A couple of blog posts ago I wrote about trying to assess your store's production per employee as a way to monitor and improve profitability.

But today, as I plan my day, it started me wondering how many of you are planning yours?And then the next thought that occurred to me is how well are you directing your employees on their day? Planning...now there's a key to employee productivity.

Now before you shoot, I'm not talking about trying to micro-manage everybody's time. Hopefully your key employees are good at doing that one their own. I'm talking more about communication of overall goals and precepts that you want to adhere to.

As part of the store studies we undertake, we interview as many employees as we can. We try to assess how well the communication of an organization filters down from the top to the bottom. Unfortunately, we find that there are actually some retail establishments that hire personnel, give them a week or two's training, and then assume that they will do quite well on auto-pilot. They won't. Repeated training and reinforcement is crucial to honing a sharp staff.

The argument that is leveled against this throught process is often "there just isn't time".No dout, if your staff is being properly utilized now, it may be difficult to arrange time. Afterall, in the ideal world, we want all of our people to be busy all of the time, but truthfully, between you and me, is that really the case?

I often hear, retailers lament that they don't think their staffs are as productive as they could be and then in interviews it becomes absolutely clear that the staff does not have clear sense of direction.

Parting shot: If you begin a journey, you consult a map and chart a course. Make sure that the vision you have for your store employees is clearly defined too or they may never find there way.

This has been a particularly long winter in the north east corner of Kansas. I guess I say that every year, at least according to my daughter who lives in the much warmer San Antonio. Depending on your store type and its product offering, the cold and snowy weather is either a blessing or a curse, but regardless we're stuck with it. 

If you and your staff need a jolt and pick-me-up, consider tackling a challenging project that will keep everyones' mind on something other than the weather. Perhaps you're due for a little retrofitting in your sales space. Maybe it's time to analyze the productivity of your categories and decide what changes you need to make going forward. Perhaps its time to objectively assess your sales environment and really give some thought to how it might influence potential buyers.

Gather your personnel together and discuss ways that you might improve your store's presentation or customer experience. Monitor and record the feedback that you receive and try to get your crew looking forward optimistically to warmer weather by taking steps in that direction today. Changes that occur in spring need to be planned for and began now. In other words,  make sure that you're managing through action and not reaction. 

Parting shot: The weather is what it is. The economy is what it is. But your attitude is what you make it. Move forward and make it rosy!

As part of our consulting and strategizing sessions, using a tool we have developed called "Profit Explorer" we invariably come to the part of the session where we review wages as  percentage of sales. Fairly regularly we find the stores which are not as profitable as they'd like to be have high wage costs in relationship to sales. Often, however, the manager is very defensive, arguing vehemently his need for his current personnel level. But I'm also amazed how often in those same stores, during inevitable slow periods, I see the employees standing, waiting, and talking. Even so, I always observe during my short visits a laundry list of things that need improving in almost every store: signs needing changed or redone, product needing faced or dusted, clutter needing attended to....well, you get the picture. My point is this: if your current personnel level allows everyone to feel that there is plenty of time for anything other than the next task that is right in front of them as part of their assigned responsibilities, you probably have too much personnel.

You may argue that you maintain the level of personnel you do so that you are assured that each customer is attended in a timely fashion. I would have several points to make to you: 1. If you teach your personnel to acknowledge each new person who comes into your store, most will wait somewhat patiently for their turn. 2. Study your times of highest traffic, schedule personnel accordingly and cut back during slower periods. 3. As part of the regular store meetings you should be having, teach techniques to speed your sales process. 4. During this same period share with your personnel the fact that you must start monitoring production per employee to survive these challenging times (although you should monitor these factors during the best of times too).

Parting shot: Some managers find paring personnel extremely unpleasant. But your cost of wages is one of your largest expenses so make sure you are receiving maximum return on that investment.

Just before 1980, AT&T launched a very successful advertising campaign designed to encourage people to make more long distance phone calls. For those of you my age or even a little younger you may remember the catchy jingle refrain…”Reach out, reach out and touch someone.” Those commercials were so successful, in fact, that in 2003 they were reintroduced for a short period but abbreviated to “Reach Out”.

We live in an exciting time of seemingly daily advances in the technologies we have at our disposal and perhaps that fact may seem almost mind boggling or overwhelming.  But as a retailer it gives you wonderful tools, if you choose to use them, to “reach out and touch your customers”.

If you jumped on the Web site bandwagon of a few years ago you probably think that your Web site has done very little for you and you’re probably right. More than likely, your Web site was/is static and has remained basically unchanged during the period since its launch. Once a person saw the site there really was no reason to go back.

Move forward. Web sites of today can be written with CMS format. CMS is an acronym for “content management system.” This means that once your site is constructed you (or one of your staff) can go in and change the content just as easily as you would use a Word program. A dynamic site gets higher traffic.  You could even maintain a Blog which people could respond to and have their opinions “online”.

But wait it doesn’t stop there!  Imagine sending from your website a monthly newsletter, emailed, to those who have registered. Along with a tip about, let’s say, painting, you could have an active link connecting back to your Web site for a coupon for $$ Off on paint or applicators that the reader could print for additional savings. Now your Web site is even more dynamic and is actually fostering 2-way communication…your message going out…the customer coming back to your site for the coupon. There are actually some pretty high profile retailers using this method as their sole means of advertising simply because its effectiveness and low-cost.

There are other things that drive traffic to a site. A site must be Search Engine Optimized (SEO) and Search Engine Friendly (SEF). The spiders that crawl the Web indexing sites also look at bulk of the site and in-going and out-going links as well as other attributes to determine where the site is indexed on search engines. For example type in “hardware store layout” into Google and out of over 1 million possible sites listed, our site, www.discoverdbr.com comes up number 1.

If you’d like to join this facet of the digital revolution, give us a call at Discovery-Based Retail, (888) 292-6531. We’ll be glad to share more information and if you become convinced that a new Web site would benefit you, we’ll even design, host and maintain it. The times have changed, the methods are evolving, but it’s still a great idea to “reach out and touch someone.”

Parting shot: Tell your story whenever and however you can. Embrace new technologies that help you do this more efficiently!

Have you ever lost a key employee? The answer is probably yes if you've been in the retail game for any amount of time. Retaining employees is an important element of a successful retail operation.

I think one of the main things to remember about satisfying employees is that it's about more than the money. The knee-jerk reaction is to throw more cash at anyone that you want to keep long term...and fair compensation is important. But we humans need a whole lot more than cash to make us feel needed, wanted and appreciated.

That is one of the reasons we preach so hard about regular employee store meetings. Once a person feels that he or she is part of a team, they immediately become more satisfied with their postion...whatever that may be. Store meetings can accomplish many things beyond an enrollment in team attitude...things like product education, profit selling education, housecleaning expectations etc.

Regular store meetings take time and employees may balk at them at first. But I have seen some wonderful synergies emerge from them too. If you're planning a store meeting, be organized and have about half of the time for program and leave half of it to encourage feedback from your staff. The more involved they are the more they will buy into anything that comes from the meeting.

Parting shot: Satisfaction at the job for anybody requires more than money!