Well, hello, everybody. It’s Bob Negen. And in this episode of Real Retail TV, we are going to explore the smoke or blood rule.

I have had so many conversations with independent retailers that are frustrated. They feel like they can’t take a day off. Or if they take a day off, they are being bombarded with texts and phone calls from their team. They wanna know opinions.

They wanna decisions made, but there’s never a true free day. There’s never a true day off where this person is unplugged from their business. And it can be frustrating. It could be maddening.

You know, you’re out on the golf course. You’re having lunch with friends. You’re playing with your kids or your grandkids. You’re doing what you wanna do on your day off, and all of a sudden, it’s being interrupted by your team.

And it’s often being interrupted by your team with decisions that they should have been able to make themselves or conversations that didn’t need to happen.

So here, if that is you, here is what I am going to suggest. I would suggest that you institute the smoke or blood rule. And what is the smoke or blood rule? The smoker blood rule is the rule that you give to your team.

And it says, if there is not smoke or blood, do not get in touch with me. The building’s burning down, by all means, give me a call. If there’s a medical emergency, by all means, give me a call. Anything else, make a decision.

Figure it out.

Move on. Do something, but don’t call or text me. Now, when you do that, a couple there are a couple of really great benefits from the smoke and blood rule. And the first benefit is that you get to take days off.

So if you’re out on the golf course with your friends, if you’re out on a hike, if you’re at lunch, if you’re playing with your kids or your grandkids, if you got a game of bridge going, I don’t know whatever it is that you’re doing, you get to be there. You get to be present in an activity other than your business, and this is a beautiful, beautiful feeling knowing that you indeed have the whole day off. So that freedom that comes from the smoke and smoke or blood rule is really, really important. It may not seem big, but it’s important.

But there’s a couple of other benefits also. And the the other two benefits is, first of all, you get to, show your team that you trust them. You are empowering them to make decisions.

And guess what? That trust, Trust is a leadership gift. When you trust your team, they feel better about themselves in context of your business. They feel better about you.

You know, this is leadership. Leadership is about giving things up. And when you give up the need to make every decision, your team is gonna step into that and make good decisions for you when you don’t have to make the decision. The third, benefit is that you have an opportunity to coach.

Look, when you first start instituting this rule, your your team members are going to make decisions that you may not agree with.

And that’s okay. This is part of the process. Right? But this also opens the door to coaching.

You get to talk to them about why they made the decision. You get to ask them questions about their thought process. You get to share with them your thought processes. You get a chance to coach.

Now, almost always, coaching should be positive.

Don’t make this about they made a wrong decision.

Make this about you made a decision. Thank you for not calling me. Now let’s walk this through.

So if you keep it positive, they won’t take offense. And even if they take offense, it doesn’t matter. The smoke or blood rule means you don’t call me. You have to be prepared to deal with the results no matter what happens. But I guarantee you that if you institute the smoke or blood rule in your business, you will get a lot more freedom. And after all, this is one of the reasons you opened your store is freedom.

So institute it. Watch it. You’re going to love it, I promise.

All right. I’m Bob Negen. And of course, we’re going to see you again next week.