It’s the busy season. You don’t have time for a lengthy blog with stories and explanations. So to make your life easier, now through December 21st I’m going to post simple, quick tips you can use and share with your staff to raise the bar for your customers. (Don’t ask questions. Just do these things and it will make a difference.)
Here is tip #1 …
SAY THANK YOU
Remind yourself and your staff to always say, “Thank You,” to every customer. Never say “Here you go,” or “No problem.”
Even when a customer says Thank you to you first, you respond with a thanks or use Chick-fil-A’s, “My pleasure.”Say it and mean it. Those customers have choices and they chose you. Be sincerely thankful.
One study showed that 68% of people switched loyalty in stores because of indifference. Be grateful and you’ll never have that problem.
I’ve been taking an online class for startup businesses. Frances Schagen, my instructor, is allowing me to do my homework live on this blog. You can read the first two installments here and here.
In the last assignment I had to identify twenty potential customers. I identified customer profiles, but Frances wanted actual potential customers because part three of this business-building class is to interview these potential customers to see if they would even be interested in the product I am offering, and what advice they might give me to help me refine my offerings.
Phil Wrzesinski speaking to a packed house in Grand Rapids, MI
If you read Part 2 you know that I identified two different groups of customers for my Phil’s Forum speaking business—Small Business Owners and DDA/Main Street/Trade Association Directors.
I spoke to several of the former and three of the latter group to ask them what they thought about what I was offering.
The insights I got from both groups, while not exactly eye-opening, were helpful.
SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS
I spoke to several retailers, some who have seen my presentations and some who have not. They fell into three categories …
Those who actively seek education
Those who take advantage of it when it fits into their schedule
Those who don’t see the value in it.
That last group was interesting because it included people who used to be in the first two groups but have become skeptical or disillusioned because of the lack of value in programming they have tried or speakers they have seen.
One person told me he stopped going to educational events like the presentations I offer because they always seem to include a sales pitch.
“They give you a nugget or two, but if you really want to learn anything of value you have to buy their package.”
Another person told me she was tired of seeing presentations where the speaker didn’t do his homework and knew nothing of her industry. I, myself, have seen speakers like that and know her frustration. Nothing worse than sitting in the audience knowing what you’re being taught won’t apply in your situation.
Group 2 was interesting. They only attend breakout sessions and workshops when they are already at an event for other reasons such as a trade show. When I asked if they would attend a workshop in their town or a special event that was solely focused on education, their responses included …
Don’t have the money
Don’t have the time
Don’t trust the speaker
Group 1 was the smallest, but also the most likely to attend workshops offered by the Chamber or DDA in their town. These people all followed my blog and had downloaded most of my Free Resources and were voracious readers. They still faced the time and money crunch of Group 2, but were able to see value that Group 3 couldn’t, so they made learning a priority.
Interestingly enough I saw successful business owners in all three categories. I also saw fluidity between the groups. Some of Group 3 had been in Group 1 in their early days. Some of Group 1 became that way after attending a presentation at a trade show as a Group 2 mentality.
DIRECTORS
I also spoke to three different directors, two of whom have hired me for leading workshops, one who hasn’t.
The two who have hired me before both run successful downtown merchant groups and are big believers in continuing education and see the value it offers their constituents, but both lamented the difficulty of finding enough Small Business Owners from Group 1 above to attend these programs. The directors both told me they had a lot of what I will call Group 2 constituents that complained about having time or money for such programming, so although the directors see the value, their difficulty is justifying the expense when only a few will benefit.
The one person I spoke to who hasn’t hired me, is similar to Group 3 above. He doesn’t see any value himself, doesn’t see anyone who would attend, and doesn’t believe the expense would benefit his organization enough to outweigh spending that money. In many ways he projects his own values onto his group in the way that your sales team often sells from their own pocket books.
I got four key takeaways from this exercise.
The first key takeaway for me is that the trade associations that have trade shows with educational speakers will be my best opportunities to find the largest audiences because there will be plenty of Group 1 and Group 2 type businesses there. The hard part is finding enough of these associations hosting this type of programming with a budget to hire outside presenters. Three industries I have approached in the past only hire from within because of Group 3 complaints that outsiders didn’t know their industry.
Other directors, especially downtown merchant groups, will be a harder sell, but still a strong possibility if they believe in continuing education for their members. I will really have to show them the value and help them show their members the value of workshops and presentations I offer. Past experience has shown me that Main Street programs are more likely to believe in continuing education.
The second key takeaway is to make sure I do my research into the industry for which I am presenting. When I spoke to the camera/photo industry I visited several stores before hand. When I spoke to the Garden Center industry the director of that show sent me tons of facts and info.
