20 tips for Retailers for Easter

March 23rd, 2012

22 Tips for successful Easter retailingIs your shop ready for increased Easter holiday sales ?

When each holiday rolls around in the retail calendar we know that retail sales will increase both instore and online. Are you ready to take advantage of the sales opportunity that Easter brings?

I’m talking here about your expectations from this holiday period. The one thing that continually dominates the news is the recession. Speculation on what might happen over the next few months is really best left to the banking experts. But how it affects our businesses is for us to determine.

After the well known death and taxes, there are two more guarantees that you can bank - holidays will happen, and people will still spend money on gifts and food for the holiday season.

Every year Christmas is the dominant period of retail sales in the UK. But retail sales increase around all the major holiday periods. We also see increased sales for special events and days like Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day. If you’re fortunate enough to have an online store attached to your bricks and mortar store, then here’s some good news – Worldwide, the trend for online shopping is increasing and is unlikely to slow.

This year more people will buy online,

• social networks will contribute widely to customers buying decisions.
• consumers will increasingly search for bargains, added value and special offers
• comparison shopping will increase

As we all know, buying for Christmas can start as early as September but the real peak happens in the first week of December. While Easter isn’t on the same scale as Christmas, it is a chance to shout about your business.

The key to successful holiday retailing is preparation. Last minute cobbling together of a display or an offer just isn’t going to bring you optimum results. Here are 22 key tips for maximising Easter sales:

1. Is your online store ready? It is no use waiting until April to set up the store as you just won’t make it in time.

2. Is your bricks and Mortar store ready? Do you have a theme, a window display, a colour theme, and an offer ?

3. Do you have the products to sell? Getting the stock can be tricky the closer you get to a popular holiday so you need to know what you will need now. Its one of the vagaries of business in the UK that a holiday means that suppliers just disappear – so be ready with your stock levels in advance – if you can’t afford to get all the stock in at once, book it in on a rotational basis so that different suppliers drop stock in each week – this has the added benefit of keeping your store looking fresh, but might affect the “wow” factor of a new display ?

4. For online sales - When is the delivery cut off date? You can’t sell to a customer expecting Easter delivery if you’re not going to get the product in time. It’s vital to tell your customers what they can expect if they buy later than a specific date.

5. Do you have a safe checkout process setup ? This will aid sales as it builds buyer confidence – as does adding an SSL certificate to your online store.

6. Think about promotions? You can setup special Google AdWords Campaigns just for key holidays and help drive traffic to your store.

7. Use the Price Comparison portals to promote your products and special offers and drive qualified traffic to your webstore. This doesn’t work quite so well for “aesthetic purchases” as it does for branded goods, but if price comparison is your bag, go ahead and do it well.

8. Are you offering holiday specials? You can put up products that have special pre-Easter offers such as free delivery. This can aid conversions.

9. Add special holiday keywords? Make sure that you add the keywords to your Meta-keywords with plenty of time to get crawled by the search engines long before the holiday date. Also make sure that you add Special Holiday Gift category names and description text to match up with your keywords.

10. Price points can be all important , so don’t forget to stand back and look at your offering to make sure that you’ve catered for price ranges for all budgets.

11. Help them out – give your customers ideas. Take some of the strain out of shopping for them, set up special categories like “Gifts for him”, Gifts for Mum”, “Gifts for my favourite nan”, “Oooh she might like this gifts ” etc. Be inventive - you need to stand out in a crowd. I always think that if you make someone laugh then you’ve made them remember you ! Obviously this is to be used with care !

12. Don’t forget Google It might take weeks to crawl and index your new content so allow enough time for the googlebots to find your content and index it.

13. Gift wrapping and gift cards can be easily added in the shopping basket so you might want to think about offering free gift wrapping and free gift delivery.

14. Have your “Wall of desire” right next to your till. Whether it’s chocolate, key rings, pens, notebooks, nail varnish or whatever, make sure you have some fun fripperies right next to your till for impulse purchases.

