Retailers need to solve an image problem to recruit top talent

Retail has an image problem with potential employees. Although working in retail can be interesting, rewarding and provide career progression it is seen as a dead end job taken only by those that can't get anything else by too many graduates. A high proportion of retail workers are 2nd income earners that go out to work in shops as a supplement to what the main earner brings in. But it doesn't have to be this way. The fact is that retail can provide good pay and conditions, career progression and a lifetime of learning.

What high quality potential new recruits want to see is where they can take their career and how quickly. This is even more important for the millennial generation (more of these in a moment) to be attracted to these roles.

Retailers have a duty to make their career progression more structured and promote this as widely as possible. The discount retailers, particularly Aldi and Lidl, have made great strides in recruiting people recently by offering a great salary and advertising it well. This has attracted good talent and these retailers will have a good chance of retaining that talent, even though they have a reputation for working people hard.

But what are other retailers doing? Where is the search for quality candidates? What can a retailer offer someone who graduates from a top university?

Many retailers need to look differently at how they position themselves in the recruitment market. They talk in similar tones to the likes of McDonalds in terms of camaraderie and fulfillment but the current group teaching the job market (towards the end of the millennial generation) want more from a career than that. The average millennial wants-

• To work for a company that shares the same values as them
• They are high users of technology and social media
• They want a challenge at work and need to be stimulated

Now the clever retailer will hear their recruitment to these needs and find the best talent. Millennials can be found online, on social media and want to be engaged by potential employers. As a retailer you might well need to up your game. The content that you put out there will really help you to connect with millennials and show that you understand their space. How you go about changing the perception of retailing as a career is going to be down to the way that you present the opportunities you have. Giving your team the chance to get involved with the social media marketing or to work in different areas of the business will give people more of a reason to consider working with you. It might make the difference when you are looking for talent to fill your next vacancy.

Retailers - what are you selling?

I browsed and shopped in a major shopping centre yesterday and something really struck me. Retailers seem more and more indifferent to their customers than ever and customers seem less and less bothered. The reason I say this? It's all linked to customer service - or the lack of it. So many places I shopped or observed had long queues, tills that could have been opened and staff in the shop floor. But none ventured to connect the three and put the extra staff on the tills to reduce the queues. In fact on more than one occasion there were team members chatting to each other (whether it was work related or not I couldn't say) while very near to the queues at the tills and did nothing to either halt their conversation nor to deal with said queues.

What is the problem? Is there a problem? Has retail moved into a new phase?

I think that there is a problem because the customer deserves better when there are resources available. I have worked for and with retailers for a very long time  and it has always been a huge focus on serving the customers waiting at the till. If every retailer develops the attitude that this isn't important at the same time then the customer loses out. But if only the slack retailers develop this attitude then the smart retailer can win.

Lack of management presence

I see a real lack of management presence on the shop floors of UK retailers and it creates an issue. Wether this is a change in strategy or the fact that management teams have other priorities I don't know but I do see a large movement away from supervision and this leads to self-supervision. People will often make the decisions that makes life easier for them and not necessarily the customer. What I witnessed yesterday was people finding shop floor tasks easier than serving at the till and abandoning customers. With a management presence on these shop floors this wouldn't be allowed to happen.

I think that contrary to popular belief there is a need for middle management to look after the relationship between shop floor staff and their customers. This protects the company's bottom line far better than cutting costs.

Cost control isn't everything

There is a drive with many retailers to keep down the costs and reduce waste. While I applaud this general idea there is more to retail than this. If you cut one cost too much (particularly if it is staffing) then you lose the balance between price and service and your customers go elsewhere.

It all comes back to the initial question of "what are you selling?" I don't believe that a store is simply selling the stock on their shelves. They are selling emotions and thoughts-

• The feeling that tou have the latest fashions
• The feeling that you offer great value
• The feeling that you are on-trend
• The feeling that you only sell quality products

But this isn't enough without the customer service to back up the proposition. I queued for 10 minutes  yesterday to but two T-shirts from a quality and hugely popular clothing retailer yesterday because the staff on the shop floor didn't react to the queues. In fact I'd say that the store is proud of its queues because they rarely work hard to reduce them. I won't shop there again.

Do you have a pet hate when it comes to retail? What would you change instantly? Let me know I'm the comments below.

Look great in this stylish Harley T-shirt from Folk Shirts

At ‘My Time In Retail’ I like to highlight products and companies from time to time that stand out in the crowded marketplace. Today I take a look at something that will allow the Harley lover the opportunity to share their love of the Harley with the world.

The Harley fan is always someone who wears their heart on their sleeve. But what if that sleeve was attached to a fantastic Harley Davidson T-shirt? Well now it can be with the great t-shirts available from Folk Shirts, which can be found on Amazon.

You want to look great? You want to show your love for all things Harley? You want to look stylish and cool?

Well look no further than Folk Shirts – find them on Amazon.

