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Author: Phil Wrzesinski

An Open Letter to My Staff

The following is an open letter to my staff in our monthly newsletter. Feel free to copy it, model it, use it with your own staff.

You Were Hired…

You were hired because I believe in your ability to help me grow this company.

You were hired because I believe you can connect with customers, make positive lasting impressions on them, help them solve their problems and create memories.

You were hired because I believe you care about the impression this store makes on our customers, you care about the cleanliness of the store, the orderliness of your department and the efficiency with which customers can find what they need.

You were hired because I believe you want to make a difference in the lives of our customers, not just sit around and wait for a paycheck.

You were hired because I believe you are smart enough to understand our products and how they impact the lives of our customers.

You were hired because I believe you love to have inclusive fun, not at the expense of others, but fun that everyone can enjoy.

You were hired because I believe you want to learn. You are not satisfied with your current set of skills and are constantly trying to improve.

You were hired because I believe you are a go-getter, someone who will seek out projects to improve this store, improve the customer experience, improve yourself.

You were hired because I believe in you.

You Were Fired…

You were fired because I stopped believing in you.

I saw you sitting on your butt waiting for something to happen instead of making it happen.

I saw you making excuses instead of making customers happy.

I saw you paying more attention to your co-workers or your phone or your spouse than the customers.

I saw you worrying more about time off than paying attention to your time on.

Maybe my perception was wrong. Maybe I didn’t see the whole story. But I can only go by what I see and what I believe.

It is up to you to…

Show Me I Was Right to Believe

-Phil

How Will You Measure Success?

It dawned on me that I’ve never asked you the most important question of all.

How will you measure success?

Whenever I work one-on-one with another retailer, that is usually one of the first questions. If I don’t know what measuring stick you’re using to decide if you are successful, I can’t help lead you there.

Will it be profit? Will it be increased sales? Will it be increased customer counts? Will it be larger transactions? Will it be positive cash flow?

Are you preparing your business for future stability, short-term gains, or to sell it to someone else?

All of those are realistic goals, but the path to each is not necessarily the same. Knowing the answer helps you point your ship in the right direction. The only wrong answer is, “I don’t know.”

How will you measure success? Write it down. Post it where you can see it. Put it in your planner, on your calendar, anywhere you look daily. Then start doing what you need to do to get there.

-Phil

Don’t Eat the Tea!

My friend, Joel, told an interesting story about Tea in England.

Apparently, it was quite expensive and only for the very rich at first.

As Joel tells it…
One woman in the south took a full pound of her expensive cache and sent it to her sister in the north, telling her how marvelous it was. Her sister boiled it, dumped the black liquid off and served it like a vegetable. She wrote back about how terrible it was.

She’d prepared it like a vegetable, which she understood, instead of seeing it for what it was: something entirely new.

Joel used this story to illustrate how some people are approaching the new social media tools with the same old ideas of what advertising is and are eating their tea.

How do you like your tea?
I would argue you can apply the same lesson to all types of advertising. For every advertising medium I show you, you can point to someone who told you how they used that medium and it didn’t work. Or maybe you used it and it didn’t work. All because you (or they) didn’t brew it properly.

That is the purpose behind the FREE eBook How Ads Work Part 1. I want to give you some insight into how to brew your advertising the right way. I’ve eaten the vegetables and brewed the tea, so I know what tastes better.

If you want your advertising to leave a better taste in your mouth, start with the eBook, then email me with your questions. When done right, it’s a sweet tea!

-Phil

Meeting Your Goals

Had another fun staff meeting this morning. More importantly, we met our Goals for the meeting.

Yes, every single one of my staff meetings has a Goal (or two). And I define that goal by finishing this simple statement…

This meeting will be a success if…

I had two goals for today’s meeting that finished that statement:

  1. The staff understands the importance of asking the customers questions and getting to know the special needs of their children
  2. The staff gains a new tool to make the experience more personal and special for our youngest customers

Across the Spectrum
The task I used to accomplish the first goal was a guest speaker who talked to us about Autism and the special toy needs of autistic children. If you know anything about Autism, you know there is a spectrum. What is good for one child might be completely wrong for another. But after the presentation the staff is now armed with a load of questions to ask a customer to help understand where her child might be on that spectrum.

