Businesses that Change Die or Grow

Does it hurt you when you go into a business that you love or used to love and they’re just not that busy? That’s the experience that I’ve been having at a grocery store near me that used to have the best fruits and vegetables at reasonable prices. And I’m not just talking lettuce and carrots and things from the potato family, but lots of exotic fruits that your kids would ask you about and you’d normally say “maybe if we’re ever on vacation in a tropical location” (translation: not happening). In the last 6-8 months though the store has changed and it hurts me to shop there now for several reasons, but most because I know what the store used to be and am sad that they aren’t as busy as they are. Let’s talk about some of the things that are hindering their success.

One of the big changes that has happened is they did a little redesign and started offering more products outside of their original core offerings. So now it’s a lot more like a regular grocery store and less like a farmer’s market. Every business has choices to make about how they’re going to grow if they’re interested in growing. I think the store made a wise choice in what they added and how they’ve displayed it. All the things they’ve done should be adding to their receipts, but instead there aren’t any lines to check out and I’d guess that receipts are smaller than they used to be. Why? Because they haven’t paid enough attention to the core reason they’re in business, the core reason that people are shopping with them in the first place. Their core offerings have been much higher priced, had very little available, and aren’t always in the freshest condition, which means that people think twice before shopping there when before it was a no brainer. Expansion is great, but not at the cost of losing your customers and not being able to replace them.

There’s something though that they’ve never done well, and that’s marketing. Prior to the renovation and lower inventory that they’ve had recently for some reason, they didn’t need to do a whole lot of marketing because people knew that they’d have a large variety of good stuff and could get what they needed at great prices and people would just show up and shop for whatever they had. But they didn’t change and start marketing once they did the renovation, which would have been smart so they could let people know about all the new awesome stuff they had and how fresh the store looked and felt. They aren’t on social media, they don’t have a newsletter, and they aren’t working with local food bloggers, essentially they aren’t doing any of the really simple and inexpensive stuff that would help keep them top-of-mind to local shoppers without taking away too much from their bottom line.

So if you’re thinking about an expansion for your business, make sure that you’re ready with the marketing to tell the world about the awesome new stuff you’ve got going on, and don’t ever neglect the pieces that are core to who you are as a business because it often turns what could have been a great growth opportunity into the end of a business. What lessons have you learned as you’ve grown your business?

Sacrifices for Success

What hard choices or sacrifices are you willing to make for success? I was talking with someone the other day about a job opportunity they recently received and how they were struggling to decide to take it because the commute, in their mind, was unpleasant. Of course I sympathized with the person because it can be hard to make a decision when you know that there’s going to be something you don’t love that comes along with something you think you will love. But long after our conversation I was still thinking about it, and about how many positive aspects of our lives, and many exciting decisions, come along with something that’s not as perfect as the rest of it and we have to make a choice of if we’re willing to accept this other part along with the part we do want.

Looking at it another way, what are you willing to do in order to have what you want? If this person, this experience, this opportunity, this job, this place is really as good as you think it is, isn’t the sacrifice worth it? So often there is a trade of that has to be accepted if we really want something to be in our lives. For example we may really want to have children but find out that our partner and/or ourselves can’t have children, so do you give up on that dream, if they’re the issue do you separate from your partner and find someone who can have kids, do you work with a surrogate or two, or do you foster or adopt children? There are people who would pick from all of those options, and maybe even come up with a couple of others as well as to what their next step would be. The question is about how specific your dreams are, what you’re willing to sacrifice or give up to have that dream, and if you’re willing to have that dream a different or more creative way or not.

Maybe the hard choices or sacrifices aren’t going to be forever, they’re more of a temporary part of the success journey. So a final question to consider is if there is a way to turn the not-so-good stuff into better stuff. In this person’s situation I shared about at the start of this post, maybe the commute is a chance to listen to audio books or sermons or podcasts. In other situations maybe it gives you a chance to conquer a fear or finally learn skills that you’ve been avoiding or maybe it will just be a growth opportunity for you and while you won’t love it, you will be at least a little more confident and capable when you meet the next challenge. And if the best you can come up with is that the bottom line is you do get what you’ve really wanted and you’re willing to pay a little price to get that end result, that’s OK too.

So what price are you willing to pay for success? What are you willing to sacrifice to accomplish your goals? And if the answer is you’re really not willing to sacrifice that/those thing(s) to get where you want to go, then you either have to find something you would be willing to be flexible on or you have to reevaluate if you’re really committed to your success journey and if you really want that end result, or if something has changed and you don’t any longer. What have you sacrificed for success?

