Hey. It’s Bob Negen.

And Susan Negen.

And in this episode of Real Retail TV, you’re going to learn eight different ideas that we shared in a live Facebook event we did this week. These are ideas that you can use immediately in your business.

And the event was there to promote the virtual retail success summit.

Imagine Main Street.

Imagine Main Street. And right now, if you register, right now, you not only save, five hundred dollars, but you get a chance to win one thousand dollars. So you can click on the link below and learn more about the Retail Success Summit, retail success summit dot com. But it’s gonna be an awesome event.

You’re going to really, really want to be there.

What is this? Why why did you why did why did you stare at me?

We’re gonna talk about eight eight things in four different broad categories that you can pick up today and start to do these things to get control and take action regardless of economic ups, economic downs. It doesn’t matter. You guys can do these things and immediately start to, gain traction in your business.

And and one of the things that we’re going to talk about a little later, but I’m gonna sort of start with this, is this idea of always respond to stress with action.

You’re that’s the last thing.

I I know, but I’m gonna I’m gonna I’m gonna start it. And and you you know what I’m doing?

You’re bookending.

I’m bookending.

Oh, you’re so smart. Let those speakers drink here. They’re there. Alright.

Tell them what they’re gonna learn, then tell them what they learned.

So I’m like, that’s what I’m doing. Three marketing ideas. We’re gonna talk about three, like, almost instantaneous, cheap, fast marketing ideas that you can use to drive some traffic. So Good.

Number one, activate the pina colada principle. And for years, I’ve been teaching that you’re responsible for your traffic. You know? Chamber of Commerce isn’t responsible.

Your vendors aren’t responsible for coming up with a hot toy or whatever you sell. The name of the game is you need to drive traffic. And so I taught this concept for years, but then Misha Seto, you know, who’s been, you know, our friend for years and years, she’s she has twelve or thirteen stores in Lewis, Delaware. And it’s a beach business.

Beach town.

Yeah. Whenever it rains, she serves pina coladas. Right?

The rain typically suppresses traffic, not for Misha. Misha gets more traffic when it rains because she has a great idea. She created her own traffic. And so I took it from you’re responsible for your own traffic, which is boring, to the pina colada principle. And the pina colada principle says there’s always something you can do to drive traffic.

Yeah. Can I give you another example? The pina colada Of course. So Misha pours pina coladas when it’s raining. Uh-huh. You know? That’s her thing.

Our friend, Kelly Larson, Happy birthday, Kelly Larson, if you’re watching.

She she’s definitely one of our, favorite retailers here in Grand Haven, Michigan. She has an ice cream store in Michigan, and it’s open all year round. And so what she does in the winter when it’s snowing, she offers a discount on her ice cream cones. So it’s the same idea like you have an adversity, something that’s that’s, you know, maybe going wrong. What’s your antidote?

Be the speedboat.

Be the speedboat. What’s your antidote? You know, what’s your pina colada? You know, maybe maybe if you’re a toy store, if it’s, you know, if it’s raining, you have a mancala tournament every time it’s raining in your store or, you know, I don’t know.

What is it that what’s the thing that you can do?

Mencala, that’s a bad blast from the I love that game.

Right? It’s fun it would be fun to have a mencala tournament.

So what’s the thing that you can do to immediately send out an email, post on Facebook, and get people into your store? That’s your pina colada.

That’s, Plena. So our friend and mentor, Randy Gage says, there’s no shortage of money. There’s only a shortage of ideas. You’re smart creative people.

Find the idea, make things happen, employ the pina colada In the chat.

If you can if if this has sparked an idea, like, what are you gonna do? What’s your pina colada principle? Put it in chat. Let’s see what it’s gonna be.

Alright. There we go. Number two, send a thank you card to your top one hundred customers. You know, just you and your team, you know, when there’s nobody in the store, start writing cards. People love a handwritten card. You’ll make it even better and more powerful if you put a gift certificate with it. Not a coupon, a gift certificate.

So that’s another idea that you can ask them to come in and buy something in the card, Bob?

What’s that?

Should you ask them to come No.