The third key takeaway is to make sure my presentations have value you can use right away. Fortunately, that has been my goal from the beginning. I’ve been in those audiences where the speaker holds back all the good stuff that you can have for three easy payments. I don’t want to be that guy. I’ve been in presentations where the speaker didn’t know the industry. I don’t want to be that guy, either.
My final key takeaway is to realize that not everyone will want my services, and that is okay.
It is not worth the time and energy to try to convert those people into customers. A quick no and I’ll put my resources elsewhere.
This was a fun exercise. I got to connect with some old friends. I got some valuable insight. I got some reaffirmations of what I am trying to do.
Your key takeaway should be that it is good to talk to your customers from time to time to see how you can make their shopping experience better. You should also talk to people who don’t shop with you to see why not. What obstacles are keeping them from shopping at your store? Those customers may not be worth your time and energy.
Then again, they might give you that one little nugget you need to change your business for the better.
PS One other thing I learned is that this blog is one of the ways I build trust before a presentation. I went back and noticed a slight bump in blog views every time a trade association named me as one of their speakers. You were checking me out to see if I walk the talk. That’s good info to know.
PPS Since time is a factor—especially this time of year—the next 19 blogs (every weekday through Dec. 21) will have a slightly different format. I will being purposefully making them short and simple with little things you can do that will make a difference. Think of it as your Advent Calendar for retail.
I read a quote the other day and it has stuck with me. I’ve been trying to figure out how to work it into a worthwhile post. The quote is from author William R. Inge. He says …
“There are two kinds of fools. One says, ‘This is old, therefore it is good,’; the other says, ‘This is new, therefore it is better.’ “
“This is old, therefore it is good,” is the trap we get into when we say things like, “We’ve always done it this way.”
“This is new, therefore it is better,” is the trap we get into especially whenever a new form of advertising comes along. We think we need to be on the cutting edge or we will get left behind.
The problem with both of those statements is that they are completely right and completely wrong at the same time. Some old things are really good and shouldn’t be changed. Some new things are truly better and will disrupt your industry and kill your business if you don’t adopt them.
I was at a presentation a few years ago when the speaker asked us to raise our hands if we had any employees that had been with us twenty or more years. I raised my hand.
He said the best thing we could do for our business is to fire those people the day we got back. They were the keepers of the flame of everything old. They were the standard bearers for, “We’ve always done it this way.”
I didn’t fire those people (I had two at the time), but I took to heart his meaning and paid close attention to who was willing to change and who wasn’t.
The other side of the coin was fascinating, too. Back in the early 90’s we had newsprint, radio, TV, billboard, yellow pages, and direct mail as our advertising options. There was no social media, email, or mobile marketing. The movie theaters weren’t running pre-show ads. Most of us didn’t even know the word Google, let alone have our own website with SEO optimization.
Yet each one of those was going to disrupt the advertising industry and change it forever (or so we were told).
The sales pitch from every rep was the same. “If you don’t jump on this bandwagon, you’re going to miss out on the biggest change the industry has ever seen, and you’ll be left in the dust by your competition.”
Some of those new things (like email and having your own website) really have changed the game for small businesses. Some, like closed-circuit TV, haven’t been quite as lucrative as promised.
How do you know when to change and when not to change? For many of us, that is the biggest question and hardest task. I wrote about it once before and came up with these three points of whatto change …
Never Change: Your Core Values, Putting Your Customer First
Don’t Change Now: Anything that is productive and efficient
Change Now: Everything else
The best way avoid becoming one of the two fools above is to have a process for when and howto change.
WHEN TO CHANGE
When someone asks you to change something you’ve always done, you get defensive. That is a natural reaction. Here is a process to help you decide when to change the old (or chase after the new.)
First ask this question …
Is this a tweak or a wholesale change?
If it is a tweak and the tweak makes the current process more efficient and/or more customer-friendly, you should do it.
In fact you should always be looking for tweaks, small changes that make things work better.
If it is a wholesale change—some shiny, new bauble—then you have to ask a few more questions …
Does the new process/system fit within our Core Values?
Is it customer-friendly?
Is it faster or more efficient than the old way?
Can it be easily taught to everyone on the team?
If you answered yes to all of those questions, then it is a good change.
If you answered no to either of the first two questions, you’re better off staying the course.
If you answered no to the third question, but a strong yes to the first two, it might be worth considering. sometimes it is worth giving up a little efficiency on your end if it helps delight more customers.
If you answered yes to the first three but not the last question, just understand there will be some growing pains to get the new system implemented, but it is still worth making the change.
If that isn’t enough to help you decide, you can do what I did. I always liked to ask two more questions …
Is the old way no longer working?
What statistics were slain to make this bauble look enticing?
Change costs time, money, and other resources. Change is not always easy. In Seth Godin’s book THE DIP, he shows how change often causes a dip in productivity at first, followed by the gains you were hoping to get when you made the change.
