technology strategy. And we have to be willing to Wade into the water and discover things. Open AI discovered that it was not always the most senior engineers who experienced the greatest jump in productivity. When it came to using AI for coding, and we can infer that that is going to happen in any particular area.

And that is because everybody is unique. And maybe just, maybe this individual's unique life experience is going to unlock some type of emergent human behavior. Some type of superpower in this employee or the entrepreneur that they weren't expecting because they were using AI and they're no longer having to work within a paradigm. That was no longer serving them. So you can think of the people that they're not so great at school. And then they get out into the world and they're highly productive. AI has broken down this paradigm and enabled human beings to have an emergent human behavior through AI. So be on the lookout for this. This is about as deep as I can go. This is going to be a mystery for you to discover on your own. The point is that it all comes down to human decision making. So, if we think back to your founder mindset, that is going to be what is amplified by AI and ultimately whatever you decide to assign meaning on and make a decision on is going to be what gets you results in your business. So we need to remember that human insights matter. . AI outputs need human interpretation for context, strategy, and decision-making. The buck stops with you. The human needs to have critical thinking. Humans add judgment, ethics and creativity that AI lacks ensuring balanced decisions. The AI can't feel the way we can feel no matter how advanced AI gets it will never have the electromagnetic emotional body that we have as human beings. We are very complex. We have attributes as part of our human mechanism that differ from AI and will always be different from AI, no matter how advanced it gets. And that's a beautiful thing because if we can. Align with AI, we can leverage a certain level of synergy. So combining AI with human oversight, turns data into actual, meaningful strategic business outcomes. Humans give meaning to AI outputs.

Now of course we are making these decisions for a real reason. We want to have real defined and achievable outcomes. As a result of working with AI and being the human decision maker. So we want real defined and achievable outcomes that are working within our operations. We're going to get deep into something called cars, which is the definition of your operations. This is going to unlock. AI agents when the time comes in the actual real business. But we need to make these outcomes that we assign meaning to definable and real. So this is outcome driven technology. The technology must serve specific business goals. And not be adopted for its own sake, not because you think it's cool. It's gotta be a real reason that we're going to adopt technology into the business and a great analogy for this is what we call the drill analogy. So we want to choose tech that solves defined problems, like using a drill to make a hole, not for the drill itself. You get a drill because you want a hole in the wall. Not because you want a heavy drill in your hand. That's how we're going to think about all technology. And of course, when it comes to operational integration, we want to embed tech and operations to boost efficiency and align with measurable business objectives.

So we're trying to be better, faster, cheaper, and we need to be able to tell if we're getting there. With measurable business objective. So outcomes must be more specific than just get more sales. A lot of people make the mistake of adopting a new piece of technology. Maybe they think they're constructing a funnel for customs or something along those lines. And the only reason that they're really adopting any software is just because they want to get more sales.

Well, how are you going to get more sales? What are we actually measuring? What is the actual key performance indicator there? And the group of KPIs that are going to come together to know if we're getting close to getting sales. It's all about cause and effect. So we need to have a real plan with operations when it comes to the technology.

And while we're doing that, we want to be abiding by lean startup efficiency. This is a term that's popular in Silicon valley. And because we are working in e-commerce. We are definitely tech people now. That you never thought you would get there, but by being here in Excalibur, you have a lot more in common with people in Silicon valley than you think. So. Lean startup efficiency. Comes down to having a focus on high value tools that maximize output and minimize waste, not just the cheapest options.

So we're basically just trying to get the most bang for our buck and we will pay more for tools at the right time, if there's a logical case to be made as to why we're adopting that tool. That's going to come down to cost versus value. So we are going to invest in tools based on ROI, your return on investment. And we want to prioritize tools that drive growth and efficiency within budget limits. And this is not intended to be set and forget for the rest of your life. So when it comes to being flexible, we need to be able to make. Agile decisions with the tool stack. If there's a major market event where something new that comes out, we need to be aware of that and be ready to pull it in and start using it and see how it can work within our strategy.