15. Free shipping for all Holiday Purchases, or anytime, can be a great incentive to buy online. If you are selling a product online you can structure an average shipping price into your costs.

16. Time the shipping and delivery so that as you get closer to the holiday shipping is no longer free but perhaps at a premium to ensure delivery. (if you have the technological savvy to do this) For bricks and mortar stores, consider opening a little earlier, or staying open a little later if there are shoppers around.

17. Give your store a holiday theme. It is easy to setup a new style and change the colours and banners. You can even start doing that right now and make that the live style later in the year. Set up a count down - it can be as easy as a little added text to your home page. For your bricks and mortar store, go all out on the Theming – this will create interest and interest creates shoppers.

18. After the holiday is a great time for specials and people on holiday like to shop around for bargains. So don’t think everything stops on April 8th. The smart shops will be ready with the next campaign. (Spring, followed by the jubilee followed by the Olympics in case you were wondering)

19. Remember you don’t need thousands of products just a few of the products that sell. Focus on quality and for online provide good content (descriptions, images etc) for bricks and mortar stores make sure your seasonal display is self evident in your window (ie before entering ) and instore (upon entering)

20. How much product – It doesn’t have to be acres of product – just a representation or suggestion. On the subject of decoration, to my knowledge no-one has ever complained about too much Easter decoration !

So go crazy with the bunnies and the pastels ! If it makes people smile, feel nostalgic (even for a second) then it makes them feel good and you’re heading in the right direction.

Finally, don’t be limited by convention! Think outside the box and come up with other ways to increase Easter traffic and sales to your business. For instance, if the products you sell don’t really have an Easter holiday theme—so what?
Have a go, call it an Easter promotion, give mini eggs to your customers, ask them to guess the weight of the egg, anything you can think of, Come up with a cute Easter theme for email marketing newsletters and promotions. you’re only limited by your imaginations!

It isn’t too late to make the most of the increased sales from Easter!

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QR codes: A marketing dream ?

February 27th, 2012

QR codes: A marketing dream ?

QR codes: A marketing dream ?

Let’s start with what a QR code actually is?

Some of you may have seen these popping up in unexpected places, on adverts, the signage of shops, restaurants and delivery vans…?

QR codes are the odd looking monochrome square barcodes that can be used to link up with on your mobile phone. Well, that was the start of it anyway, now they’re being used more and more on adverts, direct mailings and even on the back of business cards…

As smart phones and other high tech devices continue to gain in popularity more and more businesses are going to be using QR codes as part of their marketing and communications tools…

QR is short for “quick response” and the idea is that its superquick, instead of typing in an email address to your phone you can just scan a QR 2d barcode and you’ll be redirected there pretty much immediately.

If you’re wondering who would use such a thing, just stop for a second and consider the immediacy of this idea…. Imagine that you’re on a train, reading your favourite magazine – you see a product you like the look of and instead of folding the page over and remembering to search for it later when you get home, you can simply point your phone at it, scan it and basically get additional information, more product pictures or even be delivered to a shop that sells the product so you can buy it online.
The immediacy of that has to be impressive ?

The good news is that there are plenty of sites that enable you to create a QR code free of charge, so this is one marketing initiative that doesn’t need to cost you a fortune.

If you’re wondering how you might use these monochrome digital signposts, then here’s a few ideas:

•On your product packaging – care cards, information leaflets

•On any kind of printed information you give out – promotional leaflets for example.

•On your business card

•On a T-shirt ! Yes, really !

•As part of your shop signage

•On your livery (if you have delivery vehicles)

Those are just a few ideas to get you started. Depending on your business there are many ways that you could use these to your advantage…

One of the real joys about QR codes is that you can track traffic through them, and therefore know for definite how many people have come from a particular advertising campaign for example – which as anyone who’s had to pay for advertising knows would be really handy – imagine knowing for definite whether your advertising produces a result …?

I guess its rather like the upgraded coupon service that supermarkets used to (and some still do) run – you can really see how many people come into your store because of each piece of marketing.