Sometimes it is better to keep the old ways. Sometimes it is better to embrace the new.
The true fool, however, is the business owner who doesn’t have a process to evaluate when and how to change your business for the better.
PPS I had one more technique I used for making decisions on the shiny, new baubles presented to me, especially in advertising. I slept on them. If something new is good, it will still be available tomorrow. In fact, if it is really good, tomorrow there will be two more people trying to sell you on it.
When it came to new advertising methods, I would also ask …
I am taking a class to work on my business. It is a class for startups, primarily, but the exercises will not only help me with my business as a speaker, writer, and business coach, they will help me help you become a better business.
My instructor, Frances Schagen, has granted me permission to do all my homework worksheets live here on this blog. You can read the first worksheet here. Time for Part 2.
DISCOVERY DANCE – WHO?
The previous step was about me, what I wanted to do and why I wanted to do it. This next exercise is for me to think more about who I want to work with. I have three questions to answer …
What problem are you solving?
What are the characteristics of the people you most want to work with? What is it about them that makes them a fit for your solution?
List 20 people who have those characteristics and who you think might need your solution.
Don’t adjust your monitor. This is Alpine Soccer – a real thing!
What problem are you solving?
Giving tools other than the markdown gun to retailers and small businesses to help them create successful businesses that can compete on a field slanted against them.
What are the characteristics of the people you most want to work with? What is it about them that makes them a fit for your solution?
Business Owners and Managers of small, independent businesses who:
Can make their own decisions
Want to learn new and better ways to run their businesses
Believe in continuing education
Are open to trying new things
Care about their customers
Care about their community
Want a push in the right direction
Want to learn new skills
Notice that these characteristics align with my Core Values of Having Fun, Helping Others, and Education. Your answer should align with your Core Values, too.
Notice also that I did not limit myself to just retailers. I go back and forth on this part of the answer. Although my background is in retail and some of my presentations are strongly retailer-focused, the characteristics listed above are not just limited to retailers. Nor are all my programs and teachings just limited to retailers.
There is something to be said for narrowing your focus so tightly that you become the known expert in a narrow field. There is also something to be said for keeping the net more broadly focused not on any single type of business or individual, but on the characteristics. I love that part of this question. If you own a non-retail business and have the characteristics listed above, I am sure I can help you.
There are still a couple problems with my original answer of “Business Owners and Managers of small, independent businesses.” Most of those people cannot afford my services on an individual basis and I prefer to work with large groups of these people at once.
Therefore, to truly reach them in the ways I can help most, I have a secondary customer that is in many ways my primary customer. I have to go through the gatekeeper.
My true customers are typically Trade and Business Organization Leaders who, along with the mindset above, also:
Plan learning events for their members
Hire people from outside their echo chambers to give fresh perspective, new insights, and sharper tools to their members
Those organization leaders are the gatekeepers to the first group because A) they have the money to plan learning events, and B) they can corral a number of businesses into a group setting.
Therefore, to reach my preferred customers, I have to find these gatekeepers who share these characteristics and reach them.
This is an important understanding and distinction. I write this blog and create the content on my website for you, the small business owner. I have to find another avenue to convince the gatekeepers to hire me. This blog isn’t for them, nor will it ever get me hired by them*.
When you understand your customers at this level, it changes the way you look at how and where to find them.
List 20 people who have those characteristics and who you think might need your solution.
I think Frances wants me to list specific people or businesses here. I’m going to take a slightly different approach in my answer.
I think the following businesses need my solution …
Independent Retailers & Restaurants
Locally Owned Franchise Retailers & Restaurants
Service-based businesses such as insurance agencies and beauty salons
Anyone involved in Sales
who belong to …
Downtown Development Authority districts
Chambers of Commerce
Shop Local Organizations
Industry Buying Groups
Industry Trade Associations
Main Street Programs
Merchant Cooperatives
and/or attend …
Industry Workshops
Educational Conferences
Local Seminars
I also think the following people need my solution because it can help strengthen their members, which strengthens their organization …
DDA Directors
Chamber of Commerce Directors
Main Street Program Directors
Shop Local Directors
Economic Development Directors
Trade Association Educational Committee Directors
One of the first questions I always ask when I meet this last group of people is,
“Do you offer or have you considered offering any training programs for your members?”
Listing 20 people can be challenging. For your benefit, I thought about my business at Toy House and came up with this list:
Parents
Grandparents
Children
Aunts & Uncles
Teachers
Home Schoolers
Hobbyists
Gamers
Librarians
Interior Decorators
Coaches
Athletes
Event Organizers
Daycare Workers
Therapists
Pediatricians
Dentists
Anyone with a waiting room with kids
Musicians
Entertainers
I’m sure with enough thought you can come up with a list like this for your business.
