0388 | Michael Fried

Hi, I'm Mike Freed. I'm from the Diamond Pro and you're listening to EA interviews.

EA interviews, episode 388, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the imperfect action round. Seven days a week, join Mario Ficcini for today's expert authority effect interview. Diamonds. What do you know about them and are you being taken advantage of? I am excited to bring to you the CEO of the Diamond Pro, Michael Freed on today's episode, international renowned diamond expert. Because there are certain things when you're doing in business. Was that proper English? I don't think it was, but you've heard me a couple hundred times now. Whatever. There's certain things you're doing when in business and one of them is making smart decisions. Whether it's your finances or your team or maybe investing in something for your business or loved one or whatever the case may be. When you're making purchases, when you're doing business, you want to be getting the best details and information possible. And I was just fascinated about the diamond industry and what Michael has done to help you help us make the right decisions. Because whether you know it or not, there's a good side and bad side of this industry. And what I'm feeling is his heart for wanting to help people. We're going to be getting into all of this right after we thank our sponsor, Michael. Michael Fried, CEO of the DiamondPro. Every business needs a book, including yours. And that's why I'm launching my new book to help you, regardless of where you think your current writing abilities are. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.com Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, Michael Freedom. Michael, how are you feeling today?

I'm doing all right. Thanks for having me.

I'm excited to dive into this because I know I bought diamonds in the past, I plan on buying them in the future. And I've had a lot of questions. One of the things I'd say I learned from business is always to be investigative and get your information. But it's so interesting, such a complex industry and how it's run and everything. Tell everyone listening a little bit about why you decided to launch your company and what people should be looking out for.

All right. Well, I was working in the industry from the corporate side. I was working for one of the largest diamond manufacturers in the world at the time. And we had to do A lot of different things. We jumped through a lot of hoops to maximize profits, you know, increase our revenue. And that was all fine from our side of the business. But what I was seeing at the end users side of the business was that people were often being taken advantage of in the last 20, 25 years. What was that?

How so?

You know, people are buying a diamond is a very complex purchase and usually people are only doing it once, twice, maybe three times in their lives. They're buying diamonds or diamond jewelry. And there are so many little details that you need to understand to ensure that you're not getting ripped off or that you're just making the best, you know, the best value purchase that you can. It's almost impossible for an end consumer to keep all of that information in their head. And in the last 20, 25 years with globalization and the Internet coming around, it's really pushed the margins down in the industry and it's, it's forced a lot of people to maybe cut, cut some corners to try to increase their profit margins at the expense of the end consumer.

So it sounds like it's more just, it sounds like it's more than just the four Cs.

Yes. Actually from my perspective, the four Cs are worthless without the fifth C, which is certificate. You know, the four Cs are, most people know about those once they spend a little time looking for a diamond. They're the major characteristics of the actual diamond. But how do you actually know that the grades given to the diamond are accurate? The only way to do that is if you have a certificate from an independent laboratory. Otherwise you're trusting the person who's selling it to you to make sure that he's being as honest and forthright as possible. And that's not necessarily in line with his best interests. Are not necessarily in line with your best interests.

Now do you think there's ever instances where the person, the jeweler doesn't know the diamonds they have?

I think it's possible. Especially when you go into, you know, larger, larger retail operations where they have high turnover in the sales, sales positions. How many people could truly be educated in the diamond industry? I spent a year in, so what we called sorting rooms where they would pile 1,000 or 2,000 diamonds on my desk every day. They were coming straight from the cutting floors and I would have to sort them into value based on their size, their color, their clarity, their makes. And that's how I became an expert. And then after that year I spent another six months buying $5 million.

Bunches of diamonds at once to get to the point where I really understood the true value of diamonds. And your person who's making 50, $60,000 a year on his third job in the last three years at your local mall isn't necessarily going to have that institutional knowledge that somebody like myself or other people in the corporate side of the business would have.

Yeah, that's definitely one heck of a jigsaw puzzle. I mean, a thousand pieces of anything is a lot, let alone a thousand diamonds. Did you have special lights you had to look at them through?