What was even better, however, is that it helped them also realize that all children are on some sort of spectrum in their levels of play and that by asking the right questions of the parents they can better determine which toys to suggest.

Not Just Any Balloon
To accomplish Goal #2 I brought in an art instructor. This guy can teach any kind of art to any kind of student. The task I gave him was to teach to my staff how to doodle and draw in twenty minutes. He was up to the challenge. In no time at all he convinced my staff that they all had artistic talent, and he showed them simple techniques for doodling animal faces onto helium balloons.

Now my staff is empowered to not only give children free helium balloons, but to customize them with a quick little drawing. The kids don’t just get a balloon, they get a personalized work of art. It only takes a few seconds to draw, but it makes a lifetime of impact.

Best of all, the staff had a blast learning and have spent all morning practicing their doodling skills (wouldn’t you just love a job where the boss encourages you to doodle?). There’s a little friendly competition already begun to see who can draw the most balloons this week. Once again the staff is telling me how much fun they have at our meetings.

Are your staff meetings this fun?
Would you like them to be? All I do is follow a simple plan that you can follow, too.

Click Here if you want to learn how to plan Staff Meetings That Everyone Wants to Attend.

Or click here to go right to the worksheet to start planning an awesome meeting for your staff.

-Phil

Signs Sell

Rick Segal has said that proper signage will help an item sell up to 50% more than without a sign. Here’s why…

First, there is this group of people known as Introverts.
About half of your customers identify as Introverts. They tend to think to talk instead of talk to think as Extraverts would do. If they don’t know an answer, they’ll look first for a sign that might give them an answer before asking an associate because asking an associate puts them in an uncomfortable position.

Therefore, to make your Introverted customers feel more comfortable in your store, thus more likely to buy, give them signs that answer their basic questions and help them feel more knowledgeable. (Note: although I cannot prove it, I would be willing to bet that introverts make up a larger portion of online shoppers than extraverts.)

The second group that relies on signs is Men.
Yep, the guys shopping your store are far more likely to read signs than your women customers. Paco Underhill points this out from his own research in the book, Why We Buy (if you haven’t read it, it is a MUST for retailers!).

According to Deborah Tannen, men speak vertically and women speak horizontally. When men talk they are thinking in their minds, “Did what I say make you think higher of me or lower of me?” Vertical. That is why we are so afraid of asking for directions. The three hardest words for men to say are not, “I love you.” They are, “I don’t know,” because it makes you think lower of me.

No sign? No Sale.
When a man enters a store, the first thing he looks for is some sign telling him where to go. If he has a question, he’s going to look for another sign to answer that question. No sign? No sale. Some guys will actually walk away before asking for help. My wife knows this all too well. If I come home from a store empty-handed the first thing she says is, “Did you ask someone?” (No, I probably didn’t, although I’m getting better at it.)

Women, on the other hand, are thinking, “Did what I say draw me in closer or push me away?” Horizontal. They are quick to ask for directions because it brings them into the inner circle. You can put up all the signs you want but only the more introverted women will spend time reading them. They’d rather interact with someone.

50% of all the women and 100% of all the men (give or take a point or two) are looking for a sign. Are you going to give them what they want or let your competitors give it to them?

Rick is right on this one. Signs do sell!

-Phil

Which Topic Next?

I recently published three Free eBooks on my website – Inventory Management, How Ads Work Part 1, and How Ads Work Part 2.

I have two more eBooks I’m working on, but not sure if I have the time to get both done. Which would you prefer first?

One title is Marketing a Retail Store on a Shoestring Budget. It is similar to the non-profit eBook of a similar name, but with a couple distinctly retail-oriented changes. But I’ve done a lot of writing on advertising lately and not sure the motivation is there (unless you tell me that is what you want).

