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Author: Phil Wrzesinski

Tell Me a Story

Quick, tell me a story about a recent transaction in your business that made you laugh…

Didn’t take long to think of something, did it?  The hardest part was probably deciding which story to tell.

We all have a backlog of stories we can share; some touching, some hilarious, some that get your blood pressure up.

Do you have a place to share them?

Stories are powerful because stories evoke emotions.  Emotions move the needle far better than facts and data.  Stories are more memorable, too.

Quick, tell me the phone number from your dorm room your freshman year in college.  Don’t remember?  How about three stories from your freshman year about dating?  Much easier.

If you want your customers to relate to you, tell them stories that evoke the emotions you want them to feel.  Tell them stories that will stick in their minds long after the data is gone.  Tell them stories that they will share with others.

You have plenty of stories to tell.  Start telling them.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS  You can tell stories on your blog, on FB, in your advertising, on signs in your store.  For as many stories as you have, you can find a new way to share.

Grandfather’s Wisdom

Back in 2008 I interviewed my grandfather, Phil Conley, who, along with my grandmother Esther, founded Toy House, Inc. back in 1949.  Check out this exchange about Customer Service and return policies…

Phil Wrzesinski: But, as far as the competition, did you give them [competitors] as much mind or did you say, “We’re going to do our own thing and let them worry about them and we’ll worry about us”?

Phil Conley: Well, I was worrying about us. I wasn’t worrying about them. I didn’t worry about them. They can do what they want, but we wanted to do what we want, the right way, and that is give service, give price, good selection. The other thing, at Hudson’s, they had a very liberal policy. You could take stuff back and get credit, but you might have to go up a floor or down a floor. I wanted to do it better and so I empowered [the staff], in the early days, and it always went, that if there was a complaint the salesperson could make an adjustment then. The adjustment could be “refund the money” or… whatever would satisfy them.

PW: They had the empowerment to do that.

PC: Yes. It would be easier to return something than it was to buy it, because what I know, at Hudson’s [doing a return], it took you an hour or a half hour to go to the other floor, that’s when you’re not going to be spending money. You’re going to be trying to get money. It should be easier to [make a return].

PW: Don’t waste your time. We want you shopping.  You’re here at the store. We want you to spend as much of it shopping.

PC: Yes. That’s right. That’s right. That’s right.

PW: Wonder how many of these stores get that today?

PC: Well, don’t you?

PW: Well, I think I do.  We do our returns right up front at the register. A lot of other stores you’ve got to go to the back. You have to go wait in line.

PC: Do you empower your people?

PW: Oh, yeah. They take care of it. I rarely have to deal with any returns.

PC: Well, it’s just common sense, for Christ’s sakes.  Somebody comes in your store and they’re unhappy, make them happy quick! Then get on to sell them some more. Isn’t that right?

Now you know where I got all my retail smarts.  Thanks, Gramps!

Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS  Let me know if you would like more of Phil Conley’s wisdom.  He gave me a few good nuggets and a few interesting stories in our interview.

Open For Business?

It is 5:26pm as I type this.  My business is still open a little bit longer.  But the local appliance store where I need to go to get the replacement filters I ordered will be closed before I publish this post.

They won’t be open this weekend when I have time off either.

Guess it is a lunch hour trip one day this week.

Are your hours designed around the lifestyle of your customers or your own life?  Are they built to accommodate the primary shoppers for your category?  Or are they designed around the old 9 to 5 work day just because that’s how you always did it?

If you sell large-ticket items like appliances that might require a joint decision by a couple shopping, you may need weekend and evening hours.
If you sell primarily to the bread-winner, you may need weekend and evening hours.
If you sell primarily to working folk, you may need weekend and evening hours.
If you are located in a theater or restaurant district with lots of evening traffic, you may need weekend and evening hours.
If you are located in a region with lots of two-income families, you may need weekend and evening hours.

Hey, I’m guilty, too.  My store is open 7 days a week, but only one night past 6pm.  We may all need to think outside the box in regards to our hours of operation.