Yeah, we sat in a room. There were some people who did this full time. This is their job. And I was just there for training. But you sat in a room with a white desk and special fluorescent lights overhead. And right at the beginning, when I knew nothing, I would sort them into dark color and light color, and that was it. And then I would get a little more sophisticated with that, and then I would go on to the next C, and then I would go on to the next C, and I would really understand all the different varieties and all the different factors that come into play when purchasing a diamond.

When you're saying a dark diamond and a light diamond, you're not talking like chocolate diamonds versus the white ones. You're talking the brilliance of them.

I'm actually referring to color. When you talk about chocolate diamonds, that's. That was a brilliant marketing play by somebody to take really dark colored diamonds and start calling them chocolate diamonds and actually being able to charge more than they used to be able to charge for them. But typically, when you're looking at white or clear diamonds, they're graded on a color scale from D down to J, K, L. I mean, the grading scale goes all the way down to Z. And as you get further down the scale, the diamond will have a warmish or yellowish tint to the diamond. And obviously, the clearer the diamond, the more desirable. So that was. That was step one, then step two. There are imperfections, which are the clarity, see? And, you know, you can tell what grade they are, how. How much they impact the value of the diamonds. And then you go on to cut, which is the. How well the diamond is cut, which will affect its brilliance and sparkle.

Emerald princess, round.

And that's. Yeah, that's the shape. So that's. That's more of a stylistic approach. You know, which. Which shape you like. That's. You know, from my perspective, when I was back on the corporate side, we would take the piece of rough and analyze which one. Which shape it's going to end up netting us the most money. But most often it ends up being a round diamond.

Let's talk about that from a business perspective for a point because obviously if you do a pear shape or heart, you're not going to, or emerald. You need to have the rock be able to facilitate it. Otherwise you're just going to be chopping off a lot, which sounds like you're losing profit.

Absolutely. I mean if you look at the prices, round diamonds are more expensive than any of the other, any of the other diamonds. When you know, from the manufacturing side of the business they're receiving these rough rocks. I mean they really just look like rocks and they have to decide what's the best approach. I mean now it's all done by computers and lasers and whatnot.

There might be a piece of rough that's, that's formulated in a way that there might be one edge that's sticking out that might be usable. So it might be more, more worthwhile to go for a pear shape if, if the diamond is like that or it might be more oblong. So they would go with a cushion cut or, or a radiant cut. So really that's that, that at this point this is all done by computer analysis, unless you're talking about the million dollar plus diamonds.

So you're given a lot of great detail as far as what to consider when you're buying it. But what would you say is the difference between a grown diamond and a natural diamond.

From a visual perspective? Nothing. There is no difference between them. They look the same, they refract light the same, so they're going to be just as brilliant. If we're talking about lab grown diamonds, there are diamond synthetics, which is more of a vague terminology that I'm not entirely sure what that encompasses. And then there are diamond simulants and then other things like that, which to be honest, I don't fully understand.

Legally in the US They've given a lot of leeway for people to name things different things, different, differently to make it sound like a diamond. But lab grown diamonds, which is the common term used for them today, are physically the same as a natural diamond. You know, a natural diamond was formed millions or billions of years ago through, you know, you know, intense pressure and heat under underground. And a lab grown diamond is doing the same thing in a factory.

How long does it take to do the lab grown diamonds to chrome?

I'm honestly, I'm not sure about the technical process. I've never worked on the, on the lab grown factory floor.

But you're saying visually they're the same.

Yeah, they appear the same. And from, from a business side or consumer side, you can also understand that lab grown diamonds have, have, have reached economies of scale. The prices have plummeted in the last six or seven years. Lab grown diamonds isn't exactly novel science. They've been able to do it for years. They did lab grown emeralds in the 80s. The problem was it was so exorbitantly expensive that it wasn't worth it because the cost of a lab grown diamond was 10 or 20 times that of a natural diamond. At this point. We went from about five years ago, they were roughly the same price as natural diamonds and now they're probably 70% cheaper.

