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Author: Phil Wrzesinski

Notes From Visual Merchandising & Store Design Sessions

I love attending conferences with excellent presentations and workshops.

At the American Specialty Toy Retailing Association Marketplace this week I got a chance to attend two sessions on merchandising and store design put on by Linda Cahan.

Although I have already published a Free eBook called Merchandising Made Easy, I wrote down a ton of notes from these sessions either as reminders or as advanced ideas from what I already know.

Here are some of the key takeaways…

Focal Displays
Your store merchandising should be built on a series of Focal Displays that are visually attractive and placed where they will be easily seen. For instance, at the end of every aisle there should be a Focal Display. When a person enters the store, they will typically look straight ahead first. You should have a Focal Display against the back wall directly in front of them.

People also scan a store in predictable patterns. First they look straight ahead. Then they scan from left to right. Therefore you should stand in their shoes and see how many Focal Display areas you have from the front of the store and what are they seeing.

Your Focal Displays tell the story of who you are, your product selection, your core values, etc. Make sure that you are using those spaces wisely. If you have nothing interesting where a Focal Display should be, you are telling your customers that your store has nothing interesting for them. Make your Focal Displays fun and the rest of the store will seem fun.

Light Makes a Difference
Stores with really bright lights and lots of product everywhere are considered more affordable than stores with a mix of lights or bright lights with little product. If you are going for the boutique look, mix up your lighting. If you are going for the affordable look, add some wattage.

The best light of all, however, is Natural Light. Windows, skylights, etc. Natural light makes a store feel cleaner, lighter and more relaxing. It also helps your staff feel better.

Even if your landlord won’t let you put in more natural light, you can make a difference just by painting your ceilings light blue with a cloud or two. It will expand the space and make it feel like there is more natural light.

LED lights are the new wave of the future, offering brightness at a fraction of the energy, and they last forever. Get away from the hot halogens, expensive incandescent, and even the fluorescent lights in favor of LED when you start switching out your light fixtures.

Round is a Shape
Get rid of your sharp corners. If your cashwrap sits in the middle of the store and has corners, soften them somehow. Put a plant or a round fixture at each corner. Use round tables instead of square tables for displays. Sharp corners are irritants, not only dangerous physically, but also psychologically. Rounded corners and rounded fixtures are much more comfortable and pleasing.

Thanks to Linda for these great ideas (and so much more). I know there are some things I need to change.

How about you?

Phil
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Check out Linda’s book 100 Displays Under $100 (not an affiliated link, just a shout out to say thanks for two wonderful presentations)

You Get What You Pay For

A friend of mine’s wife was teaching a dance teachers workshop and one of the participants asked her how she was able to get such good musicians for the program.

She replied, “Pay them!”

The universal truth is that you get what you pay for.

It especially applies to your staff.

There are two management approaches you can take towards your staff. Either they are one of your largest expenses or one of your largest assets.

The business owner who approaches payroll as an expense will try to cut it to the barest minimum, keep pay as low as possible to keep labor costs down.

The business owner who sees the employees as an asset will invest in them and do whatever necessary to get the highest possible return from those assets.

Either way, you will get what you pay for.

Choose wisely, my friends, choose wisely.

Phil
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Need help getting the right assets in place? Buy my book Hiring and the Potter’s Wheel: Turning Your Staff Into a Work of Art. It will make a difference immediately.

How I Am Marketing the Birthday Club

Thought it might be insightful to show you all I am doing to market the launch of our Birthday Club at Toy House.

  • Facebook – This is where I did a lot of research and also where we first announced it.

  • Email – I use Constant Contact to manage my email list. This particular email was the most-opened email I have sent.

  • Press Releases – I have 80 email addresses just for press releases; newspaper contacts, radio, TV, business leaders, people who publish newsletters, local organizations, etc.

  • TV – I am the daily sponsor of the JTV Birthday Club on the Bart Hawley Show. They put up a slide on the air at the end of their Birthday Club segment telling people to sign up for our Birthday Club. Plus, I will be making a live appearance next week on the show to talk about it.

