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You, and how you conduct yourself are the secrets to your business’ success

Cigarette Left on Sidewalk via Flickr by randa1thor

Presenting yourself for success is vitally important in everything you do.

I love the quote; “How you do anything, is how you do everything”. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, how you do it will convey to the outside world how you live your life.

Tom Peters, in his book Re-Imagine talks about the importance of paying attention to detail and design. Tom reminds me that regardless of what it is I or someone in my company is doing it should be done to such a degree of detail, precision, and design that someone from outside your company would pay good money for the service.

So it doesn’t matter if I’m leading a meeting of 20 managers, or filing papers from this morning’s work, perform each job to the best of my abilities.

This hits home for me almost daily.

I find myself so busy at times that I might be tempted to skip over certain daily tasks. However I stop myself with this quote – How I do anything is how I do everything. By doing this, I’ll immediately stop, turn around and address the task that I was about to skip over. This can be as significant as preparing for a meeting with a potential bank, or as trivial as picking up a small piece of garbage in front of the store. I have actually walked over a cigarette butt on the ground in front of my store because I was too busy, then a few seconds later, stop myself, turn around and walk back to pick it up and throw it out.

It doesn’t matter what it is, in order to become our best, we must put forth our 100% effort into everything we do, even if it is picking up a cigarette butt.

Children May be the Key Consumer Influencers To Business Success

Win over children and you can win over the biggest influencers of all time (anyone who has kids, knows exactly what I mean).

Roy Prevost, in his book entitled Turbocharge Your Retail Business, tells about a story of a small business retailer who has things figured out.

It has to do with a pharmacist who runs his own store. He has a fool proof way of gaining influence into many of his customer’s households, he gains the influence of the children. He has become somewhat of a legend in his hometown. He goes onto explain that he has a simple strategy that any retailer can do.

A pharmacist explains:

“Whenever a parent and a young (five years or younger) child enters the store, I approach them, and with the parent’s approval, I crouch down beside the child and ask in a very gentle way: ‘Hi, My name is Bill… what’s your name?”

“The child, shy or not, will say his or her name. (for the purpose of this story, let’s say it’s ‘Stephanie’)

“I then say, ‘Stephanie, do you know what day it is today?”

“Stephanie will then usually shyly say, ‘I don’t know!”

“Then I will say, ‘This is your special day! Come with me…”

“Then I take the child by the hand and walk them over to a candy display that I specifically put together for that purpose, and hand the child a mini pack of Smarties. Then I say, “This is for you because it’s your Special Day. And remember, my name is Mister Smartie!”

Does this strategy work? You bet!

Will that child ask his or her mother to go back and visit Mister Smartie? I guarantee it!

The strategy is so simple, it make you wonder why more retailers don’t do the same thing, or something similar.

Children are one of the biggest influencers in any household. Why not get them on your side?

Plant the stake and create objectives and a plan for success in 2010

A leader’s role in any organization is to plant the stake and set the ultimate objectives for success. Then it comes down to rallying the troops to follow you there.

As Jack Daly, professional sales coach, puts it, only the leader can set the ultimate objective. Want to: (more…)

Welcome to a new blog solely dedicated to providing ideas and insight that will help drive success for independent Canadian retailers. I’m Andy Buyting.

You might be wondering who I am and what I’m all about. I’m an independent retailer based in Atlantic Canada. My business, Green Village Home & Garden is one of Canada’s most successful retail home & garden stores. My family has operated the business for more than twenty years in Fredericton, N.B..Today we operate two stores in Fredericton and Moncton. We also operate a landscape service company in Fredericton with plans to launch our services toMoncton area residents in time for the 2009 season.

In 2007,I published The Retailer’s Roadmap to Success: 33 Secrets for Driving Your Business to the Next Level.

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