There is an affliction that threatens the livelihoods, as well as the very lives, of a great many people. I exaggerate not in the slightest when I assert, as a scientist and as a writer, that the fear of public speaking is the enemy of progress, the foe of education and the opponent of success in general.

Picture an economist with a breakthrough theory about reducing poverty, an academic who is too wary and timid to present his proposal to a major conference sponsored by the World Bank.

Imagine, too, a doctor with a novel concept about molecular biology and eliminating the risk of hospital-acquired infections, who is too nervous about revealing his findings before a packed auditorium.

Consider also the entrepreneur or established executive with critical insight about green energy or customer loyalty, who is too anxious to stand before a lectern and discuss ways to apply his recommendations.

In each of these instances, individuals lack the benefit of listening to—and the public at large loses a chance to learn from—the work of those respective pioneers referenced above.

So great is the fear of public speaking, and so grave are the stakes concerning the triumph of this aversion to taking the stage, that this problem (in addition to the diagnosis and treatment of related anxiety disorders) costs $42 billion a year.

That figure is one of several statistics from a variety of top-tier sources, including but not limited to the National Institute of Mental Health, Harvard Business School, Gallup, the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, and the Journal of Experimental Psychology.

Awareness of this problem is critical to overcoming this crippling mindset. But, inasmuch as this challenge is a matter of substance, solving (or significantly alleviating) this phobia is a question of style.

All of which brings me to Dave Ratner, an author, independent retailer, and sought-after speaker on a multitude of topics.

By reading about Dave’s story, which is the culmination of having run a Google Searchfor Business Speakers, a seemingly straightforward process that yields an incomprehensible 305 million results, I now can attest to several things.

First, there are many self-described “Business Speakers” who are not, in my estimation, good communicators: They fidget or fumble, or they speak too quickly or too slowly, failing to capture the attention of the viewer and elicit excitement from the listener.

Secondly, many of these same speakers cause the viewer (at least this viewer) to wince, in embarrassment and pity, as these men and women attempt to summon some rhetorician’s dream candidate; a combination of Julius Caesar, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

And thirdly, it is this failed effort to be an orator—it is the mistaken belief that all public speakers must deliver public speeches—that (partially) explains and worsens this phobia. For there is a profound difference between speaking publicly and speaking to the public.

The former is what a business speaker should do, which is what Dave Ratner does so well, while the latter is the responsibility of presidents and prime ministers, and of vainglorious generals and itinerant preachers.

Do, in other words, as Dave says . . . without him ever having to explain what he says, or why he says what he does.

Be a conversationalist by chatting with your audience rather than talking to your audience.

This point is not some otherwise unimportant semantic distinction because, when you listen to how a speaker performs and when you then pay attention to how storyteller behaves, the two are worlds apart.

The lesson this writer derives from this fortuitous happenstance, a thunderbolt of online good luck (with ample scrutiny by yours truly, too), is the following: You can overcome the fear of public speaking by being yourself, by sharing anecdotes (both funny and inspiring) with an audience, by talking about what you know—by sharing what you love—with those who have a genuine interest in listening to, and asking questions (at a designated time) about, what you have to say.

I can, therefore, vouch for what I have seen because of what I have heard; that a master of conversation, a professional of Dave’s caliber and modesty, earns your trust and deserves your applause because he is real.

His sincerity is his greatest asset, and his avuncular style is his strongest rhetorical device.

By conversing with people, and by the sheer act of repetition, you can become an effective public speaker.

You need not speak for the ages for listeners to know you are a sage about business, law, medicine, technology or any other discipline.

By showing up, without showing off, the conversation that ensues will be a personal victory and a professional accomplishment.

Let that conversation begin immediately.

Article From Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-d-shaw/frightful-yes-incurable-n_b_8472610.html

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The IPCPR Annual Convention & International Trade Show is far more than just an opportunity to spend a few days learning about and buying the newest cigars, pipes, tobaccos and smoking accessories. It’s also a chance to network with industry peers and share tips on good practices over a drink and a smoke at the end of a long day on the trade show floor.

