Archive for the ‘Adding value’ Category

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Trying to work something out ?

Tuesday, 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 »

Get networking

Friday, June 12th, 2009

Its good to talk

Its good to talk

Where do people in your target audience hang out locally?

Why not go there and meet them, chat to them and chat them up (not in that way !) but just join in what they’re doing - not in a creepy, I’m following you kinda way, more in a we live in the same community kinda way.

As we get older and more set in our ways its easier to shrink a bit, not join in, make excuses for why we don’t do things, its rather like building up muscle - either we use it or we lose it. The sad fact is that the less new things we try, the less new people we meet, with the obvious consequence - the smaller our lives get.

Networking has a myriad array of connotations for people, some see it as a group thing or as rather false, but like anything in life, you get out of it what you put into it.

After all you’re talking about something you believe in, your business ! It can even be fun! You don’t have to pay to join a networking association, there’s lots of events you can go to for free and just meet and talk to people - people who could become your customers…

So make a point of starting conversations with people, if you have an engaging manner people will be fascinated to learn about your business and even about you and your story.

Have a business card to hand, and pass them out, it helps if you have a fun and colourful card, with your USP clearly printed on the back, people always study business cards as lets face it, we consider it rather rude not to….

So if you’re standing in line at the local coffee shop waiting for your daily fill of wake up juice, and you get into conversation with the lady in front, pass her your card… and if it says on the back of it something like…

“solving your gift buying problems” or “we source the tastiest treats” or ” all the new seasons fashion styles” do you think that might elicit a question or two… It would certainly spark my interest !

Starting conversations is good fun, it broadens your horizons - you never know who you’re going to meet and it might end up being profitable for you ?

Worst case scenario it’ll pass the time in the coffee queue line… best case you’ll make an interesting new acquaintance and who knows where that could lead ?

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What is learning …?

Friday, June 5th, 2009

What is learning...?

What is learning...?

For most of us it’s a past thing, not an everyday thing. Its something we did at some time to get where we are now, but its not something we’re actively pursuing right now.

The dictionary definition of learning breaks it down into two distinct types, and maybe this is where the ambiguity starts…?
1. The act, process, or experience of gaining knowledge or skill (through schooling or study)
2. Behavioral modification especially through experience or conditioning.
(psychology )

As adults unless we are preparing for an exam or facing some momentous situation in our lives many of us are content to put the books aside in a cavalier, “I’m a grown up” kinda attitude.

So much of what passes for thinking in our everyday lives is really just critical thought that doesn’t help us and doesn’t help those around us. It comes from an attitude of scarcity rather than abundance, and its not empowering to ourselves or our businesses.

So, how about a more hands on approach to learning – Instead of thinking I’m done with learning, what if we asked instead…

* What can I learn today (that can help me or improve my business) ?
* How can I improve myself
* How can I help others ?

Running a business is like climbing steps, you can’t jump too many steps, because at each level you have to learn whatever it is you need to know to be able to climb that next step…. Whether its accounts, staff motivation or a lesson in bookkeeping….

So, rather than thinking of learning as a past thing, lets think of it as a present and future thing, what can we learn today that’s going to help us

After all it is the weekend !

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Come on lets shake a tail feather…!

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

Let me see you shake a tail feather...

Let me see you shake a tail feather...

The definition of insanity, as someone much smarter than me once pointed out, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result !

From a retail point of view, having just been at Pulse, I’d say its not just adding a few new lines to your shop (although that can’t hurt ) its looking at your business differently.

What do you offer? Is it gift solutions, fashion advice, seasonal inspiration, what’s the message behind your storefront?

Is everyone clear what you offer, or have you all been doing it so long its kinda got lost in the ether…? Sometimes a quick refresher course is all it takes to recover the sparkle.

Sometimes you’ve got to act like the peacock to attract the customers…. The peacock displays his feathers to attract attention, but independent retailers seem to like to keep a low profile. A low profile isn’t really an asset (unless you’re a troubled pop star)

Visibility = credibility !

The benefits of some good local pr will astound you….

* Send some press releases into your local publications (details of how to do this are on the e-book – crash course in PR)

* Paint your shop front – really jazz it up

* Invest in some new shop fittings

* Have an open/preview evening and invite along the local press for a photo opportunity

* Start a club

* Update your monthly newsletter

There’s a gazillion things you can do to re-ignite your interest in your business, and show off your feathers and preen a bit, after all it works for peacocks.

