A Line out the Door: Strategies and Lessons to Maximize Sales, Profits, and Customer Service

By Rich Gordon

If you are a retailer that wants to take your business to the next level, you need quick answers that you can put in place today. You need to read this book if:

your store has hit a plateau that you cant seem to overcome; your marketing dollars arent getting the job done; your store gets many browsers but few buyers; your customers are not finding what they want at your store.

Richard L. Gordon, an expert retailer and marketer, relies on concise case studies and decades of experience to show what works. With him as your guide, youll find out how to hire the best employees, deliver excellent customer service, and build your brand and business to new heights.

Dont trust the success of your business to a manager or employees who havent delivered results. When you take control of your store and equip yourself with solid, tested strategies, youll end up with A Line Out the Door.

filled with ideas and strategies that any specialty retailer could us if they want to take their store to the next level. Rich Gordon truly understands the strategies and concepts that are so necessary to excel as a retailer in todays environment. If you want to be taken seriously as a retailer today, read it and by all means act on what you learn!
Maxine Clark, CEO of Build-A-Bear

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781450270083

Rich Gordon

Richard L. Gordon, a retail and marketing veteran, understands and welcomes creative challenges. With decades of experience in direct retail and sales management, he’s worked with Fortune 500 companies and as a consultant with small independent retailers. His own retail business includes wholesale and corporate clients.

Book preview

Acknowledgments

My deep appreciation and love go to my wife Ellen, who encouraged me and believed in this project. Thanks are extended to my daughter Lindsey and son Weston for their love, and interest in this book. My love and fondest regards go out to my mom and dad who both recently passed away. They were always interested and supportive of my business, even though they thought I was crazy for going into business. A salute goes out to my father in-law who told me he’d only read the book if it was published. His comments truly motivated me and I’m looking forward to seeing that he puts on his reading glasses. My gratitude to the Glazer-Kennedy Insider’s Circle group in St. Louis for their knowledge, collective support and encouragement. Credit and thanks must also go to Mary Baker and Amanda Lansche for their invaluable contributions to this book. Last but not least, I’d like to express my appreciation to my old Basset Hound, Franklin, who slept at my feet on most days as I wrote this book.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Why This Book?

About the Author . . .

Introduction

Traditional Retail Will Be Around, But It’s Changing And You Must Too!

Watching Trends And Learning From Other Retailers

Living And Thriving With Walmart

The Man Who Sold Hot Dogs Or, It’s All In Your Attitude

You Have An Image

Forging An Image And A Mission Statement For A Business With A Soul

Seizing New Opportunities With An Open Mind

What Are Your Base Strategies?

Things You Can Do Now To Begin The Turnaround

Merchandising

Don’t Let Personal Feelings Get In The Way of Good Retailing

Tips For Pricing Your Inventory

The Big Bad Store Selling Aquariums For $3.99

Being More Creative

Change Focus: & Turn Things Around!

Why Separate Your Store From The Pack With Service?

DO YOU REALLY HAVE GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE? . . . I’m Not So Sure

Start With Being A Good Host!

Raising The Bar Above Basic Customer Service

Entice And Keep Customers By Truly Knowing Them

Create The Experience (Surpassing Expectations with a Wow Factor)

Raising The Bar With Your Sales Staff

Empowering Your People For Over-the-Top Customer Service

16 Obstacles That May Hold Your Store Back

Are You Ready To Promote Your Business?

Watering Down Ideas & Concepts

Considerations Before You Advertise (a Crash Course)

Guerilla Marketing And Other Ideas

Internet Tips:

Do You Have A People Plan?

An Uncommon Leader (The Man I Met)

Interviewing New People

Managing By Fear and Intimidation

Setting Firm Expectations For Hourly Employees

30 Ideas For Motivating Your Most Important Assets

Some Last Words Of Advice . . .

CONCLUSION . . . . .

SOURCE MATERIAL

Why This Book?

I consider myself an experienced small business person, having worked in many different areas over the course of my career. Considering my experience and my observations of others over the years, I have insights from many different perspectives that the average entrepreneur may never come to know. While my education did not come entirely from the classroom, I have experienced and benefited from the Fortune 500 world. I have also risked it all, as many of you have, as a small business owner starting with only a handful of employees. Certainly my being out there in the trenches and making a small business work and survive, coupled with my corporate background, has given me an education that no academic institution could ever provide.