Here are my takeaways from this exercise for you.
If you can clearly identify the problem you are trying to solve and clearly identify the characteristics of the person with this problem you would most like to work with, you’ll understand more clearly the advertising and marketing you need to do to get more of the customers you want (and less of the ones you don’t want).
(Having read ahead in the course work, I think Frances will take this info to send us in a slightly different and more fascinating direction than that. Sit tight. I’ll explain it when we get there.)
PS *This blog actually can get me hired by “them,” but it involves YOU. When you tell your DDA/Chamber/Shop Local/Trade Association person about wanting opportunities to learn more and having educational programming available to you, then they are more likely to hire me to do that. Tell your organization directors about me. Send them to this page.
You know me. I like to learn. When a friend of mine offered me the chance to sign up for her new six-week online tutorial for launching a new business, I jumped at the chance.
Frances Schagen has helped over a thousand businesses get started. That’s an impressive number. You might remember her name because I quote her at the beginning of the Free eBook Reading Your Financial Statements.
“What gets measured gets done.” -Frances Schagen
Frances was instrumental in proofing and helping me get the math and concepts right in that eBook and also a bigger financial statements book I wrote for the toy industry. She is a smart lady and I’m lucky to get to learn from her.
With her permission, I am going to do my homework throughout the class live on this blog.
Not only will you get to see how I am building my business, you’ll get ideas that will help you with your own business.
THE OWNER’S STORY
The first stage is The Owner’s Story. The first worksheet and homework for me to do is the 3×5 Whys Project. I have three questions I need to answer. For each question, however, I need to answer five “whys.” The purpose of this sheet is to really dig deep to uncover my story, why I want to start this business, why I want to go into this field, and what I hope to accomplish. Here are my answers:
Why are you starting a business? Why have you chosen this way to make your living?
Why #1 – I have chosen this way to make a living because of my Core Values of Having Fun, Helping Others, and Education. I find writing and speaking to be incredibly fun, helpful and educational.
Why #2 – I am starting a business because I like being my own boss, calling my own shots, being responsible and accountable for my own mistakes, and choosing my own schedule. As a single parent, it gives me flexibility to be the parent I want to be, too.
Why #3 – I have chosen this way to make a living because I like travel and meeting new people.
Why #4 – I am starting a business because I need to make money. I have one child in college and another starting college next year. I have living expenses and not enough retirement money saved up.
Why #5 – I have chosen this way to make a living because I see a decent income potential. While I don’t ever expect to be one of those high-profile speakers who gets tens of thousands of dollars every time he steps on stage, if I can find two or three opportunities to speak or lead a workshop each month I can make a decent living. I also believe I can do this type of job long past the typical retirement age, which not only gives me more income potential, but also keeps me active and fulfills my own needs for a long time.
Why have you chosen this field? Why are you doing this work?
Why #1 – I have chosen writing a blog and books, and doing workshops and presentations for small business owners because it is the topic I know best and have the most personal experience.
Why #2 – I have chosen this field because I know how little true help there is out there for indie retailers. I have belonged to several retail owner groups over the years and have heard the questions. We all bring some expertise to the arena, but running a retail business requires you to wear so many different hats that it is impossible to know everything. Too much of our learning as business owners is done on the fly, often the hard way through trial & error and learning from our mistakes.
Why #3 – I am doing this work because I believe I have a talent in both the writing and the presenting. I have been told several times that my super power is the ability to break down seemingly complex ideas into understandable thoughts.
Why #4 – I am doing this work because it satisfies me. I take more pride in hearing how something I said or wrote made a difference for your business than I do in just hearing, “Nice job,” or “You did good out there.” My favorite testimonial to date came from a guy at SuperZoo a few years ago who said, “You’ve saved my business AND my marriage!”
Why #5 – I have chosen this field because I have been on the other side of the equation, asking the questions small business owners ask, searching for the resources and answers. I know a lot of the answers from making the mistakes and learning from them. I also know where to go to find more answers because I have done those searches. I want to be that resource for others.
What global problem do you want to solve? (however you define that) What change do you want to make?
Why #1 – I want to help small businesses, primarily indie retailers and entrepreneurs, to find their success.
Why #2 – I recognize that the field is slanted toward big businesses with deep pockets and strong lobbies, but I believe there are plenty of ways for small businesses to compete and thrive. The tools are available, but sometimes we need people to show us how to use those tools. I want to be that person.
Why #3 – I want to encourage shopping local. I have seen enough studies to know a strong local retail presence will further strengthen the local economy. But I also believe local businesses need to be better than they have been if they want to keep the local dollars in town.
Why #4 – I believe small business owners care more than large corporate CEO’s. CEO’s focus solely on the shareholder. Small business owners don’t have shareholders, so they care more deeply about their employees, their customers, their community, and even the environment. If I can help small business owners develop, grow, and find success, I can bring caring back to this world.
