Retail Mavens Blog

The beauty of having ‘sucky’ employees is that it points out a problem. Right? When you see a problem, you have 2 options. Whine about it or address it.

As I always say, there are only 2 kinds of retailers – whiners and winners.

You are a winner…so let’s address the problem, shall we?

The root of the problem is making sure that you are hiring well. I know that was always a struggle for me. I am a relationship gal. I love to talk to people. I like everyone – well most everyone. ? So I would ‘interview’ a prospective hire and then say, “I liked her. She seemed nice and has experience.” I would check her references and then make a decision.

What was my hiring decision based on? My gut.

There was my mistake. That alone isn’t enough. I always knew there should be more to the process but it took me a while to figure it out.

#1. Identify the key traits that you are looking for in an employee. Evan Wise from Management One taught me this key principle. Pick about 5 that are important to you. A toy store client that I just took through this exercise decided that these were important to her:

• fast learner – smart -
• self motivated
• playful
• Good at multi tasking
• Relaxed
• sense of humor
• knowledge of toys is a plus

#2 Design questions to determine if the prospect possesses these traits. Again, Evan Wise told me that the questions can either be asked or be on the application and then reviewed during the interview. For some of the questions, it is best to describe a situation and ask how the prospect would handle it. Here are some of the questions that we came up with today:

fast learners – smart –

• Do you think you are a fast learner? ( I used this myself and was surprised by how many people said no!)
• What was your high school/college GPA? (I am not an attorney and don’t know if there are legalities about this. I always asked this question. I found that high school/college experiences shed a light into people’s personality.)

self motivated

• Are you a leader? Were you the Pres or VP in any high school groups?
• In a previous job, did you ever see something that could be done differently and better? And what did you do about it?

playful

• What is our favorite animal and why?
• What is your favorite toy and why?

Good at multi tasking

• How do you handle juggling a lot of balls in the air?

Relaxed and with sense of humor

• How do handle lots of customers in the store…and screaming kids…and you are wrapping a package…do you feel your heart rate go up? How do you handle it? (If they answer that they would need to take a little break in the backroom right then, you know that they aren’t right for the job!)
• Which is cooler: space pirates or space wizards? (I love this one because you can really get a feel for their personality.)

open schedule

• Are you willing to work Saturdays and Sundays? And you know that your hours will change? (Always ask these questions!)

knowledge of toys is a plus

• What do you know about toys?

Specific retail situational questions:

• What would they do if child was destroying a package or out of control?
• How would you handle a situation where a customer brought in a toy bought a few days ago and it was broken and they wanted to replace it?
• How would you handle a situation where a customer brought in a toy bought a few days ago and said that it was cheaper online? What would you do?
  You want to find some situation to determine if they will get defensive or if they will take a stand for you.

#3. Tell me more. These 3 words are golden. You should speak only about 25% of the time in an interview. Your goal is to find out as much as you can about the prospect.

#4. Next to each trait rate the prospect on a scale of 1-10. This allows you to compare candidates more objectively.

#5. “On scale of 1 to 10, how lucky are you?” This gem comes from Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappo’s. This is really one of the questions asked when you apply to work at Zappo’s. It is genius because it determines if a person sees themselves as a victim of life’s circumstances or as a person who can overcome obstacles. Let’s face it. There will be obstacles in every business day and you want to know if a person is just going to complain or if they are going to tackle it and find a solution.

These questions provide a great start to your interview process and give you much more information to make your decision about your job prospect. We will deal with another aspect of the beauty of ‘sucky’ employees next week!

The definition of the word ‘dilemma’ is a situation in which somebody must choose one of two or more unsatisfactory alternatives. That describes EXACTLY how we retailers feel when a customer comes up to the counter with a piece of paper in her hand and says, “Is the owner in? This is one of my favorite stores and I shop here all the time. I’d love for you all to donate to my child’s school auction. Can you?” Now, she is talking to you, the owner, and doesn’t even know who you are…and you would swear you have never seen her before and the school is located an hour away from your store…and….ARGHHH Don’t you hate this situation? It IS a dilemma because every alternative seems unsatisfactory.

You need a strategy for how to handle donations. You need to be able to turn the dilemma into a “Donation Decision” by establishing criteria to help you. Decide now WHO you will donate to and WHAT you will donate and HOW MUCH.

WHO?

The most important place to start is to decide what organizations you desire to support with your resources of time, money and inventory. It is important and vital to give back to the community that supports you. But you must decide where to give back – what touches your heart and soul. My store was a kid’s store so we decided to support ONLY organizations that benefitted children of the age that we served. The beauty of that was that it allowed me to turn away some donation requests easily because I could tell the customer that.

The next step is to analyze if the location of the organization is a deciding factor. We decided that the organization had to be within the boundaries of the local school district. The only exception being important causes like children’s cancer research or the local zoo. Once again, this gave me the opportunity to share that criterion with the customer and tell them if there was something else that met our criteria we would be happy to participate.

WHAT?

Donations are an opportunity for your store to shine. I grew to love donations as I recognized the impact that they can have on a community. It allows me to show off my store, impress potential new customers and hopefully bring them through my front door. You want the item that you donate to generate all the free word of mouth publicity it can.

Let’s talk about the most common mistakes. Do NOT donate gift certificates or old inventory. These items don’t reflect your store’s personality well and are always overlooked. Pick out an item that says who you are and makes an impression. ALWAYS make sure that your store’s name and who you are is clearly stated. Don’t count on the organization to do it for you. Also, in the early conversations be sure to make very clear how you want your donation to be displayed. Don’t hesitate to say that if they feel they can’t honor your requests than you won’t be able to help them. Demand to see a photo of it for your records – I would always say my accountant liked to have it along with their formal donation request on the organization’s letterhead.

