This holiday season will be full of inspired and creative merchandising as well as customer-friendly price points, but only if we do our work now. The best of the best beloved shopping experiences, those with execution tactics that appear just right and that produce effortless customer experiences, are born from great effort followed up by disciplined execution.
Raise your hand, Merchant, if you’re already thinking about November and December. There remain plenty of summer days and nights to enjoy but we both know that now is the time to plan your most successful holiday season yet.
This holiday season will be full of inspired and creative merchandising as well as customer-friendly price points, but only if we do our work now. The best of the best beloved shopping experiences, those with execution tactics that appear just right and that produce effortless customer experiences, are born from great effort followed up by disciplined execution. As creative entrepreneurs—that’s you, that’s me—we recharge our creativity with more creative endeavors. It’s important to keep this in mind, to honor this aspect of ourselves, and to connect with others who need and support this practice.
Interviewing is a two-way street. Candidates are selling themselves and you, as the hiring manager, are selling the role, your leadership capacity, the company culture, and the value of the brand. Interviewers are being interviewed by candidates. They study your words and your actions. How you make them feel is an important part of the recruiting and hiring process.
In this week’s episode I share how to sell the job while you’re interviewing potential employees! Have a listen as I speak to the seller inside you.
My forte is working on experimental retail projects. I love using my skills in innovative ways, stretching and growing along the way. Most of these projects have gone well, but not all of them. Looking back, in the projects that fizzled, I was trying to do too many things that were out of my wheelhouse. By focusing a bit more on my strengths and getting a little complementary help, those ventures could have accelerated faster.
In this week’s episode I share how to make your most important hire as the leader of an entrepreneurial venture—yourself! Have a listen as I speak to the recruiter and hiring manager inside you.
When I graduated high school I was voted Most Likely to Become a Teacher. Back then it seemed like a bad prediction. I was bound for business school and focused on becoming an entrepreneur and a retailer. It took me years to realize that the most beloved retailers (of all sizes) are just that—teachers.
In this week’s episode I share how my skills as a teacher and as a retailer are interdependent. Have a listen as I speak to the teacher inside you.
Securing my first professional role in corporate retail was no easy task. After one, two, three failed attempts I came to learn that there are multiple ways to get what you want. In this week’s podcast episode I share my first job-seeking process and what I learned about going after what you want.
This week I’m excited to launch Retail Shift: Field Notes of Retail Success.
This new weekly podcast series complements our retail trend reports with qualitative notes about success in the retail industry. In each installment, I’ll share professional lessons I’ve learned, milestone career moments, meaningful customer connections, and more. I’ll also be answering listener questions, so please reach out and join the conversation!
Do you think that quarterly realignment of strategic initiatives with long-term goals is just for big businesses? Done well, a structured quarterly business plan can serve as a silent, well-informed, and influential business partner to help keep independent retailers on track and accountable.
I share three tips to help ensure the successful execution of your thoughtful business planning exercise, as well as three pitfalls to avoid.
Both professionally and personally, I find it valuable to pause and reflect on the recent past, both the things that have happened around me and the things that I have done. As we approach the middle of the year, it’s a perfect time to do just that.
In this week’s trend report I share my favorite ways to review the business year to date before addressing plans for the second half of the year.
We talk a lot about small retailers needing to stand out, but our customers are saturated with influencers, expectations are at an all time high, and our competitors are all hustling too. To help deal with all this noise, I’d like to share how surprise & delight can be built into small business practices to help you rise above it all.
I recently facilitated a conversation about this topic during one of our in-person events, and in this week’s trend report I share my personal takeaways from that discussion.
Green business practices are more available to independent retailers than ever, providing new opportunities to build value. Decreasing material consumption is good for its own sake and many customers like to see businesses acting responsibly.
On top of that, reducing waste also cuts operating costs, which increases bottom line profit. For small businesses, this method to improve experiences, operations, and finances is too important to ignore. This week’s trend report highlights current practices and tools that you can use to optimize customer experience, grow profits, and strengthen brand equity.
Retailers use all of their business acumen and intention to develop an excellent shopping experience, maintain brand value, and grow customer relationships; these same skills can be applied to building and maintaining a comprehensive loss prevention program.
With accountability and a consistent, long-term commitment, you can decrease loss and also see growth in your top line revenue, bottom line profit, and brand equity. This week we wrap up our four-part series on loss prevention for independent retailers.
Internal loss is the leading cause of profit loss for small businesses and retailers, which often surprises business owners. Types of internal loss range from employee abuse of credit cards, refunds, and discounts, to simple theft by employees of physical products and supplies.