Review Your Year for Business Success

Lots of businesses have already been posting and emailing their ‘end of year’ messages, even though many of them and us will work through the rest of the year. I’ve apprecaited that more companies and organizatiosn have sent out yearly wrap-ups or reviews or information about what happened this past year than I remember in previous years. It’s a great way of showing your supporters what you’re doing with their donations, and it’s a great way of showing your parterns and custoemrs what a thriving business you are as well. Sure people tend to skim over that information rather than buy directly as a result or respond to it, but for people considerign working with or partnering with an organization or company, it can make a big difference and provide the information that helps swing them one way or another. I’ve certainly appreciated seeing the tangible impact that these people, organizations and companies have and what they’ve worked on besides sending out tons of social posts and emails.

In thinking about all the messages I’ve received over the last week I thought I would share some feedback on two things I think we can do better for the new year, and they’re tied in with the detailed wrap-ups I’ve been receiving. The first suggestion is for retail stores and to not believe the lies that everyone shops online for everything. Yes, the pandemic changed things in many ways, but tons of people still shop in stores for a whole variety of things. While I fully agree that every business needs an online presence, I also think some retail stores have gotten lazy because they think they can’t compete with the internet. But in doing my holiday shopping and in talkign with others, the stores just didn’t have any creative or unique or special options or even a variety. It’s like every store decided to carry the same 10 things and decided that was sufficient. It’s not. If you want to succeed as a retail business in this day and age in addition to your online presence you need to give a good effort in your store too. Be the store that people go to because you have that awesome variety they know they can depend on.

The second suggestion follows that, which is to be specific in your marketing. Sometimes your marketing can be very general, for example “30% off the whole store of x, y, z items” is pretty general but that’s OK because it’s not a message you’re going to send all the time and it raises enough interest to stand alone. However, most of the time it’s better to be specific rather than general if you want to increase traffic to your store (physical or virtual). Knowing your store has 100’s or 1000’s of items in 10 categories is a start, but if you really want to hold people’s attention for longer than that and help them know you’re the store they want to shop with, you should be highlighting specific items in your marketing (and brands if that’s relevant for your company).

Third is to ask for help! I know, this suggestion seems out of line with the others, but it’s not. The other day I got a message asking for “help” with something and it was equally generic to some of the marketing I mentioned previously. I asked if they could give me some specific details on what type of help they were looking for or their issues or their questions and they kept coming back saying they need “help.” Recognizing and accepting that you need help is indeed the first step and an important one. But then you need to take a step back and start making a list of specific things that would greatly support you if you were to get help with them. For example if you feel like you don’t know what merchandise you have or the store feels really cluttered, find someone who can tidy up after hours each day and summarize what’s on your shelves to you so that you’re more knowledgeable. Don’t just ask for help and expect people to read your mind or have previous knowledge of your business that they could suggest a number of things they could help with.

Have you reviewed your year yet? What will you do in the new year to be the best business you can be for your customers, team and partners?

Moving Forward/Forward Movement

Is your business moving forward? I know those two words (moving forward) are two words that many of us are really tired of hearing after a couple of years with the pandemic (and it’s not like we emerged from the pandemic and have been able to move on because there’s not a set end date that we’ll be done with it like there was with the car ride to the grandparents each holiday season). But if you’re serious about your business success, they’re crucial words to take into account because if there’s no movement, especially forward movement, well, we’ve seen the results. Remember when most stores had consistently empty shelves and only when you got lucky was what you wanted available in the brand/size/shape/variety you were really looking for? There wasn’t anything moving forward, or when things could move forward there were various stops and unexpected challenges or delays at different contributors between start and product-on-shelves, which meant that it wasn’t like one thing could be fixed and it would just run smoothly again, it was often many or multiple things that kept things from moving smoothly.

So when it comes to ‘moving forward’ what does that look like? First I think we need to recognize that we’re talking about both ‘moving forward’ and ‘forward movement.’ Both are key to success and when we aren’t moving forward and don’t have forward momentum it increases our likelihood of overall failure as a business as well as contributing to a rising number of challenges and struggles we face. When you’re moving forward you’re continuing to look ahead and work towards goals and making plans and taking action to keep your business going and growing. Forward movement is the actual actions and visible progress showing that you’re not staying stuck in your issues or letting the issues you/the world have stop you from being successful and making your customers happy.