Sometimes it’s good to hear from voices outside of the premium tobacco industry. For many years, the IPCPR has organized seminars presented by retail experts from other industries to communicate lessons they have learned in their own businesses. This year, Dave Ratner, owner of Dave’s Soda and Pet City and author of Creating Customer Love: Make Your Customers Love You So Much They’ll Never Go Anyplace Else!, presented two seminars, “How to Get and Keep Good Customers” and “12 Things to Do As Soon As You Get Back to the Store.”

A member of the National Retail Federation board of directors and the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association board of directors, Ratner started his business selling sodas from an abandoned gas station in Hadley, Massachusetts, in 1975. After buying a dog, he expanded his store’s offerings to include pet supplies and created his own line of pet foods. Today, his business has expanded to seven locations and he employs 150 people. In 2010, he earned the National Retail Federation Silver Award recognizing his contributions to the retail industry and he was inducted into the Massachusetts Retail Hall of Fame.

Ratner attributes his success to one simple formula: identifying who your customers are and then taking good care of them from the first moment they step into your store.

Taking good care of customers begins with asking a few basic questions. Is your store easy to get to and does it have good parking? Are you open when customers want you to be open? Is your store clean inside and outside? Do all the light fixtures work? Do all the point-of-sale materials and signs look fresh? Is your store merchandised in such a way that it makes it easier to shop?

“Encourage add-on sales,” Ratner told the audience of IPCPR retailers. “Think how much more business you would do if every customer spent $1 more. Put impulse items near the cash register. [While your business might be predominantly male-oriented], ask your wife or girlfriend to shop your store for tips on merchandising it in ways that might help your female customers feel more comfortable in the shop.”

Once you feel comfortable with your store’s appearance, you’re ready to market your business to attract new customers. A little basic research—learning who your customers are, what they’re interested in buying and where they live—will make your marketing dollars more effective.

Ratner suggested that retailers should consider ads on local talk radio stations, especially sports talk stations.

“Buy one or two days a month and then make those days your own,” he said. “Buy seven or eight ad spots on those days. Do the ad yourself if you have a great personality, but have someone else do them if you feel uncomfortable doing them, because a bad ad is worse than no ad at all. Only talk about one thing in the ad to ensure that your message gets to the audience. The price is very reasonable and usually presents a good return on your investment.”

Buying ads is just one weapon in your marketing arsenal. Retailers should also consider renting a list of subscribers to magazines that might appeal to cigar smokers, such as hunting and fishing magazines or magazines that are devoted to people who are getting married or having kids.

Retailers should have a presence at home shows and wedding shows. They should speak at Rotary Clubs and other organizations and become active in those organizations. They should also identify business partners that sell products that have similar customers.

“Partner up!” Ratner exhorted the audience. “Get other people to do your marketing for you. Perhaps you can create relationships with liquor store owners, wedding planners and local restaurants. Who can you team with to add value to your store? Do what you’re best at and let someone else do the rest.”

Like attracting new customers, keeping them requires a little basic common sense. Get a customer’s contact information and purchase history so that you can develop a relationship with each customer and then use it.

“Getting a customer’s information and then never contacting them is like going out on a date, having a great time and then never calling your date again,” Ratner told the audience.

Hire friendly employees who are willing to do whatever is necessary to guarantee that your customers have a great experience inside your store. Ratner suggested that retailers offer to carry packages to the cars of female customers. He also suggested that, if a customer wants an item that you don’t carry, find it, buy it and then deliver to the customer.

Quoting Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ definition of your brand being what people say about you when you’re not in the room, Ratner explained that “customer service is defined by dealing with problems. I have every employee sign two pieces of paper when they’re hired declaring that they understand that their job is to make sure that the customer has such a great experience at the store that he or she will tell his or her friends to shop there and that each employee is empowered to solve customer problems on the spot.”