Learn how to humanize the prevention of internal loss and shape your current business practices to support those measures.
Shoplifting happens for a number of reasons but do you know the most common and important elements of external theft? Learn about the underlying problems present with retail theft and what you can do about them.
Store theft and inventory shrink are business bummers that, left unattended, will harm the health of your business. Yet, despite this impact on both employee morale and bottom line profit, many independent retailers never take comprehensive action to minimize these problems and preserve their hard earned profit.
This week’s trend report, Retail Loss Prevention Essentials, highlights the important elements of a comprehensive profit preservation program. We will also discuss how loss prevention that isn’t well thought out actually deters sales, not just theft.
This week I review my recent competitive shopping trip of Portland's Hawthorne District and Downtown Portland. As a companion to Competitive Analysis for Independent Retailers, this field guide illustrates my process of competitive shopping and the valuable insights I gained.
How is your business year shaping up compared to your goals and expectations? Any time of the year is a great time to assess the most pivotal areas of your business and take action. Learn how to think long-term about your business success today and every day.
This week we focus on the customer service vision statement. We explain why this statement is an important tool, how to write one in three easy steps, and how best to use it.
Listen in and learn about this foundational resource that can support, facilitate, and inspire your customer service interactions. By following our guidance, you will come away with a powerful training tool to improve your brand experience for all of your customers. Consistent and Compelling Customer Service: Part 1 — Dissecting your current customer service3/21/2017
From avoiding costly employee errors at the cash wrap to encouraging deeper customer-employee connections, achieving consistent and compelling customer service starts with understanding your current level of service, including what your employees provide and what you’ve fostered in the business.
This week’s trend report, Consistent and Compelling Customer Service: Part 1, teaches you how to better understand customer service archetypes in your business so that you can create the service experience you want for your customers.
I'm at a retreat meets residency outside of California's Joshua Tree reflecting on the need for white space. Here time feels expansive.
It can be difficult to schedule white space. Before we know it the business has taken control of you, rather than you leading the business. In this short video I talk about why it’s so important to take that time and make this space in order to stay clear on your priorities.
What value do you place on the in-person customer experience? It may be time to consider how you set prices and if they should vary by sales channel.
This week’s trend report, Pricing In-Store vs. Online: The advantages and disadvantages of offering the same prices answers a question submitted by one of our Merchant Method retail trend report insiders. Our insider asks, "Do you have ideas on best practices to retail both in a brick-and-mortar and online?" Her business is 21 years old and already retails online, so I'm headed straight for her bottom line and talking about price. Outperform Artificial Intelligence: Five ways to differentiate yourself from tech-focused retailers2/28/2017
Differentiation, in its most sincere form, calls for embracing Marty Neumeier's five areas of human talent ⎻ allowing us to stay ahead of artificial intelligence.
This week’s trend report, Outperform Artificial Intelligence: Five ways to differentiate yourself from tech-focused retailers, provides independent merchants with a framework for applying Marty Neumeier’s Metaskills: Five Talents for the Robotic Age.
This week’s trend report, The Truth About Retail Data Analytics, explains the big data and small data insights that big retailers pay attention to, and why you should follow those insights too.
This trend report is part 4 of a the 4-part series Use Your Size to Your Advantage.
Learn how you can conduct effective and efficient competitive analysis of other independent retailers easily so that you can remain compelling to customers in a competitive retail environment.
Competitive Analysis for Independent Retailers is part 3 of the 4-part trend report series Use Your Size to Your Advantage.
Turn down the noise. Dial in your focus. Develop a filter for which retail trends pertain to your business and which don’t.
In this week’s trend report, part 2 of a 4-part series about retail competition, we advance your understanding of retail fundamentals from academic to application. Study current and relevant examples of the product lifecycle, sales channels, and customer shopping filters. |
#1 THE FUTURE OF RETAIL
#2 HOW TO DESIGN A FOOLPROOF BRAND EXPERIENCE #3 5 STEPS TO SELL SLOW-MOVING STOCK #4 CREATING A COMMUNITY (AND LOYAL CUSTOMERS) #5 LEARN WHY SHOPLIFTING HAPPENS AND HOW YOU CAN PREVENT IT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR MORE? When you do, you'll get insightful how-to resources, retail inspiration, and time-sensitive deals.
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HI, I'M CHRIS GUILLOT!
I made my first sale when I was eight years old and started teaching retail business classes at 20. Now, 23 years after guiding my first clients, I'm here to help you build more profit.
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