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Marketing: Creating Buzz for your Small Business [Case Study]

A lot has been written about all the ways you can get buzz for your business – from putting discounts on your Facebook fan page, to reaching out to mommy bloggers, to offering Groupons.

You don’t get buzz by being Santa Claus with your marketing dollars.

The way you get buzz, buzz that is sustainable and leads to higher profits, is to be a business worthy of buzz.

That means you have to earn it.

When I am asked by consultants what it takes to create a successful practice, I always tell them they need to “hit it out of the park” because that is what happened to me when I worked with one of my first clients, Polly’s Gourmet Coffee. This is their story. Continue reading Marketing: Creating Buzz for your Small Business [Case Study] »

Is It Time To Start Charging Customers For Browsing?

I’ve worked in retail for most of my life.

That includes my first job as a janitor, then a regional manager all the way up to corporate VP and now as the Retail Doctor.

Throughout my career I’ve always heard merchants saying, “They come into my store and get all the information, and then go somewhere else to buy it.”

As a retail consultant, those responses used to infuriate me; it sounded like a losers limp. I felt it was an excuse for them not doing better because they miraculously “knew” their customers were at a competitor’s. Continue reading Is It Time To Start Charging Customers For Browsing? »

9 Ground Rules For An Effective Meeting

As the Retail Doctor, I’m called on to lead or facilitate brainstorming, planning, team, culture, franchise training and the uncomfortable “things have to change” meetings. No matter the audience or size of group, people put up with a lot just because they don’t set the expectations at the outset.

Then they have to put up with someone droning on and on about “how we used to do it,” or someone shares their detailed explanation that tries to show how smart they are or someone never is comfortable sharing their ideas.

That’s why I always draw this up on a board to focus everyone:

9 Ground Rules for Effective Meetings

#1 Own Your Opinion

My preacher dad once told me when people say, “Everyone feels this way” it usually means they feel that way. Encourage “I” statements throughout. Continue reading 9 Ground Rules For An Effective Meeting »

7 Things You Must Do To Develop and Train Teenage Employees

Yesterday I shared an important story on the teenage mind, how there are two different neural and psychological systems that interact to turn children into adults. Over the past generation, the developmental timing of these two systems has changed and researchers have discovered that experience is what shapes the brain, not schooling.

As long as they are given real responsibilities with a mentor, teenagers are able to mitigate the effects of the onset of puberty at a younger age and go on to become successful adults.

I interviewed Scott Reed, who has owned his successful Chick-Fil-A franchise for 23 years in Marietta, GA for this post. His restaurant is known across town for its immaculate interior and manicured exterior. Scott’s outlook about who he hires and where he focuses his training time provides clues for any retailer working with teenagers. Continue reading 7 Things You Must Do To Develop and Train Teenage Employees »

Teenagers Have Changed: Here’s What It Will Take For Them To Succeed In Retail

In the Wall Street Journal article, What’s Wrong With the Teenage Mind? Alison Gopnik takes an in-depth look at two trends affecting the maturation of teenagers.

She has found puberty is kicking in earlier and earlier, and that teenagers are taking on adult roles later and later.

She says in part, “In the past, to become a good gatherer or hunter, cook or caregiver, you would actually practice gathering, hunting, cooking and taking care of children all through middle childhood and early adolescence.

But you’d do all that under expert adult supervision and in the protected world of childhood, where you would have experienced the impact of your inevitable failures and learned from them.” Continue reading Teenagers Have Changed: Here’s What It Will Take For Them To Succeed In Retail »