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To Labor on Labor Day or Not

Are you open this Monday? We aren’t.

Labor Day & Memorial Day are paid holidays for my staff (along with New Year’s Day, Easter, 4th of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas).

We’re also closed Sundays of Labor & Memorial Day weekends.

Why?

For my staff. They deserve a break. I expect a lot from them and so I need to reward them from time to time. Giving them paid holidays and long weekends is one way I tell them that breaks are important and family time is a priority and that it isn’t always about chasing the almighty dollar.

Plus, in our town it just isn’t a big shopping day for anyone but the Transactional Customers looking for a Labor Day sale. And I’m not going after them.

You may have your own reasons for being open or closed this weekend. That’s fine and good by me. Just thought I’d tell you mine.

Happy Labor Day! (wanted to tell you that now, because Monday I’ll be sleeping in:-)

-Phil

Credibility Shown

Tom Wanek wrote a book, Currencies That Buy Credibility.

The new CEO of Step2 Company – Jack Vresics – is an embodiment of that book.

Last Thursday I was in Streetsboro, OH for a meeting of Step2 Center dealers – the retailers who sell the vast majority of the Step2 line. Step2 is the largest manufacturer of toys still being made in the USA. But they’ve had a shakeup the past year replacing the CEO, the CFO, and the Director of Marketing.

I was looking forward to meeting the new CEO, but at Wednesday night’s informal gathering we were told that he wouldn’t be at our annual gathering because he had to drive his daughter up to Ann Arbor to move her in for her first year at the University of Michigan. Understandable excuse. I have every intention of being there to help my boys on their first day at away at college, too.

But right before we broke for lunch Thursday a new face entered the room – Jack Vresics was in the building! He drove 3 hours back from Ann Arbor after moving his daughter in just to spend 90 minutes with us before driving back another 3 hours to be with his daughter again.

You have heard that actions speak louder than words. That one action spoke volumes of how important we dealers are to Step2.

He paid the currency (driving an extra 6 hours) to earn credibility, and he earned it big time in my book. He showed me what he was willing to do to make sure I knew how important my business was to him.

What actions are you willing to do, what price are you willing to pay to show your customers how important they are to you?

Read Tom’s book (no, I am not affiliated in any way – just a fan of the book) and you can learn some simple ways to earn that credibility.

-Phil

Who is Your BFF?

Had lunch today with one of my best friends. Good food, good conversation, and more than a few laughs.

Got me thinking about why he’s my friend. We certainly have common interests – go to the same church, hang out with the same people, have boys of a similar age. But there are more than a few people that fit that profile with whom I am not close friends.

Why him over others?

Two reasons come to mind…

  1. Shared experiences
  2. Insider information

Shared Experiences

We’ve done a lot together over the past 15 years – parties, kid events, Red Wings games, travel. Just the proximity of doing things together builds a bond of friendship. Taking our kids to the fireworks, grilling in the backyard, and spending New Year’s Eve together bring us even closer.

Insider Information

You can’t do that much together and not know a little more about a person than the average public knows. Yeah, we share some secrets. More importantly, because we know how each other ticks, we know how to act and react appropriately to keep the friendship humming. Those insights are part of the glue that holds our friendship together.

That’s why we’re BFF’s.

Here’s a question for you…

How do you turn your customers into BFF’s?

I believe it’s the same way – Shared Experiences & Insider Information. When you actively get involved in their visits by getting to know more about them and sharing more about yourself, you will quickly find those customers becoming more loyal and more vocal about you.

There are thousands of people who fit the profile of what your perfect customer should be, but few of them are loyal, vocal customers. Put your focus on getting to know them and sharing experiences in your store with them and that will change. They will soon be your new BFF’s.

-Phil

I’m Hiring Part 2 – Identifying the Right Traits

Facebook & Email Newsletter ads sent.

Radio ad running.

Applications coming in.

Now for Part 2…

My goal is to find genuinely helpful people. The application/resume only gives me hints at this. The kinds of jobs they held before tell me a little. The organizations they’ve joined tell me a little more. But I need to find out in a short period of time (the interview) if they have the traits I want.

How do I do that?

As we speak I’m working on interview questions to help me identify these traits. I posted my needs in an online group where I belong and received this list of questions from a friend who also does a lot of hiring…

  1. What are you looking to do next, and why?
  2. What type of people (team) do you want to be with and why?
  3. What would you like to learn?
  4. What are you an expert on? What are you the best at?
  5. What is the worst decision you ever made?
  6. Describe your most remarkable project/achievement.
  7. Leadership- How did you move your last organization forward? What did you do to move those around you forward?
  8. Imagine you had your own business…what would you do to improve service, improve morale, improve the bottom line, etc.?
  9. Describe an interesting problem and how you solved it.
  10. Describe a problem you foresaw, and how you helped avoid it.

Good questions, but how do you get good answers? How can I make it comfortable enough for the interviewee that she gives me honest answers?

One suggestion I received was to walk around the store with the person, a less formal setting than the office and desk approach.

Another was to put all the applicants together at once and have them talk about their experience and traits together, that you’ll see their true character show up in a group setting like this. You’ll see the ultra-competitive, the back-stabbers, the talkers, the listeners, the shy, the loud.

Another was to put them right on the job as part of the interview. See how they do cold and you’ll have an idea if they have the traits you want.

And one more intriguing idea is to ask each applicant to bring in one object that truly reflects who they are, and be prepared to explain why. Their dedication to this task will tell me a lot about their dedication to the job, not to mention a lot about who they are.