If you’re already thinking ahead, your mind will be buzzing from the realisation that you could run different offers with different codes attached that link to the appropriate pages on your website…

The possibilities are endless and with the daily increase in smart phone useage I predict that QR codes will become more widespread and prevalent in business marketing…

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Independents day - July 4th !

June 21st, 2011

Your high street needs you

Your high street needs you

What is Independents’ Day?

Well, Skillsmart Retail and the National Skills Academy for Retail are teaming up with local retailers across the country on 4th July to celebrate Independents’ Day, championed by the formidable Mary Portas. Shoppers are going to be encouraged to buy at least one item from their local independent reatailers and celebrate diversity on the high street.

They are championing the skills great independent retailers have and they want to show the public that their local shopkeeper is not only a vital service, but someone who wears many hats; they are the accountant, sales assistant, buyer and often everything in-between. Well, amen to that ! From all of us who are getting dizzy with the multiple chameleonic roles we play in a single day this will be welcome news. This is all part of the campaign to back the high street and maintain diversity, while getting rid of the ugly eyesore empty shops.

Firstly the government appointed a retail adviser to bring back the bustle to our high streets, which was contraversial enough. It proved that there was a problem with our city centres and high streets (which we’ve all known for ages), finally, it seems that even the government noticed that.

When this new retail adviser, as her first initiative, launches a “declaration of independents” its time to sit up and pay attention. When you learn that its Mary Portas of “Mary Queen of Shops” fame, its time to take out a notebook and start taking notes !

Mary Portas is known for no-nonsense plain speaking and innovative ideas. Her ideas boost retailers enthusiasm, knowledge, skill base and earnings. With a successful retail background and a commercially savvy consultancy agency, she marries the two areas in her own unique way.

It is tough on the High Street and has been for some time. With town centre vacancy rates doubling over the last two years, the need to take action to save our high streets has never been more obvious. Consumers have seen their discretionary income fall as the cost of just about everything has risen. So in real terms this means less money to spend on anything that isn’t a necessity.

Some retailers have fared better than others and there have been some well publicised casalties in the bigger chains. But the real story in the change of the high street has been that of the independent. Over the past 40 years Britain has changed from being a “nation of shopkeepers” with vibrant high streets, buoyant with diverse retailers, to one where the chain stores are represented everywhere, leading to charges of “Clone town”

Clone towns are not a good idea for many reasons, primarily that Independent businesses are vital to our local economies. They ensure the unique character of an area. They are more accountable to customers and the local community, more likely to support local charities and have greater direct control over the environmental impact of their businesses.

Furthermore, money spent at locally owned independent businesses goes around longer in the local economy. It yields two to four times the economic benefit to the local residents compared with non-local businesses. This means more local income, wealth, and jobs and of course the intangible aspect of community.

Supporting independent businesses creates local jobs, preserves economic diversity and safeguards the environment and that has to be a good thing. Whilst the larger stores are the anchors in our cities and towns, its the independent businesses who offer the diversity thats lacking and the mix that keeps it all interesting, as well as being a valued link in the community, which seems to be so sadly underrated and under reported.

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Posted in Customers, Emerging trends, Independent retailers, Independents Day, Mary Portas, Publicity, Retailing in a recession, The High Street, Uncategorized, brand ambassadors, consumer trends, optimism | No Comments »

There’s definately something about Mary !”

May 22nd, 2011

Mary Takes on the High Street

Mary Takes on the High Street

Its the biggest retail news since woollies closed its doors.

Mary Portas has been asked by the Government to take a look at our ailing high streets…. (about time too, i can hear you chorus) As she says, “the city centre picture is one of steep decline. Three years ago six per cent of high street shops were vacant; by the end of last year the figure had grown to 14 per cent. At this rate, in two years’ time, more than a third of city centre shops will be boarded up, But it’s not just the shops that are going from our high streets; banks and post offices are disappearing too. As they go, we lose a feeling of community because the high street is the heart of a town. And, as high streets empty, the crime rate increases.”

