Driving Success in Today's Retail Operations

In today’s tough retail environment as the general economy shifts into recovery mode, consumers are still extremely concerned about spending money wisely.  Retail businesses are going to be slow to stir from hibernation.  All retail businesses are going to have to be focused on maximizing the keys to success in their environments.  How can retail businesses deliver the kind of customer service, quality, and value cost-conscious consumers want while maintaining focus on their financial success?   It has been said that the most difficult thing about being successful in business is remembering how simple it really is.  At the head of any business that has ever been truly successful on a long-term basis, there has been an executive team who knew that there were a few simple principles upon which that business had to run.  In today’s complex world, many have lost or forgotten some of these key principles.

Here are a few of the essential principles:

1. Success will not just happen.  It is really up to operation’s executive management to make it happen. In order to be successful you must be in control.
2. You have to know where you are going.  Every business should have a business plan with clearly-defined goals and objectives.  The old cliché is that if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re never going to get there.  When you know where you want your retail business to go, you can determine what needs to be done to get there.
3. Everyone in the retail industry that has anything to do with choosing a retail location should know that the key to success is location, location, and location. The choice of a store location has a far-reaching effect on its entire business life.
4. In building your organization, you need to remember that people, not structure, make an organization work or fail.  Management’s goal is to hire people who are as qualified or better qualified than themselves.  If you’re an existing retail company, focus your energy on retaining the good employees you already have rather than constantly finding new ones.  Remember, employees are your first contact with the customers.  The employees must be sold on the products and services you want them to provide to the customers.  You should never treat your customer better than you treat your employees. Again, if an organization has made a decision to grow, the key to unlocking this potential is to train new people to be better than you are.
5. Training continues on a daily basis.  Every employee should know what is expected of them, how their assignments fit into the whole, and how their performance will be measured.  Each individual needs a set of goals and deadlines to meet so that no misunderstanding arises about what must be done.  These become the standards for measuring that person’s performance.   An organization’s whole system of rewards and penalties must reinforce this concept.  The payoff should always be for achieving results, not for making the effort.
6.  Customers are your most important asset.  A recent survey of business retailers, confirmed by a 70 percent vote, that the customer is the most important person in the retail environment.  Recently, I read an article that stated, “Always work to satisfy the customer . . . if you don’t, someone else certainly will.”  While you are serving your customers, also train your employees.  It is only then that you will reap the reward of an employee who works for your customer through your example, and a customer who works for you through their continued patronage and that of their many friends.”  Some retail business owners have gone as far as to say that the customer owns their business.  Today’s customers are value shopping, spending wisely, looking for high quality product and services, and resisting temptations to splurge and buy things they do not need.  Retail businesses are going to have to offer good value, competitive pricing, high quality products, and great service if they want to prosper.
7. Don’t keep your retail business a secret.  Spread the word.  Every successful business must develop a planned, consistent, and effective advertising and promotional strategy.  If you want to drive traffic through your website or a web page (such as a blog), you will have to be knowledgeable about the implementation of search engine optimization (SEO).  Most products and services are subject to seasonality.  Set up timelines to promote products and services based on seasonal demand. 
8. If you want to be successful in any business, you have to keep score.  The greatest danger for any owner in a growing business is to lose control.  To have a winning score, control management, operations, costs, taxes, finance, and marketing.