The second title is Merchandising Made Memorable. The goal of this eBook is to give you some tried and true rules on merchandising including plenty of examples of do’s and don’ts. Plus, there will be a couple ways to break all the rules all the way to the bank. Just like Pricing for Profit, I look at merchandising from a customer’s standpoint. And you should, too.

So those are the options… Let me know in the comments which one you want to see first.

-Phil

Free or Priceless?

I’m going out on a limb with my next two Freebies – How Ads Work Part 1 and Part 2.

Pablo Picasso is credited with saying, “Good artists borrow, great artists steal.”

Much of the information in these two eBooks is stuff I stole from Roy H. Williams, aka The Wizard of Ads, especially the mind-blowing Advertising Performance Equation (APE) in Part 2. It will totally transform the way you look at advertising. (I hope he doesn’t mind.)

Part 1 guides you through some of the same discussions I’ve done here – showing you HOW the different mediums work – now all condensed in one single document. Most sales reps in advertising know how to sell their products, just not how to use them. This guide will help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of each medium so you’ll know more than your reps. Plus, as a bonus, I dispel some of the most common myths of advertising and share with you the Wizard’s definition of Transactional and Relational Customers – probably the single greatest business concept I learned at Wizard Academy.

Part 2 includes the APE, plus a bunch of ad examples that have a strong impact. Although the ads are copyrighted, the techniques they use are simple enough for you to steal for your own use.

Best of all, both eBooks are completely FREE! You are encouraged not only to download them, but to share them. Send them to all your friends in the industry. Copy them to your Shop Local campaigns. Distribute them to anyone you know who needs help in advertising. Believe me, we all benefit when advertising improves.

You know why most ads don’t work? Because most people don’t know how ads work. These eBooks are your starting point to making your ads work for you.

-Phil

PS Use these two in conjunction with Understanding Your Brand and you will be light years ahead of your competition in understanding advertising and making it work for you. Think of it as a Master’s Degree without the time or expense (or the outdated info most colleges still teach).

Which Would You Attend – Revisited

A few days ago I posted 4 potential classes and asked a bunch of my retailer friends if they could only attend one, which would they choose.

I had two purposes for this post. First, to see how people choose which sessions and trainings to attend. Second, to see if there was one over-riding topic in which everyone was thirsting for more info.

The answer to the first purpose was interesting. There were three basic reasons for choosing which class to attend.

  1. It is the class that you deem most important to your business success (regardless of your own skill level)
  2. It is the class in which you feel your skills are least competent
  3. It is the class that sounds the most fun (of highest interest to you)

Professionally, I would think reasons #1 & #2 make the most sense, but I can also see how #3 plays into the equation. If you aren’t enjoying yourself, you’ll have a harder time staying focused, thus have a harder time learning.

The answer to the second purpose was less clear. All four classes received interest. Including the email responses, there would have been at least two people in each class, but no more than three in any one class. So no clear cut topic emerged. Darn! I was hoping to get some more focus for future posts.

So, in lieu of a single topic, I’ll keep writing a variety of posts on all topics important to retail success. If you have a question, send it along and I’ll respond. Maybe by the 4th quarter you won’t have to attend any classes.

-Phil

Make Your Dogs Bark!

If you’re in retail, you’ve done what I’ve done – bought stuff that didn’t sell. Oh, it looked good in the catalog or at the trade show. The sales rep gave you tons of info on it. You put it in a great location, even trained your staff on all its finest features.

But at the end of the day, the customers weren’t buying.

So what do you do with those dogs? Make ’em bark and move ’em out!

This Thursday we’ll have over five times the usual customers at our Summer Fun Sale. It’s our once-a-year clearance sale (or as my friend calls it, the make-it-go-away sale).

For the past two months we have been searching the store for the dogs, the merchandise that just won’t hunt, and red-tagging it at half-off the regular price. We’ve been storing these goods in a corner of the warehouse waiting for the third Thursday in July.

On Wednesday we’ll close a couple hours early and set up tables & shelves right in the center of the store. And on Thursday the fun begins. Our first customers will arrive about an hour before we open. They’ll sit by the front door in lawn chairs and peer through the window with binoculars to search out the deals they want to scoop up first. About fifteen minutes before the doors open our parking lot will be full.