Wow. So what this is very interesting because I know there's the whole conflict of the conflict free diamonds. So why would someone want them in the 80s like a lab grown emerald? And they're. So if you have the natural, why would someone want the lab grown or vice versa?

Well, they're cheaper. The ultimate goal is that you can, you can eventually make them cheaper.

But when they originally came out, they weren't, you're saying, well, and you didn't.

Really see a retail market for diamonds. Lab grown emeralds reached economies of scale in the 80s, but lab grown diamonds haven't really reached the right.

Cost benefit analysis until about 2015, 2016.

Okay, so now you're saying they're taking over as of the 201516 timeframe?

From a price perspective, yes. There is still quite a strong demand for natural diamonds. The prices have actually gone up tremendously in the last 18 months.

For natural. So there might be a world where they coexist for decades. Who knows? Anybody who tells you they know the future on that has a better Magic 8 ball than I do.

What about the conflict free diamonds? Have you had people asking you about those and have you seen an increase since blood diamond came out? As far as people being interested in them and making sure they're conflict free?

We've definitely seen an increase since blood diamond came out. I think there's a lot of misunderstandings when it comes to something like that. There are definitely areas of the world that are where blood diamonds would come from. Areas of conflict that have portable, highly valuable items, of course are going to be used by, by the people there. But for the last 20, 25, even 25 years or longer at least since I've been in the business, the overwhelming majority of diamonds that you purchase are coming from 20 or 30 manufacturing companies. I mean we're talking 90, 95%. I don't know the exact percentage. It changes every year. And a lot of it is, you know, private, so it's not public knowledge. But the chances of somebody ending up with a blood diamond or a conflict diamond are virtually zero. And it's actually bothered me that I've seen some companies that will try to trade on that and use it as a marketing ploy to promote diamonds. For example, from Russia, which Alrosa. Vladimir Putin has a minority stake in Alrosa, maybe even I don't know how much more. Actually, I'm not sure that he has a minority stake in El Rosa, but he definitely has a minority stake within the diamond interests there. And nobody's going to look at him and say that's a bastion of human rights going on in Russia. So people are taking away jobs from, you know, communities in Botswana and South Africa and they're giving them to a company in Russia. I don't really see much of a difference. And if they're making that decision based on Leonardo DiCaprio movie, I think they might want to re, rethink the way they do their research.

So you're saying a lot of it. How much does the marketing come down to it? Because what I'm hearing a little bit is whether it's the chocolate diamonds or the blood diamonds or whatever, it sounds like people are just trying to bend the industry, whatever is in their favor, as most businesses do. But there's.

There'S that personal side and what's really happening behind the scenes? I mean, if someone doesn't get an extra fries with their drink, I don't think anyone's dying over it. But with diamonds and stuff, you're, you're rightfully so saying they're taking away jobs here or they're doing this here. How much does the marketing play a role in the diamond industry?

It makes it play, it's the entire role. There is no diamond industry without marketing. I think most marketing experts would look at A Diamond is Forever as the greatest marketing campaign of the 20th century.

And how long has that been out now? I mean, I remember that even as a kid.

I believe that was the 1950s that it came out. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's old school and it was incredible. And actually the story behind it is impressive. I don't, I don't think it's ever been verified, but apparently the, the marketing company that pushed forth their whole marketing proposal didn't have a title for their proposal. And an intern just scribbled A diamond is forever on the, on the front page. And that became the title Diamonds are beautiful. I've spent my entire life, you know, learning and appreciating how beautiful a diamond can be. But it's a luxury purchase like, like, like any other. Nobody's going to try to tell you how that.

In order to achieve a common milestone in your life, you need to buy a Prada bag. Nobody's going to tell you that when you, you know, when you graduate college, you need to purchase a college bag, a Prada bag or a Gucci bag. That's absurd. And yet somehow, thanks to marketing, it's been accepted that when you get engaged you have to purchase a diamond and you have to spend two months salary, which apparently sometime in the last 10 years.

I thought it was three.

