THE HEART AND SOUL OF RETAIL SUCCESS
THE HEART AND SOUL OF RETAIL SUCCESS
Is business slow? Are you slashing budgets, feeling burnt out or wondering why you ever
went into retail in the first place? Are crunching numbers and loosing employees your
only options?
There is a better way to create success - from the inside out. Below are 20 free "inside"
techniques to increase your business and happiness. The "outside" solutions are easy to
implement and as costly as you choose.
Finding the heart and soul in retail can be a challenge at times. The routines we get into
can keep our wheels turning in the same paths – or ruts. When things change and we
don’t, those paths need rethinking.
There are six steps to finding a new path to replenish your joy and success in your store.
While some may seem obvious to you – knowing something is very different from
actually taking action.
If, while you read this you think “yeah, yeah, I know this but it doesn’t address my
problems, my store” keep your mind open.
Each of these steps is completely personal and relates to all types of retail – as well as all
personalities.
Step One: Positive Thinking.
This is a toughie. When the sky is falling down, no one is coming into your store and
your fixed expenses are going up it may be a bit difficult to stay positive. Of course, this
is the best time to work some magic in both you and your store.
NLP
Neurolinguistic Programming is a complex study that can be incorporated into our daily
lives and thoughts. One of its basic premises is that the words we say influence what we
believe. Our words actually become a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Our unconscious or inner self does not have a sense of humor and especially doesn’t
understand sarcasm or irony. When you say, tongue-in-cheek “business is great, I just
love an empty store, it gives me time to catch up on the Internet” – your inner self
believes what you say. Your intellect knows that you’re being sarcastic but the more
important part of you takes those words seriously. Very often we attract what we want in
our lives on an unconscious level. The last thing you want to create is the unconscious
belief that you enjoy an empty store.
If this doesn’t seem credible to you, think about other times you’ve been sarcastic or
negative about something in your life and what resulted.
The more you repeat something – the more likely it is to happen. If you say that business
is bad or that your customers aren’t buying enough often enough, you can prolong that
situation.
The secret is to re-think how you communicate. Just like dealing with a two-year old,
redirect your words and actions.
When you get anxious about business and you want to vent your feelings consider
redirecting the anxiety into something positive and productive. Look at a stockroom and
bellow “this place is a mess and I’m going to clean it up. Anyone what to help?” Of
course, don’t yell at someone – or accuse someone else, just make a statement and offer a
solution. Any positive action is far superior to bemoaning how bad your business is
doing.
Manifesting
Thinking and expressing positive thoughts while your business is doing poorly may make
you sound like a deluded fool to both yourself and your associates. Rather than espouse
how fabulous things are, start manifesting or creating positive change. The first rule of
manifesting is to know what you want to create. This isn’t as easy as you think. Be very
clear about what you desire from your store. During the work day clear your calls, mind
and desk for five minutes. For those few minutes feel how successful you and your store
are doing. Feel what you desire as if it is happening in the moment. It’s vital that this
isn’t a wishing and hoping exercise – it’s believing and feeling the happiness and comfort
for that five minutes every day. It’s normal if your mind wanders – don’t judge yourself,
just come back to the feelings and thoughts of joy and success.
Write down your hopes for your store on a fresh, clean sheet of paper. State them in the
present tense. For example: “ My store is making $10,000 a day, everyday from
customers who are friendly,
easy to work with and non-demanding.” Most importantly, thank God or “the powers-
that-be” for bringing this success into your life.
Step Two: Create an Environment that Honors Your Customer
A. Meet their basic needs.
Human beings need water, air, bathrooms and room to move. Provide all four. It’s easy to
have water on site as well as working bathrooms that don’t require apologies when a
customer asks to use them. If your HVAC system doesn’t pump out fresh air – at least
install fans to move the air you have. Moving air feels fresher than stagnant, stale air.
Make sure the temperature in the store is comfortable at all times. Too hot or too cold
means uncomfortable customers and sales staff.
Room to move means aisles that customers can negotiate without having to turn sideways
– and without bumping into other customers. Create pathways – don’t block their
movement with awkwardly placed fixtures.
B. Engage their senses.
Add music and scent to your store. Please make sure that the music is right for your
customer base – not just for your sales staff. Muzak now makes day-long CD’s using
original artists. They have done many studies to determine what people or demographic
group respond to each type of music. It may be worth your time to give them a call.
When you have your radio playing your customer is listening to advertisements for other
businesses. This is not always in your best interest.