  • Local Message Boards – my wife posted the announcement on two local message boards and they both immediately had positive reactions.

  • Radio – I will be doing a couple interviews on local radio soon to talk about the Birthday Club. Part of that is because I do a lot of radio advertising. Part of that is because I have cultivated relationships with our local deejays. I might run a radio ad later, but only if I think I need the extra publicity.

  • Website – Our web guy put it up on our website in conjunction with the launch. Thanks Steve!

  • In-Store Signs – We have signs all throughout the store advertising the Birthday Club.

  • This Blog – Sure, it’s more of a backdoor way of marketing, but I have customers and local people who read this blog and have learned about the Birthday Club from it.

  • Word-of-Mouth – The buzz both online and in person has been huge.

Sure, that might seem like a lot of work. But much of it is simple enough to do. And all it really cost was time.

Results? Over 150 sign-ups in the first three days.

You don’t need a big advertising budget to market your business. You need some time, some ingenuity, and a great message.

Phil
www.PhilsForum.com

PS To learn other affordable ways to market your business, check out my three free eBooks
Main Street Marketing on a Shoestring Budget
Baby Store Marketing on a Shoestring Budget
Non-Profit Marketing on a Shoestring Budget.

If You’re Gonna Do It, Do It Better Than Everyone Else

Today at Toy House we launched our Birthday Club.

We looked into what our competitors were doing and figured out we could do a whole lot better.

Our biggest competitor offers a small gift certificate of $3.
So we offered $10.
Their gift certificate had a strict time limit.
Ours has (virtually) none.
Their program ends when the kid turns 10.
Ours has no limit. Yes, even adults can sign up!

Then, for fun, we installed a Birthday Bell in the store. When a Birthday Club member comes in, he or she gets to ring the Birthday Bell to let everyone in the store know he or she is celebrating.

Oh sure, we have some ulterior motives in all of this. All such programs do. Here are the benefits we hope to reap.

  • More traffic in store. You have to come in to sign up and you have to come in to redeem the gift certificate and ring the bell.

  • More information. You have to give us your mailing address and there is a place to opt-in to our email list, too.

  • More fun and excitement. Ringing the bell in the store adds to the in-store experience for everyone.

  • More memories. Will you remember a $3 gift? Heck, some of our Facebook friends said it wasn’t enough to even get them in that other store. A $10 gift certificate means you can get something of value. Add it in with other money they received and the gift becomes even more special.

  • More sales. Yes, we expect to reap some incremental sales from this. The kid with birthday cash can go anywhere. The kid with birthday cash and a Toy House gift certificate is coming to see us.

  • More exposure. Word of mouth? You bet! Plenty to talk about. The size of the gift certificate. The Birthday Bell. The fact that adults can join (and the added benefit of reminding people that we carry toys for all ages.)

We could have copied the other store. But that isn’t us. We’re bigger than that. We’re better than that. You are too!

Is your competitor doing something positive that you aren’t? See how you can do it better than them, and blow them out of the water.

Phil
www.PhilsForum.com

PS If you would like details of how we’re running this program, how we’re marketing it, or anything else regarding it, send me an email.

The Importance of Fun

Are your employees having fun?

Do they enjoy coming to work every day? Do they smile, laugh and play? Do they make the tedious jobs seem fun and exciting? Do they brighten up the entire store?

Or do they drag themselves to work at the last possible moment? Do they start each day with a bitch session about last night’s issues with the kids, or yesterday’s customers, or just life in general? Do they roll their eyes when you suggest something to keep them busy?

If you’re a retailer, you have to have a fun place to visit. There are too many options for customers to have to go to someplace they dread. And that fun attitude starts with your staff.

Here are some things you can do to foster fun amongst the staff:

  • Hire fun people. Seems obvious, but are you willing to fire the sourpusses and start over?