So we need to regularly assess and optimize the tech stack that you will see later in this lesson to stay adaptable and aligned with business needs. What it all comes down to with lean startup efficiency is that we want the highest value output at the lowest cost possible. That's it? We want. To see how big we can win. While spending as little money as possible. Although that doesn't mean it's the cheapest thing. Every single time.

Most of the time you get what you pay for. And when you are a lean startup, it's just about making informed decisions with what you're investing in and not being wasteful. So that is your technology strategy. We're going to be an AI first company when something big is happening in the world of AI, you need to be aware because it is affecting your business.

If you're using a jeweler's advantage product. So we always need to be aware that that is how people win is with AI. Next, we need to know that it means nothing to be an AI first company, if you don't make good human decisions. So human decision making is always right behind what we're trying to determine what we're going to do with AI week to week, month to month, year to year. That all has to be definable in our outcomes. And that has to be working within a system. Of operations. Of course, that's why you're here in Excalibur. And of course we're not here to blow tons of money on technology. We are here to buy wins at the cheapest price possible. And that's what lean startup efficiency is all about. So let's also remember that tools are not enough to bring your jam average to a three. So using the tool to perform the actions of a given process with consistency is what maturity is and means. We're not just throwing tools at the business to try to solve problems. And that's because technology always underpins operations. Knowing this is like a cheat code. When, you know, that operations has to be in place first and the plan for that has to be defined first, and then you plug in technology underneath it and underpin the operations with the technology. That is how you get everything to harmonize and work as a system. That is how you scale. So you are actually going to experience this principle in action when you launch your e-com store and the Trello and assets is the tool. That is the technology that you're getting at the end of this module. You're actually building the site is the activity. In terms of operations and operations are underpinned by technology in order to achieve the outcomes. So we're kind of like your training wheels for you to understand what this dynamic is and what it means and what it's going to feel like and what you're going to see. . And pay close attention to this experience and what it feels like to work with the technology with a real defined plan, because that should be the dynamic. Every time you deploy technology into the business. See the way in all things. What you're going to learn at the end of this module is going to carry on for the rest of your career. And it's going to establish how you build a relationship with technology in your business. As long as you're working on your jewelry business or anything.

So the question is how do we even begin? Well, the first thing we want to do is define the end goal, the golden future state that we're trying to get to, and this is going to be a step-by-step process. So the very first thing that we're trying to get to is lean startup tools. And we want to understand that these lean startup tools evolve into an enhanced technology stack through daily habits and actions.

So this is a feedback loop. We've talked about. Feedback loops quite a bit. And the golden future state that you always want to be striving towards and iterating upon an optimizing for. That is what this process is going to be. You're going to have a defined system of the types of tools you're supposed to use. And by using them every day and taking action, using the tools every day, you'll come to understand them and you'll come to make adaptations to how you use them. And by starting with a very, very affordable and cost effective lean startup tool stack, you can then evolve into a more enhanced technology stack later on with much lower risk because you'll have the cashflow to invest in the technology. So later on in the lesson, be on the lookout for the neon green and neon purple letters. Neon green is going to show that it's a lean startup method. The purple is going to show that it's more of an enhanced technology method.

Regardless of your level of maturity, this is what your tool stack is going to look like. So this is the e-comm jewelry tool stack, and these are all the tools that we are about to go over. You'll notice that I haven't named any brand names. These are the roles of the technology that you need to leverage and by being aware of these 18 rolls, we can then go shop the market and see how we can get the best deal and the most effective outputs from these tools. As we scale the jewelry business. There's a good chance. It's a little overwhelming to look at all of this. You're probably asking yourself, how much am I going to need to buy? What am I going to need to spend on this? The good news is many of these roles can be consolidated into a single tool. And many of these have free options that are very effective for a new business that we can scale into later on when there's less risk.

So we're going to get into all of these tools and how they fit in. This is actually underpinning the project management tool at the end of this module for you to launch your e-com store. So you don't need to have this memorized. This is already factored in to the project management. And we have an asset attached below that we'll identify your lean startup version of these tools as well as a road to a more enhanced version that you can get to later on.