As for scent, many people are allergic or annoyed by sweet flowery scents. Consider a
food based scent such as apple cinnamon, peach, or rosemary. Studies have found that
food scents enhance memory and experience retention.
C. Make it easy for your customer to shop your store.
Light it up!
Good lighting is vital to the comfort and success of your store. Ideally, there are three
levels of light – general (ex.: fluorescent), warm lights (incandescent spots and floods)
and spot lighting for displays (halogens or narrow spots.) Dark areas can suck the life out
of your store. By balancing the lighting so there are light areas mixed with bright spots –
all your merchandise shows to it’s best advantage plus your customers can easily see
everything in your store.
Give them the information!
Another way to make it easy for your customers is basic – clarity in signing. No matter
what type of merchandise you carry, it needs a price tag. Some items require explanation
while others need to be sized. Lack of time is one of the major complaints of many
people in our society. Good signage makes shopping easier and more efficient.
D. R & R
Add resting places for disabled or tired customers and disinterested spouses
Play areas away from the front door for children are also very appreciated.
E. Visuals
Don’t forget cleanliness, beauty and interesting and/or sensual surfaces. Fun displays can
stimulate, educate and create desire for specific products. Never underestimate the power
of a creative window or interior display to sell merchandise.
A few years ago on the west coast, the author consulted for a chain of clothing and home
furnishing stores. She suggested using wooden forms from Janecka (512-259-0406) in
the Women’s clothing areas. A week later she was greeted by complains from the sales
people in those areas because they had to change the forms several times a day. Why?
Because the clot
Step Three: Creating an Environment that Honors and Supports You and Your
Staff.
Smile.
When you greet your staff with warmth – and you mean it, they feel it and respond in
kind. While you can’t fake warmth and friendliness - you can smile. Years ago a study
was conducted that proved that smiling releases endorphins into the blood stream.
Endorphins are a natural drug that we produce internally that make us feel happy. The
muscles we use to smile give us – and the receiver equal amounts of pleasure. Even if
you have to fake it – a smile will work it’s magic with the release of endorphins so that
your next smile will be the real deal.
Safety
Your workplace is like a second home for both you and your staff.
Like your home, ideally it is welcoming, safe and clean. Safety is a huge issue. Both
physical and emotional safety are musts in a retail environment. Any type of physical
danger should be eliminated from the store immediately. This includes low hanging
lights, sharp corners, low shelves over the toilet (banged heads), exceptionally heavy
lifting, bug or rat poison near food areas, low lights near or in stairwells, dingy and
crowded basements, etc.
Give it a break
Uplift your staff with a break room (if there is room) with incandescent lights, moving
air, microwave, toaster oven, small refrigerator and a sturdy table with chairs. Paint the
space a sage green or a light tangerine. Green soothes and heals while tangerine uplifts
the spirits and is warm and friendly.
Be Fair
Manage with fairness and clarity. Fairness is difficult when you have favorites but is
essential for workplace harmony. If you don’t know what’s fair – work for a few hours
with a human resources consultant.
Clarity is easy. Employees should be told –and understand from the start what is expected
from them, how they should do their jobs, their hours, their dress code, their behavior
code and specifics about your merchandise selection and store image.
When you think something is obvious and assume they know these things you may be in
for an unpleasant surprise. When you get angry at people for not knowing psychically
what you want – you create bad feelings. Being clear right from the start will keep this
negativity at a minimum. Rarely does anyone want to do a bad job or, equally awful, feel
stupid.
If you change the rules or expectations, have a staff meeting to let everyone know at
once. If some people aren’t there, go through these changes as soon as they arrive. Don’t
expect other people on your staff to convey this information. It’s your job! Of course if
your business is large enough to have a human resources professional, it then becomes
their job.
Train to Maintain
This brings up training. You really can’t expect a new person or even an existing
employee to read your mind. If you want them to do things a specific way – tell them.
Write it down and let them read it as well. An educational study was done that proved
that retention was 20% higher when hearing and seeing were combined. Clarity in
training is a gift to you, your employees and your store.
Hire Right
Hire the right person for your store’s personality, image and customer base. You certainly
know the wrong people for the job. It’s best not to have to deal with them once they are
working for you. Check references immediately! If you have a bad feeling in your gut,
listen to it.. Your head will analyze all the positives and negatives and your heart will
either warm or chill to the potential employee but your gut will react immediately. Your
stomach doesn’t lie.
