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The Easy Way to Solve a Tough Problem

Finding solutions to tough problems is not as hard as you think, especially when you understand Business Problem Topology.

Roy H. Williams first taught me the concept of Business Problem Topology through his trilogy of “Wizard of Ads” books.

Then he taught it to me again during a visit to Wizard Academy in May 2005.

And when I applied it to a problem I had, it worked!

Business Problem Topology is when you take a problem you are having and look where a problem with similar characteristics may have already been solved. Solomon tells us that there is nothing new under the sun. Therefore, any problem you have is nothing new. Someone once had a problem like it.

I had a problem. Mine was hiring good people. In the toy business we hire a large number of temporary workers for the Christmas season. They need to be trained and ready to go in short order.

For years I struggled with this problem – until I applied Business Problem Topology. My problem? Trying to create a finished product that was strong, useful and beautiful – a work of art – in a small window of time. I needed a process that consistently turned out a beautiful, useful finished product. So I asked myself… What art is consistently strong, useful and beautiful?

Pottery.

So I began exploring how to craft pottery. And there lay the answer. The steps a potter takes to create a work of art to last centuries are the same steps a business owner can take to hire and train a staff that is a work of art. (I already showed you the first step here.)

Now I have a book that shows you how to apply all of the steps of a potter to your hiring and training.

The book is titled, “Hiring & the Potter’s Wheel: Turning Your Staff Into a Work of Art”. You can buy it online at my website. (or at Toy House for you local readers)

It is an easy read. The nine steps I outline are told in a story about a young HR person named Mary hired by a start-up company that is experiencing growing pains. As Mary learns, so will you. And if you apply these same techniques in your business, you’ll see a huge change in the quality and skills of the people you hire and train. I know. I use it every day. It’s my dirty little secret for having awesome customer service. And I’m sharing it with you.

-Phil

I’m Going to Learn

Next week I’ll be attending the ASTRA Marketplace & Academy 2010 in Providence, RI. Four days of workshops, keynotes, small group discussions, panels and a mini-trade show.

I’m going to learn.

I’m going to learn new ways to improve my marketing.

I’m going to learn new ways to train and motivate my staff.

I’m going to learn how to increase our profit so that we can weather tough economic times and grow in the good times.

I’m going to learn about new games and new activities and new toys.

I’m going to meet new people, network with old friends, hear interesting stories.

I’m going to give a presentation on Inventory Management to help others learn from what I know.

Yes, I’m going to learn, because when you stop learning, you start dying. And I’m in no mood to stop learning.

What have you learned recently?

-Phil

PS The most observant of you reading this post probably got the double meaning of the phrase “I’m going…”

Successful Stores Have Meetings

Most people consider it a universal truth – no one likes to go to meetings. They’re boring and a waste of time. Nothing sucks the life out of a room more than a scheduled meeting.

Yet, the most successful stores have regular meetings. Maybe their meetings aren’t the same as your meetings. I know my meetings are different. Because if you ask my staff, they look forward to our monthly meetings. It’s one of their favorite activities.

I do two simple things to charge up my meetings that you can do, too.

  1. I make them Useful
  2. I make them Fun

I make them Useful because for every meeting I establish one Goal. I establish the one most important point I want to get across, the one lesson I want them to take away, the ending to the statement…

“This will be a successful meeting if…”

You’re lucky if your staff remembers anything after a meeting. The more you try to accomplish, however, the less likely they’ll be able remember that one most critical point. Therefore, my meetings all have one and only one Goal. I write that Goal at the top of my meeting planner worksheet and make sure that everything I do is built around that one Goal.

This way I guarantee that even the least attentive of the staff will know exactly what the meeting is about and what point I want to drive home.

I make the meeting Fun by coming up with creative and clever ways to reach that Goal. I call those the Tasks. Then I come up with the most crazy, off-the-wall, different, fun Tasks that will accomplish the Goal. The Tasks that seem to work best at making the meeting fun are Tasks that:

  • Involve the staff actually doing something
  • Have a competitive nature
  • Push the staff slightly out of their comfort zones
  • Give the staff a chance to be creative
  • Give everyone room to be light-hearted and have fun

Some of the Tasks we have done include skits, storytelling, game show games, role playing, trust & communication activities, movies & videos, songs, and food. (Once I even served them ice cream at 8:30am!)

And my staff love it! (And they learn, too!!)

So if your meetings are dull, uninspiring, and dreaded, spice them up by clearly defining your Goal and using clever, creative Tasks to reach that Goal. You’ll be surprised at the transformation just one meeting like this can have on your entire staff.

