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Two Books My Staff Read

I gave my staff an assignment. Read some of the books I have read and give a presentation to the staff. At today’s meeting we had the first two presentations.

Lakisha spoke about the book Poke the Box by Seth Godin (not an affiliate link – I don’t have any of those).

She liked the concept of just initiating something, not being afraid to fail. We have had a couple instances of that recently when Carrie initiated our Birthday Club and Nate created better signage for our JTV Toys of the Week.

The one big lesson from Poke the Box is to always try new things. Not all will work, but if you poke the box and see why it isn’t working you can tweak it and make it work. But if you do not initiate anything, nothing ever gets done or improved.

Darlene had a harder assignment – one of my favorite books – Free the Beagle by Roy H. Williams.

This book is an allegorical story about a Lawyer and his beagle that must take a journey. The story is fairly simple and might remind you of The Wizard of Oz. What is impressive is the layers of learning Mr. Williams has woven into the story. On just one level the lawyer represents our logical left brain while the beagle represents our more creative right brain. There are nine other levels of understanding in the book (and I’ve only uncovered about six).

My favorite part of the book is the discussion that was recorded afterward. Mr. Williams invited a number of people from different backgrounds to give their takes on the book. Their insight is so fascinating that it alone is well worth the cost of admission.

Free the Beagle is great for anyone at a crossroads, anyone who believes they might be on a journey to bigger and better things, or anyone who feels stuck.

This is just one way I empower my staff to grow. I cannot pay them millions of dollars. I cannot offer them cushy benefits. But I can help them on their own journeys in life, help them grow into better people.

You can do the same for your staff. In fact, you should. For all they do for you, you owe it to them.

Some people say, “Yeah, but what if I train them and help them grow and they leave.” Roy Williams replied, “What if you don’t train them and they stay?”

-Phil Wrzesinski

www.PhilsForum.com

PS Yes, my staff meetings are a little unconventional. I once served ice cream for an 8:30am meeting. The meetings are also memorable. Yours can be, too. Download the FREE eBook Staff Meetings Everyone Wants to Attend and the accompanying Worksheet and start planning meetings that get the results you want.

Customer Service: From Weak to WOW!

Every business thinks they offer great customer service. Yet every one of you reading this has experienced lousy customer service, probably within the last week!

I think the problem is that we don’t have a definitive guide of what great customer service looks like.

Until now…

I also think great customer service isn’t enough. Just being great merely gets you a thanks from the customer (if that). It doesn’t move the needle towards referrals or word-of-mouth advertising. It doesn’t grow your business.

You give great customer service. She says Thanks. Transaction over.

We need to WOW her to get her to talk and get her to bring others to our store.

Check out my new eBook, Customer Service: From Weak to WOW! Like all of my eBooks, this download is FREE. The eBook takes you through 8 different interactions a customer has with your store and ranks the type of service she gets from Weak to WOW! so that you can see where you fit on the scale and where you need to improve.

Customer service in this country has been devalued because it has been so weak. We need to reverse that trend. Please download the eBook. Share it with your staff. Share it with your fellow business owners. Share it with your Chamber of Commerce, your DDA, your Shop Local program.

If we collectively raise the bar on what WOW customer service looks like, we make customer service an important element in the shopping equation once again.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS If you would like me to come to your town to do a one-hour presentation on this topic (or any other topic), send me an email. While I think the info looks good on paper, those who have seen the live presentation will tell you it is much more powerful in person.

Who’s Training You?

I talk a lot about the importance of training your staff. But who’s training you?

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m honored that you’re here reading this post. That’s a fabulous start. What else are you reading? Other blogs? Books?

Are you attending any conferences? Sitting in on any workshops? Listening to any podcasts or webinars?

Are you visiting other stores and seeing how they do things?

Here is one of my favorite ways to learn… Teach!

You can’t teach what you don’t know, so agree to teach something. Then you’ll be forced to learn it. That’s what I did to write my free eBook Reading Your Financial Statements. I took a topic that was tough for me and forced myself to learn it. Talked to accountants. Talked to other retailers. Read articles. Got professional opinions. Wrote a rough draft. Took the criticism like a man. Re-wrote it. And learned.

How do you get the chance to teach something? Simple. Ask.

Ask your local chamber if they are looking for an presenters for upcoming workshops or academies. Offer to speak to philanthropy groups like Lions Club or Rotary. Talk to your shop local group about doing a training.

Don’t worry if you don’t think you know enough. First, you know a lot more than you think. Second, once you book it, you’ll do what you need to do to learn the rest, and you’ll be all the smarter for it.

Your staff will model what you do. If you keep learning, so will they.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS If you would like a suggestion or two for good books to read, send me an email. Tell me the subject and what you hope to learn. Chances are there is a book I’ve read or one on my to-read list that will fit the bill.

PPS For our last staff meeting I put a dozen or so of my favorite business books on a table, gave a quick synopsis of each book and offered the staff 3 bonus hours if they do an oral presentation on the book at the next staff meeting. You would have been amazed how many grabbed a book.

I Couldn’t Have Said it Better

I stole this…

Bob Phibbs wrote this on his blog yesterday and it is worth repeating.

So many “retail brand experts” and C-level executives have bought into the belief “our customers just want to get in and get out.”

