Hey, it’s Bob Negen, and in this episode of Real Retail TV we’re going to explore your number one competitive advantage. This is such important information. So, what is your number one competitive advantage? What makes you, what gives you the ability to stand out, to, uh, to not only compete, but to beat Amazon, the online brands, the big box stores, and it’s this, it’s your ability to give your customers an amazing experience. So I’m gonna explore that in just a moment, but the first thing I wanna share is that the first part of the customer experience is having a team that knows how to give a great experience. You see, you can create the best-looking store ever. You can bring in all the hottest brands. You can do all of those things, but if you don’t have a great team out there skillfully engaging your customers, the experience is always going to be subpar. You have to train your people. You have to educate them on the fundamentals, the things they need to know to give your customers the service they deserve to make you Your business stand out from the competition. So let’s go back to this idea of the customer experience. So when I’m on the road, one of the things that I love to do is to shop independent retailers. And I’ll go into a town and I’ll walk in the stores, you know, I shop, you know, I would window shop or if somebody engages me, I buy. But here’s what I always do when I’m in a town. In my head, there’s this little thing called an engagement ometer. And you know, in the old cartoons, you’ll see a, you know, and if somebody if a town really nails it, there will be great engagement. But here’s what I find in most of the downtowns, in most of the shopping districts, and most of the uh shopping centers I visit, the vast majority of the independent retailers in that area, the vast majority of the independent retailers I visit, just have subpar experiences, and it absolutely drives me crazy. Think about your own experience. Have you ever gone into a store and you go, you walk in and you go, man, this store looks awesome. The merchandise is beautiful. Clearly, they’ve spent a ton of money on branding, on signage, on fixtures, you know, it looks great. And then you don’t even get helped. Or maybe there’s uh what we call the Roomba. Our friend Lewis calls it the Roomba experience. You know, a Roomba is one of those uh vacuums that gets out of its dock, vacuums the floor and goes back into the dock. He calls them Roomba employees. A customer comes in, they come out from behind the counter, go up to the customer, say, Can I help you? The customer says, No, thank you, I’m just looking, and then they retreat and dock themselves in the safety of behind the counter. Have you ever had that happen to you? And here’s what I know, is that when it, it’s often not because the team members are indifferent, it’s often not because they don’t want to do a good job. They just haven’t been educated, they haven’t been trained. So if you’re serious about really creating a great culture, if you’re serious about, you know, again, cre cre giving your customers the service they deserve, I want to encourage you to recognize that it starts with training. I really want you to think about that idea. The idea is, am I giving my team members what they need to go out on the floor and be successful? If the answer is no, you know the work you have to do. If the answer is yes, good for you. We’ll see you next week.