So let's remember the jewelers advantage maturity model. Once more, of course, the entire point of the Excalibur program is to get your operational maturity and all that that will entail to land between a three and a four average. If technology is underpinning operations, then of course, what you're learning in this lesson is going to have a lot to do with you ascending to that level. So you can consider. That lower end of the three to four range as what you can achieve with lean startup tools. And then later on, when you want to ascend beyond a four average, that is where an enhanced technology stack would come into play. Which would require a bit more fuel. If we regard capital as fuel in order for that rocket to achieve escape velocity. So we want to be thinking about the core, first principles and the technology strategy that we mentioned before. While understanding that operations is underpinned by technology in order to predictably land in a particular range with your jam score. So, do you remember your jam statements from before. They're going to be included in this lesson. I'm going to show you how these statements mapped directly to using a particular tool that if leveraged correctly, automatically is going to bring you into that range. So by the end of the e-commerce module for Excalibur, we will set off a chain reaction that brings your jam average to three, which essentially means ready for scale. So by deploying these types of tools. We will largely be halfway there to achieving the three average and these tools also have dependencies on other statements from the jam exercise. That set off a chain reaction that enhance other areas as well, which will become more clear as we get into the more operations focused lessons in Excalibur. So let's get into it.

First up, we've got cloud storage. This was your first chess move in the program. So you probably have your support account [email protected] already set up. This is already knocking out quite a bit for you. The jam statement would be our business operations are divided into clearly defined departments with a cloud environment, storing files for each department. Obviously, this is a cornerstone. You've done this already. You likely can see how important this is already. And of course, we know that this is solving another problem with password access into all of the other tools. So with password access, a secure cloud-based system is in place for managing unique passwords and sensitive access information. Protecting our digital assets and online presence. This is where you would be storing all of your login credentials for all of the tools that you're going to use. This is the admin login sheet that was included in the first module when you were setting up your Google drive.

So the support account is containing that admin sheet, which is shared with all manager emails. And we call that the key under the mat. So by having your log in sheet with all of your passwords on your support drive, and then sharing it with the manager emails. As long as the manager has access to their passwords in their email, they can find the sheet through items that have been shared with them and they can get access to the support drive, which is basically the office for your business, living on the internet.

Next up, we have staff communication. A dedicated online chat system is actively utilized for staff communication, ensuring real time coordination and information sharing across departments. You can knock this out with a free slack account. So slack allows communication at scale with notifications coming from Shopify in G suite.

A lot of businesses have employees that just text each other or they're in WhatsApp groups, which is pretty inefficient. Slack is much, much more convenient because you can loop in your offshore talent. If you have VAs or people working in other countries, it's essentially making it so that you can more easily link. To their work environment, wherever that may be, it could be thousands of miles away that you could have digital employees. Later on in the enhanced tool stack, you're going to have AI agent employees communicating with you in this environment. And this is where you are going to have AI agents talking to you about what is happening on Shopify. While also having the humans communicate with one another. And then being able to beam files directly to your Google drive and any other G suite app, whether it be emails or Google voice, aI agents are going to become very important. Next up, we have social media schedulers, all of that content that you create, you can't be posting it manually because that's super inefficient. So we execute a strategic plan for regular content releases, ensuring a steady engagement with our audience and keeping our brand at top of mind. That's the 30 day content calendar. Any tool, whether it be later or HootSweet, or. Buffer. And this type of tool is among the most deflationary software as a service tool available. That means that the prices are low and keep getting pushed down because the technology is so commoditized. So this is an area where you can get a great tool for very affordable.

