The Most Important Thing You Do

I recently asked a group of owners and managers to tell me the most important thing they do in a day.  Owners and manager usually have to do ten things at once and a hundred or more different things to take care of throughout their day, but I was looking for that one thing they consider the most important part of their job

I heard a lot of different answers including:

"Drive sales."
"Develop my staff."
"Protect the store assets."
"Drive traffic into the store."
"Make my customers happy."
"Deliver a great shopping experience."

What do you think is the most important thing you do?

I'll tell you what I think it is.  I think the most important thing you can do as a manager or owner is to create the best place to work.  That's right, I think delivering an employee experience that has people loving their job is the most important thing you do.

Why do I say that?  Because as a specialty retailer what makes your store truly special is your people.  You might have a beautiful store with fabulous products but chances are whatever you sell I can find somewhere else.  It's the people in your store that make the difference. It's the people that keep your customers coming back time and again.  The reverse is true, too.  At some stores the reason the customers don't come back is because of the people.

Making your store a great place to work drives all those other important things listed above. Happy employees create more sales.  Happy employees want to grow and develop and make a greater contribution to the store.  Happy employees are less likely to steal.  Happy employees create loyal customer advocates who keep coming back and tell others about your store.  And last but not least, happy employees deliver great shopping experiences that result in happy customers.  Everyone's happy!

So why don't more owners and managers make this the most important thing they do? For some it's because they don't know they should or don't know how.  For many it's because creating a great place to work takes hard work.  As today's quote says, "The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work."  Then again, in both your store and the dictionary, happy and employees come before profits.

So let me ask, is your store a great place to work?

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Doug Fleener, the author of the book The Profitable Retailer: 56 surprisingly simple and effective lessons to boost your sales and profits, is a veteran retailer with over 25 years of hands-on retail experience including owning his own specialty store. He is president and managing partner for Dynamic Experiences Group LLC, a retail and customer experience training and consulting firm that helps specialty retailers to maximize their in-store performance. Learn more at http://dynamicexperiencesgroup.com or call 781-861-7803.

Comments

[Brian Anderson]

Yes, you are correct; also the basics have become complacent. Retailers should take a page from baseball. What do these highly paid, highly skilled professional athletes do every spring? Go to spring training and work on the Basics; throw the ball, catch the ball and hit the ball. They work as a team; only at the plate is it an individual effort.

Much like retail; hire the right people, train them effectively and follow-up with consistent coaching. It’s typically an individual effort when the sales associate is severing the customer that their individual effort must shine. The main objective, consistent service delivery; every time with every interaction is mission critic. As we all know having the right process, systems, technology and product are key drivers for any successful business. Having a sales team highly trained is equally important to move all the strategies and tactics forward.