Well, hello, it’s Bob, and in this episode of Real Retail TV, we’re going to explore when’s a good time to open that second store.

So I have had this conversation countless times. When should I open that second store? I’ve also had the conversation countless times as I opened my second store when I wasn’t ready to open my second store. So let’s explore that that whole idea. And but before we do, I want to say that on brilliance, our training platform, our educational platform for independent retailers, all the courses are on sale right now. So if you want a great deal on highest quality retail education, go to RetailBrilliance dot com and check it out. I’m really glad I’m I’m really sure you’ll be glad you did.

But let’s go back to this idea of when’s a good time to open your second store. The short answer is when you’ve got your first store totally dialed in or at least eighty to eighty five percent of the way dialed in. What does that mean? So first, let’s say this. Let’s talk about an important truth. And that important truth is that running two stores is an entirely different business than running one store.

In one store, you’re there, you’re seeing what’s going on, you’re walking through, even if you’re not on the floor, you’re really generally in touch with your business and your store. When you have two stores, your focus gets distracted. And when your focus gets distracted, your one store, your first store almost inevitably starts to start to suffer.

Quick story. Story of the Mackinac Kite Company, Bob and Steve Nagan.

Two brothers, one store. We were doing great. So we thought we’d open a second store. Two brothers, two stores.

We still did pretty well. It wasn’t as good as both of us being in that Mackinac City store, but there was one brother in each store. So we were still doing all right. Then we opened a store in Charlevoix, you know, Charlevoix, Michigan.

They came and man, they they wanted us to open a store in this little mini mall they had downtown. And it was flattering. It was validating.

And this happens all the time to people who open their second store, perhaps prematurely. Somebody comes and their desire to have them open a store wherever they are is really gratifying. It’s real. It’s a real ego booster.

So we were all in. So we opened a third store. So now it’s three stores, two brothers. And that was the first time we almost went broke.

We weren’t operationally ready for more stores than brothers. And that is what happens all the time. Your attention, your energy gets you to a place where one store is successful and then you think you are ready. Dan Sullivan has a great quote about or no, it wasn’t Dan Sullivan is Marshall Goldsmith.

What got you here won’t get you there. And so what got you to success with one store won’t get you to success with two. So really, it’s about several things, but mostly it’s about mindset, skill set and structure. We’re not going to go into the mindset of it, but basically you have to be mentally prepared to learn to grow.

You have to have a real growth mindset. You have to be very resilient. You have to be super flexible because things are not going to go the way that you want them to go. You have to be skilled.

And that’s why, you know, if you don’t have the retail mastery system or you’re not investing in education on a place like Brilliance, if you’re not skilled, it’s opening that second store is going to be painful, perhaps even cost you your business. So you have to be a skilled retailer. That means you need to know how to market your business, not hope that people come in, but proactively drive people in. You need to know how to manage your inventory, not walk around with a white legal pad and take orders.

You need to have somebody on your team who is a skilled planner, whether it’s you hire somebody or whether you have somebody, you bring somebody in. But you have to have a skilled planner on your team. You have to have the skill of managing and leading people. You have to have operational skills.

You know, in the retail mastery system, there’s a lot I can’t do it with my there’s eleven skills. And all of those skills are necessary for you to really, really build a great business. And you can get away with not having all of them and successfully open a second store. But you have to have most of them.

And then the third part of this is structure. So let’s kind of talk about the structural pieces that I highly, highly, highly recommend you have in place before you even consider opening that second store. And the first thing is an organizational chart so that you understand what we call roles and souls. You understand the jobs that need to be done in your business, the roles and the souls.

S O U L. Who in your business is doing those jobs? What souls are filling what roles?

Because until you have clearly defined who’s doing what, everybody does a little bit of something and nobody does anything completely or correctly. I’ve been I’ve seen this happen too often. So having a simple organizational chart and having it filled out and having those roles defined is really important, especially as you start to dilute your attention with a second store.

The next thing is an open to buy plan. I mentioned that earlier. This is a structural piece. Whether you hire a buying service, which is what I recommend for most independent retailers, or you learn that skill yourself, you need to have an open to buy because if when you open that second store, guess what’s going to happen?

You’re just going to start bringing stuff in. And the next thing you know, you’re going to be way overstocked in the things that don’t sell, that doesn’t sell, and you’re going to be understocked and under cash with. So you’re going to be understocked in your best sellers and you’re going to be running low on cash. You know, I’ve seen it happen all the time and open to buy will keep you disciplined so that your money stays in the bank, not sits on your shelf.