If you’re nodding your head in agreement, the question really is, what should we be doing ? Are the high streets worth saving, or are we just entering a new digital age and we all just need to move on and make space for the big retailers ….? What do you think we should do to revive the high street ? Or shouldn’t we bother, is it a case of change or die ?

Mary is asking for our opinions, and this is as good a time as any to add your comments into the pot - hopefully something good will come of it, maybe she’ll be able to persuade landlords that upward only rent reviews and quarterly rents payable in advance aren’t such a cool option…?

You can follow Mary’s quest on her website www.maryportas.com Here’s an extract from there to get you in the mood

In May this year, I was challenged by the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister to undertake an independent review on the Future of the High Street – to help ‘bring back the bustle’ to our town centres.

And with town centre vacany rates doubling over the last two years, the need to take action to save our high streets has never been starker.

I am calling on business, local authorities and shoppers to contribute their ideas on how we can halt this decline in its tracks and create town centres that we can all be proud of.

If you’ve got something to say about the state of our high streets – be it an observation, insight, initiative or idea – please add your own contribution to the debate.

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Posted in Emerging trends, Independent retailers, Mary Portas, Questions to ask, The High Street, Uncategorized, consumer trends, retailers | 1 Comment »

Optimism and achievement (sunglasses in the rain)

May 10th, 2011

Optimists get the job done

Optimists get the job done

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence”
Helen Keller

This month has had it all, sunny weather, bank holidays and of course, the Royal Wedding. Whether you’re an ardent royalist or more of a take it or leave it person, you have to admit that we staged a spectacular event, watched by millions, or was it billions ? We do know how to throw a party and celebrate. The wedding, the weather and the bank holidays definitely cheered everyone up a bit.
The really interesting thing about this is that people act differently because they feel differently. Feelings aren’t supposed to be a big part of business, it’s supposed to be about logical thought and proven formulas – in a hold on, here comes the science kind of thing. But in reality how we feel is a massive determining factor in how we behave.

Of course sunny weather and bank holidays aren’t great news for all retailers, but generally sunny weather brings out shoppers, we buy food for the barbeques, for picnics, products to sort our gardens out for summer and of course the latest fashions…

On a more general level how we feel is one of the most important factors in determining our success.

An ability to generate positive thoughts will enable you to do much more than if you’re constantly in a state of doom – the only thing you’ll be able to do from there, is talk yourself out of pretty much anything.

I had a real close up look at this scenario myself recently. I had an idea to promote my city centre – it’s a good idea, that’s pretty much what you need to know. I have no sausage of a clue how to put it into practice, but I’m resourceful, so I’ll figure it out in the next few weeks.

As you do, I discussed my brilliant new idea with some of those closest to me – some were enthusiastic, some were positive (but didn’t want me to fall on my face) and some were downright sceptical !
Which seemed rather funny to me. I can already see my project working, I already know what it’s going to look like, how it’s going to be displayed and who’ll like it (and who won’t) so in my head it’s a done deal. Now I just have to figure out the logistics. So it will happen. This idea and the reception to it from those around me is what sparked this post.

To achieve big things in life, you have to finish them before you can start them… whoa there… what am I talking about – is that even possible ?

Take an example – building a house, if you’re going to build a house you’d better have sat with a planner or architect first, or how would you know what you’re going to build. So, once you have the picture of the house in your head, and you’ve worked out the details – only then can you buy the bricks and commit to the building process.

Same with my idea… Is this ridiculous optimism? I’d say no, it’s a certainty. Doom, gloom and the state of the economy are no reason not to start a project, in fact they’re probably more of a reason.

The dictionary definition of Optimism is” a disposition or tendency to look on the more favourable side of events or conditions and to expect the most favourable outcome”

Optimistic people get things started, advertised, marketed and sold. In a culture where we’re conditioned to spend a lot of our time moaning, Optimism breaks the mould and does a little dance.
Optimists create their own circumstances – others wait for them to happen – they feel good when its sunny, or they have a holiday, or their sports team wins, ie they’re influenced by external events, which isn’t a great place to be – Passing the power to feel good in your life over to a possibly occurring external event isn’t going to make you feel great consistently.

