That’s a Great Idea… But How Do I Get It All Done?

I am an idea merchant. My audiences demand new, innovative, and different ideas to run their businesses. Sometimes I feel like the official speaker to the “Idea Junkie’s Association.” Actually I would be proud of that title because I am a full-fledged member of that group. My newest challenged is getting my ideas implemented.

I recently had two experiences that changed my focus and made me address this issue more than I have in the past. The first was when I was asked to return to a town where I had previously spoken and consulted with the merchants. My consulting sessions during the first visit were right on target and the presentation got a perfect score. On top of all of that, I really bonded with many of the people with whom I had worked and I left with a feeling that I really had made a difference. Within weeks of this first engagement I was asked to return 10 months later.

I couldn’t wait to go back. I couldn’t wait to get the updates on the projects these stores had agreed to do. But when I arrived, I was disappointed to learn that only a few of the merchants had actually acted on what I suggested. And even that wasn’t enough to motivate some of them. They all agreed that the ideas were great and would work but they just didn’t have the time to implement them. Many of the stores were embarrassed to see me and didn’t return to my seminar. I saw every merchant and they apologized to me because they thought they were letting me down.

Of course the downtown manager was thrilled. That was the very reason he wanted me to return. The merchants felt like they were letting me down by showing up without making the changes. He called it guilt and I think he might even book me for another visit.

The second experience was a comment made by one of those stores that did attend the seminar but never implemented anything. The owner came up to me after I spoke and told me that I had repeated one of the ideas from before and he was hoping for all new ideas. I then asked if he had implemented the idea that had liked so much. He responded that he didn’t. I then jokingly said, “Well I guess I’M GLAD I REPEATED at least one of them!” He responded with, “I guess you’re right. I just needed to hear it again.” He went on to tell me that he had come up to me to complain but my comment made him think and he then thanked me.

Now let me share a few ways that have worked for my clients to get things done:

1. In this high tech world use a notebook that you can’t tear the pages out of. Then make a list of your to do’s daily. It’s amazing what slips through your fingers.

2. Maintain a list of ideas but never work on more than three projects/ideas at a time. If you can focus on one at a time, it’s even better. When you complete one project, replace it with another. These are not individual “to dos” but rather major projects such as instituting an open to buy system.

3. Remember the things we want to do always get done. Save those projects for the times you least want to work.

4. If you have natural low energy or sleepy times, do active projects such as errands then.

5. Understand you can only accomplish so much in a day, so plug your “to dos” into actual time slots in your calendar. That always eliminates things that aren’t important.

6. Do the items that will make the biggest impact on your business first. Some people try to get all the quick or easy things out of the way, but if you do that, you can spend all of your time doing menial or less important tasks.

7. Always set aside time every month to do the following tasks:
a. Live shop other businesses
b. E-shop other business
c. Network with colleagues
d. Learning time. Stay up to date with your industry. Good businesses take classes.
e. Control the phone & emails …Allotted times only

8. With the onslaught of information, we can get distracted with phone calls and email all day long. Have set times to read them and set times to return calls.

9. Learn to delegate. It is better to spend some time teaching than always having to do something yourself every time. It’s OK if a mistake is made — that’s how our employees learn!

10. Plan your down time first. And that’s the thing I need to work on myself. Take time to smell the roses because they eventually all die and so will you. Be remembered for the friends you have made and the lives you have touched. As strange as it is, when that happens you will start to accomplish amazing results!

How Are You Going To Get Them Back in the Store After They’ve Bought Online?

How are you going to get them back in the store after they have bought online? This will be the biggest issue facing retailers over the next 15 years. We have all seen the numbers of people using the Web. The growth is staggering. Numbers vary from a low of 25% increases to over 100% increases. The Web is eating up industries faster than Sam Walton ever dreamed that it was possible. Do we need the local record shop anymore? No! Who needs the local travel agent unless you are going on a complex trip or are willing to pay for extra service? And it can even cost more! (Not a good way to stay competitive in any industry.)

What business will be next? I haven’t shopped in a traditional men’s shop in years, yet I have bought from them online. People who you wouldn’t think would be buying online are embracing it. My in-laws are in their 80’s and use the Web regularly. Both my mother-in-law and father-in-law have their own computers. My mother-in-law even has a wireless laptop that she brings from room to room and shops online with it!