So having an open to buy plan is that second structural piece.

The third structural piece is a training program and what a training program does. And again, you can build your own company’s training program and house it on brilliance called the custom course. I would absolutely look at it. But when you have a training program in place, everyone is getting the same information.

Everyone is taught the same the same standards, the same way from the same person. So you have a consistency in training, which leads to a consistency in performance, and it leads to a consistency in performance across both stores. If you don’t have a training program in place, you’re going to have to depend on managers and you and osmosis. And face it, you’re going to be overwhelmed opening that second store.

And what’s probably not going to happen is training. Training is going to get put to the bottom of the list and you’re going to have unskilled, not confident people on the floor. And the customer experience, which may have been your strong suit in one store, becomes a a weakness in two stores. So having a training program, preferably online, by the way.

And then the third the final thing is a marketing plan. And that marketing plan is should be an annual plan, and it should clearly define what you’re going to do, when you’re going to do it. Have a plan around it, because if you don’t have a marketing plan when you open your second store, what starts to happen again? Your focus is being distracted and all the good things you did in one store are all of a sudden not being done.

So you’re always playing catch up. Oh, we need to do something. And then you plan something. So I call it throwing spaghetti on the wall.

It’s not what I call it, say. But you throw stuff on the wall and hope something sticks. When you have a plan, your marketing becomes thoughtful. It becomes efficient.

It becomes effective. You don’t have to do it. It’s written there so somebody else can execute it.

So do I sound pessimistic? Are you watching this thinking about opening a second store and go, Oh, I’m not ready. Well, if you’re listening to this and thinking I’m not ready, I just want to respectfully say to you, you probably aren’t.

That is not a judgment of your skill as a retailer. It is not a judgment of your intelligence.

Retail is a journey, and you need to be ready to take next steps. If you take next steps, like opening a second store before you’re actually ready, it could cost you your business.

It will certainly cost you sleepless nights because, again, running two stores is an entirely different business than running one store. And if you don’t have the skills to run one store, you’re not going to be able to successfully run two store. Yes, you can catch up. We did, right?

Backfill skills, backfill structure, backfill, backfill, backfill. But that’s not the best way to do it. My strongest advice to you, if you’re watching this, it means you’re thinking about it. If you’ve watched it all the way through, I hope it means that what I’m saying makes sense. My strongest advice to you is that you really work on doing the best job you can with the store that you already have.

Maximize those four four walls. Maximize those, you know, those square feet, really, really work on the things that I talked about mindset, skill set, structure, all of those pieces and become really, really good. And if you do that as those things and you do that work, not only are going to make more money because you’re going to sell more, because you’re focused on the store that you have and the customers you already have and the experience your team is already giving them. But you’re going to sell more, but you’re going to get yourself ready to open that second store.

Again, I have no problems with people opening more stores. Member of our Platinum Mastermind group has thirty stores. His goal is one hundred. I’m like, Luis, you go, man.

What can we do to help you? But he’s ready for it. He has paid those dues. The problem that I see is that people get ahead of themselves on their retail adventure and it comes back to bite them sometimes way harder than they are comfortable with.

So that is my thought. Those are my thoughts on opening a second store. And you can extend it if you are not dialed in with two. Don’t open three. One last word.

My friend Steve Adams told me once and he had forty stores. He a friend and client, he said.

It’s hard. It was harder to get to five than it was to get to forty, because once you get to five, you’ve got it dialed in. Once you get to five, you learned all the lessons. Once you get to five, hopefully you have the resources to grow that way.

So if you are interested in growing a lot, you know, a get that first door dialed in. B, recognize that it’s not going to be easy, smooth sailing until you do get some experience. You maybe get that fifth store opening under your belt. But here’s what I want to say, and I think this is so important.

It goes back to this whole idea of all of the skills that are on brilliance. It all comes down to you learning. It all comes down to what is in your head, how you think, what you know, and what you do with what you know.

And because the information is all there right now, I’m talking about brilliance. I’m talking about.

Consultants, I’m talking about that online, I’m talking about AI because the information is all there. If you’re committed to learn what it takes to be great, you can become anything that you want to become. And that is absolutely amazing news. So figure out what you wanna become and then do the things you need to do to get there. But first, get that first store all dialed in.