And three hours later, I’ll be making my first trip to the bank!

Some people ask me why I do it this way. They ask questions like…

Why do you always mark it half-off and not 25% or some lesser margin?

I mark it half-off to create both excitement and urgency. Anything less and customers might not bite. Remember, these are items no one wanted. Your customers already voted a thumbs down on them. You need to go big if you want to get their attention.

Why wait until one certain day? Why not just mark it down and have a clearance area?

I don’t want to train my customers to expect a markdown. A clearance area that is always full of new merchandise just tells customers to wait until the item they like ends up there. The thinking goes… something is always on sale, so why pay full price? Plus, the excitement factor goes way down. Think about it this way… Would you rather have your parking lot full and people lined up at the door fifteen minutes before you open, or the same few regular customers wandering through the clearance section on occasion?

Why mark it down at all? You’ve already paid for it and now you’re just losing profit.

If you read my earlier post on Gross Margin Return on Investment, you’ll remember that GMROI is calculated by dividing your Gross Profit by your Average Inventory at Cost. Selling a whole bunch of inventory at half-off does not increase my gross profit, but it does wonders for lowering my average inventory. Plus, the cash I get gives me the opportunity to go buy something else that will make me a profit.

Here’s another way to look at it. If I buy a crib for $350 and put it on my floor, but don’t sell a single piece for a whole year, that space on my floor has cost me $350. But if I sell that crib for $250 after 6 months, I now am only down $100 for that space and have 6 more months to put something else there that might make me money.

The bottom line is this…

Don’t be married to your merchandise. If you have dogs that have gotten fat and lazy, you need to make ’em bark and move ’em out. Turn them into cash and move on. That includes seasonal merchandise that didn’t sell during the season, too. For us that means the Summer Fun Sale – a necessary part of my inventory management plan.

-Phil

Help Me Choose A Workshop

At many conferences we have breakout sessions – three or four different topics and speakers from which you can choose.

I struggle with these because I usually want to attend more than one, and cloning has not reached the level to allow me that luxury. And trying to decide between one session and another is tough.

I need your feedback here…

I’m going to give you four options for sessions you could attend. For the sake of argument, let’s assume all the speakers are well-qualified to talk on their respective subjects and you can only attend one of those sessions.

Which session will you attend and why?

Session #1 – Marketing & Advertising on a Shoestring Budget
Learn the smartest ways to get the most out of your limited advertising resources. This class will show you how to use Social Media the right way, teach you new ways to market your business without spending a dime, how to get a guaranteed return on the money you do spend on advertising, and why you’re not getting the word-of-mouth you think you deserve (and how to change that). Every attendee will leave with at least four inexpensive ways to increase traffic and sales that they can implement right away.

Session #2 – Everyone has Customer Service, You Need Customer Delight
This session will show you how to train your staff to consistently give your customers far more than they expect. Topics covered include how to meet and greet your customers the right way, understanding the different customer temperaments, how to solve their problems, and how to finish each sale leaving the customer happier than when they came in. Each attendee will get a blueprint for training their staff including role-play examples and key phrases to avoid.

Session #3 – Knowing the Numbers, It’s Your Money After All
You can just hand over your financials to your accountant and hope for the best, or you can learn the numbers yourself and make them work for you. This class is for the financials novices who wish to learn simple ways to understand the financials behind their business. You will learn how to calculate important numbers like Cost of Goods Sold, Gross & Net Profit, and the many different ratios that banks use to determine if your business is growing or dying. When you finish this class, you’ll know exactly where your money is, what it is (or isn’t) doing for you and how to make it better.

Session #4 – Cash Flow Basics – How Smart Buyers Make More Money
When is a deal from your vendor too good to pass up? When is a discount not worth the loss of cash flow? How do you know when you have too much inventory? Too little? These and other questions will be answered in this buyer’s workshop including tools you can use to increase your cash flow and make you more money. You don’t need a point-of-sale system to be a better buyer. You just need to know these simple principles of buying that dramatically change your financial picture.

Which will you choose and why?

-Phil