Why #5 – I believe in generosity. When we give more of ourselves, we encourage others to give. Whether they pay it forward or pay it back. I want to live in a world where generosity is the default, not an outlier. It starts with me. That’s why I have this blog and the Free Resources page. That’s why I answer every question emailed to me.
Whew! That was a little harder than I thought. Coming up with five answers to each of those questions was not as easy as I originally thought. But I can see the importance of this exercise. In our online chat today, Frances helped us try to clarify what we want to do and why we want to do it. Some of those answers above have helped me realize what I really want to do.
I would encourage you to answer these same questions for you and your business. Often we get into business because of one reason, but once we get there and have to juggle all the day-to-day problems and wear the many hats, we forget why we’re here in the first place. That’s when business is no longer fun and you’re merely in the game for survival. As you can see from the above answers, I don’t want that for you.
PS You can still get in on this class if you want. We only just started today. The real meat begins next week. Contact Frances if you want to play along.
PPS Now you also know a little more about what drives me to do what I do. The ultimate goal for me would be to have two or three paid events each month where I am presenting or leading a workshop, leaving the rest of my time to write and mentor other business owners. If you know of any organizations such as your Chamber of Commerce, DDA, Main Street, Shop Local, or trade association looking for a professional speaker, please let me know. I’d love to do a live event in your town or at your next event.
If there is one universal truth in retail it may well be this …
The hottest product on your shelf last year will be on everyone else’s shelf this year.
Every year in my two-and-a-half decades as a buyer I would watch another vendor cross over to the dark side and start selling their goods in the big-box discounters and Toys R Us. Proud brands that had grown and flourished in the independent specialty channel were cashing in with the big boys, who would undercut our prices and ruin a fine brand.
This happened Every. Single. Year. And the reaction was always the same. A lot of crying, complaining and gnashing of teeth on the part of the indies while we scrambled to find suitable replacements.
I never took part in the gnashing. Maybe it was because I had seen it happen enough times to come to expect it. Maybe it was because I grew up in the industry before that delineation between mass and specialty product channels even existed.
Page 1 of the original Business Plan for Toy House, circa 1949
My grandfather had two utility bills at our building on Mechanic Street. He got that second bill so that he would have “proof” of a second address separate from the retail operations. He did that for one reason only—to set up a “distributorship” so that he could buy certain toys he wasn’t able to buy directly from the manufacturer. Back then you could only buy certain lines through distributors, so he became a distributor just to get products. He didn’t care who else was selling the product. If it was a good product, he wanted it in his store.
He knew he could sell it.
In the 80’s and 90’s that mindset changed. Indie retailers shied away from products sold in the mass-markets and created what we called the “specialty” market. Some of that was to protect profit margins. Some of that was because we bought for different reasons than the mass-market.
In my industry the mass-market bought toys for quick turn-around—toys that had name recognition, shelf-appeal, and were backed by advertising. We bought toys for play value—toys that spurred the imagination and creativity in a child.
Once the specialty market built up a brand into a recognizable name with enough money to advertise, the mass-market would swoop in and snatch them away, sending us off again in search of the next great “specialty” line.
Today, however, the lines are once again blurred. In the toy industry especially, with Toys R Us out of the picture this holiday season, all kinds of retailers are popping up with all kinds of toys. There is no differentiation between “specialty” and “mass” in terms of products or distribution. Nor will there be for the foreseeable future.
Everything is now sold everywhere. Nothing is “special” anymore.
The only thing “special” about the specialty stores is You. How you run your store, the people you hire, the relationships you build with your customers, the involvement you have with your community, the events you host, the teaching you do—that is the Special part.
I tell you this to remind you that pop-up stores are about to start popping—not just in toys, but in all categories. Some of them will have products you sell. Don’t fret about that. Here is one other universal truth in retail …
No pop-up store will ever be able to sell products as well as you can.
Their staff doesn’t have the training. Their leadership doesn’t have the passion. Their business doesn’t have the connections. When you play up the parts that truly make you Special, you cannot be beat. (Hint: it isn’t the product that makes you special anymore.)
The best way to protect yourself from pop-up stores and the loss of specialty brands is to double-down on your training right now. Download the Free Resources on Customer Service. (There are several good ones in there.) Go over this stuff with your team. Role Play the scenarios and look at how you interact with new customers. Talk about how to be better at curating a selection. Learn the benefits of your new products and better ways to close the sale. Practice using new phrases to eliminate the deal killer phrases we all use.
The products come and go. The relationships build your business and make you truly Special.
