3 Things You Need To Do To Survive as a Brick and Mortar Retailer
April 18, 2018
Get Your Head Out Of The Sand!
The sky isn’t falling on brick and mortar retailers (even though the media would like you to think so). But, the horizon is far from certain for many. We’ve seen thousands of stores close (yes, just as many new ones are opening … but hey, thousands still closed!). Online continues to grow and eat away at traditional retailers’ shares of the pie. For grocery it’s only 2%, but for fashion it’s as much as 20%.
The world as we know it for brick and mortar retailers has forever changed. The question is, “how many will change with it … and change fast enough to survive?”
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Never Talk To Strangers
April 12, 2018
Linda Montalbano (VP, Graff Retail, and key speaker on our #WebinarWednesday events) said something in one of her recent #WebinarWednesday talks that really stuck with me. I have spent about 30 years in retail; close to 20 of those years with Linda, so you can see that she continues to inspire even after all these years! Her statement was so simple, so honest, and yet I’ve never heard it before. This is what she said…are you ready for it? “Approaching a stranger is one of the most difficult things to do, and yet, we expect our staff to do that each and every day out on the retail floor; typically, with little to no training.” Never talk to strangers…oh, except in retail, we want you to do that each and every day! Let that settle in and really think about it. If it resonates with you the way it did with me, this simple, honest statement is about to change the way you approach training and development with your frontline teams.
Our parents all told us from a really young age to never talk to strangers.
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6 Signs You Are A Leader In Service Of Others
April 04, 2018
Today I saw this quote, ‘If SERVING is Below You, Then LEADERSHIP Is Beyond you’. I have a lot of favourite quotes, but this one makes my top 10 list. When I reflect back to all the great leaders I’ve had the opportunity to work with, they all had one thing in common; their understanding that leading is a privilege, not a right.
It still shocks me how many leaders today feel they’ve more than just earned their positions. In fact, they believe they deserve their positions. They believe their teams work for them. They represent (and seem to love) the old pyramid style of leadership structure. Someone forgot to tell them times have changed.
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