-Phil

PS For a complete breakdown of all the steps for having incredible Staff Meetings, download my FREE eBook “Staff Meetings Everyone Wants to Attend”

PPS If you have a particular Goal but can’t come up with a task, send me an email outlining the Goal and the group of people. I’ll help you brainstorm a few different Tasks to try.

Practice How You Play

My son’s Little League baseball game was rained out last night. Too bad. We worked hard Sunday on his throwing arm, getting him to throw more overhand and less sidearm.

But he said something to me Sunday worth discussing here. After telling him that it was important to focus on making every throw the right way because how you practice is how you play, he said, “But dad, it’s only during the games when you gotta be serious.”

What do you say to something like that?

Here’s what I told him…

You’ve got that backwards. The time to be serious is practice. The time to work hard and give your absolute best effort is practice. The time to focus your strongest is practice. Practice is where you create the good habits that carry through to the games so when the game begins you can have fun.

How you practice is how you play.

I think some of it stuck. His throws got better, his focus improved, and he really worked hard. I was looking forward to seeing how it carried through to the game. Darn weather!

How well do you practice? How much emphasis do you put on training? How seriously do you take it?

If you feel like your trainings and meetings are ineffective at best, and simply an excuse to slack off, check out this eBook – Staff Meetings Everyone Wants to Attend and the accompanying worksheet.

How you practice is how you play. The good news is it doesn’t take much to make the game more fun!

-Phil

I Served Them Ice Cream

Staff Meeting. 8:30am. Ice cream served.

Ice cream for breakfast?

Some loved it. One employee had two bowls.

Some hated it. Who would eat ice cream for breakfast?

Some were indifferent. “No thanks, I had a bagel.”

Kinda like your business, right? Some love you, some hate you, some are indifferent.

Do you know what causes people to love you – the proverbial ice cream for breakfast that you serve?

Are you willing to serve that ice cream at 8:30am just for those that love it against all conventional thinking? That’s what the best stores do (metaphorically speaking). And their best customers reward them with loyalty and evangelism.

Think about it…

Apple Stores – you can’t have a store without cash registers!
Whole Foods – there’s no long-term market for expensive, organic/natural/gluten-free foods being pushed upon the public through fancy displays
Nordstrom’s – you can’t take everything back no questions asked – people will take advantage of you

Yet, those three stores were ranked #1, #2, #3 in RetailWire’s survey of best customer shopping experiences.

They are all serving ice cream at 8:30am.

As Seth Godin recently pointed out, it’s easier to serve ice cream to those who want it than to change the mind of those who think it’s weird.

What are you scooping out for your best customers?

-Phil

Stopping Employee Theft

According to the National Retail Federation, 44% of your shrinkage is caused by Employee Theft. Yep, your own staff is stealing you blind!

Quit being in denial and do something about it.

Here’s what you should do…

Background Checks – It starts with the people you hire. Did you look up their court records? (They’re available online for free.) Did you call references? Did you verify employment? One of the best applicants I ever interviewed had a string of “retail fraud” charges a mile long. If I hadn’t checked, I would probably have been added to her list of conquests.

Training – How well trained are they? Are you sure? Have you gone back and tested after the initial training? Sometimes employee error, not theft, is the cause of your shrinkage. The more thoroughly you train them and also evaluate them, the less likely you’ll have this problem.

The Golden Rule – How well do you treat them? It is no stretch of the imagination that employees who are treated well will be less likely to steal than disgruntled employees. It also makes sense that the type of behavior you model is the behavior your employees will follow. Are you stealing from your own store in front of them? If you’re taking product off the shelf, they’ll begin to believe that it’s okay for them to do the same.

Supervision – When the cat is away, the mice will play. Who watches the store in your absence? Do you have a trusted supervisor that will keep an eye on the mice? Having that one trusted person who serves as your backup eyes and ears works well as a deterrent.

Checks & Balances – It is vitally important that you have a system of checks and balances for counting your cash drawers, verifying sales receipts, and double checking deposits. Sticky fingers get caught quickly when you have a system to double check your money.

Video – Sure, it’s the last line of defense. Yes, it can cause feelings of distrust and suspicion. No, I don’t recommend it for everyone. But the bottom line is the bottom line and if all the other methods haven’t slowed down your shrinkage, this just might be the ticket.

The key is to hire honest, ethical people in the first place, treat them with respect, and model the behavior you want to see.

Do this and your shrinkage will go down and your staff morale will go up. Win-win!

-Phil

Employee Handbooks – Do You Have One?