Instant Karma
There is a karma of goodness. What goes around comes around. Basically the good you
do comes back to you ten-fold. There is no doubt that it is better to rule by positive
incentives combined with clarity rather than through strictness and or fear.
Step Four: Community Relations
Give and you shall receive
Your store is part of a community. Several times a week some organization or another
hits you up for a donation. Knowing this, buy some items specifically for these
organizations when you’re on a buying trip.
Whatever you donate must represent the best of who you are – not some stuff that’s on
sale, dented or chipped.
The publicity you receive for these donations is rarely felt immediately but the good will
radiates from person to person. You’ll get far more than you give over time.
Interns – a Win-Win
Think about interns for your business. Many colleges offer retail courses of study and an
intern program is a wonderful way to get good help and give training at the same time.
Talk to your local college or university and see if they have a program in place. Offer
your store as an opportunity for students to learn. If there are display and visual
merchandising courses, speak to the teachers and offer your windows for display
experience. Put a (computer generated) sign in the corner of the window giving credit to
the student(s) who worked on the windows.
On Stage
If you carry ready-to-wear, become part of fund-raising fashion shows. It’s great
advertising to target audiences.
For any type of hard goods, have presenters on weekends and advertise on your local
radio stations. Most stations will barter time for product. Very often a vendor will co-
8
sponsor a presenter with you and co-opt the cost of the advertising. This brings people
into your store to learn – and hopefully to buy.
Step Five: Reinvent your Passion and Energy
This is the tough part. It’s not always easy to be honest about how you feel and even
more difficult to do something about it.
There are three types of audits worth doing every two years.
Financial Audit
The first is financial. Is staying in business worth the effort or are you loosing more
money every year.
Emotional Audit
How do you feel about your store? Are you enjoying your life and business or do you feel
like getting into an non-disfiguring car accident rather than going in to work?
Visual Audit
Conduct a visual audit. Depending upon the size of your store and the amount of
employees – develop a questionnaire regarding your physical store.
Each employee gets to do an audit – as well as you, your friends and best customers. The
more information you get, the better off you are to make educated decisions about the
business.
Included in the audit are: Is the front of the store (the façade) appealing? What are five
focal points when you walk into the store? Which way do you want to walk when you
come in and what’s the first thing you see when you walk in that direction? Does the
store have an odor? What do you hear? Does the store feel fresh and clean? Is the
merchandise priced and are the prices easy to find and read? How is the lighting? Is it
easy to walk around the store? Can you bend down to get something on a lower shelf
without hitting another person or a fixture? If there are dressing rooms, how clean, big,
well lit and comfortable are they? Is there a chair and plenty of hooks for your mother
and the clothing? For hard goods, does the signage adequately explain the merchandise?
How does the store feel? Is it friendly, warm, cold, indifferent? Does the air feel fresh? Is
any music playing?
A good audit is honest which may come across as brutal. Be prepared to face things about
your store that you may have been avoiding.
If you decide you really enjoy being in retail, your next step is to correct all the negatives
that came up in the audits. Address every issue as quickly as possible. It’s amazing how
the intent to improve your business will immediately increase sales. Action creates even
more sales.
Step Six: Thankfulness
Before you go to sleep at night count ten things that happened during that day that you
are thankful for.
These can include: an enjoyable conversation, an unexpected smile or compliment, a job
well done by an employee or yourself, a great lunch, the pleasure of a good display, a
great sale, seeing a friend, an overall feeling of good health.
There are far more than ten good things that happen to you each day but by identifying at
least ten before you go to sleep you are becoming aware and as a result, thankful of the
blessings of each day. On the other hand, recreating and counting all the awful stuff that
happened during the day is highly counter productive and just creates more negativity the
next day. If you catch yourself doing the negative count, re-focus immediately to
something positive. It may be difficult but it’s worth the effort.
The terrific thing about this technique is that during the day something good will happen
and you’ll think “I have to add this to my list tonight.” You’ll start acknowledging fun,
good stuff everyday and recognizing it rather than passing it over for the negatives.
There is a balance in all things.
What goes up comes down. There’s darkness and light. The ocean is choppy or calm.
There are good and bad days but it’s your reaction and attitude to each situation that will
make or break your day. Success starts from within and you have it within yourself to
turn your business around using each of the Six Steps.