While your customer service may be unsurpassed, your prices might not be the lowest, especially in the competitive premium tobacco market when traditional mom-and-pop brick-and-mortar stores compete with Internet and catalog companies. Should retailers match the lower prices available on the Internet when a customer brings up the difference?

“Yes,” Ratner said. “If you don’t match the price then you risk losing the customer forever. If you do match the price then you have the chance to get the customer to buy something else. Focus on your store and worry less about your competitors.”

Retailers can make the pain of matching lower prices hurt less by monitoring their own expenses. Ratner encouraged the audience to check their credit card processor expenses. And when shopping processors, he suggested giving a potential processor two to three months of receipts to estimate how much their service would cost.

While ensuring that your customers get great service, it’s also important to make sure that your inventory is fresh. Ask your customers what else you should carry, and always have new things. Let your customers know when new products arrive in the store, and reward them for their loyalty by creating a frequent buyers rewards club in which they receive gift certificates.

While attracting and keeping customers might seem like a daunting task, all it takes is a little bit of common sense and a willingness to dedicate some time each day to putting that intention into action. The reward for all that effort will be a stronger business and a more loyal customer base.

More Ratner Tips for Business Success

• The minute you think you’re doing great, you won’t be.
• Always welcome customer feedback.
• Ask yourself, What is my competition doing better than I am? Then do that thing better.
• Keep in contact with your customers, but “don’t send out stupid emails.” Make each contact with your customers worth their time.
• Never be out of stock.
• Don’t sell things on social media. Use it to create a community for your customers and to announce news and events.
• Empower your employees to solve problems on the spot.

Article Posted in Tobacconist
http://www.tobacconistmagazine.com/retail-common-sense/

The post Retail Common Sense first appeared on Dave Ratner.

AGWAM – Dave Ratner and Dave’s Soda and Pet City will be a part of the National Retail Federation’s Retail Across America campaign.

Ratner, who is celebrating 40 years of Dave’s Soda and Pet City this year, is very active with the federation advocating on behalf of the nation’s brick-and-mortar retailers in Capital Hill hearings and acting as a voice for smaller businesses on boards with the heads of national chains.

The National Retail Federation’s Retail Across America Team will be at Dave’s Agawam location Friday filming for the organization’s Retail Across America Campaign. Dave’s Soda and Pet City announced the event in a news release Thursday.

They’ll talk with Ratner about his advocacy and with his employees about their jobs and their favorite things about working in retail.

According to the National Retail Federation, Massachusetts retailers support 920,000 jobs and retail contributes nearly $58 billion to the state’s economy.

Article Featured in MassLive: http://www.masslive.com/business-news/index.ssf/2015/08/dave_ratner_of_daves_soda_and_pet_city_f.html

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AGAWAM – Dave Ratner was a little late for an interview meant to celebrate 40 years of Dave’s Soda & Pet City.

He was in his office, on the phone with a customer from Northampton who hadn’t been able to find a particular item during repeated trips to his store. The next step, Ratner said, was to get on the phone with the manager, find out what was going on and get the item delivered to the customer’s house.

“I want people to be waited on,” Ratner said. “I insist that bags be taken out to people’s cars.”

Ratner, 63, started out in June 1975 selling soda from a former gas station on Route 9 in Hadley. In a story he loves to tell, he felt he needed a dog to help him meet women, so he got a beagle, and Bentley the bagle needed food. Ratner saw that there were only a few companies in the business and there was a demand.

40 years of Dave’s Soda and Pet City
Dave Ratner owner of Dave’s Soda and Pet City has been keeping the local pets well fed and entertained for 40 years.

“So I went back to my office, which was a phone in a bathroom, and got on the phone with 9 Lives and Purina,” he said.