I created quite a stir in ASTRALand last week. Someone posted the question on the listserve about employee handbooks. In my reply I offered to send a copy of our handbook and training checklist to anyone who wanted it. In short order I had 45 requests for copies of our handbook.

Apparently, handbooks are a hot topic in the independent toy world.

Do you have one for your employees?

If you don’t, the good news is that they aren’t as complicated as you think. The hardest part is getting started. Here’s what to do…

Write your manual on your computer.
Do a little at a time.
Update it every time you hire someone new or notice something you missed.
Give everyone a new copy of any section that changes (keeps it relevant).

It doesn’t have to be a complete and polished document on day one. It can be a work in progress.

Here are some of the things you should include:

  • Employment Policies – the basics of employment like Dress Codes, Vacation, Holiday & Sick Pay, Maternity Leave, Jury Duty, Payroll, Safety Policies, Emergency Procedures, Terminations, etc. (Yeah, it seems like a lot, but do it one heading at a time and it won’t take long.)
  • Store Procedures – this is where you list all the services you offer and the how’s & why’s of each service
  • Special Services – If you have certain services that require extra explanation, make a separate section for each, such as Cash Registers, Layaways, etc.
  • Training & Evaluation – Spell out how you will train and evaluate your employees.
  • Forms & Paperwork – If you have special paperwork or forms that need to be filled out, show how to do it properly.

There are many reasons to have a handbook like this.

  • Having written policies protects you when terminating someone for violating a policy
  • The handbook becomes an extra tool for training new employees. Not everyone learns the same way.
  • Putting your policies in writing forces you to evaluate why and how you do them, which helps you make your services better

Once you get it written, have your attorney look it over to make sure you aren’t doing anything blatantly illegal. And make sure you look it over every few months to see if anything has changed.

Employee handbooks are valuable to any business whether you have one or one hundred employees. Dust yours off and see if it has what it needs to be effective for you. And if you don’t have a handbook, send me an email and I’ll send you back what I do. You can use it as a template or reminder of which topics to include.

-Phil

PS I also sprinkle in a full dose of our store philosophies including our Character Diamond, and a section of difficult situations we encounter regularly and how to deal with them.

Systems Versus Creativity

Interesting dilemma… Are systems for handling situations and creativity mutually exclusive?

Here is the situation.

One of my vendors informed me that we needed to send in photos of defective parts to get replacements. Makes sense. They need to protect their costs by knowing that they are replacing only that which needs to be replaced.

Our first customer to have a problem after this policy began lived over an hour away. They had flaws in the product that, while usable, were not what they had paid for. It was a special order item so we would need to order new parts for them, no matter which ones were damaged. So we asked if they would kindly take some digital photos and email us to save us a 140 minute round trip. They did and the parts were ordered.

The second customer was a mile away and had ordered an in-stock item. When she called with a problem, we asked her to send photos, which upset her. Why should she have to send photos? Why couldn’t we come out there and snap them ourselves? Heck, why couldn’t we bring her a replacement and take the photos when we got back to the store?

Good question.

The solution to the first problem was not necessarily the exact way to handle the second problem.

Our mistake was that we implemented a system of “hows” before answering all the “who, what, where, when” and most importantly “why”.

How do we get a replacement part? By sending photos to the company. Who takes the photos? Anyone. Why did we ask the first customer to take the photos? Because she was over an hour away and we would need to order the replacement no matter what. Why did we ask the second customer to take photos? Because that’s how we did it the first time. Do you see the flaw in this thinking?

Before you implement a new system, make sure you carefully point out why you do things a certain way, and what the ultimate outcome should be. And empower your staff to use their imagination and creativity to come up with solutions that make the customer happy while following the spirit of the system.

-Phil

PS The very next day the second customer had a replacement, we had photos to send, and everyone lived happily ever after.

Doing December Differently

(Note: I know it’s already December 6th. For some of you it might seem like too little too late. But the advice is good and I didn’t want to wait 11 months before sharing it.)

Today’s sermon from Pastor Dr. James Hegedus at the First Presbyterian Church of Jackson was about “Doing December Differently.” Would it surprise you to learn that pastors take the same approach to December as retailers?

As Pastor Jim put it, “I turned the page on the calendar and sucked all the oxygen out of the room.”

Yes, big, deep sighs as we brace ourselves for the onslaught of the busy season.

Pastor Jim went on to talk about how he is preparing his way for the Lord differently this year. As retailers we need to think about how we prepare, too. Here are three things I encourage you to do differently this December.