I’m not talking about the ridiculous Pollyanna type of optimism or wearing sunglasses in the rain – I’m talking about the state of mind that gets the job done, whether you just lost a big sale, google changed the algorithym rankings again and your website slipped down the rankings, or your latest employee turned out to be a real numpty. The belief that makes you sit down, look at what happened and then go back to work and figure out what you need to do to get a different result next time.

It all comes down to focus – Deciding where you’re going, what you’re going to do to get there and then taking some action to get those results….

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Extreme retailing: Location, Location, Location

May 2nd, 2011

store front design

store front design

What can you do if your shops location isn’t A1, or you’ve got some location challenges ?

Maybe the town centre has moved away from your location over time, if an anchor store moves, it can displace shoppers, maybe stores around you have closed leaving your store a bit isolated on your street or maybe your store had other advantages that outweigh the drawback of the location.

Basically the nearer the epicentre of town your business is, the more expensive the rent will be. Cheaper rents apply to A2 locations, or those up or down stairs, around corners or with obstacles of some kind in their way.

A rule of thumb for working out your costs is that the more you save on location, the more you’ll have to spend on advertising.

So what can you do to promote your store if you have a location challenge? Firstly, you have to be a bit more inventive. People generally feel uncomfortable entering a store where it is not obvious (for location reasons) what they’re going to find, so if your store is up or down some stairs, in a back street or has some other location disadvantage then take a look at the following ideas which we’ve tried and tested over the past 15 years in our store.

1. A good tip is to have something cheap like cards for example just inside the doorway because if people feel uncomfortable getting into your store, they’ll always be able to buy a card. This takes away the barrier to entry.

2. Props: for example put tables and chairs outside (without looking like a cafe) any other props will do too. Preferably oversized props to draw attention to your products.

3. Hand made signage that is regularly updated. I’m thinking of chalkboards here – easy to write on and update and you don’t have to be an art graduate to do this.

4. Clean and spotless exterior

5. Flower garlands (in season)

6. Balloons – filled with helium – check them regularly otherwise they can look a bit sorry for themselves.

7. Flowerpots – with plants that are colourful and alive and healthy – the bigger and more vibrant the better.

8. Statues / Artwork – securely fastened – again the bigger and more vibrant the better – subject to planning permission, local by-way rules.

9. A boards (Check that these are allowed by your local council)

10. Signage – can you put brand names that you stock up on the shop sign – if so this takes selling to the second stage as known brands help to establish credibility.

11. Lighting – fairy lights, overhead lighting, pools of lights, coloured lights (avoiding red for obvious reasons) but coloured lights in a dull area attract attention.

12. Sound – can you pipe through music from your store into the street (at a low level) so people can hear what is going on inside.

13. Leaflets – showing what your store is about – with trial offers ?

14. Signs – saying things like “need help with the stairs, your pram, etc, Please ring this bell for assistance.”

15. Have a welcome mat or entrance carpet

16. Publish pictures of the interior of your store on the exterior along with recommendations or reviews you’ve received from the press and satisfied customers.

17. Have a video playing outside the store, showing what’s going on inside.

18. Bunting or flags – if appropriate – anything that moves in the wind and attracts attention.

19. Canopy – can you make the most of a negative feature and really dress up the entrance to your shop – a vivid canopy would stand out in an otherwise dull street.

20. Use your security shutters to advertise your business even when you’re closed !

To all of you reading this with wonderful shop fronts and lots of window display space, spare a thought for those of us in a scheduled ancient monument where the only use for the windows is to shoot arrows from…..

We’d love to hear any tips that you’ve tried if, like us, you retail from an unusual store…

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Retail sales worst for 15 years

April 12th, 2011

banging-your-head-against-a-wallRetail sales fell in March by the biggest margin since records began, according to new figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC).