There are strengths and weaknesses in corporate America, the academic world, and the world of small business ownership. For instance, my experience has been that the large majority of folks in the corporate world do not have the imagination, chutzpa, street smarts, and loyalty to their people that is found in America’s small businesses. They are often focused on protecting their own hides at the expense of their people. I have watched small entrepreneurs who never worked in or benefited from the expertise one can gain in the corporate world try to move their business ahead without the corporate world’s acumen and standard practices that could have made their labors so much more effective and straightforward. I’ve often thought, If only they had the awareness of the many viewpoints, policies and practices that are taken for granted in the corporate world, they would benefit greatly.

The academic world also cannot possibly replace the real world of experience and skills that take time to develop—especially people skills, which are critical. Many of the academics out there, who are telling new minds how to operate a business, have not spent one day in the real world, dealing with real business problems and creating REAL profits. And in corporate America, many of these same theories and philosophies coupled with a lack of ethics have cluttered the minds of many of today’s managers, unfortunately to the detriment of their employees and stockholders.

I love small business and especially the retail specialty store business. Small business owners work very hard, just like their Fortune 500 counterparts do; however, small business owners lay it all on the line everyday and literally put their money where their mouth is. They don’t go nuts when their paycheck is not available to cash on the button on Friday afternoons, and they quite often pay others first, only hoping there will be enough to pay themselves. Many of them have succeeded as a result of very hard work, street savvy, intelligence, common sense and love for what they do. Some fail due to poor planning or perhaps one bad decision. Many of them succeed amazingly in spite of themselves. I have watched someone I considered an absolutely brilliant marketing and sales person size up the market and see years ahead of his time, and at the same time, watched him recklessly spend money like a drunken sailor.

Though I’ve made my share of mistakes, I have worked very hard, just like millions of other small business owners do every single day. More than anything else, I’ve learned my lessons. And as I strive every day to put my solutions into practice, I still look back and wish I had been this informed years ago.

Throughout my career, I have worked with professionals in sales and retail management at the store level and at the corporate level. I have worked with what I consider to be one of the best loss prevention experts in the country and have worked within the walls of one of the best human resource organizations in the country. I have sold computers, computer supplies, monitors, custom homes, pre-owned homes, health insurance, life insurance, Medicare supplements, PEO services, mortgage loans, barter memberships, paintings, spas, portable buildings, gourmet popcorn, chocolates, ice cream, piranhas, parrots and hamsters. I have worked in management for a major mass merchandiser, starting from a department manager to making presentations to senior management of a billion dollar plus corporation on a monthly basis. I have managed loss prevention teams over a corporate office and two 500,000 sq. ft. distribution centers. I have sold to and called on such names as Macy’s, Wal-Mart, May Company, McDonnell Douglas, Southwestern Bell and an array of other retail dealers and shop owners. I helped introduce the Macintosh and Apple IIC computers to the world. I have started and built my own small specialty retail and wholesale business taking it from five employees up to about 63 employees. I’ve obtained a small business loan from the Small Business Administration. I have sold to many of the areas largest corporations and leading citizens, and won sales contests selling insurance, and yet I gave up and sold off my own business when I grew tired of the fight with the banks for a line of credit (one of my mistakes).

This book is not an academic study or a manual of formulas, projections or even expensive ideas or concepts. This book represents an important part of what I learned by doing, observing, experiencing, listening, succeeding and, yes, failing. Its purpose is to enlighten, inspire, educate, confirm, remind and provoke thought in a straight, to-the-point manner regarding topics that are important and sometimes critical to starting and building a business. Many entrepreneurs are detailed and deliberate people, but the majority have little or no patience for long, drawn-out, self-serving explanations of minute information that someone else thinks is important for them to know. This book is meant to be a quick reference and a thought provoking guide to implement some critical strategies to take your sales to the next level. It is about real, solid, tested strategies and ideas in specific, short and easy-to-read chapters that will make a real difference in your store(s). I believe it will benefit anyone who reads it in some way. I hope you’ll take your passion and imagination and follow through and research an area further to educate yourself in more detail once you find a good idea or are exposed to an intriguing concept.

What I’ve found from writing and assembling this book is that even things we all know we know need to be reviewed and run through the brain from time to time. Do I have all of the answers? No. But I CAN give you some very solid advice to increase your profits and greatly improve your odds of success in the retail business world. If you get only one good idea or money saving concept out of this book, then it will be a worthwhile endeavor. But, I’m confident you will find many more ideas than that.

Last but not least, this book is about opening up your mind to things that you may have never given enough thought or attention. Since there are too many important issues to address in one book, I have zeroed in on the areas I think have the power to elevate and give you a much improved shot at A Line Out the Door.

About the Author . . .

Rich Gordon is a consultant and former retailer who not only understands retail, but also welcomes its challenges and creative opportunities. He is a respected, successful and creative manager with close to 40 years of sales, and retail management experience and over 24 years of direct retail experience. His experiences have taken him through a variety of retail management, merchandising, design, training and buying roles working in the Fortune 500 world, consulting with retail stores and the creation and building of his own retail business.