  1. Schedule some white space
  2. Empower your staff
  3. Focus on one customer at a time

The hardest thing we face in December is the way everything seems to grow and speed up exponentially. The fires to put out, the to-do lists, and the pace of business whirl around faster and faster until we are sucked into the stress and craziness of the season. Soon we aren’t eating or sleeping well, we’re losing our patience faster and we become a different person than we were the other 11 months of the year. I know. Been there, done that.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. You don’t have to take a deep sigh as though holding your breath while you plunge into the icy waters of December. You just have to do things a little differently.

Do these three things and it will make a huge difference in how well you feel (and how well you do) at the end of December.

Schedule some white space. Just as the white space in a newsprint ad makes the message stand out more powerfully, white space in your life makes you more powerful. Schedule at least 30 minutes per day for quiet time. Use it to read, write or reflect, but don’t use it for anything relating to your business. It will recharge your batteries and give you a fresh outlook on your life and your business.

Empower your people. Teach your employees how to do what you do and let them do it. Reward and praise them when they do it right. If they do it wrong, first support them, then show them how to do it right. Soon they will be doing more so that you can do less. Will they do it as well as you? Probably not at first. But if you’re rewarding their behavior, they’ll do it well enough to make a difference. And you’ll immediately have more time on your plate.

Focus on one customer at a time. As the boss it is hard not to look and listen to everything happening around you. But the more you can learn to focus on one customer at a time, the more the world slows down for you and the bigger impact you can have on that one customer. Give her your full attention and win her over as a fan. She deserves nothing but your best. And don’t worry about those waiting customers. When they see you giving your all to one customer, they’ll want some of that kind of service, too.

Do things a little differently this December. Give yourself a break. Empower your staff. And take it one customer at a time. You’ll see the results before the champagne pops New Year’s Eve.

Merry Christmas!

-Phil

What Chris Brogan Can Teach You About Retail

Chris Brogan, author and power blogger, just posted a blog about a horrible shopping experience titled What Timberland Taught Me About Retail.

There are many lessons in there for independent retailers. I’m going to talk about two of them.

The gist of the story – he saw a Timberland boot advertised on TV and went to a few brick & mortar stores to find it, make his purchase and move on. Unfortunately, the stores were ill-prepared for his visit. Some didn’t even know about the product. Others knew the product but didn’t have it. Others had it but not in the color or size he needed. Overall, he was frustrated that he could not find anyone with credible information – let alone the actual item – about a product he saw advertised on TV by a major vendor.

This happens all the time in retail. Customer sees product in advertisement, customer wants product, customer goes to store, store doesn’t know product, customer goes away frustrated.

But it doesn’t have to happen in your store as long as you are proactive about the situation. To do that you have to know the answer to two questions.

The first question is whether or not the company ever gave such information to all the retailers or whether this was an exclusive channel distribution product.

The best retailers know not only the products they sell, but also the products they don’t sell (and why). Do you have major vendors that also sell exclusives to big-box stores and Internet sellers? Have you asked them for info on the exclusives you can’t get?

If you want to be the product knowledge king, that is information you need. And don’t wait for your reps to give it to you. Ask them right up front to get that info. Start with your top vendors and work down until at least you have a working list of products customers might request that you don’t have. (And know why you don’t have it – by your choice or the vendor’s choice.)

If you choose not to carry an item available to you, there is a reason you didn’t buy it. Does your staff know that reason?

Just imagine the different type of experience Chris would have had if an associate said, “I know the boot you saw. We chose not to carry it because we like model x better. It has… which means you’ll…”

Or if you couldn’t get the product… “I know the boot you saw. We don’t have that style, it is only available online, but let me show you this one. It is similar because…”

Can you see the difference between either of those scenarios and, “Nope, never heard of ’em,“?

The second question is whether or not the sales staff even cared about knowing that information.

Maybe the information did come down the pike. What did you do with that info? What did your staff do?

This is a training issue.

The best retailers are motivating their staff to know more about the products than the customers. In this day of endless information on the web, it is vital that your staff are constantly researching product info. Yes, the customers are already coming in armed with more info than ever before. But now it is your job to sort that info for them and give it relevance. Tell them why a certain feature is included and what it will do for them (benefits). Let them know why one item costs more than another and help them figure out if the extra expense is worth it.

How much product knowledge training have you offered to your staff? How much time do you spend on teaching the benefits of every product you sell? How much time is devoted to continually updating that info? If you’re not doing this, you’re letting customers like Chris get away.

Chris Brogan just told a few hundred thousand people not to go shopping in brick & mortars because they were basically clueless. The only way we can combat messages like that is to constantly give our customers the kind of service that would have made Chris a loyal follower.

Can you do that in your business?

-Phil