The business grew. He added high-end brands like Iams and Eukanuba when they came out, added locations and now has 150 employees in seven locations and his own brand of Dave’s pet foods wholesaled across the country. He also has his own pet-centered television show.

Ratner has served on the National Retail Federation board of directors and sits on the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association Board of Directors, positions that put him on par with executives at Home Depot, Walgreens and Target.

Soda is now just 2 percent of his business and he only has soda in just three stores. He can’t compete with supermarkets on big-name brands, but specializes in hard-to-find gourmet sodas and forgotten favorites not widely distributed anymore.

Tab, the diet soda still  made by Coca-Cola but supplanted by Diet Coke, is the biggest seller.

“You can’t find it anywhere,” Ratner said. “People come in and buy cases of it.”

Mostly his business is dog and cat related. He sells birds, fish et cetera and supplies related to them, but that business has fallen off as children seem more captivated by electronics instead of an aquarium.

He considers himself the luckiest man in the business world to have entered the pet business just as it took off. Consumers started treating pets as members of the family.

“The lucky part is that pets were to become the most important things in the world. I didn’t know that was going to happen. That was society changing,” Ratner said. “People trust us to help them feed beings they love more than anything else in the world. That’s a big responsibility.”

Americans are expected to spend $60.59 million on pet food, medication and supplies and on the purchase of animals themselves in 2015. That’s up from $58.4 million in 2014 and from $17 million 20 years ago in 1994.

Of that $60.59 million, $23.4 million is spent on food alone.

The problem for Ratner is that Wall Street took notice of all that growth and investors have poured money into national  retail chains focused on pets.

The Internet is also a big competitor. Once, it was common for customers to order only expensive, but light, items from the Web. Ratner would see people come into his stores and check out all the aquarium filters and heaters, then go on their phones and order one from someone else.

But now, some are even ordering pet foods and treats online.

He counters with service, his own line of Dave’s pet foods and by having stores in good locations. Springfield-based Big Y Foods often recruits Ratner to its shopping plazas.

The products he sells don’t really overlap with Big Y, and Big Y knows that Dave’s generates traffic.

“What do you want if you are developing a shopping center, you want the right mix of stores to draw in all the customers,” he said.

Having a Dave’s near a Whole Foods, like the store in Hadley’s Mountain Farms Mall shopping center, is nearly ideal.

“That’s our customer,” Ratner said. “We are after the same type of people.”

He also likes locations with training areas for use by obedience experts and do-it-yourself bathing tubs so people can give Fido a bath without messing up their own bathroom.

Ratner’s own brand of Dave’s Pet Food is also an asset. He wholesales it to independent pet retailers around the country having just signed deals with stores in Oregon.

“Our motto is good food at a reasonable price,” he said, adding that he advertises that some flavors mean “less gas” for the pet.

He comes up with the recipes and flavors and works with manufacturers and canneries to get the food into production.

The most popular flavor: plain chicken and rice. It’s a bland diet vets often prescribe for dogs with upset stomachs.

“It used to be that if your dog was sick, you’d have to go home and start cooking chicken and rice,” Ratner said. “We put it in a can.”

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The things I like best about this show are the hundreds of different speakers and the case studies of things individual retailers have done well (and not so well). Many of the sessions and exhibitors focused on the big boys but there was plenty for the indie retailer to learn.

By the time you read this, we will have upgraded our POS system to the latest and greatest Counterpoint system. It has been a slow, painful and very expensive process that included deposits on two systems that we ended up not using because they ended up not doing what we needed.

In the end, the counterpoint was as close as we could get to what we need. Here’s my advice to you: Before you invest in a new or a first POS system, find a consultant who can help you articulate your “must haves” in the new system. Naturally, yours truly didn’t do that.

We did find a compatible piece of software called flexReceipts. It will allow us to email receipts to customers and put targeted coupons on those receipts. The best part is the folks from that company are very savvy tech people who are ahead of the curve with mobile payments, emails, etc.

