We asked our owner, Jacob, about the inspiration behind Gem Awards, where he sees the future of the business and more.
Treyson:
“Hey, everybody. Today we’re here with Jacob, the owner of Gem Awards.
Today we’re going to be talking about the history, mission, and future of Gem Awards.”
Jacob:
“Thank you. I’m super glad to be here. Hopefully have a really good discussion today.”
Treyson:
“So tell me a little bit about yourself and the history of Gem Awards.”
Jacob:
“Yeah. So my name is Jacob. I’m the owner here at Gem Awards. The history of Gem Awards goes back all the way to about 1988. So that’s when my mom founded Gem Awards.
It was actually a split off from my grandpa’s company that was called Gem Jewelers. So he started a jewelry store, hence the name gem.
She started engraving at the jewelry store and decided that she could make a go of it as a separate business and started Gem Awards that ran here in southern Utah locally for about 35 years.
Then I had the opportunity to take it over and have been running it for the last five.”
Treyson:
“Always being in the business, what really inspired you to take it over?”
Jacob:
“That’s a really good question. I didn’t always want to take over the business. Like you said, I basically grew up in the business. My parents didn’t have a whole lot of employees, so usually after school or during summers, we were at the business making profits, products, talking to customers, just really having our hands right in the business.
So I had done that for a lot of years and I kind of thought that I wanted to do something different. But it was actually when I went to college to do something different.
I was going to become a veterinarian. I started off my studies in biology and realized that it just didn’t quite feel right. So then I went back to what I was good at, and that was mathematics and numbers.
I settled on the school of business and started in accounting and management.
What I soon realized was when my professors were up there teaching and in the classes, everything that they were teaching my mind in the back of my mind, I was always applying to Gem Awards and I was thinking, wow, we could implement this and it could improve the business in this way.
And that’s what really got me excited about business and Gem Awards specifically.”
Treyson:
“How has the business evolved from, back then until now?”
Jacob:
“Yeah, it’s changed actually quite a bit. A lot of our local customers that come in can see some visible changes that we’ve made to the showroom and our product offerings.
But really the core Fundamentals of the business haven’t changed. We still focus on our core engraving processes.
We focus on providing quality products to our customers and providing a really good hometown service.
But it has really evolved. So for 30 years, we had no online presence at all. And in the last five years, the majority of what we do now is online.
But what we’ve been able to do is we’ve been able to take those small hometown values and put those into the e commerce world. And it’s been really successful for us. So that’s where a lot of our change has taken place, is in the e commerce world.”
Treyson:
“So the business really revolves around recognition. So what does recognition mean to you?”
Jacob:
“Yeah, recognition is super important to Gem Awards. We belong to the Awards Personalization and Recognition association, and that’s what our industry is.
We focus on facilitating this relationship between two people. So most of our customers, they aren’t ordering the product for themselves, they’re ordering it for someone else.
So we get to stand in the middle of these two parties and help them express appreciation or recognition for someone else.
We believe that recognition should be a core fundamental of every relationship. Every healthy and good and valuable relationship should have this element of recognition and appreciation in it.
We all need to feel the value of being seen and heard and see that our efforts are being recognized.”
Treyson:
“So always kind of being the facilitator of that. When was the time that you received recognition or like a story of an award that really stood out to you?”
Jacob:
“Oh, boy. I can think back to one specifically. You’d think that I would have received a lot of awards growing up, and I did.
My parents would often give us some awards for things that we did, but I actually didn’t receive that many awards growing up.
But I can think back to one. And it actually happened also while I was at university during my third year of study.
So when I was a junior, I was actually nominated to be the outstanding management student. And come to find out, it was a very prestigious award.
So the faculty and professors would come together, they would nominate students from the school of Business, and then once they had those nominations, then they would come together again and vote for one recipient.
And I had the honor of being that recipient for the year. What was really cool is they invited us to an awards banquet. So we dressed up.
We were able to meet in the Great hall, which is a really prestigious building on campus. We had a really good meal, and all of the faculty, all of my professors were there.
And I remember walking up on stage to receive my plaque, a plaque that we engraved which is kind of fun and really feeling that it was a special moment, that all of the hard work that I’d been doing for the past three years was worth it.
And people were recognizing and seeing what I was doing. And I really noticed that that helped me get through that last hard year of obtaining my bachelor’s degree.
There were times when maybe I wanted to give up or slack off. And I thought back to that moment, and I thought back to how much my professors believed in me.
And it really helped me to finish out my education. So that’s the biggest one that comes to mind for an item of recognition that I’ve received.”
Treyson:
“Can you tell me a time where a customer story has really stood out to you?”
Jacob:
“Yeah, let me think. It’s hard for me to think of one specific one. We make so many personalized items for people. It’s really cool to see all of the fun ideas that people come up with.
I think one of the most special product lines that we offer at Gem Awards is our engraved brass bells. Originally, when I posted these online, I assumed that we were going to sell them to schools or teachers for retirement gifts.
But I was really surprised. What happened as the orders started to come in for cancer survivors.
As I looked into that a little bit deeper, I found out that there’s this tradition that when a cancer victim goes through treatment, at the end of their treatment, on that last day, when the doctor declares that they’re cancer free or in remission, they get to ring a bell, and it symbolizes the end of their journey.
So we started selling a lot of these bells for cancer survivors. It’s a lot of fun to get those orders that come in every day.
And we get to engrave a patient’s name, we get to engrave that they finish their treatment, they finish their chemotherapy, whatever that they’ve gone through, and then a date.
And it kind of symbolizes their journey as a cancer survivor and the life that they have going forward.
It’s one of my favorite things to engrave for our customers.”
Treyson:
“So with the world changing as rapid as it is, how do you see gem awards evolving?”
Jacob:
“Yeah, Especially in the e commerce space, things change really quickly, changes almost on a daily basis.
But we’re going to continue to stick to our core fundamentals. We’re going to try to provide our customers with a high quality product and give them that hometown customer service experience.
But we’re really going to focus on expanding our product line. So you’re going to see new products come out that are going to help facilitate more recognition between individuals, give people more options when customizing their products so that they have full control over what they want to put on these products.
And it’s going to be really cool as we move into this next year.”
Treyson:
“Jacob, thank you for your time.”
Jacob:
“You’re Welcome!”
Treyson:
“Everybody, thanks for tuning in. If you want to learn more about Gem Awards, check out our website at GemAwards.com.
If you want to check out our other social medias, you can find us @gemwardsInc. Thanks for watching.”
