Pro-active v’s Reactive

October 29th, 2009

Proactive or reactive ?

Proactive or reactive ?

Pro-active v’s Reactive

Strangely enough, this is a definition I only thought about recently when my personal circumstances changed enough to make my usual manner of doing things begin to look a little ropey !

In business its pretty much accepted that proaction rather than reaction is what it takes to be successful – Moto’s like “seize the day” and “go for it” perfectly illustrate this. But being proactive is a skill like any other and it has to be developed over time. Its rather like just going to the gym once, there won’t be much benefit and you’ll probably strain something. So being proactive just the once will have much the same effect, you need to build up a system and a support network for it.

The definition of proactive is planning ahead and anticipating problems. Whilst the definition of reactive is waiting for problems to appear before dealing with them.

If you think about it, how much of your day are you a reaction to what is going on around you ? Grumpy customers? Having to do jobs that you don’t relish doing ? Calling the council ? Tackling staff about things they do that drive you crazy ? Setting budgets ? Dealing with things that you don’t like dealing with (whatever they may be for you ?)

Not dealing with things that you know are looming causes Stress, because at the back of your mind, you know its coming anyway….! Its also pretty unsatisfying, and leaves you in a kind of limbo where you can’t make decisions because you haven’t looked forward enough.

Being proactive can help eliminate problems before they appear, and since you can plan how to deal with things, you can act faster before all is lost ! Its also, believe it or not, less stressful, as taking control of any situation puts you in the driving seat, not the back seat, while the car slowly slides into a skid !

Being proative means planning what you want to do with your store, your staff, your stock, having budgets in place, advertising and marketing plans, and more importantly back up plans for when things just don’t go the way they’re meant to….. It takes a little longer and is a bit more effort, but the rewards are that you are in control, not buffeted by other peoples demands and caprices.

Being reactive is normally fairly stressful. You don’t know what’s coming up next, so you have to be ready for anything, and you’re not in full control of your life or your business.

So, just for fun, have a quick tot up of how much of your day is spent being proactive – or heading off next weeks or next months problems – so you’ll have a peaceful Christmas trading season - Go on, take the challenge and write down the list of 10 things that you know you should be dealing with, that you’ve been putting off :

1.
2.
3.
4.
5
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Now, make a plan for carrying out number one………. Keep it simple, put it in your diary and tell everyone what you’re going to do – that way you have to do it !

Strangely enough this simple system works almost all of the time

Good luck

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Swine flu, retail and you !

August 12th, 2009

Swine flu

Swine flu

Sometimes in retail you’ve really got to wonder what’s going to come at you next? July & August were the months of the Swine flu crisis eroding consumer confidence.

Inspired by yet more sensationalist jounalism, the Swine flu pandemic panic swept across the country. Now, we all know that no more people are dying of Swine flu than normal seasonal flu, and if you’re vaguely healthy you don’t have much to worry about, yet this would be hard to believe from the headlines.

All year we’ve had to put up with all the scare stories about the economy terrorising everyone and now its another juicy story, with half the population smothering themselves in antiseptic handwipes (bet their sales results are wicked) As a result, footfall has been down, and as we all know you can’t sell stuff to people who aren’t in your shop. (although online retailers aren’t complaining !)

Flu in any of its forms is not going to quietly depart, so how many sick days can the nation take, hiding under the collective duvet trying to avoid it? Rising sick days isn’t a groovy prospect for retailers – It reduces customer service, possibly opening hours and sensationalist scare stories keep consumers away from usually crowded shopping areas, so most businesses would welcome a little more balanced reporting perspective.

So, where’s the good news ? Probably the best news around for importers & retailers is the recovery of the pound. In July 2008 the pound was worth $2.00, but by January of this year its value had sunk to $1.35 (which is a twenty three year low, just to put this in perspective) Earlier this month it recovered to $1.70, which is an absolute lifeline in a difficult year for smaller retailers and importers.

The big question now is whether the pound’s recovery will be a sustained one…?
Here’s hoping….!

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Posted in Independent retailers, Swine fever, Uncategorized, money, retailers | No Comments »

Google me business cards…

August 9th, 2009

Just Google me...

Just Google me...

I love this simplistic business card from designer Ji Lee the creative director of Google Creative Lab in NY.