So what does ‘moving forward’ and ‘forward movement’ look like? It looks like consistent marketing in a variety of mediums even when you can’t afford the usual budget, it just takes more creativity. It looks like new connections and partnerships being made and shared about and making plans together to grow into the future. It looks like having better customer service/customer feedback statistics at the end of the week/month. It means growing beyond the existing products and services you have even if it’s just one or two things (including bring back favorites from several years ago that people have asked after time and again) to appeal to new customers and keep your existing ones engaged. It means staying in touch with your team and employees and hearing from them what they see with your customers and what they want and need as humans and members of your team. It means showing up in big and little ways for your business from updates to your website to keeping the grass and weeds trimmed around your signs and buildings. And yes, it does mean thinking about and investigating what potential the future holds that you can tap into including needs or interests that people have and aren’t being met by anyone in your field, and making tentative plans you could fine tune if the opportunity presents.

I know how hard it can be to have forward movement or to move forward when it feels like all you’re doing is sitting at a red light and it’s just not turning green. It’s frustrating to know that you don’t have the budget that you used to or that you can’t hire all these awesome people right now. But it’s more damaging and disheartening if we don’t find some ways to keep moving forward and some successes, however small, to keep ourselves and our team (and our customers too) committed and believing in better days ahead. If you’re facing challenges right now because of the economy or the pandemic I encourage you to keep showing up, keep trying, keep speaking up, keep asking and renew your commitment daily to being the best leader you can with a business that is putting its best foot forward every day even when it’s challenging. How are you moving forward and what forward movement are you creating in your business?

Life Lessons from Squirrels

We’ve arrived at that very special time of year: when squirrels bury acorns everywhere and promptly forget where they are. I’m quite confident on the latter being an absolute fact because of the number of baby oak trees that grow each year, far more than could result from just luck and being able to survive the winter each year. Squirrels are some of the busiest creatures out there this time of year. I know that lots of animals are feeling the change of seasons and many are following the ingrained nature to pack on the pounds and prepare for the leaner winter months but squirrels take it to another level. As a kid I know I was fascinated watching them as well as trying to find as many of my own acorns, and there are some good life lessons we can learn from them too.

First, be prepared. While they don’t exactly go about it the best way or necessarily have the brain cells to benefit from all their preparations, squirrels are masters at getting prepared. We don’t have to go as overboard on being prepared as they do (in other words we don’t all need to be “preppers”), and we certainly should keep better notes so that we can maximize our preparations, but time and again life is smoother and easier when we’re prepared than when we’re trying to play catchup. It’s a great lesson and discussion topic the next time your kids are behind on a project at school or you’re avoiding one at work.

Second, take advantage of what’s available to you. Squirrels are open to eating other things, but they’re not stupid enough to miss out on the incredible bounty that falls from the trees in the autumn. It may not be your favorite thing to do, it may not be your favorite thing to eat, it may not be your favorite way to spend the time, but if there’s a huge opportunity in front of you we have to do a better job of not talking ourselves out of tapping into them.

Finally, some seasons are busier than others. Yes, you see squirrels scampering around during the other seasons of the year, but in autumn they are so much busier with their gathering and burial activities. So if you’re blessed with an abundance in one area of your life don’t be afraid to be busy with it, don’t choose to be frustrated that you have this opportunity in your life, and remember that seasons do change and what may be an incredibly busy season now will change again in the future. Push through the busy season of opportunity so that you can reap the rewards on the other side, hopefully better than the squirrels do. What lessons do you learn from the autumn changes?

Try Again

You know how sometimes when you go to put the cleaned dishes away from the dish drain or the dishwasher sometimes you find dishes that didn’t quite get as clean as they were supposed to, even if you thought you scrubbed them well? I had this experience the other day, and I’m the one who does the dishes so I know I thought I had cleaned them well! But it reminded me of what I thought was an important lesson for this season of our lives, as well as all the dads celebrating Father’s Day on Sunday in the US (and the men who want to be fathers too): there’s no shame in trying again.

Does perfection (or the close facsimile of) make life a heck of a lot easier? Yes, of course! It’s always easier and less stressful if things get done right and well the first time around. It’s one of the reasons we go to school and ask questions and give an effort and learn things: so that we don’t have to redo things. But the reality is that more often than not we’ll have to tweak things or try doing things a different way or redo things. More often than not we’ll not be very good at throwing pitches to our kids when we first try, we’ll not make foods the way they like them right away, we’ll make mistakes as we change and our kids change, we’ll fumble as life intrudes on what had been a decent relationship with our kids, we don’t always get into a job that gives us the money we need to support our family, we aren’t always able to even create a family as easily as we think it should be done, and the list goes on.

