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/

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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/

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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/

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AGAWAM — Dave Ratner, owner of Dave’s Soda & Pet City, often appears in the company of a furry or feathered pet.

But later this month he’ll be with U.S. senators and members of the House of Representatives when he goes to Washington to lobby along with other retailers as part of the National Retail Federation’s annual fly-in, the Retail Advocates Summit, July 29 and 30.

Ratner is on the board of the National Retail Federation along with executives from industry giants like Macy’s, Tractor Supply and even Petco, which operates in the same product lines Ratner sells. His Dave’s Soda & Pet City has seven stores totaling 150 employees.

“Washington listens to small business folks,” Ratner said in an interview Thursday.

Ratner’s most recent store, in Stafford Springs, Conn., opened last year.

He plans to talk about “Main Street Fairness“, a proposal to require Internet retailers to charge state sales tax. Not charging the tax puts brick-and-mortar stores in Massachusetts at a 6.25-percent disadvantage.

“Why wouldn’t you order something out of state and not pay the sales tax?” he said.

According to the NRF , economist Arthur Laffer estimates that passage of the Marketplace Fairness Act could lead to a $563 billion increase in gross domestic product and 1.5 million new jobs by 2022 by stimulating the retail sector.

Ratner also plans to talk about reforming the corporate income tax. He, like other NRF members in small business, want the overall corporate tax rate lowered and the loopholes done away with.

“You know, the loopholes that allow General Electric and the big boys to not pay income tax,” Ratner said.

It’s not a federal issue, but Ratner plans to also talk minimum wage issues with the Massachusetts delegation. Massachusetts  recently decided to raise the minimum wage gradually, to $9 per hour in 2015, $10 in 2016 and $11 in 2017.

The problem is if neighboring states don’t follow with similar increases, Ratner said, a store in East Longmeadow could be put at a disadvantage to a store in neighboring Enfield, Connecticut.

“Just ask the liquor stores in New Hampshire,” he said.

Ratner said he and his fellow retailers would have also liked to see workers under 18 exempted from the minimum-wage increases.

“What you will see, not at my stores but you will see it, is a decline in customer service as stores cut back on payroll costs,” Ratner said.

Ratner said Dave’s Soda & Pet City will likely avoid hiring as many people, but give more working hours to the staff it does have. That saves the administrative cost of having a person on the payroll even if the hourly rate is high.

In Washington, Ratner is also in the running to be named America’s Retail Champion, a new program NRF created  to recognize outstanding retail industry and small business advocates, according to a news release.  The federation will name a champion during the summit.

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I ask these questions because in the last few weeks I have been fortunate enough to be with some folks who are now, or becoming, real leaders. I was visiting one of my good friends who has a very successful store.

As is usually the case with owner/operators, ever since I have known him he has been involved with just about every decision that was made in the company. Making deals, the marketing, product selection, you name it, he was there to make the decision.

Mind you, he was making very good decisions and his flourishing business was proof. Then something happened that made him realize he has good people and they should help run the business.

I was there to pitch some new skus of food and much to my delight, Joe was not in the room. He told me he knows the only way to let his folks grow is to let them make the decisions. He is certainly there if they need him but, “they can handle it.”

I gotta tell you, I was just so impressed with the way things were handled. I could see some coaching, which was completely appropriate since we all need to be guided a little, but the decision to bring in the line, or not, were made by the folks who actually would have to sell them.

What a concept!

More importantly, the style of leadership was evident. It is a: “I will coach you, you are a bright person, and I have faith in your abilities. You know my vision for the business, take it and run, I am here if you need me.”

Here is the part I like the best: “You make the decisions, I won’t second guess you.”

Now, we obviously can’t turn over decision making to folks who aren’t qualified, but have you given your employees the chance to show you they are qualified?

I don’t want you to confuse being a good boss with being a good leader. There are differences.