It is a fantastic thing to be able to let the world know your true colours through the medium of your clothing. It unites Harley fanatics and creates a bond that this tribe will never lose. Harley lovers want everyone they meet to now that they just love their Harley and they want to meet as many fellow Harley enthusiasts as they possibly can.

These T-shirts are really well made and the highest standards are applied to their production. The features of the Harley T-shirt are-

·         Made from 100% Cotton

·         Machine wash cold with like colors, dry in low heat

·         This is an original Brand Name Folk Shirts T-shirt

·         Great for all Harley Lovers

·         Lightweight, Classic fit, Double-needle sleeve and bottom hem

So you are buying real quality that will last a long time so you can look great week after week, year after year. When you buy clothing you want it to look right even after it has been washed many times. The T-shirts from Folk Shirts will keep their quality because of the production values that have gone into this great Harley T-shirt.

Folk Shirts say it all with their tagline for this T-shirt-

“Wanna be seen as a badass Harley lover without saying a word? You know what to do right now!”

It takes your Harley love to a new level because you can be seen to be Harley and be seen to look great without opening your mouth. These are limited edition T-shirts that won’t be around forever. Once you have yours then tell all the other Harley lovers in your life. These T-shirts are available for men, women and children.

Retailers have a duty of care for their employees. See why it's more important in results season

It's the time of the year where retailers announce their results that cover the busy Christmas period. It's good to keep abreast of these, particularly those that operate in the same sector as you. Two that have been announced today are Morrisons who reported better than expected sales and Debenhams who report their sales as "strong."

This has got me thinking about sales figures and how they affect your team. When I worked for BP it was always a horrible couple of days with customers angry at petrol prices when the company was reporting multi-billion pound profits. I suspect that Starbucks employees had similar issues when their tax affairs were made public.

My readers are generally split into two main camps - independent retailers and those who work for larger retail operations. The difference in these two is enormous and only widened by the public reporting that is required of publicly -listed companies. There are lessons to be learnt whichever camp you are in and today's blog will look at this.

Larger chain retailers
And this especially applies to those that have regular reporting of their figures, because this is where you can get examples such as the BP and Starbucks ones above. It is important for those earning massive salaries to protect their workers that are on the front line. It is difficult for customers to differentiate but the comments, ill-feeling and sometimes abuse that a BP worker gets is completely disproportionate to their role in the process.I have always spoken to those customers that voice discontent at the prices of the retailers I work with about my lack of role in the process that dictates prices. If I am working in a store, for example, then my ability to affect the price that the company sells their products at zero.

But not every employee is this insightful or confident with what they do. As a large organisation the people at the top and (more productively) the marketing, media or communications department needs to ensure that they soften the blow for the lower level employee. BP used to produce a press release for us to hand out to discuss with the customers. It explained the difference between BP Retail and BP Oil and how it isn't legal to cross-subsidise one with the other. It separated the customers who were interested in the affairs of the company from those that just wanted to have a moan. Large organisations have a moral obligation to pay their workers better, pay their way in taxes and to look after their front line workers - and this includes provisions for when publicity affects their work.

Independent retailers
I think that there is mileage here in having some sort of published results for your own independent retail business. This is an especially good idea if you can compare and contrast this with the competition from larger chains.Firstly you can share an edited version of the results with your team. Perhaps breaking it down into percentages rather than actual cash will protect your personal data. For example-

• 45% of our costs are for staffing
• We paid 25% of our income in tax, whereas our multinational rival paid only 6%
• Our profit margin after all costs and taxes have been taken out is 9%

These figures will highlight to your team what a difference a small pay rise makes or the benefit of selling one extra item per customer or whatever you want to highlight. and this is where joined up business wins out every time. If you understand your results, understand what you want to make better then you can help your team to understand what differences they can make. For example, if you want to increase the sales by 10% to give your team a 5% pay rise then use the annual figures to explain this.

The second point is for those that are a little bolder with what they do. It's best explained by way of example and I'll use a coffee shop for example. It's about comparing and contrasting your operation with a multinational rival and using this as marketing ammunition. Imagine this press release, or something similar, appearing in your local newspaper-

"Use your local coffee shop as it benefits the community

Local coffee shop Coffee For Me has just published it's annual results and it makes startling reading. In contrast to the American-owned coffee chain XYZ Seattle, who only paid tax of 4% on  their UK earnings, Coffee For Me paid 20% of their earning sin tax. They also employ 5 people from out town, all of whom then spend their ages in our town. The owners, Mr and Mrs Jones, have lived here for over 20 years and they shop locally with other locally-owned businesses.

If you want to ensure that you support local people and people who pay their fair share of UK taxes, make sure that the next time you go out for  coffee it's at Coffee For Me, and nor one of these chains that are taking money away fro the town, the region and the UK."

It is for those with a little more aggressive marketing approach but the impact for me would be a huge one. It's all about making your customers think about their purchases and to make a decision on the greater good.