The BRC said that total sales during the month were down around 1.9 per cent when compared with the same month last year. This represented the worst performance since 1996, when the survey was started. Factors such as the late Easter impact these figures but its not really easy to say how much?

Like for like sales were 3.5 per cent lower than the previous year which is the worst like for like performance since 2005. So nothing to celebrate there for retailers.

Meanwhile online sales remained quite resilient. They were up by 7.5 per cent, which in other fields would be a rocking increase, but this is still lower than the 10.4 per cent increase registered in February. So in real terms its not good news.

The late Easter is partly to blame for the figures according to the BRC, but this alone is not enough to explain the poor performance of retail.

Instead, analysts have suggested that rising prices, the coalition’s VAT increase, and real-terms wage cuts for many workers are likely to be the cause. Basically knocking consumer confidence if not into the ground, at least into a wooded area.

Stephen Robertson, Director General, British Retail Consortium, said:
“This is the worst drop in total sales since we first collected these figures in 1995. Non-food retailers were particularly hard-hit. This is strong evidence of the pressure customers and traders are under. This year’s later Easter is a factor but this fall goes way beyond anything that can be explained by that alone.

“Uncomfortably high inflation and low wage growth have produced the first year-on-year fall in disposable incomes for thirty years. Mounting fuel and utility costs, falling house prices, higher VAT and the prospect of more tax rises and job losses left people unwilling to spend unless they really had to. These pressures aren’t going away and the arrival of higher National Insurance is likely to compound them in the immediate future.

“The next interest rate decision is a difficult balancing act for the Bank of England but, for now, supporting our weak economy must be the priority. Inflation is coming mainly from temporary and external price shocks - VAT, world commodity prices and the weak pound - not wage or consumer-driven increases. Increasing interest rates would do more harm than good.”

Helen Dickinson, Head of Retail, KPMG, said:
“The food sector suffered in the month due to Easter purchasing falling into March last year, thus impacting the overall results. However, beyond this the trend continues in a marked downward direction: non-food continues to struggle, with big-ticket and home-related sectors again being the hardest hit. We have seen an emergence of new, lower spending patterns since the middle of January, which are currently continuing to trend downwards. Many retailers will not be able to sustain this ongoing weakness in demand beyond the short term and are hoping for some good news around the extended bank holiday period and a feel-good factor driven by the royal wedding.”

where, I hear you ask, is the good news ? The short answer is that there isn’t any - apart from three bank holidays that may get shoppers back onto the high street, but even these three days aren’t magical days that can make up for the lack of confidence and disposable income, so while we have sunshine, daffodils and longer evenings, all of which are long overdue, we don’t sadly have any good news for retailers… yet !

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Wicked windows mean business !

March 3rd, 2011

wicked windows

wicked windows

Your window display is the first contact a potential customer has with your marketing message - So you will want to make it a positive experience. After all we’re all bombarded with marketing messages all the time, so how can you make yours stand out?

Having an exciting window display is the number two rule for good business. Store windows need to either be dramatic, themed, cheeky or send a message. In case you’re wondering, the number one, is be nice to people who do come in to the shop, or plain old fashioned good customer service.

Here are 7 tips, to encourage potential customers from the outside to the inside:

1. Apply good lighting - We are naturally attracted by light. Light shining on a beautiful product appeals to customers, it draws our attention without us realizing it. Particularly in winter months as good lighting looks cheery.

2. Use Mannequin like props - People pay more attention to human-like items and your displays will look more alive. Put the mannequins at different heights for even more attention. Our brains have to scan to make sense of what we see, and the more disruption to the scanning, eg by having it look up and down, the longer the process takes, so the more chance there is of them coming in.

3. Let them peep - Expose only part of your window sometimes - I know this one is more scary than the others, but give it a try! This also works if you have vast expanses of window that you can’t fill with stock for whatever reason, or if you want to hide the fact that your shop is cavernous.