Of course, if we have an online business e-commerce platform and payment processing is going to be important, how are we going to sell products and actually take in funds and then send those funds to a bank account? This is included with Shopify, which is why we recommend it. So our e-commerce platform is equipped with integrated payment processing, ensuring a seamless, secure, and efficient checkout experience for customers by using Shopify. You automatically knock that one out when it comes to your jam score. For anti-fraud an AI driven anti-fraud system is operational scrutinizing every transaction to mitigate the risk of fraudulent orders and financial loss. You've probably heard in a lot of the other content that we put out that anti-fraud is very important. When it comes to the unique requirements of an e-commerce jewelry business. So we have to have anti-fraud because it will eventually also mitigate the risk of AI used by bad actors. So we start with Shopify because we know that they're a big company that is taking cyber security seriously and has more data than almost anybody when it comes to e-commerce and their AI is going to be very, very effective. We need to bet on the winning horse with our e-comm platform, and that is going to be Shopify. So they have a built-in anti-fraud solution. That you can start with, and then you can mature into more advanced tools. The enhanced version of this would be getting a tool that has charged back protection. Meaning if somebody does a charge back with a card like AMX that typically sides with the customer, no matter what. You can think of charge back protection as a form of insurance, that only comes with the more advanced providers for anti-fraud.

So be aware of that. You can start with Shopify. You're probably going to be fine. But if you do want to elevate into full charge back protection, which could become very important at scale, you want to be aware that there are tools like that, that you can develop into. Next we have our CRM and ERP system.

That's a customer relationship manager, which you've probably heard of and an enterprise resource planning platform that you've probably not heard of. The jam statement here is our business utilizes a comprehensive CRM slash ERP system that centralizes customer information and order management enhancing operational efficiency and customer service.

This is for big, big companies, James Allen, or Tiffany or Cardiay or anyone doing any significant volume is going to have some form of an ERP because it's not only measuring your interactions with a particular customer. It's also managing things like your supply chain. So, if you want an example of this, there's a great tool out there called pyro fusion. And there's a few other tools on the market that would qualify as being an ERP that is jewelry industry specific, but if you're brand new at this, you probably don't need an ERP. Ken Shopify function as a CRM, then. The answer is yes. Basically, if you're using Shopify and Klaviyo, you can pretty much manage the customer interactions by just keeping an eye on your business phone and your email accounts and any customer channels, because your sales volume probably won't be that high. And then you can scale into more sophisticated tools when the time comes. It's also important to note that agents will become your data management system. At the end of the day, a CRM or an ERP is a database that has been built. For humans to navigate information and make sense of information. In the future when AI keeps getting more and more advanced, the entire form factor of these tools will probably change because the AI will be able to just go get you the information that you need.

So you need to be aware that this is going to be one of the most heavily disrupted areas in all of software. But if you're just getting off the ground between Shopify and Klaviyo, you'll be able to manage your customer interactions.

Next up we've got calendar booking. So we actively engage in custom projects or rapid product prototyping and testing to innovate. And expand our collections. That's going to be very important to your product and sales strategy. And that's why we're doing customs. You need to have a calendar tool like Calendly. In order to do those customs. So of course that is going to be built into the site and the blueprint that we have for the scope of work, just be aware that you are going to want a calendar form on that site. And we've built that into the plan and that calendar form should connect directly to a Google calendar. Under your support account so that your whole team can see if you have an appointment to talk to somebody about a custom. And of course, if you're just getting off the ground with a business phone, you can use a Google voice, phone number to do that. A free Google voice account is your starting point when it comes to your business phone number. When it comes to running an online business. We would recommend that you are going to want to plan on an app based business phone. So the jam statement here is we employ an app based phone system that ensures business continuity, supporting in-store and remote customer interactions via voice and S M S. That means we can do live calls from anywhere in the world or text somebody from anywhere in the world. And this is mission critical because of what I personally experienced with landlines during the pandemic, in other videos, we've got my story about. Venturing into the diamond district in New York, during COVID during the shutdown and finding out how to beam, landline, phones out to remote employees, phones. That is not a problem that you want to solve and you can avoid it by just building out your business with an app based business phone. From the very beginning, of course, you can start with Google voice there's other solutions like RingCentral and others out there that you can scale into when you have the funds to do so.