Closed Tuesdays but open Sundays?
Open 7am to 2pm and 4pm to 9pm?
Open Noon to 9pm daily?

Our customers are going to the Internet or the big box stores because of one main reason – convenience.  And the main convenience is time of day.  I work until 6pm.  I get home at 6:30pm, eat dinner, help get my boys to bed.  Now it is 9pm and most of the stores are closed.  Yeah, the Internet looks inviting at that time.

If you believe you are losing market share to the big box stores and the Internet, maybe it is time to rethink your hours.  I know I am rethinking mine.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Some of my mall store friends who are required to stay open until 9pm lament that their type of customer isn’t out in the evening.  That may be true.  It also may be a symptom of the perception of the mall being full of teenagers in the evening.  The topic still merits discussion for your business.

Excerpt from Hiring and the Potter’s Wheel

Here is another excerpt from my book Hiring and the Potter’s Wheel: Turning Your Staff Into a Work of Art.

If you buy 60 books, one full carton, at the regular price of $1200, I will travel at my own expense to see you* and give you four hours of my business knowledge in the form of seminars, workshops, training, mentoring, coaching, or whatever you see fit.

Enjoy this lesson, one of the lessons I had to learn the hard way…

Chapter 14 Lesson #7 Smoothing the Rough Spots

“Nothing is so strong as gentleness. Nothing is so gentle as real strength.” – FrancesDe Sales
As Mary smoothed the rough edges of her bowl she pondered what lesson she could learn from this step in the process.  “If I’ve put them in a safe place to use their skills, what roughness will be left?” she thought.  A smile came to her face.  “Evaluations!  I’ve got to make sure there is time for evaluations during and after the safe zone period.  Even though they are using their skills, there will still be rough edges needing smoothing. 
“I know,” she thought, “I can take the training skills checklist and do follow-up evaluations on each skill just to make sure there are no bad habits, no rough spots.  Oh yes, and the evaluations must be completely positive – show them what to do right, rather than harp on what was done wrong.  They’re still fragile at this time.  Yes, fragile.  That’s what Peter meant.  The bowls, while dry, are still fragile and need to be safe.  The trainees, while trained, are still fragile and need to be in a safe environment where they can learn from their mistakes.  It all makes sense,” Mary concluded.
Peter wandered the room checking up on everyone’s bowls, looking for missed rough spots.  By the end of class he deemed every bowl to be ready.
“Okay, put the bowls safely on the rack.  On Wednesday we fire them for the first time.”
“The first time?” Mary asked. 
“Yes,” Peter replied.  “On Wednesday we are going to do what is called ‘bisque-firing’.  This will harden your bowls so that they won’t be so fragile. 
“By the way,” Peter continued.  “We will not be meeting here.  All of you are invited to my studio.  I’ve put the address and directions on these little slips of paper.  Unfortunately, the directors here at the YMCA will not let me build a kiln inside the Y, so we’ll use my kiln at the studio.  See you Wednesday.”

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

*PS Although my offer is good only for the continental United States, if you’re willing to pay the airfare, too, I’m willing to travel internationally.

I Didn’t Do It

Last Saturday we celebrated National Train Day.

We had a face-painting booth.
We had a huge train cut-out for photos.
We had train-shaped cookies.
We had train whistles to give away.
We had a train coloring contest.
We had three train play tables out around the store.
We had train storytelling.
We had an electric train display.
We had a model railroading expert talking about train history.
We had a prize drawing for trains.
We had train stickers for the kids.
We even had railroad tracks made out of duct tape lining the floor and leading the kids to every station.

Not a single idea there was mine.  Oh, I am not saying I couldn’t have come up with those ideas (although I might not have had as many).  But I purposefully chose to let my staff run this event.  All I did was make signs as requested, send out an email and press releases, and post to Facebook.

The staff did all the rest.  

They found the cookie baker, the story teller, and the face painter.
They picked the coloring pages, the demos and the prizes.
They made the decorations, manned the stations and made the announcements.