All in all, retailers have a duty of care over their colleagues. Whether it's to protect them from negative media coverage, to help them understand the business or to prompt their customers to shop locally.

See why the entrance to your retail store should shout about your claim to fame

I'm in a local garden centre today and as I walk through the first aisle from the entrance to the café I am a little dumbstruck. I walk no more than 40 yards and I am confronted by-

• Christmas decorations
• Alcoholic drinks
• Books
• DVD's
• CD's
• Jigsaws
• Toys
• Food items
• Non-alcoholic drinks

And then the café itself

I'm struck by a retailer that doesn't really know what it wants to be and what it stands for. I've used this phrase in my blogs before and it means so much-

Decide what you want to become famous for.

Now I'm not talking about the celebrity type of fame that seems to float the boat of so many people today. I'm talking about the famous part of your retail business that customers will talk about and return for. It's been referred to as your USP or your diffetentiator and it's what makes you a success. Woolworths was the prime example to me of a retailer that didn't know what it wanted to be. It tried to be all things to all people and became unimportant to many. I've also blogged about Tesco trying to do everything but ending up doing everything worse than their rivals-

http://mytimeinretail.blogspot.com/2014/06/tesco-sales-drop-is-about-more-than.html

I don't necessarily think that a retailer shouldn't sell more than one type of product, but the initial message should scream from the rooftops about what you stand for. This retailer I'm in today states that "we do all sorts of stuff." It's not a sparkling message.

Looking around the garden centre, there are places of interest, areas where they do stand out from the competition. The café is very busy and the food looks great quality. The Christmas decorations are vibrant and have a great mark-up. The indoor plants are well-priced and different varieties to other garden centres I've been in. One of these areas should be the absolute focus of the attention as the part of the business that leads customers to walk through the door and return.

For your own business you need to look at what you are doing and make a decision. The decision needs to be around what you think you should be famous for. Once you (and your team) know what this is then position your store so it talks to your customers in those terms-

"Mr and Mrs customer, this is what we do."

See how to turn the plastic bag charge to your benefit

We are now a month on from the start if the charge for plastic bags in shops in England.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34346309

As people start to settle into the routine of bringing their own bag or paying, it's worth taking a look at the charge and seeing how it works and how it can work for you. There are quite a few exclusions to the plastic bag levy and some may apply to your business-

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/carrier-bag-charges-retailers-responsibilities#bags-you-dont-have-to-charge-for

A main area that you don't have to charge is if you employ less than 250 full-time employees.

Many of my readers are small independent retailers but the exclusion doesn't mean that you can't charge for bags - it means that you don't have to. I think that a large part of the charge is to educate customers to the dangers of disposable carrier bags so a small retailer can be as much a part of this education as a large one. Customers won't necessarily know which shops have to charge and which shops are exempt. So this is your opportunity to help a charity of your choice by charging for bags and donating the proceeds to them. If it's communicated in the right way then your customers will feel positive about the charge rather than negative.

Your alternative is to advertise that you are one of the retailers that don't (have to) charge for bags. It feels like a strange strategy but it could give you a small competitive advantage as bag charge fatigue sets in.

And it's by looking at your structure when changes like this happen that helps you assess your business plans. Having plans set out for your business and regularly assessing them keeps you on track. I suggest that you set out business plans annually, reassess quarterly and monitor progress monthly. Changes to legislation, the trading landscape or your competition will prompt a further review and assessment. As a business, you will need to know where you are and where you are going. Getting to grips with it all can transform what you do.

In my next blog I'll take a more detailed look at business planning.

See how converting loyal customers into into brand advocates increases your income

I've worked with retailers over the years and a recurrent theme is the question of how to reward customers. I've looked in this blog at different ways of rewarding your team but having ways of rewarding your customers can help to transform a retailer. This is a large subject so I've split it into two blog entries. The first one is today.

A constant theme of my blogs is turning customers into loyal customers into brand advocates, so it's probably best to start here and explain what I mean by these three categories-

Customers

This is simply people who buy something in your shop. They may be passing by and see something in the window, they may be a visitor to your town and come in to have a look around. They may shop with you once and never again. This doesn't mean that these customers are unimportant. You will need one-off customers and irregular visitors to help your sales. They can be attracted to your door by promotions, a great window display or word of mouth. However they arrive is unimportant. The fact that they got to you gives you a chance to impress them and get them coming back time and again. This turns them into the next level, the loyal customer.

Loyal customers

A loyal customer is one that chooses you over another. You may have one or more stores in your town that sell the same thing but your loyal customer will buy from you over your competitors. You can create loyalty with price, promotion or excellent customer service as well as other means. Supermarkets in particular fight for loyalty and this has sparked the loyalty card and the price matching over the years. A loyal customer will return to you over and over again unless something happens in their relationship with you to break the loyalty. It's a well-worn phrase that it costs so much more to win a new customer than to keep an existing one and that's the relationship that loyalty projects attempt to protect. Many businesses stop here. Having a band of loyal customers spending good money with you in a regular basis, plus the odd infrequent customer can be a lucrative proposition. But I propose looking to the next step.