Another important channel of communication is going to be live chat because some people don't want to call. Some people do want to call. Some customers are more comfortable with the little live chat at the bottom, right. Of a website. So when it comes to the maturity statement, it is live. Chat is an integral component of our sales strategy. Actively managed to engage customers and assist in their shopping experience on our e-commerce platform. So you can start with social media plugins on the website. You could connect the website to either messenger or WhatsApp. And then mature into advanced AI agent chatbots later on. Imagine having AI communicate with a customer for either service or even making a sale completely automated at 2:00 AM. We want to put you in position to do that. So you need to have live chat on your website. Next we have email and SMS automation, plus. Service tickets. So this is your standard email marketing sequence that we've all seen a million times as well as SMS automation, which you can think of as email marketing, applied to text messages. And communicating with the customer in a way that they're comfortable with directly on their phone. So here's where we want to land automated marketing communications, including email and SMS sequences are in place targeting engagement and retention of VIP customers. So you can start with a free Klayvio account. . This is where your VIP list lives. Anytime you hear us talking about VIP, this VIP, that they're essentially signing up to a form that is going to put their information in this tool. And from there you would have your email sequences ready to go. Maybe a sequence of seven to 10 or 15 to 20, and it can be spaced out as long as you want. You would do the same thing with SMS text messages, and you would want to abide by the trend that is going on in the market. Now at any given time, you need to be aware that things change. Buying behaviors change. People's level of comfort with how they're marketed to changes over time. This is just the tool. You're going to need to be aware of how you would use the tool. So you can start with a free Klaviyo account. This is the most used automation platform for email and SMS and service tickets connecting to Shopify stores today. So it's kind of like the one-two punch a Shopify and Klaviyo. And then also be aware that there are other more advanced tools for service tickets, like Zen desk that you should be aware of, that you could scale into later on that have a higher level of functionality and can enhance the customer service experience more, but they do cost. Cost more. We start with Klaviyo because it's the most popular solution that goes with Shopify. And it also provides some runway with a free account, up to a certain amount of VIP's that you've added to the database. Next up, we've got project management. So digital project management tools are utilized, allowing visual tracking of custom orders, enhancing transparency and customer engagement.

This is going to be a big deal for your customs that will allow you to scale. We have an excellent Trello board prepared that has been used by big brands to do their custom projects. But you can do a lot more than that with Trello. So you'll start with a free Trello account. At the end of this module, you're going to see how Trello. A free Trello account in fact can be used. To build an e-commerce store at the level of a developer that normally charges into the tens of thousands of dollars. We're going to provide you with a great starting point and get deeper into that as we teach you the operations lessons in Excalibur. . Next, we want to be aware of real time inventory because this becomes important when your business does scale. So real time integration between e-commerce platforms and our ERP system ensures up-to-date inventory levels, preventing overselling and stock discrepancies.

Imagine if you were getting hundreds of sales on just one pair of earrings per month, and then that starts to compound across dozens of products. At that point, you're going to need a more. More sophisticated solution of managing inventory, which would be a beautiful problem to have, but you have to have an actual plan and you need to understand how the supply chain is going to work for that. So, Maybe you've seen on stellar or another. Big supplier that has a database. These platforms have an API, which is basically just a connection point from their database into your e-com store. So that way they will talk to each other, kind of like a telephone. You could think of an API as a telephone line, and they even use the term call the API. When there is an automated signal sent from one platform to another. That's what API APIs are. So the supplier database is going to connect through an API to your CRM and ERP, and that is going to be connected to your Shopify store. Obviously, this is going to sound pretty advanced. If you're not very tech savvy. . Just know that there is a clear path to connecting a supplier database to your e-com store. If you're selling in high enough volume, that's the big key. You don't really need real-time inventory on your e-com store, unless there is any kind of real velocity with your sales and cashflow. Just be aware that as you ascend beyond a four in your jam score of maturity, this is where you're going to want to be thinking, because being able to automate your inventory with a high volume of sales and optimize the whole supply chain is going to be mission critical at that time.