It's a three month salary. Yeah. And people ask us that is it true that it has to be three months salary? I was like, well, if you bought the BS that said you had to spend two, two months salary, why not buy the BS that says you have to buy? Why not six, three months salary? I do not advocate purchasing a diamond. I think it's a luxury purchase. If you like diamonds, great. I understand that many people are going to be pressured or actually want to purchase a diamond when they get engaged. And I'm just here to help you get the best bang for your buck. So I try to break those marketing trends that we're talking about.

So on the this perfect. You're setting this up so easy for me because I wanted to talk about the price of the diamonds and why they traditionally have been so expensive. It's, I think I'm hearing a little bit from the marketing. But does the marketing play the biggest role or is it just because they're so hard?

I've been led to believe they're hard to come by is that they are driving it.

I mean the prices are dictated by supply and demands. And maybe at certain points, maybe in the 70s, 80s, you know, maybe even a little earlier, De Beers had the overwhelming majority of mining interests in diamonds and they were able to, you know, artificially limit the supply that was reaching the end consumer. So maybe that inflated, inflated its value a little bit. But at this point there are so many different mining interests out there. As I mentioned before, Russia has enormous diamond deposits. Australia, Canada and.

Who was the one you mentioned? Al Rosa Beers?

No, no, Al Rosa is a big mining company and I'd rather not mention them by name because I actually don't know. You know, I don't Want to try to say that they, they own a specific share or that.

I know, I didn't think you were. I was just trying to remember that.

That was the Russian company that I was familiar with, that was a mining company. I could be. I could be wrong about that.

You're just saying there's a lot of them out there now. Yeah, it's not just one necessarily controlling majority stake or something.

It used to be that dtc, the diamond trading company, I believe is what that. That stood for, which their. Their marketing brand is De Beers controlled. 90% or more of. Of all diamonds in the world. That number is. It's not even close to a majority anymore. They, they. They probably own a significant, like a sizable minority, but they're not. I don't even know if they're the biggest faction anymore. So they can't dictate the cost or the supply of diamonds right now.

Well, being from Detroit, Michigan, as it says below here, and you can see the nice skyline behind me.

The big three was always a thing. You know, you got Chrysler, Ford and gm. But again, whenever it was, and it's interesting you say the 70s and 80s because I think society just started expanding more and more and everything. And you know, now how many. I said this on one of the other episodes is. Does. Does anyone near you say automobile.

Or is it car? Via.

I'm gonna say car. I mean, I live in the Czech Republic right now, so they say auto, but.

Okay. I said one of the people I had on, Denise Blacevic, she. One of her. She has multiple clients with like Ferrari, the auto industry, BMW. And I said, yeah, the automobile industry. And I don't think anyone outside of Detroit says automobile, but the automobile industry, you know, there's a few of them. And then it expanded into. I can't even count how many car manufacturers there are now.

Yeah. And I think that happened by a specific company or the big three, as they're referring to, rested on their laurels. They dismissed out of hand the competition that was coming from Japan. And now people were dismissing out of hand the competition from electric cars. So you see it, you see it all over. And it can happen in any industry. From my perspective, that happened in the diamond industry when Blue Nile burst on the scene around 2000 with the website, and they really changed the market in many different ways. And James Allen since then has really furthered the growth of the diamond industry. Online and physical retailers have had to play catch up.

Let's talk about online sales versus I think there's a better, like in person, I'll start saying brick and mortar.

Brick and mortar sales.

Yeah, brick and mortar sales. I hate the word offline. It's like we were offline before online. Anyway, brick and mortar sales. Because I've looked at stuff online and I've bought a fair amount brick and mortar. And what would you say? And I've even seen people recently that they're like doing zoom or they're doing. There's somehow it's not just click and buy it. They're doing this whole procedure, but they never see it in person. To talk to me about this, this is fascinating to me because I personally think it's fun as Hector, you know, see the stuff and play with it and go, yeah, you know.