You shouldn’t. This should just be a thank you. Yeah. You just hey. Thank you. If you what you’re doing is you’re showing your appreciation. You’re showing gratitude.

The gift certificate isn’t implied. Come on in and spend this.

Sure.

But, you know, at some level, gratitude, building that emotional bank account that we talk about is super, super important.

So Imagine if you send a thank you card to your top one hundred customers, how much stronger the bonds are with your company, how how many of them are gonna come in and shop with you right away just because they got a reminder about you.

Yeah. And Try this one.

So and and if you send out a hundred cards, my guess is that especially if you send out a gift certificate with it, you know, a sincere handwritten thank you, what what percentage do you think would be redeemed?

I think twenty percent, which is massively high. Is that what you think?

I was gonna say thirty because these are your top one hundred customers.

Yeah.

So, anyway, good. Okay.

Let’s go on to the third one.

That he said I wanna emphasize, handwritten thank you notes. Don’t just print a thank you letter and sign it. Write the thank you note. That makes a big difference. Personal, genuine thank you.

These are relationships.

So the the final thing is to walk your, business district with gift certificates.

So, and if you don’t let you know, if you’re not in a traditional downtown, you know, every town has business districts, strip centers, things like that. And we’re not gonna go into the nuts and bolts of gift certificate marketing. If you have the Retail Mastery System, you know all about it. If you’ve been part of this community for any amount of time, you know that gift certificate marketing, just giving somebody a gift certificate, you know, with only one line of fine print, please, only one gift certificate per person, is a powerful way to drive traffic, respond to stress with action. Get out, get some get print up some gift certificates, walk up and down the street, walk in to businesses, introduce yourself, give gift certificates to the owner, to whoever you talk to.

To the lawyer’s office, the accountant’s office, the dentist’s office, the the, what, chiropractor office, whatever.

Everybody. Yeah. You know? Yep.

But just get them out there like hotcakes. Get people in the store. The other thing that happens that, you know, I’m not trying to be metaphysical here, but, you know, there’s something about it. When you start to hustle, the universe sort of shifts for you. Right? And it it just starts to work. So these are three ideas that you can do.

Hustle. Hustle.

Let’s write about hustle.

Right?

Shoe leather marketing. Hustle. Get out there. Get the hustle.

Get Alright.

We’re gonna move on to buying.

Okay.

Buying. So these are a couple of ideas that you can use in your buying strategies, that are gonna help you do three things. Hopefully, maintain merchandise flow, really important right now, maintain your cash flow, and, and really try to keep your customer focus lens on your merchandise assortment as you go. So three quick things.

The first one, this comes from we talked about Misha Sato. This one comes from our friend Lisa Roberts, and this is when we were in the midst of COVID. And she was having trouble with her, you know, with her with her merchandise flow and her her it’s and so we had a long conversation with her. She was starting her a toy store.

She was opening her toy store in the middle of COVID, and she’s like, I don’t know what I’m getting. Like, okay. Here’s what you’re gonna do. And this is what I suggest you to.

Start a vendor scorecard. Just create a spreadsheet, and you’re gonna start to create a vendor scorecard that just has some key metrics about each one of your vendors so that you know, you know, where where you need to go to get your highest margin. So you like, on your scorecard, create a scorecard that has things like total sales, margin percentage for each, each vendor, gross margin return on inventory investment. If you’ve got the Retail Mastery System, go look up that stat in the financial management module.

Gross margin return on inventory investment. For every dollar that you spend, how much do you get out from that vendor? And and and then what is the you can just do some of them can be objective like this these scoring. Like, how important is this vendor to you overall in your business?

So start to do a vendor scorecard so that you can really, really pay attention to and focus on buying and creating the best relationships with the vendors that have the biggest impact on your business.

Okay? So start to create a little vendor scorecard, and, you know, do you have anything you wanna say about that?

No. No. I I think that that’s absolutely perfect. And especially when supply chains get a little wonky and they may because of tariffs.

Today is, you know, there’s gonna be a big announcement today about tariffs. We don’t know what’s gonna happen. Yep. But being very in tune with your inventory is so important. And the second thing we wanna talk about here is your relationships with your vendors becomes even more important. Yep.