A good boss is fair, honest, knows and practices good management skills, and is a good human being. A leader takes those skills, and is able to get folks to “buy into” whatever he/she is “selling.” We all know great leaders and we also know some amazingly powerful leaders that were anything but good.

One of my good friends took over his folks very small food, people, not pet, service distribution business a few years after he got out of college. Over the course of many years, he built the business up to a pretty big business and sold it to a national company for a large chunk of change.

He is a leader.

He oozes passion for whatever he is doing and his can’t fail manner and personality is contagious. You just can’t help feeling energized being with him.

We were together last week at meeting listening to a presentation. The presenter was talking about an investment idea that made perfect sense, everything was upfront and clear. But the presenter just didn’t do a good job presenting his plan. He was a great guy, as honest as can be, bright, knows his stuff but just not a good presenter.

My buddy said something to me that just hit such a chord with me: “You need rapport before you can influence.” So simple but profound.

All great leaders build the rapport before they try to influence. Think about that, do you do that in your management life? Actually, it is true in your personal life as well. We in the group are waiting to see if he sends a note thanking us for our time.

Article Featured in Pet Age: http://www.petage.com/good-boss-or-good-leader/

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She was telling me about the competition moving near her, voicing her concern about all the consolidation in the industry and just talking shop in general. She said business was OK but she has a huge opportunity with her wholesale business. Not being one to mind his own business, when I enquired about the wholesale business and why she wasn’t going “full steam” ahead with that she explained all the things going on in the retail store. Believe me, I get it. Been there, done that, in fact, still doing that.

So one of the things that was taking up so much of her time is a big event they do at the store every year. The event is huge and very important. However, when she told me this was the 7th year they have done the event, I stopped her from talking. It was kind of funny. I looked at her, she looked at me and said, “you’re right.” I hadn’t even said anything yet. Are you guessing where this is going?
Finally, I asked, why can’t somebody else put the event together? It’s not as if you haven’t done it before. I don’t care if you hire an event planner to take care of the details, get somebody else to do the grunt work so you can build your business.

Doesn’t this just hit home? How many hours do we spend doing the day-to-day, minute-by-minute “firechiefing” instead of the real job, which is to grow the business? I don’t care how big or small your organization is, don’t get lost in the minutia of putting out fires all day long.

In this particular instance, it seems to me the opportunity to do what she was working on would probably end up being a bigger business than her retail store. For me, the best part is to see the light go off in her head, to see the sudden energized look on her face and to hear the, ‘I am calling them first thing Monday morning.”

I am so fortunate to get to know folks in all kinds and sizes of businesses. To be honest, I have met some owners who I just can’t figure out how they are still in business. They are easy to spot. You know some of them. They all have one word in common that would describe them, and that word is, negative. Luckily for me, I meet and am friends with way more folks that I learn things from every time I am with them.

I have mentioned him before, but this guy is just amazing. His mind never stops thinking of new ways to grow his business. Russ is one of those guys that attends every seminar he can, sucks up knowledge like a sponge and is the most humble guy in the world. Oh by the way, he runs a very successful business.

So my kid, Doug, is a musician. He wrote and recorded a great song, “I’d rather be with dogs than be with you.” He contacted a couple of shelters we work with and put the word out on Facebook to send in pictures of your dog to be in the video that goes with the song. Check it out at www.youtube/dougratner/dogs.
I sent the link to the video to a bunch of my friends, I know I am Doug’s dad, but it’s a great video. I knew this would happen. I get an email back from Russ telling me what a brilliant song/video and naturally, Doug must have been adopted. Surely he didn’t come from my genes. Anyway, in the “of course he would think of this,” he says, “can I have Doug’s permission to send the song to my customers. They will love it.”

I read that and just shook my head. Isn’t that just Russ, completely focused on what would make his customers happy. I wish I could bottle his enthusiasm, smarts, and creativity and sprinkle it on some of the retailers I know.