THE HEART AND SOUL OF RETAIL SUCCESS - To learn more about this author, visit Linda Cahan's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
THE HEART AND SOUL OF RETAIL SUCCESS
Is business slow? Are you slashing budgets, feeling burnt out or wondering why you ever
went into retail in the first place? Are crunching numbers and loosing employees your
only options?
There is a better way to create success - from the inside out. Below are 20 free "inside"
techniques to increase your business and happiness. The "outside" solutions are easy to
implement and as costly as you choose.
Finding the heart and soul in retail can be a challenge at times. The routines we get into
can keep our wheels turning in the same paths – or ruts. When things change and we
don’t, those paths need rethinking.
There are six steps to finding a new path to replenish your joy and success in your store.
While some may seem obvious to you – knowing something is very different from
actually taking action.
If, while you read this you think “yeah, yeah, I know this but it doesn’t address my
problems, my store” keep your mind open.
Each of these steps is completely personal and relates to all types of retail – as well as all
personalities.
Step One: Positive Thinking.
This is a toughie. When the sky is falling down, no one is coming into your store and
your fixed expenses are going up it may be a bit difficult to stay positive. Of course, this
is the best time to work some magic in both you and your store.
NLP
Neurolinguistic Programming is a complex study that can be incorporated into our daily
lives and thoughts. One of its basic premises is that the words we say influence what we
believe. Our words actually become a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Our unconscious or inner self does not have a sense of humor and especially doesn’t
understand sarcasm or irony. When you say, tongue-in-cheek “business is great, I just
love an empty store, it gives me time to catch up on the Internet” – your inner self
believes what you say. Your intellect knows that you’re being sarcastic but the more
important part of you takes those words seriously. Very often we attract what we want in
our lives on an unconscious level. The last thing you want to create is the unconscious
belief that you enjoy an empty store.
If this doesn’t seem credible to you, think about other times you’ve been sarcastic or
negative about something in your life and what resulted.
The more you repeat something – the more likely it is to happen. If you say that business
is bad or that your customers aren’t buying enough often enough, you can prolong that
situation.
The secret is to re-think how you communicate. Just like dealing with a two-year old,
redirect your words and actions.
When you get anxious about business and you want to vent your feelings consider
redirecting the anxiety into something positive and productive. Look at a stockroom and
bellow “this place is a mess and I’m going to clean it up. Anyone what to help?” Of
course, don’t yell at someone – or accuse someone else, just make a statement and offer a
solution. Any positive action is far superior to bemoaning how bad your business is
doing.
Manifesting
Thinking and expressing positive thoughts while your business is doing poorly may make
you sound like a deluded fool to both yourself and your associates. Rather than espouse
how fabulous things are, start manifesting or creating positive change. The first rule of
manifesting is to know what you want to create. This isn’t as easy as you think. Be very
clear about what you desire from your store. During the work day clear your calls, mind
and desk for five minutes. For those few minutes feel how successful you and your store
are doing. Feel what you desire as if it is happening in the moment. It’s vital that this
isn’t a wishing and hoping exercise – it’s believing and feeling the happiness and comfort
for that five minutes every day. It’s normal if your mind wanders – don’t judge yourself,
just come back to the feelings and thoughts of joy and success.
Write down your hopes for your store on a fresh, clean sheet of paper. State them in the
present tense. For example: “ My store is making $10,000 a day, everyday from
customers who are friendly,
easy to work with and non-demanding.” Most importantly, thank God or “the powers-
that-be” for bringing this success into your life.
Step Two: Create an Environment that Honors Your Customer
A. Meet their basic needs.
Human beings need water, air, bathrooms and room to move. Provide all four. It’s easy to
have water on site as well as working bathrooms that don’t require apologies when a
customer asks to use them. If your HVAC system doesn’t pump out fresh air – at least
install fans to move the air you have. Moving air feels fresher than stagnant, stale air.
Make sure the temperature in the store is comfortable at all times. Too hot or too cold
means uncomfortable customers and sales staff.
Room to move means aisles that customers can negotiate without having to turn sideways
– and without bumping into other customers. Create pathways – don’t block their
movement with awkwardly placed fixtures.
B. Engage their senses.
Add music and scent to your store. Please make sure that the music is right for your
customer base – not just for your sales staff. Muzak now makes day-long CD’s using
original artists. They have done many studies to determine what people or demographic
group respond to each type of music. It may be worth your time to give them a call.
When you have your radio playing your customer is listening to advertisements for other
businesses. This is not always in your best interest.
