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Author: Phil Wrzesinski

Who’s Pulling You Up?

There is a wall between you and your goals. You need to get over that wall.

Your peers can help you by pushing you and propping you up. But they can only get you to the point where you can reach the top of the wall. (And if your wall is really tall, they might not even get you that close.)

From there you are on your own. To reach your goal you have to do the rest by yourself.

Unless you have someone on top of the wall ready to pull you up. Someone who has been there and done that. Someone who has already conquered the wall. Someone who already knows what you need to learn.

Have you identified that person (or persons) yet?

Anyone can set goals. Anyone can get their peers to cheer them on and support them in their quest, to push from the bottom. But without a hand from above, most of those people get stuck.

Who’s pulling you up?

Here are some of the people pulling me up…

Roy H. Williams, aka The Wizard of Ads – I have read his books, attended his classes and followed his teachings. Much of my best work is because of what he has taught me about advertising and business in general. The starting point is the Monday Morning Memo and his books The Wizard of Ads Trilogy. (these are not affiliated links – just the best darn business books I have ever read)

George Whalin – George taught me so much about managing a business, about hiring & training employees, and about dreaming big. He has been a wonderful resource for all things retail.

Philip H. Conley – My grandfather and the founder of Toy House, Inc. His mantra is simple, “Plan for Success.” It has worked for him and I am making it work for me. I meet with him regularly for advice and always get exactly what I need. He did it first, he did it well, and what he did still works today. I couldn’t ask for a better mentor.

There are others, too. Many more than I can mention in one post. I am always on the hunt for the people above me that might be willing to lend a hand.

You need both; your peers and supporters pushing from the bottom, and those who can help you from above. Find them and you’ll scale every wall between you and your goals.

-Phil

Urgent, Important or Both?

My wife just bought a new Franklin Covey planner loaded with ideas to help you manage your time better. One of the best methods is a system I use regularly.

Priorities
Draw a horizontal line and call it Urgent.
Then draw a vertical line intersecting your Urgent line at the midpoint and call it Important.
Everything you have on your To-Do List then gets plotted on those two lines based on how Urgent it is and how Important it is.
The truly Urgent and Important items will end up in the upper right quadrant. Do those things first.
The Important but not so Urgent items will end up in the upper left quadrant. Do those next.
The Urgent but not Important items will end up in the lower right quadrant. Delegate them.
The not so Urgent and not so Important stuff ends up in the lower left quadrant. This is where the fun usually ends up. Your choices here are to forget about them, or set aside a little white space in your life to have a little fun, to do the stuff that is neither Urgent nor Important.
Me? I prefer the latter.
Creating White Space
But what if there is more than you can handle in that upper right quadrant? Usually that is because we place too much importance or urgency on the things on our list. Ask yourself two questions…
  1. Can someone else in my business do this?
  2. Will the world stop spinning if I don’t get this done today?
The first question helps you sort out how important it is. If someone else can do it, then it isn’t as important as you think. Let them do it. They’ll love the extra responsibility.
The second question helps you sort out what is truly Urgent. Although it is often good to get tomorrow’s tasks done today, don’t do that when you have to sacrifice time for yourself.
We can’t be all-business-all-the-time and expect to succeed. The burnout is too high. Find some time to do something in that lower left quadrant (as long as it is fun).
-Phil
PS – Yeah, writing this is in that lower left quadrant for me. Not really Urgent, only kind of Important, but a whole lot of fun.

Surgery on Hold Because of Trust

I was supposed to have surgery last Friday. The appointment was canceled while I got a second opinion from a highly regarded doctor in the same field.

Now I know why the doctor is so highly regarded.

A Second Opinion
Quick background: I scheduled a surgery with a doctor in whom I had trust from our initial meetings, but not a lot of knowledge and history. So I had a friend who works at the hospital do a little asking around. This doctor is new to the practice, but certainly not inexperienced. But few people knew enough about him to have an opinion. They all universally raved about the other doc, however, so I scheduled a second opinion with her.

Then she told me something that blew my mind.

“If you are going to have the surgery, you should have [the other doctor] do it. He gets better results than I do.”

This is an expensive operation, one they both have done many times. And she told me to have him do it. Can you imagine what guts it takes for a doctor to tell someone that another doctor is better at a certain procedure?

And can you imagine what trust she just earned from me?

Put Their Needs First
There is a credibility you gain when you are honest. There is a credibility you gain from promoting someone or something other than yourself when you know it is in the best interest of your client.

You may have heard some retail expert tell you to never recommend another store. You may also have watched the movie Miracle on 34th Street and know that is bad advice.