You know, don’t treat your vendors like Adversaries.

Adversaries. You know, you really need them. And when you treat them with respect and dignity, they’re gonna treat you with respect and dignity.

You know, we learned this when we sold yo yos. I mean, we always everybody wanted yo yos. We took such good care of our vendors, and we were always the first order off the dock. So do this. Be very, very. It’s very important.

So tactically, what I think you need to do with this idea about creating strong vendor partnerships, after you’ve created your scorecard, now you’ve got maybe your top ten, your top twenty vendors, the ones that you know are key and critical for your merchandise flow.

Get on the phone, not an email, not a text, get on the phone and start having serious conversations with your vendors, and one of the first questions I want you to ask them is what can I do to help you? Guys, they are in they are feeling the same stress and uncertainty and all the things that that we’re feeling, so ask them how can I help you? What do you need me to do? Because we talk all the time about givers get. Right? So find out what your partners need and then don’t be afraid to ask for what you need also so that you’re giving you’re in exchange. But the the idea is really have that person to person conversation, and and start to build those strong bonds now.

Now. Now. Full stock.

Good. Good. Good. The final thing with inventory is go narrow and deep. Now is the time to be fully stocked in your best seller so that when your customers need what you sell, you know, now is not the time. You can try a little pockets of things, but be very, very strategic about your inventory management. Now let’s move on.

What now let’s talk about the number one thing we we believe that you should do when times are uncertain, and that is focus on every single customer who who comes into your store Mhmm.

And maximizing every opportunity, and that comes with sales training.

Yep.

Now, you know, we, you know, we we have the retail sales academy. That’s our recommendation is that you sign up for the retail sales academy and get your team through it and do all those things. But we we know that not everybody’s going to do that. So but do some sales training.

Have a meeting. Talk to your people about what you have, what are the key features and benefits. If you have some set selling skills, share it with them, but really, really focus on building the average ticket. The average ticket’s gonna be so important when times are uncertain because this is the traffic you already have.

So selling is so important. And the final thing here is your mindset.

Did you have something you wanted to say? I was gonna say something, but that’s okay.

Already running behind.

I know. Only by a minute.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Two minutes.

Alright. Go ahead.

Okay. If you go no. You go ahead.

I was just gonna say in with, you know, in terms of selling, I just wanna say this one thing is that, like, look guys, if you’ve got somebody in your store, you can’t afford not to have that every single interaction be amazing.

You can’t afford it. You can’t afford to lose an item off that sale. You can’t afford to lose that sale, and if it’s a crummy, you know, interaction you can’t afford to lose that customer. So you have to focus on that individual salesperson customer interaction.

Yeah. And, you know, just just ask yourself or better yet, you and and your team members go out into your town and go shopping and have everybody come back and say, hey. What kind of experience did you have? Because chances are you’re gonna have a whole bunch of really, really bad experiences, and that becomes the the the the starting point for conversations about let’s not be that store.

Let’s be the store where people get the great experience.

Here, babe, for my retail rumble. So Oh, I guess I knew that. Yes. You did know that.

Mommy and daddy are fighting. Yeah. There’s more water on this week. Alright.

Alright. Okay. Hope he likes so so that was eight.

And then the last one was always respond to stress with action.

Yeah. Yeah. And and I I wanna add one more thing about that. You know, when things get uncertain, double down on your stress reducing whatever you do.

You know? I mean, when you get stressed, go for a walk. Do the things that help you feel calm. Do the things that help you feel centered.

Do the things that help you stay positive and optimistic.

Yeah.

But taking action is one of the things that’s gonna do that.

I hope that you found those eight tips helpful. And the idea of always respond to stress with action is so important. And in this case, the response I’m asking you to consider is to register for the retail success summit. Right now, until the end of the month, you can save five hundred dollars.

Woo hoo.

You get a better than money back guarantee. If you’re not thrilled with the retail success summit at the end of day one, we’ll give you all of your money back plus five hundred dollars. We have a great lineup with some great speakers. You will leave inspired. You will leave with an action items list that you can take and use in your business.

Register today. You’ll be glad you did.