There are two things I want us to take away from this: First, that there’s no shame in trying again as long as you are going to give an honest effort to do better or do it differently or wait a bit before trying again or ask for help to increase your chances of getting it right. This isn’t an invitation or suggestion to keep pretending you’re going to improve, but requires an actual effort. And second, that sometimes family relationships aren’t about perfection, but about being together, loving each other and laughing together. So maybe this weekend is an opportunity for you to give serious effort to trying again on repairing and growing the relationships you have with your family, or maybe this weekend is just another opportunity to make some memories that will last a lifetime even if they’re memorable because they were so insane. What have you learned when you’ve had to try again on something or with someone?

Words of Wisdom for Life

As adults are graduating from college this month and next month young adults and kids are graduating from 8th and 12th grade, I thought it would be a good time to share some words of wisdom. Yes, they’re important lessons for the next generation to be learning, but they’re also things we can apply to our lives as well.  What words of wisdom would you pass on to someone else today?

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.” Albert Einstein

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” Arthur Ashe

“You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated.” Maya Angelou

“If you’ve accepted your flaws, no one can use them against you.” Tyrion Lannister

“You get in life what you have the courage to ask for.” Oprah Winfrey

“What you think you become. What you feel you attract. What you imagine you create.” Buddha

“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.” Leo Tolstoy

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you.” Jane Goodall

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.” Mother Teresa

“There is no excuse for not trying.” Barak Obama

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than the ones you did do. So sail away from the safe harbor. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Mark Twain

“You’ll never find a rainbow if you’re looking down.” Charlie Chaplin

“To be successful you must be unique, you must be so different that if people want what you have, they have to come to you to get it.” Walt Disney

“The world is changed by your example, not your opinion.” Paulo Coelho

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.” Helen Keller

“To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone and a funny bone.” Reba McEntire

“At the end, it’s not about what you have or even what you’ve accomplished. It’s about who you’ve lifted up, who you’ve made better. It’s about what you’ve given back.” Denzel Washington

Spring Cleaning and Growing Your Business

As you know I find it important as a business owner to pay attention to seasons and holidays because they are things that affect a large percentage of everyone’s customers. The season we’re definitely, finally in is spring in the US, with warmer temperatures, nicer weather, and lots and lots of green growth everywhere, not to mention all the new animal life springing up too. But spring often means more than just a change in the world of nature, we also talk about “spring cleaning,” growing in our personal lives, and holidays like Easter/Passover and Mother’s Day that mean a lot to many people. Today let’s talk about two aspects of spring as they relate to our businesses.

Spring is a time for growth, and one of the things that can help our businesses stay growing and successful is to plant many seeds. What does this mean? It means being willing to say “yes” to new opportunities, continually making an effort to build relationships, participating in social groups, investing in new marketing opportunities or giving some that we’ve had success with in the past another try, adding new products or services to our offerings, sponsoring new local teams or non-profits, venturing into new industries or niches, adding new employees, and providing new training opportunities for employees, just to name a few.

The thing is, of the plants that have all started growing now, some will need pruning and some will need removing in the near future, which means spring is also a time for pruning or cleaning. Yes, as I remind every year it’s time to refresh your website if you haven’t yet this year. It’s time to remove outdated products, services or marketing that isn’t working for you. It’s time to make changes to your employees and leadership team. Pruning or cleaning doesn’t mean that they weren’t once effective or that you didn’t have a reason for them when they were started, it just means that it’s time for a change.

If you think about some of the woods you may drive past or homes that aren’t well landscaped, you know how Mother Nature can easily and totally conquer an area with whatever plants will grow and thrive. So yes, growth can happen even if you don’t initiate changes or prune things, but there is often wasted space or effort or resources when you aren’t intentional about your growth. There’s nothing wrong with being sentimental even as a business owner, but if your goal really is to be successful and have a profitable business, usually there has to be some intentional action taken and sometimes tough choices made to let go of what’s underperforming or not really a necessary based on how the world has changed. So this spring what areas of your business are you investing in to help them grow, and what areas are you changing or cutting back?

