How do you stop a downward spiral?

I've worked with retailers that have been going through a downward spiral and struggling to address it. By a downward spiral, I mean a drop in sales, that ends up with a cut in staffing, that in itself prompts a drop in sales and so on. There are other symptoms that usually go with the spiral, and they include-

*Low staff morale

*High staff turnover

*Low customer satisfaction

*Uncompleted tasks

*Low personal morale (the business owner)

Obviously this combination of factors can be pretty poisonous for a retail organisation - or any organisation for that matter.

Dealing with it at any given point in the timeline is difficult, but not being there every day with your team in the shop floor may well mean that you miss a lot of the warning signs above and end up dealing with it when it's festered for a while. Having to deal with it at this's the stage is much more difficult as you will now be dealing with some of the after-effects of the problem as well as the problem itself.

So, how do you stop the problems from getting any worse?

I've worked with single independent retailers and in national High Street chains and the first step in any of these organisations is to communicate effectively with your team. Spending time with the team on the shop floor may seem like an obvious solution but it definitely is the start of the process. Talking to your team in their everyday roles and everyday setting is a great place to start. And a large part of your communication technique here needs to be listening. You need to be able to find out the feelings of your team and there's no better place to do it. At the same time you are doing this, it's also the ideal place to communicate the plans for the organisation - to let your team know about the past changes and any changes to come. These open lines of communication change the way that the organisation and you are viewed by the team.

Of course, communication on its own won't be able to turn around morale and solve all the problems. In partnership with this, the team needs the feeling that things are turning around. If the store or company is feeling like it's still spiralling downwards, then even effective, positive communication may struggle to stem the negative feelings. At this point, every small victory needs to be celebrated. A new contract, a big sale, a particularly good piece of customer service - anything that has a positive feel to it. Celebrate these small wins with the person responsible and the whole team. This feeling of small positives will start to chip away at the previous negative vibes and start to get the team feeling better about themselves.

If you find yourself in this situation, either as the owner of a retailer or as part of the store management team of a larger retailer then I feel for you. But I think that by flowing the above steps, you can start to put positives in the eyes of your team and turn things around.

Be on the shop floor and connect with your team

What happens when your team (good and bad) are allowed to run things for themselves?

I ask this question because it's something I've experienced recently and the medium to long term consequences can be quite devastating.

It's a large team that I've done some work with and got quite close to. It can probably be broadly split into two factions - those that work really hard and have the wellbeing of the store and customers at heart, and those they don't. I think anyone that has worked in a large store has had a similar experience. In this case it's the long-standing team members that take care of everything and this half of the team carry out approximately 90% of the work. I'm some instances it's because they just get on with it, in others it's because the newer colleagues have t been trained. Many of the symptoms of this divide are amplified due to the fact the management team spend so much time in their offices and have no presence on the shop floor. The shop floor is where a management team should spend the majority if their time, and is where standards are set and policed. Without this management presence, this particular retailer has suffered in areas.

The established members of the team that were happy in the short term to pick up the pieces have started to become resentful of their extra duties and the lack of support from management and colleagues. It's created a lack of respect for the management team and two separate teams in the same store.

Now for all you owners and managers out there, a simple solution has probably already occurred to you. It's so often missed by retailers. Far too many managers spend far too much time away from their teams and their customers. If you don't want to spend this time out there then retail management or ownership may not be for you.

Communication and support of your team is of paramount importance and without it you won't succeed. Knowing exactly what is going on with your team, particularly having seen it with your own eyes gives you the opportunity to set the agenda, train effectively, gather customer feedback and get the support of your team. All of these factors not only make your team a success, it makes the job 100 times more interesting. Of you're not doing it already then give it a try.


Not everything can be bought on the High Street-

Make decisions based on long-term trends rather than one-off incidents

I've been working with a few retailers recently and we've been looking at the long-term trends in their business. This is getting a fix on what us happening on an average day or event rather than looking at one instance and making a knee-jerk decision.

For example, one retailer has a fortnightly run when they change their promotions over. It keeps their offering looking fresh and keeps customer interest levels high. On the first such changeover of the new year, there were a few changes to how things are done and this meant that the team delivering this were completed early. The retailer wanted to immediately cut the hours allocated to this task and make a cost saving. However, my instinct was to wait and assess how this change went over proceeding weeks, to ensure that the time saving was ongoing, rather than just a one-off event. As it happened, there was a cost saving, but only at about half the level that was expected after the first incidence.

My point is, that by making a decision after the first event, you aren't getting the full picture and may have to make the decision more than once.

Every change to your business will necessitate at the very least, a thought process that looks at whether this changes affects other parts of the business. A new product may need staff training, a change in opening hours will need staff consultations for a change in their hours. And so on.

The next step is how to evaluate the change and how you will make changes, and this is mainly done with evidence. See how the new product is projected to increase sales and how much extra/different knowledge each team member needs to be able to sell it. From there, you have a training budget and can measure this against expected sales. Ensure that it is cost-effective.

As in the example I cited above, an analysis if the changes over several weeks and plotting the amount of time saves on each changeover will give you an average number of hours saved per fortnight and then either a reallocation of hours elsewhere in the business, or a staff consultation to see where hours can be saved. In our case, there was a vacancy that came up somewhere else in the store and someone volunteered to change roles and more over there.

Communication is the key, and being able to discuss these matters openly and honestly with your team will ensure a smooth transition in the event of any change.

How to sell your home: What estate agents don't tell you by Steven Thompson http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00I5HOJAM/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_awF5ub0SFJ9E4

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00I5HOJAM/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_awF5ub0SFJ9E4