As for scent, many people are allergic or annoyed by sweet flowery scents. Consider a
food based scent such as apple cinnamon, peach, or rosemary. Studies have found that
food scents enhance memory and experience retention.
C. Make it easy for your customer to shop your store.
Light it up!
Good lighting is vital to the comfort and success of your store. Ideally, there are three
levels of light – general (ex.: fluorescent), warm lights (incandescent spots and floods)
and spot lighting for displays (halogens or narrow spots.) Dark areas can suck the life out
of your store. By balancing the lighting so there are light areas mixed with bright spots –
all your merchandise shows to it’s best advantage plus your customers can easily see
everything in your store.
Give them the information!
Another way to make it easy for your customers is basic – clarity in signing. No matter
what type of merchandise you carry, it needs a price tag. Some items require explanation
while others need to be sized. Lack of time is one of the major complaints of many
people in our society. Good signage makes shopping easier and more efficient.
D. R & R
Add resting places for disabled or tired customers and disinterested spouses
Play areas away from the front door for children are also very appreciated.
E. Visuals
Don’t forget cleanliness, beauty and interesting and/or sensual surfaces. Fun displays can
stimulate, educate and create desire for specific products. Never underestimate the power
of a creative window or interior display to sell merchandise.
A few years ago on the west coast, the author consulted for a chain of clothing and home
furnishing stores. She suggested using wooden forms from Janecka (512-259-0406) in
the Women’s clothing areas. A week later she was greeted by complains from the sales
people in those areas because they had to change the forms several times a day. Why?
Because the clot
Step Three: Creating an Environment that Honors and Supports You and Your
Staff.
Smile.
When you greet your staff with warmth – and you mean it, they feel it and respond in
kind. While you can’t fake warmth and friendliness - you can smile. Years ago a study
was conducted that proved that smiling releases endorphins into the blood stream.
Endorphins are a natural drug that we produce internally that make us feel happy. The
muscles we use to smile give us – and the receiver equal amounts of pleasure. Even if
you have to fake it – a smile will work it’s magic with the release of endorphins so that
your next smile will be the real deal.
Safety
Your workplace is like a second home for both you and your staff.
Like your home, ideally it is welcoming, safe and clean. Safety is a huge issue. Both
physical and emotional safety are musts in a retail environment. Any type of physical
danger should be eliminated from the store immediately. This includes low hanging
lights, sharp corners, low shelves over the toilet (banged heads), exceptionally heavy
lifting, bug or rat poison near food areas, low lights near or in stairwells, dingy and
crowded basements, etc.
Give it a break
Uplift your staff with a break room (if there is room) with incandescent lights, moving
air, microwave, toaster oven, small refrigerator and a sturdy table with chairs. Paint the
space a sage green or a light tangerine. Green soothes and heals while tangerine uplifts
the spirits and is warm and friendly.
Be Fair
Manage with fairness and clarity. Fairness is difficult when you have favorites but is
essential for workplace harmony. If you don’t know what’s fair – work for a few hours
with a human resources consultant.
Clarity is easy. Employees should be told –and understand from the start what is expected
from them, how they should do their jobs, their hours, their dress code, their behavior
code and specifics about your merchandise selection and store image.
When you think something is obvious and assume they know these things you may be in
for an unpleasant surprise. When you get angry at people for not knowing psychically
what you want – you create bad feelings. Being clear right from the start will keep this
negativity at a minimum. Rarely does anyone want to do a bad job or, equally awful, feel
stupid.
If you change the rules or expectations, have a staff meeting to let everyone know at
once. If some people aren’t there, go through these changes as soon as they arrive. Don’t
expect other people on your staff to convey this information. It’s your job! Of course if
your business is large enough to have a human resources professional, it then becomes
their job.
Train to Maintain
This brings up training. You really can’t expect a new person or even an existing
employee to read your mind. If you want them to do things a specific way – tell them.
Write it down and let them read it as well. An educational study was done that proved
that retention was 20% higher when hearing and seeing were combined. Clarity in
training is a gift to you, your employees and your store.
Hire Right
Hire the right person for your store’s personality, image and customer base. You certainly
know the wrong people for the job. It’s best not to have to deal with them once they are
working for you. Check references immediately! If you have a bad feeling in your gut,
listen to it.. Your head will analyze all the positives and negatives and your heart will
either warm or chill to the potential employee but your gut will react immediately. Your
stomach doesn’t lie.