We also looked at payroll, time and attendance software, mobile payment software, and some cool monitors that you can program through a computer to play or demo anything you have in your store. They are basically televisions that you program.

This was also my fourth year as presenter at the National Retail Federation Big Show. We had more than 850 people in the session, which was “Twelve Very Doable Marketing Strategies.” For me, the best part of the show is always talking to other retailers. You learn so much more by listening than talking. I hung out with the CMO of Sheels All Sports, which is a chain of 22 amazingly well run stores. The stores are world class, industry-leading destination stops. They range in size from about 100,000 sq. ft. to 220,000 sq. ft. They do zillions of dollars and have a wonderful way of doing business.

Firstly, each store is a shopping experience like no other. They understand whoever has the store that is the most fun, wins. They sell, sporting goods, all kinds of apparel, hunting equipment and pet food—including lots of locally made stuff. But what really sets the company apart from the competition is the people who work there and the training that goes into every single employee.

Most retailers don’t invest nearly enough in product training, customer service skill training, management training, etc. But Sheels does. The employees at Sheels are paid very well with great benefits but a lot is expected of those employees. The management sets high expectations but they give the crew the tools they need to meet them.

Listening to my new buddy talk about the culture at Sheels reminded me exactly of how Mindy Grossman runs her company Home Shopping Network. They demonstrate that an owner needs to give the employees tools and opportunities to shine and grow. A company can’t grow without great people.

I went back to my hotel room thinking of ways to run my company like they do. I am so much smaller than they are, how can I possibly do it? Then I realized Mr. Sheels started with one store and a clearly defined vision of how he wanted to run his business. We can all learn from his example.

Here is what I think we can look forward to. Free shipping on pet food will not be here forever. Once investors insist on companies making money, free shipping will go away. Just don’t hold your breath. I also think you and I will have to let our customers order online and pick up at the store or we will have to deliver orders. The companies that are easiest to do business with will win.

Things are changing so fast that indies like us will face challenges staying ahead of the curve. Please take this advice about delivery even if your business is great. Start making a plan to get into the delivery business now and get ahead of the curve.

Article Featured in Pet Age: http://www.petage.com/the-big-show/

The post The Big Show first appeared on Dave Ratner.

I did something this year that we haven’t done in a few years. We sent the top 20 percent of our customers a postcard that simply said thanks for being one of our best customers.

It also include a $10 gift certificate towards anything in the store. No catch, no minimum purchase, just present this postcard and get $10 off any purchase.

The postcards hit the homes the Monday before Thanksgiving and were good through Sunday Dec. 7. I wanted to keep the offer to two weeks and have it end before the days when we do get busy for Christmas.

If ever there was a group of customers I want to make sure I never lose, it is the top 20 percent.

As I told one of my customers, it is such a great feeling to be able to reward the folks who spend so much money in my stores. My guess is that we will get a 60 percent response on the postcard.

Now, the reason I ended the offer on Dec. 7 is so that these customers would come back right before Christmas when they were really in the Christmas mood. I don’t know about you but our business is usually soft the last week of Thanksgiving and the first week of December. This promotion really made the registers sing. Of course the bad news is we gave thousands away in discounts. I kept telling myself, aren’t you happy to give a person who spends $400, $500 or more a year in the store $10? You bet I was.

I am thinking for Valentine’s Day we will send a similar postcard—maybe $5 to everybody who spent more than $250 or $300 last year. Again, February is a pretty slow moth for us and this will be a huge lift. We have done it in years past and will get about a 30 percent response and the average transaction of the folks who use the gift card will be way higher than usual.

I also learned it does produce an added visit to the store so even though it is a huge investment, it pays off.

One of the bad parts is you can’t get vendors to kick in anything since it is a gift card. What we do is take all our specials off for the month so our margins aren’t clobbered.
Speaking of margins, we are just about to upgrade our POS system and are trying to adjust all our pricing in the system before we flick the switch. We now have two price points, $.49 and $.99. So if an item costs $2.10 and we double the item it used to be $4.19, now it will be rounded off to 4.49. If the item costs $2.30, it used to retail for $4.59 it is now $4.99. These are nickels and dimes but at the end of the year it is a lot of nickels and dimes.

