Hey. It’s Bob Negen. And if you are a little stressed out because times are uncertain or sales are slow, this episode of Real Retail TV is for you.

So let’s talk about what to do if you are stressed about uncertainty or your sales are down. The reason I’m making this episode of Real Retail TV is recently, on our in our whiz bang retailers Facebook page, somebody said sales are down twenty five percent. I’m nervous. It’s it’s it’s making me a little scared. And then, like, seventy five people piled on, and people said things like horrible inflation is happening, or the US economy has to grow, or we’re all in trouble. And you know what I have to say to that?

I say bullshit.

So listen. There’s twenty seven trillion dollars in the US economy.

All you have to do is get your fair share.

So what happens is and I know because, you know, when I was in retail, I lived through three recessions. Since we started whiz bang training, I’ve lived through one. I’ve almost gone broke twice. So I’ve been there. I’ve been in those stressful situations.

And here’s what I know.

You have to respond to stress with action.

If you let fear dictate your behavior, you’re going to be in trouble.

So you have to respond to stress with action. I’m gonna give you a couple of ideas in just a second. But my first action item, if you’re feeling that kind of stress is, you know, quit watching the news. You know, here in the US, we have a presidential election coming up in just a few short weeks.

And, you know, all of this uncertainty is driving the news cycles, and people are using the economy both for and against. You know, it’s just part of the political play that’s happening out there. So try to get out of your news feed and try to quit getting bad news coming into your brain.

So, you know, respond to stress with action. That’s the first thing.

Do something. So here are some things that you can do.

The first thing that you can do is you can work on doing more with the customers who are already coming into your store. What do I mean by that? I mean, build the average ticket.

I have a coaching client, who’s got sixty eight stores, shoe stores in Hungary right now. And inflation is truly a big problem in Hungary. In Hungary, it was hot. And if you’re in back to school and you’re trying to sell four goods and it’s ninety degrees, it’s a problem. And so he’s down. And we were talking about strategies.

Number one strategy, do more with the traffic you already have.

Average ticket. Get your team focused on selling.

If you don’t have the retail sales academy, this is a perfect opportunity to consider it, to check it out, maybe sign up, get your people on it, get them trained, build that average ticket. Because if you have less traffic but a higher average ticket, that higher average ticket offsets the decrease in traffic.

The second thing that I’m going to recommend is, activity, activity, activity, and not just random activities, money making activities.

Random social posts are not activity. A Facebook live is activity.

Doing more promotions in your store, that is money making activity.

So ramp up the numb the activity that you’re doing to get more people in your store and build that average ticket. You see, when you start thinking about more, building your average ticket and doing more with the traffic you already have, that is will give you momentum. That is responding to stress with action.

The final thing that I wanna talk to you about is managing your cash.

When times are uncertain, this is a great time for you to put off big capital improvements to you know, if you’re thinking about getting a new point of sale system, you might wanna wait till you get things back in order. You wanna protect your cash. Cash is king.

So you wanna pay attention to your cash. And so what is the number one cash investment you probably have in your business? It’s your inventory.

So what I’m suggesting is that you sell down all of your dogs. You get your inventory lean and mean, and you’re very, very careful about what you buy. I’m not saying you buy down to the bone. I’m saying you’re careful with what you buy because cash is king.

Inventory is your number one cash investment, so pay attention to that. So let’s sort of review. Number one, pay attention to the way you think. Keep your mindset forward.

Keep your mindset positive.

Respond to stress with action. How do you respond to stress with action?

More activity. There’s just something about doing something that gives you momentum.

Pay attention to your cash and finally, and perhaps most importantly, get focused on sales training so you do the absolute most with the traffic you already have.

So I hope that you found that helpful. If you have any other ways that you combat, you know, that the stress that comes from uncertainty, put them down below. I would love to hear about them. Alright, everybody. I’m Bob Negen. We’ll see you next week.