Instant Karma
There is a karma of goodness. What goes around comes around. Basically the good you
do comes back to you ten-fold. There is no doubt that it is better to rule by positive
incentives combined with clarity rather than through strictness and or fear.
Step Four: Community Relations
Give and you shall receive
Your store is part of a community. Several times a week some organization or another
hits you up for a donation. Knowing this, buy some items specifically for these
organizations when you’re on a buying trip.
Whatever you donate must represent the best of who you are – not some stuff that’s on
sale, dented or chipped.
The publicity you receive for these donations is rarely felt immediately but the good will
radiates from person to person. You’ll get far more than you give over time.
Interns – a Win-Win
Think about interns for your business. Many colleges offer retail courses of study and an
intern program is a wonderful way to get good help and give training at the same time.
Talk to your local college or university and see if they have a program in place. Offer
your store as an opportunity for students to learn. If there are display and visual
merchandising courses, speak to the teachers and offer your windows for display
experience. Put a (computer generated) sign in the corner of the window giving credit to
the student(s) who worked on the windows.
On Stage
If you carry ready-to-wear, become part of fund-raising fashion shows. It’s great
advertising to target audiences.
For any type of hard goods, have presenters on weekends and advertise on your local
radio stations. Most stations will barter time for product. Very often a vendor will co-
8
sponsor a presenter with you and co-opt the cost of the advertising. This brings people
into your store to learn – and hopefully to buy.
Step Five: Reinvent your Passion and Energy
This is the tough part. It’s not always easy to be honest about how you feel and even
more difficult to do something about it.
There are three types of audits worth doing every two years.
Financial Audit
The first is financial. Is staying in business worth the effort or are you loosing more
money every year.
Emotional Audit
How do you feel about your store? Are you enjoying your life and business or do you feel
like getting into an non-disfiguring car accident rather than going in to work?
Visual Audit
Conduct a visual audit. Depending upon the size of your store and the amount of
employees – develop a questionnaire regarding your physical store.
Each employee gets to do an audit – as well as you, your friends and best customers. The
more information you get, the better off you are to make educated decisions about the
business.
Included in the audit are: Is the front of the store (the façade) appealing? What are five
focal points when you walk into the store? Which way do you want to walk when you
come in and what’s the first thing you see when you walk in that direction? Does the
store have an odor? What do you hear? Does the store feel fresh and clean? Is the
merchandise priced and are the prices easy to find and read? How is the lighting? Is it
easy to walk around the store? Can you bend down to get something on a lower shelf
without hitting another person or a fixture? If there are dressing rooms, how clean, big,
well lit and comfortable are they? Is there a chair and plenty of hooks for your mother
and the clothing? For hard goods, does the signage adequately explain the merchandise?
How does the store feel? Is it friendly, warm, cold, indifferent? Does the air feel fresh? Is
any music playing?
A good audit is honest which may come across as brutal. Be prepared to face things about
your store that you may have been avoiding.
If you decide you really enjoy being in retail, your next step is to correct all the negatives
that came up in the audits. Address every issue as quickly as possible. It’s amazing how
the intent to improve your business will immediately increase sales. Action creates even
more sales.
Step Six: Thankfulness
Before you go to sleep at night count ten things that happened during that day that you
are thankful for.
These can include: an enjoyable conversation, an unexpected smile or compliment, a job
well done by an employee or yourself, a great lunch, the pleasure of a good display, a
great sale, seeing a friend, an overall feeling of good health.
There are far more than ten good things that happen to you each day but by identifying at
least ten before you go to sleep you are becoming aware and as a result, thankful of the
blessings of each day. On the other hand, recreating and counting all the awful stuff that
happened during the day is highly counter productive and just creates more negativity the
next day. If you catch yourself doing the negative count, re-focus immediately to
something positive. It may be difficult but it’s worth the effort.
The terrific thing about this technique is that during the day something good will happen
and you’ll think “I have to add this to my list tonight.” You’ll start acknowledging fun,
good stuff everyday and recognizing it rather than passing it over for the negatives.
There is a balance in all things.
What goes up comes down. There’s darkness and light. The ocean is choppy or calm.
There are good and bad days but it’s your reaction and attitude to each situation that will
make or break your day. Success starts from within and you have it within yourself to
turn your business around using each of the Six Steps.
THE HEART AND SOUL OF RETAIL SUCCESS - To learn more about this author, visit Linda Cahan's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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