He truly has been in the trenches and worked with everyone from small business owners, friends, relatives, and students to senior corporate management, through times of great pride, tears, fears, panic and yes, a great deal of fun and personal satisfaction.

In 1974, Gordon left the University of Missouri to accept an entry-level management position with Venture Stores, a former division of May Company (St. Louis, MO). At the age of 21, he was chosen to start an experimental department for the major mid-west mass merchandiser. After success at the first experimental store, his department was expanded into other stores, where his departments soon became the leader in the local market. Gordon also served in management at the store level and later at the corporate office. While at the corporate office, Gordon made regular presentations to the executive committee of the company where he presented his research on profit challenged departments and made recommendations for corrective action.

After almost 10 years with Venture Stores, Gordon found himself accepting a very attractive offer to leave Venture and work for one of the original Apple computer rep organizations who served as Apple’s marketing and sales arm during the company’s early years. In his four plus-state territory, Gordon was available to all of the Apple retailers to improve merchandising and other retail issues including advertising, co-op money, training and store design. While serving in this capacity, Gordon helped introduce the original Macintosh and Apple 2C computers to dealers.

Gordon also started his own specialty store operation, retailing and manufacturing gourmet popcorn, along with fine candies and high-quality ice cream. His stores became the dominant retailer in his market, and catered to major area corporations including McDonnell Douglas, Southwestern Bell, Tubular Steel, Turley Martin, the Fox Theatre, Schnucks, Dierbergs, and many others. His products became a popular gift item for area celebrities and business owners.

The rest of Gordon’s career became devoted to sales, consulting, painting and photography; however, his heart remains in the world of retailing and marketing. Gordon lives in the St. Louis, Missouri area, and has been married for over 25 years to his wife Ellen. He has two children, Lindsey who is a Nuclear Pharmacist and Weston who is a student at St. Louis University.

Introduction

A Store With A Line Out The Door

It’s every retailer’s dream, a store with so many customers they are literally lined out the door waiting to get in. One event comes to mind as a result of my relentless pursuit to build a serious retail business and a recognizable name. It came one day after my Christmas season was over and I’ll probably never forget it.

I had met the buyer for Famous Barr (one of May Company’s department store divisions based in St. Louis). I had spent almost two hours with the buyer of the gourmet foods department. This department also had produced their own chocolates at the main store in downtown St. Louis for decades. They were very popular with customers, but sales in this area, as well as the rest of the gourmet foods area, had been trailing downward for years. I had considered the appointment a success because the buyer had been positive and he had, after all, spent a considerable amount of time with me, even if he did spend most of that time talking about himself. He was a young guy and a bit arrogant, but he was nice to me so I was happy. After the appointment when I called to follow up, he would never return my calls and I never seemed to be able to get through. Three months of trying brought me no results, and I subsequently became preoccupied with preparations for my all-important Christmas holiday sales. Like most retailers, Christmas was my make-it or break-it season.

After getting through the Christmas season, I had a little room to breathe, and I needed to relax. I was stressed out from loading trailers out of the back of my main store. This was in addition to shipping out 200-300 cartons a day via U.P.S. and handling my own store’s very heavy walk-in traffic. One walk-in customer might come in and order anywhere from one (1) tin to 100 tins. Some of them ordered in advance and some expected to walk out with large orders without notice. We tried to take care of them all. One morning as I was taking a breath and beginning to relax I received a call. It was the buyer from Famous Barr that had never, returned or taken my calls. What did he want all of a sudden?

The conversation started out like I was his best buddy. How was your Christmas season? he asked. After the niceties, I cut to the chase. What can I do for you? He got serious. Have you ever heard of the name Richard Battram? he asked. I said, Sure, he is the vice chairman of all of May Company. He pressed on, Do you know him? No I don’t know him. Why do you ask? as I began to wonder what was going on. Well, he said, he knows who YOU are! I responded, a bit in disbelief, Well that’s news to me! What’s going on? He pressed on further with the questions. Is he a relative of yours? he asked. No, I said, I’ve never even met the man. I only know who he is because I used to work for May Company. Now, I was starting to get a little irritated with the 3rd degree and no answers. Well, he said, I got a call from Mr. Battram this morning. He evidently at least knows who you are. Do you know how unusual it is for a buyer at Famous Barr to get a call from the Vice Chairman of May Company? Yes, I replied, I can imagine. He went on, Mr. Battram requested, correction, demanded that I get in touch with you and that we meet. Are you sure you don’t know him? he asked again. No, I said, emphatically. He followed up without hesitation, When can we get together? I was excited, but tired. I was also sure if they wanted my gourmet popcorn tins, they wouldn’t be wanting them until some holiday period. There was plenty of time and this conversation was sounding a bit flaky. I responded, How about next week? He came back without hesitation, No, how about tomorrow? Now I was really paying attention. I thought to myself, this guy is feeling some pressure. OK, I said tomorrow is fine." We made our arrangements and I hung up feeling a bit important, but guarded.

