myRetailer.ca

“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives.” – William A. Foster

Effective execution is key and vital to any successful business.

In his book The Breakthough Company, Keith McFarland found that all breakthrough companies he studied in his research were masters at execution. He went on to say that the best laid plans and strategies are completely worthless unless they are executed upon. It goes back to the old saying - Actions speak louder than words.

When it comes to running a business, this is something that I regularly remind myself. I find that I (as well as members of my team) am continuously coming up with new and great ideas that we want to pursue. However there is risk in trying to pursue too much. I have always found that if we try and pursue too much, then nothing gets done. That is the reason why we limit ourselves to three to five new initiatives every quarter – no more.

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The best way to plan for the quarter is to get AWAY from your business.

I’ve heard this from Gazelles and others as well – you can get tied up working on the day to day inside your business, or you can work on building, growing, and improving your business – that happens from the outside.

Strategic thinking and planning should happen every three months. It’s now almost September – we’re approaching our last quarter; have you taken time out to reflect on the year to date and plan for the next three months?

Verne Harnish, CEO of Gazelles, is a huge advocate of yearly planning, quarterly strategic meetings and more. He preaches that every company must enter into the market place with a plan, a plan that is reviewed and updated every quarter.

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Sometimes Less is More

When it comes to purchasing for any retail business, the very first thing that must be addressed is clearly defining who you are, what your company stands for and, most importantly, who you are not.

I recently did a speaking engagement in Columbus, Ohio at the Ohio Florists Association’s (OFA), Annual Short Course. The first topic they asked me to present on was purchasing strategies and secrets.

This reminded me that when it comes to purchasing for any retail business (or most any business for that matter), the very first thing that must be addressed is clearly defining who you are, what your company stands for and most importantly, who you are not.

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Ideas. They create inspiration, help me innovate and improve my business – even when they are outside my industry.

There’s huge value in learning from others whenever you can. Learn from others inside your own industry, as well as those outside of your industry.

I recently attended a buying meeting in Toronto. I flew up for it on a Thursday then planned to tour around to visit other stores in my industry the following day. I felt it was so valuable that I flew up my two Managing Partners to join me.

We toured four different garden centres to see what they were doing differently and gathering ideas for our own stores. Tours like this are always worth the time and cost.

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Tracking performance on a trailing 12-month cycle will highlight trends and take the seasonality out of your reporting.

It can be extremely difficult to get a sense of how your company is doing when tracking performance indicators such as sales, gross margins, expenses, profits, average sale, customer count, etc. by any other method than on a trailing 12-month cycle.

If you track sales for the past month or year–to-date, it will tell you just that, what comparable sales were for the past month, or the year-to-date. It says nothing about where your company trend heading, whether sales overall are heading up or down. What about if your biggest season is Christmas, but for some reason this year sales come a little earlier than in previous years. (more…)