Brand advocates

And I strongly believe that brand advocates are the next step for a retailer to increase success, and in a more interesting way. The ways in which you can achieve this will be the subject is the second part of this topic and my next blog entry. Today I'll describe what a brand advocate is and the effect they can have on your business. A brand advocate is someone who goes out of their way to tell other people about you. It may be one of several ways of doing this-

• Bringing their friends into your store
• Talking about you on their blog
• Positive social media comments about you
• Telling people face-to-face about how great you are

The brand advocate is a marketing tool that you can rely on to bring you more business and all it costs is a great relationship with them. Having several brand advocates starts the cycle off again for the next set of customers. They arrive at your doorstep because of a brand advocate, and you will hopefully turn them into loyal customers and the next brand advocates. How you start this relationship and maintain it can be interesting and fun, and we will take a look at that in the next blog.

See the lessons to be learnt from this week's The Apprentice

I've started watching this series of The Apprentice (against my better judgement) this week. The tasks are interesting, helped by the editing, and the characters are as comical as they have been for the past few series. I applied for the last series of the programme and got through to the audition process - the final few hundred from twenty-something thousand applicants I was told. The opportunity at the end of the process has far more value than the process itself.

The first task was a buying and selling task - go to the market and buy fish, turn it into products and then sell it in the city of London. One team made a profit of £1.87. And this is where the whole process falls down. If this were real business then there would be much more expense to take away from their paltry £1.87 profit-

Wages for eight team members

Production costs

They were given use of a facility to turn their raw fish into saleable products, and this also took energy for the machinery, cookers and lights.

A trading licence to sell food on the street

Purchase or hire if the stall

Hire or purchase of the cooking equipment

All in all, these tasks in isolation mean very little. I'd prefer to see a programme where the team develops a business over the course of the series. Given an amount of money st the start, they have to buy and sell cleverly to increase their money for the following week's task. Lord Sugar can still fire someone every week, but the team can work their way through.

So what's this got to do with me an independent retailer?

Well control of costs underpins every single business. And it's by looking at your costs and the effectiveness of every penny you spend that will allow you to succeed. And for every pound you save, you have three choices - pocket and extra pound of profit, reinvest another pound into area you know succeed or cut your customers prices by another pound.

Looking at all of your expenditure to ensure that it works as hard as you do is a fundamental part of running a business. I'd suggest three ways of ensuring you get this as right as you can.

Regular reviews of your costs

I'd suggest that you look at your expenditure and conduct a full review on a regular basis. Annually at least, every 6 months is better and in some instances quarterly. This ensures that things never get away from you. Having your finger on the cost pulse means that you never get to the point where you look back and think "where has all that money gone?" To be able to look at all the outgoings and see if savings can be made will work out for you in the long run. Going hand-in-hand with this is the expenditure on marketing.

Analysing the success of your marketing spend

If you take nothing else from reading this blog, then take this one piece of information with you. You need to account for what you spend. By this I mean that when you set out a marketing campaign, you need to have an idea of what business that campaign brings. To do this you have to speak to your customer at the first point of contact. It's from there that you will understand how they arrived with you.

For example, you spend £200 per month on advertising on a particular website and £100 per month on newspaper advertising. If the website brings you £2,000 in sales per month then it earns 10 times the spend. If the newspaper brings you £500 per month in sales then it earns 5 times the spend.

You will see that the website is twice as profitable in terms of marketing spend than the newspaper.

Speaking to people when the opportunity arises

I know that it's impossible to respond to every marketing call or email but there will be areas in which it's profitable to listen to people. The areas in which you want to talk to people will be dictated in part by the areas above. If you have identified an area in your cost review then this will prompt you talking to someone who contacts you. If you have an area of marketing success, then you'll want to be able to repeat this success. And in some areas you will just see an idea that you like and decide to investigate.

Avoid being an overspender like the contestants on The Apprentice and have control over your costs.

See why inflation figures heighten your need to compete on things other than price

The latest inflation figures were announced this week and it's not good reading for retailers-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34514135

The figures show a fall in the inflation rate to it actually showing a negative. This means that prices are falling.

Why is this bad news for retailers?

This is particularly bad news for retailers of high price items. The fact is, that if consumers see prices falling they will put off their large purchases in the expectation that prices will continue to fall and they can save money. This effect really starts to kick in when prices fall consistently over a longer period of time. It works more on high ticket products - televisions, cars, gadgets and computers. So if you're a retailer of these items what can you do? The first thought when looking for customers is often price but that seems like the wrong idea on this occasion. Further price cuts can only deepen the feeling that prices will continue to fall. And increasing prices at this point will put you at a disadvantage to your competition.

