When I started working in a retail buying office, I found it to be an exciting time in my life. I adored being part of the decision-making that shaped what customers bought. Specifically, I enjoyed learning how to understand my customers so deeply that I could shop of them — thousands and thousands of them.

What you and I have in common is that we excel at translating visual or emotional inspiration into something a customer will pay for. We also have strong presentation skills — from visual communication to store merchandising to selling. Like you, I love this large portion of the job being a merchant!
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During this early part of my career, I could have left the rest of the merchant role behind. Believe me when I tell you, I tried and here’s how it went!

There are a handful of essential questions I always ask clients and students because they effectively reveal valuable information about a business like its size, general revenue bracket , and state of growth.

When it comes to receiving business support as an entrepreneur or small business owner, sharing as much as you can about your operations is more revealing —​ and actionable — than sharing how much annual revenue your brand drives.

So here’s the million dollar question...

Paper planners and desk-sized calendars are popular companions to the kickoff of any new year. They represent fresh starts, new beginnings, and goal setting.

I’m curious — did you start the year with business goals, and a new planner or journal in hand? More importantly, are you still planning with the same level of commitment you had earlier in the year?

When it comes to mastering accountability, entrepreneurs often think the answer lies in time management.

​It’s easy to believe that if we manage our time better, we wouldn’t feel behind in our work and could actually plan some personal time off.

If you have business successes to celebrate and still feel overwhelmed by work or have a hard time getting clear about where your business is going, you might be a Merchant Maverick.

As one of the Retail Success Styles, Merchant Mavericks make up about one third of the Merchant Method community.

While what you’ve done in the past won’t necessarily get you the business results you want in the future, you can use your success style to unlock your next chapter of business growth.

Two heads are better than one but it takes intention and patience to work in partnership successfully.

Whether your business partnership means co-owning your brand, working with multiple vendors, or both, all of these require regular maintenance to keep them high functioning, valuable, and gratifying.

But what about when you’re in a partnership that’s headed in the wrong direction? What do you do about it then?

There’s so much more to planning than time management... but I’m pretty sure you know this!

You juggle finances to buy inventory or raw materials. You shift around items on your to-do list to meet your most urgent deadlines. You put off making personal appointments because there are competing deadlines tied to the urgency of seasonal selling.

You juggle like a pro!

But… are you planning so you can get ahead of the game or are you scrambling to keep up?

When I started consulting over six years ago, one of the most popular types of business questions I’d get asked was about marketing. It’s remains one of the top five questions I’m asked about every year.

Marketing, as a critical business function, is just as broad a practice as it is deep — meaning, there are many important moving parts. Luckily, for the both of us, there are also plenty of valuable resources for small and medium sized businesses.

Yet despite the tips, tricks, and tactics available at our fingertips, Merchants continue to struggle with marketing their businesses for one main reason — marketing is NOT merchandising.

I remember my first manager-level role — one with employees to train, develop, and retrain should performance fall below expectations. I loved it when my team and I were like a well-oiled machine and never thought about how I would feel if we weren’t.

So I was unprepared when my own manager asked me to have a difficult conversation with an employee whom she suspected was stealing from the business. Whether or not I was prepared, it was a conversation I had to have.

The question I get asked time and time again is — “What should I charge for my products because I need to make more money?”

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you need to know that making more money does NOT start with pricing.

Every indie retailer and maker that I’ve worked with has one thing in common — a fear of being bored in their work.

Raise your hand if this is you too!

Whether you're ready to share this publicly or suffer in silence, you probably feel that you need to somehow up your marketing game — whether it be getting more attention on social media, driving traffic to your ecommerce site, or developing new contacts now that might turn into business later (read: business development).

Amiright?!?

What catches a customer’s attention — and hopefully a share of their wallet — changes constantly and the tides of merchandising, marketing, and selling quickly follow suit.

What was once a clever idea to drive customer traffic to a store is now the starting price to get a customer’s attention. Hopefully you hold it long enough for them to really look at what you’ve got to sell.

