While Sarah Palin’s selection did energize the Republican faithful, for about a week, in a poll published in today’s New York Times, nearly 60% of likely voters felt she hurt the ticket. In short, her selection didn’t bring new voters to McCain, it reinforced those who already were likely to support her. For retailers, this is a classic case of only attending to the regulars.
Oh yes, a store tour doesn’t have to add much time but it does cement trust and with that, you can build larger sales and more loyal customers. It isn’t myth or legend – it’s fact.
The setup: two well-respected economists give their facts and figures and talk about the upcoming holiday season. After twenty minutes of doom and gloom, it was the Retail Doc’s turn. Yes, there is a fire in the economy that is going to burn poor businesses but it doesn’t have to be you.
This scenario is being played out equally across the country from the big-box, to the department stores like Macys and into the premium boutiques.
My message to all retailers is simple: don’t invite people to a party that’s no good. Marketing got her in, but the lack of sales people drove her out. It’s not the economy that’s failing us, it’s store management.
This scenario is being played out equally across the country from the big-box, to the department stores like Macys and into the premium boutiques.
My message to all retailers is simple: don’t invite people to a party that’s no good. Marketing got her in, but the lack of sales people drove her out. It’s not the economy that’s failing us, it’s store management.
The crucial lesson We Mean Business needs to point out is the hard stuff – changing a business mindset. All the Dell computers in the world won’t make a business profitable and if you can’t make the owner understand that – it is your fault Bill Rensic . Tactics that make an owner feel stupid or incompetent can only get you so far and often backfire. Missed opportunity: reality check.
You can’t use the economy as the reason you aren’t doing better. It would be like a quarterback missing a pass and telling the coach, “It’s the weather’s fault.”
No, it still would be the quarterback who missed the pass. The skipped practices, the distractions, everything that influenced him taking his eyes off the ball contributed, but it was up to the quarterback to make the pass. Make sense?
Nothing has changed in the past 24 months about how you have to do your business. What has changed is we have been beaten back into a cave with fear; everything from the price of oil and credit to corn, wheat and milk is “rocketing” to new “all-time” levels.
I was presenting at the Retail Merchants Economic Summit in Richmond, Virginia this past Friday morning. Unsurprisingly, two economists gave fairly bleak assessments. One of them was Scott Krugman, a vice president at the National Retail Federation, while acknowledging they expected a 2.2% increase in sales, he became the lead quote on NBC channel 12’s news that it could be the “worst holiday since 2002”. He also talked at the summit that it would all be discount spending. This is not news – this is exactly the same thing he said last fall as well.