Its simply the coolest card i’ve seen.

Which got me thinking… what would you have to do to be the first person or business that came up with your name in a google search - answers on a postcard please.

OK, so as the creative director of Google creatives Ji was probably already in the running, but for us ordinary folk, what would we have to do to stand out?

Build a website, maintain a blog, win an award, court some publicity?

I’m guessing some kind of mix of all of those, but wouldn’t it be fabulous to simply hand this out at your business card - assuming of course that there’s nothing on the world wide web that you’d mind your customers seeing…?

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Posted in Blogs, Building a media profile, Challenge, Publicity, pr | No Comments »

ebay calls on EU policy makers

July 28th, 2009

ebay flexes its muscle

ebay flexes its muscle

For those of us with with an online presence as well as bricks and mortar shops, ebay have been starting their own small (or not so small really) revolution against brand owners….

If this doesn’t affect you now, it may in the future, as a seller, brand owner or manufacturer.

Basically the story goes something like this – ebay was created on the foundation that people could be empowered by building a global trading platform where almost anyone could buy or sell almost anything. Ebay feel that that this foundation is now under threat from some brand owners and manufacturers who are trying to turn back the clock by blocking the sale of their products on online marketplaces and other websites across the EU.

The bottom line here is the right of sellers to compete fairly in the online market place and the right of buyers to be able to access the best possible deals from the widest array of goods.

Some of the not so happy brand owners have argued that their reluctance is to prevent the sale of counterfeit goods on ebay among other things,(and you might think they have a point) but ebay argue that their reluctance to have their brands hosted on ebay amounts to unfair trading practices and they’re calling on EU policymakers to amend the EU competition law to stop these “unfair” trading practices.

E-bay’s position is that brand owners have “descriminated against them”, and I’m sure that many of us remember the Tesco grey market war with Levi’s back in 2001. Levi’s won that round, with the European court ruling that trademark holders can stop businesses importing their products from outside the EU and then selling them without the trademark holder’s OK.

As a manufacturer and brand owner who has veto’d retailers from selling some of our more exclusive brands on e-bay and similar sites, this is squaring up to be an interesting fight, both sides have power and money, but my bet is that intellectual copyright will win out over the rights of the consumer – for now at least.

But it might be worth keeping an eye on this particular battle ground because if the rules are rewritten then selling goods over the internet is going to enter a new phase…

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Posted in Emerging trends, Protect your brand, ebay, retailers | No Comments »

Trying to work something out ?

July 21st, 2009

What's the missing piece...?

What's the missing piece...?

I don’t know if you’ve been watching the recent spate of recession busting retail programmes that have hit the TV channels recently? They range from Sainsbury’s wondering how to do it better, to Mary’s upping the game for charity retailing (and taking some stick for it, although she did a great job !) undercover boss, and now onto Gerry’s big decision….

The last one is my favourite because it deals with family businesses, the kind that most of us run, and they’re fraught with all kinds of problems that bigger or more devolved businesses don’t face, partly because there’s not so much emotion involved in being employed in someone else’s business, or at least that’s how it appears to me.

Gerry deals pretty much exclusively with family businesses, and as far as I can tell he’s looking for strong leadership, or at least the potential for it. But the programme does seem to discount the work of the founders in making award winning pastries, beers or holidays – this seems to get glossed over in favour of sales, sales and more sales…. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think any business would turn down more sales its just that the passion for the product is what creates the business. The sales follow on from that….

Which brings me to my next musing…. How do you keep the passion ? How do you keep learning so that your business stays interesting ? How do you keep from going slightly bonkers when the sales go down?

It seems to me that the best way would be to swap businesses for a day with another business owner – because its always easier to see the “faults” or should we say opportunities for development in other businesses than it is in your own….

It’s a radical idea, and maybe a bit uncomfortable, but how about if instead of swapping businesses, you just swapped knowledge ? Maybe you have sales skills that you could teach your neighbour who has marketing or accounting skills?

As long as you agree the boundaries before you start – play nice, no abuse and no hard feelings…. It could work, and you’ll certainly get a fresh perspective on your business, maybe it’ll show you the missing piece of the puzzle… and for free !

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Posted in Adding value, motivation | No Comments »

What’s your vision?