I remember going to my own child’s school auction and anticipating the response I was going to get from my fantastic donation! I had put together a themed basket for a kid’s sleepover party. It contained 2 pairs of pajamas, 2 fun games, an arts and crafts activity and a bedtime book. I was horrified to find out that it had been grouped together with a gift certificate from a movie theater and a tiny donation from another competing business. And worse than that, the signage made it seem as if the entire donation had come from my competitor! I was so mad….and you know, my friends on the committee just did not understand at all! I learned a very valuable lesson that changed the way I handled donations.

I created a form to use with every donation that talked a bit about who we were and had a blank area where I could specify what the donated items were and what their value was. I would pick the items to create a story and then would allow the ‘winner’ of the items to return them to my store for ANY items of the same value. That way I never had to worry about sizes! I also got a stand up acrylic frame to hold this 8.5 x 11 paper so that it would always be visible.

Also, to keep track of donations during the year, I created a customer record in my POS system name “Donations”. With every donation I made, I would ring it up using that customer and mark the inventory down to $0. That way the inventory was deducted from the system. The receipt would be stapled to their request form.

Another very effective way of handling donations is to offer to do special shopping nights for the group. List the details out on a flyer that you can give to the customer requesting the donation. The benefit of that is that they can promote it to their members for you and you can access new customers! This type of cause marketing is absolutely fabulous for every type of store. It can take a bit of time to get going but be patient and keep at it. It creates a win-win for both sides.

Finally, don’t miss the opportunity to host a benefit or sponsor an event that relates with your store and your ideal customers. This form of cause marketing can be an expensive form of charitable giving but it can also be a highly-visible form of support. The budget for it actually comes from your advertising/marketing funds. Be sure to ease the financial burden of the contribution by partnering with other compatible businesses. A great way to get more help is to ask vendors and suppliers for merchandise and other giveaways. The benefitting organization will usually split marketing costs with you.

HOW MUCH?

That is a decision that you have to make for yourself. I can tell you that I donated to almost everyone that fit into my criteria.

FINALLY

Learn to say no. The reality is that all of the above criterion can be changed at any time. Sometimes you just need to say no. I would say, “I am so sorry but we have already met our donation budget for the year or quarter. Please bring your request in earlier next time and I would be happy to help you out.”

All of us small independent retailers will continue to be favorite targets of non-profits and community organizations when it comes time to find donations. You should feel good about giving! Utilize the ideas about to turn the ‘Donation Dilemma’ into a ‘Donation Decision’!

All my conversations with my private clients have been about what to do about sales this month. I thought that you might benefit from this too.

1. You MUST know what your monthly goal is to begin with!

2. There is still more than a week left. It isn’t over. Commit to taking action

3. Set up a way to communicate with your staff about what to do

4. Send an email out to your customers with a VERY specific and urgent call to action. Here is the biggest tip…DO NOT make it a discount….make it a gift with purchase. Think of a high profit margin item that you have 25 or so of that you can give away. Make the offer something like -“Enjoy the early spring with a new spring dress and our gift to you is a pair of beautiful earrings! Hurry in we only have 25” or something like that. The key is to show the earrings – because people are skeptical and might think you are just getting rid of ugly junk. But you aren’t – and they are beautiful!

5. Another idea: If you sell scarves, do a 12 day email series highlighting a different way to tie/wear a scarf each day. Include in each email, a tidbit about another product or vendor. Make the email short and sweet and fun. Because it is a series about a topic, you have permission to email them 12 days and remind them about why they love your store. Don’t miss it.

6. Create a sales focus for your team EVERYDAY. An easy way to do this is by having a different game or promotion every day through the end of the month. Without fail this serves to inspire and motivate your staff to sell more. I will be posting ideas on Facebook every day for you. Click here to like me and make sure you see them.

7. Just Do It!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

It is a big national holiday in our house. All of my grandparents were born in Ireland, as were Paul’s mother’s parents. When she was alive, my grandmother always had knitting needles in her hands. In fact she became blind in the last years of her life and yet she still produced wonderful beautiful Irish sweaters and blankets. I have wonderful memories of eating her Irish Soda Bread warm from the oven dripping with butter. I’ll share the recipe with you below – and I’ll put photos on facebook when I cook my batch.

And we are also celebrating the phenomenal information being shared at our Eavesdropping with Experts Virtual Conference. Retailers from all over the world have signed up for it and the retail gurus have delivered easy actionable tips from all different areas of retail….all designed to get YOU the retail revenue breakthrough you deserve. Sign up now!

Happy Retailing,

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Grandma Donovan’s Soda Bread

2 1/2 C sifted flour

1/2 C sugar

1 1/2 t baking powder

3/4 t salt

1/2 t baking soda

1/2 c butter (room temperature)

1 1/4 C raisins

1 1/2 T caraway seeds

1 1/4 C buttermilk

1 egg (slightly beaten)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Boil 1 cup of water and allow raisins to rest in it until plumped and the drain thoroughly. Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Cut butter into those dry ingredients. Stir in raisins and caraway seeds. Make a well in the center of the dough. Mix buttermilk and egg together and pour into well. Mix careful – don’t overdo it. Stir in dried cherries or candied fruit or 1 T of jam if desired. (Grandma would make her own

candied fruit for this!)

Grease and dust pan. Use either an 8 in round pan ro 5 X 9 loaf pan.

Cook until done! She never told me how long…you can just tell she said…it becomes golden and pulls away from the edges.