Growth, Change, Marketing and Consistency

When it comes to marketing (and running a business) there are several topics that I come back to time and again, and this week the topic is consistency. I know how hard it is to consistently market and grow a business, especially when it’s just you or just a couple of you and there are so many other things that are in need of your attention. It seems like what’s more important is putting out whatever that day’s fire is like getting in necessary products or supplies for your products and services, answering customer questions, going on sales calls, or managing employees. And yes, all of those and probably everything else on your to-do list are very important. When it comes down to it, everything has to be in motion and accomplished if you really want to be successful in business (which makes it pretty amazing that anyone is successful in business, and especially making a significant, sustained profit). Recently I’ve experienced two situations that brought the topic of consistency back to mind to talk about today.

In the first situation, I had an individual reach out and ask how they could make additional profit from their business that they primarily run through a social media channel, and after some back and forth I established that they were looking for ways to increase their income without having essentially any time to give to the efforts. Of course that raises a red flag for me, because unless you’re ready to add team members, able to hire freelancers, ready to invest in more marketing, or willing to change something about how you do business or what you’re offering, the options on ways to grow are incredibly few and far between. With the way the world changes, how can you expect to have consistent and sustained growth if you’re not willing or able to change or add anything?

In the other situation I’ve been getting emails this week for the first time in quite a few months from a business letting me know about a promotion they’re running. Email marketing is one of my favorite options for marketing, and studies have shown time and again that it’s one of the most reliable expenditures for your budget. One of the reasons I love email marketing is because of the way that it can help you build a relationship and build trust with your potential clients and customers. But the only way you build that relationship and gain that trust is if you consistently market so that you show up in your customer’s inbox on at least a weekly basis. Now, I’m not saying this business didn’t get any sales from the emails they sent this week, I’m saying that when a business sends 5 emails every 6 months and they’re all in one week and all promoting an offer, it’s a great recipe to get people to unsubscribe because it feels pushy and they may have even forgotten about you at that point in time.

What reminders have you experienced this week about the importance of consistency in your business?

Sacrifices and Gifts

What does it mean to love someone? Sometimes it means making some sacrifices in your life. In some ways we’ve been conditioned to believe that sacrifice is one of those dirty words and unhealthy actions and that it’s something we should avoid. And yes, sometimes sacrifice is big and scary and should be very seriously considered before any decisions are made or actions taken. But sacrifice isn’t always big and scary, sometimes it can be normal, healthy, and even positive. As I was thinking about changes and sacrifices and the way that two people (a couple in a committed relationship) work on meshing and living their lives together, food came to mind as the perfect metaphor for the most positive way sacrifice can work.

Think about a package of chicken thighs you bought at the store earlier that day, a butternut squash and a couple of zucchini you just picked out of the garden (or bought at the store) and how unappetizing or even deadly it would be if you just put all of that on the table and told your family to have at it. If you want to eat the chicken you have to cook it so it’s not unhealthy, and butternut squash and zucchini are also much more delicious when they’re cooked. The “sacrifice” of cooking the food is worth it in the end to have the gift of a delicious, and healthy, meal.

The thing I came back to as I was thinking about sacrifice in relationships is that if it’s a true partnership like I often talk about, 90% of the time the sacrifice has to be a daily give-and-take from both of you. Sure there will be some times when one of you works a lot harder or gives a lot more (for instance during pregnancy or sickness or following surgery or when someone is without a job). But that shouldn’t be the norm, and if it is or it seems to be then you or they or both of you aren’t doing something important: acknowledging, asking for or accepting a sacrifice or gift in return.

Maybe it’s as simple as not recognizing the gifts one gets for sacrificing for the other, but it very well could be that someone isn’t speaking up and asking for their needs to be met. It doesn’t necessarily have to be in proportion or having the same needs to be fulfilled (i.e. we have to both make the same amount of money or be caring 50/50 for the kids or switch off cooking every other day), the sacrifices have to be things that each of you appreciates. For example maybe your partner really appreciates coming home to food that’s ready or can be heated up, that you take care of making sure the bills are paid, not having to worry about how you’re going to make ends meet (because you have a well-paying job or career or business), or you do most of the driving for the kids. Maybe you appreciate massages, uninterrupted bath/shower time, sleeping in, a cold beer on the back deck alone, or chocolate that no one is allowed to steal because it’s hand crafted by an artisan where you two went on your honeymoon.

Successful partnerships are about learning to thrive in the relationship which means lots of communication, giving and taking, sharing when you’re overwhelmed or unhappy or confused, and appreciating the blessings that each of you have because of how much the other gives (sacrifices) to the relationship. What’s one gift or blessing you have because you’re in a relationship with your partner?