All I had to do was walk around and snap photos, talk to customers and have fun.

The smiles on the customers’ faces was constant and beaming.  The smiles on my staff’s faces was brighter than ever.  But the smile on my face was biggest of all.  All of the team building, all of the staff trainings, all of the coaching was paying off.  They took ownership of the event and made it one of the best events of the year.

Today the staff is still buzzing about it.  More importantly, they have a higher sense of pride in the store and the experience of our customers.  They took ownership of the event and that has translated into ownership of the job they do here.

Would you like your staff to take ownership?  For a limited time, for only $1200 I can show you how to get them to buy-in and work in your store so that you can work on your store. (Plus you’ll get 60 signed copies of my book Hiring and the Potter’s Wheel: Turning Your Staff Into a Work of Art).

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS The first step for a great staff is to hire the right people.  But you already knew that.  What you might not know is how to recognize those right people when you find them.  That’s why I wrote my book.  I found a way to find the right people consistently.

Same Song, Different Dance?

Let me tell you a cautionary tale, one you probably already know…

Your company has some burdens, costs of doing business where you live.  Could be property taxes, licenses, etc.  Mandated costs that you have a legal obligation to pay.  You price your product to make sure you cover those costs, but even then you don’t have full control over your prices.  There are still limits to the price for which you can realistically sell your product.

Then some business from out-of-state, one who has lower costs because of his geographical advantages and lack of obligations, comes in and wants to sell what you sell, but at a lower price.  Of course, he is only doing it to gain market share and hopefully put you out of business, nothing different than you would do.

Then only difference is that he has no skin in the game.  He pays nothing to your state.  He employs nobody in your area.  He doesn’t even have to follow all the same rules you have to follow.

As he takes away your market share, you don’t just lose profits.  You lose the ability to cover those fixed costs, those legal obligations.  You have to either find ways to charge more to your existing customers, or go out of business.  It is a lose-lose proposition.

And when you can no longer pay your obligation to the state, the local economy loses and more people are out of work, thus scrambling to find the lowest cost anything, regardless of the consequences.  It is a vicious downward spiral.  To top it all off, at the end of the day, there is no control over what this out-of-stater might do after you are gone.

Seem unfair?

Some of you might think I’m talking about the Main Street Fairness Act, sales tax, and Amazon.  Funny thing is that there is a parallel problem going on that also fits this story all too well.

Electricity.

The State of Michigan has regulations and burdens on the two utilities – Consumers Energy and DTE – including making them invest heavily in renewable energy – a worthy but expensive venture.  The state also requires them to have the ability to offer power to every potential customer in the state.  And the state controls the prices they can charge to their customers.  Currently the state allows a 10% cap on out-of-state electricity to be sold in MI.  Some people want to raise that cap to potentially near 40% – but without releasing our two utilities from their expensive burdens.  Sure, a few people would save money on electricity for a short period of time, but the ramifications to the economy would be felt far beyond the savings.

You would think that with all the discussion on the Main Street Fairness Act and what allowing Amazon to work without the same burdens as other businesses is doing to local economies everywhere, people would get the ramifications.  Instead we have to fight the same old fight one industry at a time.

The song remains the same.  Maybe we need to change the dance?

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.Philsforum.com

PS  This is a departure from my usual types of posts.  I don’t like to get political, just want to point out that the same conversation we are having here in retail is happening in all kinds of industries.  Before anyone bashes me about free market, etc., I get the concepts of free market economies and competition and how at the end of the day the customer should be in control.  The two issues here are first, that the market isn’t free.  Different companies face different – legally mandated – burdens.  And second, the customer doesn’t understand the economic impacts beyond his or her own pocketbook.  Someone somewhere has to pay for lower prices.

Planning an Event

Saturday is National Train Day.

We sell trains… Electric, wooden, and everything in between.  We are celebrating in style.

