myRetailer.ca

Your company name and brand should be your most valuable asset and the best way to build value in a business is to build your brand.

Recently, I read Richard Branson’s new book, Business Stripped Bare. There were some statements that Branson made in his book about building and the power of a good brand that resonated with me.

Branson stressed that your name and your brand is your most valuable asset in business and will be what helps you grow your company. It can also be a real asset you can lean on to help you navigate through tough times.

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Tapping into the creativity of your staff can prove to be very profitable.

We’ve all heard the saying that some of the best ideas come from where you’d least expect it. How many of us allow our staff to run a little wild with some of their ideas, regardless of how crazy they may seem?

Recently one of my sales people, Linda, asked if she could book a wedding in our store among the flowers. She had a young couple that were interested in holding a small wedding right in the store. This was a very unusual request and my first thought was that it would interrupt normal sales too much. In short, I wasn’t crazy about the idea.

We came around (myself and our managing partner) when she agreed that it would be held in the back end of the store, it wouldn’t cost much in time or materials and the couple was willing to pay for the space.

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Generate Cash Flow With Gift Cards

Do you generate enough cash to keep your business strong? How about using gift cards to help boost your cash position?

You hear the talk these days about the slow down in the economy and how many businesses are suffering. With sales down in some categories and some customers slow to pay, small businesses can find it tough to keep cash flow positive.

Here is a little trick I have used at times to generate cash in slower season. I run a promotion where we pre-sell gift cards for the upcoming summer season, and in turn, give a discount off today’s purchases.

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How important is it to find and hire the best employees? Most Important.

Bradford Smart, author of Topgrading (the best book I’ve ever read on hiring), says to never hire an employee unless you are truly happy with how they interviewed and every single reference is glowing. Unless you’re 100% confident in your choice, he says that you should stay the course and keep searching. I have to say that I agree.

Recently I was hiring for an outside company sales position, a key position within our store. In our first round, we interviewed our top six candidates from the stack of resumes we had collected over two weeks, to no avail. After going through the interviews, both myself and my Managing Partner agreed that even though we had a couple of good candidates, the person we were looking for was not in that group, so we started over and kept looking. We simply refuse to settle for second best. I’d rather start over and continue the search, than settle for second best.

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Can you honestly say that you’ve never had a bad day at work in your life?

These words were said to me recently by a gentleman I know very well. He recently retired from a huge multinational corporation where he worked most of his life. He ran international divisions and was tasked with buying companies and leading divisions throughout Europe for his company.

Speaking about business one day, he uttered those words; “I never had a bad day at work in my life.”

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