So the best thing to focus on is the quality of what you sell. Having a quality product can sell no matter what the market is doing. Look at Apple - their products sell in times of inflation or deflation. Now, we can't all come up with an ipod, iPhone or iPad idea to help our retail business but you can focus on the quality in your own business.

Finding what makes you different

As a retailer you will probably already have an idea what it is that makes you different. It's what sets you apart from other retailers and it could be one of many things-

• Your loyalty scheme
• Your products
• Your customer service
• Your special offers
• Your events

I've written many, many times in this blog about understanding what you do better than others. And this is what you need to concentrate on. I'll give you a few examples-

Waitrose have high prices but their customers love their absolute quality and great customer service.

Boots are very pricey but focus on their loyalty card and customers return.

Aldi mixes price with availability and customers have loved this balance.

So what is your USP? What can you do better than your competition? What are you capable of that nobody else in your town is? These are the things that will drive you forward.

Communicate this with your team, communicate it with your customers and look away from just dropping your price to compete - there are other, better ways to differentiate yourself.

See how a diary of events can help you to plan for next year

I've been around and about shops over the last few weeks and there's a lot of shops trying to make the most of things in what's traditionally a bit of a lull between Back To School and Christmas.

There's a lot of retailers stocking rugby-related products with the World Cup being played presently. I shopped in Durham today and there's an ancillary Back To Uni trade here, as in many university towns and cities. And it's these events that I think can make the difference for independent retailers. I think that keeping a diary of events and how they affect your trade and your team can make a huge effect in how you react to these events in the future.

Planning a broad outline of the events and mini-events of the year will provide you with a framework of the year. You will need to ensure that you have prepared something to reflect these events - extra staff, stock that matches the event, dressing up the store, etc.

You'll need to take account of-

• Easter
• Christmas
• Hallowe'en
• Back to school
• Back to university
• New Year
• Mother's Day
• Father's Day
• Sports events (World Cups, Olympics, Wimbledon, etc)
• Valentines day
• Pay day weekends
• Local events

It's by having this set up and making notes of how it all affected you (including notes of what you did differently) that will give you a framework for these events next year.

You can try different things when approaching these events. There are many options, including-

• Changing opening hours
• Bringing more staff in
• Staging an in-store event
• Sending out email reminders to your mailing list
• Giving extra loyalty points or coinciding a sale with the event

It's by trying these different things and having notes to refer back to that you will start to build a picture of what works.

NOT EVERYTHING CAN BE BOUGHT ON THE HIGH STREET

Think about what you want your promotions to acheive

I've started looking in more detail at some promotions in certain retailers, and I think that you can split promotions into two main types.

Promotions that drive people to your door

Promotions that influence your customers when they are in store

I think that you can split promotions in this way and I also think that you should think about your promotions in this way. Why? Because you need to drive people to your door AND you need to influence people's purchasing decisions when they are stood in your store, looking at your shelves. There needs to be a balance between there promotions as you attempt to achieve both of these things in tandem. A successful retailer will want and need to attract new customers with their promotions that drive people to their door. These can be linked to their loyalty cards, headline offers or outdoor advertising. The idea behind this is that you, as a retailer, can expand the customer base that frequents your shop or shops. From this increased customer base (and you providing them with fantastic customer service) you can increase your sales.

The other promotions will actually affect people's buying decisions when they are stood in front of your shelves. This is mainly aimed at your existing customers - those that come into your shop as a matter of course. From the starting point of having these customers walk through your door anyway, you want to ensure one of the following three things-

1- They spend more money than they came in for.

2- They buy when they may not have expected to.

3- They find a reason to come back.

This isn't always an easy feat but promotions such as multibuys, the location of related sales close to each other or announcements of coming events are all great ways of talking to customers with the aim of achieving one of these three things.

I'll look at little more closely at these three promotion types-

Multibuys
These are the tool of these three that will get your customers to buy more than they came in for. Take many, many national retail chains that have 3 for 2 promotions running is some or all of their shops at different times. The idea is that once the customer has cottoned on to the additional maths, the sale is logical.

The maths is as follows-

ONCE YOU HAVE BOUGHT THE FIRST ITEM (the one that you came in to buy)
THE TWO REMAINING ITEMS ARE BUY ONE GET ONE FREE

From this mindset, most customers then buy more than they came in for.

Associated sales
These are a great way of achieving points 1 and 2 from the above. The basic example from my early retail days was a promotional end of associated products. At Christmas, we used to sell wrapping paper

like it was going out of fashion. But the clever retailer made a promotional end of wrapping paper, sellotape, gift tags, a sellotape dispenser and bags of ribbons and bows.The difference in sales is astounding and customers walk out with something that they perhaps hadn't come in for.

Event announcements
This is the one area of the three that I find a little resistance to, from retailers that I speak to every day. The resistance is in the fact that retailers are worried that they put off today's customer until the event, if they are promoting a great event. For example, if you are offering double points on your loyalty card next week, then a customer that walks through the door today may be out off buying until next week.

