Sissy and Bill Jones:

Life’s too short for bad service

By Dwain Hebda

Enter any one of the six Sissy’s Log Cabin locations in Arkansas or Memphis and you’ll see the legacy of a halfcentury of the Jones family’s commitment to quality, expertise and customer service on ready display. It’s a way of doing business that’s as permeated into the company as its famed tag- line, “Life’s too short for ordinary jewelry.”

“We have nine objectives on the wall, and they’re not negotiable,” Sissy Jones said. “These things that are on that wall, if you don’t do it, you’re not going to be here. Care about your customer. Give them good service.”

Bill, Sissy’s son, said, “We always say that it’s not a matter of what a person buys, it’s how good of a time they have. When they walk into a Sissy’s Log Cabin, we want it to be an experience, one of those places you go, ‘I want to go back there; that was a lot of fun.’ And if they did spend money, it was because the customer felt our people really cared about them.”

Sissy started the business in 1970 in Pine Bluff inside a literal log cabin, which was all she could afford for the venture she’d always dreamed of. Bill remembers it was as tiny and ramshackle a launchpad as there ever was.

“It was a little 100-square-foot log cabin that was kind of dilapidated, about to fall in,” Bill said. “I definitely did not work there in high school – the business just wasn’t big enough –although I did string bracelets and stuff like that at night and helped along those lines.”

Bill had a talent for the retail business, however, and worked at the local TG&Y, Tomlinson, Gosselin & Young department store in high school before heading off to the University of Ar- gan. Since then, the company has grown to include locations in Jonesboro, Conway, Memphis and two in Little Rock, with a couple more in the planning stages. Contrary to popular belief, the decision to expand was not a foregone conclusion.

“The first expansion we had, I tried for years to get her to expand. I tried Hot Springs, but she just didn’t want to do it,” Bill said. “Finally, one of my Rolex reps called me and said, ‘We have an opening in Little Rock. Do you want it?’ We went to Little Rock and looked at some locations. She was like, ‘I just don’t want to do it.’ My dad didn’t really want to do it either; he wanted to keep it all as a single business.

“Probably the greatest closing line that I ever did was, we were at lunch in Little Rock, and we’re sitting there and I wrote a text to my Rolex rep. I said, ‘We will take Rolex in Little Rock,’ and then I slid the phone across the table without having hit send. I said, ‘Sissy, the fate of our future is in your hands. What are you going to do?’ The cool thing about it was she read the text, and then she said, ‘What the hell?’ and hit send. After that, it was Katie bar the door.” kansas. By the time he turned 20, the little Pine Bluff store’s clientele had grown considerably, and he decided it was time to join the family business.

As one store after another appeared, the days of the cramped, rickety log cabin faded farther into history. The company’s latest multimillion-dollar effort surpasses them all, a new freestanding 9,000-square-foot store currently under construction in Memphis. But while the new showplace bears little physical resemblance to the tiny cabin, the company’s philosophy that was born there is alive and well.

“I really had a knack for it and decided not to go back to U of A; instead, I went to UALR and continued to work there and wanted to go to gemology school,” he said. “I came back after gemology school; it was just Sissy and I. It was just a very simple situation.”

The original business plan called for focusing mainly on antiques with jewelry being secondary merchandise. But after one particularly taxing delivery, Bill made the suggestion that launched a thousand engagements to come.

“Bill came in after we delivered a rolltop desk and he said, ‘Mom, when you get too old to do this, what kind of business is this going to be?,’” Sissy said. “I said, ‘You know, Bill? I have some [estate jewelry] that a customer brought in.’ It was some cufflinks, necklaces and that kind of stuff. He said, ‘I think we ought to start selling more jewelry.’”

Known as a shrewd horse trader if there ever was one, Sissy nosed around to find some used display cases that could be had cheaply or for free and the legend of Sissy’s Log Cabin be-

“The first thing is, greet someone when they first come in the door. Otherwise, they feel like they’re in the wrong place, that they can’t afford to be there. That’s not true,” Sissy said. “I can get you where you want to go. If you want to spend $125, I’m going to help you have a $125 ring.”

Over the years, the Jones family has codified its corporate culture. Hundreds of employees have trained via “Sissy University” under the belief that great customer service can only be achieved by being knowledgeable and invested in one’s work.

“I always believed that if I’m going to stand behind that counter and tell you something, I better know what I’m talking about,” Sissy said. “I expect the same from employees; I don’t want you up front waiting on a customer and saying, ‘I don’t know.’ if you’re not really serious about this job, you don’t want to come through me, because this is how we do it.”

Today, Sissy’s Log Cabin is the largest family-owned jewelry store in the mid-South and has seen yet another generation of the family carry on the company’s reputation. Rolex and Cartier are just two of the luxury names on display here, as is the company’s newest designation of Official Jeweler of Memphis’ FedEx Forum and its resident Grizzlies NBA team.

But for all the moving parts propelling the little jewelry store that could forward, the most steam comes from one simple operating credo.

“Word hard,” Bill said. “Be humble.”