Well, hey, everybody. It’s Bob Negen, and in this episode of Real Retail TV we’re going to explore 3 ways to make your standards stick. So before we get into talking about standards, I would like to uh encourage you to right now, go over, uh, to the click on the link below because right now, today is the last day when you can get the retail money machine which is normally 190. $7. Today is the last day for you to get it for $17. And if you want to learn how to consistently drive traffic for only $17 fully guaranteed, now is the time to do it. Again, last day, retail money machine, only $17 click on the link below. OK. So, let’s talk about standards. In this episode was prompted by a television ad from Takoba’s Boots. In the, in the ad, they said, time doesn’t make something timeless. Standards do. Brilliant, beautiful, isn’t it? Toova’s boots, they’ve obviously, I don’t know them. I don’t have a pair of their boots, but clearly they’re standing behind the quality of their boots because what they’re saying is that we build our boots to such a high standards that the quality itself is timeless. It’s not about the company being around for a long time. It’s about the boots being so great. And the exact same thing is is true with your customer experience. If you want your customers to get a consistently, and this is really an important word, a consistently great experience, you have to establish really, really great standards, telling people what to do, how to do it, do it, when to do it, so that everything that you know. is important to your customer’s experience is done the same way every single time. It is done to standards, and I absolutely love the concept of non-negotiable standards. Susan and I learned about this listening to a program by Harry Friedman. Harry Friedman was a retail guy that was around for a long time. And when he talked about this idea of non-negotiable standards, both of us were like, wow, that’s so, so valuable to understand that. You see, we knew what needed to be done, but just having those words, non-negotiable standards gave us a concept to hang our hats on. And understand that, recognize that non-negotiable standards, a standard that everyone, including you, adhere to every single time. End of story, period. You know, uh, we had in Mackinaw City. We had the world’s only seasonal McDonald’s right next door. And every year, we would retrain our team no matter how long they had been with us, and we would talk about our non-negotiable standards, and I would say, look, these are our non-negotiable standards. You adhere to them or you can make more money next door at McDonald’s, but if you work here, this is what you do and this is how you do it. That commitments, that important. So, How do you make no, how do you make your standards stick? And the first thing, the first really important thing is they have to be written correctly. Most people, when they communicate their standards, they communicate their standards in the language of responsibility. They tell people what to do, but if you want to get real consistency, you don’t tell people what to do. You tell them what to do and you tell them how to do it. So, a responsibility is what to do, a behavior is how to do it. When you train people, if you want your standards to stick, you’re always communicating in the language of behaviors. Let me give you an example. Wash the windows. Is washing window, is that a responsibility of what to do or a behavior? How to do it? Well, of course, it’s a what to do. But if you just tell somebody, wash the windows, the problem is, is that their interpretation of a clean window could be entirely different than your interpretation of a clean window, which is why it’s so important that you communicate in the language of behaviors, a how to do it. Let me give you the example of wash the windows in the language of behaviors. Wash the windows inside and out to the corners and the edges until there are no streaks or smudges, and you put the stuff away. So the question is, what is clearer? And the answer is, of course, the second one. And if you want people doing things the way that you want them done, you must write your standards in the language of behaviors. Quick story. A couple of years ago, Troy Fagan, who owns a hobby store, put in our WhizBang! retailers Facebook group, which I would encourage you to join, by the way. The headline was Bob was right. I always loved those headlines. That’s the kind of headlines I like to read. And what he shared was that he heard me tell the window washing story in a live seminar several years ago, and when he heard it, he thought it was, his words were, I think, preposterous that no one should be told how to wash a window, but what he shared in his body. Of his right post is that he had someone vacuum the floor and he did a terrible job. This person did a terrible job. And Troy’s realization was, unless you show, teach somebody exactly how to do it, you cannot have expectations that it’s going to be done the way that you want it done. So he had to go back and rewrite his standards on how to vacuum a floor. So, think about the things that happen in your business that aren’t done the way that you want them to be done and Ask yourself, am I teaching this? Am I training this? Am I educating this in the language of behaviors or am I doing this in the language of responsibility? Because responsibilities is not going to get you what you want. The second secret to getting your standards stick is, uh, you have to communicate them consistently. And so, what do I mean by that? I mean that once you have a standard, you can’t just communicate it once, you have to revisit it, you have to revisit it. This is, and you have to, uh, especially with new hires, you have to train to it, you have to educate to it. So, I used to say, if it ain’t written, it ain’t real when it comes to communicating your