The One Thing I Sometimes Steal from Retail.

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.

To open our minds to new ideas and expand our influence and inspiration beyond our own industry, we also tour two other stores, Bass Pro Shop and Best Buy.

Now you might ask; “What could garden centre operators possibly learn from Bass Pro Shop or Best Buy?” Well, as it turns out, a lot.

After walking out of these two very successful retail stores, we picked up a signage concept from Bass Pro Shop and very interesting merchandising concepts from Best Buy. We are implementing both these radical new concepts at our stores within the next few months.

So if you want to learn something that will help your business, visit other stores within your industry. You’ll leave with lots of ideas that you can implement immediately. But you want to learn something radically new and potentially a breakthrough idea or concept, visit an operation completely outside your industry and apply something that you’ve learned there to your own business in your industry.

If you think within the box, you’ll always stay in the box. Think outside the box and you can potentially change things exponentially.

Andy

Interesting Resources:

1. How To (Legally and Ethically) Steal Ideas
2. How to Succeed at Retail