Activities for participants? Check.  Along with our usual train displays (and a couple new ones we are bringing out) we are doing face painting, coloring contests, having kids sign our almost life-size train poster, train photo ops, train history, a steam engine experiment, and more.

Incentives to attend? Check.  We have free train whistles to give away (thanks to one of our favorite vendors), prizes for two different prize drawings, prizes for the coloring contest and a whole bunch of delicious train-shaped cookies (I know, I tried a sample today.)

Marketing the event? Check.  We have made multiple Facebook announcements, sent out emails, put up signs all around the store, sent out press releases to all the media outlets, talked about it live on TV and radio, made posters to advertise it at two other events going on in town before our event, and created fliers to hand out when out and about in public.

Motivating the staff? Check.  The staff was involved in the planning process from day one.  It wasn’t mandated by me, it was conceived and planned by them, so there is 100% buy-in from the staff.  They are fired up and ready to rock.

Anyone see a checklist forming here?  Failure to plan is planning to fail, or as my grandfather always says, “Plan for Success”.

Events are a great way to draw traffic and delight customers.  But events require planning.  Make yourself a checklist and get planning some fun events for your store.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS  Events also cost money.  We have committed about $800 to this event above and beyond our usual expenses (for product giveaways, cookies, fliers, posters, etc).  I consider that money to be marketing and advertising money.  I am not concerned whether I make that money back on Saturday because my goal for this event – the first thing I put at the top of my checklist – is to draw a crowd and make a lot of people happy.  If I do that, the money was well spent.  Always write down your goal, then plan your activities around that goal.  

PPS  The event has been a huge success!

They Aren’t YOUR Customers

You know YOUR customers.  You know their demographics, maybe even their psychographics.  You know their shopping habits.  You know their likes and dislikes.  You talk about YOUR customers lovingly.

But they aren’t YOURS.  Even the evangelists.

Yes, they support you.  Yes, they spread the word about you.  Yes, they defend your good name.

Yes, they bought something you sell from somewhere else.  You know that, right?  You’ve done it yourself.  It was something you needed and it was convenient, or cheaper, or you needed it right away so you bought it from a different store than the one you usually support.

Customers are like that.  Fickle.  Changing.  Or more likely, Practical.

You don’t own any customers.  If anything, they own you.  They decide if you live or die.  They decide if you are worth the hassle to visit, to spend money with, to promote to others.

They own you.  And they can swap you for another store in a heartbeat.

Kinda changes the equation, doesn’t it?  What would you do differently in terms of Customer Service for the owner walked through the front door than you would for just some regular old customer?  Would you treat the owner better?  Would you court the owner harder, hoping the owner keeps you?

You don’t own your customers, they own you.  Treat them accordingly.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS For a great article on how quickly a customer can change click here.

I Can’t Find My Desk

Oh, I know my desk is there, buried under papers needing filing, orders that have been placed, reports that were read, catalogs that have come in.  I just don’t like spend my time putting that stuff away.

My wife and my employees agree that I need a secretary.  I am working towards that goal.  In the meantime, I let the piles grow and grow until I go on a cleaning binge and clear off my desk, my table and the floor of my office.

Don’t get me wrong.  I do a lot of organizing, mostly of thoughts and data.  It takes a mountain of data to keep a store like mine operating smoothly.  But the mundane task of filing away those reports, putting away all the catalogs, and hiding all the need-to-keep-it-just-in-case paperwork is such a low priority to me that I put it aside until the mountain threatens my safety.

Some of you are nodding in agreement.  Some of you are appalled.  I might even lose a follower who believes a stacker like me is a slacker, too.  I am okay with that.

The lesson here is that we all are different.  We all have different priorities.  We all choose where to put our energies based on our Core Values.

That is why I believe so strongly that one of the best things you can do for your business is identify your Core Values.  Once you consciously know your Core Values, you get to be them more openly… in every aspect of your business.

You might alienate a customer or two.  But you will also attract a whole bunch of new customers who resonate loudly with your values – once you share them more openly.