So why shouldn’t a little harmless self promotion work for your business ?

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Posted in Adding value, Building a media profile, Retailing in a recession, marketing, pr | No Comments »

Managing knowledge

Monday, June 1st, 2009

How can you extract more from what you know ?

How can you extract more from what you know ?

The term knowledge management has only been around since the 1980’s, it refers to companies need to improve their ability to learn and use knowledge in order to be able to innovate.

In 1988, a dutch academic argued for the creation of a “learning organisation” He believed that in times to come (like now maybe?) the only really sustainable form of competitive advantage that companies have is their ability to learn faster than their competitors.

Businesses have always managed knowledge, its pretty much impossible for a business to exist without knowledge of some sort. In our businesses knowledge must circulate to be effective. Managers and employees must know what’s expected of them, what’s going on around them, and what the shops vision and mission is….

But we also need to know what the future holds, what changes and trends are happening in the local environment, the online environment and the business world, how these might affect our businesses and most of all we need to know how to find solutions to problems, how to create, how to innovate and the shops that do this consistently are the ones who are most likely to win out in the current economy.

So what is knowledge? There’s two kinds that build on each other to form a hierarchy of knowledge:

1. Data (simple facts, figures and statistics) unused, or unprocessed data is useless, its only useful if you do something with it.
2. Information – this is enhanced data – what we learn from reading the papers or watching the tv.

Knowledge is information that has been analysed, understood and internalised.

The real question is how knowledge gets passed on in your business. Anything that you don’t have a system for, means that it will be done ad hoc (at best) or forgotten about at worst. This is just for day to day stuff, but what about the big stuff, how to grow and thrive….

Burying yourself in your business isn’t the best way, you’ve got to get out, go to other towns, see other businesses, go to museums and art galleries, retain that interest that got you started in the first place, because knowledge isn’t a single blinding flash of inspiration, or rather that’s the end result of knowledge but its built up of stepping stones, from things you saw, read, heard or discussed that disseminated in your brain until it seemed obvious what the next step was.

People in every business are always learning, the secret is to find ways of discovering, organising and exploiting the knowledge that’s already there.

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Cinderella and retail !

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

Cinderella and retail

Cinderella and retail

We all know the story of Cinderella, its an inspiring and heartwarming story. But any idealised version of what we should do, doesn’t really come close to how it really is, or even how it might evolve as time goes on.

To continue the Cinderella analogy, we all want to find our Prince Charming, and put on the beautiful glass slipper and live the fairy tale. We all want the love story !

But idealised love and real love are not the same thing, just as the idea of having a shop and the reality of having a shop are not the same thing.

Falling in love is easy, putting on the glass slipper is easy, but being in love is harder and making it work day after day, year after year is much harder. Sustaining the dream is the difficult part.

Getting the keys to your first shop is usually surprisingly easy, fitting it out and choosing the products is exciting, but it’s just the beginning, not the end.

Getting a shop is the easy part, like putting on the glass slipper. The rest takes hard work – hard work to sustain the enthusiasm, motivate the staff, check on the competition, find new and exciting products, keep up to date on new trends and market your business.

Just like the Cinderella story, someone missed out on telling us that life can be unfair, big local businesses can close, town centres can evolve, and not in a good way, competition can open up next door, and economies don’t always work in your favour.

So, what are we to do ? The only option is to choose it the way it is…. After all it isn’t any different to how it is. Then go to work on making it the way we’d like it to be and that’s a serious business decision.

True love is not a temporary thing, it comes with time, it’s not a Cinderella story. It’s a story of commitment, and doing the little things well, with a light heart, not because you have to do them, because you want to do them.

Naturally it’s the same for owning a shop and running a shop. Most of the hard work is behind the scenes, but its vital, and its vital that you maintain your passion for your business, because when the passion starts to fade it’s obvious to everyone……

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Posted in Adding value, Happiness, Passion | No Comments »

Brand ambassadors and representing your brand !

Monday, May 18th, 2009

Who are your brand ambassadors...?

Who are your brand ambassadors...?