The next day when I showed up at the buying offices in Famous Barr, I was not only greeted enthusiastically by the buyer, but the buyer’s merchandise manager, who also was there waiting for me. Just as I thought we were going to sit down, I was informed that we were going up to the executive offices to see a senior vice president of Famous Barr. Unfortunately, I can’t remember any of their names any longer. They were all very nice, and we engaged in some casual conversation and then we got down to business, as I asked, What can I do for you gentlemen?

They went over the story again as to how Mr. Battram had wanted them to talk to me. He even suggested that they do some business with me. I was feeling better. More importantly for them, Mr. Battram had told them he wanted them to find out why Famous Barr’s business was on such a downward trend and why my business was going like gangbusters. Mr. Battram, they explained, had driven by one or two of my stores over the weekend and had observed people lined outside of my store(s) waiting to get in. He also observed a regular parade of customers out of my store with purchases in hand and sometimes they had help from store employees. The three (3) Famous Barr executives began firing questions at me as fast as I could answer them and all three of them were taking notes on about everything that came out of my mouth. I was beginning to feel pretty important—like some sort of genius. I laughed to myself, If I had still been with May Company, no one here would probably give a rip about what I thought! All I could think of was, I have arrived!

Customers were really lined outside of my stores. I was running huge increases. Large companies were calling us for orders, and I actually had some respect from my peers in retailing. Not too bad! I went on to make some fairly bold comments about their products and their gourmet foods area. One of my observations was that they were selling a very mediocre brand of popcorn filled tins (the same brand found in Wal-Mart). However, they were retailing it at a ridiculously high margin. I pointed out to them that customers expected to find high quality products at Famous Barr and were usually willing to pay the higher price. In this case, they were selling an inferior product at a higher gourmet price. I further stated that surely they knew that customers might be fooled for a while, but in the scheme of things, the consumer knew what real value was about. As the conversation went on and observations were traded, for over an hour, I sensed they really did respect what I had to say.

The end result was that we did do business, after I warned them that I would need to be paid on time and that I was aware that May Company used their accounts payable as a profit center. I received a promise from the Senior V.P. that they would take care of me. The truth is, he kept his word, until the day I sold my business.

I drove back to my main store feeling pretty good about myself. I was proud, but in small business, good things can change fast. Upon arriving at the back door of my store, my ever-reliable right hand associate, Ann, shouts out to me, Would you take a look at the toilet? It keeps running! With a simple request, I was back down to reality with my own problems once again. However, at least I still had A Line Out The Door, and people were taking notice.

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Traditional Retail Will Be Around, But It’s Changing And You Must Too!

1

I do understand. The world of retailing continues to evolve while the economy has further squeezed profit margins and created greater pressure than ever on lower prices. While customers haven’t stopped spending, their habits have certainly changed. Customers are also becoming more discriminating and savvy about how they do spend their hard earned dollars. Many smart retailers have correctly built their businesses around quality, service, education and fashion, rather than price and yet, still the sales are frustrating.

To make matters worse, internet sales have grown at a stunning rate in the last decade. In fact estimates are that 154 million people bought something on line in 2009. If you plan on being a retailer, you also need to react and deal with online advertising, website traffic, and now, social media or social networking. Even though retail sales are still dominated by traditional brick and mortar stores, you should have no skepticism about the growing influence of the internet on traditional retail. It is a fact of life you can no longer ignore. However, it should be somewhat reassuring that it still only represents a relatively small portion of total retail sales activity. In fact, e-commerce sales represent a miniscule 6% of all retail sales.

The Internet & Traditional Retail

Only a few years back, even traditional retailers who were profitable didn’t seem to be very interesting or even viable to some, when compared with their online brothers and sisters. The traditional brick and mortar stores were considered old fashioned and heavily tied down by the entire overhead typically associated with physical retail stores. Internet retailing has been the fresh newborn attraction with all of the possibilities and potential, while old, traditional retailing has been looked on at times like a troublesome stepchild. But things are changing again. Old traditional brick and mortar retailers have not been written off; however, the stores where mom and grandma shopped have gone the way of saving stamps and elevator operators.