Of course, if we want to get there, we need to make sales and we need to make smart decisions based on those sales. So the jam statement here is real time sales data integration is in place providing valuable analytics to both marketing and finance departments for informed decision-making. What products should you market? What is really profitable in this store? What do customers even like that's where heat maps and replay comment. So it is now possible. To track where a customer has been looking on the screen. Because the data shows that our eyes follow the mouse. So imagine if just like in a physical store. You could have somebody walk in the store and get captured on camera. And we could see that they were looking at this necklace or this handbag or this. Large. Hi, carrot floating gemstone. Or maybe they went and sat on this couch for awhile. We would have the benefit of that. If we had a physical store with cameras, this is the equivalent for that for an e-comm store. So a heat map is going to show us a replay of what a site visitor was looking at and showing interest in because it may be, they didn't make a purchase in a particular item, but maybe the heat map data shows us that people are still looking at particular products. And maybe it's just a time of year where that item is just not going to sell for whatever particular reason. But at least we got the data that somebody was looking at, something that way we're not living in a vacuum of seeing, oh, we didn't make as many sales as we want. And that's the only metric that's defining success or failure. . A heat map and replay is going to make this much more nuanced because we can then see what a customer is showing interest in and see how people are experiencing the e-comm environment. Overall, a great tool for this is lucky orange.

There are many other tools for heat maps on the market. Lucky orange is just a really popular one. So if you look that up, it'll give you an idea of how these things work.

Of course, we could regard this as more of an enhanced tool stack type technology, but they aren't that expensive. So this would be one that you could deploy pretty early on, which will be important as you're trying to determine what types of products your customers are responding to.

Next up, we've got a legal, digital signature, and that would mean that we want to use a platform that is actually recognized as a legally binding signature. DocuSign generally falls in line with this. So for your vendor agreements and large custom projects, when you're just getting off the ground, you can be using a free DocuSign account, which is great because in the span of using your free allotment in the month at DocuSign, you will have made some money.

So this is great for lean startup type methods. When it comes to your legal digital signature, the statement we must abide by and hit the mark on is we utilize a digital electronic signature solution, streamlining the acceptance of agreements and contracts, ensuring legality and customer commitment. Of course, you can use this with vendors and. You can use it with large custom projects. In order to keep the relationship with the customer honest. Another factor that will enhance that will be of course, being ready for insurance, appraisal, and shipping. This is another unique requirement in e-commerce jewelry that most web developers don't understand, or a social media managers don't understand or typical bench jewelers don't understand because we're making this a jewelry business that can service the world. So this actually sets off two dominoes and that is going to be there as a clear protocol for quality control, ensuring that all outgoing products meet, establish brand standards and customer expectations. So getting your appraisal together should be a part of a QC process before the product is shipped. Insurance should just be automatic with the shipping. And of course you need to be able to quickly print shipping labels and have that, not be a big production these are all areas that must be streamlined and automated. The next category is. Appropriate insurance policies are in place for our inventory and shipping practices, protecting our assets and financial position against unforeseen events. Obviously, this is very important in jewelry because people lose their businesses when they mess up here.

The good news is there are services like zing by jewelers mutual. Obviously, if you've been in the business, you're aware of jewelers mutual. And there are similar services that will allow you to shop price. Sometimes jewelers mutual and zing gets criticized for its price point, but as we progress and as AI and e-commerce becomes more and more popular. There are going to be other services entering the market in this regard, because. AI tools for managing supply chain. Are going to be easy to build. And the pricing is going to be deflationary.

So this is going to be a solution that you do need to have. You do need to have some way of covering insurance for your shipping. And for the products in your business, as well as appraisals, potentially, if you're doing more high end items. And then of course having that fit into your operational scheme for shipping, that's all really, really important when it comes to e-commerce jewelry. So check out zing by jewelers mutual. See what they've got to offer and also be ready to shop the market and see what else is available. That jeweler's mutual is establishing as the industry standard in this category. Then finally accounting and finance management. Of course, this is a business. This shouldn't come as a surprise. So our monthly accounting reports, accurately detail revenue expenses, and other financial metrics providing a clear picture of our business's financial health.

