The numbers are in!!!!!! Cathy Donovan Wagner – you have created a numbers monster! Looking at preliminary April numbers and I am in awe of my team and our marketing.We did our first High 5 – 5th Saturday promotion today (a tweak to the bag sale others do), called as many thumbs as we could on Thur & Fri and only got through half the alphabet and still had amazing results. We nearly DOUBLED our normal Saturday. What a day!

But I saved the best for last – April was our first month with a team goal with an additional hourly pay if we met it. And not only did we meet it, we surpassed it by 11% Woo Hoo!

Like Jennifer Navarre Johnstone I continue to be amazed by the sharing from other PCers and the expertise of our fearless leader Cathy Donovan Wagner. I am very grateful. Bring on May!

Holy Cow The girls have gone crazy. Announced Commissions on March 2 after we got back from the Profit Club Intensive. They are all very excited. Finished the first week over goal. Rough Sun & Monday. Back ahead of goal today.I think I was afraid of commissions because I’ve worked in a major dept. store where it was pretty cut throat. Staff would ring out a customer you have spent an hour with and get credit for the sale. I didn’t want to create that kind of environment. I wanted to create a team concept – We do this together.

For me, the Profit Club Intensive was a shot in the arm. The timing is perfect because I’m facing the slowest months and am going home with ideas and hope, people to call, product to try.It feels like a swarm of people pushing me to the top, a safety net to keep me from where I’ve been.

Thanks for your brilliance and kindness.

Yes I used it in July for the first time, for our end of season sale and we did so good! I think we ended up with about 4 pieces left over when it was all said and done. Looking forward to doing it again after Christmas!

I got AMAZING results from the Killer Clearance Sale Secrets…Cathy’s Killer Clearance Sale program made me a believer. After running what I thought were successful clearance sales for over 20 years, I discovered Retail Mavens and began what felt like graduate school for retail sales. The very first time I followed Cathy’s directions for having a successful sale I got amazing results. My staff was concerned but when they saw how much merchandise we converted into cash they became believers too!

Now my team begins preparing for our two Killer Clearance Sales with excitement knowing that they contribute to the success of the business. I don’t know where I would be without the techniques I learned in the Killer Clearance Sale program. Thank you Cathy!

Closing one of our locations was a very emotional and difficult decision but with Cathy’s detailed, organized, step by step approach, we had a successful, smooth closing sale.
Keys to our success were Cathy’s markdown schedule, creative sales ideas, customer call lists, signage and marketing suggestions.Cathy was instrumental in keeping us calm, positive and focused.

She was available anytime we had a question or an issue, which is important during this high stress time. She assured us every step of the way that the sale would be successful and she was right! Attached picture is ALL we had left from our 3700 square foot store..everything else was sold in just 7 weeks and we deposited almost 49cents for every $1 of inventory we had when we started!

Thank you Cathy!!

I GOT RESULTS I NEVER DREAMED OF…Cathy gave me just ONE TIP that increased my sales by $2453 and her other idea helped me finally get rid of the Christmas ornaments that having been sitting in my basement for so long – and I got money for them!

Finally, I am so grateful for the step by step way that she took me through the employee bonus worksheet. It made it easy. I had always wanted to do something for my staff and never knew how to do it in a way I could afford and was fair.

Cathy and Michael—Thanks to both of you for a very productive call tonight. It’s so strange to be starting over again with a store and feeling like you’re further along than what you are.

I was feeling pretty down tonight—no business today at all—so I needed some inspiration and positive thinking. (That’s what happens when you’re alone all day and have too much time to think!)

Lots of good information was shared, and I head into Wednesday with more positive energy.

This is amazing! The only thing more amazing than the 2 days before the storm was the day when we opened, Tuesday, and many people could get out and they chose to see us rather than go anywhere else.At 10:10, we have 10 people in the shop! It was as if someone had left the hen house door open!! And markdowns weren’t bad at all.

I am very pleased with the start of 2016. Being up 60% is pretty darn great.

I thought about your gift idea and have figured out what we are going to do! We have the perfect place for i and I have an employee who is going to take on the job of display, helping with finding items etc. I realized that I had several items that would work! So we are going to get it up and running.

Need to go, still have much to do before tomorrow morning.

Thank you, Cathy, for your knowledge, support and friendship. Keep those prayers going!!

When we decided to open our toy store, we knew we would need some help since we had never had a retail business before. We attended ASTRA Marketplace immediately to learn about the industry which is where we met Cathy. The smartest thing we did thereafter was enlist her guidance.

After five years of working with her, we now realize that Cathy is like having our own personal Board of Directors. We get so caught up in running our business each day so having our ‘Board’ forces us to stop and MANAGE our business. She is the bird’s eye view we need to make sure we manage our resources effectively without getting bogged down in the everyday stuff.

We can’t even imagine our business without Cathy at this point – she causes us to stop, evaluate and change direction as necessary. Invaluable!

But everyone looks for proof in the stats, so here are some of ours!

Our numbers consistently beat even the high-profit ASTRA stores, our cost of goods last year was 46.5%, and we saw a 92% increase in business in 22 months. We also continue to become more profitable each year. In the last 12 months, our turn has increased 25.4%. We could not have achieved that level of profitability without Cathy’s expertise.

We were even able to double our space during our second anniversary! Sure adding more space certainly helped make some of our growth possible, but we all know that just having more product does not necessarily equal more sales. Cathy works with us to identify hidden opportunities in our current classes of product and recognize when there are issues. Her inventory management skills and statistics have been invaluable for us, enabling us to untangle the complicated world of product purchasing (buying or clearing at the right time), the importance of turn, and the many things that effect cash flow, including terms, marketing programs, and recently even internet initiatives, are that extra bit of insight she brings to the table.

All of this meant, of course, a boost sales! She is that extra set of eyes and ears we need to maintain such a low cost of goods while ensuring we are profitable. It can be hard to add an extra expense to the roll, but there are some expenses that are invaluable for success. To that point, when analyzing the first 4 months of this year to the same 4 months of last year, sales have increased slightly while we have enjoyed the additional cash flow of $70,737 due to the decrease in our inventory – all under Cathy’s direction. This alone pays for her services many, many times over.

After opening StyleFinder Boutique in May 2015, we got off to a great start.Yet we were headed for a trainwreck this winter with much more inventory on order than we had room – or budget – for. Thanks to Michael Lofthus for helping us avoid a potential disaster.

After signing up to work with Michael and RETAILMavens, we were not only to get back on track with inventory numbers that were better suited to our store, but we were able to hit our goal for December even with numbers that were far from our target. He helped us right the ship and get on track to have a successful Christmas season, and now a successful clearance sale.

Whoo hoo!