A brand is essentially your business’s product or service combined with your unique positioning, basically how you do what you do. All brands stand for something in the consumers eyes, and what your brand stands for is vitally important for the success of your business.

Many of the top brands have brand ambassadors who promote them (for a fee of course) so Beyonce, our star above represents Samsung and Armani among others, while Keira Knightley is the brand ambassador for Chanel, and Jessica Biel for Revlon, to name a few, just to get you in the mood for the blog…

Just to clarify what we’re talking about exactly here – “A brand ambassador is a a well-connected person or a celebrity who is used to promote and advertise a product or service”

Whilst this is clearly true, I’ve been thinking lately that there’d be value in thinking of ourselves as brand ambassadors for our ownbusinesses. The following definition is more inclusive “ a brand ambassador is a representative of an organisation that best portrays the product, service qnd passion of the organisation “

Maybe we don’t all have Beyonce on speed dial, but if you consider the definition of a brand ambassador above, then the scope of your brands ambassadors becomes much larger and spreads and morphs into a variety of audiences, many with the potential to influence others.

Clearly all employees are ambassadors for your shop, if they are saying good things about you and your shop to their network of friends and family, this can bring new customers through the door.

Your customers can be ambassadors for your business if they like what you do and what you stand for. Seth Godin called this the era of conversation marketing, so if your customers like what you do, you’ve pretty much lit the blue touch paper, so you’d do well to stand well back and let them get on with the business of promoting you themselves.

Certain people are just more socially aware, better connected and better at connecting with other people, these are called “influencers” and if you have a customer who’s an influencer who loves your business, you can expect sales to increase because of this connection, in some ways its more like patronage, an old fashioned term, but well used in this context.

Consider that you’re the best ambassador for your brand, as Pierce Brosnan isn’t currently available, we all have to work with what we’ve got !

The key motivation of a brand ambassador is passion (notwithstanding the motivating factor of money of course ) – and as its your business if anyone is passionate about it, then you’re the best person to showcase this trait successfully.

Take a second to work out, or maybe remember, what you’re most passionate about in your business if you’ve never considered this angle before…

Is it the sense of community you love?
Living your dream ?
Empowering others ?
Selling beautiful aspirational things?
Selling everyday useful things?
Providing a service?
Being in the middle of things?
Sourcing amazing products for your shop?
Or something entirely different ?

What’s your passion?

How can you tell everyone about it ?

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The harder i work, the luckier i get…!

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

Make your luck

Make your luck

The harder i work, the luckier i get !

Actually while an element of luck does play a part in all of our lives, i think the element that continually gets a bad press is pure plain and not so sexy hard work.

I love quotes about success, they are so apt - “success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration” for example. You can’t argue with it, its just true and said far more succinctly than i could ever hope to.

So, why the nations fascination with the quick fix, the lottery win, the celebrity show? Is working hard and getting on with it, so unsexy? Behind any seemingly glamorous job is a large quantity of deeply dull stuff to do. Even rock stars get fed up with the touring, lots of sitting on a bus for 2 hours of show - based on hours its not so appealing.

I think the answer is not to aspire to the lucky shot thats going to change it all for you, the winning ticket, or the talent spotter (unless you really do have talent of course) I think you build your own luck and you build your own life….

The problem with running after a dream is that its illlusory, and until you get it you won’t know whether it will make you happy - chances are it won’t - if you win money it doesn’t necessarily make you happy, you just arrive at your problems with more style, and in better clothes…

Success is about giving not getting, giving a great service, creating a great customer list, getting noticed for your fabulous window displays, getting talked about for all the right reasons, and it takes work.

if you want to be talked about for your fabulous window displays for example, then you’ve got to educate yourself on window displays - so you know whats a good one, whats a bad one and how to create one, using depth, colour, repetition, style, season, fashion and a myriad other eventualities….

In other words you have to work at it - you have to work at anything you want to be good at. No short cuts, no quick fixes, no knight on a white horse coming to save you or me.

Jim Rohn, famously said “Don’t wish it was easier - Wish you were better ! ”

Work out what you need to do, be, learn or have in order to be better and work on doing, being, learning or having that - and you’ll get better.

Simple - no quick fixes though !

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Posted in Adding value, Luck, Working hard | No Comments »

Who is the one in ten ?