PS Some of you are going to have stellar years without any extra training. Don’t get lulled into a false trap. Every boat rises with the tide. Consumer spending is up. The economy is relatively strong. But if you’re watching the news, you know a lot of shuffling is going on in retail. The stores with the strongest relationships with their customers will find the greatest success in the long run. Consider that another universal truth. Make you store truly Special this holiday season. The gains will last well into next year.
PPS Heck, simply teach your staff to do what my grandfather listed as the number three part of his Sales Plan—“Listen to customer until customer is clearly understood. Do not interrupt.”—and you’ll be doing more than most retailers out there.
He drove from Windsor, Ontario to Jackson, MI on a Friday night. “We have a Graco car seat and were told you are the closest store to have the matching stroller. Do you happen to have it in stock?”
“Yes, we have two different versions in that fabric. Which did you want?”
“Two versions?? Hold on.”
(On phone…) “Honey, they have two different strollers …”
After hanging up, we started taking about the features they wanted in the stroller. Light weight? They both had that. Easy fold? Check and check. Big wheels for walking outside? Yes and yes. Compact fold?
“What are you driving?”
“A Honda Civic, why?”
We took both strollers out to the parking lot, folded them, and then tried putting them into his trunk. They both fit, but one only went in if you had it upside down, put the front wheels in first, turned it 90 degrees, rotated it another 45 degrees and pushed really hard. The other slid in easily.
Feature: It has a compact fold Benefit: So that you can fit it into your tiny trunk with room to spare for groceries and other stuff.
Feature = What it does
Benefit = How that helps you
It does this … So that you …
Feature: This blog offers tips, techniques, and ideas for every aspect of running a retail business … Benefit: So that you have the tools necessary to run a successful business and have fun at your job …
Feature:Subscribing to this blog gets you an email of every new post as it is posted … Benefit(s):
So that you know before your competitors what to do to gain an advantage.
So that you get something thought-provoking, inspiring, and helpful sent directly to you, without having to dig to find it.
So that you have something in your inbox that you look forward to reading to offset all those emails you dread.
So that you have a diversion when you just need to get away from everything else.
So that you get reminders of the things you already know but may have forgotten.
The Feature doesn’t sell the product. The Benefit does.
The best game you can play with your staff (new and old) is to grab a random product off the shelf, identify one of its Features, and then list as many Benefits as you can for how that feature can make someone’s life better.
There are lots of ways, places, and times to practice finding the Benefits.
Do it when a new product comes in so that everyone knows how to sell that product.
Do it so often that finding the Benefits—how the product makes someone’s life better—becomes second nature with your staff. When it becomes a mindset for them, you’ll see the sales of your more valuable items start to rise.
PS One other Benefit from playing this Benefits Game is that it helps you become better at identifying the products you’ll be able to sell better (ones with more benefits) and the dogs you need to clear out of your inventory (ones with fewer benefits).
PPS One other Benefit from playing this Benefits Game is that it helps you be better at selling the lesser-known brands you carry to compete with the mass-market brands customers ask for by name.
Every morning I check the email on my phone and see several familiar faces. There is always an email from Jackson Coffee Company, always something from Land’s End, Duluth Trading, Kohl’s, and DSW. Being a mostly Relational Shopper, these transactional discounts they offer Every. Single. Day. are somewhat of an annoyance.
I don’t unsubscribe, though. One of these days I’ll need to go to their stores. Since they are so regular with their discounts, I’m not going to ever pay full price again. Ever. (Yeah, there’s a lesson in there, but that’s for another day.)
Once a week I find out all the news in the toy industry by getting an email from The Bloom Report.
Most days I hear from retail speaker Bob Negen and Whizbang Training.
I also subscribe to different blogs. I start every single day learning from Seth Godin. Sunday nights I hear from Bob Phibbs, aka The Retail Doctor. Every Monday I read Roy H. William’s Monday Morning Memo. It is my favorite part of Mondays. Most weekdays I get posts from Josh Bernoff.
Josh writes about non-fiction writing, books, press releases, and the such. He also writes about analyzing data and drawing conclusions. His blog is called without bullshit and is quite instructive. In fact, because of Josh I play a game every day with the other articles I read. I put on my analyst’s hat and think …
“What would I say if The New York Times called me up for a quote on this article?”
I tell you this not to brag or sound important, to look like I am informed, or to give you my credentials above and beyond just running a high-level independent retail store. (I am sure I suffer from Dunning-Kruger Effect to some degree somewhere—I believe we all do. And every now and then I suffer from its opposite—Impostor Syndrome where I feel the need to prove to you I actually do know something about retail, besides what I learned working retail for thirty six years of my life.)
I tell you this so you will know my influences. You will know where I find inspiration and ideas and new tools I can share with you for your retail toolbox. I want you to have more to offer your customers than just the transactional customer discount emails I get Every. Single. Day. from retailers where I would likely pay full price otherwise.