The converse could be actually happening. A customer could walk in today to check out your prices and find that you are slightly more expensive than a competitor that they have just checked, Whilst they are in the store, they see your offer and decide that it would be better to buy with you rather than your competition.

I think that every announcement, promotion of piece of marketing that encourages your customers to spend with you is positive and you shouldn't hold back with the worry of simply postponing sales.

Shop Local is about spending with genuine authentic brands

I have talked many times before on my retail blog about the importance of shop local. Shop local has become an important movement and I think that getting behind the small businesses that produce high quality products becomes more and more important as every day passes. News articles about the perceived greed of Starbucks, Google and Amazon have been followed by recent articles about large restaurant chains taking tips away from their waiting staff. And every time one of these issues is exposed in the media or social media, there is a genuine outcry of anger from consumers. Being a responsible consumer, though, is about much more than boycotting a brand because they have had an unseemly practice exposed in the media. The positive side of responsible consumption is to be a consumer of, and brand advocate for those products that reflect your own values.

One such product is Mannys Sauces. They currently produce a range of 9 sauces and all free of the top 14 allergens, and are suitable for vegetarians and vegans. The sauces come with a guarantee of 100% satisfaction or your money back – that’s how confident they are that you will love them. In fact, the Piri-Piri and the marinades are considered to be within the best sauces on the planet. So, when you have a product that’s made with all natural ingredients in the UK to the highest standard then it’s something that you just have to get behind. And there are more than one way of getting behind a product as good as this. The first step is to try it. The Meat Marinade is created to marinate all red meats such as pork, lamb and steak but, it’s actually also delicious with any kind of fish or seafood. The Curry Sauce lets you make the most delicious and healthy curry in your own home, without any hard work or effort! And they can be found at http:/mannyssauces.com Once you’ve tried the sauces and I’m sure that you will love them, it’s time to be a brand advocate and make sure you share your love of them on social media. Mannys Sauces can be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Mannys-Sauces-182624281912692/timeline/ on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MannysSauces or check out their YouTube video at https://youtu.be/9gSO1jGftyM

My blogs always look at the process of being a retailer and how your actions fit in with your overall brand, and being an ambassador for a genuine, authentic product will help your overall business as their name and your name move through the social networks. When you find a product that you can see is on the way up then your instinct as a retailer is to get behind it. And I feel that Mannys Sauces is one of these products. The next step for you will depend on where you work. I know that my blog is read by independent retailers and those who work for larger organisations. If you are an independent retailer then, using Mannys Sauces as an example, you should get behind a UK independent, genuine, authentic product by becoming a stockist. If you are working for a larger organisation then you should be as aware as you possibly can be of these genuine, authentic products appearing on the marketplace and seek out the producers to see if you can provide them with a platform for their product.

Something else I repeat on this blog is finding out what you are good at and then making sure you can produce it day-in, day-out. Expanding your empire should come at a time when you have got a complete grip of what you are currently doing and you are ready to move on. Well, Mannys Sauces have done just that with a range of continental meat lines that would perfectly expand on what they already do, as these are great for snacks, tapas and sandwiches etc. These are more great products and you can currently choose from Portuguese-Style Chorizo, Chicken Chorizo, Paio, Presunto or Pork Belly. These make a perfect plate if you don’t have as much time, or if you want something lighter.

The products are backed by enthusiasm and a dream – the story of Manny. I’ll let him tell the story himself here-

“As any other person in the world, I had a huge dream - to open the first Piri-Piri Chicken Restaurant in the world, and then spread this dream to every corner of the planet. It wouldn’t be easy to achieve, but neither was it impossible. I had the will, the courage, the faith and family support to make it come true. Early in 1985, I sold my home to open the first piri-piri chicken restaurant outside of Mozambique. CHICKENLAND was the chosen name and Johannesburg, South Africa was the birth place of my dream! After a short while, I was making, bottling and selling a range of 5 different Piri-Piri Sauces and Marinades. After a slow start, the business was a stunning success! The name quickly spread across the city and everyone was talking about this new food place that was taking the food industry by storm.

The business success was proven! The next step was expansion to other parts of the city, country and abroad, and many people tried to get financially involved. Expansion included a need for capital and people, and so in 1987, I sold some of my business shares to two young men: one of Portuguese origin and the other, a South African of Jewish origin. Shortly after they joined, the business name was changed to NANDOS. Chickenland was a nice name, but according to marketing experts at the time, it was felt that the business should be backed by a personal name before the expansion took place. BetweenMANNYS and NANDOS, I was out-voted two to one, and the latter name was chosen. Despite a few initial problems, the expansion started taking off and now more than ever, the success was tremendous!