Obviously we gotta be doing this right, because. Capital funds, the technology that underpins operations. This is the fuel. So let me say that once more capital. As in the money as in the cash. Is funding. As in it's the fuel for the technology for the machine that is underpinning the machine, the business, the business machine. So, of course you can use QuickBooks or any other highly popular. Accounting and finance management software. AI is going to continue to be big in the FinTech space, which is good for you as a small business owner. Finance is an entire pillar out of the five pillars and that largely dovetails into a single tool. This will connect directly into Shopify and your business banking account and give you real data. And of course, there are lots of great CPAs that are now supercharged with AI. So this is going to be something that of course would be a no brainer to include in the tool stack. So we've got cloud storage, staff, communication, password access, social media, schedulers, e-comm and payment processing.

Anti-fraud CRMs and ERP. Calendar booking insurance, appraisal, and shipping. App business phone. We need to not have landline phones. We need to have a live chat on the site. We need to have email and SMS automations. We need to have service tickets that we can keep track of the customers. We need project management so that we can keep track of customs.

We need real time inventory. When we start selling in volume, we need heat maps and replace so that we can see what people like on the site. We need legal, digital signatures that we can keep the customer honest and have good vendor relationships. And of course, we need to manage the money with accounting and finance management software. That is the e-comm jewelry tool stack.

You're probably wondering at this point, how am I going to learn all of this? The good news is a lot of this stuff. Isn't that complicated? You aren't going to need to watch a bunch of tutorials on how to use a Google sheet that has passwords in it. These are just the roles of what you need. Some of these tools are more complicated than others. But there is nothing here that you don't need. These are the roles that will be filled, whether we're going with a lean startup type tool stack, . Or if we're going with a more enhanced technology stack, all of that is documented below that you can download and review some of this. You have to be more thoughtful with, but we do provide a clear path of being able to see. All of the specific tools and recommendations from jewelers advantage at this juncture of what would be the ideal tool stack to start with and where you should be steering the ship in the future. So remember the rules can and will change in small ways week to week. So we are going to keep our recommended tool stack updated in real time in the admin login sheet in Excalibur. So the recommended tool stack from jewelers advantage can be found in one of the tabs and the admin login sheet. You can just check back and Excalibur at any given time. . If you want to see what we're recommending. Of course our policy is always to bet on the winning horse and spend as little money as possible. While getting the biggest, when we can, in terms of the revenue. So your goal should be evolving from minimum viable tool stack to enhanced technology stack to sum all of this up. Basically when you review the document below and see the minimum viable tool stack you'll know that if you get that to really sing. And achieve product market fit with your brand and products. You're going to start trending at a three average. Or better. And then from there you can progress onto the enhanced technology stack when you're ready to ascend beyond a four in a given category. Just keep in mind that you need to be patient with yourself. This may feel a little bit overwhelming, but at least you have the information. And you should understand that this is a skill.

So rather than shoot from the hip, we would recommend that you choose mainstream proven tools in order to get access to large libraries of training videos on YouTube and benefit from deflationary pricing.

For example, if you're using a social media scheduling tool, We would know that there is going to be a tool like later competing with a large brand like HootSweet, but lots of agencies come back and give favorable reviews of later at the time of this recording, this is just an example from the market. That means that they're providing a cheaper option, which means that there's deflationary pricing.

Once the technology becomes commoditized in one of those given categories. It means that you can start getting a really effective tool for a lower price in the market. If you don't go with the name brand. At that point, you still have to be aware. Do they have good customer service? If something goes down, am I going to have to deal with a frustrating headache? As AI progresses more and more, that will probably become less and less of a factor.

The other thing you want to keep in mind is that really great tools are going to have a lot of training video. There's a reason you don't see us doing tons of training, video on Shopify videos. It's because Shopify does those training videos better than we ever could and keeps them updated. And it's their full-time job to make sure that you understand how to use Shopify as a platform. So we want to choose these mainstream tools in order to get access to. Training video that that company is having to invest into in order to provide a good customer experience. In that way, it's simulating a much larger operation for you.

