It’s Showtime: How I took my store to #4 (Part 5)

At its core, leadership is about inspiring people to do their best. Several years ago, I took over a broken bookstore (near the bottom of rankings in a major chain), and in a little over a year, brought it back to 4^th in the company out of hundreds of stores, based on metrics including sales, customer satisfaction, profitability, etc.

This is Part 5 of a 5-part series (Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4) in which I share leadership basics which can inspire your team to greatness. Even though I am no longer in the bookselling business, these principles are transferable to any leadership situation.

Photo courtesy of ClaraDon (Creative Commons)

Actors are not at the top of their game all the time, but when they are “on stage,” they become their character. We can improve our performance by designating “on stage” and “backstage” areas in our work and life and being sure to “act” any time we are on stage.

On Stage
When we are “on stage” with customers (guests) or co-workers, we are focused on doing what it takes to win with them. We put on the persona of the confident salesperson or the friendly customer service rep. We may not always feel confident, but we project confidence when we are on stage.

Backstage
“Backstage” is a different matter altogether. We can express our doubt, frustration, fatigue, or fear backstage, either alone or with co-workers. We can let off steam and be ourselves, knowing backstage is safe. There were many shifts during the busy Christmas season that I would have to go backstage to clear my head or risk handling a situation wrong because I was tired and cranky!

As a team, we even let each other know if we needed to go “backstage” for a moment after a difficult interaction or long shift. As a leader, I’ve told team members to take it backstage if they need to cool off. Backstage gives you a chance to take a deep breath and collect yourself before putting on your persona and heading on stage again.

It’s Showtime!
Before opening the store each day, we declared, “It’s showtime!” That let everyone know to put on their costume and perform.

The distinction of “on stage” and “backstage” was a key part of our success because it gave the team the confidence to perform all out and know they could go backstage to cool off and rest.

The leadership principles shared in this series are basic, down-to-earth practices that are easy to implement, and one or two of these ideas may lead to moderate wins for your team. What we found, however, was that the combination of a strong team, a high level of communication, and a strong culture was the key that led to extreme success for our team.

The best part was that not only did we excel as a store, but my leaders went on to other opportunities and took this legacy and learning with them to strengthen other teams. It was a win all the way around!

What would change in your workplace if you implemented some of these leadership basics?

 

Communication isn’t just talk: How I took my store to #4 (Part 4)

At its core, leadership is about inspiring people to do their best. Several years ago, I took over a broken bookstore (near the bottom of rankings in a major chain), and in a little over a year, brought it back to 4^th in the company out of hundreds of stores, based on metrics including sales, customer satisfaction, profitability, etc.

This is Part 4 of a 5-part series (Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3) in which I will share leadership basics which can inspire your team to greatness. Even though I am no longer in the bookselling business, these principles are transferable to any leadership situation.

Photo courtesy of Tatiana12 (Creative Commons)

If everyone is not on the same wavelength, then any plan you develop is doomed. You must ensure that everyone on your team understands your culture, your core values, and what winning looks like.

In my store, we talked about how to serve our guests at every opportunity, and shared stats and stories at every shift meeting so that each team member knew where we stood, and what was expected of them. And we opened the store each day with the words, “It’s showtime!”

Share the Good and the Bad
We shared the positive customer satisfaction reports as well as the negative ones. If we received an unsatisfactory report, we would discuss remedies at a shift meeting to avoid that situation in the future.

Communicate Early and Often
When interviewing potential team members, we talked about the guest culture and the importance of that mindset. As a team member came on board in training, the concepts had already been introduced and were reinforced.

One of our team members was an artist, so he created signs with Disney characters and phrases that were posted near the door to the back office and the back storage room to remind the team of our principles. If someone had a less than guest-like interaction, the leader on duty would suggest they “go backstage” to regroup, and would cover for them, if necessary.

By sharing sales and customer satisfaction numbers with the team, they became invested in keeping those numbers strong. We celebrated as our ranking increased through the company. The credit was also shared with the entire team.

Know What Is Important
New releases were pointed out and team members were challenged to stay abreast of where titles were displayed and shelved. How much better was it when we could just walk a guest to the front table and hand them the book, rather than take the time to look it up and head to the section? And we frequently tag-teamed – if you overheard a request and you knew where it was, you just took the guest there and let the other team member help someone else.

We also created a list of the strengths and interests of each team member, so if a guest was asking about science fiction, but that wasn’t what you read, you could call on your co-worker who was an avid sci fi fan for advice.