Do you know why?

Because their customer experience sucks wind, blows chunks, is one step up from the necessary evil of a root canal by a guy in a clown mask.

Your store will not succeed if you take this approach. The one true advantage every independent store holds over the big box discounters, the vast majority of chain stores, and the Internet is the Customer Experience.

You can give your customers an experience like none other.
You can make customers have so much fun they do not want to leave your store.
You can make customers so happy they have no choice but to tell others about you.

In fact, you have to do those things. You and me both. That’s our calling card.

Thanks, Bob, for the reminder! (If you’re not following Bob’s blog like I am, you should! You can find the link in my sidebar.)

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS It starts with you and your attitude. And it continues with the type of employees you hire. If you don’t get the right raw ingredients in your frontline staff, no amount of training will make them better.
PPS (Not sure what I mean by “raw ingredients”? You need to read the book Hiring and the Potter’s Wheel: Turning Your Staff Into a Work of Art. It will change the way you do your hiring and training forever.)

Another Basic to Wow Example

I got a couple emails asking for more examples of Basic to Wow customer service against which you can measure your own business.

Here’s one for the simple act of greeting a customer at the front door…

Basic Customer Service: Look up from your station and say “Hello” to everyone who walks through the door.

Good Customer Service: Spice it up with a hearty welcome (and actually mean it).

Great Customer Service: Get out from behind the cashwrap. Greet the customer by name. Speak to their kids.

WOW Customer Service: Hold open the door (especially for people pushing strollers or wheel chairs). Offer to hang up their coats. Greet them like a friend. Chat casually with them, not about why they are there but what’s up in their lives. Ask about the previous purchases they have made (what do you mean you don’t know?). Customers love to know they have been recognized and remembered. Give them all the time they need to decompress and feel comfortable before getting to the business at hand.

Exceeding customer expectations is your goal. That’s what makes people talk positively about you. Simply meet their expectations and at best you’ll get a “Thanks”. But when you go way beyond what they expect, they’ll tell their friends about you.

WOW Customer Service exceeds their expectations every time. It is as much an attitude as a skill.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS If your staff doesn’t already have that attitude there are only two reasons. Either you aren’t modeling and teaching it, or they just don’t have it in them. More often than not it’s the former. But don’t be afraid to cut loose those who don’t have it in them.

Everyone Thinks They Have It

Every store thinks they have Great Customer Service. Even Wally World thinks a greeter at the door qualifies them for the customer service hall-of-fame. But unfortunately, most stores barely offer the basics.

And even then Great Customer Service isn’t enough to move the needle for customers these days. You need WOW Customer Service!

See where your business stacks up in this example of dealing with a Customer with a Problem…

Basic Customer Service: Go find a manager to deal with the problem.

Good Customer Service: Take the customer away from other customers and go find a manager.

Great Customer Service: First attempt to solve the problem before calling a manager.

WOW Customer Service: Own the problem from the start. Apologize and admit you made a mistake. Solve the problem to the satisfaction of the customer. Report your solution to the manager. Follow up with the customer later to make sure she is still satisfied.

It doesn’t take much to go from Basic to Great. But to get to WOW requires a dedicated and well-trained team. Ask yourself…

  • Does your management team allow for WOW to happen?

  • Is your staff capable of making WOW happen?

It takes WOW to get WOM (word-of-mouth). Give your customers the WOW treatment and your needle will move. Guaranteed!

Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS I’m working on a new eBook… “Customer Service: From Basics to WOW” I would love your feedback on what you consider to be WOW service that you’re currently using in your store. Any submissions used will get both credit in the eBook and a FREE copy of my book Hiring and the Potter’s Wheel: Turning Your Staff Into a Work of Art

The No List

Carole Bernstein owns Get Smart! Carole Bernstein is Smart.

She works on her business as much or more than she works in her business. But she still keeps a pulse on what is happening in her business at all times with a clever communication tool used by all her staff.

I don’t know for sure what she calls it, but I call it the “No List”.

At the end of every shift her staff are required to fill out a worksheet that includes every request to which they said “No” that day.

Think about that for a moment…

What if you knew every time your staff said, “No, we are out-of-stock”?
What if you knew every request a customer made for a product that you did not carry?
What if you knew about a service for which multiple customers were asking but you didn’t offer?
What if you knew exactly what your customers expected but didn’t get?

Would you be a better retailer with this information? Of course you would. And Carole just showed you how to get it.

That’s why I love attending good conferences and meeting smart retailers.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Not sure how to train your staff to communicate with you in this way or any other way you choose? Check out my free eBook Staff Meetings Everyone Wants to Attend and the accompanying worksheet. You’ll have your staff fired up and wanting to learn more in no time at all.

You Get What You Pay For

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

She replied, “Pay them!”

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

It especially applies to your staff.

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

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

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

Either way, you will get what you pay for.

Choose wisely, my friends, choose wisely.

Phil
www.PhilsForum.com

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

The Importance of Fun

Are your employees having fun?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Phil
www.PhilsForum.com

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

How to Remain Special

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

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

Our stores truly were Special.

  • Special products not found everywhere.

  • Special services not matched by our competitors.

  • Special experiences enhanced by our staff.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Phil
http://www.philsforum.com/

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