  • Encourage fun on the job. Have games for the staff to play. Get products out for the staff to demo. Help your staff become experts by making them use the products you sell. Do something unusually fun on the sales floor, maybe even out of character for your industry like a TV in a jewelry store.

  • Encourage fun in the training. Make meetings and trainings fun by finding fun ways to teach. Have surprises, pleasant surprises, at meetings and trainings such as prizes, guests, food, or just unexpected activities.

Yeah, for me it’s easy. I have a toy store. It’s supposed to be fun. But even in a toy store I have to foster that atmosphere of fun consciously. And the more I foster it, the more fun it becomes.

Make fun a priority in your store and your customers will respond. And that’s the most fun of all!

Phil
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Fun can work in any retail situation. What it would be like for the guys if the jewelry store had a TV showing sports channels and all the sales people were having a good time? How about a grocery store with tasting stations and experts on grilling techniques that had serious passion and a light-hearted good nature? Or a hardware store where you could swing a bunch of hammers to see how each one is different while the staff egged you on to hit harder?

How to Remain Special

The independent retailers are often called Specialty Retailers because rather than carry a wide swath of departments, we specialize in one or two general niches.

Specialty was also a way of saying we offered a little more in the way of a shopping experience, something special that the discounters couldn’t offer, that the department stores couldn’t match.

Our stores truly were Special.

  • Special products not found everywhere.

  • Special services not matched by our competitors.

  • Special experiences enhanced by our staff.

Of course, those last two things cost money. Thanks to the margins on the first item, our special products, we could afford them.

But those margins are disappearing fast. The product that used to be found only in specialty stores is all over the Internet. Some of it is even on the shelves of gas stations and pharmacies. While the cost of those goods continues to rise, the retail price holds steady or shrinks.

Without that margin many specialty retailers are finding it hard to afford those services that made them special. But to compete, we have to hold the line. We have to find ways to keep our stores Special.

The best way to remain Special is to focus on your staff, on the frontline folks who make or break the experience for the customer.

It starts with hiring great people. It moves forward by constantly teaching and training them, never getting complacent.

Whatever you do, don’t give up being special. Start by making your staff special and the other stuff will fall into line. And don’t worry about the special products and lost margin. This is just a cycle we’re going through. They’ll be back soon enough.

Phil
http://www.philsforum.com/

PS In the meantime, there are some simple things you can do to make your prices look better and help you move some more merchandise. Check out my free eBook Pricing for Profit.

Smoothing the Rough Spots

Wow, what a fun ride!

Last June I published my first book, Hiring and the Potter’s Wheel: Turning Your Staff Into a Work of Art. The book has received wonderful praise from store owners and HR people alike.

And sales have been phenomenal! I have shipped copies all over the world.

I set a pretty high goal for myself, to sell enough books in one year to pay for all the expenses of printing and design. And I’m really close. I only need to sell 10 more copies of my book by June 22 to reach my first year goal.

Anyone responsible for the hiring and training of others will benefit from reading this book. Plus, it makes a far better and more useful Father’s Day gift than a tie.

To whet your appetite, here’s another excerpt from the book…

Chapter 14 Lesson #7 Smoothing the Rough Spots
“Nothing is so strong as gentleness. Nothing is so gentle as real strength.” – Frances De 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.”

Get your book today!

Phil
http://www.philsforum.com/

PS All orders online will get a signed first edition. (So will books bought in the store, as long as I’m working that day:-)

It Took a Surgery to Learn This

My wife has been harping on me about this for 18 years.

“The store is too big,” she says.

“Your plate is too full,” she says.

“There are other people who can do that,” she says.

You know what? She’s right!

I used to think I was pretty good at delegating. My father? Not so. He didn’t like to teach so he would rather do it himself. I like to teach, so therefore I teach it and delegate it.

Or so I thought…

The Staff is Capable
But over the past two weeks, while I sat at home recovering from surgery, I finally had a revelation. I have an extremely talented staff capable of far more than the responsibilities I have given them so far.

