Hey, it’s Bob. And in this episode of Real Retail TV, we’re going to explore Needohs, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

So I’m in front of Mack Kite right now, and Mack Kite is my old retail business that I had for nineteen years, and now it’s owned and run by my brother and my sister-in-law, Lynn. And Lynn runs this store. But a couple of days ago, was walking down the street at about eight thirty in the morning here in Grand Haven, and there was a line that went from Mack Kite down about five storefronts at eight thirty in the morning and everybody was in line to get needles. And it got me reflecting because I’ve lived through the yo yo booms, Beanie Babies, this And it got me reflecting on crazes and what a craze means and and the good, the bad, the ugly.

So let’s talk about the good.

The good is you gotta love a hot product. You gotta love something that sells itself. You gotta love the cash that comes from a hot product that sells itself. You gotta love the new customers who come into your store because they’re looking for this hot product.

So I would never, never, never begrudge anybody for being enthusiastic about a Needoh or a Beanie Baby or something like that. So that’s the good. Lots of money, lots of new customers, lots of excitement. I was talking to Lynn.

They’ve got eleven hundred people on their text notification list right now. Everybody waiting, waiting to hear from me when Lynn gets in Nido’s. So that’s the good of the bad. So I was talking to Lynn about Neato’s and she seemed a little, I don’t know, apprehensive.

She didn’t seem as enthusiastic as I thought she would be. And as we I explored it more, what she said was that needles are not who Mack Kite really is. I mean, it’s a great product. They sell toys.

They sell kites. But really, she says, what we do is we bring families together with play. And this is great, but it’s not really it’s not really what they do. It’s not really who they are.

And so that was part of it. So it didn’t quite fit philosophically. Of course, she got over it for the sales. But the other thing that she said that was very interesting is, you know, when times are lean, you really, really develop good habits, particularly if you’re a good merchant. Particularly if you’re a good merchant. You train your people how to sell, you coach them, you really work on sales selling skills, retail sales academy, you know, our best clients are all about the retail sales academy.

So you work really hard to get your people into great habits, and then all of a sudden they’re out of the habits because when somebody walks in the door, instead of greeting them and getting into a good conversation and asking good questions, they just say, yep, you want a needle. So the good habits that are developed in lean times fall to the wayside during a craze. So that’s the bad.

The good outweighs the bad, by the way. And then the ugly. I remember during the Beanie Baby craze, a business that grew into three stores because they were cash rich and they thought they were really smart. Cash rich thought they were smart, but they weren’t really smart. They weren’t really good merchants. They just happened to have an account with Ty. They just happened to be able to get in Beanie Babies.

And so they overestimated their skills. They overestimated how good they were as merchants. And because they were excited about where they were and I don’t blame them, they were crushing it.

And, you know, and they were ready to grow. They expanded too quickly for their skills and ended up going out of business. If they would have grown organically, if they would have grown sort of in a natural curve, not a curve, they probably because they were good people and smart people, they probably would have developed the chops to grow intelligently. But because they got this huge infusion of cash from Beanie Babies, they grew well stupidly and it costs them their business. So there it is. The good, the bad, the ugly about Needoh’s. If you have a Nido account, if you’re buying Needoh’s from Schilling right now, I would love to hear about your experience, and I would love to hear about what you think about what I just share.

And finally, you should be getting this on Sunday. If you watch this on Sunday or Monday, the Retail Success Summit starts on Tuesday. If you haven’t registered yet, register now. It’s going to be absolutely fantastic.

And there is a better than money back guarantee. Come to the summit. You’re not thrilled? We’ll give you all your money back plus five hundred dollars We take all the risk away from you.

We guarantee we better than money back guarantee that you’re going to have the kind of experience that will have a huge impact on your business and your future. All right, everybody. I’m Bob. We’ll see you soon.

Bye.