A few years later, the rug was pulled out from under my feet and I was forced to leave my business. I lost my dream; one of the best things in my life after my family. After this happened, I opened a few other restaurants including Chickenland in Portugal, but these weren’t my dream. It was a way to make a living, but it wasn’t my passion. It took me a long time to recover from what happened, but I was determined and pushed through until another dream emerged; to make the best sauces and speciality food products in the world! MANNYS SAUCES is now my new dream! Once again I can see this new dream taking shape and growing strong all the way to the TOP! The passion is back and I again have the will, the faith, the support of my family, and the support of so many loyal customers that know and appreciate the high quality products that we make. I am forever grateful to my family and my customers for their support and the divine forces for showing me the way.

Manny x”

So, shop local is about more than paying lip service to spending some time and money in your nearest High Street every now and again. It’s about getting behind genuine, authentic products that show the World (and the World of social media) that the brand choices you make change people’s lives.

Payday weekend bonanza with Bank Holiday thrown in as well!

Is bonanza time for most retailers this weekend as we have the weekend, it's a payday weekend and it's a bank holiday weekend. And I can see many times and retailers making the most of it. There are offers, events, fairs and all sorts of things happening all over the country as retailers try to compete with other attractions for people's time and money this weekend.

The national chains seem to have set themselves up for a big weekend, so it's time for the small independent retailers  that make up much of my audience to up their game.

As I've said many times before in my blog, the first step on the road to payday weekend success of planning your staffing. With me being away for three weeks and forcing myself to stay off the internet I haven't blogged this early enough but there are always lessons to be learnt and this will stand you in good stead for all payday weekends, bank holiday weekends and other events throughout the year. Once you have your staffing sorted, it's time to look at how you can offer something different and special at this time. I've already stated that you will not just be competing with other retailers but other attractions on a weekend like this. Giving families a reason to visit you rather than a park, a museum, a theme park or the seaside is part of ensuring success. So I'd say having something exciting for the children is a great idea for this weekend. What you do may well depend on what type of retailer you are, but be imaginative and think about what can keep families in your store for longer.

It's also a god idea to ensure that any offers you run coincide with a weekend such as this. If you are planning a sale, a but one get one free or other promotion them starting it this weekend is a great idea. It gets people through your door that may not normally shop with you and give you a chance to convert then into loyal customers. It will also give you a chance to cement your relationship with your existing customers who may need a little push to spend more with you.

The final piece in the jigsaw as far as I'm concerned is to make sure that your team are motivated and enthused about the weekend trade and any event you are hosting. Get them involved in the ideas process and you will get their buy-in for the event itself. If it's fun for staff and for customers then you've probably got a winning formula.

Keep this blog entry and re-read every time there's an event coming up - you'll be amazed at how useful it can be!

NOT EVERYTHING CAN BE BOUGHT ON THE HIGH STREET

Conflicting stories emerge about the success of 'Click and Collect'

Some news stories have emerged in recent times about the phenomenon that is 'Click & Collect.'

"A click-and-collect company which announced a major deal with Network Rail is to open fewer parcel collection points at stations than planned.

Doddle now wants to recruit people to use their own homes as pick-up points for internet shopping."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33597033

"Click-and-collect is a fairly new battleground for UK retailers, and promises rich rewards for daring firms.

It has been hugely popular over the past five years, as customers embrace the convenience of being able to order goods online and pick them up in store or elsewhere."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33371265

Now I don't think that both stories sit happily hand-in-hand and it's another case of the truth being more shades of grey than the black and white reporters make it out to be.

I've blogged loads of times about the advantages of 'Click & Collect' and I feel that these apply whether you are a High Steeet chain or a single independent retailer. It allows you to sell products online that maybe you can't stock in store. It brings people through your door that may not have otherwise visited, customers who collect spend more money whilst in store. There are even companies that allow you to collect things that you've not even bought trough them - Argos have set up collection points for eBay purchases and mdny independent stores have become Collect+ locations, with sellers including Amazon.

So why are John Lewis different?

Obviously they've looked at their business model and they don't think that it works at present. I've heard the head of their organisation talk before about customers needing to change their pricing expectation when ordering online. He believes that customers need to stop expecting a product at the same price and free delivery. I think he's deluded. The fact that they don't have to pay High Street or shopping centre rent, the savings in staffing and the reduced security concerns of having customers walk through their doors should mean a cheaper online product in my eyes. It's why Amazon are so successful - their long-term model to now has been online-only sales.

For independent retailers I'd say that having an online store will bring you extra business, not extra costs. Enabling your local customers to collect directly from you should increase your market, your footfall and your profits. Whether you do this through your existing website, a custom-built sales-only website, eBay or Facebook, one things for sure - you'll bring more people through your door, whether physically or digitally.

And that can only be good.

Think about the emails you send out to your subscribers

I received and email today from Amazon, lettings me know about several deals. I scrolled through and saw a deal I found potentially interesting. When I clicked on it, I was taken to a general deals page. I thought I'd clicked wrongly and tried again - the result was the same general deals page. So I tried a different deal - same page. This I found frustrating, and I gave up. Not only did I give up, I won't be clicking through from Amazon emails again. So, what have Amazon achieved from sending this email? I would say, into case, it's had a negative impact. I am probably a similar experience away from unsubscribing.