4. Tidiness and cleanliness: This is not revolutionary. But customers have perceptions of your shop,and we want them to be good perceptions. Scruffy, untidy or dusty displays imply carelessness. Your customer’s thought process goes something like this: Scruffy / dusty window equals shop doesn’t care. if they don’t care about the window, they won’t care about product selection or serving me! I know this seems unfair when you have a million things to do. But this is what happens. these first impressions are called “moments of truth” Cast your eye over your window now to see what your potential customers see.

5. Use the big to enhance the small: Use bigger props in the background to draw people to small merchandise - like jewellery. This is also true of displays in cabinets, always tallest at the back.

6. Replication: Put numerous props of the same kind together to create an amazing visual impact. This works with colour, or style or shape. Repetition, repetition, repetition!

7. Magnification: have props enlarged to a hundred times their ordinary size - this can be stunning - imagine a huge ring with a massive stone, all made of polystyrene, above a ring display for example or a huge canvas of an product taken from an odd angle!

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Forward motion….

February 13th, 2011

Going forward

Going forward

So we’re sliding into February, but most of us are still gingerly feeling our way into the New Year, apprehensive about what it’s going to bring. The good news is scant, there’s job cuts, price rises on just about everything, and the weather is miserable and damp, nothing exciting to really put a spring in your step.

If your New Year’s resolutions have already taken a bit of a beating, how about looking forward into 2011 and putting some forward motion into it.
What’s forward motion? Well, It’s basically movement towards something – the something is up to you. Towards a goal, or an opportunity or a decision, the movement is the important part. This year looks like the big toughie for retail, so faced with a choice of staying where we are and doing what we’ve always done, we just have to keep moving forward. Choose forward motion !

Of course, forward motion might not always be the best choice, obviously you’re going to make a few duff decisions along the way, but at least you’ll be making them. In our frantically paced world with so much information readily available, it’s still hard to get all the information we need to make a secure decision, so we agonise over the details. In reality our gut decisions are usually the right ones, but they’re hard to justify.

The more choices we have the harder it is to make a decision. So I’m advocating that it’s better to make the best possible decision you can with the information you have available, comfortable in the knowledge that if you’ve stuffed it up this time, you can choose something else next time.

When in doubt… choose forward motion !

There’s so much information available, that ultimately it just becomes a personal choice of what to focus on. Why focus on the negatives, which are often exaggerated, instead of the positives?
There are two main reasons. Firstly, we tend to focus on the sensational and the dangerous. One sensational anecdote about a store robbery or completely outrageous customer, outweighs a year’s worth of “I went to work and it was pretty much the same as usual.”

Secondly, choosing to focus on the negatives gives everyone else an excuse not to pursue big dreams and goals either.
There are plenty of people who’ll feed your fears and worries, but really, often they’re talking more about themselves and their lives than what’s good for you…. Psychologists call this a process of projecting, ie they project their fears onto you, but the double whammy is that this keeps you in your place and ultimately reaffirms their view again because you didn’t move on either !

If you’re looking for an excuse not to do something, you really don’t have to look far. Playing it safe is not usually a mockable choice - Everyone understands it.
But all things considered, good things can come from bad experiences too, in fact that’s often where we learn the most.

So, if you’re still prevaricating and pontificating on why you can’t change anything in 2011, just consider the following success stories

• Leo Tolstoy wrote War and Peace while living in a small house with his wife and thirteen children. Yes, that’s thirteen children !

• Walt Disney was a failed, bankrupt, small-time advertisement man before he came up with Mickey and friends.

• J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter whilst on the dole. Her first book was rejected by twelve publishers.

• e.e. cumming’s first book of poetry was rejected by fifteen publishers. He self-published it, and well, you know the rest…

• Abraham Lincoln lost multiple jobs, went bankrupt, and failed in numerous bids for public office before being sworn in as the 16th President of the United States.

• Mary Anne Evans living in truly sexist times, had to change her pen name to George Eliot, whereupon she became one of the most beloved English novelists of all time.

Dissatisfaction with something, such as your shop or your accountant for example isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Dissatisfaction can be a force for change.