Article Featured in Pet Age: http://www.petage.com/your-attitude-goes-a-long-way-in-business/

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SPRINGFIELD — Getting a discount at checkout these days is like the beginning of a magic trick.

Pick a card, any card.

Loyalty programs — where a customer signs up and gives the merchant the ability to track his or her spending in return for discounts and offers — proliferate. And as they do, so do the number of cards, or key-chain tags, associated with these programs. At any given time, people might have cards for one or two supermarkets, gas stations, drug stores, hardware stores or wherever else they’ve decided to sign up. Lots of cards, lots of confusion.

In steps the Loc Card, a universal rewards card that has Dave’s Soda & Pet City signed up as one of its first member merchants. The chain has seven locations in the region.

“What I like about this is it is great for the consumer,” said Dave Ratner, the owner and founder of Dave’s, which hopes to have Loc Card in place before the busy holiday shopping season. “It also allows each merchant to run its own loyalty program. Nothing about my Dave’s Club changes. People just use one card to access it.”

Ratner said he has “thousands” of Dave’s Club members. They earn one point for every dollar they spend and a $10 Rewards Certificate at 300 points. They also get coupons and offers.

“We know you have a dog and probably aren’t interested in cat stuff,” Ratner said. “Not only do we know you have a dog, but we know what brand of food it eats.”

As he spoke, a woman, a new customer, signed up for a Dave’s card and bought a case of canned cat food.

“Now, in her email, we’ll not only send her a coupon for signing up, but wouldn’t it be great if she got a bounce-back coupon for a second case of cat food,” Ratner said, adding that the second coupon would be timed to arrive in about 20 days, about the same time the woman’s cat would finish the first case.

Brian Sealander, a local sales representative of Cincinnati-based Loc Card, said Dave’s Soda and Pet City captures about 90 percent of purchases in its loyalty club plan. That means Ratner has a lot of loyal customers who always use their card.

“That’s because we really work it with the loyalty program,” Ratner said. “We really make it worthwhile.”

Sealander said that loyalty makes Dave’s a good test market for Loc. Also, Sealander, a Springfield native now living in New Hampshire, grew up with Ratner, attending George Washington Elementary, Forest Mark Middle and the former Classical High School here.

The met again recently at a National Federation of Retailers event where Ratner was the featured speaker.

Sealander said he’s busy pitching the Loc Card to other Springfield-based chains. It’s only with several stores signed up that consumers will chose to ditch a scramble of cards for one Loc.

Sealander said the card was developed by retail veteran Jack Kennamer, who was checking out at a store when he saw a woman refuse to sign up for a loyalty program, discount or not, after shaking her stuffed key ring at the clerk and saying “I don’t have room for you!”

“We want to make Springfield a sort of test market,” he said. “It’s a big market, which you need, and it also has a lot of regional companies based here.”

Instead of filling out a form at the store, Loc users take a card and register it on a website – www.loccard.com – or a mobile app. Consumers choose how much information to share with each company.

“They might want to tell Dave about their dog and cat, but not want to share that with anyone else,” Sealander said.

Ratner said he might set up computer kiosks in his stores so customers can sign up for Loc right there. It’ll cut down on people filling out paper forms that then have to be input.

“But I don’t want people to go home and forget about it,” Ratner said. “The whole idea is to have a way to reach people.”

The Loc Card website has a dashboard that lets consumers keep track of all their offers from all their various loyalty programs. They’ll know how many points they have at Dave’s, the gas station, wherever and what offers they have available.

“We’ll also let them know which offers are about to expire,” Sealander said.

The dashboard also allows member retailers to reach out to people who signed up through another store’s program, Ratner said. This gives him access to people who’ve never been to his store.

Loc gets paid an annual fee once a consumer uses it to sign up to a loyalty program.

Article Featured in MassLive: http://www.masslive.com/business-news/index.ssf/2013/10/citing_too_many_cards_daves_soda_and_pet.html

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