Yeah. I mean, honestly, from my perspective, and I may be a bit biased because I operate in the, in the online, you know, dimension as opposed to the brick and mortar dimension, but I think you're better off purchasing online than purchasing in person. I know people want to, you know, see and feel things, but people were saying that, you know, 10 years ago, 15 years ago about shoes. Zappos has done pretty well for themselves since then. Amazon, you know, came up. They've crushed how many different industries of physical retailers. I understand that jewelry is a little bit unique, but nowadays you have these high quality images and videos on all these websites and virtual walkthroughs. Virtual walkthroughs as well. And more importantly, most of the time you walk into a physical retailer. A, most physical retailers don't offer a full refund and B, you have a salesperson following you around trying to convince you to buy the product. And I don't find that to be a conducive environment to making sound decisions when purchasing such an emotional and impulsive purchase. There are so many different things that can pull at your heartstrings. And as we mentioned at the beginning of the show, there are just a myriad of details that you have to keep in your head that if you miss one, you can be overpaying for something that has a fatal flaw in a diamond. And.

Buying in person is so tricky, especially when you don't have those full return policies. Compare that to sitting at your desk and being able to just, you know, peruse a website, look at the styles that you like, look at all the different diamonds. Cross reference with websites like my own, which give you static, objective advice about what to look for in a diamond. Ask help from third party. You know, we're, you know, obviously we have partnerships. We're an affiliate marketing company. So We're a bit biased, but you can still ask us for help. We try to do the best we can to give you as unbiased, you know, information as possible. And it just gives you just much more room to avoid making the mistake that people can make when purchasing a diamond.

I don't want to assume, but I feel like the biggest mistake and you kind of alluded to earlier, would be they overpay or they just not necessarily overpay for the product, but they spend too much relative to what their budget should be. What would you say are a couple things? If you're going in to buy a diamond, you obviously debunked the whole two to three months, six months, whatever it is. But what would you say to someone going, okay, I'm looking for an engagement ring, here's the deal, what should I get?

Well, I actually wouldn't look at it as going over your budget. I think people should make the budget. When people ask us for help, we tell them that there are three things we can't help you with. You need to tell us what your budget is. You need to tell us what shape diamond you like, you know, what preference you have and what style setting you like. And then after that you, we can help pick a diamond and you have to balance those four Cs because buying it, buying a diamond is a zero sum game. If you focus on one particular characteristic of a diamond, that's going to increase the price. So you're going to have to balance that out by dropping on one of the other characteristics so often.

So for example, you're saying if you want a VVS east and you go, well, maybe I can go a little imperfection to instead of flawless or.

That add some imperfections to it. So that way you can get something that's a clear color.

Absolutely.

Or vice versa.

Recommend that. You know, you mentioned EVVs. You can choose to get an EVVS diamond being the color VVS as a clarity grade. But what that's going to do is that's just going to drop the size of the diamond. You know, the one and a half carat diamond that's an IVS2 is probably going to be similar in price to a 1.2 carat diamond that's an EVVS or might even be cheaper. So what would you rather have? Can a normal person, you know, not an expert like myself, can a typical person look at an I, an IVS2 and notice the imperfections compared to an EVVS2?

That's what I was just going to ask you, is if you're out and about and your girlfriend, wife, mom, whoever is wearing the thing, is anyone even going to be able to tell when you're just walking through a room and then how much does the lighting play a role?

Lighting plays a large role. And that's, by the way, that's another issue that you have with, with going into a physical retailer. When you walk in, they're going to make sure to show you those diamonds. In perfect lighting, that diamond is going to sparkle. You're not going to be able to see the imperfections below it. You're going to fall in love with that diamond, and then you're going to be walking through your kitchen and you're going to be like, oh, this looks kind of dull. I don't really understand. It looks so much nicer in the showroom.

Yeah, I mean, those things play. Most people cannot tell the difference. We like to divide the four Cs into two different sections, color and clarity. We consider those line in the sand characteristics. You want to get as low in color and clarity as long as you don't cross the line to the point where it's noticeable. So in most diamonds, let's say SI2 is probably the line of demarcation for clarity. You know, we can pick out an eye clean SI2, but let's say 80% of those are going to have noticeable, excuse me, noticeable inclusions. And you'd want to avoid those. And the same goes for color. That would depend on what style setting you're putting it into. So we try to end up in the H I color range is usually what most of our readers end up going with and doing. That allows you to focus more on the cut, which is going to affect the brilliance of the diamond and how much it sparkles and the size. And those are really the two most important things in the diamonds.