July 6th, 2009

What's your vision ?

What's your vision ?

Its no secret that it’s a particularly challenging time we’re all going through right now, so how about instead of having some vague plan to survive we actually make a success plan?

What’s a success plan ? Its simply a plan or a goal setting exercise that will take you closer to reaching your goals in say 60 to 90 days. Even better than doing this exercise would be doing it with other people in your circle, other businesses if possible so you could spur each other on!

So, how can we do this? Firstly, we need to create a vision ! What do you want to be, do and have – be specific. It helps to create a vision board, cut out images from magazines to go with your goals, whether they be business, health or relationships, because lets face it, life works better when its in balance.

Vision boards are very cool, don’t dismiss them as Tony Hart meets earth mother, they’re actually a great way of getting your RAS or reticular activation system to focus on what you want to achieve (rather than what you don’t want to achieve)

Your RAS looks for patterns in all the gazillion pieces of information it processes daily to see which pieces match the images you’ve already set out in your brain (for example in your vision boards) It’s a super cool, intelligent and sophisticated system that most of us don’t really know how to use to our advantage.

Once you’ve laid down your vision, and its clear, not fluffy round the edges, the RAS system starts to work, noticing people, opportunities and basically anything that seems useful to it in getting you closer to your vision or goal.

You’ll suddenly find that you’ll meet someone really useful to you, or a magazine you pick up will have an article on exactly the problem you were bumbling around in your own head trying to solve.

So, today is a day for vision boards, and a clear plan of what you want to achieve in the next 90 days.

We’ll go through the next steps later in the week.

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Trademarks

June 29th, 2009

Trademark your business

Trademark your business

Trademarks are an important way to protect your business name, logo or style.

A trademark is a symbol or logo that distinguishes a product or service. The British Intellectual Property office deals with about 28,000 trademark applications a year.

Trademarks are believed to have originated from bakers around the middle ages. Once the bread was made, but before it was cooked it was stamped with a seal that identified the baker, so that he could be punished if the bread was not good or underweight, but if the bread was of a consistently high standard, he would generate a lot of goodwill towards his bakery.

Today a trademark can be a name such as Coke, or a symbol such as McDonalds famous Golden arches, or it could be a combination of the two - it can even protect a shape or a particularly distinctive colour.

For consumers trademarks allow them to make informed decisions about which products to buy, because different trademarks are associated with different qualities in a product. For instance a product from Volvo would be associated with the term “safety” in most consumers minds.

If you have an unusual store name or business idea its a good idea to look into trademarking it. This costs around £200 and takes approximately a month to process at the patent office’s headquarters in Cardiff. The office also have a fast track process for £85 that allows you to see if your mark is eligible or likely to infringe upon another previous mark.

Bear in mind when searching that trademarks are allocated per classification, so that for example working in steel would be a different classification to use in the gift trade.

You can search online for free for other similar businesses and logo’s to see if yours would be eligible for a trademark. A trademark is a valuable business asset and help with a positive business evaluation.

Once you have a trademark you can use the registered trademark logo, which effectively deters others from using your trademark and generating business from the goodwill you have developed in the running of your business.

Visit the office for intellectual property rights at : www.ipo.gov.uk for more information.

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The four D’s - overcoming procrastination.

June 24th, 2009

The four D's

The four D's

Procrastination is a life sucker – you know what you should be doing but you find a gazillion reasons to be doing something else, all the while at the back of your mind is the nagging voice telling you that you really should be doing whatever it was you are putting off !

In the last post we looked at the five “personality types” for procrastination. So I’m sure you found yourself among them, but now that we know why we do it, what can we do about it ?

Here are some things you can do:

1. Recognise when you are doing this and make a commitment to monitor this trait and NOT do this anymore.

2. Put a big sticky note in front of your face at your desk or shopcounter if you have to but stop it. It’s not doing you any good.

3. Look at the benefits you get from doing it, there’s always a pay off for our actions, even if its not immediately visible.

4. Stop excusing procrastination from those around you

5. Develop a personal commitment to action

6. Prioritize your life – have you taken too much on, are you excited by the opportunities or lost in a blizzard of “To do’s”

If you’re looking for a way to work out what you should be doing, the four D’s are a good guide. Do it, Diarise it, Delegate it or Dump it !