Seth Godin challenges me to create something of value to others. Roy H. Williams challenges me to look at human behavior differently and understand what motivates us to do what we do. Josh Bernoff challenges me to write with purpose, clarity, and insight.
They all challenge and inspire me to be better at what I do (so that you can be better at what you do.)
Now you know where I get my inspiration. Who challenges and inspires you?
PS I left off a few other emails I get and read regularly because they aren’t as helpful as they used to be. You’ll tell me when this blog is no longer helpful, right?
PPS When you get the Monday Morning Memo ALWAYS click on the picture at the top of the memo. (Click on the beagle picture in this blog to go to the MMM page.) It takes you into the Rabbit Hole where you’ll find all kinds of inspiration. It also ends at the Monday Morning Radio page where you can listen to a great interview each week. This morning I heard an interview with Steven D. Goldstein, former chairman of Sears Financial, who said this …
“Scale doesn’t help if you have two different businesses that are underperforming and don’t really know what their place is in the consumer’s mind.”
Yeah, I’m going to see if he has a blog I should be adding to my list.
My dad was a journalist. Got his degree from University of Michigan in 1965 and started writing for the Jackson Citizen Patriot newspaper right out of college.
He worked for his future father-in-law at Toy House all through high school and college to pay for that degree and even worked part time around his journalism job to help pay for the expenses of having a new family.
There is a legendary story about how he got his start at Toy House when my grandfather gave him a 40% raise to lure him away from another job at age sixteen.
Four years after college my dad got another job offer, this time to move to New York and write for Newsweek. Once again my grandfather made my dad a substantial counter-offer 33% higher than the Newsweek offer to stay and work full time at Toy House.
1974 – 25th Birthday of Toy House My dad and grandpa are in the white shirts on the left. My sister and I are in the clown costumes in the middle.
Now some might say my grandmother was behind this offer. She didn’t want to see her grandchildren (my sister and me) leave town. But my grandfather knew a good employee when he saw one. He always told me …
“You can never overpay for great help.”
Talking about Sears these last few days has struck a nerve. Along with the comments here, I’ve received emails with stories of families with long ties to Sears.
One long-time reader of this blog told me how his grandfather who worked for Sears for 33 years talked about how they changed their employee stock options program in the 1980’s. He speculates that started some of their“well-trained staff” attrition.
Wikipedia tells of how Sears changed their hourly pay structure in 1992 that ended up cutting pay for several employees. This followed on the heels of Walmart and Kmart surpassing Sears in total retail sales in 1990 and preceded by a year the demise of their catalog. Coincidence?
Circuit City did the same thing in March 2007, cutting starting hourly pay and laying off 3,400 higher-paid employees. Less than two years later they liquidated.
In both cases the C-Suites were only looking at payroll as an expense to be cut instead of an asset to invest in.
You can treat your employees as an expense instead of an asset and get away with it. Amazon has done that for years. Even their new round of raises was offset by a cut in bonuses and other benefits (and was politically motivated to decrease the chance of Bernie Sanders getting the Stop BEZOS Bill passed).
It only works, however, if you didn’t treat your employees like assets first.
I may be biased but I think my grandfather had it right. How you treat your employees affects how they treat your customers which affects your bottom line.
PS I wish I could have paid my employees better. I wish I could have offered them better benefits. Since I couldn’t, I did other things to help them out like grant all their time-off requests, work with the schedule to make sure they got the hours they wanted, feed them every now and then, train them, treat them with respect, give them responsibility, pay a stipend toward their continuing education, celebrate their birthdays and achievements, and bring in a masseuse during the Christmas holidays. Even when you don’t have the budget there are things you can do to make your staff feel appreciated.
In 1988 Walmart opened their first Supercenter in Washington, Missouri. The Supercenter concept heralded Walmart’s entry into the highly-competitive, low-profit, huge cash flow, repeat-traffic driver grocery business.
Two years later Walmart surpassed Sears in total sales to become the largest retailer in America.
By 2004 Walmart was capturing one out of every four dollars spent on groceries and remains the biggest player in the grocery industry.
Walmart ad in Vogue Magazine
In May 2005 Walmart did something completely unexpected. They ran a full-page ad of their new fashion launch in Vogue Magazine. Yes, Walmart and Vogue. No, it wasn’t a designer pajama line to wear when you visited a Walmart. Walmart wanted to do to fashion what it had done with grocery.
There was only one problem. Fashion isn’t a commodity like groceries. One year later Walmart reported declining sales for the first time (at a time when most retailers and the economy were booming). By 2007 they scrapped their foray into fashion and went back to what they did best—sell mass-produced items at cheap prices. When the economy tanked in 2008, Walmart found itself back on top with sales growth and cash flow.