Dissatisfaction results “from contemplating what falls short of our wishes or expectations” The funny thing here is that we’ve all got these wishes or expectations but we don’t usually acknowledge them, maybe we’re not even aware of them.

So, my next question, to keep the forward motion, well, in motion really, is :

What are you working on?

Hopefully, you’re working on something that’s big, that’s going to take you to the next level, that gets you excited, so excited that you can’t wait to tell everyone about it.

No matter what your work is, no matter what you do, there’s a way to create a project that has you buzzing with excitement about it, where something big, fun and new that might make a difference is just around the corner….

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Posted in Challenge, Change, Knowledge, Positive mental attitude, Strategy, Uncategorized, game, goals, learning, negativity, recession, retailers, screw it up | No Comments »

Happy New Year ! Happy New Strategies

January 15th, 2011

colourful-hatsWell hello 2011,

So, however 2010 turned out for you, now that the tinsel is packed away, and the fridge is full of green healthy food, its time to turn our attention to 2011. As Einstein (or Franklin, depending on who you believe) wrote, “if you keep doing the same thing, you’ll keep getting the same result “ he also put some insanity in the answer, but it’s the new year, so we’re going to keep things a bit more positive here.

So the big question is what are you going to do this year to get a different result ?

Well firstly, start from the assumption that you’re probably the worlds worst boss ? Yes, you ! Even if you’re not self-employed, your boss is you. You manage your thoughts, your responses, your to do list and your career success. So, have you been doing a good job ?

There are few good books on being a good manager. Fewer still on managing yourself. But in these tumultuous times, it’s hard to think of a more essential skillset to learn, or a more essential person to invest in !

Looking back even 10 years, retailing was easy. There wasn’t too much competition, people actually came into town then, (they also had some money here and there) as long as you put up a sign, and had some stock, you were pretty much guaranteed to make some money, but it’s just not that easy anymore. Now, you need to be an accountant, a stylist, a merchandiser, you need to have strong leadership skills, be an astute buyer and negotiator, technologically proficient and with a penchant for hard work.

Now, along with the skill mix of a chameleon, you also need to be communicating your vision, marketing like crazy and in constant communication with your customers and potential customers, using all methods open to you, that’s facebook, twitter and blogging (among other things)

If anyone out there is thinking to themselves – I seem to be working harder and harder and doing more and more for less and less, then you are not crazy, that is indeed what is going on here.
Time management and personal effectiveness has been sideswiped by new media. In a world where we can all be plugged in all of the time, the old principles for success are getting a beating.
But if small business owners and entrepreneurs started businesses to have more time with their family, and enjoy the time here on planet earth, so how come we’re all blogging, tweeting and liking peoples facebook pages all day and night, how do we get back on track with our goals?

Since we all have the same time allotted to us, its got to be down to how we use it … makes logical sense huh ? So what can we do about it?

Well, the nice, simple answer is to stop. Focus some attention on these time management principles and re-adjust.

Stephen Covey, in his best selling book, the 7 habits of highly effective people, stated the importance of putting first things first. ie, plan, prioritise and complete your weekly to do list based on importance rather than urgency !

Pareto’s principle (aka the 80/20 rule)is widely quoted, but not so widely applied. Its a generalisation, of course, but the point is that only a couple of the tasks on your to do list are really going to make a difference to your business…. and you know which ones they are !

Meanwhile, Parkinson’s Law states that “a task will swell in perceived importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion”
So, the lesson here is that good enough is often good enoug ! It doesn’t have to be perfect – use the time you free up on not achieving perfection to do something that’ll really help your business.

So with all the free time you’re going to have with your new effective ways of working, here’s a couple of thoughts to swill around for 2011….

Most businesses look like other businesses,( it makes it easy for our brains to categorise them), so one coffee shop for example looks pretty much like another, but here’s the contraditiction - You can’t stand out if you fit in!

So therefore the decision about which part of your business isn’t going to fit in is probably the most important and innovative one you can make !

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