The bottom line is that when you put the needs of the customer ahead of your own needs, you win her trust, which is often more important in the long run than her immediate business.

-Phil

PS Surgery is scheduled again with doc #1. But we’re trying a non-surgical alternative first. Second opinions are always worth the time and effort – especially with a doctor who has earned your trust.

What Should Your Sales Be?

Thinking about opening a new store? Wondering what your sales might be?

Here is the easiest method for estimating expected sales:

Market Potential
First find out how much business can potentially be done in your market. To do this you only need to find the national sales figures for your industry (note: for some industries this is easier said than done).

Take that national sales figure and divide it by the US population. That gives you sales per person.

$22.1 billion divided by 308 million people = $72
Then simply multiply that result times the number of people in your expected trade area.
$72 x 150,000 people = $10.8 million
Now you know what the Market Potential is. Your expected sales will most likely start in the 3-5% range, maybe higher if there is no indie competition, maybe lower if there is indie competition or you are saturated with highly effective big box stores.
What Size Store?
From this figure you can get a good estimate of how big a store to build. You just need two numbers… Lease Rates in your area and/or Sales per Square Foot for your industry.
Lease Rates: To be profitable you have to be working for yourself and not the landlord. If the rent for the year is more than 10% of your expected sales, you’re working for them, not you. You basically have three options:
  1. Look for a smaller space
  2. Look for a cheaper space
  3. Look for a different market
But be careful of those three options. The cheaper space is usually in a bad location and retail , like real estate, is all about location, location, location. The smaller space might work, if you have room to show enough product to justify the sales.
That is why knowing the sales per square foot for your industry is helpful. Let’s say your Expected Sales are $500,000. If your industry average for sales per square foot is $200, then a 2500 sq ft store should work fine. Only lease a bigger store if it is both affordable and in a great location.
Everyone thinks your store “would be great in our neighborhood.” Yes, great for them. Do the math and you’ll know if it will be great for you, too.
-Phil

The Weatherman’s Curse

Once again the storm wasn’t what we expected. Depending on your source, we braced for 3, 4, 5 or even 6 inches of snow last night.

At best I shoveled an inch and a half off the drive before heading to work this morning

My boys were devastated. They had already put their brains into “snow day” mode. Right now they hate weathermen (as do all their teachers who have rooms full of snow day kids).

The poor weatherman has over-promised and under-delivered once again.

Fortunately for him, however, he gets to keep his job. We don’t often get that second chance.

Mistakes Happen
If you have a retail store it happens. You will over-promise and under-deliver. Maybe it is a special order that didn’t arrive in a timely fashion. Maybe it is a product that wasn’t as advertised. Maybe it was a bad day for one of your employees and the great customer service you advertise wasn’t there.

How do you handle those moments?

I think the best thing to do is say, “I’m sorry. We made a mistake.”

No matter whose fault it is, no matter that you did everything right but your vendor failed you, your shipping company goofed, or your employee was totally misunderstood, it is still your mistake. So own it.

The customer doesn’t care about all that other stuff, the excuses. She put her trust in you and you failed her. So say you’re sorry, admit you made a mistake, then go about trying to fix it. That’s all she wants.

  • An apology
  • An admission of guilt
  • A solution

Give her those three things and I promise you the sun will come up tomorrow. Heck, I’m certain of it. My weatherman told me it would.

-Phil

Short Term Pain for Long Term Gain

What sacrifice are you willing to make today to help you succeed tomorrow?

At some point this spring I am having surgery to correct some physical abnormalities that will have a profound impact on my health going forward. The procedure is not fun, and the recovery is worse. Two weeks of excruciating pain followed by two more weeks of slow recovery, followed by 4 months of getting used to the new me.

I spent most of last night reading reports online of how bad those first two weeks are, a true living nightmare by everyone who experienced it. Yeah, it’s scary.

But what is two weeks compared to 6 decades?

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has proposed sweeping changes in the business tax structure in Michigan. In the short term, it’s going to hurt. But it is necessary to the long term health of the State.

I just posed the same scenario to one of my major vendors. I showed them how their current practices, while profitable now, would hurt them long term and gave them some suggestions on how to fix those problems. The fix will hurt them short term. But it won’t hurt nearly as much as going out of business will.

You have this problem in your business, too. There is a change you need to make. You don’t want to, because you know it’s going to hurt in the short term.

But ask yourself this question… How long do you want to be in business?

Kinda puts it all into perspective, doesn’t it?

Go ahead and make the changes you need to make. You already know how it’s going to work out in the long run. You’ll get done. Everything will be okay. And you’ll wish you had done it a whole lot earlier.