I tell you this story in our discussion of the lessons from Sears filing bankruptcy (part 1 and part 2) because it illustrates what can happen when a company tries to diversify the right way and the wrong way. Walmart’s model is built on selling cheap goods cheaper than anyone else.
Their foray into groceries made sense. Fashion, not so much. When Walmart began selling groceries it vaulted them to the top of the retail mountain. When they got away from what they did best, it caused them to falter.
Sears made the same mistake in the 1980’s and never recovered.
Sears made its living in the same style as Walmart—selling lower-priced items. One difference, however, was that Sears sold “value” more than price. The well-trained staff* would talk you out of the most and least-expensive versions of their appliances by showing you the “value” you got from buying something in-between with a lot of bells and whistles.
Sears also made its living by having stores near urban centers, but also a catalog to serve the less-represented rural areas.
This recipe put them on top of the world.
COMPETITION
While Sears had made a living selling to rural markets through their catalog, Walmart was quickly encroaching their territory with actual stores. Walmart went after the rural markets that didn’t have the retail glut of the urban locations, the same rural markets where the Sears catalog was most popular.
Walmart also used its growing power with vendors to bully them into better pricing to undercut the competition and define the sales in terms of “price”, not “value.”
Whether through hubris or ignorance, Sears ignored this threat and instead focused on diversifying their portfolio.
CORE VALUES
Back in 1930 Sears had launched Allstate Insurance, a value-based insurance company. The success of that led Sears to get into three other industries in the 1980’s—financial planning (Dean Witter), real estate (Coldwell Banker), and credit (Discover Card).
Like Walmart and grocery, Sears and insurance was a fit. Insurance is a product people have to buy but want to buy it affordably (value). Like Walmart and fashion, financial planning and real estate were not a good fit for Sears because they aren’t sold the same way. Sears was sinking valuable time and resources into ventures that weren’t consistent with their Core Values or their primary business model.
Sears divested themselves of those entities in the 1990’s but by then the damage was done.
Walmart and Kmart surpassed Sears in sales in 1990. Walmart had redefined the lower-priced goods market, begun the serious race to the bottom, and infiltrated the rural neighborhoods where the Sears Catalog had been the lifesaver for so many families.
MAIL-ORDER BUSINESS
In 1993 Sears discontinued the catalog. The catalog business had shifted dramatically in the 1980’s because of the fanatical growth of retail stores in America. Why order it from a catalog when you can pop into a nearby store and get it today? The glut of retail, the cost of shipping, and the 7-10 business days shipping time was enough to kill the commodity catalog shopping that was the Sears catalog.
The only catalogs making it were for specialized companies selling specialized goods not found in stores (LL Bean, Eddie Bauer, REI, Signals, Orvis, etc.).
Then along came Amazon.
In 1994 Amazon launched their site. While there were a small handful of people who recognized the power of the Internet and what it could become (my buddy, Hans, actually pitched Borders Bookstore on the idea of selling online before Amazon launched and was laughed out of the room), I’ll forgive Sears for not seeing the potential.
Kinda …
Sears already had the mail-order business infrastructure set up. Sears already had the cataloging of hundreds of thousands of items done. Sears already had enough stores around the country at that time to set up a BOPIS system that even Amazon can’t yet match. Sears was part of a joint venture with IBM called Prodigy, so it was even involved in the Internet in its infancy!
This isn’t to say that Amazon wouldn’t have eventually cleaned their clock through better data, better customer-centric focus, and better operations, but just imagine if instead of trying to diversify, Sears was instead looking at new ways to do what they already did, only better and with the full use of the newest and latest technologies?
The lesson in all of this is simple.
First, understand fully and clearly who you are and what you do.
Second, don’t let anyone else do it better than you.
Sears let Walmart and Amazon do Sears better than Sears while Sears was busy trying to be someone else. Because of their size, it is a slow, painful death, but the choices that led to the bankruptcy were made in the 1980’s and 1990’s when Sears chose the wrong forks in the road and stayed on those paths too long.
PS*I don’t know when it happened, probably in the 1980’s, but at some point Sears got away from their “well-trained staff.” Whether it was a cut in money for training programs, a shift in management away from training as a whole, a cut in payroll, or simply a belief that sales-training didn’t matter (a common thought in the 1980’s when everyone was selling at a high clip), Sears lost this competitive edge it held over the competition, especially Walmart.
PPS I did this exercise a couple times with my staff, but it was a question I asked of myself several times a year. “If I was going to open a store to compete with Toy House, what would I do?” When you ask and answer this question, you find the weaknesses in your model that can be exploited. You find where your competitive advantage is thinnest. Not only does this question help you find where competition could hurt you and shore those areas up before the competition strikes, it helps you constantly explore options for doing what you do better.
Here is tip #1 …