Today’s traditional retailers are rapidly changing the way they have done almost everything, and I believe they will continue to be viable and popular with consumers for the foreseeable future. Why am I so convinced? Because, prophets of the demise of brick and mortar retailing lost sight of one thing, customers will always prefer holding, handling, smelling, touching and feeling what they are about to buy, to looking at it on a color screen. Nothing beats reality and having it now as opposed to waiting for delivery. It’s as simple as realizing that we would all rather be with our friends in person than to see and talk to them on a computer monitor. Better yet, there are still successful retailers running impressive sales gains out there and some of them even have A Line Out The Door. That’s the good news.

There Is No Room for Mediocre.

The sobering truth now is that if you want to own and operate a traditional retail shop and you want to do more than just exist, you will need to step up your game. You will need to become more innovative, more aware of trends, more interesting and possibly even more entertaining, not to mention the obvious basics such as great merchandising, interesting and current product assortments and yes, excellent customer service. But I won’t be talking in this book about the traditional lip service that is given to customer service by most retailers. I’m talking about sensational over the top customer service. No matter what you think about your customer service, read the chapters in the book dealing with customer service.

The fact is that shoppers have more exciting and attractive stores than ever to choose from while retail space has dramatically increased over the past couple of decades. While internet retailing will continue to grow, other retailers are evolving and giving birth to whole fun ideas and unique experiences. You too will need to be working in that direction. I can’t emphasize enough that there is less and less room for just another run of the mill retailer as there are just too many good concepts and imaginative retailers out there running after too few dollars. It becomes brutally apparent when you look at the way larger retailers have merged or disappeared over the past years. Gone are May Department Stores, Montgomery Ward, S. S. Kresges, Woolworths, H. Q., Katz Drug Stores, T.G. & Y, Linens & Things and Circuit City. It is becoming harder and harder to operate as you always have and expect to survive, as former employees from these giants will tell you. These retailers went for decades without fundamentally changing, and now most all of them are gone. As retailing becomes more specialized and targeted in going after their specific customers, many other familiar names will also disappear.

Great Opportunities, But New Tactics

Nevertheless, there remain enormous opportunities for energized, innovative retailers to go after those specialized product niches that the big box retailers avoid. As an owner/operator, you will need to put increased emphasis on those areas that make you unique and special. If you become desperate like many, by adopting a price-driven strategy, you are buying a ticket to failure. Your approach must be less about price and large advertising expenses, and more about emphasizing what should be your greatest asset—your people and your stores relationship with its customers. You will also need to assess your competition, and then compare them with your own business’s strengths and weaknesses.

Information

The world has been turned upside down now as the customer may be more informed than the seller, with instantly accessed prices and information out the whazooo (from their computers, blogs, and smart phones.) Going after your customers will mean identifying and knowing your customers while collecting information on customer buying habits in any number of ways. You will also need to use information and buyer preferences to appeal to a focused customer base that is more selective, savvy and sophisticated than ever before.

As a retailer, you can no longer make it your store’s mission to go after a typical female shopper. There is no typical female shopper. This is a stereotypical memory from the past, and you can’t market to stereotypes. Targeting and finding YOUR customer now means knowing much more about shoppers than whether they’re male or female. A general broad appeal will no longer suffice. Knowing that you want a female shopper’s business will most likely not be enough. You will need to meet very specific needs or tastes and truly stand for something special. You will also need to know your female shopper’s age and whether or not she’s a businesswoman. If you are truly going to know your customer, you will need to know if she’s an ethnic minority, if she’s into gourmet cooking, if she’s a plus size, a running enthusiast, or a soccer mom. You will need to know if she’s into decorating, antiques, scrap-booking, knitting or flower arranging too. It is more important than ever that you correctly learn her needs, and more importantly, her current wants.

ompetition is too strong, today’s buyers are too selective and there are too many choices out there for a small specialty retailer to apply a broad brush when trying to catch their eye and appeal to them. Think about it: even an auto manufacturer can no longer market a car for a typical female buyer. Is she a soccer mom with an SUV or a going green mother? Is she a sports car buyer—upscale or on a budget? Your customers will shop you because you know and appeal to their tastes to a tee. You will need to know why they come to your store, and more importantly, how to get them back in. Stereotypes such as female shopping trips to the mall with the girls while hubby brings home the bacon, are no longer the norm.

Are You A Serious Retailer?

You may be saying to yourself at this point; Wait, I’ve just got a little specialty shop here. I’m not trying to take over the marketplace. And if you just want to exist, bide your time, and possibly watch business erode over a period of years, maybe you don’t need to hear all of this. But if you want to be taken seriously as a retailer that intends