See why you shouldn't manage your retail shop in the style of Jose Mourinho

There are real lessons to be learnt from the tenure and sacking of Jose Mourinho at Chelsea. His second stint in charge of the club finally came to an end yesterday, after weeks of speculation. It's always difficult to totally understand why someone loses their job when you view it from the outside. Like most businesses, football is a results-driven business so it's on the field that makes the difference. But there has been a continual message from Mourinho this season. It has undermined his own position. There's a common phrase bandied around in situations like this -"he lost the changing room." It means that the players (or at least some of them) stopped playing at 100% for him. When this is one or two from a squad of around thirty players then it's easy to not pick them. If this spreads and significant players stop pulling their weight then it's a major problem.

Mourinho very publicly chastised the medical team early in the season as this caused immediate disharmony. He has since hung his players out to dry on more than one occasion. Whether this caused the rift with the dressing room or exacerbated it isn't clear but there was most definitely a rift.

What does this mean for me?

Well, as a retail manager and leader of people, you need to be vary of the Mourinho effect. It's by having your team on board with your message and your vision that gets the team working for you. This doesn't mean that you never discipline them, just that you never hang them out to dry.

And it's by having this vision and explaining it, reinforcing it, singing it's praises and celebrating it's successes that your team know where you are all going.

Did Jose Mourinho have a lack of vision? Maybe not but I think his communication of the vision became garbled and this can lose the team just as easily. He went from proclaiming his team to chastising them, from stating he was building a dynasty to talk or only staying for a few years. It's this lack of consistency that also undermined his authority. I use the word authority to mean something different to just power or bring in charge. Authority as a leader includes having people listen to you, understand what you  say and respond with their actions.

If your team don't know how to respond because what you are saying contradicts your overall vision (or what you said last week) then you lose credibility.

So overall you need to remember to-

• Have a vision
• Communicate your vision
• Keep communication levels up
• Be consistent

It will help you all to achieve your goals. Start by thinking about what your vision is for your team and take it from there.

Stop team members becoming invisible and motivate to success

I've been working with a management team this week and been looking at employee engagement. One of the things that has really struck me was the feeling from some of team that they are invisible, particularly to their management structure above them. This isn't a feeling from the newer team members, who seem to get a lot of time and attention as they learn the ropes and settle in. It is a feeling that is harboured by team members who have been there for quite some time, know their job inside out and just come in and get on with it. At first I found this to be a bit of a surprise, that the reliable team members were feeling invisible. But on further thought it felt true. If someone just comes on and does there bit then it is often only noticed when they are in holiday, off sick or leave. There's this gaping hole where the employee used to be. The problem is twofold - management teams not leaving colleagues feeling invisible, and colleagues being motivated to keep coming back for more. Now this is an issue for management teams all over the world-

How do you motivate team members who have been doing the same job for years.

And I must admit it's been a problem for me in my work career. I often get bored if doing the same thing over and over. I've changed jobs, changed companies, changed locations and changed industries when I feel like it's time to do something different.

Managers

The fact that team members don't feel recognised is down to management complacency. And as a team manager, it's about being present on the coal face every day. As a manager, you should have a conversation with every team member every day. They should feel that you understand what is happening to them today and if there's anything you can help with. To appreciate someone's contribution can often just be about saying "thank you." Along with a genuine, meaningful reason of why you are thanking them, this can have a massive effect - no more invisible employees!

Colleagues

If you're not in the management team and perhaps feel invisible or demotivated then works to your line manager. A conversation can be started by you, as much as by your line manager. Tell them your concerns and see what can be done about them. By being frank and discussing the situation, you can establish what to do next.

Looking back at 100 blog posts - part 2 - your team

I've been looking back and celebrating 100 blog entries on my popular retail blog. In the first of these reviews, I looked at the High Street. My blog is about how to save the UK High Street and I set it up with the intention of looking at the issues that affect the High Street itself. In and around that are the areas that make retailers successful - as a successful set of retailers will mean a successful High Street.