You can use this little mantra as you open post, work out who’s supposed to be doing what, or just for all those jobs on a list somewhere that you just know you’re never going to do – whether it be learn French, take a mechanics course or clear out the storage shed.

If you know at the back of your mind that you’re not going to do it, but you put it on the list because you think you should – Give yourself a break and take it off ! Admit its never going to happen, and put your energy into something that you do really want to do !

If you go through your list, there should be things that can be delegated – Ok, not all for sure, but some, and it’ll give your staff a chance to learn new things, and free up some time for you to learn some new skills for all those things that are on the list that you really don’t know how to do….

Or hire someone who does know how to do them, loves doing them and lets you concentrate on the things you’re good at, instead of slogging away at the stuff you hate…

That’s a winning strategy !

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Procrastination !

June 22nd, 2009

Procrastination !

Procrastination !

Procrastination ! Even the word is long…! Dragged out, lots of syllables…!

The Definition of Procrastination is:

The failure to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done.

Procrastination affects us all at different times and for different reasons. But the end result is that is sucks our energy and leaves us feeling listless. We know what we should be doing, but we do something else instead, or we do nothing instead, but at the back of our minds, we still know that we’re cheating ourselves…!

There’s 5 causes or personality types in Procrastination:

1.Perfectionist - Someone who has to have everything ‘perfect’ before starting the new thing, implementing their new idea or launching a new store, product or service.

2.Dreamer - Someone who lives in their big vision and doesn’t do too much about the little details.

3.Crisis Maker - Someone who likes to create drama in their lives or wait until the very last minute to do a certain task or who works well under pressure

4.Defy-er - Someone who doesn’t like to do things by the rules, a bit of a rogue agent

5.Over-doer - Someone who does things over and over again without actually taking action or implementing something – rather like an over-analyser or over planner.

Do you recognise yourself in there ? I’m definitely a number one, I’m the type that has to clean the desk and sharpen all the pencils before I can return a phone call ! Yes, feel free to shake your head, as it is mystifying to all around me too !

So why do we do it?

• Is it because we’re lazy?

• Is it because we aren’t sure what we should do to go forward?

• Is it because deep down, we’re not totally confident that we can accomplish the task?

• Is it because we don’t enjoy the task and there are other more fun things to do instead?

• Is it because it’s a “should” on our list, but not something that we actually want to do ?

The answer is of course a mixture of the above…

Sorry there’s no one stop panacea for procrastination, but if you look through your unfinished “to do list” you’ll be able to figure out what the blockages are for you ! (more about this on Wednesday )

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The definition of insanity…

June 17th, 2009

Einstein said it best !

Einstein said it best !

I believe it was Einstein who came up with this oft repeated quote although i’ve seen it attributed to others too. Basically, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result !

How often in life do we do this ? I don’t have enough fingers and toes to even begin to count the number of times i’ve fallen foul of this truism.

If you find yourself negotiating with your staff, bemoaning your sales figures, despairing at the market, or putting the same advert in the same magazine month upon month(without testing it) then you’ve surely strayed down this route.

The clever thing to do (apparently) is to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and have a look at what you could do differently?

Implement a personal development meeting with each of your staff ?

Try a new sales avenue - take the product to the customer rather than waiting for them to come to you ?

Look at all the businesses that are surviving and thriving in our current economy?

Teach yourself the basic rules for PR so you can be the story instead of the advertising supporting the story ?

If any of these would be doing something differently to how you normally do it, then they’re worth a try.

What else could you come up with thats totally different to how you normally do things ?

Heck, if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it, but if you find yourself going home to your spouse or long suffering partner and complaining about the same things more than once a week, then its probably time for a change, before you drive yourself, or maybe them, quietly insane.

It might even be fun to do something differently. What five things in your store or the running of your store drive you crazy ?

Have a quick brainstorm with anyone who’ll listen about what you could do about them, don’t rely on partners and staff, involve the milkman, people down the pub, your hairdresser, anyone who might have a different view point to you -after all your way hasn’t been working so well, so maybe its time for a new approach ?

What have you got to lose ?

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Posted in Independent retailers, Knowledge, einstein, negativity, pr | No Comments »

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