-Phil

Finding Help in Strange Places

Yesterday my wife had seven friends over for “Healthy Group”. Eight women around a table talking about vitamins, allergies, hormones and health care. Sharing stories, articles and anecdotes about the latest findings in the worlds of regular and alternative medicine.

None of them are doctors (although I think one of them stayed at a Holiday Inn Express recently) and none of them think they are the be-all-know-all expert when it comes to this stuff. But together they are learning at a rate far greater than they could all by themselves.

There is strength in numbers, especially when everyone is looking out for each other.

Tomorrow I’ll be heading to the International Toy Fair to see all the new toys for 2011. I’ll also be meeting up with a bunch of fellow toy store owners to “talk shop”. Those informal gatherings are every bit as valuable as the trade show. I’ve learned more about running a retail business in those get togethers than I could ever learn in a book.

We are all in the same boat so we are all looking out for each other.

The students of the Jackson Retail Success Academy are forming bonds with each other, and already sharing their own ideas or thoughts on the class work and how it applies to each unique situation.

The shared experience of taking this class will make them look out for each other.

Too many times I see retailers miss out on these opportunities, these chances to hang out with other retailers, other people who share their concerns. Either they say they are too busy to meet with others, or they say that no one can fully relate to them and their problems.

Sometimes it is the person who can relate the least to your problems that can give you the clearest insight. Sometimes it is the simple task of setting aside time for these activities that you learn better organizational skills or set different priorities that will help you farther down the road. Sometimes it takes a little kick in the butt to get going.

Here’s your little kick in the butt. Go find a group of people who can share in your journey and help you grow while you help them. See if your chamber of commerce has a group, or your industry, or just go knocking on some neighbor retailers’ doors. You might be surprised to find there are many more like you out there thirsting for knowledge.

Most of all, don’t be a martyr. Don’t try to succeed at retail alone. Not only is it easier with friends, it’s a lot more fun!

-Phil

PS If you need something to kickstart the conversation, download one of my Free eBooks and get everyone’s opinions on the topic (and be sure to tell me what they thought).

What Kind of Store are You?

Last summer LEGO made a decision to stop selling their architectural series of LEGO sets to toy stores. They believed that the product didn’t belong in toy stores like mine, that it was only appropriate for certain stores. Specifically in their words…

…appropriate distribution channels include the categories of gifts, souvenirs, museums, specialty bookstores, collectibles, art, architecture, tourist and visitor centers, hotel gift shops, transportation centers, college/university union centers, science centers, specialty gift and specialty department stores.

Knowing that I fit under a number of those channels, I sent the following to LEGO.

What Kind of Store Are You?
I am a Science Center – I sell science kits and teach science concepts all the time.

I am a Specialty Bookstore – I sell more children’s books than some bookstores in my area sell all their titles combined.

I am a Specialty Gift Store – Most every single sale in my store is a gift for someone

I am a Specialty Department Store – Furniture, baby products, clothing, crafts, science, sporting goods, construction, role play, education are just some of the departments in my store

I am a Tourist Center – Families who come to Jackson, Michigan typically make sure to visit two places – our store and the local ice cream parlor. Over half of our mailing list are people who reside outside of our metro area’s zip codes.

I am a Museum – The store has been around for 61 years. We carry many items considered to be “classics” or “historical”. Even our building and signs are considered “historical”.

I am a Collectibles Store – Hot Wheels, Barbies, Madame Alexander Dolls, Star Wars, GI Joe’s, Webkins, Beanie Babies – have there been any hotter collectibles in the past 3 decades?

I am a Transportation Center – I sell wagons, strollers, bikes, trikes, scooters, skateboards and other forms of transportation. I have a river, a railroad, a street, and a walkway adjacent to my property, and many people use my parking lot to access all four.

I am a Souvenir Store – Many of the items I sell are held onto purely for nostalgic reasons.

I am an Architecture Store – I sell many items including books and kits for learning about construction techniques and for building architectural structures from bridges to houses to castles to historical buildings.

I am an Art Store – I sell art supplies. I sell art and decorations.

I am an Education Center – I sell items to teachers and students alike to assist in education such as project kits for school projects (including the exact same items found in science centers), teaching aides, and modeling kits (including clay, wood, metal and plastic materials used for building whatever the teacher requests). I work with preschools, elementary schools, secondary schools and colleges.

I am a Hobby Store – I cater to hobbyists who build models of classic structures such as cars, planes, boats and even buildings.