Not only did they keep the store running smoothly, they came up with some ideas on how to do things better. Not only did they keep the customers happy, they came up with ideas to draw in more customers. Not only did they step up when I needed them, they showed that their potential is still miles higher.

I need to give them more to do.

The Toughest Part
But let’s face it. Delegation is hard. You know the excuses…

  • They won’t care as much as me

  • They aren’t as skilled, experienced, talented (insert your own adjective here) as me

  • It will take me longer to teach them than to do it myself

And still you’re paying them to work for you. So make them work for you.

Maybe they won’t care as much as you. What may surprise you is when you give them ultimate responsibility for the success or failure of a project they will care a lot more than you expect.

Maybe they aren’t as skilled as you. But how do you build those skills? By using them. With a little time, they can grow to your level, and possibly beyond.

Maybe it will take longer… the first time… but there will probably be a second time, a third time, and so on. Make the investment today and it will pay off down the road.

Reap What You Sow
Your staff is your largest expense after inventory. And if you treat it like an expense, you’ll get what you pay for. Your staff is also your largest asset. If you treat it like an investment, you will reap the benefits beyond what they cost.

See if you can delegate one new responsibility each week for the next four weeks. That’s my plan. Excuse me while I go check on our new Birthday Club we’re hoping to unveil in a few weeks.

Phil
www.PhilsForum.com

PS There will always be some things you don’t want to delegate. I love teaching the Shopping for Baby 101 classes at the store, and I’m pretty darn good at it. If it’s both a strength and a love, keep doing it. Everything else should be on the table.

Stats Lie, Trust Your Own Numbers

The only numbers that really count are yours, the ones you make, the ones you manage.

The weather service says Jackson County has only received 3″ of rain (as of May 27) yet my dad had a bucket of 8″ of water from just the previous week (including evaporation).

The various reports have retail sales up, down, or flat, so many different ways that you could get dizzy trying to follow.

Even Winston Churchill says, “The only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself.”

And as Seth Godin pointed out in his last post, none of these reports on the economy really matter.

The only economy that counts is your local economy. The only statistics that count are the numbers you create and measure.

Are you tracking Customer Counts? This is a good sign of the health of your marketing campaign.

Are you tracking Average Ticket? This is a good sign of the ability of your sales staff?

Are you tracking Gross Margin Return on Inventory? This is a good sign of the ability of your buyers.

Are you tracking Cash Flow? This is a measure of the ability of your company to react to changes in the local economy.

Those are the numbers that count.

Phil
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Need help in understanding those numbers? Help is available in the Freebie section of my website. Need more help? Send me an email. You can be successful in any economy when you track the right numbers.

Teaching Your Staff to Connect

Let’s plan a staff meeting together…

Every meeting needs to have a goal.

Our Goal:

This will be a successful meeting if… The staff learns a better way to create relationships with our customers.

Doug Fleener, the Retail Contrarian, believes you should find out three things about a customer before you try to sell them anything. That way you know more about the real needs of the customer, not just the surface needs they might readily ask.

Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor, teaches that the easiest way to make a connection is to find a point in common and share about yourself because you become more human and memorable. (“I see Johnny had a soccer game today. Did you win? You know, my son plays soccer, too. What league are you in?”)

I believe that customers enter stores like Toy House because they want solutions. Maybe it is a gift idea, maybe it is to solve an educational issue, maybe it is to complete a project, maybe it is to fulfill a desire. Our job is to help them define the problem before we can find the solution.

The Task:

So we need Tasks – activities that help us teach this skill of relating to customers. Let’s brainstorm…

Task Idea #1 – Show a Movie
Movies are fun. You could search the web and check other resources for movies that either teach
customer interaction, or show lousy interactions from which you can learn. (Google “lousy customer interaction videos” and you get 8.6 million choices)

Task Idea #2 – Lecture
Give a talk about the importance of interaction, how making connections makes you more real and trustworthy. Quote Mr. Phibbs, or Mr. Fleener, or George Whalin, or any host of other retail consultants on why making such connections are important. Give examples of good connections versus bad connections. Ask for critique of the bad ones, how they could have been done better.