So even if you didn't have a flawless or a high grade of low imperfections, and even if the color was a little bit off, it sounds like, you know, based on lighting and what normal people are doing, you should kind of round up to the size because you're going to notice that more than. I mean, I know for some of this stuff, you're only going to see if you're a trained professional under a microscope with the proper lights. Right?

Exactly. I mean, there's no person out there who can tell the difference. You know, flawless and a VVS one Even. Even myself, even if I had a loop, I would be very hard pressed to find VVS1 inclusions on my Own those are generally you would need to have a microscope to see something like that.

It's interesting. And the reason I asked about the lighting is because I tell so many people about lighting. I mean photograph literally translates to light recording. If you're doing photo or video or diamonds or a lot of things, the light plays a role. You know, you get a $40,000 camera without the proper lights, it's just going to show a bunch of grain and same thing. You know, if you're. I was picturing a dinner like a gourmet fancy dinner gala thing. They never have the lights up, it's always dim anyhow. Like the places you wear this stuff other than maybe the supermarket and you can get your food delivered now. So I don't even know why you'd be doing that. But it's like the places you go to show this stuff off, it's never the showroom and it's generally dimly lit, romantic evening type deals.

Exactly, exactly.

So how much would it difference are we talking to go from like a 4 to 6 or 7 on the size if we drop some of these other things down? Because that, that you could tell you're.

You're in celebrity range talking 4 to 6 carats a 4 karat diamonds. If it's decent quality. What we would recommend is going to run you close to and can't hold me to this because I haven't kept as current on those prices. Probably about 80 to $100,000. Your typical engagement ring is probably about one carat which runs you about $4,000. 4,000, $5,000.

I was actually going to guess five to 15. That's not bad. Yeah.

I mean so you could get. A lot of people buy their, buy their engagement rings at Walmart, they buy their engagement rings, you know, at big box retailers. You know that's there's a wide variety of consumers in this space.

What would you say this most popular shape, round cut.

That's. That has been and probably always will be the most popular shape. It's taken a bit of a dip. But we're talking about, you know, it makes up 40, anywhere between 40 and 60% of the overall business.

I think just because it's so symmetrical.

It's so symmetrical.

It's the most brilliant as well based on that symmetry and the faceting of a diamond, the way, the way light will go into it and refract out is going to be the most brilliant. So you're going to get more sparkle out of a round diamond than any other. And you can also.

It Just, it's the easiest one to put in any setting because of that symmetry, because of the round. It really fits into almost any style that you're going to go for.

Is that why it's also on your logo?

Yeah, I mean, that's the. That's the original. That's the original shape. And that's probably always going to be the classic.

Okay. It's kind of like black and white, you know, suits. You got a black suit, you're good for the next hundred years.

Yeah.

Or gray, for that matter.

I haven't had a black suit, so hopefully my. My navy and gray will do. Okay.

Yeah, navy is a good one, too.

What would you say is the second most. If someone goes, you know, I want to just go against the grain here and not get around one.

I think cushion cuts and princess cuts have been the second and third most popular. They usually run about even. And I think more popular nowadays, not more popular because they're still only going to make up less than 10% of the business. But I think ovals and pear shapes have had a slight resurgence. My personal favorite is oval cut.

Where's the emerald fall in here? I'm shocked to not hear it. I actually thought I would.

Emerald cuts are not as popular.

I would say that they're more popular when you're looking at much larger diamonds.

Okay.

They kind of don't have a great look. From my, from my opinion, this is purely fashion. And if you ask my girlfriend and pretty much anybody who knows me, you shouldn't be asking me fashion questions. But emerald cuts generally are. They trend towards the larger.

The larger diamonds, like at least a two or three carat.

Yeah.

Okay. Now, now the rounds are great. The rounds are great for earrings.