One of the things I am most excited about with our POS upgrade is we will have the ability to do email receipts. Plus, the emails can have targeted messages and offers on them and will mobile-friendly emails.

Have you ever noticed the receipts from your grocery store or CVS or Walgreens? Next time you shop in one of the big chain stores look at what you bought and see if there isn’t a coupon from a competitor product and or a similar product to what you bought. If you bought cough syrup, chances are there are coupons of cold and flu products. I can’t wait to sit with my vendors and come up with all kinds of offers like those. Think about it, if the customer buys a brand of dry food, put a coupon on the receipt for that brand of can food or treats. If a customer buys puppy food put a coupon for training pads or stain remover. Really, the sky is the limit on this one. It’s also an easy way to capture customers email addresses.

Another thing the new system will allow us to do is something I am dreading but I know I need to do. We will build an e-commerce site so customers can order anything we carry in the store online at the same price as in the store. It will be huge task but I think a necessary one. We will offer the same delivery terms as Amazon and the pet e-commerce sites but we will only market our site to our geographical area. We will not pay attention to online prices; we will mirror what is going on in our stores. That way, we won’t have to hire folks to shop other sites and constantly change prices.

You know as well as I do that we are losing sales to e-commerce sites, not to mention manufacturers who are now selling directly to consumers. In order to compete and to continue to thrive, I really think we brick and mortar stores will have to be in the delivery business as well.

Article Featured in Pet Age: http://www.petage.com/staying-in-the-game/

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My local NBC affiliate put on a lunch sponsored by the network television association. It was great because there was no selling but lots of information. Even with a declining audience, network TV rules the media. The fellow who put on the seminar was very persuasive about the benefits of network advertising. Basically, it has the absolute widest reach of any local media. The problem, as you probably know, is that spots are so expensive and cover too wide an area. If you have one store, it may not really serve your area. However, if there is something going on at your store that folks will travel for it may be worth looking at.

He busted me for spending more money on cable than on network TV. To a certain degree, he convinced me to spend more on some network ads. I bought spots in the morning from 6 to 9 a.m. weekdays at a pretty reasonable rate. Again, I am in a small market. Larger metropolitan markets will be more expensive.

We did get into a discussion about which is the better buy though, network or cable.

I can buy a 30-second spot during the national/local news, which has tens of thousands of viewers for about $400 a spot. I can also buy about 40 of the same spots on HGTV or the Cooking Channel or Lifetime for the same $400. I don’t have the exact figures but probably five to ten times more people watch the network channel than the cable channels but I can’t afford to run enough spots on the NBC news to make my ad visible to viewers. You need to run a spot many times before viewers remember it. That goes for radio, internet or TV.

So what I decided to do is run a flight of ads on NBC from the morning shows through the daytime and into the news. I am doing this on the first and third Tuesday of the month.

If I have gotten you to think about TV, please run as many spots as you can in one day, not spread out over the course of the week. You need saturation and you need to hit folks over the head with your ad. The argument was about spending $400 and getting thousands of folks seeing the ad versus $400 on a bunch of ads on cable which has a fraction of the viewers.

I still say the cable buy is better since the viewers will see my ad more often and will remember it (assuming it is a good ad). So please use your local cable and network reps, you may be surprised how affordable TV may be.

Article Featured in Pet Age: http://www.petage.com/tv-revisited/

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BJ is all about creating cult brands and how small businesses like ours can, in fact, do it without spending zillions of dollars. He write a blog called Cult Marketing & Branding Insights. What BJ preaches is basic human nature. People like to feel welcomed, like to have different needs fulfilled, like to feel good about the places they spend money in, and will tell others about their experiences.