If you would like to uncover your Core Values, I have a couple methods of doing it.  First read my FREE eBook Understanding Your Brand.  Then download the FREE Worksheets that go with it.  (Then email me if you get stuck.)

It won’t help you find your desk, but it will help you find everything else you might need to run your business in a way that works for you.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS  My Core Values are Having Fun, Helping Others, Education, and Nostalgia.  Now you know why I write this blog and give away all this info for free:-)

Buy the Book, I’ll Speak for FREE

(I know you know someone who could use this.  Please share it with that person.)

My book, Hiring and the Potter’s Wheel: Turning Your Staff Into a Work of Art comes packed 60 books to the carton.  What would you do if you had 60 of these books?  Do you know some businesses who could use help hiring and training a better staff?

60 books at $19.99 equals $1199.40.  I want to make you an offer.  Round it off to $1,200 even and I will throw in 4 FREE hours of me.

Yes, that’s right.  Buy one carton of books for $1200 and I will show up at your door anywhere in the continental USA and give you 4 hours of my business knowledge to use as you see fit.

If you are a Radio Station…
You will get 60 books to give to your clients that will help them hire and train a better workforce, thus ensuring they will be in business (and buying radio ads from you) for a long time.  If you think about it, that’s a far more memorable gift than the mug, candy or flowers you have been giving them.

Plus, you will get me teaching your sales staff how to sell your product more effectively, how to create killer campaigns for your clients, and how to craft powerful messages that drive serious traffic to their door.  Plus you can use me to help mentor your favorite clients, teaching them how to powerfully brand their business, and how to uncover their core message that will resonate strongest with your listening audience.

If you are a Chamber of Commerce, DDA, or Shop Local organization…
You will get 60 books to strengthen the quality of employees in your district, making your core businesses rock solid and recession-proof thus increasing your influence and the size of your district.

Plus, you get to choose from a vast array of training programs that will rock their worlds and make your businesses the envy of all the surrounding communities.  You can even ask me to show you how to plan Staff Meetings that people WANT to attend.

If you are a Trade Organization or Buying Group…
You get 60 books to help your members make hiring decisions and develop training programs that will turn them into the shining stars of your industry.  When they see how great your stores are doing, you will have other stores begging to join your proactive organization.

Plus, you get four hours of some of the best retail ideas on everything from Inventory Management to Customer Service to Pricing Strategies that put money in your members’ pockets (so that they can pay their dues on time.)

If you are an individual store…
You get 60 books to give away to all your business friends and family for Christmas.  You can even sell them in your store to get your money back if you want.

More importantly, you get four hours to pick my brain.  Use me to help train your staff on the kind of customer service that gets talked about.  Use me to help craft your marketing campaign into a traffic-driving force.  Use me to look over your financials and help you find lost profits and put them back in your pocket.  Use me to teach you how to make staff trainings fun again.

If you are a Nationally Syndicated Talk Show Host… (Stewart? Colbert? Kimmel? Dave? NPR?)
You get 60 business books that are soon to be the talk of the nation.  Heck, I’ll bring extra books so that you can hide one under every chair in the audience.

Plus, you will get a guest who is as comfortable behind a microphone as you are.  You get a savvy businessman who knows retail, has opinions, and is not afraid to share them.  Not only did I host my own radio show for three years, I have plenty of camera time sitting in the guest chair.  Plus, you will get top-notch ratings from the Jackson, Michigan market.

You buy 60 books and I’ll pay my own way to get there plus one night in a hotel*.  And you get to choose what business training you want for your purchase.

I have four full cartons of books ready and waiting to ship to the first four people/groups who contact me.  Send an email to phil@philsforum.com to set up your four hours of kick-ass, kick-starting presentations and trainings.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS  If you want more than 60 books or more than 4 hours, I am more than willing to negotiate.  I will be happy to work with your schedule as much as possible.  Just remember that I have my own store to run, so we might both have to be flexible to schedule something.

*PPS This deal is good for USA travel only (unless you want to pay for the flight, too).