Which brings me to my point. Please think about the content, links and impact of your communications with your customers, especially emails.

Content

This needs to be as relevant as possible for the people receiving it. If you are a retailer that sells in different categories then you could consider a filter on your email subscribe page. This will mean that, for instance, your baby customers won't get emails about your photographic offering. You want your emails to entice customers to click through to your website and browse. That will only happen if there is something in the content that they want to follow up. You can get tech that will report back to you in what was clicked, and where that led. This will give you the data to ensure that you know what content works and what content doesn't.

Impact

This leads to impact, where the effectiveness of your content triggers the sales of the product or products you are trying to push. The header of the email is the very first thing seen, so ensure that it leads the recipient to read on. A photo or image makes great headway, especially if the product is visually appealing.

Links

Like the Amazon example above, you need to ensure that the links take your customers to the right places. It means that they have the faith in you and your company to click again and to keep subscribed - this is the lifeblood of your direct email marketing campaigns.

The other consideration is the frequency of your emails - not so often that your customers get sick if you, not so rare that they forget you.

Hope this helps.

Looking at how to analyse your company and your competition

I have been looking at different ways to analyse threats to your business, and came across this blog in a similar vein-

http://245daystogo.blogspot.com/2014/10/facing-my-fears.html

There are many ways at deciding what way to take your business forward and the above blog may be one if them. I've worked with many companies and used many ways of deciding which way I'd forward-

SWOT analysis

Competitor analysis

Annual cost reviews

SWOT analysis

This stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. And the analysis works straight along those lines. Divide a piece if A4 into 4 and in each section you simply write the Strengths, Weaknesses of your business, and the Opportunities and Threats to your business. From these areas you can formulate your plan. Expand on your strengths, work on your weaknesses, explore the opportunities, mitigate against the threats.

Competitor analysis

This is about looking at the key areas of the business and marking yourself and your competitors objectively. This will give the areas that you need to focus your efforts in. If your competitor scores highly in a particular area then you may need to rethink or redesign how you approach this area.

Annual costs review

I worked with a company that used the annual accounts to prompt a review into spending, and this prompted a review of all aspects of the business based on how spending decisions had influenced the year that had just passed.

For example - "we spent £500 on advertising in the Yellow Pages last year. How much business did this get us?" And from there you would check the referral database to see how much business came from the Yellow Pages, whether this was cost effective and whether it was something that should be repeated.

I like this method for the ability to relate the activity to cost and results, but it feels a little bottom-up in terms of how a company should be run.

I hope this gives you some ideas on how to consider where your business is in relation to where you want it to be.

Technology can help, but not for technology's sake

I'm just reading an article in the i newspaper about John Lewis plan for the use of technology in their stores. It involves the use of GPS to locate your position in the store and push notifications in their app to inform you of any offers in that part of the store. You will complete your shop on the app, and it will be picked and packed at the checkout waiting for you to pay. Do they know something that we don't? Do John Lewis and Waitrose customers shop in a different way to the rest of us?

I can't see that walking around the store looking at your phone is in any way a different or better experience than pushing round a trolley and selecting the items physically rather than digitally.

It's a gimmick.

I know a lot if peoe will probably use it when it's first launched and it will gain some publicity, but in the long term it will probably be consigned to the dustbin.

But technology can help retailers, but in the places that make a difference. Apps and mobile versions of retailers websites are a great way to engage your customers in your brand, your stores and your offers (without the reported cost of the John Lewis system above of £100,000.) Poundland sends incentives to customers to Pinterest, Tweet and Facebook their experiences and their purchase and this makes headway into social media networking markets. Friends may not immediately run out to Poundland upon reading about it, but will bear them in mind on their next trip to the High Street. It's this kind of social media networking that is making unseen inroads  into customers spending habits. The retailers with the best apps, best online offering and best social media links will probably win out over those that have great stores, but no more than that.

Click and Collect plays a massive part in this, and retailers of all shapes and sizes have become aware that they can still make the sale, even if the product us not in stock. Pay today and collect tomorrow, whether the buyer is in store, sat at home on a computer or browsing on their mobile phone is a great way to ensure that the business stays within your company - and that people don't shop around and look elsewhere. All retailers need is for the collection process to be smooth and streamlined to ensure that customers feel confident to follow the process again.

I witnessed a customer this morning in an unnamed High Street national chain go to the till to collect her parcel. The cashier asked her to wait while she found the delivery, and came back 2 minutes later to state that it wasn't there. Irate customer asked cashier to have another look and said that they wouldn't be doing this again. Cashier found item, but by this time there was a queue at the till, so the customer had to wait her turn to be served. All of this could and should have been much slicker and customer-friendly. A dedicated collection point, cashiers that are really clued up about their systems and an attitude of ownership of the situation make a great in-store collection experience.

Hope this helps.