Rounds are great for earrings. Probably 95% of earrings around cuts. You'll have some princess cuts as well, which are the square ones. But really round diamonds dominate that. That market.

Okay. Well, this is fascinating to me. I want to ask you, is there a difference, like in the setting that you're putting it in, would you say? So we've talked. I'd say pretty in depth. And if there's anything that we should know that I haven't asked yet, as far as the diamond concern, please share it. But what about the setting? Because I know you can do white gold, gold, gold, platinum, palladium. All these different things nowadays.

Yeah, I mean, most of that is going to end up being personal preference based on whatever color you're going for. You know, we mentioned, we mentioned before, with color grades of a diamond you want to make sure that the diamond looks clear and that doesn't have a yellowish tint. So. So one of the ways to do that is to make sure that there's nothing around it that looks whiter or clearer than the actual diamonds. So if you're going with platinum or white gold, you probably don't want to drop below H or I color. Sometimes you can get away with a J color if it's. If it's really well cut and it's a round diamond. But if you're. If you have a yellow gold solitaire, you can probably put a J or K color diamonds even, even lower, possibly. And you will not notice any. Any warmish tint in the diamond because everything around it is a yellowish hue.

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. So have you ever had anyone get a yellowish setting just to make the diamond pop more, even if they're not trying to go a yellowish diamond just because of price or something, but just to accentuate the contrast?

Absolutely. I mean, right now we're talking about white ish diamonds. There are also what we call fancy colors, which, as you mentioned before, chocolate diamonds have tried to get into that door. But the most common fancy color out there is yellow. It's more of a vivid yellow as opposed to like a lukewarm yellow that you would get in the, in the clear color scale. And most jewelers who trade in the fancy, fancy yellow diamonds will put a yellow basket underneath the diamond, a yellow gold basket that will accentuate the color of the diamonds. I see that where I live, if you buy lemons in one of those net bags that they come in in a package, they use yellow mesh.

On the packaging. So it helps extenuate the yellowness of the lemons and it makes them look brighter. And that's, you know, that's what they're doing in the dime. You know, when you're buying a fancy.

Yellow diamonds, marketing, it's like every step.

Of the process everywhere.

Yeah, well, I. Is there anything that we should have asked that we didn't? Because you're obviously the expert here. I'm just going off of the limited knowledge I have from buying stuff last 20 years.

But, you know, you're saying you have limited knowledge, but I think you covered everything. That was a pretty good, pretty good job of research and just personal knowledge there.

Well, I appreciate that. So I guess we're good on the diamond front as far as that. And I do have a couple more questions here.

Fire away.

This is the wheel of whatever.

Okay.

And do you want yellow or black.

What's that nice yellow color?

Yeah, you want yellow?

Sure.

Okay. My question for you is, if you weren't doing diamonds, what would you be doing?

Oh, I'd love to say that. I'd be a chef. I'm obsessed with cooking. Before we started recording, we were mentioning Italy. I love cooking Italian food.

Can't go wrong with Italian.

What was that?

Can't go wrong with Italian.

Yeah. And I love cooking. I host foodie dinners all the time. I don't think I have the physical stamina to really survive as in the cooking industry. I mean, those are brutal hours standing all the time. But I absolutely love cooking. So I would say something in that.

In that field that's fantastic. I've always enjoyed cooking myself. And my nephew and his wife, who I'm very proud of, they actually went to the Culinary Institute of America and they are professional chefs, so. So I ask him stuff from time to time. He's. He's the one who taught me the sous vide method.

And oh yeah, I finally got a steam oven, so I don't even have to have the separate water baths in the corner of my room of the kitchen. So I could just put it straight in the oven and in a vacuum bag.

That is great. You know, you got a good combo there with the elegant diamonds and good food. I mean, that, that would be. Shoot, can I switch industries? That'd be easy to promote.

Yeah, I mean, they're a good combination. I try to tell my girlfriend that she's really lucky. I don't know if she's buying it though.