The Web has turned the corner. It has reached the “tipping point” from a place to get good deals to a place of convenience. It is easier to do business online and with less hassle. Why not? It is fast, efficient, and you don’t have to put up with sales people with whom you don’t know what they are talking about and who don’t want to be there.

Wake up! The stars are in perfect alignment. Consider these facts:

1. Customer Service is at an all time low.

2. The quality of the entry-level sales associate is pitiful at best.

3. Retailers openly admit they are keeping employees only because they can’t find anyone else.

4. As for knowledgeable staff -- Tony Soprano would say, “For get about it”.

5. Online purchasing has become easier to do. (I have a fill in button on my screen that fills in, with one click, all the pertinent information required to make a purchase. I don’t even need to go to my wallet to get my credit card number.)

6. You can buy online 24/7. The Web is even open Christmas Day. (And believe it or not, that’s a very big day for sales.)

7. It’s fun to shop online. I can always tell when my wife can’t sleep because I wake up to see all the purchases she made in the middle of the night.

8. Online merchants have a perception of having what you want when you want it.

9. More people are buying online in record numbers. (It’s almost doubling every year now. We have reached the tipping point.)

10. If you don’t like an online merchant. No problem! You are but a click away from another one.

11. It’s as impersonal as you want but you can become part of a community just as quickly.

I could go on but the question is what are we going to be doing about it? That’s our challenge and I’m committed to collect solutions from everywhere I can and report back to you. If you have ideas and opinions on this subject, please send them along and I will compile them and store them on my blog for everyone to use.

Let me start with the first three ideas:

1. Sharpen your online presence. Become one of the stores doing business online. (There are many techniques here but we’ll save that for another topic.)

2. Focus on the customer’s experience in your store. Is it different enough to make people leave their computers to come to your store?

3. Carry the type of merchandise you can’t find anywhere else in the world. Not easy, but there is a strong argument for private branding.

4. Get out of the businesses that are on the endangered species list. Don’t open up a record store unless you have a revolutionary idea and anything is possible. Yes, get out! Flee, Evacuate, or Leave those industries. Pick up your marbles and play somewhere else. You might be a very good business person but if you are in a dying industry, that is where people always lose money. Don’t try to swim upstream.

OK, that’s a start. I know I said I would start with 3 ideas and I gave you 5. I know you only see 4. The fifth is to always give a little more than they expect. We can do that a whole lot better face to face than we can online. Online it just doesn’t seem personal enough. That is the type of situation we need to survive.

Now let’s hear from you!

The Two Parts To Every Business Transaction

Every business situation has two components. One is the business part and the other is the human component. The business part is the part that is required to conduct the business. It occurs when a cashier rings in your sale, puts the merchandise in the bag, and even asks you if you would like to be part of a preferred customer program. The human part is the way that it is done in order to create a warm fuzzy feeling or create an emotional attachment with the customer.

Logic makes us shop, but emotions make us buy. Logic makes us compare prices. Logic creates brand awareness. But only the emotional human part makes the final choice. It’s the difference between brand awareness and brand insistence.

This has always been a constant theme of mine because I believe that it is the essence of what good customer service is all about. The reason why I have decided to use this as this week’s tip is because the concept was never clearer for me than it was this past weekend. One of the reasons why I love my job so much is because of some of the interesting and diverse places that I get to visit. This past weekend, I had what would be considered one of the more exciting jobs a speaker can have. An association invited me to spend 5 days with them on a cruise ship where I had to moderate a panel and also do a 3-hour training session. (What a job!!!) That gave me lots of extra time to enjoy the facilities on the ship.

This ship had a wonderful little casino where I spent probably more time than I normally would have only because I had the time. I am not that big a gambler but I do enjoy playing some of the table games. I was playing black jack and observing one particular dealer who drove home the point of the 2 parts of customer service. The first dealer that we had was friendly, bubbly, and teasing with the players. He was fun to play with and made you want to stay at that table perhaps a little longer than you should have. He wasn’t the most efficient and always needed a little help counting how many points a player had.