Friday, April 17th, 2009

Who's your one in ten !

Who's your one in ten !

UB 40 sang about it, scientific studies use it as a way of grounding their theories, but what relevance does it have for retail?

Well, it’s the secret of a new style of marketing – the power of ten !

It works like this, you find ten people. These are ten specific people. People who trust you, need you, like you, respect you, admire you…..

These ten people want or need what you have to sell, and if they love what you’re doing and how you’re doing it, you win – big time ! Because if they love it, they’ll tell ten more people (or many many more !)

If they don’t love it, it won’t work and you need a new product, concept, idea or need to fulfil.

If they love it, your idea spreads, your business gets talked about – and grows ! Fast, much faster than you’d think, because people are talking about you…..not only are you news, you’re also being personally recommended ! Advertising can’t buy that kind of promotion – It just can’t !

This idea can change the way you do everything – instead of investing in blanket advertising to an anonymous “market” You find the raving fans of your business and market to them, get them on board with your vision, your plans, your ideas, let them contribute. Then they’re not anonymous, they’re willing participants, they’re invested in your business (emotionally not financially) You can only really market to people who are willing participants, like your group of ten people.

So when you want to launch a new spring collection for example, you wouldn’t need to spend a lot on advertising, you could plan a gradual build up of interest that turns into a tidal wave. You could plan your budget accordingly too. Which is the opposite to how it’s done now, where most of the money for advertising is spent up front, then it tails off, which is backwards to what you need.

Ten evangelists can make a huge difference to your business. Ten people who love your shop and tell all their friends where they got X from, who pop in all the time, sometimes just to say Hi, ten people who think you’re great and want to support you…..

Years from now, this advice will be so common that no-one will be able to comprehend that we didn’t do it.

But for today, I’m willing to bet that it’s almost certainly the opposite of what you’re doing?

So, who will you pick to be your top ten?

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Posted in Adding value, Change, Customers, loyalty | No Comments »

Phone a friend…

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

Find someone in the same box as you !

Find someone in the same box as you !

I’ve been thinking about how to handle some of the mental swings that come from being self-employed…. You know some days its all going well, you feel successful, its all going your way, and then others……… well, I think we all know how that feels !

So what’s the best way to stay motivated. Well, this is a blog about stuff few self employed people talk about and I think its really important to get the conversation started.

When you start your business you want to do it all yourself, set the standards, do the window, hire the staff, choose the products, make the advert, do the accounts, you want to do it all.

But its not a great idea for the following reasons:

Building a business can be lonely

Its really important to have someone that you can share your successes and failures with (that understands what you’re feeling) Don’t get me wrong, family and friends are great, and long-suffering in lots of cases, but they’re not standing in your shoes, so they don’t have to deal with the feelings that come from nowhere…

You need someone that understands your excitement when you make progress. You need to build a relationship with someone that can understand….

Trying to do everything yourself

This can work in the short term, but its not a long term plan, because you’ll exhaust yourself and lose your enthusiasm. Of course it’s great to learn new stuff, but there’s no way you can be good at everything… If you’re great at the accounts, its unlikely you’ll also be marvellous at selling for example, they’re different skill sets.
The fastest way to growth in your business is to find someone who’s done it and model them, that means go and talk to them about the pitfalls ahead of you, learn from them, take them out for a pizza and ask them questions…. They’ll mostly be glad to share their experience with you.

Accountability

There’s nothing like having to report on your progress to provide the impetus for action, we’ve all heard the old adage “If it wasn’t for deadlines, nothing would get done” and its true, but if you’re self employed how can you find someone to hold you accountable?

Well, my suggestion is to make a friend ! Someone in business too, with a shop or a service provider, hairdresser, accountant – whatever, doesn’t really matter and partner up with them.

Decide that you’ll hold each other accountable for things you say you’re going to do in your business and at the end of each day or week call them with an update on your list – or email them, or drop in for coffee and run through them. You could make it a weekly event and work on each others businesses…. A fresh pair of eyes see things that an owner is blind to.

Try it today, create your list of four things you’re going to achieve today and find someone to be a partner – ask them for their four things and then hold each other accountable – no excuses, no whining…. Good common sense and support and advice and experience and accountability –

What do you need to learn, what can you teach? How can you help?

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