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

Unseasonable weather needent mean a huge drip in sales

A short share today - I'm just reading about Next warning that the good weather has hot their sales and cost them a potential £25m in lost profits.

I'd like to point out that Next and other retailers still can make money in good weather as well as bad. They may gave sold off a lot of Summer stock in their last sale but it's unlikely that their customers will have been shopping for swimwear instead of winter coats - the weather hasn't been that good!

Retailers have analysts galore to loom at all sorts of trends from weather to the harvests of the produce they sell, so it's unlikely that the recent good weather will have been totally unpredicted.

The stock that all retailers, especially the local entrepreneurial type I envisage reading this blog, have sat in stockrooms or storage will get its turn when the weather does eventually turns cold (it will, it's the UK.) It's just ensuring that you are ready to trade 100% when this happens.

Stsrt to make sure that you can access this stock at short notice, that it's listed on your main and mobile websites and that it's available now via Click &Collect if not already in store. It's by having these conrngemcies in pomace, and by having great conversations with your customers that you will be in the optim position to reap the rewards when the template is right.

If your retail unit is affected by the weather via what stock you carry, then stay tuned to the medium and long range forecasts, as they can and will give you an indicator of the general trading conditions you are likely to face, and give you pointers on how to react.

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.