The second review, here, is looking at the management of teams. I find that many of my readers are independent retailers who have a team around them. My other main group of readers is people who work for larger retail organisations and are looking to improve and develop their skills every day. I have looked in a different blog at you should attempt to keep learning and improving all the time-

http://eaboost.blogspot.com/2015/09/do-you-read-do-you-continue-to-learn.html

In this following blog, I look at how you organise your team to cover the weekend, where most retailers are busier-

http://mytimeinretail.blogspot.com/2015/03/staffing-at-weekend-how-do-you-manage.html

It's very important that you as a retailer are ready for your trade and prepared long before they walk through the door. It's only by providing a great service that you turn your customers into brand ambassadors and have them not only returning time and time again, but bringing their friends and family with them.

And in this one, I look at ensuring that you are consistent in your management decisions to ensure that your team are engaged-

http://mytimeinretail.blogspot.com/2015/07/a-lack-of-consistency-frustrates-your.html

And I also take a look at short-staffing and where it can lead you and your team-

http://mytimeinretail.blogspot.com/2015/05/how-to-avoid-being-short-staffed-and.html

It is really important that your team feels on board with the decisions that are made. This involves communicating your ideas and goals with them team. But it also involves ensuring that each and every small decision fits into the big picture. Your team can get really disheartened if they work hard towards a goal and then feel that the rug has been pulled from under them. A very short example-

If all the work that the team had pout in to clinching a particular client was then undermined if the client withdrew their business because of a personal dispute with someone high up in your company.

And finally, I look at how to reward those in your team that exceed or excel. It's important that you reward those in your team that make the business a success. To have people work hard (again) and not reward them is dispiriting. Yo verbally, personally reward someone for a good shift, hard work, a particularly good sale will improve the morale of the whole team-

http://mytimeinretail.blogspot.com/2015/01/how-do-you-reward-your-high-flyers.html

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.

New financial year - new start

For many of you, a new financial year will have just started. Many UK retailers have a year that follows the financial and tax years, so how has it started? What have you done differently?

Every business needs a degree of regeneration and freshness at times and a new year with all it brings is a great time to do this.

If you are an individual retailer, or reading this as a store manager for a big corporate chain, there's something about this time of year that often brings out a void in communications between the top and the bottom. And this is the exact opposite of how it should happen. Now is the time to ramp up the communication levels and get your team inspired to start the new financial year with a bang. The worst thing to do here is to wait for the analysis of the last year to happen before you kick-start the plans and motivation for the new year. I've worked in many large High Street retailers where there is this void. The new year has started but things like staffing budgets, sales targets, etc have been formally set. It just doesn't work and often leaves the stores having a poor start to the year that takes time to catch back up. So how can this be avoided?

Keep last year in focus

It's important to base this year's plans and budgets based in the performance of the previous year. But waiting to analyse the results leave a gap in the year without real impetus. The way around this is to have a grip on how you are performing all year round, with a solid idea of how you'll finish the year. This allows you to plan forward and set up the incoming year.

Ensure continuity

Keep your plans for the new year ready to move straight in at the right point. Now some of this will be having an annual plan that somewhat resembles the long-term plan, as it should. The fact that your long-term business plan has been thought out and put in place should ensure that you are not lurching from one set of objectives to another just because an arbitrary line has been reached.

Communication is key

The plans must be communicated right through the organisation, from the directors to those in the shop floor in enthusiastic, complete terms. The way that this communication is delivered and received is paramount in its potential success. Having an organisation enthused by the direction the company is going in and all working towards the same agreed, understood goals will make a huge difference to your organisation.

A little change does no harm

I've never been a fan of change for the sale of change, but a little variety in how the company performs certain tasks or how a company goes about achieving certain objectives isn't always harmful. I'm still not advocating lurching from one set of objectives to another, but I think that retail can get monotonous, and changing the way you go about achieving your long-term goals can sometimes be beneficial to your team as a whole.

This all stems down to organisation - being on top of your figures and having structured long-term goals will always put you ahead of your less-organised rivals.