Lisbeth Calandrino::

I found out today that Walmart has a newsletter, and that it actually features the “old spelling” Wal-Mart. Interesting that the spelling is different depending upon what you’re reading, but the scoop is that the name is changing to “Walmart” and the colors are also getting a sprucing. What this says to me is: Even the biggest retailer in the world feels it’s important to keep in touch with their customers. How about you? If you don’t keep in front of them, they’ll for sure forget you.  

A newsletter is one way to do this. It’s a great vehicle to inform the public just what your company is doing and what’s new with your employees and products. A simple but clever format, this is not an ad for your products but a brand-building mechanism for your business. Notice the green banner that says “top trends, tips and takeaways from the thought leaders in green retailing.” Yes, this is also from Walmart. Did you know they were leaders in green retailing? I didn’t.

According to a recent article in Chain Store Age, the future of retailing seems to be related to customer service integration and information technology. Here’s what some of the most cutting-edge businesses are doing:

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I’ve been reading how high-growth companies, even in bad times, spend little time thinking about staying with their competitors. Instead, they make their competitors irrelevant. How? By continuously trying different things.

High growth companies—irrespective of their industry—all described what has been called the “logic of value innovation.”  Firstly, don’t try to get better than your competitors. Instead, become different and irresistible. Look for new markets and find out what they want. Look to customers for the future rather than the present.

It doesn’t really matter what the rest of your industry is doing or how it’s faring. Look for blockbuster ideas and add the value that nobody else has yet to do. Reminds me of how one day I opened my mail to find a workout tap from the Sun Maid raisins. Sun Maid raisins? Why they sent it to me, I’ll never know. What I do know is that I didn’t receive a free workout tape from any of the other raisin companies, and that’s stayed in my mind all these years.

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"Be serious."

"Take yourself seriously."

These are messages that we get as children. Somehow or other, being taken seriously seems to be linked to success. As a child, thinking "seriously" made things more difficult for me. Like many of us, I found my childhood lacking and incomplete–a childhood of scarcity, not of things but of feelings. I felt a need to be guarded — to always want more. These thoughts brought more thoughts and somehow the basis for a scarcity mentality. Armed with this, I took to humor to make light of things so as to not focus on the pain–real or imagined. I've since come to see humor as a tool that can be used for success. Think about who you admire for their sense of humor, or for their perspective and ability to see things in a different light.

Times sure are changing, with Toyota coming out 4^th in the top 25 innovative companies, based on an analysis done by the Boston Consulting Group and published in the April 24^th issue of Business Week. And what happened to the old standbys Ford Motor Company, Chrysler and GM? Instead of innovating, it’s safe to assume that the old standbys have been doing just that — standing by.

Toyota has been described as “relentless, breaking things so they need fixing; and in general being a tough company." Enter Jack and Suzy Welch, with their book on Winning and what it takes to finish first. Their advice takes heeding. It seems that being tough is the secret to having a successful company—but it's a certain kind of tough.

Keeping good employees seem to be tougher than ever. Business owners who I speak to in my classes are forever asking: how do you keep good employees, or where do I find them? My experience tells me that finding employees isn’t really that hard; it’s hiring them, training them and holding them that seems to be the challenge. All of these problems have little to do with finding them — it’s taking someone, helping them get in touch with their dreams and aspirations and then showing them the way.

 

Look at it this way, to paraphrase Welch, we have employers that want everyone happy, those that don’t care if anyone’s happy and then those who are somewhere in the middle of the road.

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I generally don’t opt for mystery shopping. Why? Because I’ve found owners with their feet on their desk as many times as I’ve found employees engaging in the same sport.

But when the opportunity came to do mystery shopping for several fast food restaurant chains, I jumped. Why? Because statistics indicate that if your business is less than eight years old you will probably never make it. On the other hand, if you own a franchise, the odds are 95% in your favor that you will survive—and thrive. The key is standardization of tasks and policies. It is clear that if you know what you are doing, and it is effective (ie. makes a difference) and you do the same things over and over, there is an excellent possibility that you will be successful.

I thought it would be fun to get paid to eat, and interesting to go outside the industry and see what others think is important. Do chains look at things differently or is it all pretty much the same?

The first thing I noticed is that time seemed to be of the utmost important. How quickly the customer is noticed, when they walk in the restaurant, how quickly they are seated, get their water, get their meal, refills, and the check. The add-on, “Would you like dessert” also seemed to be of utmost importance. I wondered: do flooring retailers also “jump?” I’ve done several surveys where customers reported that the salesperson “was on the computer.” Well let’s give the salesperson a break, it may not mean he/she was on a disreputable site — they may have just been looking up an order.

The time element struck me as critical, so I did some research. Quick Service Restaurant magazine (QSR), notes that McDonald's estimates that six seconds at the drive-thru means a l% move in sales. For the average McDonald’s franchise—with $1.6 million in annual sales—that 35 seconds translates to to more than $93,000 a year! Wow, I thought, does that mean we should be curbing the amount of time that our employees spend in the bathroom?  I don’t know, but it does bring up an interesting point about the use of time.

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Positioning your business for the holidays; creative publicity and advertising; acknowledging excellent service.

July 4th has come and gone, and if you were like most of us you were looking for a place to enjoy the fireworks and enjoy the height of summer.

This year, instead of joining 30,000 at Empire State Plaza in Albany, NY, I opted for Saratoga Springs, about 30 miles north.  I got to see my friend Tony play in the Spa City Band in front of 5,000 other spectators. I enjoyed the reading of the Declaration of Independence and a little about the history of our country. It helped me realize how our ancestors fought for what we take for granted. Of course while this was going on, Joey Chestnut (great name) just won the 92nd annual hot-dog-eating contest at Nathan’s Famous in Coney Island. He downed 66 hot dogs—and buns–in 12 minutes. The question remains: why would anyone want to do this?

Craig Wilson at USA Today is saying that now that Tiger Woods is on the sidelines, maybe he could enter into the hot dog competition. He certainly could use a pound or two. All of this makes me think that holidays are an opportunity for retailers to join in on the celebration, create a little fun and a chance to provide an experience for your customers. CNN tells about a family in Chicago that decided to help our troops. For July 4th they sent pizzas to Iraq. They spoke with the local pizzerias, put it all together and off the pizzas  went, in time for the holiday.  The family is now on CNN. You can’t pay for that kind of publicity and you can’t get it!.

There are so many ways to “do good” and give you and your business some notoriety. If you are going to open on a holiday you are competing with whatever the season brings. Stop competing and join in. I remember how depressing it was to work on a holiday and wait for that stray customer. We finally started having our own celebrations, work became fun, we had lots more customers and customers had something to do—with us.

Now that it's back to school, how about a party for the kids to mark the start of the year? I’m sure the parents would love it!

And then comes Halloween. Why not have everyone gets dressed in their favorite costume? Why not put pumpkins outside your store and create a drawing for the best costume?

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