It was a tremendous honor to be chosen to speak on the NRHA stage at the National Hardware Show which was held last week in Las Vegas. I presented a training session titled  "More Effective Marketing" (subtitled Communicating Your Brand). After the presentation it was gratifying and rewarding to speak  in more detail with several people who attended and if you were one of those, thank you!

The show was hopping and it seemed that people were ready to forget the winter doldrums and push into spring and summer with enthusiasm. New items and new ideas were all around and the more aggressive attendees were taking notes and collecting information to spawn new ideas as they returned to their stores.

What are you doing to change things up and get your customers excited? Remember to not let your operation fall in to a "business as usual" state of mind. I was working with a district manager of a multi-store operation recently. He said that he felt that some of the older managers were "stealing the creativity from some of the younger personnel". Wow! I don't know about you, but that strikes me as a pretty sad statement. He certainly recognized the danger that it presented. We worked with him to develop a system to make sure new ideas were heard. It's important to inject new ideas into anything one is doing, but particularly into a retail environment.

A store must be dynamic. Changes and ideas for changes sometime come from the least likely places, but events like the National Hardware Show are important, if for no other reason, to give you new ideas. Therefore, if you haven't made your reservations yet, I encourage you to join us in Savannah, July 19-20, for the NRHA 2010 Annual Convention. Both Gary and I will be presenting during the convention. Although I've never been to Savannah, it looks like a great place to visit. So I challenge you to attend and be prepared for new ideas.