Photo courtesy of Sean MacEntee (Creative Commons)

Lead by Example Every Day
Leadership and a winning culture do not thrive by being presented once and then put aside. Culture must be modeled by everyone every day, especially you as a leader. It must be discussed constantly. Each encounter should be an opportunity to reinforce those ideas and concepts.

If a team member slipped and referred to a customer, they were gently reminded to say guest. The terminology infiltrated every part of what we did. We even incorporated the word guest into our closing announcements!

When have you succeeded because your communication was so strong?

Read the conclusion, Part 5, “It’s Showtime.”  Thanks for reading!

 

What winning culture looks like: How I took my store to #4 (Part 3)

At its core, leadership is about inspiring people to do their best. Several years ago, I took over a broken bookstore (near the bottom of rankings in a major chain), and in a little over a year, brought it back to 4^th in the company out of hundreds of stores, based on metrics including sales, customer satisfaction, profitability, etc.

This is Part 3 of a 5-part series (Read Part 1 and Part 2) in which I will share leadership basics which can inspire your team to greatness. Even though I am no longer in the bookselling business, these principles are transferable to any leadership situation.

Photo courtesy of Julie Rybarczyk (Creative Commons)

The culture of your organization is probably the most important aspect of your winning plan. At the bookstore, we built a culture of excellence by treating our customers like guests. Based on the ideas of Disney, and the book, Be Our Guest, we translated everything into terms of welcoming guests into our home, the store. And we interpreted that on every level from answering the phone to greeting people at the registers.

Keep It Simple
By boiling the principles down to 3 main ideas, we were able to instill the principles in every team member:

• Treat everyone like a guest
• Leave it better than you found it
• Exceed expectations

Communicate Culture At Every Level
These simple concepts modeled and repeated by the leadership team, filtered down the ranks to every team member. We communicated with each other as well as with every guest (customer) who came in the store with respect, kindness and generosity.

Treat Everyone Like a Guest
We greeted each guest who came in the store to make them feel welcome, and offered assistance without being pushy.

The team was challenged to be creative in interpreting what “be my guest” looked like, so it was fun to see how each person excelled. It could be making recommendations of additional titles, a fun way to answer the phone, or interesting conversations during the checkout.

Leave It Better Than You Found It
We focused on keeping the store neat and orderly, from the shelving standards to cleanliness.  Team members had section assignments, and were expected to check the order of the shelving periodically and if there were problems, they could request help to get the order corrected, whether that was a block of time for themselves or a team to help reorganize.

Sharing new release titles was part of the morning routine before the store opened, as well as during the day as new team members began their shift. We talked about what we were reading or listening to in order to be knowledgeable when recommending titles to our guests. Inventory levels were monitored closely so we could reorder titles quickly.

Neatness of the store was valued, so we were always picking up, straightening and restocking. To this day, I cannot go into a bookstore without straightening the stacks of books!

Exceed Expectations
No matter what the situation, we encouraged team members to exceed the expectations of our guests.

If we did not have the book or music a guest was seeking, we offered several options for finding it, from ordering it to checking another store (even a competitor).

Customer satisfaction levels skyrocketed as we focused on guest service. Team members from other stores requested transfers because they heard that our store was the “jewel in the crown” of the stores in the area.

What does a winning culture look like at your company?

Read Part 4, “Communication isn’t just talk.”  Thanks for reading!

 

Play your first string: How I took my store to #4 (Part 2)

At its core, leadership is about inspiring people to do their best. Several years ago, I took over a broken bookstore (near the bottom of rankings in a major chain), and in a little over a year, brought it back to 4^th in the company out of hundreds of stores, based on metrics including sales, customer satisfaction, profitability, etc.

This is Part 2 of a 5-part series (Read Part 1) in which I will share leadership basics which can inspire your team to greatness. Even though I am no longer in the bookselling business, these principles are transferable to any leadership situation.

Photo courtesy of Anne Rossley (Creative Commons)

A strong leadership team is one of the most critical components of winning. Your team multiplies your efforts and expands your influence. Like the first string on a football team, they have the skills and finesse to lead the rest of the team to success.

I arrived at the store following the firing of the General Manager and several other leaders. A new merchandising manager came on board with me, and the inventory manager remained for a couple of weeks before I had to replace him too.