Task Idea #3 – Play Games
Since the key to learning is asking questions, steal this game from the TV show Whose Line is it Anyway? One person starts by asking a question, but you can only respond with another question. Pair off your staff and have them see how long they can keep it going until someone goofs. Trade partners and do it all over again.

Another game is to have your staff try to find ten things they have in common with each other person on the staff.

Task Idea #4 – Role Play
Split up the staff into pairs to do simple role play. Make one person the customer. Give her a typical customer profile. Have her enter the store and have another staff person interact with her with the goal to find out three things about the customer before showing a product. After each role play talk about what was awkward, easy, could be done differently. Continue until everyone has played both roles at least once.

Task Idea #5 – Bring in an Outsider
Hire someone to come in and teach these skills. Sometimes an outside voice makes it stick better with the staff than hearing your same voice time and again. For a skill like this, a person who teaches Networking Skills is a good alternative to a retail consultant. In fact, maybe even a better alternative because the same principles of networking apply to meeting and relating to customers, and there are tons of people who teach Networking (contact your local Chamber).

That’s a pretty good list, five potential Tasks that could lead us to reach our Goal. With a little creative thought you might come up with a few more ideas. The more the merrier.

To pick one you have to ask three questions…

  1. What are my constraints? (Space, Time, Money, etc.) Eliminate any Tasks for which you do not have/cannot get the resources necessary.

  2. What will be the most effective Task? (Pick one)

  3. What will be the most fun Task for my staff? (Pick one)

So now you should have two Tasks from which to choose. Look closely at the Task you picked for question #3. Will it accomplish the goal? If yes, then run with it. If no, then go with the Task from question #2. (note: if the answer to #2 and #3 is the same, you’re golden:-)

The Plan:

You know what you want to accomplish (the goal) and how you’re going to accomplish it (the task). Start your planning. What else do you need? A date and time. A place. Any props necessary (a projector for a movie, a stage area for role play, rules to games, etc.). Collect everything you need to do your Task.

You also need questions. Questions that lead your staff from doing to learning. The technique I use is the What? So What? Now What? method.

  • What? These are the concrete questions. What did we do? What happened when…? How did that work?

  • So What? These are the abstract questions. What did we learn? What did this teach us? Why did we accomplish this?

  • Now What? These are the application questions. How do we apply that lesson to our situation? How does that compare to here? What can we do with this knowledge?

Write down two or three questions of each type appropriate to the task you have chosen.

Then post your plan. Put out the agenda. As much or as little info as you wish. Extroverts just need to know when and where. They’ll do their best thinking then. But Introverts need a little more. If you want feedback from them, you need to give them a topic so they have time to formulate thoughts prior to the meeting. Introverts do their best thinking beforehand.

The Surprise:

Have some unexpected element planned in your meeting that will be a pleasant surprise. Maybe a gift certificate to a local restaurant given to the staff person who does the best in the games. Maybe a special treat like a pizza party as soon as the meeting is over. Maybe a costume that you wear as part of the Role Play. Maybe lottery cards for everyone just because you thought it would be fun.

Surprises make meetings more memorable, and it is not just the surprise they remember. The surprise becomes the anchor which triggers memory of the meeting and its lessons.

The Summary:

Your meeting will be a success. You’ve pretty much guaranteed that in your planning. But to make that success long lasting you need to write up a summary. What did we do? What did we learn? Try to use quotes from the staff as much as possible. Pictures are good, too. If any further action steps are required, list them. If certain future tasks are assigned, list them.

Then post the summary where all can see it.

That’s all it takes to have a successful staff meeting.

Are you ready?

Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Yes, I go through this process for every staff meeting I plan. Believe me, it gets easier the more you do it. But for starters, here’s a worksheet I use for planning. It’s just one of the many Free eBooks I’ve written with your success in mind.