standards, but more and more, I am convinced that video-based education and video-based training is a better option than a SOP manual. Why? Because when people learn via video, they’re getting more senses engaged. You read, you know, you’re reading the words, not. Everybody recomprehends, comprehends, you know, has high reading comprehension, but if they’re watching a video, they’re listening to it, they’re watching it, and oftentimes they’re reading along. So, but it has to be someplace so that everyone is getting the information from the same source in the same way. So you have to communicate your standards consistently. And by the way, if you want to build a video-based training program where you’re communicating your standards, I’d encourage you to go to retail Brilliance.com Brilliance and look at The Nest, your custom course because it’s a place where you can build your training program and put your videos in there so that your team members are getting that, that information. The same place, the same way with the same passion. So the second secret is consistent communication. The third secret, and this is probably the, that’s not the most important, but it’s often not done correctly, is you need to be ferociously committed to your non-negotiable standards. Look, let’s just recognize your team probably likes it the way it is. The status quo is by definition, comfortable. And if you’re going to change your business, if you’re going to change your standards, if you’re going to Up your game by creating higher standards, you’re going to have to pull your team out of their comfort zone and get them into another comfort zone. That second comfort zone being the comfort zone in adherence to your non-negotiable standards. And often, owners and managers like the idea of having higher standards, but then they don’t make the commitment to driving those standards down to the store level. Give you an example. You decide that it becomes a non-negotiable standard that every single person who comes to the counter is asked if they wanna join your loyalty program. Well, it gets busy and there’s a long line and they don’t feel like it anymore or you don’t pay attention to it. And so the first couple of weeks when you’re committed to it, you watch your loyalty program membership rise, rise, rise, rise, rise. Your commitment lags, the participation lags. Attention. Flows where your, uh, I mean, energy flows where your attention goes. When you pay attention, they pay attention. So if you have a standard in your brain and you have written it correctly and you have put it into a training program or however you communicate it, but if you don’t, if you’re not committed to it, it’s going to go away until it becomes part of the culture of your business. It’s going to go away. So that’s why you have to drive it down, drive it down, drive it down, drive it down. And then one day, it will just be the way it is. You know, Seth Godin defines culture as people like us doing things this way. And once the standard has been driven down, once it becomes part of the culture, everybody does it. I’ll give you one more really, really valuable example here. If you put your team, if you make a commitment to making your team great salespeople. And you make a commitment to using the retail sales academy to train your salespeople, I guarantee you that you will see a 15 to 25% lift in your average ticket. That’s just what happens. When people learn how to sell effectively, they sell more. So you’re getting a 20%, let’s just say the number is 20 20%. You get a 20% increase in your sales without getting any more traffic. Sounds good, right? People go, this is a great idea. I need to do this. So they sign up for the retail sales Academy, they assign their people, and then they expect things to magically change. And here’s the sad news, folks. It only changes when you make it change. The main reason we hear that people, you know, stop their subscription to the retail sales Academy is my people won’t do it. So what does that tell me? It tells me that they’re not committed enough to the change. They’re not committed enough to a new standard to get the results of the commitment to that change. And when I say a ferocious commitment, it means that you as an owner, as an owner, you as an owner. You as an owner and your managers have to be ferociously committed to the change, and that means it’s gonna be uncomfortable for you, it’s gonna be uncomfortable for your team, but if you stay with it, they’re going to stay with it, and eventually, the change is going to become part of the culture and the benefits that you knew you would. Get from that change will be yours. And it’s much, much easier to maintain a standard than it is to establish a standard. So, I mean, to drive it down and make it part of the culture. So, there it is. Those are your three ways to make your standard stick. Number 1, they need to be. Written correctly in the language of behaviors. Number 2, they need to be communicated consistently, whether it’s in an SOP manual or better yet, on a training platform like Brilliance. And number 3, you need to be ferociously committed to that change in order for you to drive it down and make it part of that, of your culture. And to reap the benefits from that change. I think that that’s so important. If it’s worth making a non-negotiable standard, it’s worth doing the work. It’s hard work. It’s not always easy, you know, change is difficult, but the change that it means. It’s worth it. It’s hard work, but it’s good work. It’s the right work. It’s the work that I’m encouraging you to take on for yourself. So, there it is. I hope that this gets you thinking about how you can build a better experience, about how you can build a timeless experience in your business, and if you have any questions or comments, please put them down below. I would love to hear from you.