Most of my best ideas and the way I run my businesses all have a bit of BJ thinking in them. He trained me to ask the question, “What will my customers think?” before I do anything. The goal according to BJ is to build a business of fanatical followers like Apple or Harley-Davidson. Can you imagine customers tattooing your logo on themselves?

So the question is how do we build such a fanatical customer base? It’s not easy but it is very doable. In no particular order here are just some of the things we need to do. I say need because competition is going to get fiercer and tougher for folks like us.

You have to know who your customers are. You simply cannot build a relationship with someone you can’t communicate with. At the last Central show I ran into a retailer who has been pummeled with new competitors in the past year. I think every major chain has moved close to her. This person runs such a good store and is so on top of her game that even though the store is down, it is not out. Sales are starting to inch back up. I asked the retailer if she is at least collecting emails of their customers. The answer was no: “My customers don’t want to give us their emails.”

Wrong answer!

Your customers absolutely want to hear from you when you are telling them about something that they are interested in. Do you think your customers don’t want an email telling them about a recall or a sale on the brand of food they use? You bet they do.

We just did a postcard with a $4 off coupon for one of the brands we sell. We went into our database, got a list of everybody who bought that brand in the past year and sent the postcard just to them. Typically, we would get at least 20 percent response rate. It has only been three weeks but we have not gotten very many coupons back. Something is screwy. We checked with the post office, the cards went out so this is a mystery. The rep and I were really scratching our heads trying to figure out what happened. Then it hit me: I can email the folks who were sent the snail mail postcard to ask them if they did indeed get the postcard. Then we figured why not resend the coupon in the email? The point is I couldn’t communicate with them if I didn’t have contact info.

Back to BJ. If you know your customers are mostly women, is your store “woman friendly?” Are your shelves, floors, window and sidewalks clean? Are your heavier products easily reachable for the average height of a woman? I suggest reading, “Why She Buys” by Bridget Brennan. As I think about it, a large amount of stores that I visit all over the country are run by women. That probably explains why they are successful; they know how to cater to themselves. You cannot create a cult following if you don’t cater to your followers!

The next thing is you need to bond emotionally with your customers. The one advantage we indies have is the big chains can’t do that. They run great ads saying they do it but they can’t. It is up to you to make your customers fall in love with and spend their hard-earned money in your store.

To me – and BJ agrees – nothing can be built without trust. The easiest way to build trust is make sure you and your crew practice the adage of “when there is a problem, there is no problem.” Fix it immediately and empower your crew to fix problems on the spot.

Article Featured in Pet Age: http://www.petage.com/can-you-imagine-customers-tattooing-your-logo-on-themselves/

The post Can You Imagine Customers Tattooing Your Logo on Themselves? first appeared on Dave Ratner.

And just because you own the business, doesn’t mean you are a good manager. There is a huge difference between being a successful entrepreneur and being a successful manager. For me, managing people has been harder than building my business.

When I got the invitation to join a monthly CEO roundtable group, I jumped at the chance. Their meetings are held in New York at different venues each month. Normally, we network for a while and then break into groups for discussions that are about things that will help us run our businesses better.

When I learned who some of the folks at my first meeting were, I was blown away. There were folks in the room that had gigantic businesses – companies that were doing hundreds of millions and billions of dollars. I had to remind myself I was in New York and there were lots of Wall Street types, real estate developers, high-powered lawyers and countless other CEOs and very successful entrepreneurs.

To say that my business is the smallest in the group is an understatement. But the fact is, these folks face many of the same issues and deal with the same stresses that we pet retailers do. I want to share with you what I have been fortunate to learn from some of them.

The theme of our last meeting was “dealing with adversity.” There were 10 people in our forum. We each spoke briefly about one example of a particularly difficult time in our life or career and how we dealt with it. As my turn was approaching, all I could think about was that in 1995 I had to close a store and it almost put us under.