I’m leaning towards the first and last approaches, but would love to hear your thoughts…

How would you make it so that interviewees give honest and forthcoming answers that are not canned?

-Phil

Currencies That Buy Credibility

I’m reading a brand new book on marketing. Well… okay, I just read a brand new book. I read it in one sitting. And I’m planning to read it again – probably tonight.

Yeah, it was that good.

The book is called “Currencies That Buy Credibility” by Tom Wanek.

Too many times we hear lines in marketing & advertising that just don’t ring true. Things like…

“We won’t be undersold!”
“The best sales staff in town!”
“The world’s largest selection!”
“Lowest prices guaranteed!”

Maybe some of them are true, maybe they aren’t. The key is that without something to show us how they are true, our cynical nature leads us to disbelief every single time.

Tom, however, teaches you how to give credibility to your statements, whatever they may be, through six different currencies such as your time, your money, or your control. With credibility you grow trust. And with trust you grow your business.

The book is easy to read, has great examples, and makes perfect sense. You’ll be applying his principles almost immediately. I know, because I have. I started reviewing and rewriting my radio ads this morning based on what I’ve learned.

If you’re involved in the marketing of your store, this is one book you should add to your library.

(Full Disclosure: Tom is a Wizard of Ads partner I met 2 years ago. As an acquaintance, I planned to read his book from the moment he announced it being published. But I wouldn’t be promoting it here unless I believe it can help you. And, no, I’m not getting anything for promoting his book – except maybe a heartfelt thanks.)

-Phil

The Three People to Solve the Problem

If you’re in retail, at some point you will have a customer with a problem. And your success will depend on how well you solve that problem in the customer’s eye.

The key is knowing the three people who can solve the problem. Those people are (in no particular order):

  • The person Most Capable of solving the problem
  • The person Closest to the problem
  • The person Least Busy at the time of the problem

The problem for most businesses is the order in which we prioritize that list. From a business owner’s standpoint the ideal priority would be:

  1. Most Capable
  2. Least Busy
  3. Closest

From a customer’s point of view, however, the order would be:

  1. Closest
  2. Least Busy

Notice that I left off “Most Capable”. The customer expects that everyone will be Most Capable. And that’s where the smart retailers succeed. They equip their front line staff with the tools to solve problems so that customers get satisfaction right from the start.

There is nothing more frustrating to a customer who already walked through the door loaded for bear than having to wait around while incompetent fools run off in search of an already over-worked manager to approve a return or refund or some other simple issue.

Conversely, there is nothing so satisfying as a customer than having the first person who greets you being able to fully take care of your problem.

The best thing you can do for your staff is walk them through the basic problems that arise in your business. Show them your thought process and the criteria you use to make decisions. Then empower them to make those same decisions for the customers.

Sure, they might make a mistake or two. Sit down with them when they do and talk through their decision-making to see their process. Use that time to show them (again) how you would handle it. The good ones on your staff will get it quickly. Plus, they’ll feel more ownership for the satisfaction of the customers in the first place.

There will still be a time when the person closest to the situation can’t solve the problem. But the more often they can, the better your customers will feel about you and your business.

And isn’t that the whole point?

-Phil

Breaking Trust the AT&T Way

Two letters have undone all trust I ever had with AT&T. For 60 years we have used AT&T in one form or another for our store. That’s a lot of trust built up.

The first letter came on August 24th saying that my account with them was about to expire. With 16 phones, 8 business lines, and a business open 7 days a week, you can believe I called them right away. After jumping through a bunch of online menu hoops I got a guy who informed me that my account was not about to expire, but that he had some great offers of other products I might want to buy.

Yeah, the letter was a total scam to get me to call so they might sell me some services I didn’t want. Apparently the hundred plus phone calls from sales reps that I had blown off wasn’t enough for them to get the message that I was completely happy with my current level of service and didn’t want anything more.

Trust meter down 50%.

The second letter came today. It informed me of the “new services you have requested” and that my new bill would be $106.35 more for the new services.

What!!?

Apparently, even after explaining that I was happy with my current services and didn’t want anything more, AT&T thought I should have Caller ID for my 8 lines (two which are purely modems, not even used for receiving calls). And somewhere over the past month, they decided to add that to my account for an extra $106.35 a month.

Yeah, I got back on the phone. Only this time it took 5 calls and umpteen hoops before I found a live person. Unfortunately, the phone number led me to a live person that had no clue how to help me with my problem. Yes, she finally transferred me to someone knowledgeable on the subject, but even then, he couldn’t help me. (What’s the point of giving out a phone number if the people answering that phone can’t deal with the issues for which the number was given?)

Bottom line? They changed my account because they changed program I was on. It wasn’t anything I had actually requested. I just wanted to stay on the old plan, but the old plan now had Caller ID bundled in it and I was getting Caller ID even though I don’t need it, don’t want it, can’t use it. No option. It was now in the plan, and I had to pay for it.

I suppose AT&T’s idea was, if you can’t get someone to buy your products, just bundle them in and tell them they have no choice but to pay for them.

Trust meter down 100%.

On Monday I’ll be calling their competitors.

There are so many lessons in this, I don’t think one post could cover them all. Here’s the one I want you to remember…

Trust takes time to build, but only seconds to shatter. We have used AT&T in our business for over 60 years. We have never had any issues with our phone service. Yet it all was destroyed in 39 days, and now I’m shopping around.

Trust is precious. The trust you have built with your customers is gold. Remember how hard it was to get that trust, and then do everything in your power to keep that trust. Make sure all your policies, procedures and ventures are designed to build trust, not break it.

-Phil

PS If you sell phone services, call me Monday.