As we bring this to a close let's think about the future for a moment. We will want to consider this segmentation of technology and the roles. Of this technology as a model for what AI will continue to become. All of these different tools and technologies have been a reflection of their time. They were productized solutions that were serving the market. In a way and within a length of time, that made sense. We should be aware that the way that we use software tools. Could drastically change as AI becomes more and more advanced. And it's likely we're going to see super tools emerge where any of these particular roles could be fulfilled by a single tool.

But before we get there, we also need to understand that. With anything that we're going to automate, it's usually a good idea to put hands on that tool and understand how it works. So with lean startup tools, be aware that putting your hands on the tool and learning it and going through the frustration of not really understanding it on the first day and having to watch some video tutorials to understand it and gradually getting better over time. That is what we call carrying every drop of water.

To paraphrase a quote from Daoism. A person understands the value of water by carrying every drop. You can think of yourself like a Kung Fu master climbing a flight of steps over and over again with buckets of water. That's what it's like learning these tools sometimes. So you want to understand that starting small and getting your eyes and hands on a tool will make it so that you understand what the AI agent is doing later on when you evolve into an enhanced technology stack that is leveraging AI agents. So through your daily habits and actions of just putting this together and starting to understand how this technology all connects. You will then be able to understand and articulate what the technology is actually doing. And then when you start communicating with AI agents to scale those activities, you will be able to better envision the work that they are actually doing and actually make sense of what AI agents at scale are actually accomplishing the outcomes that they're actually achieving in your business. So let's remember that AI is going to keep everything aligned here. And you can consider this your tech support. So when it comes to the Excalibur prompt library, I recommend that you look into the prompts that we have for SEO automation. This of course is going to be a big part of your e-commerce platform. This is basically real time texting tech support for SEO automation on your site.

Of course, that's how this is going to go for all of these prompts. So when it comes to e-commerce platform support, maybe you're one of these brave souls that is going to build your own Shopify store. You'll have tech support to do that. So if you've built a website before. You could probably accomplish this.

If you haven't built a website before, you're probably going to want to be hiring a developer at the end of this module. . That is where this prompt will come in. Web developer communication. The AI will help you speak in the jargon and in a manner that the developer will be accustomed to. And help you understand what they're saying when it comes to supplier inventory, API, integration, and support. If you really start achieving scale, you're going to get some help with how to set up that connection between the supplier. And your own store. If you're setting up your own Calendly or other calendar solution for your custom funnel appointment, booking system is going to be where you want to look. That is how that's going to help you. . If you are already getting a lot of traffic and have not yet implemented any type of anti-fraud solution, it's a ticking time bomb before some kind of chargeback comes in and really rocks your world. So. I highly recommend that you get some assistance with an anti-fraud solution. If you're not already using one, if you're just getting off the ground, Shopify should be good to go. Until it's fraud notification, start to ramp up. Then you are going to want to get something with chargeback protection.

Of course, while we're mindful of security and making sure that we're protecting our own business. We also want it to be easy for customers to make a purchase. So a finance payment option, something like affirm. Or Klarna might be something that you want to look into. As well as a PayPal integration, all of that is covered in the prompt library where you can essentially get tech support in real time.

Everything from SEO optimization down to your payment methods are already factored in when it comes to the scope of work at the end of this module. So if this has felt overwhelming, do not fear. We are here with you and we have the guardrails in place. It's going to become more clear of how this factors into actually fitting it into. An e-commerce launch. So these are not the only prompts that are relevant here. There's plenty more. So don't be stuck, just consult the Excalibur prompt library. If you feel like you need some direction in a particular area of the business. And we also have attached the technology strategy guidelines. That you can consider as an anchor point.

So everything that we've discussed in this lesson, if you need a refresher in writing, this will also be attached at the bottom of the module. So that is everything we've got to say about technology strategy. In regards to your tool stack. So I encourage you to remember that a fool with a tool is still a fool. But you are now prepared. You're going to be thinking about technology in your business. Several levels above any of your competitors. Very exciting. So this is Jesse Korby at jewelers advantage, and we will see you in the next one.