As I listened to each of the folks in the room, I was stunned by what “real adversity” some of these folks had faced and – for lack of a better word – defeated. The fellow next to me ran a business that provided software to many of the biggest names in the financial industry.

Guess where his and most of his customers’ offices were? Yup, in the Twin Towers. He, and his crew, managed to get the hard drives out of their computers before the towers collapsed. He rented – actually took over – a close-by Staples, put his hard drives in the computers in the Staples store and was able to continue servicing what was left of his customers’ businesses without missing a beat. His message was there is always a way to get done what you need to get done.

Another person just expanded his business by buying another business that had a big new warehouse with lots of needed production capacity. He had just started to process and pack his very seasonal orders when hurricane Sandy hit and completely flooded the building. Everything was ruined. He could have had a huge insurance claim but would have lost all the customers who had placed orders. He rallied his whole team to work around the clock to clean the building and get orders shipped. His message was make sure you treat people well. When you need them, they will be there. He never could have gotten back into business if his team didn’t put in the effort.

How do you deal with all the adversity in your business life? The guest speaker in our group gave us his six rules of dealing with problems or adversity.
1. You own the problem. If it is your company, you own the problem.
2. You have to be present. Don’t try and avoid the problem or conflict. It is not going away.
3. Be calm to all observers. Your employees don’t want to see you freaking out. If you are not calm, don’t expect your crew to be.
4. Always ask questions. Nothing is ever as it is presented to you.
5. Focus. You cannot get distracted by other lesser things. Solve the problem.
6. Be decisive. Your crew is looking to you to make a decision. Once you make the decision, stick to it.

Article Featured in Pet Age: http://www.petage.com/learning-to-be-a-good-manager/

The post Learning to Be a Good Manager first appeared on Dave Ratner.

As you probably noticed my “words of wisdom” have not been appearing in the last few months. Truth is, I ran out of stuff to write about. My very kind editors agreed that I could/should take a sabbatical and come back when the creative juices started flowing again. It’s hard to believe, but I have been writing in Pet Age for 10 years.

As you faithful readers know, most of my articles come out of what happens in my business, and/or how I screwed something up (a.k.a., what I have learned). My favorite ones are when I get really ticked off at a vendor. So over the past few months life at Dave’s has been pretty smooth. Our stores are doing well, and the wholesale business is still growing at great clip. I have gone to several conferences where I have picked up very useful marketing info, and I followed some advice that was given to me.

That advice is worth retelling and certainly worth you remembering if you plan on growing your business. Here it is: If you are running a business that does X volume and you want to double or triple the size of the business, hire a person who can run the bigger business.

Seems like such a “duh” doesn’t it? Trouble is most of us don’t do it. Why don’t we? Well, you may have to pay too much for a presently overqualified person or we don’t even know what the job will be when we get to that level or whatever other reason you can think of. I can tell you, if you hire the most overqualified folks you can find, they will help you grow your business.

On a different note, one of my favorite sayings in the retail world is “if you don’t want your customers to spend any more money with you, don’t show them anything new.” Think about it for a minute. Makes sense, doesn’t it? So one of the questions is how and where do you find new stuff to show your customers?

I am such a lucky guy, I get to visit so many stores across the country, and I really do find at least one new product or merchandising tip on every road trip. My phone is loaded with pics of brands and products that we don’t carry in our stores (yet). Not to mention ways to merchandize.

So where am I going with this? You have get out of your store.

It amazes me how many store owners don’t visit competition and stores in other areas to see what they are missing. I don’t care how good a merchant you are, you just can’t learn new things if you don’t get out and see the world. I also ask my distributor reps what other stores are doing that I am not. My reps know my first question is, “What are we doing wrong?” The interesting thing is my reps are not the least bit bashful. They tell me the good, the bad and the ugly.

Article Featured in Pet Age: http://www.petage.com/get-out-of-your-store/

The post Get Out Of Your Store first appeared on Dave Ratner.