Then we got the “ice lady”. That’s what I called her. Technically, she was probably the best dealer that I had ever seen. She was fast; she was accurate; she was knowledgeable. The problem was that she had no human part. She never smiled; she never joked; she seemed annoyed when someone even asked a conversational question. She took all the fun out of the game. The strange part about it was that she made it so that I didn’t want to play regardless of how well I was doing. There was just no emotion. There were no smiles. There was no sympathy when she got a 21. She drove people away from the business even though she did everything correctly.

So, don’t tell me that quality is #1 unless part of quality is the human component. But there is the essence of the problem. How much of the human part does someone want? There were people sitting at that blackjack table who thought that the “ice lady” was the best dealer that they ever experienced. But I felt the opposite. I was there to have fun and kill some time. Some of the other people were more serious gamblers than I am.

That’s why it’s becoming more important to try to determine the emotional preferences of your customers. Some people want a lot of the human touch and some people don’t want much at all. But it is our job to determine the emotional level that our customers require to have a powerful experience.

May be the answer to great customer service is easy -- always offer both components. The tough part is finding out how much someone wants and then delivering customized personalized service for everyone. Burger King almost had it right. Yes, have it your way, but also deliver it your way as well. Master that and you will be considered a master of customer service.

Pricing

I consulted with a jewelry/gift store last week in North Carolina that worried me about the way they priced their merchandise. I was worried because their margins were painfully too low and they tried to rationalize and defend it to me.

Let me give you the background. This store is charming, with great merchandise which is displayed beautifully. The business is located in an old bank building in an old downtown. The outside is the old granite front that has been restored to almost new. There is a classy black and white awning and companion sign in front, with two refined plants and a stately black metal sculpture of a dog by the entrance. As you walk in the store, every display is pristine and you see the mahogany teller counters of the old bank that make for a perfect back drop for some home décor items.

The owners and the employees are top shelf. Well dressed, well spoken, and people who generated confidence in what they were selling. The merchandise was crisp, exciting, and cried out “buy me”! So far, so good. That is why I was taken back when I noticed some rather strange prices. Prices like $26.41 or $33.11. So I asked why they priced things like that and they explained that they use the exact same formula for every piece of merchandise they buy and never vary it.

So I asked what if you get a good price on something? Same formula. What if you find out a vendor charged too much? Same formula. What if the merchandise had a higher perceived value? Same formula. The different prices do make for interesting chatter and although they are leaving money on the table, it is a differentiator. So I must respect that. But this store is taking the vendors’ pricing decision and making it the gospel. It’s not.

There are NO set pricing formulas in retailing any more. Keystone is DEAD! (That is the technique of doubling your money. Buy for 5 sell for 10.) You are the merchant-- it is up to you, not the vendor, to determine what to sell something for. The vendors don’t always know!

Let me share the 5½ considerations for establishing a selling price. The reason why there are 5 ½ as opposed to 5 or 6 is because I disagree with my colleague on one point. We decided to include it but only give it half value. Here are the considerations:

1. Competition—you can’t be higher than you competitor. I don’t care how you try to justify it--it just doesn’t work. You can’t charge more for the same item or brand. I don’t care how nice your store is. It doesn’t work.

2. Perceived Value---Does it look like it’s worth? Ask you customers, ask you employees. Price the item to what your customers think it’s worth.

3. Brands---Some brands help and some hurt. Some brands are carried at all the discount stores and others are carried at just exclusive shops and demand a higher price. That’s why we create our own brands.

4. The Price Range—What is the range that the customer will pay for the item?

5. Availability—How hard is it to find? The price of Beanie Babies skyrocketed because they weren’t available.

5½ . The cost of the merchandise. Who cares what you paid for it! The price is what the customer is willing to spend. Bill Gates didn’t become the wealthiest man in the world because he based everything on cost.

You are the merchant; you make the call. Pricing is the most critical part of being a retailer. Don’t pass it over to a math formula. The owner of the store tried to defend her position by saying she was a bargain hunter and wanted the prices to reflect that. The only problem here is that the customer who is a bargain hunter shops for bargains. NOT values. The owner was value pricing, which most customer don’t really understand. Bargain hunters look for markdowns.Everything here is at regular price to the customer--certainly not the fertile ground for the bargain hunter.

A simple decision to price properly can determine a store’s profitability. Be the merchant. You make the decision on what to sell the merchandise at. But beside all of this, don’t worry-- because that’s why God invented markdowns!