I’m thrilled to release the Retail Shift Podcast, where I share business advice for inventory-based brands and the merchants who run them.

How is Retail Shift different than my Facebook live stream resources, like Coaching with Cocktails and Retail Trend Reports? Well, this is finally my opportunity to be YOUR PORTABLE RETAIL COACH, something I’ve been wanting to be for years and years.

Winter holidays, fourth quarter, Christmas — whatever you want to call it, there’s no doubt that November and December are the busiest season months for retail. 

For small businesses, it’s not enough to know how to merchandise, manage, and optimize inventory because just knowing something doesn’t help if you can’t put that knowledge to work.
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For many entrepreneurs and small brands, the benefits of strategic inventory management are unlocked only by doing the work, which begs the question:

When, in your already busy schedule, should you implement merchandising and reporting practices that drive profit without sacrificing other operational practices?

In the search to study and learn from the success of others in our industry, you’ll be hard pressed to find a merchant who willingly ignores the growth potential inherent in understanding their financial results.

Even the most intuitive retail buyers — ones that lead with gut and instinct — look to key performance indicators to evaluate the choices they’ve made around customer experience.

Retailers highlight new or key products through well-planned and shoppable merchandise presentations in order to promote full price selling.

Sale merchandise and slow-moving stock, on the other hand, are rarely romanced the way new or popular products are. As a result, the desirability and profitability of that inventory plummets.

But what if it doesn’t have to? What if you could sell slow-moving stock at full retail price by doing more of the things you’re probably already doing?

When I come across a blog post, podcast episode, or event invitation with the words "growth hack," I assume the intended audience is in the tech space. I'm certain that I'm not the only merchant who feels this way.

However, as I took the time to answer interview questions from Stitch Labs, an inventory management software provider, one thing rang out loud and clear:

I've been growth hacking retail and manufacturing brands for over 20 years. It's likely you've been growth hacking your own business too.

I spend much of my time thinking about the future of the retail industry and how independent merchants can thrive in a competitive market place.

​In fact, all of my teaching is related to this topic.

This month I was asked to predict the future of retail along with 13 other retail experts. Here's what I'm confident will continue to unfold in the months, quarters, and years to follow:

The barriers to entry will continue to lower while success standards continue to rise.

The speed of retail — as a universal truth in our industry — is more closely associated with the volatility of customer spending than it is with the speed of production. It’s no wonder that taking stock of business results on a frequent and consistent basis feels like yet another task on a long to-do list.

Conducting a business review does take time but, when it’s done well, the value gained with each review compounds over time.

So it’s a wonder this practice isn’t a quarterly ritual within every business from coast to coast.

There is no one universal ruler to measure real business progress. Using just profit, revenue, or cash flow to evaluate a multi-faceted, values-based business like yours can’t provide a complete picture of where you’ve been and where you’re going.

For proof of progress you need meaningful goals individualized by brand, project, and person.

Yet for how unique an experience goal setting and achieving has to be, there are an awful lot of resources that claim to be the exact solution you’ve been looking for. Including my own.

While it’s aspirational to believe that a one-size planner, calendar, or project tool fits all or even most business needs, we know it’s not true.

Before you opened your doors, your soon-to-be customers inspired and motivated you. Regardless of whether you debuted as a confident or uncertain seller, your customer’s happiness — measured in sales — was hitched like a wagon to your happiness.

For merchants it’s always been this way and will always continue to be.

As you’ve worked to grow your revenue, you’ve worked proportionally to connect with your customer-base, driven by the adage that more customers means more sales. Yet, many business owners struggle in the relentless pursuit of understanding the profitable relationship between sales and customer-base.

​Entrepreneurs intellectually know the quantifiable and qualifiable benefits of narrowing the focus, niching down, and clearly differentiating the ideal customer from the impostor customer. However, with more tangible things to focus on, many owners sweep these branding basics under the rug.

​Therein lies the actual barrier to selling more — the absence of brand positioning.