With a broken store and poisonous culture, I needed to put the right leaders in place to partner with me. I sought hard workers, but also leaders who were passionate about books and about upholding standards.

Multiply Yourself
I needed leaders eager to train others so they could expand their reach. It is important to be sure you are doing the right things, but even more important to coach and train your team members so that everyone models the same behaviors. How frustrating is it when you have to constantly redo things because someone does it differently?

The key action is to train your team to the standards so everyone plays by the same rules.

Coach Instead of Punish
I encouraged my leaders to pay attention to the team to ensure compliance, but since the remaining team members were wounded by the former leaders, gentle corrections were needed rather than heavy handed punishment.

By leading from a humble place and coaching constantly, I started solidifying the leadership team and setting the groundwork for improvement. Each new leader brought a positive attitude and uplifting spirit that spread through the entire team.

Praise Publicly
As our sales and customer satisfaction numbers started to rise, it was important to praise the team publicly. We started choosing an “Employee of the Month” and posting the framed certificates in the hallway, so everyone coming in the store saw who had done well. At morning meetings, we celebrated the folks who had great customer satisfaction reports. We cheered when we saw a team member do something great, whether that was to finish shelving their section in record time or find that obscure title for a customer. By recognizing the good behavior, we encouraged more of it.

When has your team been the key to winning?

Read Part 3, “What winning culture looks like.”  Thanks for reading!

 

Stripped to the studs: How I took my store to #4 (Part 1)

At its core, leadership is about inspiring people to do their best. Several years ago, I took over a broken bookstore (near the bottom of rankings in a major chain), and in a little over a year, brought it back to 4th in the company out of hundreds of stores, based on metrics including sales, customer satisfaction, profitability, etc.

This is Part 1 of a 5-part series in which I will share leadership basics which can inspire your team to greatness. Even though I am no longer in the bookselling business, these principles are transferable to any leadership situation.

Photo courtesy of Giles Douglas (Creative Commons)

What does it take to move from failing to winning? In some situations, the first step has to be stripping away the parts that are rotten in order to expose the basic studs that are sound. When I took over a failing bookstore, we did exactly that – took away all the practices that worked against us, and started from the basics of bookselling and customer service.

After several years of poor leadership, the team’s bad attitudes and poor habits were rampant. The former leadership in the store had not stayed current with company initiatives, and seemed to even have done the opposite in some cases. Training, procedures, inventory controls and even the shelving order were not consistent with the overall company norms. Customer service was poor, and sales were dismal.

Build Trust
The first action had to be to start building trust with the remaining team. Having been through such a tumultuous change, those who were left needed to know that I was steady and interested in doing things the right way for them and the store.

Coaching and praise were two important elements of building their trust. One of the biggest differences between me and their former leader was that I was present. They saw me shelving, helping at the information desk, ringing people at the registers, and merchandising front tables pretty much every day. They were beginning to understand that I was not just the leader of their team; I was a part of the team.

Maintain Standards
Many of the standards of good customer service are simple acts of focus and attention. I modeled things like speaking to people as I moved through the store and walking a customer to a section when they asked for a title, and my team began to do the same things. Paying attention to how they were shelving or setting up displays and gently correcting as necessary helped them understand the standards and the importance of adhering to them.

Practice Consistency
I repeated myself – I repeated myself A LOT. Slowly the trust level rose, and the whole atmosphere began to improve. My team began to have a more positive attitude, and the store conditions began to improve. Customers were being served better and finding what they needed more often. Smiles became more frequent on the faces of my team as well as the customers. Sales slowly began to improve.

When have you had to go back to the basics to improve a situation?

Read Part 2, “Play your first string.”  Thanks for reading!

 

You just made my day

“You just made my day.” That’s what the sales clerk told ME at Walmart today.

It was busy when I was there, and I had to wait to be helped. I could see they were short handed, and my clerk mentioned when she did get to me that someone had called off, and with trying to give people lunch breaks, they were a little harried.

There was no sense in fussing about it, since I’ve been in retail and know the horrors of call offs! So I smiled, produced my own pen to sign the slip when she couldn’t find hers, and generally tried to be patient.

She gave me excellent customer service. I feel bad that I did not notice her name.

When she finished up, I told her I hoped her day got better – and that’s when she said it already had. That I had “made her day by being nice and not being upset.”

What does that say not about customer service, but about customers these days? Makes me shiver.

When have you experienced excellent customer service in spite of less than ideal circumstances?