Hey, it’s Bob Negen and today we have a Man On The Street episode of Real Retail TV. And actually, I am in my hometown of Grand Haven, Michigan. My office has a window that faces here, and I’ve seen this banner, these banners so many times and it makes me really sad.

“Grand Haven Jewelry is closed after 70 years, thank you for all those years of patronage”.

When I came to Grand Haven, Grand Haven Jewelers was IT. It was the preeminent jeweler in Grand Haven by a mile. And now they’re closed, while there are other jewelers in Grand Haven that are thriving. Now, it’s entirely possible that they chose to close their store, but I’ve worked with, you know, dozens of people who have closed their stores not because they chose to, they didn’t want to, but they couldn’t continue because they weren’t making it. And almost always it’s because they didn’t change. That’s what I want to talk about today, I want to talk about change.

The world is changing so fast. My friend Randy Gage wrote a book: “Risky Is The New Safe”. It used to be safe was the new safe, now risky is the new safe. Charles Darwin, there’s a quote attributed to him where he said “It’s not the strongest species that survive. It’s not the smartest species that survive. The species that survive are the species that change”. So if you’re just standing still, you’re moving backwards. If you’re hoping that things are going to get better, and hoping that things will change, you’re going out of business.

Your job, if you want to be successful, and I don’t mean a little bit successful, I mean really really really you want to go out there and crush it. You want to be the market leader in your town. You want to be the best business in your industry, you have to embrace change. Not just be open to it, you have to embrace change. You have to be willing to fail. You have to be willing to fail fast. You have to be willing to fail forward. Change is the thing that will give you a competitive advantage. When you’re willing to try, when you’re willing to put it out there, when you’re willing to be your most authentic self in the best way possible, great things are going to happen for you and to you. What I don’t want to happen to you is this. So I’m Bob Negen, it’s in Grand Haven, it’s cold! We’ll see you next time!