I am a Toy Store – I sell toys that encourage creativity, toys that spur on the imagination, toys that teach, inspire and help people to grow – yes, people. My toys are for ages 1 to 101. I sell toys for tots, teenagers and twenty-somethings. I sell toys for infants, adolescents, and adults.

I am a LEGO Store – I sell virtually everything LEGO that I can get my hands on because my customers expect me to have those items. They expect me to be able to get them anything from LEGO they want. They expect me to have new and unique LEGO items. They expect me to have off-the-beaten-path LEGO items. They expect me to be current with everything LEGO. They don’t care about categories of distribution. They just want to find their LEGO at a store that is convenient, friendly and takes good care of them.

Redefining Your Greatness
Yeah, I probably could have added another dozen definitions – Smile Store, Psychology Center, Daycare, Meeting Center, Problem Solver… What about you? What kind of store are you? Might you be defining your business (your box) too small?

Do this exercise. Using criteria similar to what I did with LEGO, see how many ways you can define your store. You just might find a niche you haven’t been using to your advantage.

-Phil

PS Still waiting to hear their decision – hopefully at Toy Fair next week.

Neighborhood Kids Causing Trouble? Involve Them in Your Business

My grandfather served on the USS Arkansas Battleship in WWII. Fought at D-Day and Okinawa. Shortly after the war, with three kids and nowhere in town to go for toys, he opened our store.

The original Toy House was not in the best shopping location, but rent was cheap on the edge of downtown near the residential neighborhoods.

One of his friends told him, “Phil, you’re crazy for going there. The neighborhood kids will vandalize the heck out of your store… when they’re not in shoplifting you blind.”

Oh, my grandfather was crazy. Crazy like a fox.

Every morning he raised the flag outside the store. Every evening he lowered the flag. And he did it with all the pride and honor of a decorated WWII veteran. Oh yeah, and he included all the neighborhood kids in the routine. Taught them how to say the Pledge of Allegiance, how to stand at attention and salute, how to fold the flag and pay it respect. Showed them how to raise the flag quickly and lower it slowly. A true adolescent color guard.

At first there were a couple kids involved. Then a few of their friends joined in. Pretty soon it was a small crowd of young patriots standing at attention with their hands over the hearts.

Vandalism? Never a problem. Shoplifting? Are you kidding? He had an army of young men that took pride in the success of Toy House. No one was going to hurt the store on their watch.

How are you reaching out to your community and getting them to stand behind your store?

-Phil

How One Bad Apple Nearly Spoiled the Ski Trip

The big family Christmas gift was a long ski weekend at Boyne Highlands in northern Michigan.

Although not as immediate as a box of Legos, the boys were thrilled. And the experience was incredible!

WOW Customer Service
We showed up at the Zip Line just as it was closing – no problem. They got us dressed and ready in no time at all and made it seem like we had made their day to stay open an extra 20 minutes. Korie was just a gem.

We showed up for our free buffet breakfast and had Martha, our waitress, treat us like rock stars. Dirty plates whisked away immediately. Tips on which buffet stand to get the freshest food. Anticipating our every needs. It was a free meal, so she wasn’t in it for the tips (although she got a big one). She just obviously loved doing her job the right way.

At the bottom of the chair lift Tyler was able to strike up a conversation in the few seconds before we were lifted away that we kept going back to the same lift time and again just to keep the conversation going. No wonder he won employee-of-the-year last year (at least that’s what he claimed, and I wouldn’t argue.)

Every single interaction was over-the-top positive customer service…

Except one.

Not So WOW
It probably wasn’t that big of a deal, but my wife was having a tough time getting off the inner tube course tow rope. The attendant seemed indifferent to her plight, even a little put-off that she was holding up the line (which consisted of one other person, my son). His attitude was a stark contrast to the friendly, caring attitude of the rest of the staff and it almost brought down the whole trip.

His indifference and attitude was all my wife could talk about.

Thank God Korie and the Zip Line team restored our faith later the same night.

But it was a quick lesson on how fast a great experience can unravel because of the careless work of one person in a seemingly unimportant position.

Hiding the Risk
The inner tube tow rope is probably pretty low on the totem pole of jobs at a top-notch ski resort. Maybe management knew this and put their lowest performing person there, thinking he could do the least amount of damage.

But least amount of damage is still damage. Had that been our last event of the trip, it would have been the defining moment.

If you have an employee doing damage, don’t try to protect him or her. Train or fire. There is no middle ground. That may seem harsh, but your customers will be even more harsh. They won’t come back for a second chance.

Korie, Martha and Tyler had to work extra hard to make up for this one mistake. And to their credit, they did! We already know what Santa is bringing next year.

-Phil