So thanks for playing along with that. We're gonna thank our sponsor and come back for the imperfect action round. You've heard me say every business needs a book, including yours, and it's true. And that's why I'm launching my new book@eapublishingmethodbook.com so you can learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and Prof. Generating business book in eight weeks. But you know what, don't take my word for it. Take it from a few of my authors like Lori.

I went from having an idea and a possibility to actually getting my book published. Or Catherine, thank you for making my mom number one best selling author.

Or Mary Alice, what he got done for me in three days regarding my book launch.

Unmanageable John Cody.

I've worked with Mario over the phone and online and he's been very helpful in getting me where I needed to go with promoting my books. Rocio, there's no way in the world I would have been able to do this with somebody else again. I've attempted it in the past. It didn't serve me. As a matter of fact, I ended up more frustrated than anything. So this has been a very seamless process.

Adele, if you're looking for an amazing.

Business coach, I highly recommend Mario Ficcini or Bill Benner.

I can't make a higher recommendation than.

To work with Mario Ficini.

He has been great for me, and.

Right now, I won't work with anybody else except for Mario.

Hey, their words, not mine. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get your copy, and I look forward to hearing your transformation as our next video success story. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.com and we are back with the imperfect action round. Michael, are you ready to take imperfect action?

I'm ready.

I got three questions for you. 60 second or less answers. The first one is, what is the fastest path to the profits?

Learning how to be a good salesman. Doesn't matter what you're doing, you got to be a good salesman.

Agree 100%. Great answer. Number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way for them to fix it?

The. I'm sorry, I didn't catch that.

What is the biggest problem? Your prospects. What is the biggest problem your prospects are making and the fastest way for them to fix it?

I would say not. Not adjusting to the way people are consuming media nowadays.

Okay.

I think that that's. That's being ahead of the trend and trying to see which ones are going to stick, which ones aren't. I'm getting a little too old for that. Hopefully I'll still. I'll still have my finger on the pulse. But that's. That's, I think, the biggest. The biggest priority for me.

Yeah. Change is always interesting. I remember when I changed my company name, someone goes, why'd you do this? And it's. It's coming up on 10 years ago, and I said, in the future, when we're using holograms for marketing, I don't want to have to change it again because it was like web design then. It was studios, entertainment. And I'm just like, I want something where I can keep it for the next 50 years. And it's crazy because I'm seeing more and more hologram stuff. I'm like, yes, you know, so who knows when we go to that? But number three, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

Something that always worked for me. I was never a hard sale type of salesperson. Trying to figure out before you try to figure out how to make a profit off of a business, the number one priority for you is how to solve the problem for your customer. And you work that out and then you back back out the way that you can somehow make money off of it. Because ultimately if they get the vibe that you're trying to do what's best for them, it's going to work in the long term.

Great answer.

I love publishing people's business books and I love hearing what they recommend. What books would you say have helped you in your business and life?

I would say probably my favorite book in this realm. It's not really a business business book, but Blink by Malcolm Gadwell.

Oh, good recommendation.

I think that that really helps people understand the differences between how people make learning decisions and how people utilize their their, you know, innate knowledge of a subject to make a quick decision.

Excellent. Where would you like people to learn more.

About us?

Well, definitely our website, Diamonds Pro.

That's where we could help you the best. We also have a nice YouTube channel, the Diamond Pro, and we have plenty of content on both of those that'll help you when purchasing a diamond or diamond jewelry.

Excellent. And I'll make sure that's all in the show notes on eainterviews.com for your episode. Michael, thank you so much for sharing all that.

You have my pleasure. Thank you.

All right, Expert Authority World. We have another great episode here today. I'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day and God bless.

You're already the expert, but have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate qualified leads while increasing profit for you 247 and if so, how well are you promoting it? With my new book, the Expert Authority Effect Publishing Method, I take you through my process step by step. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get started. Now once again, that's eapublishing method book.com thanks for listening to today's episode. I would love to know what you enjoyed most from it if you haven't done so already. I invite you to connect with me on my new LinkedIn. You can go to it directly@eainterviews.com LinkedIn Once again, that's eainterviews.com LinkedIn lastly, check out the full eainterviews.com site for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you on the next one.